Lincoln

View from the Hill:

I guess I'm going to have to comment on the new Lincoln book by C. A. Tripp. I have not yet had the time to read it, and it's not high on my priorities, but here goes:

In The Daughter of Time the mystery writer, Josephine Tey [Elizabeth MacKintock], coined a term, "Tonypandy," to refer to popular historical myths that were contrary to fact. These were things that "everybody knew" about famous individuals that were in fact false, or at best unsubstantiated. Tonypandy is a mining village in Wales where in 1910 protesting miners were gunned down by police. The myth arose that Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary, had ordered the attack and had taken a personal hand in directing it. In fact, Churchill had done just the opposite. He had tried to prevent any violent action against the protesters. In the novel Tey applies the term "Tonypandy" to any such historical libel and specifically to the persistent image of Richard III as a murderous madman; a slander invented, she argues, by the Tudors and their courtiers.

In recent years American historiography has produced a spate of just such agenda-driven sensational allegations regarding iconic figures. Jefferson, we are told, kept a slave mistress; J. Edgar Hoover was a closet queen, and so on. The assertion that Lincoln was gay is a part of this attempt to reshape our history into something that various activist groups find more congenial.

The Weekly Standard has published a scathing review of Tripp's work by his erstwhile collaborator, Philip Nobile. To me it seems that Nobile's charges, of plagarism, of suppressing contrary evidence, and of misrepresenting the evidence he does present, are irrefutable. In his recent book, We are Lincoln Men, David Donald, the foremost living Lincoln scholar, who had corresponded with Tripp, specifically rejected his conclusions, pointing out that they were not supported, and were generally contradicted, by what facts are known about Lincoln's early life. For now, that's good enough for me. I consider the proposition that Lincoln was gay or bisexual not only unproven, but highly unlikely given the evidence thus far presented. It is merely Tonypandy.