| |
QUEER HISTORY
How queer was Abraham Lincoln?
Liz Highleyman | June 28, 2005
The Abraham Lincoln memorial
|
Abraham Lincoln, one of the most admired American presidents of all time, was in many ways an enigma, and his sexuality remains the subject of debate by scholars and gay activists.
Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in a log cabin on the Kentucky frontier. With less than a year of formal schooling, he taught himself law and became partner in a legal practice. He served four terms in the Illinois state legislature and one in the U.S. Congress before being elected president in 1860. Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, shortly after his second inauguration and just days after the Civil War ended.
Lincoln's circumspection about his private life has engendered much speculation. His one-time law partner, William Herndon, wrote that in his early 20s Lincoln fell in love with an innkeeper's daughter, Ann Rutledge, and was distraught when she died in 1835; other scholars contend this relationship is a myth. Upon moving to Springfield, Ill., as a destitute new lawyer in 1837, Lincoln shared a bed for four years with his "most intimate friend," Joshua Speed. When Speed moved away to marry, Lincoln fell into a deep depression. In 1842, after a long on-and-off courtship, Lincoln married Mary Todd, the daughter of a prominent Kentucky businessman. The couple had four sons, three of whom died in childhood. Some historians believe they were happy together, but others contend she was shrewish and mentally unstable and he was melancholy and remote.
Carl Sandburg, who penned a multi-volume Lincoln biography in the 1920s, quipped that Lincoln and Speed's relationship had "a streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets." In addition, several gay authors – including Jim Kepner of the ONE Institute, historians Charley Shively and Jonathan Ned Katz, novelist Gore Vidal, and activist/playwright Larry Kramer – have suggested that Lincoln was homosexual or bisexual.
The controversy erupted anew with the 2004 publication of The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln by C.A. Tripp, a psychologist who once worked with Alfred Kinsey. Tripp claimed Lincoln was "predominantly homosexual," offering as evidence his purported early puberty, his "sex-minded" penchant for ribaldry (including a poem he wrote in his youth about two men who married each other), and his stepmother's assessment that he "was not very fond of girls." In addition to Speed, Lincoln also shared a bed with his coworker Billy Greene in the early 1830s (who told Herndon that Lincoln's thighs were "as perfect as a human being could be") and later with his head bodyguard, David Derickson.
Several commentators argued that Tripp offered no more than flimsy circumstantial evidence. Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald argued that it was not uncommon for men in the 19th century to share a bed out of economic necessity. Furthermore, Lincoln told tales of his flirtations with women and admitted to Herndon that he visited prostitutes. Finally, Donald suggests, Lincoln would not have been so open about his relationship with Speed if they had, in fact, been lovers.
Others, however, think a convincing case can be made that Lincoln was queer to some degree. "In any particular piece of evidence that Tripp discovers, I'd say it's easy to dismiss his theory," wrote gay author Andrew Sullivan. "But when you review all the many pieces of the Lincoln emotional-sexual puzzle, the homosexual dimension gets harder and harder to ignore."
Liz Highleyman is a freelance writer and editor who has written widely on health, sexuality, and politics.
Further Reading
Tripp, C.A. 2004. The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (Free Press).
Donald, David H. 2003. We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends (Simon & Schuster).
Previous stories
What was the 'Save Our Children' campaign? [22/03/2005]
| |
|
|
|
