Book Review – The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln by C.A. Tripp

The premise of the book is that Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual, or at least that he was a bisexual.  The problem with this premise is that the author doesn’t support it at all.

C.A. Tripp was a sex researcher and colleague of Alfred Kinsey, and author of “The Homosexual Matrix.”  This background, I believe, so stilted his research methods and how he drew his conclusions, that the book appears simply a preconceived contention in search of support.  Unfortunately, Tripp provides none.  Tripp passed away two weeks after completing the manuscript for the book.  In the introduction, the Mary Todd Lincoln biographer Jean Baker notes that if Tripp had lived he most certainly would have had to edit the book more extensively and that at least one more chapter would likely have been added.  My opinion is that another chapter would not have made any difference.  The book is so weak, in fact, that the publishers provided three “reactions and comments” from outside reviewers in an Afterword.  The book also includes three appendices that supposedly support the author’s contention, though reading these materials actually does not provide any additional support whatsoever.

The only “evidence” that Tripp provides as to Lincoln’s presumed homosexual tendencies is the well known fact that Lincoln shared beds with a few noteworthy men during his lifetime.  But this standard is so low that the majority of men during that era would have to be classified as having homosexual tendencies, as it was commonplace to share sleeping arrangements in the cramped quarters of the time.  This is especially true for those, like Lincoln, who were quite poor early in their lives and who traveled on the legal circuit.  Despite pointing out these sleeping arrangements, Tripp offers no evidence at all of any sexual relationship with anyone.  He merely presumes it and bases the entire book on this unsupported assumption.  Of all the writings by Lincoln, his presumed par amours, friends, colleagues, and family, absolutely none suggests any sexual relationship at all with any man.  In fact, all suggestions by Lincoln’s contemporaries of simple normal sleeping arrangements are rebuffed by Tripp as these people who knew him best being simply oblivious to the obvious signs.  The problem is that these are obvious signs only to a homosexual sex researcher of the late 20^th century who seems unable to view events from the perspective of the first half of the 1800s.  His only other “evidence” is the fact that Lincoln told some ribald jokes; something again that ignores the fact that Lincoln was constantly telling stories, most of which were not, in fact, sexually oriented. 

It should be noted that most of this 2005 book actually is taken up questioning his relationships with the various women Lincoln courted.  Somehow all of these relationships, and the fact that he sired four children with Mary Todd (who he spends an entire chapter decimating), merely show that he was secretly harboring homosexual tendencies.  In the end, the book provides no evidence whatsoever of such tendencies, and in fact, provides substantial evidence to the contrary.  The book was written based on the predisposition of the author and cannot be considered a reliable examination of this issue.