>> her legacy is a profound base of work that anyone of us could look at and realize what courage and determination and perseverance she had to continue battling as she did as a female for not only the abolition of slavery, but for human rights, the rights of all human beings. she speaks to us now as much as she did in the 19th century because of the bullying going on , all the fights, the discrimination, and the prejudice. her courage, her willingness to stand up and fight the odds and take all the harassment, the constant harassment really proves that an ordinary person can effect change, can do extraordinary things in the

world. and that is a legacy that she leaves. >> overseas tour staff recently traveled to worcester, massachusetts, to learn about it rich history. you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. >> coming up next, author catherine clinton details president lincoln's wife mary. she considers how mary would have been remembered if she had died instead of her husband. also talking about why the critics have labeled her "crazy." southern methodist university center for presidential university posted this event. >> it is not only an honor and a privilege to introduce tonight speaker, it is to me, a personal delight because she and i were

classmates in princeton many years ago. catherine clinton is the professor of american history at the university of texas at san antonio. she is also one of this country's most distinguished historians of american women, the south, and the civil war. she is a proud daughter of kansas city, missouri, and she studied as an undergraduate at harvard. shoo-in for a phd at princeton, completing her dissertation on the direction of james mcpherson. her dissertation will be published in 1982 as the book "the plantation mistress." it was her first work to be characterized justly as "pioneering." drawing on the diaries, man ofletters and memoirs

hundreds of plantar wives, the book challenges and interprets a host of issues related to the old south. the book forces us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about two peculiar institutions. the slave plantation, and the 19th-century family. as a result, it alters our understanding of the old south and women's place in it. catherine, we go -- would go on to author or edit by my count some 17 additional books, all of which are in the library. several became history book club selections. these included biography of harry tubman, the mosys-like conductor of the underground railroad which the chicago tribune put on their list for the best works of nonfiction in 2004. more recently, she published "mrs. lincoln: a life."

this volume is an engaging, wonderfully written narrative that provides fresh insight into this complex woman. it is a triumph. according to pulitzer prize-winning historian joseph ellis, the biography is " distinctive for its abiding sanity. it's daft and in-depth handling of the white house years and for the consistent quality of prose." along the way, she has also written several history books for children and she has worked as a consultant on to academy award-winning movies. "12 years a slave" and steven spielberg's "lincoln." she's been at commentator for documentaries. her lectures are often broadcast on bbc and c-span.

before coming to utsa she taught at harvard, brandeis, the citadel, wesleyan, and queens university. belfast, northern ireland. finally, not long ago, she was elected by her peers and is now serving as president of the southern historical association. a richly deserved capstone recognition for her career achievements in her field of endeavors. so far. please give a warm welcome to professor catherine clinton. [applause] prof. clinton: i am worn out after hearing all of these things. thank you, tom, for that very warm introduction. i'm very pleased to return to the smu campus where i have enjoyed my visit before.

now that i am a texan, it is even easier to make my way here. thank you for making my -- me feel some welcome. i am pleased to talk about a topic, mary lincoln's assassination. americans are nationally focused on honoring the memory of the fallen leader and his legacy remains daunting. at this moment in his legacy, it might behoove us to look at the impact of lincoln's death when hundred 50 years ago on another key player in the civil war white house. while mary lincoln. it is my hope that from the vantage point of a century and a half we can find a more authentic narrative to appreciate what i have come to call mary lincoln's assassination. i'm not trenches cd-quality cd you will quality, parity, or any other false construct for mrs. lincoln. i do think a more judicious

appreciation of her role in lincoln's life and legacy would be served by examining what i call a 3-d approach. i recommend the experience of mary lincoln on the night of april 14, 1865. subsequent trauma. the scrutiny endured by lincoln's wife particularly in the white house. carving out a place for herself as first widow. three, the character assassination heaped on mary lincoln most lately by a parade of lincoln scholars. i hope to leave all of these elements together to create a more three-dimensional look at her legacy. the full dimensions of the 16th president's death are well chronicled. there are over 600 titles of -- available in the library of congress. mary side of the story and the

