 Greetings from the National Archives flagship building in Washington, D.C., which sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. It's my pleasure to welcome you to this virtual author lecture with Michael Berlingame, author of An American Marriage, a new book about Abraham and Mary Lincoln. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Thursday, June 17th, at noon, we'll hear from Peter S. Canellos, author of The Great Decentre. The Decentre, Justice John Marshall Harlan, broke with his colleagues on the Supreme Court and became the nation's prime defender of the rights of black people, immigrant laborers, and peoples in distant lands occupied by the United States. And on Tuesday, June 22nd, at noon, author Les Standefort will tell us about his new book, Battle for the Big Top. This book reveals the stories behind the three men, James Bailey, P. T. Barnum, and John Ringling, who created the American Circus. The actions of the great figures of history often seem preordained and almost always play out on the public stage. The human side, the daily life at home, is harder to uncover. Michael Berlingame has set out to draw back the curtain on the domestic life of Abraham Lincoln. As President Lincoln contended with the political and military battlegrounds during the Civil War, his home life says Berlingame did not provide the relief he sought. Drawing upon diary's correspondence memoirs, newspaper accounts, and federal records, Michael Berlingame explores the marriage of Abraham and Mary Lincoln and the burdens of the couple bore. Michael Berlingame, holder of the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in nearby Arlington. His first book, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, appeared in 1994. Since then he has written and edited over a dozen other Lincoln books, including Abraham Lincoln, A Life, a two-volume biography that won the 2010 Lincoln Prize and was deemed one of the five best books of the year by the Atlantic. This October Pegasus Books will release his study, The Black Man's President Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, in the Quest for Racial Justice. He is currently President of the Springfield-based Abraham Lincoln Association. Now let's hear from Michael Berlingame. Thank you for joining us today. Before I begin my formal remarks, I would like to thank the Archives for inviting me to participate in this series. Over the years I've spent many hours at the Archives, both in the downtown Washington branch and out in College Park, conducting Lincoln research, and the research that is most relevant for the book that I'm talking about today was in the records of the Interior Department and in the records of the Senate Committee on Public Buildings. There was a great deal of information about how spending was done at the White House, indicating that it was not always above board, and it was very useful to be able to see official documents rather than just newspaper speculation about what was really going on. So I'm very grateful to the Archives, not only for inviting me, but for then preserving these records and making them so easily available to scholars like myself. Okay, enough said. Let's talk about the book. Abraham Lincoln was apparently one of those men who regard Canubial Bliss as an oxymoron. That is a contradiction in terms. During the Civil War, he pardoned a Union soldier who had deserted to return home and wed his sweetheart, who reportedly had been flirting with another swan. As the President signed the necessary document, sparing the miscreant's life, he said, I want to punish the young man. Probably in less than a year, he will wish that I had withheld the pardon. My book describes and analyzes why Lincoln had good reason to regret his marriage as much as he expected the young soldier to rue his. The book demonstrates a number of things. That as First Lady, Mary Lincoln padded payrolls and expense accounts, accepted bribes and kickbacks, sold trading permits, state secrets and pardons, and peddled influence to help robes and scoundrels secure government contracts and offices. But Lincoln wed Mary Todd because in all likelihood, she seduced him and insisted that he protect her honor. That the five-foot-two-inch Mrs. Lincoln physically abused her six-foot-four-inch husband, as well as her children and her servants, some of whom actually fought back. That she humiliated her husband in front of others on repeated occasions. That she caused him as president to fear that she would disgrace him publicly. That the 31-year-old Lincoln broke his original engagement to Mary Todd because he became infatuated with a gorgeous 18-year-old belt that Lincoln was known in Springfield as woman-whipped, woman-cowed, and hand-packed. That Mrs. Lincoln suffered from mental disorders, including man-naked depression and narcissism, as well as pre-menstrual stress syndrome and migraine headaches. That she may have committed adultery. That although her best friend in the White House was an African-American seamstress, as First Lady, she manifested anti-Black prejudice. That unlike her husband, she was