Transcripts For CSPAN3 Abraham Lincoln And Joshua Speed 20170527

Good evening and welcome to the Lincoln Group of washington, d. C. It is a pleasure to have you all here tonight for our speaker program. Those also who are watching on cspan. The Lincoln Group of washington, d. C. , is the longest, continuously functioning lincoln organization having been founded in the 1930s. Www. Ve a website at lincolngroup. Org, which is where our members and friends find out what we are doing. We are pleased tonight that our speaker is charles strozier. Charles is both a historian, professor at the City University of new york, but also a practicing psychoanalyst, and his study of Abraham Lincoln, which began many years ago 40 years ago and more has culminated in the book he published last year, your a. Lincoln the enduring friendship of Abraham Lincoln and joshua speed. Author of many books. In particular in 2011, and the anniversary of 9 11, his book until the fires stopped burning the11 and new york city in words and experiences of survivors and witnesses was nominated for the pulitzer prize. His first lincoln book lincolns quest for union a psychological portrait was published in 1982. I just finished the book. I believe that no future biography of Abraham Lincoln and be able to ignore it that every past biography of Abraham Lincoln has to be reevaluated in light of it, so it is with great pleasure that i introduce dr. Charles strozier. [applause] charles thank you. It is a great honor to be here. I am very impressed with what a robust group you have and all your activities. You take trips and go to the lincoln sites. It is wonderful. In middecember, my wife and i got a dog, a maltese dog. We named it lincoln. At least, i named it lincoln, and my wife agreed reluctantly. It started recognizing itself in the mirror. It recognized something that looks like another dog in the mirror. The next sequence was when we watched nature shows or he saw a wolf or a bear, he would run over to the tv and growl, and at the end of january trump came on the tv, and he ran over to the tv and growled. [laughter] charles i thought that was a smart dog. I want to try an experiment. It is dealing thank you very much for your nice comments. One of the dilemmas of my book is that the punchline comes towards the end with the speed correspondents. I cant emphasize enough the significance of this correspondence. This is when the only people he opened up to and totally trusted. The letters, lincoln did not keep speeds letters. But speed cap everything he got from lincoln. These are, without question, the most important source of insight into lincolns inner life. They also happen to be authentically in lincolns words and a primary source. This is in the context of what has emerged in the last couple of decades as for me a depressing false positivism in the lincoln field. The letters in the last century have never been fully appreciated. The letters themselves, speed did not have children, but they ended up in the hands of his nephew. Thats be in the 19teens sold them to a great collector who shared them with Carl Sandburg in the 90s. Then he died in 1952, the Springfield Library bought them for 52,800 which was this deal. A steal. L which was but they had been in the public realm before that. When herndon was carrying out his oral history he asked speed for a copy of these letters. It was the famous letter from 1855 and june 22 1865, and then november 30, 1865. Speed sent letters copies of the letters to herndon. That is why he had them and they were available to herndon. Also another ended up with those copies in 1894 in a 10 volume biography. They published the letters in their works in 1905. They were in the public realm. For 400 years nobody knew what to do with them. Nobody knew what to do with them. Beginning with lord chernwood in 1917. Carl sandberg was the first one to get at them. He did not know what to do with it. All of the biographies from Doris Kearns Goodwin and others. Whether fulllength biographies or biographical studies, all of them use parts. They quote a passage but nobody dives into the letters themselves. In my experience in my first job in 1972 in springfield, illinois. I had gotten my phd in european history so i stumbled on lincoln, what else are you going to do in springfield, illinois except study lincoln. I was 28 years old. In 1973i stumbled on these letters and i said, wow, amazing. I started working on them and thinking about them. After 1976, what convinced me that i should stay with this was i got to know the editor of the collected works. He was a wonderful garrulous type. He said you have to keep at this. He said Carl Sandburg used to tell me he did not know what to do with these letters. Somebody has to really interpret these letters. I had to back off from them because i did not feel i was qualified. That was all very encouraging. I then wrote it as a chapter in my first book. In retrospect i realized it was much too abbreviated because what it set in motion was out of that book, because we slept in the same bed for four years, what it occasions was the stuff about gay lincoln. Im responsible. Part of writing this book is to atone for that sin and to show why that hold. Dachshund that whole theory whole theory is wrong. But you cant just say it is wrong, you have to show it in detail. The whole literature, many others have written books about gay lincoln taking off from nothing and going nowhere. That in turn has