Posted on 11/30/2012 12:10:03 PM PST by Kaslin
Every schoolchild with enough smarts and curiosity to get beyond the latest video game of "Call of Duty" ought to go see "Lincoln," the movie, and check out the references and his own attention span. It requires patience, but it shows through dramatic action how a self-taught rustic from the deep backwoods had the emotional and intellectual discipline to overcome poverty and grow up to be a president to rank among the greatest.
This is not about the American Dream or a Horatio Alger story. (Does anybody remember him?) Nor is it mythmaking. It's made of sterner stuff than that. Although there are 16,000 or so books about Lincoln, and a famous movie with Henry Fonda as the young Lincoln, there's enough freshness in this late portrait to animate anyone eligible to watch a movie with the PG-13 rating.
To whet an appetite, there's the excerpt available on the Internet where the president, played by Daniel Day Lewis, explains his political philosophy to two young men working in the White House telegraph office. Lincoln recalls Euclid's 2,000-year-old dissertation on mechanical reasoning, the principle that "things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." Euclid says it's "self-evident." Lincoln agrees.
Such nuggets of wisdom abound, along with references from Shakespeare and a bawdy story about a portrait of George Washington hanging in an outhouse to inspire relief for British soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Lincoln was a learned man, but he was earthy, too. He drew on deep learning and applied it widely. He talks in parables and finds a story to illustrate just about every situation and strategy.
In one scene, while he waits with his Cabinet for news of the shelling of Wilmington, N.C., he begins a story: "I heard tell once." The phrase so exasperates Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that he walks away, telling the president, "I don't believe that I can bear to hear another one of your stories right now." This is no marble president on a pedestal.
But Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" is an epic of sorts. It begins in the middle of things. The Civil War, though nearing the end, has been going on for four years. Lincoln is the old "war horse," but unlike Spielberg's earlier movie of that name, "Lincoln" has only one brutal battle scene.
The most poignant evocation of war shows Lincoln riding through a field of ripped and rotting corpses, and Lincoln takes off his stovepipe hat in homage to the dead, North and South and Americans all. This is not a hymn to "arms and the man" so much as a long mournful dirge played on the strings of banjos, fiddles and the keys of a parlor piano. It's as gritty and earthbound as the America of Mark Twain.
This "Lincoln" is not about heroism and ideals, but about reality and fighting for what's right, even when "right" is seen from two distinctly different points of view -- or, as Lincoln puts it, "the right as God gives us to see the right." If there was no room to compromise over slavery before the war, the struggles for compromise are not over afterward because the winds of war still blow. They merely change direction.
While every schoolchild knows that Abe Lincoln freed the slaves, not many that I've met actually know how he did it. Few seem to understand that the Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in the 11 Confederate states. Fewer still know why Lincoln thought it crucial before he began his second term, and before the war was over, to enact the 13th Amendment to give all men equality under the law. That's the tight focus of the movie.
I watched "Lincoln" with two precocious teenagers, who in spite of their bravado and smarts leaned toward the screen to listen closely to Lincoln's complicated and legalistic explanation of why the country needed the 13th Amendment. They conceded they learned things they didn't know about both the law and Lincoln. (So did I.)
This is a talky movie. Compared to popular 3-D spectacles, it's muted and low-key. Many reviewers have written about how it's "relevant" today, and that Barack Obama could learn from Lincoln's cunning to keep from falling off the fiscal cliff. A knowing titter goes through audiences in Washington when Thaddeus Stevens, the radical Republican abolitionist from Pennsylvania, castigates Lincoln for his inability to win legislative compromise. "I lead," Lincoln says. "You ought to try it."
But it's about a lot more than relevance. It informs as it entertains, engages, enrages, champions, challenges and reminds once again how hard it is to bring about change in a democracy -- and do it with malice toward none.
The more I learn about Lincoln, the more I despise him.
Well done. I will save this post.
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”—John Adams
The North launched the Civil War because it was judged to be in its economic best interest to do so. Everything else is mythmaking.
That is not true.
The Corwin Amendment stated that Congress could make no laws interfering w/ the domestic relations, ie servitude, w/i any state. In those states where slavery was illegal, it would remain illegal.
