Сексуальность Авраама Линкольна: исторические спекуляции и исследования

Topic of historical speculation and research

The sexuality of Abraham Lincoln has been the topic of historical speculation and research. No such discussions have been documented during or shortly after Lincoln's lifetime; however, in recent decades, some historians and authors have begun discussing potential evidence that he may not have been heterosexual. Mainstream historians generally hold that Lincoln was heterosexual, noting that the historical context explains away the supposed evidence, that he had romantic ties with women, and that he had four children in an enduring marriage to a woman.

Lincoln met Joshua Fry Speed in Springfield, Illinois, in 1837, when Lincoln was a successful attorney and member of Illinois' House of Representatives. They lived together for four years, during which time they occupied the same bed during the night (some sources specify a large double bed) and developed a friendship that would last until Lincoln's death. According to some sources, William Herndon and a fourth man also slept in the same room. Historians such as David Herbert Donald point out that it was not unusual at that time for two men to share a bed due to myriad circumstances, without anything sexual being implied, for a night or two when nothing else was available. Lincoln, who had just moved to a new town when he met Speed, was also at least initially unable to afford his own bed and bedding; however, Lincoln continued sleeping in a bed with Speed for several years. A tabulation of historical sources shows that Lincoln slept in the same bed with at least 11 boys and men during his youth and adulthood. There are no known instances in which Lincoln tried to suppress knowledge or discussion of such arrangements, and in some conversations, raised the subject himself. Tripp discusses three men at length and possible sustained relationships: Joshua Speed, William Greene, and Charles Derickson. However, in 19th century America, it was not necessarily uncommon for men to bunk up with other men, briefly, if no other arrangement were available. For example, when other lawyers and judges traveled "the circuit" with Lincoln, the lawyers often slept "two in a bed and eight in a room". William H. Herndon recalled for example, "I have slept with 20 men in the same room". In the nineteenth century, most men were probably not conscious of any erotic possibility of bed sharing, since it was in public. Speed's immediate, casual offer, and his later report of it, suggests that men's public bed sharing was not then often explicitly understood as conducive to forbidden sexual experiments. The fact that Lincoln was open about sharing a bed with Speed is seen by some historians as an indication that their relationship was not romantic. None of Lincoln's enemies hinted at any homosexual implication. Joshua Speed and Lincoln corresponded about their impending marriages, and Gore Vidal regarded their letters to each other as having evinced a degree of anxiety about being able to perform sexually on their wedding nights that indicated a homosexual relationship had once existed between them. Despite having some political differences over slavery, they remained in touch until Lincoln died, and Lincoln appointed Joshua's brother, James Speed, to his cabinet as Attorney General. In 2016, historian and psychoanalyst Charles B. Strozier published, Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed, in which he examines their relationship. In 1982, Strozier had previously written Lincoln’s Quest for Union, in which there was a chapter that some had taken as support for the Lincoln gay thesis. Strozier concludes that the relationship was not homosexual and that Lincoln was straight.

Captain David Derickson of the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry was Lincoln's bodyguard and companion between September 1862 and April 1863. They shared a bed during the absences of Lincoln's wife, until Derickson was promoted in 1863. Derickson was twice married and fathered ten children. Tripp recounts that, whatever the level of intimacy of the relationship, it was the subject of gossip. Elizabeth Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln's naval aide, wrote in her diary for November 16, 1862, "Tish says, 'Oh, there is a Bucktail soldier here devoted to the president, drives with him, and when Mrs. L. is not home, sleeps with him.' What stuff!" David Donald and Johnson both dispute Tripp's interpretation of Fox's comment, saying that the exclamation of "What stuff!" was, in that day, an exclamation over the absurdity of the suggestion rather than the gossip value of it (as in the phrase "stuff and nonsense").