not profoundly opposed to slavery and hardly qualifies as the, quote, ardent abolitionist that some have portrayed. That she cannot be considered a feminist of Aunt LaLetra, that is ahead of her time. That Lincoln may not have become president if he had not wed Mary Todd, or she acted as a goad to his ambition and also made his home life so unhappy that he invested much time and emotional capital in his political career. That while providing a useful stimulus to his ambition, she, quote, crushed his spirit as his law partner William Herndon put it. And finally, that Lincoln may not have had as successful a presidency as he did when he showed a preternatural ability to deal with difficult people if he had not had so much practice at home. Before proceeding, I wish to emphasize that Mary Lincoln, for all her faults, is more to be pitied than censured. Although William Herndon originally portrayed her unfavorably, in his later years Herndon insisted that, quote, the world does not know Mrs. Lincoln's sufferings, her trials, and the causes of things. I sympathize with her. Indeed, as her oldest sister, Elizabeth, who was in effect her surrogate mother, told Herndon not long after Lincoln's death, quote, Mary has had much to bear, though she don't bear it well. She has acted foolishly, unwisely, and made the world hate her. Mary Lincoln did indeed have much to bear. Her mother died when she was only six years old, and her father quickly remarried a younger woman who disliked Mary and her siblings. Feeling emotionally abandoned by her father, who tuned her out in order to accommodate his new wife, and rejected by her stepmother, Mary developed an intense psychological neediness, rooted in her sense that she was unloved and unlovable. She did not ask to have a childhood that she later described as, quote, desolate, nor to inherit the gene for bipolar disorder, nor to endure migraine headaches for much of her adult life, nor to suffer from menstrual disorders, nor to lose three of her four children before they reached adulthood, nor to have her husband murdered by her side at the height of his popularity and influence. As Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed four years after Lincoln's assassination, Mrs. Lincoln should call out her sympathy rather than denunciation, her unhappy organization, her tendency to insanity for which she is not responsible, increased and aggravated by the great sadness of her husband which rested like a dark cloud most of the time on his household. All these things should furnish a sufficient excuse for many of her idiosyncrasies of character. My book attempts neither to excuse nor to denounce Mary Lincoln, but rather to describe accurately and fully her marriage and her idiosyncrasies of character and to make the latter understandable. In trying to comprehend why the Lincoln's marriage was so woe-filled, readers should bear in mind that the depressive emotionally reserved and uncommunicative Lincoln was far from an ideal husband. As his wife said, despite his quote, deep feeling and amiable nature, he was quote, not a demonstrous, a demonstrative man. When he felt most deeply, he expressed the least. Others concurred, for example, Elizabeth Todd Edwards who deemed him a cold man with no affection. That said, it must be acknowledged that Mary Lincoln's behavior helped make her husband truly a man of sorrows. Also helping to make him such a man were the soul-crushing responsibility he shouldered as president during the nation's bloodiest war. But it is impossible to understand the depth of that sorrow without realizing just how woe-filled his marriage truly was. One of the most poignant discoveries I made in more than 30 years of Lincoln research is an unpublished interview with one of the president's longtime friends and political allies, Orville H. Browning. Even though Lincoln was notoriously quote shut mouth about his private life, Browning recalled that during the Civil War the president often told him quote about his domestic troubles and that he was constantly under great apprehension lest his wife should do something which would bring him into disgrace. And she did just that by her unethical tactless, unpopular, scandalous behavior as first lady. Try to imagine contending the pressures to which Lincoln was subjected as he toiled to unify the Fisiparous Republican Party composed of Whig-hating former Democrats and Democrat-hating former Whigs and the even more Fisiparous North which included slaveholders in the loyal border states and abolitionists in New England, anti-tariff free traders and high-tariff protectionists, radical European refugees and nativist anti-catholic, anti-immigrant bigots, teetotaling prohibitionists and beer-loving Germans as well as racial egalitarians and died in the wool negrophobes. On top of that he had to inspire popular morale to raise armies and find capable leaders for them to mobilize the economic resources of the north to distribute patronage wisely while besieged by swarms of importunate would-be civil servants and to deal with hyper-critical newspaper editors, back-biting cabinet