Comparing Lincoln And Seward's Presentation Of President Abraham Lincoln In The Movie

Lincoln is a movie that is about President Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and his fight to end slavery. This movie starts with the start of Lincoln’s second term in office. This term he has two main goals, put an end to the war and pass the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment, was a proposal to put an end to slavery, it was going to be a long and politically driven fight in order to pass this, but Lincoln wanted it more than anything. Not only is Lincoln facing the problems of getting 2/3 of the House of Reps. to pass his Amendment, he is also struggling with the South and their own plan to put an end to the war, but keep slavery, along with his crazy wife, and his oldest son wanting to enlist in the military. Lincoln has a lot on his plate,
For instance William Seward, who is Lincoln's secretary of state, in the film he had 3 men who he hired to help get the votes of the Democrats. However in real life there is no evidence that these three men existed, however, Seward did deliver the votes in many different ways, and Lincoln did not take part in his shenanigans. Another fairly accurate portrayal is that of Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd. In the film she seems to be this crazy woman who is controlling and who’s mind is never quite all there. In real life, historians believe that she may have been struggling with a Mental Illness before and during the time Lincoln was in office, but she definitely was a little crazy. Another accurate betrayal in the movie is the scene where the messenger runs all the way to the White House from the House of Reps. to tell Lincoln that the men in the house will not vote on the Amendment until they know if there is really a peace negotiation headed to Washington. Lincoln then writes a leader, with careful wording, saying something along the lines that as far as he knows no one is headed to Washington, or is in Washington for a peace negotiation. Historians have said that is true, and that he did write something along those lines, since the peace negotiation did not take place in Washington. Overall, for a movie, there portrayals of the events and the people in the movie were fairly accurate to those of
Not all of the facts were 100% accurate, they were distorted a little so the audience would stay involved in the movie. Movies distort facts, so they are more appealing to the audience, and so the audience does not feel like they are in a history lecture. For example, in history the Secretary of State Seward, did help get the votes to pass the Amendment, however, I the movie it shows his paying “only for the expenses of food and travel” of 3 men to help extort these votes, there is no record of that actually happening, but it definitely gave the movie some extra drama and made it more