Lincoln Movie - Your Reviews

[Christine]

I just finished Team of Rivals and was mesmerized with it - even read it while walking on the treadmill! I have always admired Lincoln as a man, but I came to admire him as a politician. He had a rare gift (which I think politicians today could learn from) for building consensus, compromise, and overlooking another's personal attacks in favor of the greater good of keeping the Union intact. All of his life Lincoln was able to turn enemies into friends, because he listened and respected other people.

Chase burned for the presidency, and Lincoln knew it, but put up with him because there was no one else who had his talents and gifts for raising funds to support the war effort. Chase was a baby, and when he didn't think he was being listened to he pouted. He backstabbed, and manipulated, and connived, and lied. And when called on it he tendered his resignation again and again and again. And again and again and again Lincoln soothed his ruffled feathers because he needed him.

According to the book, (and shown in the film) Lincoln used his stories to teach lessons - much as Christ taught parables in the Bible - using simple illustrations from real life that made complex ideas more concrete. He was a master at storytelling.

I wish the film would have shown the Stanton/Lincoln relationship more clearly. To me, watching the movie, it appeared that Stanton disliked Lincoln, but I don't think that is true - they complimented each other's strengths/weaknesses and respected and admired each other.

One of the most emotional parts of the book for me involved Stanton's frustration with Lincoln's merciful pardoning of deserters - Stanton felt that the military needed rules to prevent anarchy, but Lincoln felt that many mistakes should be forgiven - "Lincoln looked for any "any good excuse for saving a man's life." When he found one, he said, "I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends."

We always hear that Stanton was a hard man and see him usually portrayed that way, but Kearns Goodwin writes this: "Stanton would not allow himself such leniency. A clerk recalled finding Stanton one night in his office, "The mother, wife, and children of a soldier who had been condemned to be shot as a deserter, on their knees before him pleading for the life of their loved one. He listened standing, in cold and austere silence, and at the end of their heart-breaking sobs and prayers answered briefly that the man must die. The crushed and despairing little family left and Mr. Stanton turned, apparently unmoved, and walked into his private room." The clerk thought Stanton an unfeeling tyrant, until he discovered him moments later, "leaning over a desk, his face buried in his hands and his heavy frame shaking with sobs. 'God help me to do my duty; God help me to do my duty!' he was repeating in a low wail of anguish." On such occasions, when Stanton felt he could not afford to set a precedent, he must have been secretly relieved that the President had the ultimate authority."

I tried to read that passage out loud to my husband and was unable to without crying. I just can't even begin to imagine the horror these men faced every day.