wednesday at 9:30 a.m. eastern for our stop in raleigh, north carolina, on our "washington journal" guest is north carolina attorney general josh stein. next, a panel of scholars talks about abraham lincoln's friendships both before and after he became president. this discussion was part of the annual lincoln forum symposium in gettysburg, pennsylvania. it's just under an hour. >> i'm harold holser. welcome to the lincoln forum and a special panel discussion on lincoln's friends. let's start, if we can, with a lincoln quote. because on today's topic as with most subjects, abraham lincoln expressed himself better than almost anyone. and as he said in 1849, the better part of one's life consists of his friendships.

well, we want to look today as what, if anything, he meant by that, how sincere he was or how well he understood his own commitment to and concept of friendship. and i have a group of very accomplished friends to explore that topic with me. chuck strosier, who has spoken at the lincoln forum who brings his experience as a psychoanalyst, psychobiographer, a one-time resident of springfield. by which i mean he knows about lincoln's springfield. not that one must be a psychoanalyst to live in springfield, although we don't know. and of course as an authority which is the subject of his latest book on the complex relationship between abraham lincoln and his only really close friend, joshua speed. we'll hear more about that in the panel.

edna green medford, a member of the forum and has written and lectured here on the subject of lincoln, emancipation, race, equality and african-american life and lives. we welcome her perspective as well. another expert on lincoln's illinois years is another forum friend who has written authoritatively about lincoln and the eighth judicial circuit in illinois, our friend guy fraker. finally, another expert you are all familiar with, whose expertise on lincoln and his fellow union politicians, republican politicians, particularly the war governors of the civil war era we plan to probe further, the new standard authority on lincoln and the war governors, steven engels. welcome to all of you. [ applause ]

so the subject is lincoln and his friends, lincoln and friendship. we just heard the quote, the better part of one's life consists of friendships. and yet over the years a good many of lincoln's friends successively, that is his earliest friends would complain when he moved onto another level of society, and it happened frequently, would complain that lincoln tended not to retain his old friends but actually tended to discard them. to springfield he moved as a young man, and one might say he shed his new salem friends. and when he left springfield he left his springfield friends behind once he moved to washington. if you take the circuit writing lawyer and i'll ask guy about this in a moment, his circuit

writing chum david davis at his word, lincoln abandoned his most faithful friends even before he left springfield reluctant to give them jobs and spoils once he was elected president. let me quote the co-owner of the "chicago tribune" who expected more awards than he received and who blurted out after the election when lincoln seemed less friendly than before, we made abe and by god, we can unmake him. so what do we make of this? one more quote. leonard sweat, another friend of lincoln's who wrote "some of mr. lincoln's friends insisted that he lacks the storing attributes of personal affection which he ought to have exhibited." what do we think? how good a friend was abraham lincoln, and what do we make of

this testimony that he tended not to store long-standing friendships? and we should start in the illinois years so let's start with chuck and guy, if we can. >> interesting question. is this on? now it's not. it seems to me there are two questions of how good a friend was he and then the examples that you gave where friendships didn't last and sort of starts at the back of my story with speed, as lincoln would say ass backwards. but the way in which speed served such a crucial function for him was far and away his best friend and nurtured him through his deep struggles for nearly three and a half years when they slept together, and then speed got married and moved to kentucky, got married.

and in the two months leading up to the actual wedding there's an extraordinary series of letters that some of you have heard me talk about. and culminating in the letter on february 25th, 1842, when speed actually consummated the marriage and the roof didn't fall in and he writes lincoln two days before and lincoln writes, his hand is still shaking ten hours later, still trembling. well, what happened was the marriage was consummated, so he kind of vicariously worked things through. but it was the climax of the relationship between lincoln and speed and it's the emotional turning point in the life of abraham lincoln. but two things happened after that. one is that he, after a couple of months in that summer, he returns again to courting mary who had graciously waited for him as he wrestled his demons to the ground after the broken engagement of january 1841. and speed becomes less significant as a friend.

