Lincoln Movie Blog

The movie Lincoln properly documents the problems Lincoln had when attempting to pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. The most obvious reason for voting against the amendment was that many of the men voting were racist. Those who were not racist saw that releasing all the slaves at once could be a colossal disaster. Many were also worried that they would try and take people's jobs since they would ask for less pay. Many also question if Honest Abe was truly honest due to many unethical steps he took in order to pass the amendment. Lincoln offered jobs (especially to lame duck politicians) in exchange for votes. Lincoln also bent the truth about the amendment. However he was not entirely underhanded in his time in office. He knew that ending slavery would be a catalyst to ending the entire civil war. Lincoln was also clever since he wanted to change the Constitution so the Emancipation Proclamation could not be repealed by he successor. What is surprising is that the film revealed that Lincoln was not entirely racism-free. He just saw it as the quickest way to ending the war.