Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln. From Chronicle.com
By Paul Goldfinger
Eileen and I saw “Lincoln”—the movie— a few days ago. We went for a 7:00 p.m. showing and we got there early to get a good seat. When we walked into the theatre, no one was there but us. That was surprising; surely everyone wants to see this Steven Spielberg masterpiece starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
I really did not know what to expect, since I don’t read reviews before seeing a movie. But I had high hopes—which I always have for Spielberg’s work, especially since “Saving Private Ryan.”
And Daniel Day-Lewis has been a favorite of mine ever since “The Last of the Mohicans” when he played an 18th century white man living among the Indians. That marvelous film was also based on history. It opened, as many such movies do, with a bit of rolling background that you read in order to understand what-in-the world is going on as Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas race through the woods of North Carolina. I’ve always liked voice-overs and written introductions to help understand the setting.
But “Lincoln”, a long dramatic film with a great deal of historical detail, gives no such preparation, and I found myself stunned and confused, right out of the starting gate.
Didn’t we learn in high school that the Civil War was about the defeat of slavery? Sure I read subsequently that it really was about economics or Southern culture, or other theories, but I always thought it was primarily about freeing the blacks.
This film is set in 1865 towards the end of the war and after the Emancipation Proclamation. It is mostly about Lincoln’s determination to get a Constitutional amendment passed (the 13th) before the North had to worry about Southern demands as part of a peace deal.
But what startled me was that Lincoln had trouble getting the House of Representatives to agree to the bill which had already passed the Senate. Could it be true that there were a large number of US Congressmen who could care less about abolishing slavery? Is it possible that the 13th amendment might have been defeated?
I watched the story played out on the screen, but it took me awhile to believe that this was not some sort of Oliver Stone rewriting of history. By the time I left the theatre, I was fantasizing hunting down my old high school history teachers and parading them down Park Avenue in Rutherford with signs that say, “I gave Goldfinger a lousy education.”
This is a superb film—fascinating and inspiring while, at the same time, teaching us about how unpredictable and miraculous our form of government is and was, even under the leadership of a great leader. The similarities between then and now regarding the workings of government are unmistakable, but these events only occurred about 150 years ago.
Don’t miss this movie, but please read some history before you buy a ticket.
And, if you want to dig into this subject in detail, click on this article from The Chronicle magazine (thanks to Mel Goldfinger for this reference.)
I’m surprised your teachers didn’t mention that a large political faction in the North opposed the war and favored either letting the South split off or giving in on the issue of slavery. Abolition wasn’t all that popular in the North in Lincoln’s time, and racism was rampant. I guess some schools in the North taught their own sugar-coated mythology later on.
Our sugar-coated mythology in the ex-Confederate states — and what we were taught in school — was that the war wasn’t really about slavery at all; it was about the more abstract cause of “states’ rights.” Of course, the specific right the southern states were concerned with at the time was the right to preserve slavery. Later, the states’ right to preserve racial segregation became the South’s gallant and noble cause. Millions of people in the South still don’t like to acknowledged the ugly truth about their history, so there was a lot that our teachers just weren’t allowed to mention.
Reminds me of the opening line of Paul Simon’s song “Kodachrome”: “When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, It’s a wonder I can think at all.”
Waiting to go back up north to the cold before I see the movie. But one thing is for sure….you can’t go wrong with a Spielberg movie, particularly when it stars Daniel Day-Lewis.
I totally agree. I was also taught in school that the civil war was just about freeing slaves. It was only in my adult years, I learned it was much more than that.
To anyone who finds this period of history interesting, I would recommend the book “Team of Rivals” which I think the movie was loosely based on. Excellent read!
(My comment on LINCOLN —the movie)
It was not until college that I was let in on the real issues leading to the Civil War. SLAVERY? Bah humbug! was the message from the young Irish Christian Brother’s class on American History.
The real scoop involved opposing interests of the agrarian South vs. the North’s manufacturing economy, the “land grab” of the trans-Continental railroad proponents, and some other factors I cannot recall at the moment (this was back in 1949 or 1950.) I still recall slavery was just an excuse—this revelation illustrates how marvelously effective a teacher he was.
Before seeing the movie (4 stars) I had no idea that it covered such a brief time period but I came away with the realization that time has not changed how our Congress operates—corrupt then, corrupt still. However a shrewd Executive can beat them at their own game.