Is Lincoln a hero? Did you ever read “The Real Lincoln”? What do you find heroic about him? His prosecution of a war that need not have been? His jailing of opponents? His lifetime of racism, followed by the opportunistic freeing of (only) Southern slaves? His creation of the FedGov beheamoth in place of the small central government of the founders?
I've not read the book. But from what I've seen of the book, even Stalin and Hitler would deserve better treatment than what Lincoln got from DiLorenzo.
Here's a link to Bush speech writer Ken Masugi's response to DiLorenzo's book. A lot of people who are against things that need to be opposed mistakenly make Lincoln the enemy. A better book would be The Real Woodrow Wilson. He, not Lincoln, is the guy who started the downward trend.
If this movie is going to be about how Lincoln rallied the North to the cause, how is Spielberg gonna address that? Unless he just leaves that part out. And if this movie has Oscar written all over it, he will be called on that. Or maybe Spielberg will be honest in how the North really came around to supporting the Civil War...naaahh.