Was Abraham Lincoln Ugly?
Here’s that fantastic mug again, but from a different angle so that you understand the nose.
In 1860 that man beat out William Henry Seward for the Republican nomination, a man so confident that he would inherit the Presidency that he spent the eight months leading up to the Republican convention on a grand tour of Europe where he was universally received as the next American head of state. You can hardly blame him for neglecting the campaign trail though; few people outside of Illinois saw the Lincoln wave coming.
When Democratic newspaper editors learned that Lincoln would head the Republican ticket, they quickly made up for their own negligence by disseminating an array of focused and sometimes ingenious insults. They called him “a third-rate Western lawyer” and “a fourth-rate lecturer, who cannot speak good grammar.” As for his speeches, they were “illiterate compositions… interlarded with coarse and clumsy jokes.”
FYI: “Interlarded” is a fabulous word.
And that gem was followed up by some of the finest prose ever deployed against a politician by a journalist:
“Lincoln is the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs, arms and hatchet-face ever strung upon a single frame. He has most unwarrantably abused the privilege which all politicians have of being ugly.”
In 1860 that man beat out William Henry Seward for the Republican nomination, a man so confident that he would inherit the Presidency that he spent the eight months leading up to the Republican convention on a grand tour of Europe where he was universally received as the next American head of state. You can hardly blame him for neglecting the campaign trail though; few people outside of Illinois saw the Lincoln wave coming.
When Democratic newspaper editors learned that Lincoln would head the Republican ticket, they quickly made up for their own negligence by disseminating an array of focused and sometimes ingenious insults. They called him “a third-rate Western lawyer” and “a fourth-rate lecturer, who cannot speak good grammar.” As for his speeches, they were “illiterate compositions… interlarded with coarse and clumsy jokes.”
FYI: “Interlarded” is a fabulous word.
And that gem was followed up by some of the finest prose ever deployed against a politician by a journalist:
“Lincoln is the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs, arms and hatchet-face ever strung upon a single frame. He has most unwarrantably abused the privilege which all politicians have of being ugly.”
What a beautiful assault! Many might take exception with the description, but what I would give to have written that second line! I only ever covet well-formed sentences.
To some degree, Grace Bedell shared the sentiments of those Southern newspapermen. Although this photo was taken in her late teens or early twenties, at age 11 she caught a glimpse of an artist’s rendition of candidate Lincoln and decided that something had to be done to compensate for nature’s wrath. So she wrote him the following letter, reproduced verbatim, requesting that he grow whiskers.
Dear Sir
My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin’s. I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you direct your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westfield Chautauqua County New York.
I must not write any more answer this letter right off Good bye
Grace Bedell
To some degree, Grace Bedell shared the sentiments of those Southern newspapermen. Although this photo was taken in her late teens or early twenties, at age 11 she caught a glimpse of an artist’s rendition of candidate Lincoln and decided that something had to be done to compensate for nature’s wrath. So she wrote him the following letter, reproduced verbatim, requesting that he grow whiskers.
Dear Sir
My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin’s. I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you direct your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westfield Chautauqua County New York.
I must not write any more answer this letter right off Good bye
Grace Bedell
A month after receiving Grace’s letter, Lincoln grew a beard
William Henry Seward
With facial hair intact and the election won, President-elect Lincoln moved on to the weightier matter of convincing his Southern compatriots to stop hurling cannonballs at Union citadels. In the closing paragraph of his first inaugural address — delivered after the South had attacked Fort Sumter — he registered the following plea:
“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
But despite the fact that I just attributed those words to President Lincoln, those weren’t really his words — at least — they didn’t start out that way. The truth is that the original inaugural address, as penned by Abraham Lincoln, was never delivered. Before giving that speech Lincoln asked the gentleman above to help him iron out any kinks in the prose. A wise choice, given that Mr. Seward had dedicated the last three decades of his life to preparing for the opportunity to give his own inaugural address.
Although he consented to the President’s request, we know from other correspondence that he seethed at the injustice the country dealt him; but not so much that he couldn’t honorably dispatch his assignment. In the end, he generously mined his own soul for phrases that Mr. Lincoln then polished and immortalized. You will certainly notice the parallels:
“I close. We are not we must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly they must not, I am sure they will not be broken. The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.”
