For four years, Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed shared one bed.  At the time, it was common for two men of limited economic means to sleep together, but Lincoln and Speed’s arrangement continued long after the young future President could afford his own bed.  Lincoln, in letters to Speed,  said “I do not feel my own sorrows more keenly than I do yours,” and “You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting.”  Lincoln signed letters to Speed “yours forever”, a phrase not used even with his wife, Mary Todd.  Lincoln’s lifelong struggle with “melancholia”,  his professed affection for Speed, and his reported awkwardness around women lead some to believe Lincoln was gay.

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