History Film / Lincoln

** Democrats who vote for the amendment get some of these from their fellow Democrats, if not worse.

** Robert Lincoln says, ''"I won't be you, Pa!"'', but says he won't be nothing at all. Robert was a successful lawyer and eventually a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, but chose not to follow his father into politics.

* RunningGag: Lincoln keeps trying to get rid of his dress gloves, complaining they never fit right. His butler is always there to make him put or keep them on.
* SadisticChoice:

* OutlivingTheOffspring: The Lincolns have never recovered from the loss of their middle son Willie. Mary's grief was such that her husband thought of having her committed to an asylum, and she swears that he'll have to if their eldest son Robert is killed in the war.

* HumansAreBastards: Both Seward and the Radical Republicans believe that it will be much easier to pass the amendment after the end of the year, when the newly-elected Congressmen take their seats and the Republicans have an overwhelming majority in both the House and Senate; Asa Litton decries Lincoln's push to pass the amendment now as an empty gesture to frighten the Confederacy into ending the war, or else a feeble attempt to show "support" from the Democrats in the House. But Lincoln is painfully aware that while a majority of the Union supports abolition for various reasons, only a small minority (including Stevens and the Radical Republicans) believe in true equality for blacks, and he can easily foresee enthusiasm for the amendment fading away in the new house, especially if the war is over by then. He is calculating that outgoing Democrats who have nothing to lose (and much to gain through federal patronage) are actually ''more'' likely to vote in favor of the amendment than incoming Republicans at the start of their new terms. After a short conversation with a couple presenting a petition to the President, who admit that the husband would prefer that ''"some coon didn't come North and take his job"'', Seward starts to see Lincoln's point.
-->'''Seward''': The people... I begin to see why you're in such a hurry to put it through.

* SlipperySlopeFallacy: One of the most effective arguments used by Pendleton, Wood, and the other Democratic Representatives in convincing fence-sitting Representatives to vote against the 13th Amendment is that abolition is just the first step towards giving blacks the vote, and eventually full equality with whites, concepts that that few people outside of Stevens and the Radical Republicans can even contemplate, much less make themselves comfortable with. Lincoln addresses this in conversation with George Yeaman:

* SlapSlapKiss: A father-son variant occurs when Robert suggests that Abe is more scared of Mary's wrath than losing Robert; subverted when Abe slaps Robert and then attempts a reconciliatory hug, only for Robert to reject his dad's hug.
* SleazyPolitician: Seward is not sleazy in character, but he still maintains his contacts with political operatives who ''are'', whom he sets to rounding up lame-duck Democrats that can be persuaded to vote aye.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: This film is about Honest Abe, but he is the one who orders his Secretary of State to get professional lobbyists to wheel and deal with patronage appointments as much as they can to secure the votes necessary to get the 13th Amendment passed. In Stevens's words concerning himself: "The greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America."

* CastingGag: Possibly. Creator/HalHolbrook, who plays Francis Preston Blair, is well-known for his Emmy-winning portrayals of Lincoln in TV miniseries such as ''Sandburg's Lincoln'' and ''Series/NorthAndSouthUS''.

''Lincoln'' is a historical retelling of the [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln 16th President of the United States]]'s attempts to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed, directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg and written by [[Theatre/AngelsInAmerica Tony Kushner]], based on the acclaimed biography ''Team of Rivals'' by UsefulNotes/DorisKearnsGoodwin. It stars Creator/DanielDayLewis as Lincoln, Creator/SallyField as Mary Todd Lincoln, Creator/JosephGordonLevitt as their son Robert and has a supporting cast that includes Creator/TommyLeeJones, Creator/DavidStrathairn, Creator/JaredHarris and Creator/JackieEarleHaley.

** George H. Pendleton was played by Peter [=McRobbie=], who was in his late 60s. The real Pendleton was just shy of 40 at the time the film took place.
** Bill Raymond, who was in his 70s, plays House Speaker Schuyler Colfax, who was only 41 when the 13th Amendment was passed.

* GutturalGrowler:
** Thaddeus Stevens is Tommy Lee Jones at his deepest and most gravelly.
** Ulysses S. Grant too, as played by Jared Harris, sounds like he ''eats'' those omnipresent cigars after he's done smoking them.

* As Lincoln gets up to leave what will turn out to be his last cabinet meeting, he remarks, ''"I suppose it's time to go, though I would rather stay."''

* HateSink: The confederate peace delegation, led by Confederate VP Alexander Stephens, is depicted relatively sympathetically, so instead we are given Fernando Wood - a [[LargeHam loud]], [[{{Jerkass}} obnoxious]], [[SmugSnake slimy]] Democratic orator with openly white supremacist views - as a target at which to direct the audience's ire. And for Thaddeus Stevens to [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech hurl gloriously elaborate insults at.]]

'''Abraham Lincoln''': Anyone who thinks that doesn't understand, Molly.

-->'''Lincoln''': When peace comes, it mustn't just be hangings.''

* CallForward: Abe and Mary have a heated argument in which they speak of her possibly being thrown into the madhouse because of her grieving processes. She even specifically states that if her son Robert were killed in the war, Lincoln should go ahead and put her in the madhouse. Ten years later, she ''was'' put in the madhouse, by Robert himself (though quickly released).

* ComicallySmallBribe: Democrat Clay Hawkins is bribed by Bilbo to vote yes for the amendment in exchange for... becoming the postmaster of Millersburg, Ohio. He initially asks to be the taxman of the Western Reserve, but Bilbo negotiates him down to postmaster. When his fellows Democrats find out, though, they're both amused and disgusted, and Hawkins chickens out of the bribe. [[spoiler:In the end, though, he chooses to vote yes on the amendment anyway regardless of the bribe or his fellows Dems.]]

** Lincoln himself is susceptible to this; as was pointed out early on, the Republicans had won control of the House in the 1864 elections, which upon their sitting would have made approval of the 13th Amendment a cakewalk. Lincoln, however, was insistent that the amendment bill be passed with the votes of "lame duck" Democrat representatives to show that it was bipartisan.

* NobleDemon: Vice-President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens is a reprehensible white supremacist, [[NiceToTheWaiter but he doesn't view this as good reason to treat blacks poorly.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}} and ForegoneConclusion:

->''"There it is, even in that two-thousand year old book of mechanical law: it is a self- evident truth that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. We begin with equality. That's the origin, isn't it? That balance, that's fairness, that's justice."''

->''"Do we choose to be born, or are we fitted to the times we are born to?"''

[[caption-width-right:300: [[DoNotGoGentle Thunder Forth,]] [[ReligiousBruiser God Of War.]]'']]

[[DoNotGoGentle Thunder Forth,]] [[ReligiousBruiser God Of War.]]''