A Face for Any Age

I was asked the other day, as I have been asked many times before, if Lincoln, given his looks and his antic, unpolitical body, could be elected president in this day and age. The common wisdom is, absolutely not, that this is the age of television when looking presidential on the tube, and everywhere else, is an essential element of electoral success. Ugly doesn't win votes, and Mr. Lincoln was said to be ugly--whatever that means.

He himself rather admitted to it. When Stephen Douglas at one point in their quarter decade political rivalry in Illinois accused him of being two-faced, Lincoln replied, "If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?"

Wear it he did, since he had no other. And he was elected president in spite of it. Whether his looks helped or didn't was a wash. My general opinion, supported by absolutely no facts one way or the other, is that Mr. Lincoln was so bright, so sensitive, so informed, so tuned to the people and to the issues of the times, that no matter how he looked on the relentless tube, he would have made adjustments and probably done quite well. Nobody much thought he could be nominated, let alone elected, back then. But he was, and then four years later reelected. Nobody would think he could be elected today, but he likely could, given his political genius.

This whole thing about being ugly, as we all know, is in the eye of the beholder. I happen to think Lincoln was a very handsome man. And here I am pleased to recount the story of a lady in Lincoln's time who agreed with me.

She was the mother of a soldier, and her soldier-son had been sentenced to death or long imprisonment for a crime with extenuating circumstances. She was one of Congressman Thaddeus Stevens's constituents from Pennsylvania, and he brought her to Lincoln, a very busy man, to plea for his life. After a full hearing on the matter, Lincoln turned to Stevens and asked, "Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant my interference?"

"With my knowledge of the facts and the parties," Stevens replied, "I should have no hesitation in granting a pardon."

"Then," Lincoln said, "I will pardon him."

The mother, overwelmed, with feelings too deep to utter speech, walked in silence out of the White House with Stevens. Part way out she halted, turned to him, and exclaimed, "I knew it was a copperhead lie!" Copperheads were Democrats who vigorously advocated peace with the Confederacy, letting it go independent if necessary with slavery and everything else intact--anything to end the war. They were not exceedingly popular either with Republlicans or Democrats supporting a war to victory a reunited Union.

The mother's sudden statement puzzled Stevens."What do you refer to, Madam?" he asked.

"Why, they told me he was an ugly looking man," she said. "He is the handsomest man I ever saw in my life."

Then as now, beauty--or lack of it--is only skin deep.