Was Abe Lincoln Gay? (The blockbuster book that will change America’s history)

I admire your ability to churn out these long posts. I can't possibly deal with that whole post. I will say this. I am an unapologetic anti-Federalist. That Patrick Henry (after whom my oldest son is named) was a real scoundrel, wasn't he? Look around you at our government grow totally out of of control. Everything the Federalist said the government wouldn't or couldn't do, it has. Everything the anti-Federalist have said the government would do, it has. How are those checks and balances working for you now? When it comes to government, not only is smaller better than bigger, but more local is better than more distant.

Sorry! I had my arm on the enter button and couldn't figure out why I couldn't scroll back.

Our thinking about politics has to do with the context we are living in. That's normal, natural, unavoidable, and necessary: we have to know the lay of the land to make political decisions. But if things had happened differently a century or two ago, that context would be very different, as it may be with people who live in other countries. In the Middle East, the Balkans, or Caucasus, Africa or Central America, the problem may not be central or federal governments, but squabbling warlords, tribal chieftans, ethnic movements, revolutionary factions, local oligarchies, or sectional strongmen.

Had things gone differently in 1789 or 1861, our fate might well resembled that of those in such other parts of the world. The founders were aware of nations and peoples that had perished or fallen under foreign control because they couldn't govern and defend themselves effectively. And subsequent generations had plenty of examples of peoples who'd fallen under foreign imperial control, and constitutional federations that had broken up and subsequently fallen under tyrannical rule. Consequently, I don't think badly of the Federalists or unionists or assume that Anti-Federalists or secessionists had the right idea.

There's something to be said for Anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry or Sam Adams who stood up for localism and tradition. If they'd had their way we'd be a more regionally diverse country with greater state autonomy. But we might well be less safe, less efficient, and less prosperous. There was a trade-off involved. The Founders recognized that, as did the ratifying conventions. We can argue about just what the terms of the trade-off might have been, but the Framers clearly understood that a "more perfect union" did bring some advantages. And we might even have been less free if the Anti-Federalists had won, given the willingness of states to curb the liberties of dissenters, minorities, and supressed classes.

Some people turn agrarian radicals into patron saints of laissez-faire and libertarianism, but it's worth noting that such proto-libertarians were hostile to banks, corporations and industry. I don't say that they were wrong, but if we really value our highly-industrialized capitalist economy with its mass consumption, free labor, and upward mobility, we ought to grant at least one cheer (if not three) for Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton and others helped us to move from a frontier or plantation to a commercial-industrial economy without falling into the pitfalls that other societies have, and that's praiseworthy.

I agree that government is too powerful now, and we should think about paring it back, but I don't want to slight the learning process that 18th and 19th century Americans went through. They learned through hard experience that some degree of federal authority was necessary for national defense and useful for development. They may have been wrong, but I'd like to consider all the evidence, and I don't fault them for the decisions they made based on what they knew and valued at the time.

Yet again you respond to the salient points that have been made against your previous argument with vague platitudes and pages of bloviation. Try addressing the facts for once, X, rather than spouting mindless pseudo-philosophical garbage whenever you get caught saying things that cannot be supported with real content.

To one and all.

It is good that CBS did not have an advance copy. Dan Rather would have lead with "Gay sex at the highest levels of the Republican party. A CBS special report".

I suspect the book is just crap. Lincoln is an easy target because he spent a lot of time in male company - clearing forests, rafting down the Mississippi, logging. And he spent for several years as a lawyer traveling to Illinois towns.

He lodged at inns and homes and it was accepted practice to share a bed - Illinois was the frontier then and conditions were rough. And horrors, he had male law partners.

I haven't read the 500+ replies so I can only hope this isn't redundant information.

I don't think Lincoln was gay. The Kinsey Report is flawed in many ways. I heard the survey was done only in the Midwest. Alfred Kinsey was a pedophile. I heard Juan Peron had a penchant for teenage girls.