Lincoln, Misconstrued Evidence, and the Homosexual Myth

The movie “Lover of Men: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln” boldly claims that Lincoln had sex with four different men.1 The evidence supporting that conclusion is underwhelming. The argument had been made at length in Clarence A. Tripp's 2005 book The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, which maintained that Lincoln was bisexual and “predominantly homosexual.” A close examination of the evidence cited in that book and in the new film suggests that it is possible but highly unlikely that Lincoln fits that description.2 As Lincoln scholar Richard Lawrence Miller sensibly observed: “Whether he was bisexual cannot be disproven, yet the proposition requires suppositions and extrapolations that may be valid, but which are inherently weaker than direct evidence.”3The evidence most often referenced in the film is Lincoln's close friendship with Joshua Speed, a Kentucky-born merchant who shared a large bed with Lincoln above his Springfield dry goods store for three-and-a-half years. Because those young men (Lincoln was in his late twenties-early thirties, Speed was five years his junior) bunked together for such a long period, several of the film's interviewees argue that they must have been lovers. It is impossible, they think, to imagine that the men were not sexual partners. A biographer of Mary Todd Lincoln, Jean Baker, who appears several times in the film and believes that Lincoln was bisexual, rhetorically asked: “What evidence is there that they did not have sex?” This is a strange question for a reputedly serious scholar to ask; the burden of proof by any reasonable standard falls on those who allege that Lincoln, who married and sired four children, was gay.Though most of the numerous talking heads in the movie are not Lincoln authorities, one is a truly serious Lincoln scholar, Charles B. Strozier, the author of “Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln”: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, as well as Lincoln's Quest for Union: A Psychological Portrait.4 Professor of History Emeritus at the City University of New York, Strozier is also a practicing psychoanalyst. In the film, he succinctly summarizes the relevant portions of “Your Friend Forever” with the authority of an academic historian who has conducted extensive research in original sources and has sufficient psychological training to analyze plausibly the relationship between Lincoln and Speed. In his judgment, they were not gay lovers, though his argument is only hinted at rather than fully developed in the film.To be sure, Speed and Lincoln were exceptionally close friends, as their correspondence indicates. Speed told an interviewer that between 1837 and 1840, “no men were ever more intimate.”5 Long after Lincoln's death, Speed recalled their first meeting: fresh from the village of New Salem, which Lincoln left in order to practice law in the state capital, he rode into Springfield “on a borrowed horse, with no earthly goods but a pair of saddle-bags, and two or three law books.” There he “took an office, and engaged from the only cabinet-maker then in the village, a single bedstead.” Lincoln then asked Speed, a silent partner in the general store which he ran, how much “the furniture for a single bedstead” would cost. When the young merchant calculated that the price for a mattress, blankets, pillow, sheets, and coverlid would be $17, Lincoln replied: “It is probably cheap enough: but I want to say that, cheap as it is, I have not the money to pay. But if you will credit me until Christmas, and my experiment here as a lawyer is a success, I will pay you then. If I fail in that I will probably never be able to pay you back at all.” Speed reported that the “tone of his voice was so melancholy that I felt for him. I looked up at him, and I thought . . . I never saw so gloomy and melancholy a face.”In response, Speed proposed a more economical solution: “The contraction of so small a debt seems to affect you so deeply, I think I can suggest a plan by which you will be able to attain your end, without incurring any debt. I have a very large room, and a very large double-bed in it; which you are perfectly welcome to share with me if you choose.” He explained that he and James Bell (his cousin and business partner) “have been sleeping in the same bed for some time [two years]. He is gone now, and if you wish, you can take his place.” (Bell was just about to get married.) After inspecting the room above the store, Lincoln, “with a face beaming with pleasure,” said: “Well, Speed, I'm moved.”6For half of their time together (excluding the many months each year when Lincoln practiced law on Illinois’ eighth judicial circuit, where he and fellow attorneys often shared beds), Lincoln