they had never become enemies. speed later, of course, played an important role in kentucky, keeping kentucky in the union. he visited often during the white house years. but they started quarrelling over some cases in the 1840s that speed was handling for lincoln. and i think what he was able to work through in this friendship vicariously allowed for him to both return to mary, return to his path of love and marriage and eventually children and growth and healing his underlying depression. but also speed didn't matter anymore. so he moved beyond him and the close texture of their friendship ended at that point. >> yeah, i want to add to that, though. i think that this is rather harsh on lincoln, but i think the only friend that he had that was an unconditional friend that didn't have some ulterior motive for forming that friendship was

speed. it came at a time in his life where he needed a friend. there was no give-and-take. speed couldn't do anything particularly for him, so that makes him unique as far as i'm concerned. my affection for lincoln in writing my book which becomes very much about his relationships on the circuit, i find that i admire him more, but i like him less. he was always, in my view, looking for a friend who could help him. and to start with the classic, his closest friend is david davis, the judge. well, davis was the judge so you would be friends with him if you could be. and david himself very shortly after lincoln's death sent a letter to herndon that said lincoln was a peculiar man. he had no affection for anybody. he thought only of himself, he never confided. and all these circuit associates say the same thing.

and mary's family says that he was a cold man, he showed no emotion, he didn't care about anybody but himself. in all of that, though, i rationalize from his opening statement when he ran for the legislature in 1832, and he said all men are -- i'm not quoting precisely but this is the gist, all men are said to have their own peculiar ambition. in my case i want to be highly esteemed by my fellow man and i want to do everything i can to be so highly esteemed. i think he was on a mission from day one not to be president but to be somebody. and friendship can be a bit of baggage if you have relationships you have to tend to to the same extent they're attending to you. i think that of him which is a fairly harsh judgment. except you must consider that he saved our nation with this focus.

and so perhaps it was worthwhile that he had that attitude. >> edna? >> i think it's problematic when we talk about lincoln's friendships without defining what friendship is and what it means in the 19th century and to a complex person like lincoln. so he has many personal acquaintances, i think. some of them closer to him than others, and in various categories. i'm reminded of david donald's book. i think it was called "we are lincoln's men" or something like that. it was written many years ago. and he talks about the various categories that these people fit into. and so i think before we can even decide how friendly he was -- he was friendly to everyone, it seems. but clearly there are degrees of friendship that he expresses with people in washington.

and in springfield. >> let me add to that. i think of all the governors who had any relationship beyond, you know, an acquaintance relationship would be richard yates. and i think yates, they went back a few years in their past. and i think when yates becomes governor the same year that lincoln becomes president it's interesting that yates reaches out to lincoln to read some of his, you know, attempts at writing an inaugural speech, and lincoln is very honest with him and in fact, at one point would refuse to do it for fear it would jeopardize the relationship between the two men and but he also fired if he was being honest with yates it probably wasn't a very good document and he would take offense. so he resisted that. but i think as the war went on, yates believed that he could use his relationship with lincoln, being from illinois, being a person who was perceived to have

had perhaps more than an acquaintance with lincoln. but i would agree that once lincoln leaves springfield among the 59 or at least the governors who make their way to washington, it's really nothing more than acquaintance that they really share. and even john andrew, i'm working on a biography right now and john andrew is among those who make repeated trips to washington. and he's probably among the three or four that see lincoln the most during the american civil war. and even though they're very different political leaders, i think they had a tremendous respect for one another. but -- and i don't think it's extended beyond anything more than just an acquaintance. >> let me flip the question for everyone to have a go at. so i'm accepting all the different things that you've said, which almost add up to the same thing, there were degrees of friendship. there were degrees of acquaintanceship and political alliance.

he was not -- on the circuit as a younger man he was seeking acquaintanceships or friendships that would benefit him both legally and politically. the great exception is josh speed, but even that fated by geographical separation, opinions over slavery and other things, or maturing, other things that may have divided them. so my question is what was there about lincoln that so magically and so continuously attracted men as friends, acolytes, admirers of -- he was never short of circles of people who, you know, moth to flame, admirers. so what do you think? chuck, we can start with you again. >> first of all, there's a

context, which is that the separate fears, and i think women moved in the female sphere and the men moved in the male sphere. and that was a very important difference. and in that male sphere lincoln was a man's man, and he was greatly admired, real tall, very athletic, incredibly strong. speed's description of him was almost gushing. how strong and powerful he was. he wrestled the clancy boys when he first arrived in salem. he used to ride and also judge gander pulling, which is just this outrageous sport where you string a goose on a rope and then you grease his neck and the horse would ride at full speed and try to rip the neck off. and he felt that was great, a real manly thing to be doing. and he loved horses. he was a very good horseback rider. so i think the part of what

