Lincoln (?) on Goodman’s allegations

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

3:48 PM. Mr. Lincoln, Bob and I were just discussing the material Linda Goodman wrote, that I saw 20 years ago, saying you had twin illegitimate daughters. It seemed right at the time – seemed to explain you emotionally. But she and I couldn’t get along. Now Bob says maybe I should contact her, but it occurs to me to contact you. Is this a subject you are interested in pursuing?

When Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings was disclosed in your time (as opposed to the persistent rumors in my time) it cleared away the largest obstacle in your day’s mind to hearing about my own children. You (your age, that is) could not have heard of my having had a long-lasting intense spiritual affair nor by any means one with an aristocrat nor one leading to children, all of it kept secret by my friends and hers. But now it could be faced and now it would present a more humanized face to the idol enshrined on the Potomac.

It wouldn’t be mere debunking, you mean.

In your hands?

Thank you. But, now, is this feasible?

You cannot do the extensive scholarship necessary nor can you easily or perhaps at all bring forth so much information. But what you can do is direct others, as your friend Jim unearths the principles behind innovations by judicious questioning.

I could keep pointing psychics in certain directions?

Not exactly that. You could hold the investigation to the proper limits and move it in the right directions. Many a man’s papers – David Davis’s for instance – will provide the information. Herndon, and therefore Jesse Weik. But more to the point, the Austrian side; the records or rather the recurrent suspicions and rumors will tell you. Look to see who was in Washington DC when I was a representative and you will see.

I have thought that this was the most likely time – somewhere between 1847 and 1849 – because I couldn’t see how you could have met anyone while you were in Springfield, even on the circuit, beforehand or afterwards.

Don’t jump to conclusions, though. The past always looks simpler than it really is. Think of your own life. It doesn’t happen in the stripped-down fashion that it gets related in.

All right. If it was after 1849 – no, I’ll wait till I get a look at the Goodman material, if I get to look at it.

Oh, you will, unless you choose otherwise. You have set the ball in play again after a necessary twenty-year delay that did get your attention.

I’ve never forgotten the material, it’s true.

Nor had you chatted with me, nor had you had any idea it would be possible.

True. Well, we have several ends to tug at. Linda Goodman’s end, yours, and the two ends of the Austrian connection.

Many more than that, and you have Google available to you, which is all the difference.

Well, we’ll see, I guess.

[However, I never followed up on this.]

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