Subj: Lincoln: The
Movie
Lincoln:
The Movie
As I walked away
from the movie, an older man behind me whispered to his friend: “that movie
should have come out ten years ago. What a needed story for our time”. Needed?
I’m not so sure. But the timing was impeccable. With the recent talk of
frustrated citizens storming the White House petition website demanding
the allowance of secession http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/14/white-house-secede-petitions-reach-660000-signatures-50-state-participation
.
Perhaps this
movie, which portrayed the closest the United States has ever come to a break
up, was reinforcement of “unity above principle.” A disturbing political
tendency that haunts our current political climate. “Uniting”
together as one nation in “times of trouble” has been the public goal of
leaders, not only in the American narrative, but throughout countries
worldwide, including and especially those countries considered to be overseen
by tyrannical or dictatorial leaderships. http://reformedlibertarian.com/2012/09/11/questioning-the-united-we-stand-sentiments/
The Lincoln movie
was everything I expected it to be and more. Lousy historical scholarship, a
sense of positive bubbling emotion for one of our country’s worst presidents,
and a praiseworthy cast. Tommy Lee Jones was outstanding as a supporting actor
and, in my opinion, stole the show. Sally Fields too did well in portraying the
wife of President Lincoln, a role that demanded her to be a frustrated and
constantly ill woman, full of contradicting and bi polar emotions. Of course
Daniel Day-Lewis was a spectacular choice for the seemingly depressed, yet
always thoughtful President who faced a unique crisis in American history. One
might have been left, at the end of the two and a half hour movie, feeling
rather frustrated with the South and their ever-so-racist ways. But glad with
all the hard work that Lincoln did in his second term on behalf of the slavery
issue.
Unfortunately
however, history tells a different tale about the Lincoln we have learned to
cherish in our propaganda ridden secular schools. Lincoln, according to Thomas
Dilorenzo, was a master politician. Murray Rothbard
described a politician as a liar, conniver, and manipulator.
“I presume you all know
who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to
become a candidate for the legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like
the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank…in favor of the
internal improvements system and a high protective tariff”.
Central banking, corporate welfare, high
taxation; portrayed as an “old woman’s dance”. The perfect and masterful
politician indeed.
What of his views on slavery? In Lincoln the Racist,
Dilorenzo, shows that Lincoln was “a man of his time”, that is, he consistently
stated his belief that blacks are “inferior”, not to be seen as “socially and
politically equal”, unqualified to “intermarry with white people” or “hold
office”, and perhaps saddest of all, that “America was made for the White
people and not for the Negroes”. A very different portrait than the Lincoln of
Hollywood who went out of his way to talk to the black soldiers and the black
maid that worked in the White House. Lincoln at one point in the movie said,
“Slavery bothered me as long as I could remember”. Yet historically, we have only
indication of the opposite sentiment.
Lincoln The Racist
For more on the real Lincoln, see DiLorenzo here, here,and here.
How the Lincoln Myth Was Hatched
Another Big Lincoln Lie Exposed
Lincoln’s Greatest Failure
Plan on seeing the movie Lincoln, keep this
in mind.
For the real causes of the Civil War, see here, here, and here.
The Real Significance of the 'Civil War'
The
Official, Politically-Correct Cause of the 'Civil War'
Rethinking the Civil War
http://mises.org/daily/671/
One of the most
important aspects of the theatrical emotion that was stirred by the modern
capabilities of contemporary cinema was the yearning that the audience had to
see Lincoln succeed. This dangerous ability that movies have on the citizen’s
understanding of history has been utilized time and again. At one time fiction
novels such as Upton Sinclair’s The
Jungle persuaded the people. Now it is movies. Take a child without
an opinion into the movie Lincoln,
and out he will come with a new childhood hero and favorite president.
The entire movie was one big thrust for a new era of Lincoln worshippers.
For those of us who have already discovered and developed our opinions on the
big-government, big spending, high taxing, anti-Constitution President Lincoln,
there were a wonderful number of opportunities to practice the skillful act of
eye-rolling. For instance, Hollywood Lincoln’s drive and passion for peace is
laughable. On the contrary, whereas the South desired peaceful secession,
Lincoln gave them an ultimatum: rejoin the Union or suffer Union attacks.
Lincoln’s dream of a consolidated Federal Government (which he was successful
in achieving) was the primary reason the south wanted out, and the primary
reason Lincoln needed a war to keep them in. Slavery was never the focus.