brought respect for -- from other men was this sense of just physical respect for him and a real presence. i think that comes across, you know, indirectly. indirectly. there's a curious thing about people's -- men's -- he was not friends with women. he tended to have some friends -- mrs. browning, for example, mrs. able in new salem, who were older married, matronly figures. after he married mary and they started having children he treated her like an older married matronly figure. they were the exceptions. basically he moved in a male world chic of the time. but men who were friends with lyndon tended to experience him as their best friend. he had a way of drawing people into his orbit that made them feel special in that context,

even if -- i agree -- it didn't really last, even if the friendships didn't necessarily have legs and there might in certain circumstances be somewhat not exploitive but manipulative. >> to add to that, i'd go so far as to call him a jock. he was a great athlete. you see all these things he could do. there was an account of a foot race he ran in front of the courthouse in urbana for example. in the diary entry of the relatively illiterate carpenter said a beat. he runs a foot race during a court session in a foot race in urbana. his wrestling is well-known. there's an event that occurred win monticello, illinois, during a court session there was a butcher's ax, a relatively small

incident, i had to find out what that is the account seems impossible. he and another lawyer had a bet, let's see how far you can throw this butcher's ax. they do warm-ups and the other lawyer winds up and throws this thing. it goes a fair distance and lincoln warms up and throws it the same distance. okay, let's go. this one counts. this guy goes first and his goes a little farther than his warm-up toss. lincoln throw the thing, you can tell how far he throw it into a creek at the bottom of the courthouse hill. i've measured it. it's about 100 yards. i can't imagine anybody being able to do this. pyrenees are accounts he did this. there's constant references to his athletic skills. the long jump, a native-american-african-american half native-american in clinton, illinois that was the champ.

nobody could touch this guy in the long jump. he did beat lincoln but just barely and he outbroad jumped everybody in the contest. >> these accounts are repeated in this is athletic ability. real quick, i think he had such tremendous charisma as a person and such warmth as a persona people overlooked this d detachment of his they all talk about, that's lincoln, let him go. >> i think we could all buy in -- if it wasn't for the greased goose story. >> gander pulling. >> you want to add to it? >> i think he was self-effacing. he was not a threat to men. he was not the most attractive person in the world. he weighs folksy.

i think they saw him as someone they didn't have to compete with him. he was very ambitious but i don't think they felt they had to compete with him for attention of the ladies. certainly not. as guy indicated he was able to make people feel at home, at leafs men feel at home. if you have a situation like that and you're an athlete as well, it's very easy, i think, to be accepted by the average man. >> the interesting thing about lincoln, got it to see lincoln through all the governors who would come to washington and see him for the first time, even hips secretaries who would join the governor who would come to washington. i'm struck by a couple of instances, i'll give you one. john andrew would come to washington and always take the same secretary. the secretary would come back and tell the other secretaries about lincoln's rugged features, he's immense and tall and looks fierce. they were always impressed by

his disarming ef facing attitude towards andrew. towards the end of the year, andrew brings on a new secretary and anxious to go to washington the summer of '64. they spend probably about an hour with lincoln, which is rather unique. within the first few minutes, this secretary, i just found this this spring, he was struck number one by the physical appearance of lincoln, how he looked, which contrasted sharply with how he acted. he would say in andrew's presence. remember, andrew is probably less than 5'9", 10, lincoln is 6'4". the one thing that struck the secretary, lincoln looks like this beanpole. i was so amazed how far under the chin of lincoln andrew came up to. he looked like a little orange compared to lincoln yet lincoln

understood the differences in their physical appearances and managed to arrive at a discussion and conversation that in no way was demeaning or disrespectful to someone obviously a little more portly, a little shorter and a person who really struggled with his appearance. the secretary was struck by lincoln's -- his manner, his charisma. and so for me, it was the perceptions of lincoln through the eyes of governors and their secretaries who would log in those experiences. >> one thing i would add is, you know, i've known politics and elected officials and there is an increased yearning to be their friends or be in their glow when they achieve power. lincoln, for all of his modesty and self-ef facement was pretty grand and self-confident as