occasioned another literature in the last 2025 years, a defense of lincoln against the image of gay lincoln. The two key figures in that our books by two writers with a high testosterone lincoln. Matilda edwards becomes the foil in that story. Ive been watching this unfold for many decades becoming increasingly frustrated and feeling strongly that everybody has it wrong. It was time to revisit this whole subject. I would like to say, i write another book about lincoln every 40 years. What i want to do in looking at these letters, i want to attempt what the french call an explication of text, looking closely at the text and explaining the meaning of what it is about. The first letter is dated january 3, 1842. It happens that there is no postmark or date on this letter. The reason is that it wasnt mailed. Lincoln had visited speed in kentucky and gone to see his plantation in farmington in late august or september. He was a very large slave owner. Speed had come back to springfield more about that, they were living together above the store where they had been before speed had left the nonback to kentucky. There is this wonderful image as they are about to part that speed is about to leave in springfield and go back to kentucky. Lincoln is writing the letter that he is going to get to him as he departs. My image is he probably stored it in his top hat after sitting in the law offices working all day, he would write it, and has the left he handed it to him. The date in the collected works assigned there, and he has january 3 . It is in parentheses because there is no postmark. He is actually wrong. It matters that it is wrong because speed road to herndon in september 22, 1866 that he remained in springfield until the first of january 1842. That means he left on the first. Why does that matter . It matters because what it elicited psychologically was an anniversary reaction, particularly on the part of lincoln because the letters are from lincoln. We actually know much more, thankfully. I would rather know more about lincoln than, but i want to know about both of them. It is a very important anniversary reaction, to a day lincoln always called the fatal first. Lincoln road, speed, i have responded to your last letter. It gave me more pleasure than the total sum that i have experienced since when i broke up with mary todd. Since then i should have been entirely happy but for the never absent idea that there is still one unhappy life contributed to make so. His sense of remorse having broken the engagement and leaving mary unhappy. The broken engagement, im sure most of you are familiar with the story, mary had come to live in springfield in late 1839 to live with her elder sister. Elizabeth edwards, they lift in the mansion on aristocracy hill or quality hill as the locals called it in springfield. Very quickly it is clear that they began that winter. Mary, one of the things in the recent literature is the denigration of mary. I find that amazing because she was a wonderfully interesting, exciting, sprightly, exciting, educated, she was very political, she could quote poetry at great lengths. She was described by one friend as certainly very pretty with her blue eyes and complexion. She had a perfect arm and hand. She was a bright faced eager girl, warmhearted, interested in everything, joyous in life. One friend said mary was the very creature of excitement. She can make a bishop forget his prayers. She was a wonderful conversationalist. Almost immediately lincoln fell for her. Elizabeth, marys older sister with whom mary was living during this courtship drama and later, is by far and away the best witness to this unfolding drama and the significance of lincolns love for mary. She said that lincoln was charmed with marys wit and fascinated with her will, nature, and culture. I have happened in a room where they were sitting and mary let the conversation. Lincoln would listen and gaze on her as if drawn by some superior power, irresistibly so. There is no question that they were engaged to be married. Lincoln talks about the broken engagement. What baffled everybody in late december, lincoln broke it off. The reason he talked about the first of january, 1841 as the fatal first, that was the day they were to be married. The broken engagement was a week or 10 days before that. The anniversary reaction a year later is twofold psychologically because the other thing that happened on that date is lincoln separated from speed, with whom he had been living and sleeping in the same bed for the previous 3. 5 years since he first arrived in springfield from new salem. He moved upstairs to the male dorm where herndon lived for two years and slept in another bed. Other people came in and out. What really happened, i go into this in great detail in the book, what happened as a background was speed, because his father was died and he was head of the family and they needed him back in louisville to run a plantation, he had made the decision in late summer that he was going to leave. The process of getting rid of the store was long and laborious. The real shadow that hung over lincoln throughout the fall of 1840 was the imminence of speeds departure. The notice of the store and the separation of their mutual head appeared in the local paper the springfield journal on january 1, 1841. When i argue is that separation from speed is what through threw lincoln into a panic that led him to be confused about all kinds of issues of love and intimacy