and Speed slept in a loft with two other men (Lincoln's eventual law partner William H. Herndon and Charles Hurst, both of whom worked at the store.)7 Since there was no privacy in that loft, if Speed and Lincoln had sex, Herndon and Hurst would have known about it, but neither even hinted that Speed and Lincoln were sexual partners, though Herndon wrote extensively about his first-hand knowledge of Lincoln, including his views on sexual matters.8 Herndon described Speed as “a lady's man,” and the Springfield merchant, Abner Y. Ellis, referred to Speed as “an old rat” of a womanizer.9 In 1840, Speed fell in love with a beautiful young woman, Matilda Edwards, whom he described rapturously in a letter to his sister: “Two clear blue eyes, a brow as fair as Palmyra marble touched by the chisel of Praxiteles – Lips so fresh, fair, and lovely that I am jealous even of the minds that kiss them – a form as perfect as that of the Venus de Medicis – a Mind clear as a bell[,] a voice bewitchingly soft and sonorous and a smile so sweet lovely and playful and a countenance and soul shining through it.” Speed marveled that all of “these charms” could be “combined in one young lady.”10 Lincoln also fell head over heels in love with her and broke his engagement to Mary Todd as a result.11More telling still, Lincoln, without embarrassment or shame, freely acknowledged that he slept with men. In 1864, he described his newly appointed attorney general, James Speed, as “a man I know well, though not so well as I know his brother Joshua. That, however, is not strange, for I slept with Joshua for four years, and I suppose I ought to know him.”12 If Lincoln and Speed had in fact been gay lovers, it is unlikely that he would have revealed that they had slept together.13 To openly state that he had sex with men would have ruined his political career. (During that career opponents levelled all kinds of scurrilous accusations against him—as an infidel, a saloon keeper, a drunk, a traitor to his country, a seducer of women, but never as a man guilty of sodomy, a term then used to describe what later became known as homosexuality.) Similarly, Lincoln told journalist James Simonton about Charles Maltby, who had assisted him at a New Salem general store in 1832–1833. Thirty years later, when Maltby was about to visit Washington to describe government corruption in California, Lincoln mentioned him to Simonton: “I know Maltby, for I slept with him six months, and he used to be an honest man.”14 If Lincoln and Maltby had been gay lovers, it is doubtful that the president would have revealed to a member of the press that he had slept with his former colleague for half a year.To assist Lincoln and Maltby, the owner of that New Salem store hired another young man, William G. Greene, who reported decades afterwards that “Lincoln & I clerked together . . . & slept on the same cott & when one turned over the other had to do likewise.”15 In “Lover of Men,” Greene is identified as one of the four male sexual partners of Lincoln. But if they were in fact lovers, why would Greene—a prosperous banker and businessman who wed a woman who bore him nine children—jeopardize his reputation by tacitly acknowledging that he had committed sodomy? In New Salem, where he was regarded as one of the eligible “beaux,” it was rumored that Greene courted Nancy Burner, at whose home Lincoln resided for some time. She apparently dumped Greene for Dr. Jason Duncan, whom she wed. Soon thereafter, she delivered a child who, it was said, was actually Greene's or Lincoln's.16 In addition, Lincoln allegedly sired a daughter of Elizabeth Owens Abell, who had been raised in a prosperous Kentucky family and married a man reportedly well beneath her socially and intellectually. Lincoln lived with her and her husband for a time during his sojourn in New Salem. She admired Lincoln, recalled him fondly, and encouraged his ambition to rise in the world.17Joint sleeping arrangements among males were common on the Illinois frontier.18 During his five years in the village of New Salem, Lincoln had bunked not only with Maltby and Greene but also several other men, among them James McGrady Rutledge, Stephen Perkins, Abner Y. Ellis, and Daniel Green Burner.19 No surviving evidence suggests that any of them were gay. As Burner recalled, Lincoln for two years “boarded with my father. During that time Lincoln and I slept together.” According to Burner, his family's cabin had two rooms, one where “the cooking was done and the women slept,” and the other “was for the men. Lincoln and I and occasionally other boarders occupied this room.” The “bed we slept on was composed of a feather bed and straw mattress.”20In 1834–1835, while serving in the Illinois General Assembly at Vandalia (then the state capital), Lincoln and attorney John Todd