full impact of the tragedy remains relatively underexplored. a new play, the widow lincoln, premiered earlier this year. mary lincoln had influence over lincoln's legacy, most particularly his association with black rights as the martyr-presidents gunned down by an opponent of the black vote. on april 11, two days after lee surrendered to grant, lincoln addressed a gathering crowd in the white house balcony. any reconciliation between former enemies would be challenging. he discussed the need for cooperation and mention the possibility of black veterans voting. lincoln ended his speech by suggesting there would be further developments. historian suggested one man in the audience understood perfectly what lincoln intimated. john wilkes booth told his companion that it meant black citizenship and confided, now, i will put him through. that's the last speech you will

ever make. historians continue to debate the myriad of reasons why lincoln was killed. recent scholarship has confirmed that lincoln and his assassination was at a minimum politically motivated. maximum, a crime. it elevated him to our first civil rights martyr. lincoln is part of a long list of martyrs who died for black voting rights. maker evers, james chaney, andrew goodwin, martin luther king, tragically, so many more. the misguided attempts to razz the defeated south to carry on the revolution rebellion backfired. it took on religious dimensions. his death was linked to that of jesus. to marry lincoln, a terrible fulfillment of premonition which is haunted her for years.

the event divided her life into before and after. a wound which would not heal. how did she experienced the death of her husband. something which nearly half a million wives had suffered in the past half decade. not well. extremely poorly. it was this initial. that signal that she would endure a loss of her protector. lincoln and wife arrived late at for theater. their entrance interrupted the stage. the band played hell to the theil to chief. lincoln and the guests settled into seats in the presidential box.

a celebrated actress was playing a starring role in "our american cousin." it was a popular standard, but the lincoln presence during the evening into an exuberant page ratification. he was a devoted theatergoer. this evening promised to be jubilant. mrs. lincoln was relieved because her son robert had just returned home from active duty. she and her husband have fought bitterly over his enlistment. but harmony was restored with his safe return. lincoln had written his wife a playful note that day to invite her on a drive. the president was attentive. the engaged young couple who accompany them to the theater and enhanced mrs. lincoln

's romantic mood. claimed toplay, she her husband's arm. john wilkes booth crept into the presidential box and fired his pistol directly into the back of lincoln's head. next he attacked henry rathbone with a knife before leaping onto the stage shouting "always to tyrants. whether he hurt his leg in the fall or during the escape on horseback. it remains a matter of dispute. as do so many of the events of that evening. dissolving into chaos. noise, blood. everything went out of focus for mary except her husband's head, slumped forward on his chest. his limbs slack. witnesses all agree that mrs. lincoln screams alerted the audience. once she saw blood, mary shrieked.

they have shot the president. a doctor unable to find the pulse. the doctor attempting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. improved traumatizing for his wife nearby. she felt helpless. soldiers lifted her husband. they carried him across the street. to a private house owned by william peterson. during the scene which unfolded, mary wondered why it was not she who was shot. this is actually prompting me to look at a counterfactual issue in an article entitled wife versus widow. how would history judge mary if it had been her instead of lincoln who had been shot? what would her legacy be? but lincoln alone was the one wounded and doctors agreed that there was no expectation of recovery. all except mary recognize that the end was near.

the cabinet gathered by lincoln's bedside while secretary of war edwin stanton issued orders and took charge. updating the outside world, trying to organize an unprecedented national manhunt to apprehend the assassin. the national park service preservation at the peterson home allowed visitors today to reimagine lincoln's last hours. as they enter the cramped bedroom at the rear of the house. many portraits included mrs. lincoln kneeling or sitting by the bed. the truth was she had been banished from the room. she wanted to remain by her husband's side. when she began to sob hysterically she was seeing into a nearby parlor. she realized that her husband was not getting any better. she collapsed into the floor. edwin stanton barked take that woman out and do not let her in

again." the deathbed of a loved one is a hallowed ritual. her ancestors were scotch iris. in victorian america, attending a dying husband was a wife's most sacred duty and obligation. to press into memory this final moment, to be there at the very end. everyone crowded in that room that night new a wife's privilege. his breathing became halting and labored. no one summoned mary. instead, the reverend suggested a prayer. more than a dozen men encircled her beloved leader. at 7:22 a.m. abraham lincoln was pronounced dead. edwin stanton uttered his tribute, now he belongs to the ages.

