Lincoln's Melancholy

Joshua Wolf Shenk

Never has the conditions for a president-elect been so severe, and never had one seemed, by his credentials, so poorly prepared. Lincoln’s fifteen predecessors had included war hero generals, vice presidents, secretaries of state, and veterans of Congress. His own resume listed, as he put it, “one term in the lower house of Congress.” He’d had barely a year of formal education; he had few connections in the capital and no executive experience. Before coming to Washington, he had been east of the Alleghenies just a handful of times and still bore the stamp of a man raised on the frontier.

Can we say that Lincoln was “mentally ill”? Without question, he meets the U.S. surgeon general’s definition of mental illness, since he experienced “alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior” that were associated with “distress and/or impaired functioning.” Yet Lincoln also meets the surgeon general’s criteria for mental health: “the successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and the ability to adapt to change and to cope with adversity.” By this standard, few historical figures led such a healthy life.

Lincoln, of course, is not the only nineteenth-century figure in whom intense suffering coexisted with great achievement. Modern researchers have identified one or more major mood disorders in John Quincy Adams, Charles Darwin, Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Disraeli, William James, William Tecumseh Sherman, Robert Schumann, Leo Tolstoy, Queen Victoria, and many others. We may accurately call these luminaries “mentally ill,” a label that has some use—as did our early diagnosis of Lincoln—insofar as it indicates the depth, severity, and quality of their trouble. However, if we get stuck on the label, we may miss the core fascination, which is how illness can coexist with marvelous well-being.

I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.

I make no apology, gentlemen, for my weakness.

I, like sloping rock, lie on tumble hill test, to fall or fly, or stay on just where I am. There is only one way to go and that way is down because there is only one way gravity pulls and that is towards itself. Can't be that stones should one day have flight? Gain the air and make off into the beautiful blue that is open up there?
Gentlemen, I make no apology for my weakness. I make no apology at all. That's why all these rocks are migrating through our airspace, Mr President. Like a sudden flight of insects or the airborne bombardment of a flock of angry birds the rocks are rising. What would you have me do? Grin so that they might knock out all my teeth? Well, no, but tears surely won't help. I beg to differ, Mr Secretary. What is the one substance that has dominion over stones, though it may be a slow dominion? Why, what else, Mr Secretary, but water. But saltwater, Mr President? Do you expect me to believe saltwater is better your sovereignty than gunpowder? Especially the saltwater of tears, Mr President? You are President, not Pastor. Oh, dear Mr Secretary. What do you know of the powers that be? You think gunpowder more able to split rocks then water, especially tear water. This is not a little foolish.
I could go on for some hours, Mr Secretary, but I am fatigued. Would you be so kind as to see these gentlemen out? Shoot them in the front of their heads if you would like, I only thought it would be less unpleasant for you to do it from behind. And so it goes.
They tell me I was killed in a theater. Unfortunately, I did not know how to act. I believe this inability directly led to my death. Had I acted, put on a bit of a show, prevaricated some you know, made a few nods to the grim opposition, they might not have shot me. Useless, useless he said when he shot me. And so my friend joined the long list of men who had to find nothing to find everything. It saddens my heart that this man should have struggled so hard to kill me and thus find meaning, when all he had to do was talk with me. While I am not such a brilliant orator as to persuade a man from murder, I am such a miserable man as to impart some bit of the futility rife in life to a man, thereby disarming him more thoroughly then any martial arts expert might have. There is a great defeating force in depression: Douglass Adams knew this: just look at Marvin. But that isn't particularly surprising: many wise souls have known this: Quoholeth, Lao Zi, Lewis Carrol, and Junious knew.
But then again, Junius always knew.
What can a dead man say? I was shot in the back of the head. If I hadn't been shot there, they would have shot me in the face, or perhaps failing that, torn me limb from limb. And there isn't really anything for it. My heart was doomed, and that's why it was so heavy. Or maybe my heart was heavy and that was why it was so doomed.