Stuart became political allies and bedmates. Jesse W. Fell, who spent that winter at the capital, called them “two congenial spirits not only boarding at the same house but rooming and sleeping together. Socially and politically they seemed inseparable.” Indeed, Fell said, they were “boon companions,” only fifteen months apart in age but quite different in temperament and appearance. David Davis, who described the tall, slender Stuart as “the handsomest man in Illinois” with “the mildest and most amiable expression of countenance,” believed that Lincoln and Stuart “loved one another.”21 In 1837, Stuart chose Lincoln as his law partner, an arrangement that lasted four years. Nothing indicates that Stuart, who that same year married a woman who was to bear him five children, was gay or bisexual.Another Springfield lawyer, Milton Hay, shared a bed with Lincoln. In 1875, he recalled: “I proposed to Lincoln to go into his office and read law there—he said all right[.] I wanted to read nights; and as he boarded at [William] Butler's, I told him that I would put up a bed in his office, and that would be more convenient for both of us. This suited him exactly, and I did so, and we slept together all the time I was with him.”22Casting further doubt on the notion that Speed and Lincoln were homosexual lovers is Herndon's account of an interview with Speed, who recalled that around 1839 or 1840, he “was keeping a pretty woman” in Springfield and that Lincoln, “desirous to have a little,” asked him, “Speed, do you know where I can get some?” Speed replied, “Yes I do, & if you will wait a moment or so I'll send you to the place with a note. You can[']t get it without a note or by my appearance.” Lincoln “went to see the girl—handed her the note after a short ‘how do you do &c.’ Lincoln told his business and the girl, after some protestations, agreed to satisfy him. Things went on right—Lincoln and the girl stript off and went to bed. Before any thing was done Lincoln said to the girl—‘How much do you charge’. ‘Five dollars, Mr. Lincoln’. Mr. Lincoln said—‘I've only got $3.’ Well said the girl—‘I'll trust you, Mr Lincoln, for $2.['] Lincoln thought a moment or so and said—‘I do not wish to go on credit—I'm poor & don't know where my next dollar will come from and I cannot afford to Cheat you.’ Lincoln after some words of encouragement from the girl got up out of bed,—buttoned up his pants and offered the girl the $3.00, which she would not take, are the most man I ever Lincoln went out of the the girl and went to the store of Speed, Speed asked no and so the a or Speed had to go and see the girl in a and she told him just what was said and done between & Lincoln and Speed told me the and I have no doubt of the though it is unlikely that Herndon would have made it He told that Lincoln “was a perfectly the of his in after that his fell into the of his Herndon also that Lincoln and Joshua Speed were go no the Speed were to why he would have a woman” in if Lincoln were to why he would a two men could have been bisexual, but no evidence suggests that Speed is the evidence of Lincoln's as we are “Lover of Men,” it is that during his time at New Salem, Lincoln the of young women, but described not only about his sexual with Nancy Burner and Elizabeth Abell, but also the fact of his with Rutledge, a each other and were engaged to wed when she him into a so that he would his of evidence cited by those who that Lincoln was gay is his correspondence with Speed, which the most Lincoln ever The film suggests that Lincoln's of to close his to Speed indicates that they were lovers. But in fact Lincoln used that same close in to at four other men who were not Lincoln's to Speed no or As David a Lincoln put the between other males that have been Lincoln's to Speed in of also plausibly another of evidence cited by those who Lincoln was his relationship with David of one of the that the president during the The film on an by a Washington Elizabeth the of Lincoln's there is a here to the with him, and when is not with A of evidence cited in the film is a in a of years after the and were on a of such friendship with him that they were often to or at the in so in the and that, in Lincoln's he spent the at his sleeping in the same bed with him, and it is of an which until the when was appointed of the with at that when Lincoln from while at the on the of the and while his was he and then with until late into the I think it is that he may on have asked the congenial to share his in those it was not for men to together. it is neither man ever mentioned he offered his a their relationship was not is by the with which their when to never saw each other A close of the historian the evidence and the conclusion that they had a homosexual He that both the of and the account are not two sources but