History and Sexual Orientation

[MrFun]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Jeff Davis and John Bell Hood did more to reelect the devil incarnate than any Yankee could hope to have. Can't blame Hood too much though, he was continuously stoned off his ass on Laudanum.

McClellan hung his hat on ending the war and letting the south go, then had to reverse himself and commit political hara-kiri after Davis gave away Atlanta.

Lincoln was re-elected based on the sudden, massively favorable shift on the progress of the war, and mass nepotism (mostly Chase's treasury agents), far more than any fundamental philosophy on the part of the northern electorate.

A "devil incarnate" -- what an intelligent, objective statement.
That would be like me continuing to use the words, "War of Southern Stupidity" to name the Civil War.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I have no idea if anyone still cares about this bit of trivia, but: the only other bachelor ever elected president was Grover Cleveland, who subsequently became the first president to marry while in office (Wilson, a widower, also did). The marraige ceremony was covered by the press like a royal wedding, his wife was treated as a kind of Jackie Kennedy prototype, and their first child, Ruth, was the naming inspiration for the Baby Ruth candy bar.

[Imran Siddiqui]

A stretch?? Maybe something like 80% of the reason was indeed due to the success of the war, but to say that there is only one single cause for Lincoln's reelection.
Wouldn't that be a little stretch itself?

Not at all. Lincoln's fortunes were fully based on the war. His popularity jumped from under 50% before the taking of Atlanta to landslide by the reelection. It was the war that did it. If the Union forces were still bogged down in 1864, we'd be praising McClellan and how he ended the war.

Given the virulent racism throughout the 19th century, I would have thought that an American president who abolished slavery through the federal government and gets reelected was indeed part of the social, revolutionary change.
But then again, I have to consider the nadir of race relations from 1880's through 1930's.

Um... the Northern states, while rascist, were VERY against slavery. Most Northern states abolished slavery before 1860, and the 1860 Congress was very pro abolishing slavery.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Spartak
Which one? Harold Goodwinson?

No- Godwin's youngest legitimate son. I can't remember his name.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by MrFun
A stretch?? Maybe something like 80% of the reason was indeed due to the success of the war, but to say that there is only one single cause for Lincoln's reelection.
Wouldn't that be a little stretch itself?

There may be a number of reasons folks would vote for Lincoln or McClellan, but success or failure in the war itself was so dominant that nothing would have saved Lincoln had Joe Johnston continued to hang up Sherman. After Gettysburg and Vickburg, people thought the war was won. Grant the butcher had taken over, and the progress in the east was not near enough (McClellan had been seven miles from Richmond two years earlier) to offset the sharp increase in Yankee casualties. The publication of the number of casualties, combined with the popular effect of the draft, had the northern electorate thoroughly sick of a war which they saw as grossly mismanaged and pointless.

Given the virulent racism throughout the 19th century, I would have thought that an American president who abolished slavery through the federal government and gets reelected was indeed part of the social, revolutionary change.
But then again, I have to consider the nadir of race relations from 1880's through 1930's.

Me thinks I might have to create a better thesis.

Me thinks so too. When you consider "race" relations in the US, you also have to consider the Irish, Italians, etc. - Catholic Europeans who were not really considered "white" and who were competing pools of labor.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by MrFun


A "devil incarnate" -- what an intelligent, objective statement.
That would be like me continuing to use the words, "War of Southern Stupidity" to name the Civil War.

{foghorn leghorn voice}It's a joke, son, a joke I say{/foghorn leghorn voice}

and hey, if you think making a principled stand on a fundamental constitutional issue (as the Constitution then existed) is stupid, that's alright be my.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Fez
What is the big deal with who is gay or not? Some of that list that was presented is mostly argumentative... and cannot be proven... but who cares who did what with who?

If responses to "Historical Filth" are anything to go by- much of this forum, at least.

[Ramo]

Fun, I have to say that your second thesis is much, much more interesting than the first (although you seem somewhat obsessed with mid-19th century US; why not pick some other time period/region?).

A good case can be made for the EP causing a revolutionary change by giving the abolitionist movement new blood, and changing conceptions of the Civil War in the North, South, and Europe. Particularly interesting was how Lincoln's belief of the changes the EP would bring differed from reality.

For instance, he thought it would force the Southern elite to cave into Lincoln's demand and end rebellion, while it in fact mobilized their opinion against him. And he didn't realize that it would give a boost to abolition; within a year, the public was clearly in favor of it.

And of course, it mobilized European support for the US and ended the threat of British/French intervention, which he accurately predicted.

[Hagbart]

Did Bush I marry his mother?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

No. Though he was often called something that might lead one to believe that he did.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Sharpe
At least Michelangelo, DaVinci, Saladin, Suleiman, Frederick the Great and Augustus Caesar were probably neither gay or bi. The Greeks in the list have to be taken with a grain of salt given the cultural traditions that existed in Ancient Greece.

