Significant Others - Conan O’Brien on the Lincolns

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Liza is joined by her significant other, self-proclaimed Lincoln super-fan Conan O’Brien, to discuss how crucial Mary Lincoln was to her husband's political career.

Welcome back to Significant Others. I'm Liza Powell O'Brien. When my Significant Others suggested the subject of yesterday's episode, I thought, yeah, yeah, we all know about Mary Todd Lincoln already. But then he went on about how useful she had been to her husband's political career, which was an angle I hadn't heard before, and I decided I had to know more. and I decided I had to know more. Before I knew it, yesterday's episode was born. And when it came time to talk it all down, I knew just the expert I wanted to interview. Do you wish that in our marriage vows, I had added the phrase,

I will never ask you to do my podcast? Yes. I think that, who knew at the time? It was 2002. I'm so glad I got that year right. I was thinking it was different. I'm pretty sure it was 2002. It was.

And let's move on from these. Yeah. No, I've been interested in Lincoln for a really long time and realized at one point when we finally got a decent bookshelf years after we were married and we put our books in there, I realized, oh, I've taken up like a whole wall with Lincoln. That's okay. It makes our house look smart. Yeah. Well, actually most of them you open up and they're hollowed out. Right. And I keep liquor in there. But no, it's funny because you've been very tolerant of, No, it's funny because you've been very tolerant of, we took a trip right after we got married to- Georgia. I wanted to go to Georgia and you said, okay, and we drove down to the coast.

I had never been to Georgia. I was thrilled to go to Georgia. Yeah, you had never been to Georgia. So we went to Savannah. We were accidentally there on St. Patrick's Day. Do you remember that? Yeah. And it was such a big deal in Savannah.

It's like the capital of St. Patrick's Day, which was not my intention because I usually try and flee St. Patrick's Day because I look like a parade float for the Irish. But then we drove around and I was taking you to different Civil War stuff. And then finally, I remembered we were driving back up through the state and I said, hey, let's stop off at Andersonville. And you

said, well, what's in Andersonville? And I said, well, it's basically just a big field. It was a prisoner of war camp. And you said, and what's there to see there? And I said, well, it's basically just a big field where, you know, like a hundred thousand men died of diarrhea and dysentery. And you went, uh, no, we're not doing that. So we bypassed. And I thought, well, I did, I married the right one because you made the right call. There really is nothing to see at Andersonville. I think we were on our way back from seeing Jimmy Carter's boyhood home. Yes, we were back. We were on our way back from Plains. So I thought, yeah, Plains was my, I was paid, I paid my dues in Plains and I thought that's my historical duty.

Yeah, that should be your autobiography. I paid my dues in Plains, which is also a country Western song. And then, yeah, you passed up the field where everyone died horribly. And I think that was the right call. But you would still like to go back. I'll go back in a heartbeat, but I'll go with my friend, Eric. Eric, my college roommate,

who's equally obsessed. He'll drive down with me and we'll stare at the field and tell you what it was all about. I can get on board with that. Yeah. I have a question. Yeah. Is Lincoln your favorite president? Would you say that? Yes, by far. By far. Yeah. And why is that? favorite president? Would you say that? Yes, by far. By far. Yeah. And why is that? Lincoln's my favorite president because he's one of the few historical figures I know where the more you learn about him, the more impressed you are with him. Usually the more you learn about somebody, the less impressed you are. And as you well know, but yeah, he's just endlessly fascinating and complex. And I think he was the smartest person of his era. And he had a deep kind of soulful understanding of humanity. And he was also not just the greatest writer we've had as president, but one of America's

best writers, if you look at some of his best speeches. So I think, well, how did he pull that off? I mean, he was a great political mind and very savvy, but some of his writing is haunting and beautiful in his speeches. And he wrote them himself back when that's what you did. And so you add all that up and he is just fascinating. So, I don't know. I'm just, as you can tell, huge fan. Well, this episode was your idea, which turned out to be a great one.

And when you listened to it, you said that even with all of the books that you have read on Lincoln, most of which I used when I was writing this. Right. I was using them to prop up tables and stuff. Sure. So all my tables were flipping over. Well, you did. You took them all. You did say that there was a lot of stuff in there that you didn't know, probably mostly because, you know, it's about Mary Lincoln, even though it was from books that you had already read. The eye is not trained on her, historically speaking.

Well, she gets dismissed a lot as crazy. as crazy. And there's a lot of speculation that they had a really unhappy marriage. And what we know from the historical record is that she widely overspent. She probably- She had an addiction. Yeah, she had an addiction, probably to help manage all her anxiety. And she was constantly spending money that they didn't have. And then as you talk about in the podcast, really going behind his back to try and, and putting him in political peril to- Hide her sins.