As Mr. Seward sat listening to President Lincoln deliver his own re-purposed finale, we know that he still held the gangly Kentuckian in contempt, telling his wife that he was duty bound to accept the post as Secretary of State so as “to save freedom and my country.” But proximity to the President quickly turned contempt into admiration. In May of that same year, he again confided in her that “it is due to the President to say, that his magnanimity is almost superhuman.” The following month he wrote that “Executive skill and vigor are rare qualities. The President is the best of us.”
Now Lincoln may have very well been “the best,” but the question at hand is not “Was he the best,” it’s “Was he ugly?” Were the Southern newspapers correct or not? And if so, did little Grace Bedell’s beauty tip rectify the situation? We can’t let issues of character distract us while at hand we have a yet unresolved issue of beauty.
But before we answer that question let’s briefly review the events that transpired on the night of the Republican convention in Mr. Seward‘s hometown of Auburn, New York. The entire metropolis crowded the streets that night, everyone eager for the news that their favored son had won the nomination. Strangers, acting the part of old friends, patted each other on the back as they basked in the reflected glory of their soon to be Candidate-in-Chief. Every city building proudly straightened itself to more fully show off its bunting and flags. Cannons stood by, ready to boom. But the night dragged on and on, and no news came. When finally it did arrive, the crowds dispersed, the buildings drooped in disappointment and meekly, the cannons were put away.
The following morning, no one at the evening paper wanted to write the article announcing that the convention had selected Abraham Lincoln for President with Hannibal Hamlin as his running mate. So Mr. Seward — unflinching — took the task upon himself, proclaiming that “No truer or firmer defenders of the Republican faith could have been found in the Union.”
“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
But despite the fact that I just attributed those words to President Lincoln, those weren’t really his words — at least — they didn’t start out that way. The truth is that the original inaugural address, as penned by Abraham Lincoln, was never delivered. Before giving that speech Lincoln asked the gentleman above to help him iron out any kinks in the prose. A wise choice, given that Mr. Seward had dedicated the last three decades of his life to preparing for the opportunity to give his own inaugural address.
Although he consented to the President’s request, we know from other correspondence that he seethed at the injustice the country dealt him; but not so much that he couldn’t honorably dispatch his assignment. In the end, he generously mined his own soul for phrases that Mr. Lincoln then polished and immortalized. You will certainly notice the parallels:
“I close. We are not we must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly they must not, I am sure they will not be broken. The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.”
As Mr. Seward sat listening to President Lincoln deliver his own re-purposed finale, we know that he still held the gangly Kentuckian in contempt, telling his wife that he was duty bound to accept the post as Secretary of State so as “to save freedom and my country.” But proximity to the President quickly turned contempt into admiration. In May of that same year, he again confided in her that “it is due to the President to say, that his magnanimity is almost superhuman.” The following month he wrote that “Executive skill and vigor are rare qualities. The President is the best of us.”
Now Lincoln may have very well been “the best,” but the question at hand is not “Was he the best,” it’s “Was he ugly?” Were the Southern newspapers correct or not? And if so, did little Grace Bedell’s beauty tip rectify the situation? We can’t let issues of character distract us while at hand we have a yet unresolved issue of beauty.
But before we answer that question let’s briefly review the events that transpired on the night of the Republican convention in Mr. Seward‘s hometown of Auburn, New York. The entire metropolis crowded the streets that night, everyone eager for the news that their favored son had won the nomination. Strangers, acting the part of old friends, patted each other on the back as they basked in the reflected glory of their soon to be Candidate-in-Chief. Every city building proudly straightened itself to more fully show off its bunting and flags. Cannons stood by, ready to boom. But the night dragged on and on, and no news came. When finally it did arrive, the crowds dispersed, the buildings drooped in disappointment and meekly, the cannons were put away.
The following morning, no one at the evening paper wanted to write the article announcing that the convention had selected Abraham Lincoln for President with Hannibal Hamlin as his running mate. So Mr. Seward — unflinching — took the task upon himself, proclaiming that “No truer or firmer defenders of the Republican faith could have been found in the Union.”
On the night Lincoln was assassinated, Secretary of State Seward was stabbed 5 times in the face by John Wilkes Booth’s co-conspirator, Lewis Powell.
In the end, if you figure out how to do what’s right, does anyone really care what you looked like?
