Lincoln Movie - Your Reviews

[Mike B.]

(11-21-2012 10:48 AM)BettyO Wrote:  I was so glad to see "NO Conspirators" -- "Hey! Lew and gang - down in front!!!

JMadonna,

The RTL pregnancy led to the Lincolns marriage was first put out by Wayne Temple in his wonderful "From Skeptic to Prophet" book.

There is a case to be made there.

Of course it is impossible to prove.

But the Lincoln marraige was awfully sudden and unexpected and RTL was born less than 9 months later.

Both were in Springfield if you look at "Lincoln Day by Day" when conception would have been most likely to have occurred.

In any case, the theory is mostly circumstantial.

Where I would part with Temple and Michael Burligame who run with this theory is they accuse Mary of "seducing" Lincoln to trap him into marriage.

I think Lincoln himself would have no sympathy with this point of view. As he himself supposedly wrote in a poem he called "Seduction:"

"Whatever Spiteful fools may Say —
Each jealous, ranting yelper —
No woman ever played the whore
Unless She had a man to help her."