forgotten are the words of marry -- mary lincoln, the wife cap from her husband. when informed of his passing, she cried why did you not tell , me was dying? her cry was heard throughout the house. it was her grief that alerted those outside the peterson home. abraham lincoln was gone. it was in that moment the circle of men surrounding lincoln expelling his life from his dying bedside that mary's betrayal began. she became an exile within her own historical experience. with her husband's death mary was cast adrift. only able to imagine assuming her rightful place alongside her husband. mary did not want to leave her husband so she stayed on at the peterson home another two hours. abraham lincoln's reputation has soared. it has only grown more revered over the years, perhaps immortal

in the american and historical imagination. his wife's reputation had tumbled into a deeper decline. immortal she becomes, the more infernal she becomes. she began an object of pity confined to the sidebars of her husband's narrative. she did survive to attend one of her sons weddings. to see grandchildren born, to visit european capitals which she and her husband had both dreamed of visiting together. she dedicated herself to keeping legend burnished his halo , polish. simultaneously, she entered a series of crippling relations -- humiliations and losses. contemporaries and scholars alike debate the relationship between lincoln and his wife. perhaps no other occupants of the white house have endured such media attention. until the kennedy white house. the media industrial complex which follows. but even this has been surpassed

by speculation that engulfed that of bill clinton and hillary. i am called by the press to ask if mary lincoln ever through a lamp at the president and other keen historical insights. it's important to see marry -- mary lincoln's relationship with her husband continues to fascinate and perplex people. the questions would follow, did he love her first? did he love her best? did he love her at all? was she the only woman who could cajole him from his crippling, frequent bouts of melancholy and redirecting toward his destined greatness? did she nag and abuse him. was she a partner only for propriety? a requisite vessel to produce the children he so cherished? was lincoln's desire for no

companionship purely spiritual or was the physical component? claims and counterclaims continue to shake, rattle, and roll the scholarship. we try to examine the facts of the courtship. naturally, disputes erupt. i'm happy to answer any questions about this. it's a rather intricate and quite hotly contested -- i'd suggest once the gold ring was slipped on mary's finger during the ceremony in november of 1842 they intertwined their fate allowing the currents to stir within them. mary was her has been sounding -- her husband's sounding board for every speech. she was deeply partisan. blindly loyal. mary believes she had married a diamond in the rough. she spends a good deal of her energy polishing that diamond. 1858, lincoln confided laughingly to a journalist that

his wife had insisted that he would eventually be president of the u.s. even her critics gave her credit for playing a crucial role in the rise of lincoln in the 1850's. her scheming helped him get the nomination. they were jubilant. when ever -- edward everett spoke at gettysburg he enjoyed , getting to meet the president. mary would have loved the estimation that the polish abraham lincoln had acquired may be credited to the influence of his wife. her husband's election put her under the microscope. press coverage became relentless during the winter of 1860. the first lady became an easy target for the lincoln presidency.

she felt herself in a fishbowl. one journalist recalled that she drove down pennsylvania avenue. when the lincolns arrived at the white house president james buchanan's nice wrote mrs. lincoln is awfully western. loud and unrefined. at one of her first reception in march of 1861 british journalist found the attendance is very scanty. the washington ladies and not yet made up their minds. is mrs. lincoln going to be the fashion? the draw comparisons between them and the vulgar yankee women. some of the earliest press reports said she was incapable of measuring up to revise eastern standards. mrs. lincoln was quite offended by the cold shoulders. and very intent upon proving her critics wrong.

the new first lady believe that the white house should be a shining symbol of a great nation. carol -- peril abounded. the executive mansion were shabby. relations complained that the place is no better than a second-rate hotel. congress approved for white $20,000 house refurbishing which i compared to other congressional appropriations, for example, it was less than the $125,000 appropriated to andrew johnson family. mary lincoln sought the advice of the commissioner of building for the district. he was a former hotel manager and tour operator. he had been drafted by new york party boss to assist lincolns. there were permanent appointment and he peddled his influence and pocketed kickbacks. in may of 1851, one particularly outraged new york reporter

voiced his disdain. thousands and thousands of dollars for articles of luxurious taste. her kinswoman accompanied her on a trip to manhattan. she came to her cousin's defense. mary cannot indulge in the extravagance -- she selected find china. there were new colors named after european battles. she designated this with the seal of the u.s. on each piece. presidential china was nothing new. this is the very same pattern i saw that was selected by the first lady michelle obama the. -- at the inauguration luncheon for her husband in january 2009. what is remembered are not her taste or her patriotism but

