Lincoln's Melancholy

[Rob Wick]

I think people sometimes get too hung up on the pejorative nature of the term "mentally ill." Mental illness is in reality a continuum that can range from mild depression all the way to a psychosis that would require someone to be institutionalized against their will. Many of the various conditions described as mental illness can be successfully treated with medicine and therapy or a combination of the two. To say that one suffers, or suffered, from mental illness isn't to say that person no longer is a valued or productive member of society. Of course, there's also a legal definition of the term insanity which may or may not conform to the clinical definition.

That said, as with many (if not most) things regarding Lincoln, there is no absolute evidence as to what level, if any, that Lincoln suffered. But there is far too much anecdotal evidence that his periods of depression were much greater than a mere case of the "blues." Joshua Wolf Shenk may have overshot on his estimation of Lincoln's depressive nature, but Shenk wasn't the first to think there was something more to it then many seem to want to admit. From my own perspective, I can tell you that EVERYTHING I am today results from the death of my father when I was five. How I approach people, how I approach relationships, how I approach life in general, stems from that event. For Lincoln to become melancholic given the nature of frontier life in general and the specific instances of the loss of his mother, sister and later Ann Rutledge, could trigger strong instances of depression in someone so inclined. And while no one has ever been able to find the letter Lincoln supposedly wrote to Dr. Daniel Drake, its existence comes from one of the better sources of Lincoln reminisces, that of Joshua Speed. Charles Strozier notes that Drake was a psychiatrist with a national reputation for dealing with mental illnesses, and that Lincoln, who was living in Springfield at the time, likely heard of Drake from Anson Henry, who would have known of Drake since Henry graduated in 1827 from the medical school in Cincinnati. Why would Lincoln have sought out such an expert if he wasn't concerned about getting it under control?

Look at the poem that Lincoln wrote when he went back to Indiana in 1844. The second stanza had to have come from a deep place in Lincoln's mind. Here it is in its entirety.

But here's an object more of dread
Than ought the grave contains--
A human form with reason fled,
While wretched life remains.

Poor Matthew! Once of genius bright,
A fortune-favored child--
Now locked for aye, in mental night,
A haggard mad-man wild.

Poor Matthew! I have ne'er forgot,
When first, with maddened will,
Yourself you maimed, your father fought,
And mother strove to kill;

When terror spread, and neighbors ran,
Your dange'rous strength to bind;
And soon, a howling crazy man
Your limbs were fast confined.

How then you strove and shrieked aloud,
Your bones and sinews bared;
And fiendish on the gazing crowd,
With burning eye-balls glared--

And begged, and swore, and wept and prayed
With maniac laught[ter?] joined--
How fearful were those signs displayed
By pangs that killed thy mind!

And when at length, tho' drear and long,
Time smoothed thy fiercer woes,
How plaintively thy mournful song
Upon the still night rose.

I've heard it oft, as if I dreamed,
Far distant, sweet, and lone--
The funeral dirge, it ever seemed
Of reason dead and gone.

To drink it's strains, I've stole away,
All stealthily and still,
Ere yet the rising God of day
Had streaked the Eastern hill.

Air held his breath; trees, with the spell,
Seemed sorrowing angels round,
Whose swelling tears in dew-drops fell
Upon the listening ground.

But this is past; and nought remains,
That raised thee o'er the brute.
Thy piercing shrieks, and soothing strains,
Are like, forever mute.

Now fare thee well--more thou the cause,
Than subject now of woe.
All mental pangs, by time's kind laws,
Hast lost the power to know.

O death! Thou awe-inspiring prince,
That keepst the world in fear;
Why dost thos tear more blest ones hence,
And leave him ling'ring here?

This is a very heartfelt and sensitive rendition of an event that not only had a major impact on the tight-knit Spencer County community, but also had a major impact on Lincoln, who wrote it after his 1844 visit, sending it to Andrew Johnston in 1846. Lincoln told Johnston "He is three years older than I, and when we were boys we went to school together. He was rather a bright lad, and the son of the rich man of our poor neighborhood. At the age of nineteen he unaccountably became furiously mad, from which condition he gradually settled down into harmless insanity. When, as I told you in my other letter I visited my old home in the fall of 1844, I found him still lingering in this wretched condition. In my poetizing mood I could not forget the impression his case made upon me."

This stanza could easily have spoken of Lincoln's own feelings toward what he knew was building up inside of his own mind.

I've heard it oft, as if I dreamed,
Far distant, sweet, and lone--
The funeral dirge, it ever seemed
Of reason dead and gone.

I've often wondered why it seemed that Lincoln was so hard to know. I think part of it comes from the fact that he was one of the most self-aware individuals who ever rose to prominence. With such a deep well of self-knowledge, Lincoln worked to make sure he kept as tight a lid as humanly possible on his emotions. Only to a very few (Mary, Joshua Speed) does he let himself be more open. Lincoln could see in himself the same demons that battled Matthew Gentry, but also know those periods of illness were interspersed with periods of reason that gave him comfort.

Now fare thee well--more thou the cause,
Than subject now of woe.
All mental pangs, by time's kind laws,
Hast lost the power to know.

When he returned to Indiana in 1844, he saw that Gentry had gone from an intensive and murderous insanity to a more harmless and somewhat curious existence through the passage of time. As Lincoln saw Gentry's demons quieting down as he got older, it is possible that he believed so to his own demons would do the same.

So, to sum up, it does the memory of Lincoln no violence to say he suffered from mental illness or clinical depression. On the continuum I spoke of, I think a strong case can be made for a mild form of clinical depression. And I also agree with Roger's earlier point that during Lincoln's presidency instances of this were rare. Yet think about it--what else could have focused Lincoln's mind so intently then guiding the country through the Civil War?

Best
Rob