president, maybe in his final days in illinois he was quite a presence. people wanted to be part of the political march as well. >> no great man is ever humble. i wanted to say something, you mentioned the charisma. one of the things i sort of stumbled on and make a lot of in my book, not as though no one ever noticed it and no one ever did this, lincoln and speed moved in aeg together april 13th, 1857 when he moved to springfieldy this wonderful story of arriving in the store and wants to buy a bed for $17. speed says, well, i have a big bed upstairs and a lot of room. why don't you stay with me and he goes upstairs and dropped his saddlebags and says, well, speed, i'm moved. they slept together the next 3 1/2 years in the same bed and a question what it meant.

he became undoubtedly his closest friend. the intimacy, openness didn't really -- it took from mid-april, 1837 until sometime in the fall, can't date this exactly, sometime in this fall of 1839 their closeness flowered. the man that became his best friend it took him a couple years to really fully open up. once it did open up a dynamic developed that was very unusual and unlike any other relationship in lincoln's life, where both speed and lincoln sort of opened up to the male community and they started what really is a kind of salon. it started in the late fall of 1839. and speed later in writing letters to herndon said every night the young lights of springfield would come and they all came only because of lincoln. speed is very clear about that.

but the people who came included john j. harding, many others, butler, and also steven a. douglas. they would go and speed would make the fire in the back of the store and the end of the day and the leading lights really in some way leading intellectuals in illinois if not the country were of different political persuasions would gather there and they would come because of lincoln. they started talking for a few weeks. the one topic off the table -- you couldn't talk politics. can you imagine abraham lincoln and steven douglas sitting in the back of a store and not talking politics. serious somebody said, we have to talk about this in a different context. then they agreed in january of 1840, to hold an 8-day debate in the local presbyterian church and each person had day and

there were eight of them and speed remembered verbatim, he went to everything lincoln taught and wrote nearly verbatim the speech that he gave. what's so interesting in this context about his charisma, people were so drawn to lincoln, he would endlessly tell stories, he was funny, could listen to people and could talk. this orbit, incredibly male orbit that gathered in the back of speed's store, it was a group of the leading young men in springfield meeting in the back of speed's store while the high fall lu tin coatery met in the edwards' store and they danced and they greeted them in french. you had this contrast between the effeminate culture coatery versus the male salon, this

meeting in the back of speed's store because of lincoln. >> mary calls it a coateryia at one point, said my giant stood heads above the little giant, some derogatory thing. one quick thing, chuck, i have to ask you and guy and anybody else that wants to weigh in. there's a lot of mythology about lincoln's relationship with steven douglas. they had great respect for each other even though they were separated by their different viewpoints on schaefferery. i like to think they weren't friends but i want to see what you think. on slavery, correction. >> i think it was a way of not offending the south. >> before that. >> yeah. i wish i could quote the letter.

there's a letter he writes, i can't remember to whom he wrote it. here i am not getting anywhere and not doing very much. here's douglas now in the united states senate and one of the leading politics and he goes on and on expressing envy. to that extent it was a very motivating factor. without judas would there have been a jesus, without douglas would there have been a lincoln? i really think not. douglas was a major -- not because of friendship but a fair amount of contempt lincoln had for him. >> we touched on lincoln's friendships or lack of friendships with women, i want to talk to edna first about his ability or his inclination to have relationships with people of color.

we all know about the extraordinary quotes of frederick douglass having to push hisself in the white house for the second inaugural election. there is my friend, douglas. there is no one's opinion i value more than yours. which douglas thought of as a great moment in social history. was it bluster? tell us what you make of the friendship between douglas and abraham lincoln? >> first of all, the men only met three times very briefly. i don't see how that develops into a friendship. but they were personally acquainted. there's a difference there. when lincoln refers to douglas as my friend, he refers to a lot of people as my friend. that's not that unusual.

