A Republican hero, but was Abe Lincoln gay?

Guardian / The Observer ^ | December 19, 2004 | Paul Harris

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

This garbage makes me sick. But I will answer. No he wasn't. Actually, he was a very unhappy man because of the crazy witch to whom he was married.

[silent_jonny]

Abraham Lincoln, founder of the [Republican] party

Whoa! Wait! Hold on ...

Lincoln was a Republican? Well this is the first I've heard of it. My history books never mentioned him being a Republican. Nor did the mainstream media. I find it interesting that now that they're accusing Lincoln of being gay that the left gleefully attaches him to the Republican party--even going so far as calling him the "founder". Hmmm.

[buffyt]

Well, considering that Abe was married to my cousin Mary Todd Lincoln and they had some children, I don't believe he was gay. D*mm*t I wish they would leave my family tree alone.

[tsomer]

It is news guaranteed to make many Republicans squirm. Was Abraham Lincoln, founder of the ... gay himself??

At least the left is acknowledging that Lincoln is ours.

Someday, when they've calmed down a little, we'll explain that Lincoln's age was not nearly as sex-obssessed as ours. Why? They weren't titillated with images of naked people everywhere; they were chronically tired, hungry, focused on such mundane things as staying warm, dry, fed, and generally healthy. They worked hard. They worked hard going to work. They worked hard at trying to make what they ate marginally palatable so that could get it by the few teeth they had left. No inside plumbing to speak of. No antibiotics: I don't recall the exact numbers of people in this country infected with tuberculosis, parasites, malaria and so on, but they were impressive.

It shouldn't be that difficult for them to understand should it?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Are you not the one who is related to have the royalty in Europe and England and to many of the presidents of the United States or their relatives?

[Embraer2004]

Lincoln and Joshua Speed met in Springfield, Illinois, during the 1830s. Although Speed returned to his native Kentucky, they remained friends throughout life. In this letter, Lincoln expresses his thinking about slavery, which contrasted with Speed, who grew up on a plantation and owned slaves.
The year before Lincoln wrote this letter, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed Congress, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and opened the territories to slavery. The passage of this bill proved a turning point in Lincoln's career. As he observed, "I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again."

Springfield, Illinois
August 24, 1855

Dear Speed:

You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of the 22nd. of May I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave -- especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you to yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.

I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no obligation to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ we must. You say if you were President, you would send an army and hang the leaders of the Missouri outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly votes herself a slave state, she must be admitted, or the Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly -- that is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men? Must she still be admitted, or the Union be dissolved? That will be the phase of the question when it first becomes a practical one. In your assumption that there may be a fair decision of the slavery question in Kansas, I plainly see you and I would differ about the Nebraska-law. I look upon that enactment not as a law, but as violence from the beginning. It was conceived in violence, passed in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence. I say it was conceived in violence, because the destruction of the Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, was nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it could not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violence of the known will of their constituents. It is maintained in violence because the elections since, clearly demand it's repeal, and this demand is openly disregarded. You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing that law; and I say the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended from the first; else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly enough to believe that any thing like fairness was ever intended; and he has been bravely undeceived.

That Kansas will form a Slave Constitution, and, with it, will ask to be admitted into the Union, I take to be an already settled question; and so settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn. By every principle of law, ever held by any court, North or South, every negro taken to Kansas is free; yet, in utter disregard of this -- in the spirit of violence merely -- that beautiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang men who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This is the substance, and real object of the law. If, like Haman, they should hang upon the gallows of their own building, I shall not be among the mourners for their fate.

In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, so long as Kansas remains a territory; and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the Union as a Slave-state, I shall oppose it. I am very loth, in any case, to withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired, or located, in good faith; but I do not admit that good faith, in taking a negro to Kansas, to be held in slavery, is a possibility with any man. Any man who has sense enough to be the controller of his own property, has too much sense to misunderstand the outrageous character of this whole Nebraska business. But I digress. In my opposition to the admission of Kansas I shall have some company; but we may be beaten. If we are, I shall not, on that account, attempt to dissolve the Union. On the contrary, if we succeed, there will be enough of us to take care of the Union. I think it probable, however, we shall be beaten. Standing as a unit among yourselves, you can, directly, and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day -- as you could on an open proposition to establish monarchy. Get hold of some man in the North, whose position and ability is such, that he can make the support of your measure -- whatever it may be -- a democratic party necessity, and the thing is done. Appropos [sic] of this, let me tell you an anecdote. Douglas introduced the Nebraska bill in January. In February afterwards, there was a call session of the Illinois Legislature. Of the one hundred members composing the two branches of that body, about seventy were democrats. These latter held a caucus, in which the Nebraska bill was talked of, if not formally discussed. It was thereby discovered that just three, and no more, were in favor of the measure. In a day of two Dougla's [sic] orders came on to have resolutions passed approving the bill; and they were passed by large majorities!!! The truth of this is vouched for by a bolting democratic member. The masses too, democratic as well as whig, were even, nearer unanamous [sic] against it; but as soon as the party necessity of supporting it, became apparent, the way the democracy began to see the wisdom and justice of it, was perfectly astonishing.

