Mary Todd Lincoln's faux pas (plural), worse, and much worse

[David Lockmiller]

(07-05-2014 03:27 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  So, and I wonder how one can draw such a hard judgement from such weak evidence as you did in the beginning of this thread. Injust IMO.

I was thinking about that last night. A newspaper, especially a major newspaper, must know how important it is to its own long-term existence that it print the truth and only the truth. People do not read newspapers for fictional accounts of history.

There were a lot of people attending President Lincoln's speech that night in April, 1865. Presumably, if the newspaper did not have credible eye-witness testimony attesting to the events as described in detail, Mary Todd Lincoln could have sued for libel. If the account was fictional, Mary Todd Lincoln could have brought as witnesses-at-trial dozens of witnesses situated in the front rows of the audience to testify that nothing of the sort had occurred. The speech took place only two years earlier.

It is a question of fact for the jury whether or not President Abraham Lincoln was interrupted during his important speech on Reconstruction of the Southern States by a section of the crowd up front shushing Mary Todd Lincoln and her friends into silence in order that they might be able to hear Lincoln's speech. It seems to me that the Boston newpaper account was very fact specific. (Would you agree?) If the newspaper article was a complete work of fiction, then I believe that Mary Todd Lincoln had a legitimate right to sue the newspaper, IMO (I believe that's stands for "In My Opinion"). And, I might add, I believe that my opinion is a "just and fair" opinion.