Unlike her husband, she was not profoundly opposed to slavery and hardly qualifies as the “ardent abolitionist” that some historians have portrayed. Lincoln often physically abused her 6’4” husband, as well as her children and servants she humiliated her husband in public she caused him, as president, to fear that she would disgrace him publicly. The reader comes to learn that Lincoln wed Mary Todd because, in all likelihood, she seduced him and then insisted that he protect her honor. This revealing narrative shows that, as First Lady, Mary Lincoln accepted bribes and kickbacks, sold permits and pardons, engaged in extortion, and peddled influence. As the president signed a document sparing the soldier's life, Lincoln said: “I want to punish the young man-probably in less than a year he will wish I had withheld the pardon.”īased on thirty years of research, An American Marriage describes and analyzes why Lincoln had good reason to regret his marriage to Mary Todd. During the Civil War, he pardoned a Union soldier who had deserted the army to return home to wed his sweetheart. An enlightening narrative exploring an oft-overlooked aspect of the sixteenth president's life, An American Marriage reveals the tragic story of Abraham Lincoln’s marriage to Mary Todd.Ībraham Lincoln was apparently one of those men who regarded “connubial bliss” as an untenable fantasy.
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