douglas bought a great deal of it. we have to remember who douglas was. a formerly enslaved man self-made. able to free himself from slavery, ran away from slavery, came to the north and made something of himself. a grand something of himself. he was a leader of black america during most of the 19th century. so, he thought very highly of himself as well. so to be in the presence of someone like lincoln who is treating him like a man is a big deal to him. i don't think it's at all unusual for lincoln to treat him that way. i think that's the way lincoln would have treated anyone who he felt had made something of himself. talking about lincoln's belief in the right to rise. douglas is one of these people who is the epitome of that

theory of the ability of an african-american to rise and lincoln certainly would have had respect for him in that regard. also, i want to mention that when sojourner truth comes to the white house although she's made something of herself as well lincoln does not treat her the same way he treats douglas. he calls her auntie sojourner. he never calls douglas uncle freddie. [ laughter ] >> there's a difference there. [ laughter ] >> but it's because he's male and because he has a great deal of respect for him. but i think you can have respect for someone, you can have respect for their opinions without being a true friend of theirs. >> yeah. >> it's interesting hiss somewht

promiscuous use of the word "friend," my good friend, masking a uniform distance he maintains. by the way, i'm going to hold out for four meetings with frederick douglass. i still think i take douglass at his word that he met with him once at the soldier's home. i will take four. doesn't a friendship make for one more occasion. >> he does miss the visit to the soldier's home when lincoln invites him for tea. >> exactly. i agree douglas makes a great deal of that there was no one's opinion i value more than yours and i think he's saying it to the crowd, lincoln is. i want to ask you a governor's question. i've always been intrigued by the serpentine way lincoln arrived in washington, d.c. i'm getting to something that i

want to turn to you about. philadelphia, the eve of washington's birthday he finds out he might be assassinated if he goes through baltimore. he speaks at independence hall on washington's birthday. he says famously, i would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender i think is the result of his being told by two credible sources he faces danger. there is a plan afoot to whisk him to washington. but he won't do it because he's promised the new governor of pennsylvania, andrew curtin, certainly, one, the governor we should be discussing in part here at gettysburg because he's promised curtin he will go to dinner at the statehouse in harrisburg. he does, even though he disappears from the dinner in the middle of it and no one knows where he's gone, the answer is he's gone back to

washington. what is the curtin relationship with lincoln, he does so much for him and risks his own life and certainly makes his schedule tortuous, what develops from there? >> it's great question. the good news is you wrote a great book about lincoln's journey to washington. >> we didn't arrange this. >> it helped me flesh out a lot of this trip and these early relationships. curtin was in a position of, you know, incredible influence early on because of the nature of pennsylvania politics and the cabinet appointments and so forth. one of the things i came to figure about this trip in general that is reflected the most accurately by pennsylvania particularly the statehouse dinner that lincoln wanted to be soon not in an arrogant way, i

think he thought the people wanted to see who he was, his mannerisms and not arrogance but that it might be the embodiment of them. and recently in a political contest and more importantly as a border state and i think lincoln felt he owed this to curtin. a good relationship developed from this. because curtin was frequently in washington as well. curtin was sick throughout most of the war and was not there as frequently as a few others, he did make a lot of trips after battles to develop the soldiers. he and lincoln do develop quite a -- i won't say friendship but at least more of an acquaintance than a lot of governors. it starts with that -- those circumstances at the end of the inaugural journey to washington. >> i will go back to the illinois end of the table, not

that you need to focus only on that for sure, i'm glad edna brought up david donald's book, "where lincoln met," because it suggested this interesting progression of lincoln's views on friendship as he got to be older, more successful, more famous, that is that lincoln preferred the company of young admiring guys to his peers. that is, there was always room for ellsworth and hay, brilliant accomplished guys, but i want to hear this psychoanalytical answer to this. did he need to bask in their admiration rather than speaking to peers? >> well, yes, remember, there's also seward. >> glad you brought him up. >> he was probably his closest friend and talked to him most days. that would be in another

category. yes, he liked to have people admire him. i want to add one more thing, a wonderful story about sojourner truth. lincoln didn't do well with women basically, i think that's less, i suspect that's not a racist comment rather than sexist comment. he was drawn to men and men liked him for all the reasons we were talking about earlier. if you look at his relationships, you can only guess about the mother and the sister because they both died -- there's nothing concrete. but certainly with ann rutledge he was very close to and loved and she suddenly died, we heard indirect kind of evidence. elizabeth edwards, whose home where the coatery met and she greeted her guests and friendships at the door in