Hide the sins, maybe get a little help here and there from people in the government to help cover up her budget overruns. And so, I mean, that was just be excruciating for someone like Lincoln who was so above board in so many ways and so smart and almost three-dimensionally intelligent about how to protect himself and how to strategize. And then you have this partner who's spending all this money. So that's kind of what you always hear about Mary Lincoln. And then I think what I liked about the approach

that you took and why I think it fits with this podcast you're doing is that it always takes two to tango. There's always a dynamic at place. And these people chose each other. So she chose him, but he also chose her. And that's not an accident. That's not, they didn't meet on Love Island, you know. you know they're together for a while and then he breaks up with her yeah and there's all this conjecture about why that happened right do you have a theory do you remember i don't i don't really you know i always get so wary of trying to figure out you know people there's been conjecture that well about lincoln's sexuality because he had to share a bed with other people on the circuit. Right. He was a circuit lawyer, but also people had to share beds. Men shared beds all the time

together, you know, at that time. And so I don't have, I don't have a problem with Lincoln being any one particular sexuality. I just think, well, I don't know that we'll ever know. And so to me, when it gets into at a time when people really didn't talk about their feelings that much, and I mean, they didn't talk about their feelings at all and probably didn't record, didn't keep, I mean, a few people kept diaries and some people kept very good diaries, but how are we ever gonna know why he broke off the relationship? I know he was really tormented about, I mean, his first big bout of depression,

which he called the hypo, was when he broke off an engagement, I think. And he's famously homely and he had trouble finding the right person and had terrible depression. And I think a lot of his depression really did center around relationships not working out. So I don't know what makes him call off

the engagement to marry Todd. I don't know if you ever had an opinion. I mean, I'm, if you're not a historian either, I'm certainly not a historian, but- Right. Well, this is two non- Yes. This is two people with no business talking about this. Yes. Isn't that what podcasts are for? Yeah, exactly. That's what I do all the time. And, you know, it seems to work out. Well, the theories that I could find postulate that he was actually liked her. Her sister was married to the son of the governor of Illinois.

And who was kind of a, he was like the James Spader character in a John Hughes movie, that guy. He was like kind of- Comically douchey. Exactly. Comically douchey. And he had a niece, I think, who was very, very beautiful and who shared a room with Mary when she was dating Lincoln. And there's one theory that he fell in love with that girl, even though they were never together, but that he felt so guilty about, oh, I like her more and I can't pretend to stay with this one if I really like that one. That's one idea. Another idea was that he was so afraid that he had contracted syphilis and was going to die a horrific early death and didn't want to saddle her with that. And that was the

reason. Yeah, but how will we, I mean, first of all, I've been, I've had a hard time thinking about this question ever since you brought up John Hughes movies, because it just occurred to me that a John Hughes movie about Mary and Abe Lincoln, and treated like that with an 80 score and with Lincoln being the sort of nerdy kid in the high school, a la John Cryer, who's sort of a weirdo, but then there's like a James Spader guy who's, you know, Stephen A. Douglas, and you've got all the tropes. I would love to see that.

I would watch that. I would, I would- You know I would watch that. I would love to see that. Someone who's listening, please- Make that movie. Make that movie. We'll watch it over and over.

Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, ultimately, it's like trying to figure out it's something that's lost to time, I'm sure. And well, maybe he wouldn't have even known if you could sit him right down and ask him. He might not. He might have just He might have just gotten cold feet. Who knows? She was super serious about him and it might have scared him away until... Yeah. I think also he was someone who had... I mean, it's fascinating, but he knew that this is a momentous decision. Who he marries is going to be a momentous decision. I have this theory that I've probably talked about on my own podcast and I've had it for a while, which is that people who have something important to offer the world usually know it

on sub-subconscious level. And I think Lincoln, even as a young man, as improbable as it was, but when he was on a riverboat, in his early late teens, early twenties, probably suspected on some level, I've got something that's special. And he was very ambitious and he knew that even by the time he's meeting Mary Lincoln, He's yet to encounter his intellectual equal. And that has got, that combined with his ambition

makes who he marries a really important decision. Not that, sure, everyone else is thinking it's an important decision too, but Lincoln's probably, it's momentous, it's huge. And in a lot of ways, as you point out, what's really fascinating to me is she clearly knew. And no one else, I mean, everyone else is looking at this field of horses and saying, which one is the thoroughbred here who's going to win the greatest race in history, who's gonna win the Kentucky Derby.

And she looks way over in the corner and sees this gangly, weird, scraggly horse with a beard and a stovepipe hat. Because in my analogy, the horse still looks like that and says, that's the one. And everyone's probably saying, what are you talking about? That horse is wearing a top hat. Again, I should probably let that go, but's the one. And everyone's probably saying, what are you talking about? That horse is wearing a top hat. Again, I should probably let that go, but I can't.

