Lincoln Letter to John Stuart

[Liz Rosenthal]

I realize that Mary Todd Lincoln has many detractors, and it's obvious that she wasn't exactly the most emotionally stable woman Lincoln could have married. But every time someone suggests that the Lincolns' marriage was a "hell on Earth," I am reminded that Lincoln had no documented bad episodes, like those he'd suffered in '35 and '41, after he got married. Also, I wouldn't minimize their emotional intimacy. If Lincoln did not have her to confide in, then he probably didn't have anyone to confide in (in the absence of Joshua Speed). His friends - a case in point being David Davis - generally agreed that he kept his deepest feelings a secret from them. As much as they enjoyed being around him, they didn't feel that he ever unburdened himself to them. One certainly has to wonder why Lincoln had to be away from home for such long periods while "on the circuit" when many of his colleagues went home on the weekends. But, as historians such as McPherson have acknowledged, if Lincoln hadn't been as absent from home as he was, and as familiar as he was to the people in all the towns he visited, he might not have been nearly as successful in politics as he was. 'By the 1850s, he was practically the most popular politician in the state, even though he hadn't held elective office in years. Perhaps Abe and Mary came to an agreement that he would spend these long periods from home to acquaint himself with the populace and thus further his political career. She apparently longed for his success even more than he did. Anyway, I think it's too easy to dismiss Mary as a terrible woman; her instability didn't necessarily have to translate into a bad home life. Volatile, maybe, but not necessarily bad.