and led him to break off his engagement with mary todd. In this first letter if you look at it, he goes on and he says, as i know you do, feeling as i know you do, he knows what speed feels. He puts himself into speeds existence. He extends himself into speeds life. I adopt this is the last method of him handing him the letter. He goes on, is it reasonable that he will feel very badly sometime between this and the final consummation of your purpose. What is the purpose . Speed has left springfield because he is going back to kentucky to marry on february 15. The noun consummation in this context is interesting, to say the least. He says why i say it is reasonable that you will feel very badly yet are because of three special causes. I just want to say one thing i forgot to mention, the fact of handing him the letter gives the letter makes it a talisman, a magical thing that speed is supposed to carry with them and hold him. Whenever he feels badly and feels depressed he can take a letter out and read it and presumably feel better. It is a further way of connecting the two men as they part and as speed goes off to marry in kentucky. Lincoln talks about how he has a naturally nervous temperament. They talked about the technical term, hypochondriasis. Lincoln shortened it to hypo, which he talked about in some of his letters as an affectionate term. Basically it is depression. What he feels is that they are both depressed i have so many pieces of paper i cant find what i want to find. When they when lincoln had gone to kentucky in late summer of 1841 to visit, almost the minute he arrived back in kentucky with his friend, speed at that point suddenly and very dramatically fell in love with Fanny Henning and asked her to marry him. It only could happen for speed with lincoln at his side. Speed later wrote to herndon the following, in the summer of 1841 i became engaged to my wife. He, lincoln, was here on a visit when i courted her. Strange to say, something of the same feeling which i regarded as so foolish in him took possession of me and kept me very unhappy from the time of my engagement until i was married. In other words, speed himself was depressed, anxious about intimacy, anxious about love, and confused he was not basically melancholy and depressive in the way lincoln was, but as soon as speed himself was engaged, he adopted the same foolishness that lincoln had adopted when he is when he had engaged to mary become engaged to mary todd. He lists things to worry about, bad weather, getting busy, but the third, the thing you really need to worry about, the rapid and near approach of that crisis on which all your thoughts and feelings concentrate, which is of course the imminent marriage on february 15. Top of the next page, same letter, i know the painful point with you is at all times when you are unhappy. It is an apprehension that you do not love her as you should. Just before i give some theory about this, go to the letter on february 3, the next page. Two passages there in the next paragraph. I hope and believe that your present anxiety about her health and her life will and forever banish those horrid thoughts about the truth of your affection for her. For the ron the death scenes of , those we love our painful painfulainful are enough that those we are prepared for and expect to see, they happen to all and all know they must happen. They are not an unlooked for sorrow. Should you fear you be destined for an early grave, it is great consolation to know that she is so wellprepared to meet it. Theres no indication there was anything wrong with fanny. [laughter] charles this is all in his imagination. What is going on . This is a series of profoundly important contradictions in lincolns thoughts. I think there are two parts to it. One of them is those you most love die, and this is when he is projecting onto speed. Those you most love die. And, you bear in your relationship to the person who dies, you bear some unconscious responsibility for that death. We know something about morning, think what isnd i evoked in speed leaving and marrying Fanny Henning and by the fact of marrying fanny means lincoln loses speed. He wants them to marry, you will see the double role that he is to play in that, and i think it evokes to be brief, certainly , we dont have much evidence, but it evokes what mustve been the serious drama lincoln trauma lincoln suffered when his mother died when he was nine. It was sudden, he was her beloved son. A beloved woman, and every indication in the oral history of their relationship is that it was rich and abiding. She was a wonderful mother, then she suddenly died. She suddenly died. His sister died which he was 18. There is no indication as to how traumatic that was. The next great trauma is when an rutger died in 1835. This was a serious relationship. It has been reconsidered for a long time. Middle of the 20th century it was regarded as a lot of bunk, but now after the work of simon and wilson in the 1980s, everybody recognizes it was a very serious relationship. She suddenly died and he was absolutely distraught and was suicidally depressed. It suggests, probably it evokes the death of his mother. But youre been to new salem, it is just 25 cottages spread out on a dirt road. His friends set up what amounted to a suicide watch. They watched him all the time. You told a he told a fellow legislator that he was afraid to carry a pocket knife. Nobody has noticed the significance of lincoln