And the horse seems depressed. Well, that, I think that, yes. But she's like, I don't know. I just think she, I think she, you know, many people have said that Mary Lincoln is, they can dismiss her as she's crazy, she's temperamental, she's an added burden to this man who's being driven insane by the Civil War and the loss of his son in office. But no one's ever said she's not, no one has ever questioned her intelligence. Right. but no one's ever said she's not no one has ever questioned her intelligence right so i think they saw in each other you know i agree with your summation that they each saw this is a partner i

can work with this is someone i can do this with so well it's it's interesting with when you say people know they have greatness inside of them and it's sort of almost their obligation to bring that to the world. I think that's true for a lot of great people. And it strikes me with her that her path to greatness was to facilitate a man's becoming president. And sometimes when I hear about great partners of historical figures, you wonder what that person might have done if they had lived in a time when they too could have had that position. You know, for example, in one of the other episodes, we talk about the Nabokovs and Vera Nabokov was brilliant and, you know, just as interested in literature. I don't know that she was a genius of writing the way that her husband was, but she might have had her own ambition. But Mary Todd seems to me to be the kind of person who might never have had her own individual ambition outside of being a partner. And I don't know if that's just the time she's from or if that's somehow also built into the psychology. Yeah. I mean, the world has changed so much, even in just the last century. You think about it, it's changed so much in the last 20 years. And so we're talking about when they marry, 1840s, 1830s, 40s, 50s. And it was such a different time then that it's hard to even think about it from today's perspective. You know, these are not people

that are swiping right or left on an app. These decisions they're making, there's all this formality behind it, the way people meet and how they decide to try and build a life together. It's so different that it's even hard to begin to understand it. But I don't think there are accidents.

I don't think it's an accident that Lincoln marries Mary or that Mary marries Lincoln. There seems to be some kind of destiny to it. And I know, I don't mean destiny in like a romantic, silly way. They were destined to meet. I mean, these are two highly intelligent people who see something in the other person

and they make this choice. And we don't know, but I think it is safe to say that she's a crucial part of his rise. You know, she, and we'll never know. It's an impossible thing to say if he's a crucial part of his rise. You know, she... And we'll never know. It's an impossible thing to say. If he had married someone else,

would he still have come into power? But I don't know. Or if he had married no one, if he had stayed... Because I think at one point there was also... Some historians think that he broke up with her because he thought it would just be too hard to do the job he wanted to do and have a family. I mean, he obviously was crazy about his kids,

loved his kids. So he probably was aware that he wanted kids. Well, on that subject, had you heard or read that it was a shotgun wedding? I remember hearing something about that, but again, not knowing, does anybody really, I know that the dates are kind of close. They line up, but it also could be, I mean, he said, I got him, I've got to marry her.

He said to the, um, I think to one of his doctors, I'm going to have to marry that girl, um, in somewhat of a fatalistic sounding way. And then the wedding happened in one day. Right. Um, and then the child was born less than, fewer than nine months later. You're saying when people run the numbers, Robert is born. Yes. Like not, almost nine months or almost nine months to the second from when they're married.

Basically, yeah. Do you remember when we went to see his house? Nope. Hildene. It's in New Hampshire. We did? Yeah. When were we in New Hampshire? What a sham of We did? Yeah. When were we in New Hampshire?

What a sham of a marriage this is. When were we in New Hampshire? Are you sure it was me? Yeah. Okay. It was the other wife that I had. It was the other wife that I married. It wasn't a big deal at the time.

I remembered we, I think it was New Hampshire, but we were, it's in either New Hampshire or Vermont, but we stopped off at a house that belonged to, this is one of those things I dragged you on, I think at the time. Anyway, I took us way off track. That's probably for the best. Yeah, probably not. But that's what I do. I wander, you know, I think she's fiercely smart. I think she's fiercely smart. So, yeah. And I think we don't know,

but I think that the fact that she knew, as you've pointed out, I think that's what I got the most out of, from your podcast was she just had this absolute certainty that this guy is going all the way. This is the guy with who's got it. And I'm going to throw my lot in with him at a time when no one else probably would have said that. Right. Except perhaps himself in his most

inner deep chamber of his heart. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On some level, he would have, he'd never have allowed himself to verbalize it. Right. But on some deep, deep, deep level, he would have, he'd never have allowed himself to verbalize it. Right. But on some deep, deep, deep level, he knew that he had a very rare gift, but she saw it too. So it's fascinating. There needs to be more scholarship on her. Yeah.

I'm not doing it, but someone better do it. That's fine. Well, this has been great. Thank you. It's nice to finally, this has been great. Thank you. It's nice to finally... It's been four years since we've been in a room together. I will never again speak to you without a microphone in front of my face. I know. Next time on Significant Others,

find out which wife of a famous novelist carried a pistol in her purse for years and why. And finally, if you enjoyed what you heard today, be sure to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts.