The Darkness of Abraham Lincoln

Cincinatti Post ^ | 1/16/05 | Patricia Brennan

[Chewie84]

I didn't watch it. I remember when my mother and I saw a commercial, she and I (Though her more than me) were both rather offended by the special's tagline: "He fought two wars: One was in his head." Lincoln was arguably our greatest president, and that tagline seemed to suggest he was insane or something. I am not sorry at all that I missed it.

[x]

People miss a lot if they don't have the historical context. Two writers born in the same year as Lincoln: Edgar Allen Poe and Alfred Tennyson. Both would count as clinically depressed today. It was part of the late romantic atmosphere of the time, and came almost as much from books as from reactions to life experiences.

Strong expressions of feeling between men were also common in the early 19th century, and Lincoln arguably had less of such such sentimentality than other contemporaries. You can see some of this male motionality in the movie Gettysburg. Bed-sharing, either at the same time or in shifts, wasn't uncommon in frontier areas, and rarely had a sexual side.

[4CJ]

Lincoln was the best thing that ever happened to the South.

Without Lincoln my ancestors would have lived lives of peace and contentment. With Lincoln it was just the opposite. Would you consider your family being killed, their home burned, their livestock, jewelry and other valuables stolen, the women and young girls raped, the men killed in battle as being "the best thing that ever happened"? God help this country if such sentiments are pervasive.