Mary Todd Lincoln was born a southern belle whose family were wealthy slaveowners. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln had four sons. Eddie died of tuberculosis in 1850 at age 4, Willy died of typhoid in 1862 at age 12 while Lincoln was President. Her husband was murdered in front of her eyes in 1865, and her youngest son Thomas (Tad) died of pneumonia in 1871 at age 18. This last death finally broke her and her only surviving son Robert had her briefly committed to an insane asylum. Modern historians speculate that she may have had bipolar disorder, but having your whole family die one by one while your husband is in charge of a war against your homeland would break anyone. She was poorly regarded as a First Lady, but she's a tragic figure all around.
Lincoln was just a man, but he was one hell of an extraordinary man. He is definitely on of those people in history you’d love to travel back and time and meet. Love your reaction!
@@MrRondonmon Ugh! Historical context is important to consider Lincoln was a man of HIS time, not OUR time. He was a man who despised the institution of slavery when it existed. While he certainly would have left it to continue if it stopped the secession of Southern States, or ended the Civil War in the early years, he is the one who seized the initiative to end slavery by the War’s end. So I wouldn’t be so smug about pointing out that Lincoln still had prejudice attitudes about the equality of black people to whites, when it is clear in both his long held beliefs and actions that the enslavement of black people was immoral and had to end.
As to the question about Thaddeus Stevens and his housekeeper who he was in bed with. He was never publicly seen with his housemaid but there were rumors that she was secretly with him. When he died he left everything he had to her
I could spend years writing anecdotes about Lincoln, so I'll restrain myself to just one, in consideration for everybody's sanity. Once Lincoln was riding the train and discussing morality and motivations with a friend. The friend argued that people were capable to be selfless, and Lincoln took the position that people would only do what benefitted them. Somewhere along the argument, Lincoln looked out the window and saw a lamb lying on the rails, about to be run over by their train. Quickly the activated the emergency brakes, and then left the train, lifted the lamb and placed it safely by the rails before returning to his train car. His friend, watching all that, said that Lincoln had just made his point for him, that it was a selfless act. "Not at all", replied Lincoln. "Do you have any idea how awful I'd feel if that lamb died?"
Considering the geometry of the situation, I suspect that story is every bit as fictional as Lincoln's story about Ethan Allen (he never held any diplomatic post or went overseas for any reason) but it is every bit as good of a story.
The speeches and insults that Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) says on the House floor are things that the real life Thaddeus Stevens said. They took his lines from Congressional minutes. Also, when you hear Lincoln's pocket watch tick, they recorded one of his actual watches and played it.
My favorite Stevens insult went something along the lines of "Surely you are a bastard because i knew your wife's husband and he was an honorable man." He really did have an acidic tongue. LOL.
You can be an honorary American Dawn. Your love and respect for Lincoln is contagious. You picked an amazing one to like. His actions to end the war and abolish slavery the way he did is the stuff of legend. The amendments in our constitution are what we try to live by as Americans. Thanks for the great reaction. p.s. Amendments to the Constitution are very difficult to get passed, that's why there are not that many to date.
Lol, at the same time this movie showed how Lincoln could swim in the Washington swamp and the alligators would flee because they would be afraid, he would eat THEM.
I had ancestors on both sides. Two of them were captured in defeated armies, imprisoned but quickly paroled. They promised to not bear arms again. Later POWs were ill treated. If you weren't defeated earlier, you went from battle to battle, you were eventually killed. Fifty years later their descendants married ;-)
When I was in the 8th grade, 1961, I we were required to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution, the introduction to the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg address. We also discussed their importance. Then in 9th grade civics were studied the Constitution (not in depth but we went through each section and the Amendments) and state and local laws.
And then, in the 1980, Al Sharpton had a march, declaring Civics to be "racist" and liberals removed it from classrooms nationwide. Now, no one knows shit about what it means to keep a democracy.
@@MichaelSSmith-hs5pwYou have a point. My grandson doesn't even get any homework and he's in 6th grade. I remember getting homework starting in the 1st grade (we had to practice our reading with our parents even though English was not my parents first language). We had homework throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school.
