Lincoln’s Unique Attribute Which Elevates his Global Stature——Part 1
Choosing the greatest Presidents or World Leaders is a daunting task. It is like choosing the best wide receivers in football. Football fans can argue this point, and they do, endlessly—yet there are so many variables involved that objectivity is simply unattainable. One may argue that the stats don’t lie. I guess they don’t lie as a pure stat, but what kind of stats any wide receiver achieves depends on the quality of their quarterbacks, the quality of the other receivers on the same team, the quality of their defenders, how much their teams relied on the running game vs the passing game, length of time out due to injuries, the quality of the coaching staff, how good they were at blocking when needed, or tackling when needed, what division they were in at a given period in time, and on and on it goes. As arguments go, football arguments and political arguments are the most vigorous and the least likely to achieve consensus with few exceptions.
One could argue that Lincoln is as revered as he is because he was assassinated at the end of our most brutal war ever. Had he lived to face all the consequences created by the war, Lincoln may well have been less revered. There is no way to resolve speculations of this sort. Regardless of where Lincoln stands regarding his performance while President compared to other Presidents, he outshines all the great Presidents in one respect. No other President comes close to leaving behind such a voluminous trail of personal remembrances by those who ever came in contact with him. Whether it is George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, FDR, Reagan, or any other President, none can match Lincoln regarding the personal accolades given by those who knew them in various stages of their lives. People from all walks of life, from those at the top of society to those at the bottom, were ever so eager to provide anecdotes about Lincoln’s wisdom, honesty, and kindnesses. He was uniquely ‘revered’ by almost all who ever crossed his path, and yet at the same time, Lincoln had few, hardly any, close friends. He had a warm heart toward people of all kinds except those who were unkind themselves by their actions. But all were kept at a certain distance with no exceptions, except interestingly, maybe his children with the exception of Robert Lincoln.
Endless people had little personal stories about Lincoln and were eager to share them. Often the personal incidents happened, and were history before the person realized just how special Lincoln would become, and he was already out of their lives. And it was reciprocated too. When Lincoln arrived to live in New Salem after leaving his family at 18 years of age he had nothing but the clothes on his back—literally. Lincoln never gave much importance to material things, food, dress, stature of anyone, or power. His forte was his thinking—his logic, his memory, his empathy with others, his understanding of human nature, his sense of fairness, his charitableness, his perceptive abilities, his meticulous gathering of data before making decisions, his adherence to his decisions once made, his self confidence about matters he had given thought to. The only area of human behavior he failed to make logical sense out of was romantic love. How many people Lincoln ever had sex with will never be known, not even in a most cursory way. He never felt comfortable within the area of sex and love. Anything not subject to reason and logic left Lincoln inept. As a consequence he had no rigid notions in such areas. Once married he simply accepted the responsibilities that came with it, a form of duty for reasons not mastered.
While in his twenties and living in Salem, exactly where Lincoln slept or ate at any moment, varied at lot. Because he was kind and helpful to just about everyone in town, they sort of took turns feeding him or providing him a place to sleep when he didn’t sleep in the back room of his store. Lincoln is the perfect example of ‘what goes around, comes around’. When he first became a surveyor and needed a horse to get around he had to borrow the money to buy a horse and when he couldn’t make the payments, an affluent member of the community bought the horse and all the surveying equipment, then gave it all back to Lincoln. Endless people felt indebted to Lincoln for one reason or another and most of them were never in any position to pay him back. Lincoln rarely failed to act out of kindness when payback was not in the cards. It gave him contentment to help those less fortunate.
I will describe some examples of things individuals remembered about him but it will be just that, a few examples. No other President ever came close to having such a trail of personal stories about him by so many people. Had Lincoln never received any elevated title in his whole life, he still would have been a legend in his time to a small army of fellow citizens. That statement would be hard to make regarding any other U.S. President, or—for that matter, most important figures in history. Thus, this musing has little to do with Lincoln’s competency as President, and everything to do with his ‘persona’ as it related to other people.
