Sandburg did not elaborate on this comment. "Streak of lavender" was period typical slang for an effeminate man, and later connoted homosexuality. In his 1926 biography of Lincoln, Carl Sandburg alluded to the early relationship of Lincoln and his friend Joshua Fry Speed as having "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets". Attention to the sexuality of public figures has been heightened since the gay rights movement in the late 20th century. Suggestions of homosexuality or bisexuality Ĭommentary on President Abraham Lincoln's sexuality has been documented since the early 20th century. Lincoln wrote to a friend in 1838: "I knew she was oversize, but now she appeared a fair match for Falstaff". In 1837, Lincoln wrote to her from Springfield to give her an opportunity to break off their relationship. In contrast, his courting of Mary Owens was diffident. An anonymous poem about suicide published locally three years after her death is widely attributed to Lincoln.
Herndon, Lincoln's law partner and biographer, attests to the depth of Lincoln's love for Ann Rutledge. The spacing of the Lincoln children (Robert in 1843, Eddie in 1846, Willie in 1850, and Tad in 1853) is consistent with some type of planning and would have required "an intimacy about sexual relations that for aspiring couples meant shared companionate power over reproduction". As Americans separated sexuality from childbearing, forms of birth control such as coitus interruptus, long-term breastfeeding, and crude forms of condoms and womb veils, available through mail order, were available and used. įar from abstaining from sex, Baker suggests that the Lincolns were part of a new development in America of smaller families the birth rate declined from seven births to a family in 1800 to around 4 per family by 1850. Lincoln) that would have prevented intercourse, and in the 1850s, "many middle-class couples slept in separate bedrooms" as a matter of custom adopted from the English. Baker writes that there are "almost no gynecological conditions resulting from childbirth" other than a prolapsed uterus (which would have produced other noticeable effects on Mrs. īaker states that "most observers of the Lincoln marriage have been impressed with their sexuality" and that "male historians" suggest that the Lincolns' sex life ended either in 1853 after their son Tad's difficult birth or in 1856 when they moved into a bigger house, but have no evidence for their speculations. According to the book Lincoln the Unknown, Lincoln chose to spend several months of the year practicing law on a circuit that kept him living separately from his wife. She says that contemporary historians have a misunderstanding of the changing nature of marriage and courtship in the mid-19th century, and attempt to judge the Lincoln marriage by modern standards. Lincoln, Baker discounts historic criticism of the marriage. In addition to the anti–Mary Todd bias of many historians, engendered by William Herndon's (Lincoln's law partner and early biographer) personal hatred of Mrs. Baker, historian and biographer of Mary Todd Lincoln, describes the relationship between Lincoln and his wife as "bound together by three strong bonds-sex, parenting and politics". During this time, he avoided seeing Mary, causing her to comment that Lincoln "deems me unworthy of notice". Simon wrote that it was "traceable to Mary Todd". The incident was not fully documented, but Lincoln did become unusually depressed, which showed in his appearance. Simon explains that the various reasons given for the engagement being broken contradict one another. That was "the date on which Lincoln asked to be released from his engagement to Mary Todd". In the book Lincoln's Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years, Paul Simon has a chapter covering the period, which Lincoln later referred to as "The Fatal First", or January 1, 1841. Lincoln is believed to have suffered something approaching clinical depression. This was at the same time as the collapse of a legislative program he had supported for years, the permanent departure of his best friend, Joshua Speed, from Springfield, Illinois, and the proposal by John Stuart, Lincoln's law partner, to end their law practice. In what historian Allen Guelzo calls "one of the murkiest episodes in Lincoln's life," Lincoln called off his engagement to Mary Todd.
Lincoln and Mary Todd met in Springfield in 1839 and became engaged in 1840.