@@mikealvarez2322 Yes, I remember doing all those things too, & we turned out O.K. How to scare the new generations of kids? Put them in a room with a rotary telephone, an Analog clock, a television set with no remote, a folded paper map (no GPS), a vacuum tube radio with the dials on the front. Then leave the directions on how to use these things on a piece of lined notebook paper in cursive writing. They will go NUTS!! lol -enjoy the thought. 😁
Lewis is amazing as always, but Jones absolutely steals the show and it's his delivery of his equality before the law speech that I keep coming back to this movie for.
Interesting. What draws you to that scene? It is not a powerful piece of oratory. Jones kind of swallows the line because he is making Stevens lie about his true beliefs to achieve the political objective.
Truth. I was born only a decade before the turn of this century in Texas. The resentment towards northerners is still palpable, thanks to Grant's retributive recronstruction.
Lincoln is among our most revered Presidents because he led with conviction for what was right, in spite of a howling hoard of people all around him telling him he was wrong about everything and undermining him frequently. He stood like a rock, leading by example, and kept our country from ripping apart permanently. There was probably no one else at the time who could have done it.
When I lived in Richmond, Va., where “Lincoln” was filmed, my old boss was an extra in the movie. His beard and glasses gave him a very 19th century appearance, so he played the clergyman in Lincoln‘s death scene, standing behind the bed. Before the scene was shot, Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day Lewis were discussing how to position Lincoln on the bed. John spoke up and said diagonally which, historically, is what happened. He said the two of them swung around and looked at him like he had just stepped off a flying saucer from Mars, then turned around and continued their discussion. After that, he said kept his suggestions to himself. 😄
Hehe I’m from Richmond too. Those big directors/actors do have their egos. Even when surrounded by well read locals from the town that welcomed their film production
Lincoln's wife Mary really was mentally unstable (and said to be a real piece of work at best of times). The story they mention about her being inconsolable for days and weeks after Willie's death is more or less how it went in real life. Lincoln actually did threaten to lock her up in a madhouse if she didn't stop her wailing. Later, years after Lincoln's death and the death of Tad (their youngest son) in 1871 she went completely off the rails and Robert was forced to have her committed for a brief period of time. She lived her last years in poor health, confined to her sister's home.
The Gettysburg Address is probably the best two minute speech in political history. Any time, any where. For most of us Americans, Abraham Lincoln is thought of as our best President. Of course, opinions vary, but if you took a vote among all Americans, I am confident Ol' Abe would win, in a landslide. Loved your reaction, and the way you "loved" Lincoln. Very touching.
The actor who finishes the speech while walking away during the first scene actually went on to play Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma (2014). I like to think that was a cool, unofficial passing of the torch between leaders.
I still think it was Washington. Not only did he win our independence, he made the difficult and fateful decision to give up power when he could have easily made himself king. He gave birth to democracy in the modern world!
Yeah, General George Washington did a lot of great things, but he had a lot of help, and a really good spy network. Lincoln had to do a lot of things on his own, and he preserved the Union at a critical time. Plus he got killed for his trouble. Washington was almost like a Saint, Lincoln was a down to earth hero.@@Christobanistan
It wasn't until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865 that almost all the slaves were freed. Some Native American tribes still held black slaves. Since these tribes were considered as separate nations it took treaty negotiations to finally end slavery. The Creek Indians finally freed their slaves in June 1866, a full year and 2 months after the war ended.😮
There are no audio recordings of Abe but he was said to have a raspy thin voice. It was hard to hear in the days before microphones and PA systems so people tended to be very quiet when he spoke. In movies they give him a much deeper loud voice. He was the greatest US president, no question about it. People made fun of his looks and in one debate the other guy called him "two faced". He replied "If I had two faces do you really think I would be wearing this one"?
From what I have read Sally Fields plays a very accurate Mrs. Lincoln. She was reported to be despondent and hysterical for much of her time in the Capital. It, of course, got worse after his assassination. Good reaction.
