Nov 05, 2004  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

Resurrecting a four-decade old debate questioning the sexual orientation of President Abraham Lincoln, a new book asserts — based largely on circumstantial evidence — that the 16th president was gay.

“The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln,” written by the late Dr. C.A. Tripp, is slated for publication early next year according to a spokesperson for Free Press, the book’s publisher.

Tripp, who was a clinical psychologist, had worked closely with the controversial sexologist Alfred Kinsey. Using Kinsey’s famous scale that ranks the homosexual component of an individual from 0 to 6, Tripp wrote that, “By this measure Lincoln qualifies as a classical 5 — predominately homosexual, but incidentally heterosexual.”

The author died just two weeks after he completed his book.

According to a recent report in the L.A. Weekly newspaper, the book includes previously unreported accounts, including Lincoln’s stepmother admitting in a post-assassination interview that he “never took much interest in the girls,” his sharing of a bed with several men and a poem the teenage Lincoln wrote about two boys who get married.

A review copy of the book is not yet available, according to a spokesperson for the book’s publisher. But the L.A. Weekly story reported, “after assiduous and clandestine effort — we managed to obtain a copy of the book’s uncorrected proofs.”

Circumstantial evidence
Historians say the book is largely based on suggestive evidence and without concrete proof of Lincoln’s homosexuality, many historians are wary of Tripp’s claims.

“Highly circumstantial evidence at best,” said Craig Howell, a gay Civil War historian who leads professional historic tours. “It’s very difficult to interpret 19th century letters and customs. This information is suggestive but not conclusive.”

For four decades, some scholars and activists have asserted that Lincoln was gay. Many have focused on Lincoln’s long, intimate relationship with Joshua Speed, with whom Lincoln shared a bed for four years while both men were in their 20s.

Edna Greene Medford, an African-American history scholar at Howard University said there has not been much discussion of Lincoln’s supposed homosexuality at the various Lincoln scholarly conferences she regularly attends. Medford noted that many historians dismiss assertions that Lincoln was gay because sharing a bed with male companions was a common 19th century practice, Medford says.

Alan Kraut, a professor of history at American University, said males frequently shared the same bed in the 19th century because of poverty, tenement houses and the general confining nature of frontier life.

Douglas L. Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, said that while he understands why Lincoln’s relationships with men lead many to think he was gay, without concrete proof the information is merely suggestive.

“He and Speed were soul mates and all the indications I have seen show they had this close relationship,” Wilson said. “They were both the same age and in the same situation. They were concerned about this transition from bachelorhood to marriage and all that.

“I can see how that is suggestive and points in other directions but it really indicates that they saw things in very similar ways and had the same emotional take on the world.”

Additionally, scholars have not found any evidence that Lincoln found these sleeping arrangements odd or taboo, something that a gay person might have experienced at the time.

“[Lincoln and his sleeping companions] didn’t see it as a problem,” Kraut said. “There’s none of that. This wasn’t taboo. Lincoln had dark visions, but that did not have anything to do with his sexuality. Scholars have indicated that he was depressed.”

Wilson said a lack of such evidence indicating a sense of unease Lincoln might have felt over his male relationships was not unusual as the 16th president was “notoriously secretive.”

Gay activist Larry Kramer has claimed for years that Lincoln was gay. In a 1999 Salon interview, Kramer claimed to possess letters and a diary written by Speed about his relationship with Lincoln but the activist never released the documents.

Kramer could not be reached for comment.

In his new book, Tripp notes that Lincoln would always sign his letters to Speed with the intimate “yours forever” salutation, something he never wrote for his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

And, according to a recent report in L.A. Weekly, Tripp credibly describes Lincoln’s ...