At one point in the movie, Lincoln expresses the reason behind his emancipation
proclamation as a military-time order. He says that he was not sure if such a
power was constitutional, but since he needed the power, he took it. Such is
the nature of the Lincoln presidency as a whole. From banishing a congressman
who disagreed with him (and exiling him to Canada) to closing down newspapers
(destroying the freedom of the press) to suspending the writ of habeas corpus
(by setting up military tribunals) to enacting a “boots on the ground” campaign
in the peaceful South, it seems that in many ways, when Lincoln needed a power
that was not granted to him by the Constitution, he grabbed at it. Rule of law?
Not in Lincoln’s world.
For a split second in one scene, there was a portrait of President Andrew
Jackson on the wall. This man, a stalwart of the Old Jeffersonian Democrats,
was everything Lincoln was not. Anti-central bank, anti tariffs, and pro
State’s rights. I find it amusing that, not only was Jackson hanging there in
Lincoln’s office, but just less than a half hour later, two people collide and
a number of “Greenbacks” (Lincoln’s paper money) fall to the ground. Jackson
would have been fuming. He had killed the bank. Lincoln gave it a new life.
The southern “traitors” and “rebels” were portrayed as bitter racists. Perhaps
they were. Not all of them mind you, but racism in the south, just like in the
north, was a sad reality of the day. But while this was so, it is harmful to
today’s liberty movement that, when the case for “natural law” was declared in
the House of Representatives during the movie, it was used as a defense against
the freedom of the black man. Connecting racism with natural law theory is a
distortion of not only the admirable theory, but also of history. One can
only think of the abolitionist natural law theorist Lysander Spooner who, while
bitterly against the concept of slavery, was also consistently an opponent of
the Presidency of Abe Lincoln and Lincoln’s war.
The movie was largely centered around the passage of the thirteenth amendment,
which abolished slavery in the United States. This is important to note because
Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation actually freed nobody, as it only
applied to those specific areas that had declared secession. The “proclamation”
was actually so specific that, it exempted those southern places that were under
union control. In other words, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively did
nothing. Except, perhaps, later gave ammo to historians a hundred years later
in their fictional tales of Lincoln as liberator. Even so, with the movie
giving legitimacy to the unfounded notion that Lincoln was a warrior on behalf
of the 13th amendment, history again was distorted. Lincoln had opposed passage
of the 13th amendment for long into his career, until northern abolitionists
were able to twist the political arm of Lincoln, so that he would support their
efforts. Lincoln was not a 13th amendment supporter.
In a correspondence with General Lee of the South, Lord Acton, the famous
Catholic philosopher (“power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”)
noted this:
“Without presuming to
decide the purely legal question, on which it seems evident to me from
Madison’s and Hamilton’s papers that the Fathers of the Constitution were not
agreed, I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of
the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction
but as the redemption of Democracy”.
The war was over the Southern right to secede
and the Southern right to nullify Union laws. Lincoln wanted a stronger Federal
Government. The South said “no” and left. Lincoln would hear nothing of it. He
was the first President of the newly formed Republican Party, which was the
resurrection of the nationalist Whig party, the crusaders on behalf of Henry
Clay’s “American System” (centralization, protectionism, and mercantilism).
Today, Lincoln is paraded as a hero of the abolitionist movement. But, not only
was Lincoln no abolitionist, the slavery issue was secondary to that of the
rights of States to determine their own way. But, in this post-Lincoln world of
ever increasing centralization and power grabbing, Lincoln must be seen as a
hero. And anybody advocating for a strict reading of the tenth amendment, must
be rendered both a racist and an anti-American. A rebel, as it were.
But maybe the true rebels are those who refuse to honor the American way of
private property and the rights of the States to secede if DC becomes too
tyrannical. Maybe Lincoln was the rebel. The progressive. The one who had no
business doing what he did and starting a war to get his way. But alas, the
American society praises him and continues to pay tribute to a dictator.
Was the man behind me in the theater correct in saying that this movie was
“needed”? I don’t think so. The Lincoln myth was set in stone long ago. The
viewers did not need more Lincoln propaganda thrown their way in order to
support the status quo.
It was a decent and entertaining movie. I liked the political humor and the
characterizations of the congressional battles. It held my interests. But do
your homework before and after. Lest you too become enthralled by the emotion
of Hollywood Lincoln.
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