The first twelve U.S. presidents cover a much wider height range than the modern presidential lineup. Thomas Jefferson is the tallest person in this chapter at about 189 cm, with George Washington close behind at 188 cm. Andrew Jackson is around 185 cm, while James Monroe and John Tyler are both about 183 cm.
At the other end, James Madison is the shortest U.S. president on record at about 163 cm. Martin Van Buren is around 168 cm, John Adams about 170 cm, and John Quincy Adams about 171 cm. William Henry Harrison, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor are each around 173 cm.
That creates a 26 cm spread from Madison to Jefferson across the first twelve presidencies. Historical portraits are especially poor tools for judging those differences because the men were painted or photographed separately, at different ages, in different poses and with no shared scale.
Putting Washington through Taylor on one baseline makes the early presidential range visible without attaching political meaning to stature. Height does not measure presidential ability or historical importance; here it is simply a physical comparison that old portraits cannot show consistently.