I suppose it starts with his appearance. This is another area which separates Lincoln from all other Presidents. More has been written by far about his personal appearance than any other President. He stood out in any gathering, partly because of his height, but from then descriptions vary all over the place. It is not uncommon for those first meeting him to find him ugly, grotesque, unkempt, disheveled, awkward in movement, too high pitched a voice, a sometimes vacant disengaged look regarding the moment at hand, an ignorant aura, and all sorts of variations of the foregoing. When he was surprisingly elected to be the Republican candidate for President many important politicians across the country trekked to Springfield to meet him. They were often shocked when he appeared before them. This is the man who might be our next President? When Edwin Stanton, his future Secretary of Defense, first met Lincoln, on a huge legal case involving the railroads, well before the war, he simply refused to have Lincoln address the court based on his physical appearance alone. While Lincoln was personally offended by the insult, he never held personal insults by anyone against them. If they were the best to get the job done he would give them a go at it. It was hard to insult Lincoln because he had immeasurable confidence in his own perceptions of life. The limitations of others was little threat to his own cerebral confidence.
We need remember that pictures where not common back then and the population often had no real idea what most politicians looked like until they reached the very top. But just as people were to be startled and aghast at his appearance when they first met him, they were even more likely to go on and on about how impressed they became as the conversation proceeded. Instead of grotesque, his face became one of the kindest/saddest/most expressive and intriguing aspects of his physical nature. When he traveled to New York to give an important speech months before the nomination convention for President, most of the audience were taken back and felt sorry for this awkward gangly creature who sort of emerged from his chair with legs and arms which seemed ill designed to get up and get to the podium. Then out came this high pitched voice and most were wondering why would this backwoods retard be invited to give an important speech? They simply felt embarrassed for him. An eyewitness (to the Cooper's Union speech in New York) that evening said, "When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall, - oh, how tall! and so angular and awkward that I had, for an instant, a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man." However, once Lincoln warmed up, "his face lighted up as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured. I forgot his clothes, his personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Presently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet like the rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering this wonderful man."
While descriptions of his physical appearance are in the many hundreds a few here will suffice to get the picture across. Just in physical appearance alone no other figure in history has had so much written about him. Below are ample enough examples. The hardest thing to do regarding any aspect of Lincoln is to condense, condense, condense”. He was, almost without exception, a lovable enigma to everyone who ever knew him.
"Soon afterwards there entered, with a shambling, loose, irregular, almost unsteady gait, a tall, lank, lean man, considerably over six feet in height, with stooping shoulders, long pendulous arms, terminating in hands of extraordinary dimensions, which, however, were far exceeded in proportion by his feet. He was dressed in an ill fitting, wrinkled suit of black, which put one in mind of an undertaker's uniform at a funeral; round his neck a rope of black silk was knotted in a large bulb, with flying ends projecting beyond the collar of his coat; his turned-down shirt-collar disclosed a sinewy, muscular yellow neck, and above that, nestling in a great black mass of hair, bristling and compact like a ruff of marching pins, rose the strange quaint face and head, covered with its thatch of wild republican hair, of President Lincoln." (William Howard Russell, special correspondent of the Times of London)
Henry Villared (Journalist): "We venture to say that Fifth Avenue snobs, if unaware who he was, would be horrified at walking across the street with him. And yet, there is something about the man that makes one at once forget these exterior shortcomings and feel attracted toward him."
Edward Dicey (British Journalist); "Personally, his aspect is one which, once seen, cannot easily be forgotten. If you take the stock of English caricature of the typical Yankee, you have the likeness of the President. To say that he is ugly, is nothing. To say that his figure is grotesque is to convey no adequate impression. Fancy a man six-foot, and thin out of proportion, with long bony arms and legs, which, somehow, seem to be always in the way, with large rugged hands, which grasp you like a vise when shaking yours, with a long scraggy neck, and a chest too narrow for the great arms hanging by its side; add to this figure a head, coconut shaped and somewhat too small for such a stature, covered with a rough uncombed and uncombable lank dark hair, that stands out in every direction at once; a face furrowed, wrinkled, and indented, as though it had been scarred by vitriol; a high narrow forehead; and, sunk deep beneath bushy eyebrows, two bright, somewhat dreamy eyes, that seemed to gaze through you without looking at you."
E. W. Andrews (Minister, Lawyer, Soldier): President Lincoln was so put together physically that, to him, gracefulness of movement was an impossibility."
Lincoln's private Secretary: "Lincoln's features were the despair of every artist who undertook his portrait."
Francis Bicknell Carpenter (Artist): "It has been the business of my life to study the human face, and I have said repeatedly to friends that Mr. Lincoln had the saddest face I ever attempted to Paint. During some of the dark days of the spring and summer of 1864, I saw him at times when his care-worn, troubled appearance was enough to bring tears of sympathy into the eyes of his most bitter opponents."