, that she ordered a second set at a cost of $1100. emblazoned with her own initials. they insisted that it was not paid for by the district commissioner as is most charged. the rival fueled rumors about the extravagance. he regaled his daughter with tales of mrs. lincoln's overspending. scandalous reports about mrs. lincoln and lincoln himself emanated from-- the treasury department. newspapers full of allegations feel the controversy. the first lady may have been compromising the ethics to which her husband subscribed. particularly frugality. there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in criminal conspiracy. what was actually investigated for bad financial practices. naturally not only was this called a conspiracy, but there were those who intimated that there was an intimate conspiracy

between the two. critics continue to spread stories to such a degree that the editor of the new york herald complained in october about the abuse heaped on the first lady. she remained at the center of media controversy and bad press. even her husband's own staff refer to their boss's wife as hellcat. she suffered from mood swings. first after the death of willy. then following a head injury from a carriage accident in june 1863. a carriage accident which happened when the carriage was sabotaged. it was lincoln's carriage. it was assumed this was an attempt on his life. instead, his wife had a life-threatening injury to the head. thereafter her own son said that she was considerably altered. in 1864, she went on another spree in manhattan.

the papers again took aim. washington political hostess complained that while her sister women scraped lint the wife of , the president spent her time rolling to and fro between washington and new york. intent on extravagance for the white house. the new york times reported austerity campaigns among the well-heeled ladies. they boycotted imported fabrics for the duration of the war. mrs. lincoln countered by talking to congressional members who said that it would bolster the u.s. economy if she were to buy foreign goods, and so she did. she invested in her own agenda and demanded and received confirmation that what she did was to actually be a patriot during this time. we know that she was quite worried. she saw the reelection campaign in 1864 quite crucial to her

personal relations as well as relations of the nation. the crushing debt that she feared would not come when her -- when her husband won. with her husband's death on the heels of surrender, she became notorious, eccentric, derided. bad press during the war was nothing compared to the melodramas as a widow. most prominent claims by her husband's former partner that lincoln sweetheart from new salem was the former president 's one true love. equally damaging, claims by lincoln's business associate that the president's widow was a blackmailing person besmirching her husband's memory. by trying to pawn her jewelry and wardrobe. the press dubbed it the old close scandal.

political enemy suggested that she did not deserve sympathy or financial support. when lincoln died, there was no widow pension. her husband's estate was tied up with lawyers for over two years. she was in a state of severe dislocation following her husband's death. once her older son married in 1868, she took her son to europe for his education. homesick, the two returned to roberts home in chicago. shortly thereafter, he fell in. his death hit his mother and brother very hard. a few years later, mary lincoln endured and in bettering alienation from her only remaining son robert. in 1875, he committed his mother against her will to an asylum. ostensibly for her safety, but it was an act which caused incalculable damage to her esteem. this often created permanent

stain on historical reputation. not only the headlines in the 1870's, the more than 100 years later, the first question i was always asked was was she crazy? in the 1920's, while lincoln biographer's gather momentum his wife languished. it began to look as if there were conspiracies about lincoln's wife. research began biography and they discover that mary todd lincoln was one of the most lied about women in the world. even in the 20's they had the publishers hyperventilation in order to get the story across. 1928, it was a very good year. these volumes were intended to contradict the very harsh and sympathetic portraits of lincoln's wife and previous work. they took aim at negative images projected executed and ,supported by william herndon.

