Lincoln's Noble Selfishness - A Template for Modern Politicians

Rating: 8/10 (27 March 2013)

Historical movies, in general and even the most effective ones, are inevitably daunting and biased affairs. No matter how objective a director thinks they are in presenting a historical figure, the period and themes they choose in depicting the figure often betray the director's subjective purposes and interests about him. We can never learn "the truth" about anyone, especially historical figures we cannot witness first-hand. Despite the lofty mountain of research he has inspired, this is true of Lincoln himself. Spielberg certainly realized this and focused his saga on the final, fourth year of the Civil War, on the beginning of Lincoln's second term in office, and most specifically, upon efforts to ratify the 13th amendment, which basically abolished slavery and by extension all forms of servitude. In reviewing "Lincoln", I will not relate all the specific characters, settings, and details; so many reviewers, Amazon and otherwise, have thoroughly seen to that (and more authoritatively than I ever could). I wish to narrow my focus on what I see as one of "Lincoln"'s most ironic and prominent themes - the "ideal" of noble selfishness.
I believe that, at heart, we are all selfish, or if you prefer the euphemistic adjective, "self-concerned". Even when we do things for and help others, our primary objective is "what do we get out of it?". This is not to detract from charitable, magnanimous, and self-sacrificing deeds. What I am saying is that, in my opinion, no one can achieve pure altruism, e.g. complete selflessness. But, I think we can achieve the next highest ideal: noble selfishness, that benefits many others besides yourself.
"Lincoln" argues that successful politicians adeptly use noble selfishness to achieve their objectives. Even in our current period where revisionist Lincoln scholars have striven to demythologize and "humanize" our 16th president, presenting that theme takes no small courage. Lincoln's efforts to compel a 2/3 majority of obstreperous, "self-concerned" Representatives (2/3 of the Senate had voted in favor) - many of them Democrats (not Lincoln's party, the Republicans, who ironically, to many, resemble today's Democrats) revealed traits that have negative connotations for many of us.
For example, as the movie showed, Lincoln exhaustively chatted up, or had lackeys chat up, many 13th amendment dissenters, even to the point of quid pro quo. Early in the movie, we see throngs of supplicants and job seekers waiting to see Lincoln to seek favors, patronage, and legal advice, in order to show that conciliatory, compromising, manipulating tone was part of Lincoln's character. Although historically shown to abhor slavery, arguably Lincoln had another, perhaps paramount, purpose for passing the 13th amendment - to disenfranchise the South, weaken their fighting morale, and accelerate their surrender and the Civil War's end. In the movie, some representatives claimed that a Southern delegation from the Confederacy's president Jefferson Davis wished to see Lincoln to discuss peace terms. The claim seemed dubious but did threaten some representatives' resolve to pass the amendment. In the movie, Lincoln hastily pens a letter and has it delivered to the House, stating that "as far as I know", no delegation was forthcoming, which some representatives denounced as a "lawyerly dodge". Lincoln was even willing to use a type of "eminent domain" to thwart the South by seizing the slaves as "property" from the South, then employing the Emancipation Proclamation, enacted earlier, to set them free. Lincoln even tries mathematical logic, stating that if two things are individually equal to a third, then they are equal to each other. This, which incorporated with Thaddeus Steven's assertion in the House that even if all men were not really created equal in nature, they were equal under the law, attempted to circumvent those representatives that thought that African-Americans were fundamentally inferior.
And so it goes. The movie shows Lincoln employing every political, legal, and logical weapon to flatter, wheedle, coax, intimidate, persuade, and entice as many representatives as possible (especially the 20 House democrats necessary to achieve the 2/3 majority) to vote for the 13th amendment. Again, some audiences may have been shocked by the seemingly base, hypocritical, self-contradictory, and unscrupulous tactics the 16th president used. Basically, it's a concession to the old adage that "the end justifies the means". In any case it worked, of course, the amendment is passed. Tellingly, the deciding vote, by the House speaker, stemmed from his desire to "make history".
Of course, "Lincoln" has its other virtues like Daniel-Day Lewis's spellbinding portrayal of the President, Tommy Lee-Jones tour-de-force as the savagely but amusingly brusque, candid, and insulting Thaddeus Stevens, and the re-creation of the oppressive, anxious Civil War zeitgeist. But above all, I think, "Lincoln" will have relevant, enduring value because of its assertion that compromise, however superficially distasteful and beholden to the innate selfishness of others, is really the only way to get grand political accomplishments. I hope Obama and congressional members see the movie and retain that message.