springfield, illinois, can you imagine? i know springfield. no one speaks french in springfield. 1830s, she would greet her guests in french. she called lincoln peculiar. that was her description. he was very uneasy, didn't dance well, couldn't make easy conversation. where speed, she loved speed. everybody loved speed. he was to the manner born, came from a slave family -- to the manor born, came from a slave family in farmingdale in louisville and he was at ease in the situations that existed. he could dance and banter and once he started living with lincoln he was the one that dragged him to the coatery. when mary came into his line of vision, she was the first person -- first woman he felt really comfortable with. elizabeth edwards, i think is the best witness, says he used to sit under the veranda in the

shade and sit in rapt attention as she would talk. she was vibrant and interesting as a young woman and could quote poetry and very political growing up in lexington and knew henry clay and intensely interested in politics. that was the only woman he really could deal with in his life and probably why he fell in love with her. there's really nobody after that. there is no woman in his life that plays any kind of role like that. it's all men. his friendship and life revolved around men in a male world. >> governor comments i want to invite you to the microphones and we want to give you a chance to weigh in and ask our experts. guy. >> there's a couple women he had relatively intimate, not in the

sense we think of it. orville browning's wife, who wrote what he was and who he was and his relationship with mary owens that was amazingly blunt and unkind by the way. >> exactly. >> there's a woman, a lawyer's wife in danville named elizabeth harmon, this absolutely beautiful woman. lincoln, instead of staying at the mccormick house where all the lawyers were, he stayed with the harmons, there was nothing there in the sense we now think of it but oscar harmon was not as close to lincoln as elizabeth. she and lincoln got going on the loss of willie one night. he sat up all night with her. that was very unusual for him. harmon was a legislature and would write back, mr. lincoln asks about you. that relationship maintained.

she came down to see him off on the train, left illinois for the last time. he, i think -- i talked to mike burlingame about it because it's inconsistent, some of these relationships are inconsistent with his awkwardness around women. michael -- it makes sense to me, he was comfortable with married women because they were no threat at all and he didn't have to worry about impressing them. >> older married matrons. >> in this case, elizabeth was not. >> there's plenty of evidence among the racial divide, it's interesting. she was not happy when he called her auntie. she told him then and there that isn't what she likes to be called. he had the same reaction with mrs. fremont, he thought she was pushy and saucy. the pamphleteer, whose name i'm

forgetting, who knows the name of the woman who wrote the pamphlet about war powers? anna dickinson, did not like her when she sent the bill for her services. he has a problem with strong women although marin her way is strong but limited by the divides of the spheres. let's begin and see what's on your mind? >> hi. i'm from baltimore. your description of lincoln reminds me of a frequent descriptions of george washington and roosevelt, they had relatively few friends but both i gather had relatively good relationships with women. i wonder if there's something about being the leader of a nation in crisis it brings out that kind of person. this may also be a good description, i don't know about him as much, winston churchill

as well i don't think had many male friends although many many male admirers. and george washington had real -- lafayette and hamilton, both young admirers, young talented people he treated as sons. >> a really good question although washington and fdr were much more at ease with women i think you alluded to. >> let me mention, i talked this way about lincoln once in a presentation in lincoln, illinois, jim edgar, a very popular governor in illinois, his top assistance was in the audience, he said, do you want to go get a beer, i'd always say yes to that. he said i want to talk about jim edgar, i shouldn't be ratting out my friend, jim edgar, everybody thinks he's a wonderful warm person but around us that work for him he's not, hard to get along with -- not hard to get along with -- demanding, not in the same way.

our congressman, ed mattie gan was a good friend who became secretary of agricultural for father bush until clinton beat him in the top tenure of ag was short. ed was friendly and nice and you never knew what he was thinking. in answer, maybe public figures have to be more guarded in their relationships. >> now that i'm a roosevelt person part of the time, the comment one hears most about fdr in our circle of roosevelt historians at hunter college is that roosevelt's magic was agreeing with everybody and making everyone feel his or her opinion was the most important and the last word and never disagreeing and never saying no. no one ever heard him say no to any request or suggestion.

