The Movie: Lincoln, Essay Example

Set during the American Civil War, the movie, Lincoln, examined the difficulties passing the 13^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Prior to the amendment, during the war the President issued his Emancipation Proclamation, but according to Lincoln, this was just a wartime stoppage of slavery as it existed in all of the Southern states.

The Civil War was really a war of economics. The Northern states had industry—and jobs. Before the railroads even the cattle drives from the West were to bring cattle to the Northern States where it was butchered and then sold back to the South and West at huge profits. In the Deep South, the crops were cotton and tobacco, but, although the crops were grown in the South, they were shipped north to convert them into usable products. The North had jobs and usually depended upon migrant labor. The South needed people to tend the soil, hand-pick the products and bundle it for shipment to the North. Unlike the industries of the North, Southern growers could pay very little for labor costs and found it convenient to employ slaves. In order to end a class-system of human beings and bring about a single American working class, the 13^th Amendment was necessary to end slavery in the United States for all-time.

When people live with certain traditions that are passed down from generation to generation, it becomes difficult to change that tradition. For almost all Southerners and for at least some Northerners, bringing equality to all races of people living in these United States was a new practice laden with fear of what was to come. These were the difficulties faced by the President of the United States and the Houses of Congress. Although at face-value the film was interesting it did little to explain the background which lain in the passage of the 13^th Amendment