Its only trope to slavery was to re-inforce the Dred Scott Fugitive Slave Law, which Lincoln openly recognized as constitutional law.
The remainder of your post, while more or less accurate, is distorted by this untruth.
The Crittenden Compromise related to the expansion of slavery into the new territories opening in the west, primarily by extending the line established by the Missouri Compromise. Lincoln was opposed to the expansion of slavery into new territories. In any case, none of the 6 articles of compromise entertained the universal application of slavery.
What this episode actually demonstrates more than anything else was Lincoln's desparate attempt to prevent the coming war. By moving, or so he thought, slavery off the table he hoped to diffuse the secessionist movement.
Alas, the southern firebrands were intent upon secession and if necessary, war.
Sources:
Miller, WL, "Lincoln's Virtues", Vintage, 2002, p. 435
Donald, DH, "Lincoln", Simon Schuster, 1995, p.268
Barrett, JH, "Life, Speeches, and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln", Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, 1865, p. 200
...in the interest of accuracy.
I’m sorry. I should have said from Lincolns’ point of view.
You are partially correct. The South seceded legally because it was in their economic best interest to do so. The North invaded to prevent the secession because it was in their best economic interests to do so. Those are the historic facts which have been camouflaged by generations of LEFTIST revisionist historians.
The immorality of slavery is a separate issue which you and I probably agree on.
The legality of what the south did was a matter of speculation and debate long before they launched on that terrible course. And they knew it. They knew it and tabled the debate by force of arms and insurrection.
That insurrection compelled Lincoln to act in accordance with the law and his oath. THOSE are the historic facts which have been camouflaged by generations of LEFTIST revisionist historians.
The South did not invade the North. It left. The supposed moral superiority of the North is a fiction. As is the demonization of the South. We are all better off that slavery was abolished but mythmaking by the victor is no substitute for truth.
And the mythmaking of the losers is?
I’m from New Jersey.
I didn't say that it did. However, since you bring it up they most certainly did. Remember Gettysburg?
The supposed moral superiority of the North is a fiction. As is the demonization(sic) of the South.
Again, you're introducing things that no one is suggesting. Curious tactic that.
We are all better off that slavery was abolished but mythmaking by the victor is no substitute for truth.
And you've mentioned "mythmaking" several times, all without enumerating a single instance. Saying "The winners write the history" is another way of saying you can't handle the truth.
The South seceded because they perceived an economic benefit to so. The North decided to prevent the secession because of a perceived economic benefit. The cost of the war on both sides was much greater than either anticipated.
Since then, there as been a need to justify the carnage in religious and moral grounds and to diefy Lincoln.
It’s like tryng to convince someone that the Trojan War was fought over some chick with a pretty face. It probably had more to do with regional power, maritime shipping lanes and access to raw materials.
The south rebelled against the results of an election that signaled a national sea-change in attitude toward slavery. They lost an election and had a temper tantrum.
Slavery was being phased out amongst the civilized nations of the world but the southron slavocrisy reacted much like Øbongo does - instead of adapting to the changing circumstances, they doubled-down on their unholy investment.
The north reacted in self-defense. None of the rest of what you wrote has any relevance.
The days before Lincoln was sworn in the House and Senate passed a Constitutional amendment to ban constitutional amendments to ban slavery, Buchanan signed it the day before Lincoln was sworn in (same day it passed the Senate)... Lincoln said he wouldn’t fight it.
Only 3 states ratified it.
Money and power. That’s what wars are always fought over. If you want to believe otherwise, feel free.
As a radical marxist, Ozero WANTS to go over the cliff and begin final phase to destroy the Constitution and impose communism on a "transformed" America.
Does anyone in the GOP leadership realize the ongoing communist coup? (/rhetorical)
That arrogant pos thinks he knows everything and the sheeple buy his lies that are supported by the SRM hook line and sinker
I suggest you read Killing Lincoln instead of complaining about Bill O’Reilly
Who was complaining? I was just hoping he would make two largely forgotten Presidents better known (not that it will happen).
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