this biographer prove the most persistent and critic of mary lincoln. reverberations from the charges are still very much with us. personal antipathy between lincoln's law partner and lincoln's wife mary has been well documented. she was the social center of springfield during that time. we have records of her many balls and parties. 300 people in the little house on the prairie. she was quite the hostess, but there is no record of herndon being invited to the house. in november of 1866, he gave a famous speech on lincoln. ushering in the rutledge industry. it's the most enduring legacy. mrs. lincoln, this was a full frontal assault. a shattering blow. the aforementioned volume were joined by other rehabilitative works.

including studies by william evans and carl sandburg in 1932. justin and linda turner in 1972. ross in 1973. and jean baker, 1987. during the late 20 century, anyael burlingame rejected revisionist interpretations and replaced herndon as the harshest critic. he places blame for misery within the marriage which he says is a given on mary. his thoughtful and important studies of lincoln, he frequently introduces mary lincoln and her shortcomings. and the disastrous effects on her husband. beyond the confines of marital relations. for example, burlingame suggests that in order to avoid conflict

with his difficult live, lincoln spent an inordinate amount of time away from home. such a tactic may have made his unfortunate marriage tolerable. it deprived the children of much contact with their father. i believe it leads to it rather biased view. he comments that the few surviving letters between the lincolns's do not suggest a deep love on either side. it goes on to state the most markable feature of that correspondence is it sparseness. well, i agree that there is a sparseness, but most of us in the field know that there was a burn pile outside of the springfield home. also, i would disagree, one of my favorite letters is when lincoln is saying you are free of headaches and then he goes on to ask mary have you weighed yourself? i always think what kind of , couple

would be seen is not compatible when a wife would jolly with her husband about her weight. in the 21st century, there's been a new detractor. as argued, he uses the familiar historians inous compare her to a psychopath like hitler. he proclaims the marriage of abraham and mary rank as one of the worst marital misfortunes in recorded history. his flair for hyperbole presented as much of a problem as does his death before his book was published. mary lincoln is a popular refrain -- echoing down through the ages of lincoln scholars. i would suggest that --

if mary lincoln had died in 1865, perhaps not in assassin's hands, but quietly in chicago, what would her legacy be? certainly, her early demise would have spared her the scandal. there would have been no battles with debates on the congressional floor disparaging her. there would be no spiritual photographs of the lincoln. there would have been no commitment to bellevue. and asylum in illinois. perhaps she would have been showered with praise, but it was not to be. the final years of her life were

filled with memories of loss. fighting the indignities. thank you. fighting the indignities of age and decline. her reputation would fade with biographers would resurrect her, only to knock her down again. think you so much. 2013, a headline in new york magazine anoints mrs. lincoln the first lady of depth. the indictment that some historians have leveled against her, are disproportionally harsh and also employed that lynn of hindsight. for example, this is my particular favorite, mary lincoln shopping spree in the months leading up to the assassination, he and the most egregious cases, has been quite unfair to the subject.

mary did not have a timeline as to when her husband would be murdered. she did not know about this. unlike i mailed the marcos, with whom she was compared by the american press most lavishly in the 1980's. mary lincoln was not addicted to shoes. however, her cereal and multiple glove purchases were nothing short of a mania. that i am willing to concede. incredible indictments continued that she was a scheming criminal and disease person. in a 2003 volume, her physical ailments at the end of her life one scholar suggests that this stems from the effects of syphilis. there was a harsh 19th-century your for an aerial -- qr four of

-- cure for venereal diseases but this is not mary's problem. instead, her back and eyesight and many other attributes began to fail. equally debilitating, the estrangement from her son. her only remaining child. the fading memories of a happier day and the long drawn out deterioration of her physical stamina. at her mental facilities. mary lincoln's character had repeated assaults. lincoln was gone with a bullet within hours. mrs. lincoln's suffering stretched out for another 16 years. she was able to find some light in the darkest areas and beat back her despair, obstacles would

intervene. she embraced the final escape of death and anticipated a reunion with her husband. that might have been the end of it if mary lincoln could join the company of sarah, and florence harding. strong-willed first lady to faded into obscurity. because of the rise of her husband's reputation, she is periodically reviewed and unpacked. she has always been judged by the standards of cross examiners. once again, her character is proverbially toasted on coals. i'm always very fascinated by the scholars who invest so much in lincoln. his greatness, his foresight, his wisdom. yet, how is it that he was such a hapless victim in his choice and character with his wife? we have to recognize that her central role to his stability and her fostering his political prosperity was perhaps a choice, indeed a wise one on his part. after they moved into the white house whatever liabilities presented during the civil war, she was the lifelong companion