he didn't pay attention to them when they had gone but he didn't say no. [ laughter ] >> the great line about -- i can't remember who said it, my old friend, jeffrey ward, told me this, the great line about roosevelt he had a thickly forested interior. i would say that applies to lincoln as well. thickly forested interior. >> about both men, people thought perhaps they were shallow because they didn't give of themselves too much. i would suggest they both had a great deal of depth people preferred to ignore. >> kathryn harris from springfield, illinois. from what you said, how would you then define on your degrees of friendship the relationship mr. lincoln had with william floorville. >> who? >> william floorville, billy the barber, very interesting

character. >> were you directing that to me? >> anyone who wants to answer but always you. >> believe it or not we do sort of get along. floorville was an african-american barber. >> haitian. >> haitian in springfield that also bought property in bloomington. he contracted to sell some people in bloomington contracted to sell him land and then they reneged. so he goes to lincoln -- these are prominent men in bloomington. he went to lincoln and lincoln drafted up a complaint for specific performance of the contract and sent it to him, said either you do this or else we're filing this suit. they followed through with the deal. they were close in springfield. i think it was relationship in

equality. i don't see any discriminatory behavior in that relationship, do you? >> no. i was asking you. >> i think that's a good evidence of his color blindness. >> edna, would you agree? >> i don't know we can say there's equality there, because in 19th century america, even in illinois, there is inequality. the fact that floorville is known as "billy the barber" is the first thing. >> kind of like auntie sojourner. >> definitely. my idea of friendship is somebody i will invite over to sunday dinner or i can be invited to sunday dinner. i doubt seriously if william floorville was invited to the lincoln household. he was his bash erber for 24 ye and absolutely they had a close

relationship but i don't think it was a friendship in the way joshua speed was his friend. i don't think it could ever be that because of the nature of the times. not because of lincoln, because of the times. >> i would agree. i think it's worth remembering his best and really intimate friend was speed who had come from a slave only family. john speed, the father, in farmington, had at its height in 1842 as many as 62 slaves. this was a big plantation, like a little village. it's actually been preserved, a very interesting place to see. this is what speed came out of. when he was in springfield, even as late as 1841, he was in correspondence with somebody who was buying a slave for him in --

somewhere south. [ laughter ] >> blocking on exactly where. at a time when he's very intimate with lincoln. then lincoln goes in the midst of his emotional turmoil late august for 20 days september of 1840, goes to visit farmington, stays there and has a boy assigned to him. that's really -- people make a lot about his trips down to new orleans in 1828 in the flat boat trips, really, his most extended direct experience with slavery is that three week visit to farmington in the late summer of 1840. he never addresses the -- john speed used to chase down escapees. he was a classic sort of relatively enlightened kentucky slave owner but had all the

brutalities of slavery. this was lincoln's best friend. he never questioned that. they didn't talk about those kinds of issues. it had to -- in the letters, crucial letters in the early 1842, he you famisticly calls the plantation a farm. i never want to get into farming like you do. farming, running a plantation is not running a farm. >> another formative experience for him must have been his visits to his father-in-law's house in lexington. his father-in-law may have been a wiig but lexington is a slave city and the todd home is a block and a half from the whipping post. >> the woman he loved and had his children by and his best male friend were raised in slavery. >> let me point out, when he

went to visit speed he saw some slaves on a boat. >> that's the same trip. >> that's when he's coming back. he said like fish on a trout line and 10 years later he wrote a letter, i believe, to speed's sister, still saying that image burned in his mind and could never get it out of his mind. >> he wrote -- when he left he came back to springfield his thank you letter for the visit was mary the older half sister of speed was an objectifying image. >> he didn't have to leave springfield to encounter slavery. slavery existed in illinois and indenture existed in illinois. if he had gone to the edwards household he would have encountered earn denture. people who were enslaved would

have served him right there in springfield even though we don't think of illinois as a slave holding state it did have enslaved people there when lincoln was there. not many. he would have encountered them. >> and had a six month rule. >>yes. >> end this part with the william floorville story. i searched in vain for letters from his hometown once he reached washington with anything other than requests for money, complaints about how the todd family and others were turning against him and embarrassing him in politics in springfield. i think the only unencumbered letter i found was from floorville to lincoln, a long one page letter in addition i just thought you and the boys

