Okay, so I’ve read Cecil’s column on whether or not Abe Lincoln was gay, but now I’m wondering…
…was James Buchanan gay?
And to add to rjung’s question if I may… I have never heard than Lincoln had a less-than-ideal marriage. What can I get more infor about this?
There’s no… ahem… “hard evidence” (love letters, oil portraits of them in a fiery embrace, etc.), it’s believed by many that he had a long-time relationship with Senator (and later VP) William Rufus King. link
The gossip definitely started during King/Buchanan’s life, with some critics referring to Buchanan as “Mrs. King” or inquiring as to his “better half”. The fact that they lived together and hosted parties together even though either could have afforded to live alone (Buchanan in fact was one of the richest presidents of the 19th century, leaving an estate worth more than $800,000 in the 1860s) added fuel to the fire.
A far more significant early American leader for whom the gay issue remains unsolved is Alexander Hamilton: were his love letters to John Laurens hyperbole or… well… love letters?
Almost any bio of Lincoln should speak to this. Mary Todd Lincoln was mentally ill (after his death she was committed to the Lunatic Asylum of Bellevue) and it evidenced itself many times during their marriage, particularly with her manic overspending on her wardrobe (hundreds of pairs of gloves per year) and on the renovation of the White House (a cost Lincoln himself absorbed, refusing to pay public money for lace and sofas when troops were without food and blankets). In addition she was a member of a slave-owning family and as such her sympathies were questioned by Congress and the subject of much malicious gossip, the stress of which caused her to become even more depressed and neurotic. (Lincoln also suffered from severe depression.)
The Lincolns were unable to have a healthy sexual relationship after the birth of their last child because doctors were convinced a fifth pregnancy would kill Mary, who had a terrible time giving birth. One of their sons died in infancy and another, Willie, in early childhood, causing both parents deep grief. (Lincoln actually ordered the boy’s coffin exhumed to “look once more on that sweet face”.) Mary became an extremely ardent spiritualist and actually brought mediums to the White House to hold seances.
So the combination of their respective mental problems, the grief of losing their children (Mary completely broke from reality when Tad died after the Civil War), the suspicions cast on Mary’s loyalties (which Lincoln never seemed to question for an instant), money problems brought by Mary’s out of control spending, and more stress than any First Family til that point in history had to endure all made the marriage quite unpleasant at times.
There is almost no doubt, however, that the two loved each other very deeply.
A better page on the Hamilton-Laurens relationship. (Whether he liked men or not, Hamilton was most definitely a major skirt-chaser.
Aby Baby was so UGLY he had to marry a crazy women to get laid.
It should be noted that Mary Todd Lincoln was committed to the insane asylum by her offspring, who seemed to be a bit more concerned about their inheritance than their mothers’ mental health…
“Aby Baby” was far funnier than you when he made fun of his own ugliness. Note that being homely doesn’t seem to be an impediment to getting laid if a man is brilliant and ambitious.
I don’t care whether Lincoln was gay or not, but I would tend to distrust an author who won’t let anybody see his primary source before his sensationalist book is published.
(Although this has probably been a separate thread before: it’s impossible (currently) to prove that Thomas Jefferson, specifically, had children by Sally Hemings. One of the Jeffersons did; it may have been one of Thomas’s brothers. Again, I don’t care either way.)
Link, please?
Of course, the main difficulty in the whole “gay” debate on historical figures is the issue of defining “gay.” Homesexual sexual encounters or romantic affections may or may not make you gay. After all, many men have sex with men in several contemporary cultures and do not consider this to be an exclusive represenation of their sexuality or of being a part of an exclusively homosexual sub-culture that might allign itself with the modern concepts of “being gay.”
Only one of their offspring, Robert, survived to adulthood.
The original query to Cecil asserts, “In the recent debate around gay marriage, the Log Cabin Republicans have come up. I understand their deal is that Abraham Lincoln was gay and grew up in a log cabin, so they align themselves with his sexuality through endorsing his upbringing.”
That is not true. The Log Cabin Republicans were formed and named in the 1970s, decades before this “Lincoln was gay” allegation first came up. Their name was chosen in tribute to the Republican Party’s origin in securing the liberation and civil rights of an oppressed minority.
So, you’re saying Cecil was…wrong?
Heretic! Get the torches! Burn the heretic! 
No, I’m saying the person, Bill, who wrote to Cecil was wrong, and Cecil failed to correct him.
It benefitted her financially that he did so. Robert Lincoln was an excellent financial manager; he inherited $37,000 from his father’s estate (the same as his mother) and died a multimillionaire. (This is his favorite house.) Mary was a horrible money manager who ran her husband broke even on a 25,000 per year presidential salary (a lot more than that in 2004 , with very little income tax) who would almost certainly have died penniless had he not become her conservator.
Here’s a good short article on her symptoms, from which this:
It’s believed that much of her madness may have been physiological in origin (diabetes, hypertension, and other frequently undiagnosed conditions of her time.)
As for other Jeffersons fathering the children of Sally Hemings, it is possible but unlikely. One of the best online examinations is this one on the website for Monticello.
>As for other Jeffersons fathering the children of Sally Hemings, it is possible but unlikely.
It should be noted that at this time, for a wealthy plantation owner to have a slave mistress was hardly unusual. Had this possibility been brought up amongst weathy contemporary southern plantation owners, the response would likely have been “hardly seems surprising.” So long as Thomas was discreet about this, as to do otherwise would be to publicly humiliate his wife, perfectly ordinary behavior. Boys will be boys…
Thomas Jefferson’s wife Martha died in 1782 when Sally Hemmings was only nine years old. When Martha’s father died in 1774, Martha inherited her father’s slaves, including Sally and her mother Betty Hemmings. Jefferson’s affair with Sally began in 1787 at the earliest, when he sent for Sally to accompany his daughter Mary from Virginia to Paris, where he had been living for three years as a diplomat.
The interesting thing is that Sally Hemmings was Martha’s half sister, having the same father! And as Sally was only one-eighth black, she could have passed for white.
Thanks. I wasn’t familiar with Jefferson’s biography. As a widower, Thomas could have sexual relations with other females. While in this day adultery would have been scandalous, for an unmarried man to have had dalliances would have been seen as hardly unusual. Particularly for a wealthy man. I doubt Thomas was really trying to “hide” this. Merely that custom was that gentlemen didn’t openly discuss the ladies they had sexual relations with.
Couldn’t Lincoln have just been bisexual? It seems like there’s attempt to prove this one way or the other while forgetting that sexuality isn’t necessarily black and white.
Oh, and what’s with the accompanying transsexual drawing that goes with the column. Homosexuality does not equate to transsexuality.