with whom he hoped to pursue his dreams and spend the rest of his life. i intended to make some historical restitution with my 2009 biography which was written on the foundations of previous work. i'm indeed indebted to that work. more poorly, i undertook the project with the framework of what may be called a hostile work environment. to lead up to the lincoln bicentennial. when it seemed that mary lincoln haters were out in full force. if you never store reputation because once you are smeared in the headlines the correction is on the inside pages in smalltime. it remains valuable to expose the naked conspiratorial plot. the fascination in american history has complex dynamics which reflect tenacious patterns of folklore and storytelling but in the centennial season, we should recognize that they are layers upon layers of truth meaning for us to excavate.

not all truths will be self-evident. certainly few will be equal to the fictions we continue to tell ourselves. i have come to accept that not all truths will be politically correct. as historians, we should strive to the very awkward intersection when new truths might emerge. the past is always the force will historians continue to debate clash interpretations. it is my hope that more than a century and a half after the tragedy, abraham lincoln assassination we can put our new 3-d glasses. to take in the fact that discrediting lincoln's life, pummeling her reputation is a blood sport that has passed its due date. 2015, can we shift our attention on to the private, rather than the public tragedy of lincoln's passing? abraham was gone. his wife and sons like thousands of americans were bowed down from loss.

mary lincoln spent the rest of her days struggling with grief. today, we can recognize our battle and commit to rebuild. mary lincoln reflects more about our own times than those of mrs. lincoln. as a biographer, i say, let us now praise difficult women. thank you so much. [laughter] prof. clinton: thank you for the applause. >> we have our fellows. they have microphones. during the q&a, if you wait for the microphone to get to you so all of us can hear your questions, that will help a lot? prof. clinton: please, i did

shorten this talk to make it something that i hoped would provoke questions. i see we have a hand appear and a hand there. >> this summer i visited robert todd lincoln's house in manchester, vermont. a wonderful place. some of the literature i saw let me to believe that there was a reconciliation between he and his mother. >> indeed. when the lincoln child was born. robert's daughter mary was born. it was a child that mary lincoln very much was attached to. she believed it was named after

her and ignored the fact that the child's mother was named mary. the years she was released from the asylum, for she went to her sister's home in springfield and then she went abroad saying that she heard being -- he feared being recommitted. indeed, there she was, a very intelligent well-educated woman of wealth and she thought privilege and she found herself locked away. her legal rights were taken away. she thought to get out of the asylum by hook and crook and by writing to lawyers and getting herself free. then she escaped and went abroad. she did come back when she was ill and we know that she cap in -- cap in touch with robert and found that she was following his political fortunes because another president lincoln was something that many of the party faithful

were trying to promote. she was someone who is willing to completely recolor the relationship again and again. they did not have a close relationship. robert did indeed bring the own daughter to visit her grandmother in springfield. we know they did see one another during that time. >> i have read that mary lincoln was very well read and view politics very well. did the politicians of that time no that she had this ability and that it was influencing the president ended that have anything to do with how she was perceived? prof. clinton: i argue in my book and in subsequent articles that she was indeed a very political woman. as my good friend at the university of virginia reminds

us, there are parlor politics as well. other people have written about pillow politics. i think mary really exercise a very strong tongue. very strong-minded. she was the daughter of a politician. her sister in illinois had married a son of a governor. her sister in kentucky and the senate the governor. she was used to being around politicians all the time. it greatly surprised me to discover lincoln ran for election in illinois, early on, he was visiting a part of the bluebloods. he married into the todd family. he had access to political circles. there were rumors of a dual lincoln undertook. to defend his honor when it was assumed that letters were written in the newspaper anonymously could have been

written by mary todd. indeed, we know that she probably write about politics. she held grudges. i emphasize that. there was a scene in the movie "lincoln" that she was seen in the balcony counting the votes in a small notebook. in a way that screenwriters do, that was transposed from mrs. lincoln sitting in the balcony counting the vote when her husband was being considered for senate. she found that he lost that vote and they went on and she held it against his wife because she believed that his wife had influence. his wife is something new the politics of it. i found that very interesting to see that even in a senate vote count. in illinois, this is something that she was very invested in. when she was a young girl she was on the bench next to the judge. she would hear trials and she was really quite engaged.