telling a friend in the legislature that he was afraid to carry a pocket knife, that is because he was afraid he would commit suicide. That is what you do, you slid your slit your wrist. That is why in psychiatric hospitals you are not allowed to have a pen, pencil let alone a , knife. That of course, the suicidal depression that we know the most about is what lincoln fell into in january 1841 fell into a after he broke off the engagement and separated from speed. He did not go immediately back to kentucky, but they split from their common bed and left a couple months later. He was staying with the butlers. They took away razors and knives. Watch, and mrs. Butler was particularly fond of lincoln. She and speed were on a rotating suicide watch. Herndon was hallucinating. In clinical depression, people often hallucinate. Lincoln was hallucinating in the middle of january 1841. Harnden said later that he was crazy as a loon, because he stopped his law practice and stop attending the legislature. It was a very serious event. Moving on where am i, im still on the february 3 letter. He said at the end of it why if , you do not love her, although you might not wish her death, perhaps this point is no longer a question with you and by dwelling upon it is a rude intrusion on your feelings. If so, you must pardon me. You know the hell i have suffered on that point and how tender i am upon it. This is a reiteration of the same theme, those you love die. There is an additional element that this passage suggests, and that is to be extension that lincoln has made his speeds dilemma, courtship, and relationship with fanny on extension of his own. He is speed, speed is lincoln. He so thoroughly has made speeds dilemma his own he can experience it vicariously as his own experience. That is really the power of that passage. The tension begins to mount. You get to the february 13 letter. The tension that is mounting is as the marriage approaches. He says, here is the first instance the first of february, came to hand three or four days ago. When this shall reach you, you would have been fannys has been several days. You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting, you know i will never cease being a friend while i know how to do anything. He writes the letter knowing that speed will read it after the promised marriage and consummation of the marriage. He is clearly highly agitated by this, by knowing that that was about to occur, the talismanic quality of the letter. Speed will be reading it in that context. At the end of the letter, there is a ps which has been controversial. He says, ps, ive been quite a man ever since you left. It could mean he is going off to prostitutes. Ive a whole chapter in my book about sex and prostitution. Some people dont get it. It is very important because all of the stories about lincoln going to prostitutes are from 50 years later and thirdhand. Often they are muddled in the mind of herndon. Clearly, if you really unpack it, and you have to do is story unpack it story by story by story, they are all lincoln jokes that got lost in translation by herndon who had no sense of humor. Lincoln loved to make fun of him and tell him stories purposely. The famous one is where he went to Niagara Falls after a trip back from washington in 1848. He wrote a note to himself, falls, they were here when christ walked the earth and they were here when the ancient greeks were here. He was really moved by the falls. Herndon asked him, what did you think of Niagara Falls . Not knowing about this fragment lincoln had written to himself. Lincoln said, i just wondered where all that water came from. [laughter] charles he was making fun of him. I have been quite a man since he left. I think it is that he being manly in the 19thcentury was to be assertive and to be in charge. When he broke up the marriage, he wanted speed to take a letter to mary. Speed said, are you kidding . You cant do that, that is not a manly thing to do. You have to deliver the letter yourself. Which he did. There were tears, and mary sat on his lap, and they kissed. It was all very dramatic. The manliness of that letter has to be understood in that context. The next letter, february 25. This letter to speed is the turning point in the emotional life in Abraham Lincoln. It is the single most important personal letter that he ever wrote. He begins, dear speed, i yours on the 12th, written the day he went down to your brothers place. I delayed answering it until i received the promised one on the 16th. They had already indicated that he was going to write him on the 16th. Why the 16th . He got married on the 15th and consummated the marriage that night and fell out of bed in order to write lincoln on the 16th. The promised one on the 16th. It came last night. I opened it with intense anxiety and trepidation, so much that although it turned out better than i expected, i had hardly yet at the distance of 10 hours. This is 33yearold lincoln. This is not some 17yearold adolescent infatuation. This is 33yearold Abraham Lincoln. 