# Abraham Lincoln vs John Wilkes Booth **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 24, 2016, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789 "2016-08-24T06:07:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/41 "2016-08-25T19:26:03Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Do you think Porter Goss and Leon Panetta were 007s, too? :dubious: Leon Panetta was always a politico dweeb, but I’m pretty sure Porter Goss actually _was_ a superspy before getting into Congress. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/42 "2016-08-25T21:03:57Z")
> [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](#): > > Leon Panetta was always a politico dweeb, but I’m pretty sure Porter Goss actually _was_ a superspy before getting into Congress. In any case, we wouldn’t know if they had been 007’s, would we? ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/43 "2016-09-22T18:12:47Z")
Seems that Lincoln would win… with a little help from [batman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUjG1HSSaGI) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/44 "2016-09-22T18:23:40Z")
Big guy, big reach. Skinny guys fight 'til they’re burger. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/45 "2016-09-22T18:41:06Z")
Lincoln was a badass. He’d probably just pick up Booth and throw him from the balcony. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/46 "2016-09-22T20:38:18Z")
Lincoln. Skinny guys fight 'til they’re hamburger. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/47 "2016-09-22T20:39:54Z")
Now I kinda wanna have a time machine so I can go back and fuck with Booth’s pistol. And exchange his dagger for a stage knife with a retracting blade. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/48 "2016-09-22T21:38:27Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > Abe will suplex Booth off the balcony and break his neck upon hitting the stage, instead of his ankle. …technically speaking, that’s a superplex. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/49 "2016-09-22T22:05:07Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Booth was 5’8" while Lincoln was 6’4". Even giving up 30 years, all Lincoln has to do is hold Booth off with one hand and slap him silly with the other. > [@dropzone](#): > > And Abe was of the eye gouging school of rasslin’. Right. Lincoln was had height, reach, and weight on Booth and was famously strong. He was an experienced frontier wrestler. Booth was trained in fencing, but that wouldn’t do him much good of Lincoln got a hand on him. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/50 "2016-09-23T01:43:52Z")
I chose Booth, not because I’d want him to win(I don’t) but because he’s a younger man. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/51 "2016-09-23T02:36:52Z")
Yeah, the “reach” thing. I like the image of Lincoln holding Booth away from himself with one hand firmly on the top of his head while Booth’s fists windmill impotently. I like that image a LOT. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/52 "2016-09-23T03:48:19Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Lincoln. Even during the war and towards the end of his years, one way he endeared folks to him was by entertaining them with feats of strength. One thing Lincoln could do is take an axe in one hand, gripping the end of the handle, and hold it out horizontally, with his arm fully extended. Try it sometime. Booth loses. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/53 "2016-09-23T03:56:49Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > One thing Lincoln could do is take an axe in one hand, gripping the end of the handle, and hold it out horizontally, with his arm fully extended. Try it sometime. I just did it. It wasn’t hard. My money’s still on Lincoln, though. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/54 "2016-09-23T04:07:25Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > I just did it. It wasn’t hard. > > My money’s still on Lincoln, though. Try it without the table. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/55 "2016-09-23T05:51:30Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Lincoln. Skinny guys fight 'til they’re hamburger. Good one!! ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/56 "2016-09-23T12:59:40Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Lincoln calls off his guard and tells them to leave Booth to him. The two get down to the stage and begin to fight hand to hand. > > Who wins? Who wins? The audience who are spared having to sit through the third act of _Our American Cousin_. _Sic Semper Tedium_, am I right, folks? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/57 "2016-09-23T13:28:47Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > One thing Lincoln could do is take an axe in one hand, gripping the end of the handle, and hold it out horizontally, with his arm fully extended. Try it sometime. > > Booth loses. Sounds like a [stein hoisting contest](https://www.samueladams.com/steinhoisting). > [@](#): > > Competitors are required to hoist a one-liter glass stein filled with Samuel Adams OctoberFest, with a straight arm, for as long as possible. If you sip, spill, or bend your arm, you’re out! Cheers, Abe! ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/58 "2016-09-23T19:26:16Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Sounds like a [stein hoisting contest](https://www.samueladams.com/steinhoisting). > > Cheers, Abe! Does a liter of some drink other than Samuel Adams Oktoberfest weigh a different amount? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/59 "2016-09-23T19:52:05Z")
Lincoln was older but extremely strong - he might well have been the most physically strong man to ever be President. Booth, while younger, was a small, slightly built man. We tend to think of age as a key thing in comparing professional athletes and boxers and whatnot, but that’s where everyone’s an awesome athlete and so the advantage of age matters in fine slicing it. This isn’t a case like that. You’re pitting a very large, very strong man against a stage actor. Lincoln would have thrown Booth out of the balcony. As to Lincoln’s wrestling expertise it’s worth noting there is little direct evidence of it, or much else, really. Many of the stories about him are clearly nonsense, such as the one where someone said he picked up a thousand pounds of rocks at once; no human could do that. But the thing is that there are a lot of anecdotes about Lincoln’s strength, both in his young and later on - the stories go on and on. Even if exaggerated, you don’t hear story after story like that about a weakling. There aren’t a hundred different stories about how Robert E. Lee could pick up a horse or Ulysses S. Grant spent his youth beating grizzly bears in fistfights or whatever. Clearly, Lincoln was a beast, and Booth wasn’t, and the size and strength advantage means Booth’s in a world of hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789/60 "2016-09-23T19:55:36Z")
The Mount Vernon website explains [who went first](http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/biography/washington-stories/remarkably-robust-and-athletic-george-washington-the-sportsman/): > [@](#): > > At six-foot-two inches, Washington towered over his peers. While others enjoyed their books in their warm colonial homes, he was a young surveyor in the backwoods of the Ohio Valley, making rafts out of trees with his bare hands in below-freezing temperatures, fording impossible rivers, and hacking paths through dangerous woods and mountains. > > Washington’s celebrated throwing arm would have sent him straight to the major leagues. American artist Charles Willson Peale recalled that there were several visitors at Mount Vernon in 1773, competing to see how far they could throw an iron bar across the lawn. Suddenly, Washington appeared and smiling, held out his hand. According to Peale, “no sooner…did that heavy iron bar feel the grasp of his mighty hand than it lost the power of gravitation and whizzed through the air, striking the ground far, very far, beyond our utmost limits.” As he walked away, Washington slyly observed, “When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I’ll try again.” Thomas Jefferson called him “the best horseman of the age.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abraham-lincoln-vs-john-wilkes-booth/763789.md?page=4)