members, fractious governors, egomaniacal legislators and recalcitrant generals among others. And on top of all that he had to co-habit the White House with a woman whose indiscreet and abusive behavior taxed his legendary patience and forbearance to the limit. A few months after Lincoln's assassination Orville Browning while discussing Mrs. Lincoln's quote mental weakness predicted that quote people will never know what Lincoln suffered and endured. He had the wisdom of Socrates and the patience of Christ. The sad story of the Lincoln's domestic life has long been glossed over. In 1946, Ellery Sedgwick the editor of The Atlantic Monthly lamented that writers dealing with Lincoln's quote tragic marriage had drawn quote a quiet curtain over a supreme exasperation of his life. And as a result the full magnificence of his conquest over circumstances remains incomplete. Mary Todd Lincoln Sedgwick wrote was quote a termigan and a horror and yet how is she remembered? The other day I turned to pages of a biography which made her the sweet heroine of romance and even Carl Sandberg is so charitable that he thinks of her as a poet should think of every woman. Sedgwick's appeal to strip away the quiet curtain hiding the truth about Lincoln's marriage has gone unheeded. A few years after his memoir appeared Ruth Painter Randall published a book Mary Lincoln biography of America depicting her subject as quote an appealing love story and assuring readers that quote the nation can well be proud of this American romance. Many subsequent authors have followed Mrs. Randall's lead. More recently historians like Gene H Baker and Catherine Clinton have lionized Mrs. Lincoln implausibly making her out to be a pioneer feminist. The effect of such romanticized and politicized works has been to create what historian John Y Simon called the quote legend of the happy marriage. The worst offenders are Mrs. Lincoln's biographers who resemble defense attorneys and cheerleaders rather than impartial scholars. Michael Burkheimer aptly deems them apologists for Mary Lincoln. Some of her defenders go so far as to justify the physical abuse that she administered to her husband. Bruce A Warren for example commenting on her reputation for having quote a quick temper and a sharp tongue concluded quote positively she threw coffee at Lincoln and drove him out of the house with a broom and probably he deserved it. Considerable evidence shows that in fact Lincoln's marriage was as his law partner William Herndon observed quote a domestic hell on earth of burning scorching hell as terrible as death and as gloomy as the grave. After practicing law with Lincoln for well over a decade in a two-man firm Herndon explained quote poor Lincoln he is domestically a desolate man has been for years to my own knowledge because of his marriage to a very curious eccentric wicked woman. Herndon had ample reason to call Mary Todd Lincoln a she-wolf a tigress and the female wild cat of the age. Although Mrs. Lincoln's biographers have criticized Herndon and his informants that is the many many people that Herndon interviewed and corresponded with Douglas L. Wilson an eminent Lincoln scholar co-gently argued that quote it is hard to see that the stories Herndon collected or his own view of Mary and the Lincoln marriage differed materially from that of many of Lincoln's other close friends or so far as we can gauge it from that of Springfield in general. As Lincoln historian Paul M. Angle noted in 1930 quote as to Lincoln's domestic difficulties no fair-minded student can disregard what Herndon wrote the supporting testimony of other contemporaries is too overwhelming that supporting testimony is indeed overwhelming and it's far greater now than what was known in Angle's day though it has not been systematically collected and presented to the public a function that my book aims to serve. Thanks to the development of word searchable newspaper databases it is possible to learn much more about Lincoln's life in general and his marriage in particular than previous writers could do. A great deal of the evidence adduced in my book comes from informants other than those who Herndon consulted. The unflattering accounts of Mary Lincoln's character and behavior given by people who knew her is vast but it might have been greater for some potential informants refused to share what they knew about her. The best placed informant was Harriet Hanks who as an adolescent lived in the Lincoln's home for a year and a half soon after their wedding but two decades later she wrote to Herndon saying any information that I can give you in regard to the loved and lamented Lincoln will be freely given but I would rather say nothing about his wife as I could say but little in her favor I conclude it best to say nothing at all. Lincoln's friend and sometime chess opponent judge Samuel H. Treat similarly balked when an interviewer asked his opinion of Mrs. Lincoln quote beyond the simple admission that he was acquainted with her coupled with the names of three or four other persons who he claimed could adequately describe her quote if they dared to he