{"id":4093,"date":"2013-02-24T09:39:03","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T14:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=4093"},"modified":"2013-02-24T09:39:03","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T14:39:03","slug":"15-examples-of-fiction-in-lincoln-movie-climax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2013\/02\/24\/15-examples-of-fiction-in-lincoln-movie-climax\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Examples of Fiction in “Lincoln” Movie Climax"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SceneAccording to the “Lincoln” movie script, Friday, January 27, 1865 was an action-packed and pivotal day. \u00a0It was the day of Thaddeus Stevens\u2019s controlled performance in the House, declaring himself strictly for \u201cequality before the law.\u201d \u00a0It was also the day marked by Abraham Lincoln\u2019s bitter argument with his oldest son Robert and then his subsequent clash with his wife Mary after he finally decided to concede to Robert\u2019s desire to join the Union army. \u00a0And it was in the evening of the 27th that both Mary Lincoln and later dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley urged the president to abandon his hidden-hand approach and provide more decisive leadership in the fight for the antislavery amendment. \u00a0All of those \u201cevents\u201d are fictional, but they are essential for understanding the film\u2019s point-of-view \u2013namely, that Lincoln interjected himself at the end of the battle for the constitutional amendment in a way that proved decisive.<\/p>\n

The next several scenes subsequently show Lincoln meeting for the first time with the Seward lobbyists, cajoling support for the amendment by himself or with Secretary Seward, and then on the night of Sunday, January 29, 1865, holding an intense penultimate strategy session in the White House with Rep. James Ashley, Preston and Montgomery Blair, Secretary of State William Henry Seward and aides John Nicolay and John Hay. \u00a0This is one of the scenes that has been featured in the movie\u2019s trailers, showing an angry, forceful Lincoln demanding action \u201cNow now now!\u201d and memorably declaring, \u201cI am the President of the United States,\u00a0clothed in immense power<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

All of these scenes are entirely fictional (see previous posts here<\/a> for details on Stevens and here<\/a> for details on the Lincoln family), but that memorable quotation from Lincoln actually has its roots in a real primary source. \u00a0Rep. John B. Alley (R, MA) claimed more than twenty years after the fact that he had heard from some unnamed person during the battle for the amendment that at some point the\u00a0president had called into his office two congressmen in order to tell them that only two more votes were needed for passage and that they \u201cmust be procured.\u201d \u00a0Then\u00a0Alley\u2019s recollection<\/a>\u00a0provided a lengthy verbatim quotation (86 words) which he attributed to Lincoln that culminated with the ringing phrase, \u201cI am President of the United States, clothed with immense power\u201d (note that the script silently changes \u201cclothed with\u201d to \u201cclothed in\u201d \u2013a more fitting usage). \u00a0The problem is that this quotation is almost completely useless as historical testimony. \u00a0Alley was recalling events from two decades past that he had apparently heard about second- or third-hand. \u00a0There are no names, no dates, and the only specific detail \u2013two votes short of the required two-thirds super-majority\u2013 seems suspiciously like the final vote tally (two more than needed). \u00a0Regardless, nobody can be trusted to remember verbatim quotations of such length. \u00a0Yet Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes the entire passage in her book,\u00a0Team of Rivals<\/em>\u00a0(p. 687<\/a>) and it appears it was from this account that Kushner got the raw material for his script, which he then embroidered by placing at the very end of the lobbying effort and in a meeting with several of the movie\u2019s principal characters, not simply two unnamed congressmen.<\/p>\n

The vote for what ultimately became the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did occur on January 31, 1865 and the \u201cLincoln\u201d filmmakers worked diligently to recreate that moment in its full historical grandeur. \u00a0But they also employ here, as elsewhere, various types of artistic license. \u00a0None of the floor exchanges from the movie actually match with the official accounts in the\u00a0Congressional Globe. \u00a0<\/em>Instead, the movie takes as its dramatic centerpiece for that day the story of President Lincoln\u2019s evasive reply about impending peace talks. \u00a0This story derives not from the official record but rather from\u00a0a recollection by Rep. James Ashley<\/a>\u00a0and from copies of notes he claimed he wrote to the president and to which the president replied. \u00a0According to Ashley, he wrote to the president on January 31:<\/p>\n