rather that both are on the same is shared by as Charles Strozier observed: is no serious scholar who this Jean The most is author of Lincoln's a about Lincoln's at the in the months of and Professor that Lincoln and were together there in the of Lincoln for only a time two in the of During the of the of in Lincoln was at the or the resided at the the president and had an sexual relationship in those two seems highly “Lover of Men,” it is that Lincoln had sex with another There is no evidence to that though it is clear that Lincoln was of him and his why Lincoln may have turned to for it be in that the president as he described to Charles “the man in There is no one to whom I can go and my of and when Lincoln was she was more a of than the he often told his old Illinois H. his and he was his do which would him into she did just that with her as the he resided during the he did not have the of his two John and John G. young men who lived in the and were in of whom he was quite also the of another William the who as According to John who daughter and who him, a never became could see the of even when Lincoln was and a “was a and and was by Lincoln with the The two all about of Lincoln just had to have to up on and in he the his was a with a large of and According to his cousin was by is evidence that Lincoln sexual for the According to his close David Davis, Lincoln was “a of for whose him from and many a also reported that Lincoln had for and his off that in “I have Lincoln and I have him the of Lincoln described how one during his his to the “I there is even a of in here in for I am by women of all and pretty and and the other The “a very young who not take a called on him a for a man to be her She was and “was by her and to until face was so my that I thought she wanted me to kiss to my and back and I her the of a and said: you are very and very I his Lincoln may have of In Herndon a from who apparently had In during the Lincoln and some a in Lincoln may not have the for Abner Y. said that he no for strange I never him of any with though he had for so while in with and two old in that Lincoln a of young of the of during the recalled that he and Lincoln went to house to of an for we felt the on and was often in with their well and thought it a to see them and their at Lincoln and John one where both men on a with the in the a Lincoln with a beautiful woman as she through the when she to he offered to her When she that he had done so, he replied: but you are so that I would to with you Lincoln with A. of In she had five during which she the of in the in her state of where and than they could in the first he her rather but her and him to her As she him he and in a In their first she said: you will my you will be as long as you She recalled that Lincoln his head and with a of I never can he said, never be had from his He seemed and and for a moment to he was not a more than on his The must be I said to him not so Mr. will have so much to as when the government is as it will I he said, a on each of me and the of are The next Lincoln her for a but he had time to to her about She at his office the and he told her he had the new after her As she to Lincoln will not wish to see me say that, and I said you have been very to me and I am for He looked at me from his and said, think I am don't face then with such and was by such a I looked at him and with my said, my are perfectly lovely to me now, Mr He a and most I to he out his that in which there was so much and so and as he and in his I my and my most the even as I would my A silent went up from my you Abraham Lincoln. I him say and I was the age of while in Lincoln also with a beautiful with the a that recalled that the in a where Lincoln was he would their and other attorneys were by his for their colleague had seemed to In time the became “It was Lincoln's for a who made the of Lincoln and to a for She him a smile of if she saw him in the and the two often were talking to each other if they to as they at the or When his fellow attorneys him for an for a married man, he with no actually the only woman in the of my who ever to pay me a and if the poor thing is to my face and it seems to me you are the on who ought to that she and her a to Lincoln, and one in at a in they him to a of he offered to his why the of be by William was and asked about the some Lincoln that he did not know the but said he would out the for he did so, and next them to her at She that as she was her “I became that was and over A of my left it on the and with his over my he a of with in of my I it was Mr. Lincoln. He told me that he was to in a and as he he looked his my and through the It was the time I ever saw this evidence of Lincoln's for women, of his sexual to and the of the evidence of any is in “Lover of Men,” it a to the than a of