Abraham Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition which now is referred to as "clinical depression." They say in 1839, Lincoln even published a poem about suicide called “The Suisice Soliloquy”, of course, anonymously. Historians have not yet been able to say with 100% certainty whether it was Lincoln who wrote and published the poem. Lincoln’s depression is only logical if one remembers how many emotional traumas Lincoln suffered throughout his life. The coping mechanism he used to fight his melancholy off was humor.