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Eva Elisabeth · (This post was last modified: 04-19-2017 05:09 PM by Eva Elisabeth.)

(04-19-2017 02:01 PM)L Verge Wrote: That quote led me to wonder how often then-President Lincoln contemplated suing someone for slander. He and Mrs. Lincoln were certainly the targets of many a mud-slinger's sling-shot.

I think he never ever considered doing so - there are IMO two accounts (both by Hay) that show (t)his attitude:

One is from John Hay’s recollections of Election Night on November 8, 1864:
"They were especially happy over the election of Rice, regarding it as a great triumph for the Navy Department. Says Fox, ‘There are two fellows that have been especially malignant to us, and retribution has come upon them both, [John P.Hale] and [HenryWinter Davis].’ ‘You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I,’ said Lincoln. ‘Perhaps I may have too little of it, but I never thought it paid. A man has not time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him. It has seemed to me recently that [Henry Winter Davis] was growing more sensible to his own true interests and has ceased wasting his time by attacking me. I hope for his own good he has. He has been very malicious against me but has only injured himself by it."

The best online version of the other Hay account I could find is this:

https://books.google.de/books?id=AJRPetw...cQ6AEIHTAG

(04-19-2017 02:18 PM)Gene C Wrote:
(04-19-2017 02:01 PM)L Verge Wrote: ""We learn, for example, that several counties had an unusually large number of slander cases. ...
These cases show a sharp gender divide.
Men were typically accused of theft or other petty crimes,
but women were more often accused of improper sexual behavior.

I am bit surprised by that last part.

Gene - I recall there's at least one US state the laws of which prohibited (possibly still valid) women to wear polished shoes because of what "sexual matters" they might reveal of under the skirt. So, if wearing polished shoes counts as sexual improper behavior - what is there to wonder?