Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln

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The sexuality of Abraham Lincoln is a topic of dispute. Lincoln was married to Mary Todd from November 4, 1842 until his death on April 15, 1865. They had four children. C. A. Tripp, a sex researcher, has commented that Lincoln's problematic and distant relationship with women stood in contrast to his more warm relations with a number of men in his life and that these relationships have arguable homosexual overtones.^[1] Lincoln biographers, such as David Herbert Donald, have strongly contested those claims and believe that there is no evidence of homosexuality in Lincoln's life.^[2] As an astute politician, Lincoln was a man with many "friends," Donald says. In his letters, for example, Lincoln refers frequently to acquaintances, even political enemies, as "my personal friend."^[3]

Contents 1 Historical scholarship 2 Lincoln's youth 3 Relationship with Joshua Speed 4 Relationship with David Derickson 5 References and footnotes 6 External links

[edit] Historical scholarship

Commentary on Abraham Lincoln's sexuality has existed for some time but has recently re-entered the public light with the posthumous publication of C.A. Tripp's book The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.

In his biography of Lincoln, Carl Sandburg in 1926 made an allusion to the early relationship of Lincoln and his friend Joshua Fry Speed as having "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets." "Streak of lavender" was slang in the 1930s for a "sissy" or an effeminate man; later "lavender" connoted homosexuality.^[4] Sandburg did not directly state that either was homosexual or that the relationship was sexual in nature.^[5]

C. A. Tripp, who died in 2003, was a sex researcher and protégé of Alfred Kinsey. He began writing The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln with Philip Nobile but they fell out. The New York Times quoted Mr. Nobile saying "Tripp's book is a fraud". Nobile wrote a critical review of Tripp's book in the Weekly Standard, in which he accused the Tripp book of plagiarizing his own work, of relying heavily on Charles Shiveley without proper attribution, and of distortion.^[6]

Tripp's book includes an afterword by historian and Lincoln biographer Michael Burlingame titled "A Respectful Dissent", in which he states:

“

Since it is virtually impossible to prove a negative, Dr. Tripp's thesis cannot be rejected outright. But given the paucity of hard information adduced by him, and given the abundance of contrary evidence indicating that Lincoln was drawn romantically and sexually to some women, a reasonable conclusion, it seems to me, would be that it is possible but highly unlikely that Abraham Lincoln was "predominantly homosexual"[7]

”

In a second afterward to the book titled “An Enthusiastic Endorsement”, historian Michael B. Chesson makes the argument for the historical significance of the work:

“

Tripp, for all his research, sophistication, and insight, has not proved his case conclusively. … But any open-minded reader who has reached this point may well have a reasonable doubt about the nature of Lincoln’s sexuality. The “Tall Sucker” was a very strange man, one of the strangest in American history, and certainly the oddest to reach a position of national prominence, let alone the presidency. If Lincoln was a homosexual, or primarily so inclined, then suddenly our image of this mysterious man gains some clarity. Not everything falls into place. But many things do, including some important, even essential, elements of who Lincoln was, why he acted in the way he did, and a possible reason for his sadness, loneliness, and secretive nature.[8]

”

In 1999, Gay activist Larry Kramer claimed that he had uncovered new primary sources which shed fresh light on Lincoln's sexuality. The sources included a hitherto unknown Joshua Speed diary and letters in which Speed writes explicitly about his relationship with Lincoln. These items were supposedly discovered hidden beneath the floorboards of the old store where the two men lived, and are now are said to reside in a private collection in Davenport, Iowa.^[9] Kramer has yet to publish any of this material for critical evaluation, and historian Gabor Boritt, referring to Kramer's documents, wrote, "Almost certainly this is a hoax ... ."^[10] C. A. Tripp also has expressed skepticism over Kramer’s discovery, writing, “Seeing is believing, should that diary ever show up; the passages claimed for it have not the slightest Lincolnian ring.”^[11] Time magazine also addressed the book as part of a prominent cover article by Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. However Shenk dismissed Tripp's conclusions, stating that arguments on Lincoln's homosexuality were "based on a tortured misreading of conventional 19th century sleeping arrangements"^[12].

Critics of the hypothesis that Lincoln was homosexually inclined note that Lincoln married and had four children. Scholars such as Douglas Wilson claim that Lincoln as a young man displayed heterosexual behavior, including telling stories to his friends of his interactions with women,^[13] however neither of these assertions preclude the possibility of bisexuality.

