The movie begins with the Gettysburg Address. But not Lincoln's delivery of it. Instead, he is visiting Union soldiers and two white soldiers recite the speech back to him, followed by a black soldier. In that short scene, we see what Lincoln means to the country as a whole, and why this constitutional amendment means so much to him. In the middle of the Civil War, he passed the Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves held in the rebelling Confederate states. But the Proclamation cannot stand without constitutional backing and Lincoln wants to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed before the War ends and the Southern states can return to block the amendment.
The movie is largely about political maneuvering and depicts Lincoln as a master tactician who astutely divined everyone's motives and used that knowledge to his political advantage. There were few people who were going to agree to the amendment from the purely moral viewpoint that slavery was wrong. Instead, some people hoped abolishing slavery would end the Civil War; if the war ended before the amendment passed, Lincoln knew they would no longer vote for it. Some were just racists who couldn't be won over. But still others were "lame-duck Democrats," who had lost their seats in the latest general election and could be enticed with political bribes to get plum positions in Lincoln's new Cabinet if they voted the right way. The movie follows Lincoln's contemporaries, including Secretary of State William H. Seward (David Strathairn), who engages Republican operatives like William Bilbo (James Spader) to quietly go about a program of monetary bribes for votes, and Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), a Radical Republican Congressman who is a fervent abolitionist but is begged to tone down his rhetoric for fear of scaring off the less morally certain voters.
The most impressive thing about Lincoln is Daniel Day-Lewis' performance. The other actors are wonderful but when they come on screen, you first recognize them, then their characters. When Day-Lewis comes on, you just think, "oh, there's President Lincoln." With that incredible profile, stovepipe hat, and soft voice that loves to tell stories, the sixteenth President is brought to life on screen. Lincoln's family life comes in for its fair share of scrutiny and it's clear that the demands of the presidency made Lincoln a less than ideal husband and father. Sally Field is interesting as the possibly bipolar Mary Todd Lincoln, who worries about making the White House presentable at the same time as she worries about the war and whether her son Robert (played by a very restrained Joseph Gordon-Levitt) will head into battle. However, speculation on Lincoln's private life is less compelling than the depiction of actual historical events, which is where this movie's strengths lie.
Tony Kushner's script does the remarkable job of making an inevitable conclusion exciting. We all know the Amendment gets passed, but for a while, witnessing all the roadblocks and difficulties that are entailed in securing the necessary votes, we still can't believe Lincoln will be able to pull it off. As a novice to Civil War history, I was engaged throughout and compelled to read up more on the subject. I'm certain history buffs would love this movie because it makes history come alive with all the urgency and immediacy that never makes it into textbooks.
Lincoln is an interesting movie to watch in this current political climate. It feels like nothing has changed since 1865 - we still have a President trying to enact widespread social reform, and most of the South is still against him. The parties are different but the politics are the same. Sadly, political maneuvering is no longer as simple as literally slipping a few dollar bills under the table or having a heart-to-heart conversation with a member of the opposite party. Perhaps we should organize a mass screening of Lincoln in Washington D.C. and see if Democrats and Republicans learn anything about how to get things done for the good of the country.
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