Madness of Mary Lincoln

[Susan Higginbotham]

(11-13-2017 09:25 PM)kerry Wrote:  

(11-13-2017 08:24 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Sometimes I am tired of the argument folks were "made" by their days - there's still common sense (and such as the ten commandments) to feel something is not right to do to others.

I definitely agree with this. There's no doubt most people go along with their time and place, but what gets left out of most history discussions is all the people who did the right thing anyway. From the beginning of time, there were people who advocated women's rights, abolition of slavery, etc. at great personal risk to themselves. It does them a disservice to claim that was just the way it was back then. It also does a disservice to brilliant men like the founders to claim they didn't know any better. They agonized over most moral questions, whether they ultimately did the right thing or not. They had common sense and noticed that some people other than white men were capable, but didn't always act on it. I think one of Lincoln's most obvious good traits was that he was able to use his common sense to discern the right thing, even if he was slow to act on it at times. I think what is aggravating about Robert, somewhat unfairly, is that his parents were willing to break with the norm to a large extent, and he had such a platform and example on which to extend that outlook, but he instead went in the other direction. I can see how he craved normalcy after all that, and I think his personality just tended that way, but he displayed a lack of imagination that had consequences in the case of Mary. There is also the fact that I think he called Mary, his alcoholic law partner, Herndon, and his youngest daughter insane (well, she wrote that he would say that, which makes it seem like he had before). Granted, they all had their issues, but Robert seemed to lump people into two categories, normal or abnormal, with no in between.

I know next to nothing about Robert's relationship with his younger daughter (is that the daughter who married against his wishes, and whose marriage ended in divorce?), but it's worth pointing out that Mary herself called Herndon Lincoln's "crazy drinking law partner" (granted, she had good reason to be upset with Herndon, but so did her son, not in small part because he knew how distressing Herndon's claims were to his bereaved mother). As for Robert's belief that his mother was insane, it may have been wrong, especially in hindsight, but it was shared by others long before Mary was institutionalized. I'm not convinced from those three examples that Robert's judgments of other people were so uncompromising.