Lavender Lincoln – Not Likely

Was Lincoln a homosexual? This is the claim by C. A. Tripp in his controversial book, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. Before he died, Tripp was a protege of Alfred Kinsey, and as most reviewers have argued, that makes him rather inclined to see latent homosexuality in everything Lincoln did. Michael Bishop though makes perhaps the best argument against Tripp’s thesis:

Those who seek to understand Lincoln through an exploration of his physical life are doomed to disappointment. More than most major historical figures, Lincoln lived a life of the mind. He was no Jefferson, forever building pillared mansions, collecting fine wines and savoring French delicacies. Not for him flirtations with Parisian ladies or dalliances with slaves. Lincoln was neither an aesthete nor a gourmand; uninterested in art, he ate sparingly and barely tasted his food. The squalor of his early beginnings left him indifferent to his surroundings. His ascetic nature is part of his enduring mystery, and no resolution of that mystery will be found within this book’s pages. Dwelling on matters of the flesh will bring us no closer to Lincoln’s soul.

In the early 21st century, most social scientists are mired in the ideology of sexual liberation, which reduces humans simply to sexual beings. We forget about the unique qualities of statesmen, of the great-souled, and, to use Lincoln’s own phrase, those who “belong to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle.”