i think that was seen as very sharp, threatening. when he was elected president, his circle was quite concerned because she exercised such influence. there is a politician in norman judge wanted to be on the inner circle but she remembered how he voted. a few years before. she found lots of interesting things to write back to her husband when she was in new york. before going to washington. she did give a lot of political advice that we do not have too many of those letters. as i said, they were perhaps burned. we also know that robert, her son, was a very private person. we know he solicited letters. we know that the many letters that he solicited have not yet turned up. there is all of this rumor about the great -- filled with ashes. i do think it is safe to say that he was a victorian gentleman. who believes in privacy.

he was most angry when his mother's machinations went public. she did clearly often write compromising letters. she wrote letters and told people to burn them. quite clearly, she was someone who was well aware that she was outside the circle of politics. i find it interesting whenever i go and find first lady books and first lady issues. saturday night live. the cartoonists. appears there, and often as someone who has exceeded her feminine here and i think that is something that she quite clearly did. and was perceived of at the time. >> why was robert not buried with the rest of his family in springfield? prof. clinton: why was he not --?

why was he not into just -- entombed with the rest of the family in springfield? is the only member of the children out there. prof. clinton: because mary harlan lincoln, his wife called very much resented the way in which the lincolns exerted influence and she wanted him buried in arlington and saw to it that he would be the one lincoln not buried there. so, this was something -- also, jack, the son who died tragically is also buried there. i believe. we do have the two mary's in a way people who -- mary todd lincoln -- sorry -- not use that phrase. mary todd, it's mary lincoln after she's married. there's not a single time that she ever use the todd name and his signature or even in --

she did not even use it in a monogram. todd became a really important addition to her name in the early 20th century when the todd family again to emphasize dolly todd madison and mary todd lincoln. mary lincoln was someone i think who we can very much appreciate had a very distinctive persona. she said that she picked out senator harlan's mary for her son and then when senator harlan's mary was married to her husband and began to exert some influence over boundaries with her mother-in-law, she very much resented that. they really got to the point where i would argue that that was one of the reasons why she was placed in a private asylum, not a public house, but a private house. robert was caught between a difficult situation with his wife and his mother. her breakdown occurred 10 years

after the assassination and her breakdown occurring at a time when he was ill-equipped to handle his grieved, ravaged mother in his home with his life and children. >> it was unavoidable to not be touched by her reaction because we are in dallas after all and president kennedy was shot here. in the head. the widow had to accompany him back. prof. clinton: absolutely. >> they're both from blueblood families. prof. clinton: i would say there are many parallels. i think i kennedy was assailed in the press was an interesting

parallel. there are many interesting parallels. when i was writing this book i was very struck i some of the pillaging of -- not the pillaging of the ransacking of the press that went on to dig up dirt on the first lady, hillary clinton. i'm really struck by interesting parallels. in my book and try and give, as i said, a remedial view of mrs. lincoln in light of what i felt was a century of dispute. however, there was some things i hope that i found and one of them was of course the treatment at the time was unprecedented. no other first lady that underwent the kind of scrutiny that she did in the white house. >> i think the other parallel is both presidents were at pivotal stages and civil rights of civil rights development. prof. clinton: that could be also true. i think people forget how hated lincoln was in 1864. running for reelection. not just the south, but even in

new york city and the republican party. i would find letters were people would regularly referred to him as ape lincoln and use epithets. i think that was something i was quite struck. the disrespect. also, i was once visiting the town of lenox, massachusetts, where i did a biography of another difficult woman, sandy campbell. she lived in that town. i saw a portrait, a beautiful wedding portrait of a japanese bride and a very aristocratic new york husband. i look them up and they were good friends and might have even been eleanor and franklin roosevelt attended the wedding. i was thinking, what would have been like if franklin roosevelt had married a japanese bride? [laughter]

