Posted on 02/11/2026 10:47:43 AM PST by T Ruth
Director Steven Spielberg, whom I introduced last week [in 2012] at Gettysburg at ceremonies marking the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speech, said he was deeply humbled to be delivering an address on that history-making spot.
***
… Daniel Day-Lewis gives the definitive portrayal of our time, perhaps ever, of Honest Abe.
For people like me, who have spent their lives studying Abraham Lincoln, the film is chilling — as if he’s really come to life.
Day-Lewis does it by avoiding the traps most Lincoln actors fall into, the stoic, “Hall of Presidents”-esque stereotype that probably most Americans imagine.
There are no moving pictures of Lincoln, no recordings of his voice. But after his death, everyone was Lincoln’s best friend, and there are descriptions of everything from his accent to his gait.
The most important thing is the voice. Far from having a stentorian, Gregory Peck-like bass, Lincoln’s was a high, piercing tenor. Those who attended his speeches even described it as shrill and unpleasant for the first 10 minutes, until he got warmed up (or his endless stories managed to cow them into submission).
***
Few great people are appreciated in their time. And it’s good to remember that, no matter how right the decisions seem now, they were hard-fought then.
“I wanted — impossibly — to bring Lincoln back from his sleep of one-and-a-half centuries,” Steven Spielberg said at Gettysburg, “even if only for two-and-one-half hours, and even if only in a cinematic dream.”
***
Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln. ...
[At the end of the article Holzer gives thumbnail reviews of all prior Lincoln films, ranking them from worst to best, which Holzer considers to be Spielberg’s.]
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Obviously the Northern population came to love blacks more in the intervening 30 years. That's why Illinois enacted the "Black codes", to show how much they loved black people.
My points stand. And, by the way, the nullification crisis began in 1832 and was settled via a compromise reduction in tariff rates the next year. Andrew Jackson, who was President at the time, warned on May 1, 1833, that “the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and Southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.”
Yeah? My point stands. Yes, the Nullification Crises was ended by reducing the tariff. And yes, I am aware of that Jackson quote. I disagree with him that the tariff was a pretext. Slavery was a pretext. Southern Confederacy was the real object because of the tariff, unequal expenditure and the Southern states feeling pushed around by the more populous North which was centralizing ever more power in Washington.
How fortunate it must be to have a better understanding of the politics of the 1830s than Andrew Jackson.
Never said I did. I simply disagree with the man's opinion on this issue. Is that not allowed?
What about the slavery? We all know the South can have no concern about anything other than slavery, so can you tell us the connection to slavery here?
Didn't you read the secession documents? There MUST be something in the first effort to secede from the Union about slavery, right?
"Pretext" is a matter of how you choose to see it. If you disagree with other people's reasons, you might call them "pretexts", but if you agree with them, you would recognize them as "causes."
I do not doubt that the South was fed up with being dominated by the North, and they were at that time wishing they hadn't signed on to the project.
But I think if you want a proper understanding of how they felt, (or as close as a modern man can come) you should read what John Calhoun had to say on the matter.
I find it interesting that you accept Jackson's claim that "the next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question."
You seem solidly determined to regard the slavery question as the sole force dominating all decisions by the South. This is hardly how you would classify something as a "pretext."
Myself and FLT-Bird have argued that slavery was a pretext. What they wanted was independence, and they thought the Union violations of the Constitution regarding slavery was a good legal argument for them to get independence.
I think Jackson correctly saw it for what it was, and he recognized they just wanted out.
Forgot to ping you on my response to Rockingham’s Jackson quote.
Many wanted out. I've always believed it was primarily 3 reasons.
1) they correctly felt they were being economically exploited for others' benefit and would be much better off if independent.
2) they were tired of being pushed around by the North and had always been opposed to the federal government usurping ever more power for itself (since they knew they were always going to be the minority, this makes perfect sense)
3) Slavery. When I say slavery I don't mean they were worried about abolition being right around the corner. I mean they were tired of being treated as though they were immoral for having the very property those self righteous New England A-holes had sold them in the first place AND which they were more than happy to profit from. They were also tired of the whole agitation over the issue whether Northern states clearly violating the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, the violence in the territories over the issue, etc. Finally, when they did things like trying to start violent slave insurrections and arming and equipping terrorists like John Brown then refusing to prosecute or extradite those who sponsored the terrorist attack on them, that really tipped things over. They felt that these were not longer mere political opponents. These people really wanted them dead. They showed themselves to be actual enemies........note how this is not all that different about how many of us feel about the Northeastern Elites/Establishment from the self righteousness to the hypocrisy to the fact that they are real enemies rather than people with whom we merely disagree. Who the hell wants to stick around with that?