Wound up in an asylum. Yes, she was probably a bit unbalanced beforehand. And yes, she came from a very bifurcated area of the country. And yes, she was no help to Lincoln in the end. But if Lincoln had been loved by no one, who would he have been?
Her oldest surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, had her committed to a mental institution. A weird coincidence is that Robert Lincoln was also in the same city for the two other Presidential assassinations that occurred in his lifetime (President Garfield in 1881 in Washington like his father and President McKinley in 1901 in the city of Buffalo). After that, Robert Lincoln moved to rural Vermont so that it was unlikely he would ever be in the same city as the President ever again.
It was very very common for classmates from different Universities, especially West Point, to have fought on different sides of the war. There was a Confederate general who fell at Gettysburg and his last wish was have a message given to his friend, a Union general. When the Union army told him that the general had fallen, he was completely inconsolable as he lay there dying himself. Don't remember their names, but its shown in the movie Gettysburg, which is the most historically accurate Civil War movie to date BY FAR.
@@StanSwan No, they shouldn't. The modern tendency to equate Southern slavery with the Holocaust, and imagine every plantation as Auschwitz in miniature, is no more accurate than pretending the war was really over the tariff rather than slavery.
When I was a kid around 1965, my original family [parents and brother] stopped in to Springfield Illinois to Lincoln's home and burial tomb on the way home from a vacation out west. In 2019 my wife and I went to Lincoln's home again, now run by the National Park system. They have a big museum for Lincoln that was not there in the 1960's. When you walk inside the museum to the big lobby, it was startling... real life looking color statues [like wax museum thing] of Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, and kids all standing there as if to personally greet everyone. It was so stunning that I cried. For a few seconds, they looked real!! When I got to see the inside of his home again, just a short few blocks block away, I noticed the wall paper in the bedroom was the SAME original wallpaper I saw when I was a kid. There is also an official National Parks building 1/2 block from the home with history and short films etc. The Ranger who took us on the tour said that was one of the few rooms the replica wallpaper was not needed yet. I told him I had seen the same wall paper some 55 years before as a kid...Lincoln's tomb is across town a little ways in the cemetery. I truly wish I could get you, Dawn, TO that town and museum and house...to see for yourself.
You should know that amending the US Constitution is extremely difficult. It takes a two-thirds vote of both chambers of Congress (the House and Senate) and then it requires *three-quarters* of the state legislatures to ratify the proposed Amendment. Only then is the Amendment enacted. For the "Reconstruction Amendments" (13, 14, and 15), they simply didn't count the Confederate states. Those states then had to officially ratify those Amendments before being re-admitted to the union.
Actually, they *did* count the seceded states, because Lincoln never considered the states actually seceded. So he needed two former Confederate states to ratify the amendment, which turned out to be Louisiana and Tennessee.
Actually, no they didn't. The Congressional Representatives from the Confederate states were not seated, and therefore the quorum in Congress was calculated without them. @@stevencass8849
This was shot in and around Richmond in late 2011 while I was in film school at VCU. Some of my friends actually dropped out of classes to go work as production assistants on it. A few actors with bit parts wound up in our summer productions the next year so it was fun spotting them in Lincoln when it came out in theaters.
Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood, Last of the Mohicans, In the Name of the Father and the Crucible are all movies with Daniel Day Lewis that you should be checking out for sure. An early somewhat large part he has is in a movie called The Bounty, with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, which I also highly, highly recommend. A super great movie. Another movie that has Daniel Day Lewis, albeit in very very small part in one of his very first movies, is Gandhi. Another biographical film like Lincoln, starring Ben Kingsley and directed by Richard Attenborough. I highly, highly recommend this movie as well. Gandhi was a life changing movie for me when I saw it in High School. Really can't recommend it enough.