You say if Kansas fairly votes herself a free state, as a Christian you will rather rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that way; and I do not doubt their candor. But they never vote that way. Although in a private letter, or conversation, you will express your preference that Kansas shall be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would say the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected from any district in a slave-state. You think Stringfellow & Co. ought to be hung; and yet, at the next presidential election you will vote for the exact type and representative of Stringfellow. The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes. You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point -- I think I am a whig; but others say there are no whigs, and that I am an abolitionist. When I was in Washington I voted for the Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times, and I never heard of any one attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the extension of slavery.

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].

Mary will probably pass a day to two in Louisville in October. My kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading subject of this letter, I have more of her sympathy that I have of yours. And yet let me say I am

Yours friend forever
A. Lincoln

From:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/speed.htm

[facedown]

It is news guaranteed to make many Republicans squirm.

news? many? squirm?

BS. none. shake head in disgust.

[Grendel9]

"Scholars have long debated" EVERY IMPORTANT MAN's "sexuality, and as early as the 1920s were making veiled references to such personages as" Socrates, Dante, Wm. Shakespeare, Geo. Washington, and even John Brown! THe
ladies have not been excluded either.

Perhaps some mental deficients have a NEED to find hero types for their own fornications. IMO, even if it were
TRUE that Lincoln et al. were drawn to the opposite sex,
they at least had the dignity and presence of mind to keep
it to themselves. Which in the end makes it THEIR business, not that of so-called biographers whose only
intent is to get on some kind of best seller list for
salacious writing; their goal is to appeal to titillating
minds stagnating at the 10-12 year old boy. This caliber
does NOT merit the title SCHOLARS in my book. And that
goes for some of the fop college instructors prating this
claptrap in Ancient Lit, Renaissance Lit, and Modern World Lit! Yeah...I sat in their classes, too. Fortunately,
the literature was worth the reading and absorbtion.

[Embraer2004]

More on Speed:

Kentuckian Joshua Speed Was Lincoln's Lifelong Best Friend

---

By Dr. Marshall Myers - 2000

Few of us make our way through life without the help of friends. Abraham Lincoln was no exception. While generally gregarious, Lincoln really had just one lifelong friend: a Kentuckian named Joshua Speed, a confident giver of sage advice and a sounding board for Lincoln's political and philosophical ideas. Although they sometimes disagreed on vital issues, they were able to maintain a friendship that endured until Lincoln's death in 1865.

According to Robert Kincaid, in an article in The Filson Club History Quarterly, Speed was born near Louisville, at Farmington, on November 14, 1814, the son of a prominent slaveholding farmer. Young Joshua Speed attended St. Joseph's Academy in Bardstown, like the sons of many wealthy families in Kentucky.

Not content to follow in the footsteps of his father, Speed set out in 1835 for Springfield, Illinois, to try his hand in the fortunes of the Midwest. Records of the early years in Illinois indicate that young Speed was in the vast company of many other former Kentuckians, who sought new adventures and financial gain. Lincoln would later learn that the lower half of Illinois, with its Kentucky immigrants, was quite Southern in its political sympathies.

Upon arriving in Springfield, a town of fewer than 1,500 souls, Speed soon invested in merchandising and assisted in editing a local newspaper.

The beginnings of the friendship between Lincoln and Speed remain familiar to most Lincoln biographers. Although Speed had heard the young Lincoln speak on the stump when he was running for re-election to the Illinois legislature, the two men had only exchanged bits of conversation before Lincoln walked into Speed's store in Springfield, upon Lincoln's arrival in the new state capital to seek his fortune as a young lawyer, on April 15, 1837.

Lincoln inquired about the price of a mattress, sheets, blankets, coverlet, and a pillow for a single bed. When Speed told him what the total price would be, the future president remarked that "it is perhaps cheap enough, but small as it is, I am unable to pay it. If you will credit me until Christmas, I will pay you then, if I do well; but if I do not, I may never be able to pay you."

At this point, Speed seems to have had a mixture of pity for the railsplitter and the business sense to protect his finances.

"I think," Speed said, "I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debit and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a double bed upstairs, which you are welcome to share with me."

"Where is your room?" Lincoln quickly replied.

"Upstairs," Speed said.

Lincoln gathered his saddle bags and headed to the second floor. He quickly returned and announced, "Well, Speed, I am moved!"