declined to commit himself. Mary Nash Stewart the wife of Lincoln's first law partner was equally reticent. When asked about Mary Lincoln Mrs. Stewart refused to say more than oh she was a Todd. Eliza Francis wife of Lincoln's close friend Simeon Francis could have shared much information about Mary Todd but refused to do so. Denise Marietta perhaps relying on what Aunt Eliza told her stated that quote Mary Todd made Lincoln's life miserable. The journalist J.K.C. Forrest recalled that it was an open secret at Washington that throughout Lincoln's presidency the first lady was a source of great and perpetual anxiety and annoyance to her husband quote the sufferings of the man on account of her eccentricities to designate them by no stronger appellation were literally such as would crush a man of less elastic moral and physical constitution. The most charitable conclusion is that the lady was mentally unbalanced and thus at times was not responsible for her acts. Similarly the Pennsylvania Republican leader and newspaper editor Alexander McClure stated that Lincoln quote had a crazy wife when he entered the presidency and many as were his sorrows because of the war and bloody struggle for the preservation of the union the crowning sorrow to one of his domestic taste and love of home and family was the dark shadow that Mrs. Lincoln cast upon his life. Lincoln's friends quote all knew the situation and her failings were overlooked although few if any of Mr. Lincoln's close political friends entertained the respect for Mrs. Lincoln that should have been accorded to the mistress of the White House. One of those political friends was Carl Schwartz who spent time with Mrs. Lincoln during the civil war and her testimony before the US Senate committee on pensions when she applied for relief in 1869 to 1870. Many witnesses told that committee that she quote had been a curse to her husband. A report from that committee recommending against the proposal to grant Mrs. Lincoln a punch a pension stated quote there are some other facts bearing on this subject which it is probably not needful to refer to but which are generally known and the evidence to part of which is in possession of the committee. Schwartz wrote of Lincoln quote it was no secret to those who knew the family well that his domestic life was full of trials. The erratic temper of his wife not seldom put the gentleness of his nature to the severest tests and those troubles and struggles which accompanied him through all the vicissitudes of his life from the modest home in Springfield to the White House of Washington adding untold private heartburnings to his public cares and sometimes precipitating upon him incredible embarrassments and the discharge of his public duties form one of the most pathetic features of his career. Schwartz who voted in favor of the bill granting Mary Lincoln a pension put it even more strongly in an interview calling the president's marriage quote the greatest tragedy of Mr. Lincoln's existence. Lincoln once gave his wife a copy of a book called The Elements of Character by Mary G. Champel this was published in 1854 and in this book he had underlined a passage indicating that marriage could deteriorate from quote the highest happiness that can exist on earth to a fountain of misery of equality absolutely infernal. The Lincoln's marriage was such a fountain of misery yet from it flowed incalculable good for the nation. Lincoln may not have had such a successful presidency during which he showed a preternatural ability to difficult to deal with difficult people as i mentioned earlier if he had not had so much practice at home as his friend and colleague at the Illinois bar and biographer Henry C. Whitney wrote quote Lincoln possessed an equanimity and patience which captivated the masses while it tired out petulant grumblers like Horace Greeley, Wendell Phillips and the like which enabled him to force unwelcome policies on his cabinet on congress and on the nation which allowed him to bear his faculties with meekness and finally to restore peace to his bleeding country and give physical freedom to the blacks and political freedom to the whites. Whitney speculated that if Lincoln had not undergone the harsh quote domestic discipline he experienced at the hands of his difficult wife he might well have failed as president quote the nation is largely indebted to maritime Lincoln for its autonomy. Whitney concluded equally important Lincoln may not have become president if Mrs. Lincoln had not turbocharged the little engine that his ambition was and so in conclusion i would like to emphasize that that the importance of this book is to make it clear not that Mrs. Lincoln was a bad person but that her marriage was a very woe-filled one it's not because Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln were bad people it was just because the marriage was a bad one they were incompatible and again i wish to emphasize heavily that Mrs. Lincoln is more to be pity than to be censured however let me emphasize again that she did make this domestic life truly woe-filled. I thank you for your attention