Views of President Lincoln, 1861
Lyndon Johnson once remarked that: "Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it." Abraham Lincoln's presidency epitomizes this sentiment.
Today, Lincoln is considered one of America's greatest leaders. Two of his speeches - the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address - are among the most revered in the country's history. So great is our appreciation that the words of his second inaugural address are etched in stone on the walls of his memorial in Washington, D.C. However, this present-day adulation was not widely held in 1861.
Lincoln's physical attributes, including his extraordinary six-foot-four-inch height, large hands, over-sized ears, prominent nose and ungainly gate, provided easy targets for ridicule. His lack of formal education (he spent only one year in school) supplied his detractors the ammunition to attack his intelligence and deride his mental abilities.
These negative attitudes subsided during the course of Lincoln's first administration. By the end of his first term he began to receive credit for his leadership during the nation's most troubling time. This reversal of attitude is reflected in the fact that he was elected to a second term - a feat that had not been accomplished by eight previous Presidents. His popularity was such that many newspapers predicted he would be elected for an unprecedented third term in 1868. However, Lincoln had to suffer through a "hailstorm" of criticism through much of his first term.
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