10 hours of the reading of the successful consummation of the marriage his hand is still shaking. I now have no doubt that is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me to dream dreams are of elysium exceeding what , anything earthly can realize. He goes on. At the end of letter there is an interesting paragraph. He says, i write another letter this, which you can show her show fanny if she , desires it. I do this as she would think it strangely perhaps should he tell her that you received no letters from me. Or telling her you do, should refuse to let her see them. In other words a conspiracy. , he is a friend of fannys. He talks to her. In one of the earlier letters he talked about beautiful blackeyed fanny. She knew him. The last letter is the fake letter. The date is enclosed with the real letter to speed. This is removed, i regret to learn that you resolve not to return to illinois, i should be very lonesome without you. This is of no emotional consequence. So what is the rest of the story . The rest of the story is, this vicarious experience of love and intimacy on the part of lincoln, vicariously being able to live through speed in realizing love and intimacy freed up lincoln to mary, who it is very important to understand, had graciously waited for him. That was a big deal to break on engagement. A woman was in the 19th century you were exposed, tainted, used goods. She was very vulnerable. He realized that and he was aware, he never stopped loving her, he always felt that i could that that he could never reach out for her. But, she waited. It took him a little while. He wrote to speed on july 4. He says it is painful, i acknowledge the correctness of your advice. Before i can resolve to do one thing or the other, i must regain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability, you know i once prided myself and it is the chief gem of my character, i lost it, how and when you know too well. Sometime after that july, probably august or september, he went back in reconnected with mary, probably through a friend and his wife. They started recording recourting in secret. They had to do it in secret because it had been a springfield brouhaha. Gossipy springfield. They started courting and october 5 they were engaged to be married again in secret. Lincoln wrote one final letter, not his last letter, but another letter to speed. He said, i want to ask you a closer question, are you now in feeling, underlined, as well as judgment, underlined glad you , are married as you are . From anybody but me this would be an impudent question not to be tolerated, but i know you will pardon it in me. Please answer quickly as possibly, as i feel impatient to know. Clearly, the answer satisfied him because they got married november 4 in the edwards home. A week later he wrote a letter a business letter and ended it by saying nothing new here except my marrying which is a , matter of profound wonder. Two things happened with his marriage, he remained depressed. He was always moody, he was always melancholy, but lincolns moodiness and melancholy was the source of his profundity. I think one cant reach those levels of profundity. One cannot deal as he did with the widescale death and destruction without being able to touch those levels of sadness in the self. However, he was never again clinically depressed after he married and after his experience of being freed from the issues of intimacy and love through his vicarious experience of speeds courtship and marriage to fanny. That is the end of his clinical depression. On the other hand and relatedly, the relationship with speed lost its emotional significance. Almost immediately speed no longer mattered. He had even lincoln handled some of his remaining business and legal issues in springfield, they even got into a spat in 1846. Lincoln wrote a letter an and you assign the suspension of our 86, correspondence to a true philosophical cause, it must be us thatd by both of this is a cold reason for allowing a friendship such as ours to die by degrees. Let me conclude by reading you a couple of paragraphs. Just two paragraphs. The friendship of lincoln and speed, certainly one of the most interesting in the 19th century and perhaps a paradigm attic paradigmatic american male friendship, discussed by aristotle and mantegna, the two most important thinkers of philosophy about friendship. Friendship was loving, noble, and exalted in the truest of senses. In psychological terms, the friendship while not sexual, with something more than platonic. It came to occupy a third level of friendship, moral, spiritual, but in its abided mutuality skirted close to the physical. In fact, in that bed together for four years there had to have been an occasional touching, a rolling over in a dream, a cost tossed arm, a cramped leg that introduced a familiar intimacy between them much greater than either man experienced in their wide circle of friends in the store, politics, ort, in socializing in the edwards home on quality hill. Skirting close to the physical without crossing the line into the sexual seemed to draw them into a psychological universe of acceptance and trust. They became bonded in ways of men in war, who live and die together, and what exists in many other social and Historical Context. The one thing that never returned after lincolns friendship with speed was his clinical depression and suicidality. Whenever he went through as a child, and there was plenty of evidence he was desperately sad after his mothers death, he was clearly a troubled young man in his late 20s and early 30s. Within a six year time span he , fell into two major depressions, in the fall of 1835, and the second in january of 1841. He was suicidal during both. In 1845, he talked about in he talked about carrying a 1835, knife for fear of killing himself, and wandered about distraught and distracted. In 1841, friends stood