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[David Lockmiller]

(04-24-2017 03:23 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Gene and David, is it at all possible that a marriage to Ann Rutledge might not have deterred Lincoln, and his political and legal careers would have turned out essentially the same? I am not really in disagreement with what you gentlemen say; I am just suggesting the possibility, although my tendency is to agree with you.

I believe I read somewhere that she was planning on going to school in Jacksonville so she could become the educated wife of a lawyer/politician. Is it at all possible she could have encouraged and supported him just as Mary did?

Lincoln himself wrote of his decision to reenter politics: “In 1854, his profession had almost superseded the thought of politics in his mind, when the repeal of the Missouri compromise aroused him as he had never been before.” (John Locke Scripps, a senior editor of the Chicago Press and Tribune, managed to convince Lincoln to write an autobiographical account that would serve as the basis for 1860 presidential campaign biography. See Basler’s “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,” 4:67)

I know that Lincoln said at the time in 1854 that he was contented with his work as a lawyer and his family life (but I could not immediately find a source reference for this statement in order to use his own words of expression).

Taking on Senator Douglas for his Senate seat in 1858 was an exhausting, almost Sisyphean task, but nonetheless Lincoln did so. Lincoln did so married to Mary. Would he have done so married to Ann? I do not know. Perhaps a very happy and contented family life with Ann and their children may have been a prohibitive factor for Lincoln. However, Gene also makes a very good argument in his posting about Mary's extreme interest in and connections to politics. [Even Stephen Douglas courted her.] Ann most certainly did not possess these combined political attributes.