There has been talk about about President Lincoln's sexuality.
C.A. Tripp has written a book. "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," In this new book, Tripp says early biographers of Lincoln, including Carl Sandburg, sensed Lincoln's homosexuality.
In the preface to the original multi-volume edition of his acclaimed 1926 biography, Sandburg wrote: "Month by month in stacks and bundles of fact and legend, I found invisible companionship that surprised me. Perhaps a few of these presences lurk and murmur in this book."
Sandburg also wrote that Lincoln and Joshua Speed had "streaks of lavender, spots soft as May violets." Mr. Tripp said that references to Lincoln possible homosexuality were cut in the 1954 abridged version of the biography. Mr. Tripp maintains that other writers, including Ida Tarbell and Margaret Leech, also found evidence of Lincoln homosexuality but shied away from defining it as such or omitted crucial details.
It is a known fact that Lincoln slept with a man by the name of Joshua Speed for four years. Lincoln and Speed wrote to each other for many years you can read some of their letters here. During frontier times men had to share beds. But come on folks FOUR YEARS? They couldn't find another bed during four years? Sounds fishy to me.
Thomas Jefferson fathered black children with a woman by the name of Sally Hemings but was still a slave owner. Hard concept to accept huh? For many years this was disputed but based on DNA evidence gathered in 1998 the claim was given some credence. The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation issued a report in January 2000 concluding that there is a strong likelihood that Thomas Jefferson was the father of at least one and perhaps all the children of Sally Hemings.
In May 2002 the Monticello Association (descendants of Thomas Jefferson) voted to not admit descendants of Sally Hemings into their organization. The decision came after their careful review of all available information resulting in the conclusion that there was not sufficient evidence to prove Jefferson fathered Hemings' children.
Now keep in mind the decendants of Sally Hemings and President Jefferson's union fought for many years to be accepted into this club and in the end they got what they wanted sort of.
4 comments:
From your own link on Speed:
"Recently, one biographer made much out of the fact that, because two men slept in the same bed for four years, it suggested a homosexual relationship between the two young men. But historical records indicate that two people of the same sex sharing a bed was a fairly common experience in 19th century America. Our view of history is often obscured by our seeing the past through the lens of the present, with its different customs and mores."
Come on four years?
I repeat, same link:
"Our view of history is often obscured by our seeing the past through the lens of the present, with its different customs and mores."
Fair enough. But how do you explain the letters?
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