150 years ago today Andrew Johnson’s Swing Around the Circle proceeded from Springfield, Illinois to St. Louis. According to the September 10, 1866 issue of The New-York Times everything went well as the people of Alton, Illinois gave the president an enthusiastic reception. St. Louis warmly welcomed the traveling party as they boarded the Andy Johnson for another warm reception, and there were more positive speeches and a “superb collation on board the Ruth, which was lashed to the Andy Johnson.” After the presidential flotilla docked the people of St. Louis cheered loudly as Andrew Johnson and entourage proceeded through the streets to the Lindell Hotel. Everything went well until President Johnson gave a speech from the balcony of the Southern before a 10:00 PM “grand banquet”. When the president said he thought the time had come for peace, “when the bleeding arteries should be tied up,” a voice called out, “New Orleans”. That allusion to the July 30, 1866 race riot really seemed to rile up Mr. Johnson. (It might not have helped that the crowd cried for Seward when the president started his explanation of the riot. He blamed New Orleans on the Radical Congress that planned it, on incendiary speeches in New Orleans that incited blacks “to arm themselves and prepare for the shedding of blood,” and the illegal convention that was the initial focus of the violence. He seemed to imply that the convention’s goal was to give blacks the right to vote. Then the president said he had been criticized and called traitor because he twice vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau bill:
Christ figure?
… I have been traduced; I have been slandered; I have been maligned; I have been called JUDAS ISCARIOT, and all that. Now. my country-men here to-night, it is very easy to call a man “Judas,” and cry out “traitor,” but when he is called upon to give arguments and facts, he is very often found wanting. Judas Iscariot! Judas! There was a Judas once, one of the twelve apostles. Oh yes; the twelve apostles had a Christ. [A voice – “and a Moses, too.” Laughter.] The twelve apostles had a Christ, and he never could have a Judas unless he had twelve apostles. If I have played the Judas, who has been my Christ that I have played the Judas with? Was it THAD. STEVENS? Was it WENDELL PHILLIPS? Was it CHARLES SUMNER? [Hisses and cheers.] Are these the men that set up and compare themselves with the Saviour of Man, and everybody that differs with them in opinion, and that try to stay and arrest their diabolical and nefarious policy, to be denounced as a Judas? …
Modern historians focus on the St. Louis speech. Walter Stahr calls St. Louis “an even lower point” (than Cleveland) for the swing tour.[1]
Eric Foner references the Judas allusion as part an example of President Johnson’s “unique blend of self-aggrandizement and self-pity.” [2]