This link seems to provide the citing of references, and includes people who were known to have even only one same-sex encounted (like Brando):

http://www.sexuality.org/l/lesbigay/gayceleb.html

Here is a source I found on Michelango:

"It has been claimed that Michelangelo was an abstinent bisexual that had very intense attraction for male beauty. In fact, Michelangelo developed romantic but apparently non-sexual relationships with at least one man, Tommaso de' Cavalieri, who was 23 years old when he met Michelangelo in 1532. Michelangelo wrote a series of romantic sonnets as a result of this apparent infatuation.

The homoeroticism of Michelangelo's poetry was obscured when his grand nephew, Michelangelo the Younger, published an edition of the poetry in 1623 with the gender of pronouns changed. John Addington Symonds undid this change by translating the original sonnets into English and writing a two-volume biography, published in 1893. "

Da Vinci is pretty much agreed to have been homosexual by most historians, so not sure why you're disagreeing with that. Ditto for Frederick The Great. Voltaire and Frederick were likely lovers briefly, and after they had a falling out, Voltaire molded the Baron in Candide after Frederick to skewer him. The Baron likes to take baths with handsome young men. I've read two biographies of Frederick, and both took it as fact he was homosexual.

It should be noted that the list surprisingly doesn't have Edward the Second , King of England in the 14th century and he was almost certainly gay. There is also some evidence that James Garfield, President of the US in 1881 was at least bi. The list contains probably too many famous world changing people, and not very many (or any) less famous or infamous figures of history.

Um, Edward [i]is[/is] on the list. And, as for infamous, so is Ernst Rohm, the Nazi. I think it's a pretty good list of the more well-known historical figures who were, probably were, or maybe were GLB, regardless of if they were good or bad people.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by mindseye


Here is another promising link which I could not open because geocities is filtered by The Great Firewall of China Perhaps some kind soul will quote the relevent contents here.

www.geocities.com/boybluetoo/rufey.html

As requested- article reprint.

William Rufus de Vane King
(1786~1853)


Much of American history has been suppressed, especially the scandalous parts. Because boyblue considers those the only parts worth knowing, he feels duty bound to set the record straight...well, sort of straight. You may call it smut. boyblue considers it La History, like the story of the decades long love affair of Prez James Buchanan (1791~1868) and a future Veep, William Rufus de Vane King, the queen of Alabama. Now we're not talking just good buddies here, sweetie, we're talking major humping for twenty years.

This ultimate power duo would have done it in the Lincoln bed but Abe hadn't moved in yet. He was still out in Illinois chopping logs and sleeping every night with John Speed, his knock out lawyer buddy.

Tuberculosis whisked away the dearly beloved Veep before Ol' Bucky, as Jamie Buchanan was known, took over the White House. So the prez never got to carry his truly beloved and the future Veep across the threshhold up to the legendary Lincoln bedroom as the prototypal couple for Rhett and Scahlett. Never mind that the Lincoln bedroom didn't exist yet. Some other knowledgeable purveyors of smut believe that when Ol' Bucky handed the house keys over to Abe Lincoln when he moved out of the White House that it was one queen turning over the keys to another. Of course boyblue believes that too. He makes it an ironclad rule to believe all the dirt about everybody. It's simply the only way to monger scandal reliably.

William Rufus de Vane King is forgotten by almost everyone but the ever faithful and salacious boyblue. A specialist in First Lady dirt, Carl Sferrazza Anthony, got things going again with his discovery of two letters to Buchanan from Rufey, which have appeared in other books since the 1970s. boyblue hasn't gotten his mitts on those yet (any surfer got a copy?) but when he does, they will be immediately posted here in his little shrine to Billy Rufe.

Rufey wasn't Veep of the U. S. of A. long enough even to get his Alabama crinolines packed off to Washington though. He was only Numero Duo for about six weeks to be exact, during which time he never set an embroidered pump in Washington. He is perhaps the most obscure person ever to hold that obscure office, especially in the 19th century. Veep John Nance Garner in the 1930s remarked that the vice presidency "wasn't worth a bucket of warm piss." Who knows, Rufey may have liked it though? Naturally boyblue considers Billy Rufe to be simply adorable.

Rufus was born in North Carolina to a prominent family of southern politicians. He attended the University of North Carolina, from which he took a law degree in 1803 and immediately jumped into politics--and quite successfully. He served in the legislature and then in congress. In the 1830s he decided to move to Alabama, which had only recently been admitted to the union. Alabama was still a frontier and uncivilized state, just like now. Rufey got himself a big ol' plantation complete with slaves and set about growing piles of cotton. He seems to have out scarleted Scarlett. See his family silver as a reverential southern belle describes it to you via the miracle of net audio. If the scent of magnolias and jasmine turns your stomach, however, you may not care to follow this hotlink.

After Rufey helped write the Alabama state constitution, he was elected to be senator from Alabama. He seems to have been a rather potent one. I mean as a SENATOR, you slut. He naturally was looking after the best interests of slaveholders, not too different from certain oil governors and presidents who faithfully tend the affairs of oil companies as well as their own.