Frederick Douglass (Abolitionist, former slave): "On my approach he slowly drew his feet in from the different parts of the room into which they had strayed, and he began to rise, and continued to rise until he looked down upon me, and extended his hand and gave me a welcome. I began, with some hesitation, to tell him who I was and what I had been doing, but he soon stopped me, saying in a sharp, cordial voice, "You need not tell me who you are, Mr. Douglass, I know who you are. "
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Writer): "By and by, there was a little stir on the staircase and in the passageway; and in lounged a tall, loose-jointed figure, of an exaggerated Yankee port and demeanor, whom, (as being about the homeliest man I ever saw, yet by no means repulsive or disagreeable,) it was impossible not to recognize as Uncle Abe.....There is no describing his lengthy awkwardness, nor the uncouthness of his movement.....He was dressed in a rusty black frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that the suit had adapted itself to the curves and angularities of his figure, and had grown to be an outer skin of the man. He had shabby slippers on his feet. His hair was black, still unmixed with gray, stiff, somewhat bushy, and had apparently been acquainted with neither brush nor comb, that morning, after the disarrangement of the pillow; and as to a night cap, Uncle Abe probably knows nothing of such effeminacies. His complexion is dark and sallow, betokening, I fear, an insalubrious atmosphere around the White House; he has thick black eyebrows and an impending brow; his nose is large, and the lines about his mouth are very strongly defined.
The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in the length and breadth of the States, but, withal, it is redeemed, illuminated, softened, and brightened, by a kindly though serious look out of his eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity, that seems weighted with rich results of village experience. A great deal of native sense; no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly---at least, endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft, and would impel him, I think, to take an antagonist in flank, rather than to make a bull-run at him right in front. But, on the whole, I liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would as like have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been practicable to put in his place. "
Walt Whitman (Poet), On Lincoln's face: In technical beauty it had nothing---but to the eye of a great artist it furnished a rare study, a feast and fascination. The current portraits are all failures----most of them caricatures......I have never seen one yet that in my opinion deserved to be called a perfectly good likeness; nor do I believe there is really such a one in existence."
Carl Shurz (German American political supporter): "His greatest power consisted in the charm of his individuality. That charm did not, in the ordinary way, appeal to the ear or to the eye. His voice was not melodious; rather shrill and piercing, especially when it rose to its high treble in moments of great animation. His figure was unhandsome, and the action of his unwieldy limbs awkward. He commanded none of the outward graces of oratory as they are commonly understood. His charm was of a different kind. It flowed from the rare depth and genuineness of his convictions and his sympathetic feelings. Sympathy was the strongest element in his nature."
Bram Stoker (writer): "He (Lincoln) was the ugliest man I ever saw, but when he began to speak his face became transformed and what a face it was then, it seemed somehow lit from within, as if his very soul was shining through. In such moments he seemed inspired and looked almost beautiful in his strength."
Douglas Wilson on Lincoln's appearance when he first appeared in New Salem: "He was ungainly, he was penniless, he was uneducated, he was poorly and eccentrically dressed, and he was notably unhandsome".
A.K. McClure (Senator who went to visit President elect Lincoln in Springfield): "I went directly from the depot to Lincoln's House and rang the bell, which was answered by Lincoln himself opening the door. I doubt whether I wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him. Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill clad, with a homeliness of manner that was unique in itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to be its ruler in the gravest period of history. I remember his dress as if it were yesterday---snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; straight or evening dress-coat, with tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, and all supplemented by an awkwardness that was uncommon among men of intelligence. Such was the picture I met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat down in his plainly furnished parlor, and were uninterrupted during the nearly four hours that I remained with him, and little by little, as his earnestness, sincerity, and candor were developed in conversation I forgot all the grotesque qualities which so confounded me when I first greeted him. Before half an hour had passed I learned not only to respect, but, indeed, to reverence the man."
One time, during a political discussion, someone accused Lincoln of being ’two faced’ on an issue. Replied Lincoln, “Do you think, if I had two faces, that I would be wearing this one?”
What will follow, in part two of this musing, are little tidbits which help to portray the personality of Lincoln. Just knowing Lincoln’s political positions do little justice to the essence of Lincoln as a person.