might like to know fido the dog is all right. >> the only one to ever tell lincoln the pet they left behind had survived. >> in that one letter he also mentioned his gratitude or whatever the word is for issuing the proclamation. >> yes. >> i'm bonnie from temecula, california. this is for mr. rozier. i read your book on speed, their friendship. i have a couple of questions. how equal was that friendship? i remember you talking in the book about speed would follow lincoln on the circuit if he had free time just to see and watch what lincoln was doing. on the other hand, i noticed one of lincoln's female friend he could confide in was speed's mother, when she was down in speed's father's plantation. the other question is, do you

think lincoln would have come out of his melancholy period if it wasn't for speed? >> equal relationship. it was a very -- you know, lincoln was tall, exaggerated by his top hat, athletic, a very male presence. right? speed was much -- 5'8", ordinary type, he was softer, kept his hair long, comparison made looked like the poet byron. 5 years younger. totally idolalized lincoln. wasn't an equal in that sense, very different but they complimented each other. there was something about the presence of speed that enormously attracted lincoln and allowed him to let his guard down into that thickly forested interior. for speed, it meant he could

find a source of idealization that could help him find meaning into his life. i won't go into his relationship with his father but i think there was something there as well. your second question? >> could he have gotten over his depression without speed? >> no. that's the whole point of my book. [ laughter ] >> absolutely not. he -- as i said this morning, this was somebody who had come out of a really serious suicidal depression. they took a suicide watch in january, '41, they took the knives out of his room. someone was asking me at lunch how remarkable it is to have had such serious, late 20s and early 30s to have had such serious

types of depression and it was the meaningful of that friendship, took a couple years he finally totally opened up. they were so -- it was the first person in his life and last male whom he was open and available to and could share experience and intimacy. that's what you ultimately want in a friendship, what it is all about. to be open and trusting and vunerable and get something back from the other. he had that with speed. they were both also deeply troubled and confused about sexuality, not unimportant. they were both naive. i think lincoln may have been a virgin by the time he was 33, which is a long time. if he wasn't a virgin, he was certainly inexperienced, naive and innocent and very troubled by sexuality. that letter on february 25th, 1842, where speed basically said he got married and the sky didn't fall in.

he's holding the letter and begins by saying, i'm still shaking 10 hours later. this is a 33-year-old man. so he could vicariously work through these issues and confusions very deep and abiding in that friendship and then be able to grow and flower and move on to love and marriage and become the man and leader whom we know. >> i know that because speed was there, he was the one that brought him out of it. say there was no speed in his life, was lincoln strong enough to come out of that by himself? >> very quickly. >> counter-factual history is probably not -- >> we don't know. >> there was speed. >> okay. >> final question. >> apart from john wilkes. >> lift the microphone -- >> can you talk about -- sorry -- apart from the obvious,

john wilkes booth and the confederacy and military, can you think of some of his enemies politically, socially? >> we'll have another panel on enemies. we can't possibly breach the enemy subject with this panel. that's the subject with this panel. >> he doesn't have any? is that the answer? >> i think that should be our answer for this one. let me end with two quotes i think are interesting. one, he told -- he related to william seward we identified as a close friend at the end of his life. when seward said a lot of con fed rats have been killed on the peninsula, on a particularly bloody day in 1862, lincoln said, and this might represent a feeling he had through his life, the loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends. by then he had lost speed in some ways as a friend and yet

his resilience is remarkable, too, this is another quote from 1861. i don't know if it plays into the theme that we began with, which is the ability lincoln had to lose friends and make other friends. he said, i have learned the value of old friends by making many new ones. take that as you will. join us at the book signing tables and thank you for your attention. [ applause ] >> you're watching american history tv all weekend on c-span tv. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. >> tonight on "the communicators" at bell labs

where they conducted communication research. >> on the fore70 is 5 g communication. >> which is? >> it's an interesting thing. like 100 years since we had this and this has changed the species with the wireless communication coming in. all we want to do is go to a new era of communication and directed beam communications opposed to broadcasting the signal everywhere we want to target the beam at individuals. the reason we want to do this, our thirst for data is never ending and always want more and more. we have saturated lower frequencies, not good anymore. one of the challenges is the signal lost through the air is too much. we can't do broadcast in a

traditional sense. if i want to direct to you i have to broadcast directly at you and send a chunk of data and move to the next person. this is a change in paradigm and huge set of challenges. the entire wireless industry is quite excited about this. >> watch "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. each week american history tv's real america provides you archival films on today's public affairs issues.