Lincoln suicide poem believed found | CNN

[Ediacara]

Lincoln suicide poem believed found

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 Posted: 8:12 PM EDT (0012 GMT)

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (AP) -- A presidential historian has found a poem about suicide that he believes might have been written by Abraham Lincoln.

Richard Lawrence Miller, the author of "Truman: The Rise to Power," searched every issue of the weekly Sangamo Journal from 1831 to 1842 as part of his research into Lincoln's life, and found an unsigned poem that matched one described by friends of Lincoln.

Miller analyzed "The Suicide's Soliloquy," published in an 1838 issue, and concluded that a 29-year-old Lincoln was the author. Miller wrote about his find in the spring 2004 issue of the newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association of Springfield.

Lincoln scholars have long known of a suicide poem but had never found it. Some dated the poem to 1841, the year Lincoln suffered from depression after breaking his engagement to Mary Todd. William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner and biographer, once reported that the poem had been published in the Sangamo Journal but was later clipped out of the only copy he could find.

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[stevedeshazer]

1. If verified, that would be quite a find

Lincoln's depression was well-known, but a suicide poem takes it all a step farther.

[wtmusic]

2. Lincoln would never have been elected today

Dukakis was raked over the coals for depression, but a suicide poem? He wouldn't stand a chance...

[Alpharetta]

3. speaking from personal experience

if you write bad poems, you're cursed with them for life.

This is a lesson I'll be impressing on my kids. :)

[supernova]

4. Wow. Interesting

So he was contemplating suicide 23 years before the start of the Civil War?

The fact that he didn't and is considered perhaps our greatest President for preserving the union is interesting.

[Zolok]

5. Trust me...the Duke doesn't suffer from depression...

his low key style should never be mistaken for low affectivity.

Yeah old Abe was a real renaissance man wasn't he?
Lawyer, statesman, humorist, and now a poet.
Pity about his depression though, but I blame his enviroment...between his high strung high maintenance wife and the death of what...two of his children...that has to hit a guy good and hard.

www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com

[sybylla]

6. Because you write a poem about suicide

doesn't mean you are considering it. This is a myth that keeps people from talking about suicide. I find the number of people who believe that if you say it or think it, you want to do it or are planning to do it, absolutely dumbfounding. It isn't a virus, it isn't a magic word that acts on us with some hypnotic power. In fact, suicide itself is not just some casual act like, say..., having sex. It is an act of desperation, at least in the mind of those who choose to do it.

For example, If I think about buying a Mini Cooper, does that mean I will?
If I think about having children, does that mean I will?
If I think about killing my mother-in-law, and don't think I haven't, does that mean I will?

Throughout my life I've spent time contemplating a great many things. The point of all that thinking isn't merely to choose to act but in large part to understand both the great variety of options open to me as well as the choices of others.

I think about suicide much more than the average person, no doubt. But I am far from suicidal. I think about suicide because of what I have seen it to do to my sister-in-law's family since her husband killed himself January 24, 1994. That one act has sent the lives of more than a dozen people careening down a path not of their own choosing. And I watch every day as many of them struggle fruitlessly to get back to the course they want to be on, the one they were on when he was still a part of their lives.

[daleo]

7. Good post

I have seen this too, more than once.

[FleshCartoon]

8. Exactly.

In fact, I believe that's why many people write creatively, even if it's just a hobby--to get things off their chests and out of their systems. I do it myself, and it works quite well.