\u201cDear Sir, The report is in circulation in the House that Peace Commissioners are on their way or are in the city, and is being used against us. \u00a0If it is true, I fear we shall loose [sic] the bill. \u00a0Please authorize me to contradict it, if not true. \u00a0 Respectfully, J.M. Ashley.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the reverse side of this note, Lincoln wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far as I know, there are no peace Commissioners in the City, or likely to be in it. \u00a0Jan. 31, 1865. \u00a0A. Lincoln\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SceneThe filmmakers present this exchange in the most dramatic fashion possible, having Democratic leader Fernando Wood (D, NY) first disrupt the proceedings, allegedly waving \u201caffidavits from loyal citizens\u201d confirming the existence of secret peace talks. \u00a0This creates chaos on the floor of the House that leads a fictional \u201cconservative\u201d Republican named Aaron Haddam to indicate (after receiving a critical nod from Preston Blair, perched in the gallery) that the \u201cconservative faction of border and western Republicans\u201d could not support an amendment \u201cif a peace offer is being held hostage to its success.\u201d \u00a0Then there is a mad footrace from the Capitol to the White House, involving Lincoln\u2019s aides and the Seward lobbyists. \u00a0John Hay, the president\u2019s young assistant private secretary, heatedly warns him against \u201cmaking false representation\u201d but Lincoln crafts his reply (technically true but obviously deceptive \u2013since the commissioners were on their way to Hampton Roads, VA) and hands the note to seasoned lobbyist William N. Bilbo (James Spader). \u00a0Bilbo then delivers it to Rep. Ashley who reads it with a flourish to the entire House. \u00a0 There is no record of any of this in the official proceedings. \u00a0Nor does Ashley claim in his recollection that he read the note from the president on the House floor. \u00a0Instead, it seems he may have simply showed it to some key figures. \u00a0Bilbo was not even in Washington at the time (see previous post here<\/a>). \u00a0There was almost certainly no footrace. \u00a0And no contemporary or historical account has Preston Blair in the gallery giving directions to conservative congressmen. \u00a0Aaron Haddam is a fictional character, listed as a Republican from Kentucky, with no obvious historical counterpart. \u00a0All of these details are included in the film for dramatic effect but without any real documentation \u2013beyond the notes which Ashley claimed to have in his possession but which are not apparently available in their original forms, and his recollection of the episode, which most historians have accepted as credible.<\/p>\n

Then there is the matter of the roll call. \u00a0It was an unusual affair. \u00a0The House galleries were crowded, anticipation was high and the celebration afterward was unprecedented. \u00a0Newspapers and magazines all took note of the revolutionary nature of the moment. \u00a0Even the\u00a0Congressional Globe<\/em>\u00a0invested this particular roll call with special drama, recording as it rarely did, outbursts of \u201cconsiderable applause\u201d<\/a> when certain lame duck Democratic members, such as Rep. James English (D, CT), voted \u201cay\u201d for the amendment. This has particular meaning in today\u2019s context since there has erupted a small degree of controversy about Connecticut\u2019s votes in 1865. \u00a0In the \u201cLincoln\u201d movie version of the roll call, two fictional congressmen from Connecticut cast the very first votes on the amendment \u2013both nays. \u00a0Yet in reality, the roll call proceeded in alphabetical order by congressman (not by state) and the entire four-man Connecticut delegation actually voted in favor of abolition (because of English\u2019s critical switch). \u00a0This second fact helped convince modern-day Connecticut congressman Joe Courtney (D, CT) to\u00a0demand an apology from Steven Spielberg<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0in early 2013 and to request a promise for a correction to the DVD edition of the movie. \u00a0Scriptwriter Tony Kushner\u00a0quickly dismissed the request<\/a>\u00a0and the affair struck many as a publicity stunt, but\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>columnist\u00a0Maureen Dowd<\/a>\u00a0then sided with the congressman with an op-ed provocatively headlined, \u201cThe Oscar for Best Fabrication.\u201d \u00a0What Dreamworks might do in the DVD that it promises to make freely available to every middle and high school in America remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Courtney was not the only figure upset by the filmmakers\u2019 decisions regarding the roll call. \u00a0The script altered dozens of names of representatives in the 38th Congress, some for obscure reasons. \u00a0The filmed version of the final vote, for example, is full of fictitious names and invented dialogue. \u00a0One of these characters \u2013Walter H. Washburn of an unidentified state\u2013 casts a vote against the amendment. \u00a0The problem is that there were two Washburns in the 38th Congress \u2013a William Washburn and Elihu Washburne<\/a> \u2013both Republicans who voted eagerly in favor of the amendment. And naturally, their descendants are now disturbed by the implications of the movie and also want changes or corrections.<\/p>\n

Most academic historians are less concerned about the name changes (although they seem strangely unnecessary) and have been more fixated on other minor differences from historical reality. \u00a0There is the problem of the voting by state (which is a convention of political movies but not the historical Congress). \u00a0Then the movie has figures in the gallery who were almost surely not there \u2013such as Mary Lincoln and Preston Blair\u2013 but omits identifying figures we know to have been present, such as Frederick Douglass\u2019s son, Charles,\u00a0who wrote a touching letter afterward about the experience to his father<\/a>. \u00a0The film also attempts to enhance the suspense of the moment by cutting away to places such as Grant\u2019s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, where there is depicted a telegraph reporting in real time about the voting \u2013something that did not actually happen. \u00a0And finally, there is the curious decision to have Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) take the official copy of the amendment from Edward McPherson, the House clerk, claiming that he will \u201creturn it in the morning. Creased but unharmed.” \u00a0One suspects that scriptwriter Tony Kushner must have some kind of source for that unique story \u2013but if so, it is not yet apparent.<\/p>\n

(This post has been excerpted from a longer essay, \u201cWarning: Artists at Work,\u201d that appears in \u201cThe Unofficial Guide to Spielberg\u2019s Lincoln<\/a>\u201d which is part of the House Divided Project\u2019s new\u00a0Emancipation Digital Classroom<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the “Lincoln” movie script, Friday, January 27, 1865 was an action-packed and pivotal day. \u00a0It was the day of Thaddeus Stevens\u2019s controlled performance in the House, declaring himself strictly for \u201cequality before the law.\u201d \u00a0It was also the day marked by Abraham Lincoln\u2019s bitter argument with his oldest son Robert and then his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,83,81,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-general-opinion","category-recent-news","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4097,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4093\/revisions\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}