There you go… it was all the Damn Yankees fault. Those poor Southern planters had no part in those unfortunate problems. It was those Damn Yankees!
The Fugitive Slave act had nothing to do with that of course. I understand that the North was totally evil, hated blacks, and the South just loved them like brothers. Is that your story now?
No. It was that the North was complicit in slavery up to their eyeballs.
The Fugitive Slave act was certainly part of it. Part of it was that Northerners did not want Blacks living in their states. Its funny you act as though the accusation is that the North was all evil....when that is EXACTLY the claim the PC Revisionists have been making about the South all along.
Was that everybody in the North, or most people in the North, or just some people? I mean from you posts, it sounds like you are damning every person in the region. It makes you wonder why they elected a guy President who was only known for his dislike of slavery and who promised to stop its expansion to the territories. I guess those Northern rascals while hating the hell out of blacks didn’t pay much attention to who they voted for.
You’re the self proclaimed expert here. What do you think?
Show me the post where someone said that. Show me.
Racism was THE NORM worldwide at that time....I mean open outright (by today's standards) shocking, vile, hateful racism. The Norm. Everywhere. That's the first thing people need to learn to accept. That's why Lincoln and all those other Northern politicians said such flamingly racist things repeatedly and publicly and were still elected.
Most Northerners didn't think much about slavery. It wasn't part of their lives. The same was true of most Southerners.
You’re the self proclaimed expert here. What do you think?
I just provide you with quotes and sources from the time to show what people said and what they thought. Those aren't my opinions, its what they actually said and did.
Show you what? Show you where PC Revisionists claimed it was all about slavery? Where they said the South's entire economy was based on slavery? Where they claimed that even the vast majority of White Southerners who even they have to admit did not own any slaves were nevertheless motivated by protecting slavery? Where they conjure up some vast abolitionist movement prior to 1863 out of thin air? Where they claim that there was no real grievance other than slavery? They do that all the time. They've been doing that since at least the 1980s.
Its all things Southern that have been demonized from the Confederate Battle Flag to Southern political leaders and soldiers to the culture itself. I'm old enough to remember when the Confederate battle flag was flown all the time and nobody thought the message anybody was trying to send was "we hate Black people". I remember when the #1 show on television for several years running had a big Confederate Battle Flag on its roof. Nobody even considered that controversial.
Then Leftists in Academia decided it was "racist". Nobody ever asked us. Nobody ever took a vote on the subject. It just magically became racist and evil and bad all of a sudden.....because they decided it was. The same goes for any and everything else Southern. You're getting defensive because I've pointed out a lot of the things you want to accuse the South of in the mid 19th century were equally true of the North.
I recommend that you read "The South as a Conscious Minority, 1789-1861: A Study in Political Thought" by Jesse T. Carpenter. He traces the development of the compact theory of the Constitution and of the South as beleaguered and put upon as providing the legal and moral justification for secession.
Once such thinking became current in the South, secession became a clear possibility in the region's political thought. An unpopular war, a disputed presidential election, tariffs, slavery, or some other cause could then provide the pretext, to use Jackson's term.
I'll check that out. The South clearly did feel beleaguered and put upon. Its difficult to argue they weren't. I think the Tariff of Abomination was the first really big traumatic shock to Southerners.....that their economy could be wrecked for entirely political/artificial reasons to benefit the corporate interests in the Northeast. That was immediately followed by a 30 year long struggle for political power which the Southern states could see they were losing due to mass immigration in the North.
Then add in the power struggle becoming much more violent, bitter and nasty with Bleeding Kansas and John Brown's raid combined with what Southerners saw as those same corporate interests in the Northeast coming for another round of the Tariff of Abomination - only this time the North was much more numerous and stronger thanks to immigration. Southerners feared that they no longer had the strength to stop it. Even if they could maybe put it off for a teeny tiny bit longer, it was going to happen and they knew it. That's why they decided to leave.
Slavery was connected to this in that it was used as a wedge issue to get the more agricultural parts of the Midwest to align with the Northeast even though their economic interests more aligned with the South's economic interests. For that reason, slavery was an important issue - not because there were any concerns about abolition without compensation at fair market value becoming a reality anytime soon.
Instead, it is usually better to look at all the actors and sides sympathetically and accurately so as to arrive at a broad understanding of their circumstances and views, reserving judgement until the end.
A grounding the original sources is important so as to try to see history as it unfolded, not merely in retrospect.
That was more or less what Thucydides did in his magnificent History of the Peloponnesian War.
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