[edit] Lincoln's youth

When he was twenty, Lincoln penned a comic poem about a boy marrying a boy. Tripp notes that Lincoln's awareness of homosexuality and openness in penning this "bawdy poem" was unique for the time period.^[14] Donald, however, notes that Lincoln would have needed to look no further than the Bible to realize "that men did sometimes have sex with each other",^[15] and historian William Lee Miller, among others, has acknowledged that Lincoln was reading the Bible well before his twentieth birthday.^[16]

Lincoln's stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, commented that he "never took much interest in the girls". However some accounts of Lincoln's contemporaries suggest a strong but controlled passion for women.^[17] While Lincoln was devastated over the death of Ann Rutledge, whether he loved her is much disputed.^[18] An anonymous poem about suicide published locally exactly three years after her death is widely attributed to Lincoln.^[19][20] His courting of Mary Owens was diffident. Around the time she rejected his handwritten, dutiful marriage proposal, Lincoln wrote to a friend: "I knew she was oversize, but now she appeared a fair match for Falstaff."^[21] His relationship with Mary Todd, his wife, with whom he had four children, was stormy.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Relationship with Joshua Speed

Lincoln met Joshua Fry Speed in Springfield, Illinois, in 1837. They lived together for four years, during which time they occupied the same bed during the night (some sources specify a large double bed) and developed a friendship that would last until their deaths. According to some sources, William Herndon^[22] and a fourth man also slept in the same room.^[23][24] Some biographers (such as Donald) contend it was not unusual at that time for two men to share even a small bed due to financial or other circumstances, without anything sexually being implied. However, it has been argued by Katz^[17] and others that such cozy sleeping arrangements did reflect a distinct emotional landscape for men, and they were sometimes part of homoerotic and homosexual desire, i.e. while what is considered sexual changes greatly over time and within different cultures, human sexual desire remains unchanging. Certainly, correspondence of the period, such as that between Thomas Jefferson Withers and James Hammond, provides clear evidence of a sexual dimension to some same-sex bed sharing.^[25] The fact that Lincoln was open about the fact that they had shared a bed is seen by some historians as an indication that their relationship was not romantic.

When Speed left Lincoln and returned to his native Kentucky in 1841, on the eve of Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd, Lincoln is believed to have suffered something approaching clinical depression. Lincoln's Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years by Paul Simon has a chapter covering the period that Lincoln later referred to as "The Fatal First," which was January 1, 1841. That was "the date on which Lincoln asked to be released from his engagement to Mary Todd." Simon explains that the various reasons the engagement was broken contradict one another and it was not fully documented, but he did become unusually depressed, which showed in his appearance, and that "it was traceable to Mary Todd". During this time, he avoided seeing Mary, causing her to comment that he "deems me unworthy of notice."

Joshua Speed married Fanny Hennings February 15, 1842, and the two men seem to have consulted each other about married life. Despite having some political differences over slavery, they corresponded for the rest of their lives and Lincoln appointed Joshua's brother, James Speed, to his cabinet as Attorney General.

[edit] Relationship with David Derickson

Captain David Derickson was Lincoln's bodyguard and intimate companion between September 1862 and April 1863. They shared a bed during the absences of Lincoln's wife, until Derickson was promoted in 1863.^[26] Derickson was twice married and fathered ten children, but whatever the exact level of intimacy of the relationship, it was the subject of gossip. Elizabeth Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln's naval aide, wrote in her diary for November 16, 1862, "Tish says, Oh, there is a Bucktail soldier here devoted to the president, drives with him, and when Mrs. L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!"^[27] This sleeping arrangement was also recorded by a fellow officer in Derickson's regiment, Thomas Chamberlin, in the book History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, Second Regiment, Bucktail Brigade. Historian Martin P. Johnson notes that the strong similarity in style and content of the Fox and Chamberlin accounts suggests that, rather than being two independent accounts of the same events as Tripp claims, both were in fact based on the same report from a single source.^[28] David Donald and Johnson both dispute Tripp's interpretation of Fox's comment, saying instead that the exclamation of "What Stuff!" was an allusion to the absurdity of the suggestion rather than the gossip value of it.^[2]

[edit] References and footnotes

[edit] External links

• Hay, John; Nicolay, John George (1890). Abraham Lincoln: a History. 
  • Volume 1. to 1856; strong coverage of national politics
  • Volume 2. (1832 to 1901) ; covers 1856 to early 1861; very detailed coverage of national politics; part of 10 volume "life and times" written by Lincoln's top aides
• Michael F. Bishop, "All the President's Men," Washington Post February 13, 2005; Page BW03 online
• Book Questions Abraham Lincoln's Sexuality - Discovery Channel
• "The sexual life of Abraham Lincoln" by Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com, Jan. 12, 2005 (requires subscription or viewing an ad before reading)
• The Lincoln Bedroom: A Critical Symposium Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2005
• Exploring Lincoln's Loves Scott Simon in conversation with Lincoln scholars Michael Chesson and Michael Burlingame. National Public Radio, February 12, 2005
• We Are Lincoln Men Margaret Warner speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Herbert Donald about his book, "We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends." Public Broadcasting Service, November 26, 2003
• Jay Hatheway. American Historical Review 111#2 (April 2006) - An Edgewood College history professor's book review of C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln online
• Mr. Lincoln and Friends: Joshua F. Speed