watch over him and remove anything, like his razor, that he might use to kill himself. He was crazy as a loon. But the next year his experience , of unsuccessful quest for love and intimacy indirectly through his friend speed in 1842, lincoln found his emotional compass. With this new sense of self cohesion, he managed to secure his own relationship that realized his aspirations. He was never again suicidal. He remains moody and was often melancholy, but found important emotional strategies in his humor and creativity, not to mention other things that that his selfesteem. Selfesteem. Is as he, Abraham Lincoln, joshua speeds best friend became the , most important brand of the most important public figure in the country. Thank you. [applause] charles we have time. Yes you are supposed to stand and somebody shifts the boom to you. You hinted that you were going to tell us there are why the recent school of folks who argued there was a gay relationship between speed and lincoln were misguided would , you . Charles levy give you one example. Let me give you a example. Larry kramer, the gay activist back in 2005 said a friend of his had found a diary that speed kept in the floorboards of the store during the years he lived with lincoln. There was a big to do, what all kind of stories in the new york times, and all of us were rather interested in this diary. The diary details their sexual encounters and how lincoln came to bed at night and on and on. The problem is, the building in which the store existed burnt to the ground in 1855. There is a reference in the local paper springfield journal , about this fire. Of course, larry kramer never produced the diary because it never existed. What seemed to be a primary source was not only fictional but a total lie. The other thing, i dont want to go through all the evidence, but most of it is of that character. The more general issue is we have to change our whole way of thinking to imagine both homosexuality and the history of homosexuality and male friendship in order to understand the 19th century. In the present, because our attitudes are different, in the present two men who talk about , their everlasting love for it other, who live together who , sleep in the same bed are presenting themselves to the world as homosexuals. It is accepted, no big deal, that is what they are. You wouldnt talk like that, you wouldnt act like that unless that was your identity and that is how you were living. In the 19th century, things were radically turned around so that actual homosexuality was completely it was illegal, regarded as loathesome, walt whitman was a homosexual in the closet. All kinds of taboos against it. You could get arrested. There were examples of some very good ive spent time reading the history of homosexuality. Some very good studies of the legal, paralegal, social personal, psychological , struggles that gay men had. The boundary against male closeness and actual sexuality was as firmly drawn as any boundary that could possibly exist, socially. On the other hand, expressive male fondness for each other was not only allowed, but encouraged. This was even more so between women and the history of female friendship was the first to get studied in these lines. I looked at it with man, obviously. For two men, as lincoln and speed, to talk about their everlasting love for each other was normal and encouraged to be expressive about intimacy, connection, and love. I think that is the way to see this relationship. As long as the boundary against sexuality was absolutely and strictly maintained. As i said, herndon slept upstairs in this room for two full years. There was another guy they were never alone in that room in the 3. 5 years they were together. So if there had been actual sexuality, it would have been revealed. And no witness in gossipy springfield at the time or later in any newspaper, any oral history, anywhere anytime by anybody, nobody hinted that there was anything untoward in this relationship. The only person who is jealous was herndon, who wanted to be as close to lincoln as speed was. It is clear and some of the things he wrote you can sort of , feel his jealousy. It is a much more interesting , textured, nuanced and , complicated relationship if one takes it out of this realm of sexuality, because there is zero evidence for it. It opens up a new way of thinking about male friendship in the 19th century. Bromance, 19th century bromance. [laughter] i stick around here, we can have a drink later. Reading some letters, mantoman letters of the 19th century, they are almost sensual in expressing friendship and a little unnerving to see people talk about such emotion in their correspondence. Clearly it was not unusual to express what you have described. Charles lots of examples. My question charles and the beginning of moby dick, right . The beginning . You mentioned lincoln taking on personal responsibility for the death of those near to him. Can you project from what you have studied that this further affected him with the death of his children, with the death of friends, or in wartime did this enhance the moodiness, the depression that he would have experienced as a result and any conclusions . Charles once lincoln found himself, got grounded, got past these debilitating issues of love and intimacy, he was able to realize his indoor miss enormous potential and grow into the figure whom we know. Because he was the leader during the civil war and was the person who had