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The sexuality of Abraham Lincoln is a topic of debate. Lincoln was married to Mary Todd from...

The sexuality of Abraham Lincoln is a topic of debate. Lincoln was married to Mary Todd from November 4, 1842 until his death on April 15, 1865. They had four children. C. A. Tripp has commented that Lincoln's problematic and distant relationship with women stood in contrast to his more warm relations with a number of men in his life and that two of those relationships had arguable homosexual overtones. Lincoln biographers, including David Herbert Donald, have strongly contested these claims and believe that there is no evidence of homosexuality in Lincoln's life. As an astute politician, Lincoln was a man with many "friends," Donald says. In his letters, for example, Lincoln refers frequently to acquaintances, even political enemies, as "my personal friend." Commentary on Abraham Lincoln's sexuality has existed for some time but re-entered the public light in 2005 with the posthumous publication of C.A. Tripp's book The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. In his biography of Lincoln, Carl Sandburg in 1926 made an allusion to the early relationship of Lincoln and his friend Joshua Fry Speed as having "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets." "Streak of lavender" was