Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Lewis Gannett]

(06-28-2014 09:46 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(06-25-2014 12:22 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  One reason for which I personally don't believe A. L. was gay (though who knows) is that most gay men are extremely aware and concerned about their outward appearance, and are less interested in telling and sharing the kind of anecdotes and stories Lincoln enjoyed to tell.

I think that you make two very good points.

I missed this comment from Eva until David reposted it. Wow, how to begin. First, I won't get into how gay men supposedly behave and how they supposedly tell jokes. You'd be amazed how many gay guys don't care about clothes, haircuts, shopping, even musicals, all that. But more to the point, I don't really buy the "ugly Lincoln" line. Homely, ill-dressed, bashful, shy, socially graceless Lincoln? OK, sure, he came from the remotest sticks and had to teach himself almost everything. But Lincoln was scarcely a shy guy where it counted: in the rough & tumble world of law and politics. As a rising Springfield lawyer he sometimes pretended to be a simple hick, but what a mistake it was to buy that act. He was incredibly shrewd, a brilliant judge of character, the smartest guy in the room. His legal colleague Leonard Swett wrote Herndon a long letter about Lincoln's at-first-not-obvious smarts. This letter should be required reading for all Lincoln fans. For the benefit of my new friends at Lincoln Forum I'll quote a passage, even it means missing a bite of my movie Sat. nite:

"One great public mistake of his [Lincoln's] character as generally received and acquiesced in:--he is considered by the people of this country as a frank, guileless, unsophisticated man. There never was a greater mistake. Beneath a smooth surface of candor and an apparent declaration of all this thoughts and feelings, he exercised the most exalted tact and the wisest discrimination. He handled and moved man remotely as we do pieces upon a chessboard. He retained through life, all the friends he ever had, and he made the wrath of his enemies to praise him. This was not by cunning, or intrigue in the low acceptation of the term, but by far seeing, reason and discernment. He always told enough only, of his plans and purposes, to induce the belief that he had communicated all; yet he reserved enough, in fact, to have communicated nothing. He told all that was unimportant with a gushing frankness; yet no man ever kept his real purposes more closely, or penetrated the future with his deep designs." Excerpt from a letter from Leonard Swett to William Herndon dated January 17, 1866, Herndon's Informants, p. 168.

To this I'd add, about the famous ugliness. There was a reason Mary Todd went after Lincoln. He was almost unbelievably magnetic. The man had charisma. All that "Aw gosh I don't know which fork to use"--yes, he didn't know, but so what, he entered a room and every last male immediately surrounded him--Herndon writes about this at length--and most of the females wanted to approach, but for the most part couldn't because Lincoln's humor was too darn raunchy. Mary Todd saw this and knew immediately that he was her guy. If anything proves that Mary was no fool, this does. So, how does it fit with Lincoln "acting gay"? It doesn't. All those stereotypes, forget it. Doesn't apply. And that in turn means nothing. So there you go.