Lover Of Men examines the intimate life of America's most consequential president, Abraham Lincoln. As told by preeminen | dG1fTHh2T1ViUzBfV0U
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00He is considered a sacred figure by both Republicans and Democrats.
00:06He led the nation through its greatest crisis.
00:08He's on our currency.
00:10We build monuments to him.
00:11He's the greatest president the United States has ever had.
00:14Today, the big question that people are asking is, was Abraham Lincoln gay?
00:22In the 19th century, for many men, their closest relationships were other men, and same for
00:26women.
00:27He would live with another man when they're single, and often did in shared beds.
00:31Lincoln probably slept in the same bed with men more than he did with women.
00:35One of the things that fascinates scholars is his bedding down with Joshua Speed for
00:41four years.
00:43There is love between those two men.
00:45When you put together all of the evidence, it's really startling.
00:51Lincoln has a type, dashing, daring.
00:53We have this notion that if you have an attraction like that, boom, that's your orientation.
00:59Sexuality through the mid-19th century was far more fluid.
01:03But for someone who wanted a political career, it was mandatory that you have a wife.
01:09Dear Speed, I shall be very lonesome without you.
01:12Yours forever, Lincoln.
01:15What you have in the 19th century was very strict marriage culture.
01:19Get married, and then everything is possible.
01:22Captain David Derrickson became friends with Lincoln while they were living here at the
01:25cottage.
01:26There is a soldier here devoted to the president, and when Mrs. L is not home, sleeps with him.
01:32What stuff.
01:33He was seen wearing the president's nightshirt.
01:36If you want a smoking gun, here it is.
01:38But then you see all these shifts to the end of the 19th century.
01:43Freud was devastating to sexuality.
01:46Defining very rigid categories.
01:50They're saying if a man loves another man, it's unnatural.
01:54Homosexuality is a mental illness.
01:56It was not only wrong, it was punishable.
01:59If Lincoln were to look down today, he would see the United States at a particularly fragile
02:04moment.
02:05History is so important because it allows us to understand who we were, who we might
02:10become.
02:11Lincoln's legacy is the insistence on equality.
02:13We have been in the halls of power.
02:15If you can accept a queer Lincoln, you can accept queer people overall.
02:19It should inspire us to achieve a true democracy for everyone.