Overshadowed, and often completely blotted out, by his ominous political career, few know of Abraham Lincoln’s disastrous bout as an inventor. From his line of coloured genital cremes (for male health and revitalization) in his early twenties, to his bellows-driven stimulatron just prior to his House tenure, Lincoln’s knack for technical failure had no end in sight.
Owners of Lincoln’s “Capitalism-powered Greenback Mill” (an excerpt from the manual pictured below) complained of its “massive economic throughput increase amidst limited resources.” Others noted an unignorable metabolic rift.
Perhaps at low tide in his sea of calamitous products, Lincoln’s “Aphrodite’s Tonic,” formulated from three cups of wood ash, two thimbles of pure honey, and five litres of horse semen aroused only a foul air of contempt with the young creator’s investors. Undoubtedly, Lincoln’s inventions plagued him throughout the rest of his life, especially where political rivals highlighted his failures. He was always quick to respond, honestly if not proudly.
After one of his famous revival meetings, Peter Cartwright, Lincoln’s opponent in the congressional race, asked all those to stand who had failed to ever invent a product to aid society. Obviously a lame attempt to rouse Lincoln, he remained seated. “Mr. Lincoln, from which of your failed inventions, may I enquire, do you claim success?” To this, Lincoln replied, “I do not come here with the idea of being singled out, but since you ask, I will reply with equal candor: Dick Paint.”
Speaking to his cabinet shortly before his assassination, Lincoln offered some sound advice. “Though my life as an inventor ended abruptly afore my active service to our country, I firmly believe in enterprise, and I boldly attest to the paramount value of revolutionary ideas. For me, however, lest my obsession with invention send me into a slump from whence I could not right myself, there came a time to say, ‘F. inventing, I’m going to unite a nation.’”