set in motion and stuck to the policies that led to that war. He always wrestled with a profound sense of responsibility for that. That is the larger Historical Context in which one sees played out. His extreme as a younger man, you see his sensitivity to those who he most loved die. It was written about a long time ago and some sincere essays about lincolns fascination with mcbeth. He loved shakespeare and mcbeth was his favorite play. He argues, reasonably, that the fascination in the middle of the war with macbeth represented that i think guilt is the wrong word the sense of responsibility and awareness of his personal role in setting in motion the war and he wrestled with it. He talked a lot in his private musings and his letters about how sad it was and how terrible that all these young men had to die. It also, aside from indirect evidence like liking macbeth, which is shakespeares great play about guilt. That is the guilt play. He was also able in his speeches to draw on the deepest of all possible sources of understanding of what the death meant. That is really what gettysburg the gettysburg address is all , about, drawing on an oration he had read as a child and memorized. Just as he is memorized as he had memorized the soliloquies. The same thing with the third and fourth paragraph of the second inaugural, where he shows the deepest empath like empathic understanding of suffering. He can extend his own experience and feelings and insight into the larger collectivity because it comes out of his very deep self experience. Mary has gotten a raw deal from several lincoln scholars. This extreme disdain for mary is unconscionable. I mean even for a 19th century , woman, mary was ahead of her time as far as being well educated and knowing politics. The fact that for a large part herself whenurn by eddie died because lincoln was out on the road. So many things she had to go through. Have you ever considered writing a book about mary . Charles in my first book, i have a long chapter about mary. The strongest criticism that one person reviewer said was, it is , one a pretty good book, but the best chapter is about mary. [laughter] charles the point of that early book, when i try to dwell on is their relationship and the meaning of their relationship. Yes, mary has gotten a raw deal. It goes from bad to worse. The latest i was in springfield , in the spring giving a talk about this book. The latest in springfield is they are talking about how mary actually seduced lincoln on november 3, and therefore she had already had sex with him and that is why they had to have a rushed marriage and that is why the baby was born nine months later. Well, babies, nine months later, so it is ridiculous. Mary had, they both had mary lost her mother when she was seven. They both had these deep childhood traumas of mother loss, undoubtedly part of the unconscious connection they had with each other. Even herndon recognize what an interesting, vivacious, outgoing woman she was. She was very political and fluent in french. Very political, she knew henry clay, if she had been a man she wouldve absolutely been in politics. She was more fragile than lincoln. As her experience of her children dying, first eddie than willie, and her husband did not die in her arms, but she held his bleeding head. After that she did unravel. That is a long way from the what from what the texture of their marriage in 1840s and early 1850s. When lincoln was totally devoted to her and absolutely loved her. A lot of people in this new literature, people ask how could lincoln have loved such an obnoxious woman . What a ridiculous question to ask. All the evidences he did of , course he loved her. And i would like to say, lincoln married up, and that is important to appreciate. Recognizing that mary did unravel in her later years and become very troubled psychologically. In the midst of these letters, lincoln gave a talk that is always considered one of the sequence of addresses, this was his address on temperance that came in the middle of these letters. What does that address tell us about lincolns state of mind in the period of these letters . Isrles the other context andyoung man lyceum speech, the temperance address just before the 1842 letter to speed ends with hailing rationality and learning how to control impulses, we must be rational and he goes on and on. Both in the temperance speech and the young man in the lyceum speech. If you read them psychologically, he is talking about can i control my own feelings and impulses . Particularly the temperance on. Ess reads odd. It is not lincolns greatest address. It is interesting, alcoholism was a serious problem in the 19th century. In the 1830s there was a higher consumption about all than ever of alcohol than ever in American History. People being drunk and abandoning their families. Children without fathers or income was a serious issue. He had real empathy for them. It was a serious address, but the personal issue of talking to the washingtonian society, the man for the early aa, the washingtonian society. And he shows empathy for drunks. In terms of lincolns humanity, that is what comes across in the temperance speech. You said that speed and his wife never had children, but they had a lot of nieces and nephews that they spent a lot of time with. Do you know any reason for why they did not have children, that was kind of unusual at the time . Charles there must have been some issue. They certainly love one another. The letters between the two of them, which are all in the are lovingsociety, and intimate. They were very fond of each other. He died in 1882, she lived until 1902. He became a hugely successful businessman. Andwned hotels, railroads, he owned slaves until 1865, two years after the emancipation proclamation. Kentucky never ratified the 13th amendment. He finally got rid of his final two slaves in 1865. And in the 1850s, he stopped working the plantation and he to become a businessman. But he cap 15, owned as many as 15 slaves, most of which he lent out. Maybe 4, 5 for household servants. He was a very, quintessential kentuckians in the 1850s. Absolutely loyal to the union. Distressed about the mounting sectarianism, lincolns best friend but a slave owner. ,and a big slave owner. And his father, john, and in one had been one of the biggest slaveowners in kentucky. At one point in 1839 owned as many as 62 slaves, a big occasion. Plantation. Context in which he grew up. I was talking about this earlier, there were 12 kids. Joshua and fanny did not have children, but all the other brothers and sisters had kids. That is why there are nieces and uncles why there is a speed art , museum in kentucky. Speed is a very prominent family and have remained that in kentucky. Yes . Fun one. A i can do it. He makes two references to fannys health, but then he says here, this is lincoln. Your religion, which i venture now you prize most highly. What is that about . Charles fanny was very religious. Very religious. Speed was always kind of supercilious about religion and never took it very seriously. Speed was not a deep thinker. You know lincoln was unchurched, but he was very spiritual. His speeches are littered with biblical references. It is astonishing. There is a great book about this where they unpacked everything. There is not one speech where there is not some reference to the Old Testament books as well as the new testament. Lincoln was steeped in this biblical culture and totally absorbed and into it. He didnt like church, he had mocked ministers. He told some funny stories in new salem about ministers. Fanny was very religious, and speed, when he got to the last couple years of his life got diabetes. The last six months he was in terrible pain and had to amputate a leg. He was in terrible suffering and he converted to christianity, his wifes christianity, she was a methodist. She inherited all of his wealth, at least 20 million in contemporary money. When she died in 1902, half of it went to the methodist church. This is always the story. Lincoln, interestingly, there is James Cornelius in Springfield Lincoln curator who i have , a gotten to know quite well, he pointed this out to me. When lincoln visited farmington in 1841, he got quite close to speeds mother who was a very wonderful maternal figure. He had to have a tooth pulled, she nursed him, and she gave him a bible. He wrote his thank you letter and talked about how much the bible meant to him, now he gets a chance to read it, even though he knew the bible very well. He gilded the lily a little bit. That was in his thank you letter to lucy speed. The first time that lincoln begins to talk about god is after that visit. In his political addresses, he had never before that brought the word god into his writings until after lucy speed, a surrogate mother figure, in the late summer of 1841. Just an interesting aside. Charles, thank you very much. Charles thank you all. [applause] charles and we will reconvene in may at the clara barton missing soldiers home. Thank you all for coming. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this Holiday Weekend on American History tv on the span three, tonight at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on real america, 1977 documentary men of bronze, about the allblack 59 u. S. Infantry 15thent known as infantry regiment known as the Harlem Health fighters hellfighters. Robert. Slug robert got slugged almost immediately, and john fought all the more. Those who are not wounded or killed cut out. Body, 21 wounds in his but he refused to die. Sunday at nine 10 00 p. M. , historian and author Elizabeth Cox about the women telephone operators of the u. S. Army signal corps. To d they had to speak to a french operator and partly to parlezvous, and they could not. They began recording women not because they were as good as men, because then you would just use men, but at this job they were better than them. And we will visit the world war i you more real in kansas city, missouri world war i memorial in kansas city, missouri. What we seek to do is tell the story through the lives of people, ordinary people, men and women, volunteers as well as those who served in the armed forces from all sides. For our complete schedule, go to cspan. Org. April 6, two thousand 17 marks the 100th anniversary of the united take entry into world or one world war i. Next, a panel of historians discusses what motivated the United States to declare war on dermo germany. They also discuss the influence the great war is still having on conflicts around the world in the 21st century. Relationsl on foreign in washington dc hosted this hourlong event. Hello everyone. I am the senior price i am james lindsay, the Senior Vice President here. I would like to welcome you all to the days events. And entry into world war i, lessons 100 years later. This meeting is part of the councils lessons from history series, which has been possible from theer