Recently, one biographer made much out of the fact that, because two men slept in the same bed for four years, it suggested a homosexual relationship between the two young men. But historical records indicate that two people of the same sex sharing a bed was a fairly common experience in 19th century America. Our view of history is often obscured by our seeing the past through the lens of the present, with its different customs and mores.

Throughout his adult life, Lincoln and Speed shared confidences, and Speed became, for Lincoln, his most intimate friend. Indeed, when studying the life of Lincoln, it is difficult to imagine what Lincoln would have become without his Kentucky friend.

One characteristic that contemporaries assigned to the young Lincoln was a painful shyness, especially around young ladies. It is perhaps easy to understand why Lincoln would feel that way. After all, he had only the rudiments of an education (less than a year, some say), his family were dirt-poor farmers, and Lincoln's ungainly appearance and dress would cause the Great Emancipator to feel ill-at-ease.

Speed, on the other hand, was from a well-to-do family, had the privilege of a formal education, and displayed himself as a cultured gentleman.

But Speed saw something redeeming about Lincoln and encouraged him to enter the social scene around Springfield. They attended parties together and joined debating societies and political forums, where Lincoln could hone the meager political skills he had. In fact, Speed's store became a meeting place for young Turks, who discussed everything from radical religion to social issues, with Lincoln often breaking in with a series of stories for which he was most famous.

But Speed and Lincoln did not become fast friends, simply because Speed wanted to guide the young Lincoln's social and intellectual development. They genuinely liked each other and shared many of the same dreams and aspirations. It was, however, the subject of romance that caused the two to seek each other's counsel.

When Lincoln decided that he intended to break his engagement with Mary Todd, his future wife, he reasoned, in his own shy way, that he would tell the young Kentucky woman by letter. Speed soon recognized how inappropriate that would be and convinced Lincoln to burn his letter and tell Mary face-to-face, advice which Lincoln followed, and advice that would permit Lincoln to later, again, ask Mary Todd to marry him.

Later, when Speed moved back to Kentucky, it was Lincoln who returned the counsel, when Speed had misgivings about a romantic relationship with Fanny Hennings, who lived on a farm nearby with her uncle, Jon Williamson. In an extended visit with Speed in August and September of 1841, Lincoln observed his friend's actions around Miss Fanny.

Upon Lincoln's return to Springfield, Lincoln knew he saw the glow of love in his friend's eyes and wrote to him: "After you and I had been at [her] residence, did you not go and take me all the way to Lexington and back, for no other purpose but to get to see her again, on the return that evening?"
Speed later married Fanny on February 15, 1842.

Not surprisingly, Lincoln, who was still a bachelor, was curious about how his close friend was adjusting to married life. He wrote, "I want to ask you a close question. Are you now, in feeling as well as in judgment, glad that you are married? Please answer it, quickly, for I am impatient to know."

The question seemed to have a dual purpose: First, Lincoln was genuinely concerned about his friend's welfare, and secondly, Lincoln wanted to know if he should take that big step, too.

Yet, Lincoln also recognized that Speed's attention would be somewhat diverted, now that he may not have the time to spend with his Illinois friend. In a letter dated February 25, 1842, Lincoln came to the point.

"I have no way of telling you how much happiness I wish you both, though I believe you both can conceive it. I feel somewhat jealous of both of you now; you will be so exclusively concerned for one another that I shall be forgotten entirely."

Lincoln, of course, later that year, on November 4, 1842, did marry Mary Todd and began his climb to the political pinnacle of the presidency. While Speed and Lincoln continued to write, it was less often as the concerns of both men turned to more serious matters. His friendship with Speed, however, figures prominently in two events important to the Civil War.

Kentucky, in the early days of the war, was a source of great concern for the new president. He realized how important the Commonwealth was to both sides of the conflict. Lincoln felt he must have Kentucky, for if she seceded, he felt Missouri and other border states would soon follow.

However, one of the problems in the Bluegrass State was the paucity of guns. Lowell H. Harrison's Lincoln and Kentucky chronicles the secret mission, organized by William Nelson, to supply Unionists in the state with 5,000 [what were called] "Lincoln guns."

Involved, too, was Major Robert Anderson, just back from his surrender at Fort Sumter, who was ordered to employ Unionists in Kentucky, whom Lincoln thought he could trust, one of whom was Joshua Speed, to help get the guns into the right hands.

Lincoln wrote of Speed, "I have the utmost confidence in his judgment on any subject he professes to understand."

After some difficulties, the rifles were distributed to Union sympathizers across the state.

Speed was also involved in another gun distribution in September 1861, after General William Tecumseh Sherman had relieved Anderson in Louisville, in command of state volunteers. Sherman was a frantic man, demanding thousands of troops and guns to defend the Commonwealth.