Rufey was appointed U. S. ambassador to France. Where else should the queen of all southern belles go but gay Paree? There he worked for a couple of years to keep France from opposing the annexation of Texas by the U. S. of A. He succeeded and we still have Texas, or vice versa. He was also secretary to the American legation in Russia before that. This was when the Russian czars were reigning in all their glory, so I'm sure Queen Rufey felt right at home when he dined at the Winter Palace. He didn't have much time to sample the caviar since he spent most of his two year tour floating about Europe.

One of Ol' Bucky's (1791-1868) claims to fame is that he was the United States' first "bachelor" president. We know what that means now, don't we kiddies? When he was in his 20s, he worked as a lawyer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he met and became engaged to a very young lady named Ann Coleman whose father conveniently enough was probably the richest man in America. For some mysterious reason, she broke off the engagement suddenly, however, and conveniently died soon thereafter, maybe even a suicide. Ol' Bucky recovered in about three days but remained unmarried for the rest of his natural life, a marital state which didn't seem to bother him any.

He "enjoyed a 20-year intimate friendship with another bachelor, William Rufus de Vane King. The two men met as U. S. senators in 1834.... They shared quarters in Washington, D.C., for many years, and Buchanan called their relationship a 'communion.'" Boy, I'll say! I just wonder who knelt first when they did "communion."

A lot of the Washington crowd didn't cotton to the Alabama cotton queen. Andy Jackson, another president and noted for his sour temperament and his own marriage to a whore, dubbed him "Miss Nancy." Aaron Brown, a major Democrat, called him "Aunt Fancy" and Buchanan's "better half." In a private letter, Brown referred to King as "she" and "her." (Is there nothing new?) A law partner of James K. Polk labeled them Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan. Despite Rufey's more obvious qualifications to be named queen, he was elected as Franklin Pierce's Veep in 1852 on the pro-slavery ticket. He was a compromise candidate to please the Southern slaveholders.

One does wonder just what Rufey did with all those slaves of his. Even though he was in fact ol' massa, I just wonder if he always assumed that role with the slaves. But a veil of dark silence has been drawn across this smoldering page of history and we'll just never know, chil'ren, what carryings on went on down on the ol' plantation. I'm quite sure they didn't sit around the camp fire and tell Uncle Remus tales all the time.

Now comes the ever so sad part of the story. After Rufey was elected but before he could get sworn in, he gets awful sick with tuberculosis, rather common in those days what with chamber pots under every bed and all. So he up and goes to Havana to take the cure. I have no idea what the cure was, probably a hot latin tamale every hour on the hour or something. While he is being cured in Havana, congress is nice enough to pass a law permitting him to take the oath of office while he's in Cuba. So he does that at Ariadna, a plantation he was visiting there owned by a Colonel John Chartrand in Matanazas, Cuba. He remains our only offshore Veep to this very day. He returns to his own plantation six weeks after becoming Veep and promptly dies the day after returning to the plantation. Such a waste. Just think of what Washington society lost.

Now comes the funny part. His family gets in a terrible tizzy over what to do with the body when he keels over. No one wants it buried anywhere near them. Finally they bury him at the plantation and then move him to the city cemetery near Cahaba, which is an old settlement near Selma, Albama, known for another King who marched through there once. You know, the one King County, Washington is named for. To this day you can see Rufey's grave vault there, with southern moss dripping all around, looking terribly decadent and aristocratic and Southeren. He lies alone in his tomb. Let us shed a sad Victorian tear for poor, all but forgotten Billy Rufe, our only semi-out Veep.

Actually, he was at least dimly remembered for a while. King County, Washington, home of Seattle was named for him. You may think it rather odd such a county should be named for Rufe, but it was. Trust me on this. It isn't any more. Some clever dudes in 1986 decided it wasn't fitting to have the quintesstial techie county to be named for a Southern slave-owning queen. So they officially renamed the county in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. They didn't even have to change the stationery. Now wasn't that clever? So now it's up to those of us who adore perverted history to keep the flame alive for Rufey and so many others who have been wiped out of the tomes that give you the "nice" version of history. The truth is more fun.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


{foghorn leghorn voice}It's a joke, son, a joke I say{/foghorn leghorn voice}

and hey, if you think making a principled stand on a fundamental constitutional issue (as the Constitution then existed) is stupid, that's alright be my.

Well, with all the other ludicrous ideas that people actually want taken seriously . . . . .

And I have used the words, "War of Southern Stupidity" just to show the "Lost Cause" followers how me and others feel when they deliberately distort or degrade the Northern side of the Civil War.

And Imran, Ramo, and MTG -- thanks for your thoughts on my thesis.

[MichaeltheGreat]

What's to distort or degrade? It was a naked power grab and a forced subordination of state sovereignty to a Federal nationalism which was repugnant to our founding fathers, but ever more convenient for dreams of empire which were so common from date of the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine. It was even successful after a while.

[Clear Skies]

There was something in the papers not too long ago saying that Nietszche was gay...

Personally I'd rather he stayed on his own side of the fence. That bloke scares me quite a lot...