prof. clinton: and he had been in the white house with the first lady. on that infamous december seventh day. i think we need to do parallels and imagine that mrs. lincoln was viewed as a southern belle. married to a republican president. that, so many members of her family were serving in the confederacy. in the rebellion. all of her letters, incoming, were read. all of the correspondence that left the white house was red. -- was read. otherwise, she was viewed as suspect within her own home. she was intensely loyal to my husband, he was probably more judicious in allowing her sister into the white house. senators came in and started raising a ruckus i interrogating her sister and she only stay for a short time because it was viewed as so disruptive. to have the wife of a

confederate war hero visiting his white house relative. his closest sister. we did have this problem that the mary lincoln character had similar problems and i think the way in which she -- there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that if everyone is always asking me if she was crazy, i think now historians in the turn-of-the-century are dealing very sensitively with the fact that abraham lincoln clearly suffered from melancholy. at a minimum. several times during his life was confronted with crippling depression. he was -- when he was in springfield, his friends worried about him. they went to his home and took away his razors. they visited him, doctors were a great comfort to them. he often try to get a post in south america to escape.

not often, he went tried to stick it out. we know that he was someone who felt himself mercurial. he had been abandoned. his mother died. his sister died. he clung to marry quite seriously. saw her as someone who truly believed in him. and him i think the anchor that he needed to rise. he could rise and heather because she always told him he was the best. and stephen douglas is no giant at all. she was quite partisan and her views. i think there's some people down in front. >> i have an ancestor who was in the medical community in washington dc. he was in medical school -- he might have been one of the physicians that came and treated mary lincoln and --

prof. clinton: i'm sure he was. everyone wants their family lore. >> i have not found any proof of that, but i was wondering if you would comment on what the medical community did for her at the time you go prof. clinton: to comfort her? >> what did they treat her for? prof. clinton: there's a lot of debate over what kind of medication she was on. i found when i was working on her grief and her medical issues , there are no records. that one can explore them. i was most struck by the fact that all -- oliver sacks was writing a series of articles in the new york times at that time about taking medication and it seemed to me that he was describing some of the symptoms that mrs. lincoln had been accused of. as evidence of her insanity.

at her insanity trial. she thought she had an indian inside of her head pushing needles out. as i read that i thought, who has not had a migraine? it's a very interesting way in which people are trying to express themselves. i came to the conclusion that maybe some of the problems were that she took medication and perhaps also in ghosts and alcohol. the mixture of alcohol in the specific drugs can actually lead to the kind of hallucinations that did indeed make her at certain points. also of course she became -- she had anxiety attacks, she had hysteria, i am perfectly willing to concede that these were episodes, but, we recently recovered through the intrepid scholarship of a scholar named jason emerson some letters that she wrote from inside the asylum. but, i find it so interesting because he published his book on

-- of her letters, called the madness of mary lincoln. he read the letters one way and i read them a different way. i think we can agree to disagree on these kinds of issues. some people suggest that she was plagued by mental illness. because she was in the attic sometimes and in the seller other times. again, i say, really? you have any adolescent women in your home? i just feel as if some of the medical analysis of text is exaggerated. just as i'm sure my critics think that i am always looking on a very positive light to try and give a contrasting view. but i say that i write and i create within the context that i'm given. that is, again, what i would expend people. i was running a mary lincoln.

they would say who's that. i would say merry talking to. and they would say oh and the next question would be what she crazy. i would try to write in the context of whether or not she was or was not -- what was the context or medical issue? she often wrote melodramatically saying i'm looking out at the water and thinking of taking a walk and never returning. there is an issue that her son allegedly thought she might commit suicide which was why she was committed in 1875. but my view is i think she was a candidate for suicide it would have happened much earlier. we don't actually know much about suicide, it is something that i took up as a subject after i worked on mrs. lincoln. i'm now working on a project on insanity. suicide, and union soldiers. during the american civil war. there is so little secondary literature to look to to trying to diagnosis. i think we'll keep diagnosing

mary lincoln and finding new illnesses. there was a wonderful program put on by the state of illinois. the bar association in chicago. they permissibly can on trial. at one point his psychiatrist was saying passionately he knew what her problem was.