Sherman happened to meet Speed in Louisville and spilled out a series of woes.

"Name what you want on paper and give it to me," Speed said.

Sherman, desperate to try anything, wrote down his orders and gave a copy to Speed. Speed took a train to Washington, and a few days later, returned to Louisville with a draft of $100,000 and an order, signed by Lincoln, for 10,000 Springfield rifles.

Sherman was flabbergasted. "How is it that more attention is paid to you, a citizen, than to me, a general in the Army?" adding, "You had better take command here!"

Speed returned, "The only mistake you made, General, was not asking for more."

Among other visits to Washington, Speed briefed the president on the panic in the Midwest, after the Union defeat in Richmond, and to discuss the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln saw as his only hope for immortality. Speed, keenly conscious of Confederate sympathies in Kentucky, advised against the order.

Several times during his administration, Lincoln offered Joshua Speed a government appointment. Speed refused each time, choosing to be a help in other ways. Speed's brother, James Speed, however, did serve as Attorney General beginning in November 1864. In discussing the nomination to Congress, Lincoln acknowledged that he didn't know James as well as he knew Joshua, noting, "That is not strange, for I slept with Joshua for four years, and I suppose I ought to know."

After his friend's tragic death, Joshua Speed organized a memorial service in Louisville for the assassinated leader and pledged his support to Andrew Johnson's administration. Sixty members of the Speed family gave money for a monument to honor Lincoln in Springfield. Joshua Speed also wrote lengthy letters to William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, who had set about to write a biography of Lincoln.

Speed lived out the rest of his life as a business and civic leader, as president of the Louisville and Portland Canal Company, and for two years he served as president of the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Lexington Railroad. His business interests also included investments in the Louisville Hotel, the Louisville Vault Company, the Louisville Cement Company, and the Savings Bank of Louisville.

He died on May 29, 1882, and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, with a fortune estimated at a tidy $600,000: a healthy sum for his day. His widow gave generously to what was to become Union College, in Barbour-ville, to the tune of more than $375,000.

Historian Robert Kincaid notes that it is "difficult to evaluate the importance of Speed in Lincoln's life." He acknowledges Speed's role in the Civil War in Kentucky and cites the part Speed played in Lincoln's social and intellectual development. But, of course, the value of a firm friendship remains almost impossible to measure. Friends are there when you need them, and Speed, above all others, certainly fulfilled that role magnificently.

Kincaid writes of Joshua Speed and Abraham Lincoln: "In life, Speed and Lincoln were much alike in spirit, ideals, and love of country; in death, their memory is preserved in an inseparable union in the hearts of a grateful people."


From:

http://kentuckyexplorer.com/nonmembers/01-02058.html

[GottaLuvAkitas1]

This would be interesting if anyone will an ounce of credibility reported it. However even if it were true, that doesn't mean he supported gay marriage.

GRR!! Why do Libs think EVERY gay person or even the majority want to make gay marriage legal?

[Gorzaloon]

Anything to discredit, diminish, or define deviancy downward is newsworthy to the left.

On our LAST trip to WDW, we were preached to by a gift shop clerk about how Washington, Madison, et al were gay. Sold off DIS and DCQ upon arriving home. I don't care what anyone does privately; It's none of my business, unless they insist on telling me about it. Then it's my business.

[Embraer2004]

Because the libs are used to Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O'Donnell, Elton John, Rupert Everett, George Michael and all the Hollywood elite that believe that gayness is chic....now they want the whole world to be gay to adapt it to their circle, even Lincoln has to be gay...

[AQGeiger]

Just curious, but what was so horrible about his wife?

[You Dirty Rats]

he was certainly a war mongering, Constitution shredding, tyrant.

The Southern States seceded WHEN they did solely because their candidate lost an election. A Republican wins for the first time, and instead of waiting to see what happens, they secede. Democrats were SORE LOSERMEN then, and they are SORE LOSERMEN now. The only difference was that Southerners did fight, while the Blue Staters today just whine and threaten to move to Canada.

[xp38]

The Republican party was founded in 1854. So this year was its sesquicentennial. The first Republican candidate for President in 1856 was John C. Fremont. He lost. Lincoln was the first elected Republican President in 1860.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Since the 'Rats cannot measure up to greatness, they try to sully the name of those that were. Just another attempt to smear the name of a hero.

Perhaps we should start a thread, entitled "A DemocRat Hero, but was FDR a Pedophile?" No evidence is necessary because of the "seriousness of the charge".

[squirt-gun]

Has aids impacted Tripp's mind?

[television is just wrong]

These guys are painting everybody with that rainbow. Next they are going to be saying ADAM and EVE were a gay couple and EVE was artificially inseminated by GOD and SATAN to give birth to CAIN and ABLE.

Anything to discredit society, and make these guys look normal.