5:43 "I don't think that happened. I think, after slavery was abolished, the war kept goin'." It could be described as a _bit_ of an oversimplification to say that the cause of the Civil War was southern secession and the cause of southern secession was legislation about slavery, because the fact is, there was a time when slavery was _every_ bit as popular in New York as it was in Texas. The fact is, every country in the _world_ has some kind of history with slavery if you look back far enough. The complete list of causes are detailed in a book called _Don't Know Much About the Civil War_ by Kenneth C. Davis, but for now, suffice it to say that there were at least _two_ questions settled in the Civil War. First, it answered the question about whether slavery will continue to be legal, and second, it settled the question about whether the US will permit states to secede.
They filmed a bunch of outdoors shots in Petersburg, Virginia. (next city over). Its messes with my head seeing places Ive stood or walked, in a movie.
13:28 He just snorted a pinch of pulverized/powdered tobacco. Much like when snorting cocaine, the nicotine hits the mucous membrane inside the nose and produces a rush.
That's some fighting talk! Pistols or swords, sir? My claim is that Daniel Day Lewis already solidified his legend as the greatest actor in the history of cinema with his performance in "The Last of the Mohicans".
@@haywoodsmith2822Does a Chinese school teach their kids all about the American civil war? Or do they teach their kids matters related to Chinese history?
@@haywoodsmith2822 we know little Scottish history here in America. So I was just saying it is ok to not know much US history when you are from Scotland.
@@haywoodsmith2822 Let’s try an experiment, shall we? Without Googling, what can you tell us about Henry VII, George V, Benjamin Disraeli or Mary of Teck? No cheating now!
This movie was based on the book "team of Rivals". In it there's a small story of a speech Lincoln made that was so good that it was lost to history. How, you ask? Well, Lincoln didn't keep his speech notes after he made them, so there's no copy from him. The reporters that covered it didn't register it either, because they were too busy hearing, mesmerized by it. And so it was lost. It would be a good use for a time machine to send a person to record it.
06:50 Hal Holbrook, best known for his portrayal of Mark Twain, also portrayed Lincoln in a TV mini-series. @cruesome2, Holbrook's Lincoln had that high-pitched, scratchy voice you mention.
Lincoln did not have a deep voice. One of the very fine things about Daniel Day-Lewis's performance is his high pitched voice. 13:33 He was snorting snuff, tiny bits of chopped up tobacco leaves. Snorting it was a common way of using tobacco in those days. 19:00 They have already lost one son, Willie. Believe me, the idea that they will have one left is no comfort to a parent looking at losing yet another, any more than having Robert and Tad was a comfort when they lost Willie. The human heart doesn't work that way. I am overlooking that the movie glosses over the death of Eddy, in 1850, at the age of three. 19:39 Mary Todd Lincoln was a shrewish person with serious mental problems that were quite beyond the medical science of the day to treat. After Mr. Lincoln's death, their eldest son Robert was forced to put her in an insane asylum. The President of the United States can no more sit in on a session of the Congress can the King can sit in on a session of Parliament. Thaddeus Stevens's relationship with his maid was an open secret in Washington. In my opinion, Lincoln is one of the four greatest movies ever made. It is on par with Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Gone with the Wind. The fact that you were fascinated even though you didn't understand everything that was happening shows its greatness. For a couple of excellent movies that concentrate on Lincoln's life before he became President, check out Abe Lincoln in Illinois, starring Raymond Massey and Young Mr. Lincoln, starring Henry Fonda.
Fun reaction! Lincoln and his wife were very well respected in Springfield, Illinois and Mary loved being part of high society there. Washington D.C. however, considered them to be rough hewn country bumpkins, and the press was very cruel to them, even suggesting Lincoln was half black, the worst insult they could come up with at the time. High society in D.C. flat out rejected them which crushed Mary and made her resentful.. Mary was unstable, prone to hysterics, and grossly overspent on the White House dishes, silverware, curtains, et al, and her own dresses to compensate for her feelings of being snubbed. No one called Lincoln "Abraham", or "Abe", because he didn't care for that name. He signed his documents "A. Lincoln" whenever possible. The brass plate on the front door of his Springfield home still says that. Part of Lincoln's amazing ability was to turn enemies into staunch supporters. He exceeded all expectations people had about him and I believe he was the smartest politician and the best President we've ever had. As to what happened to the freed slaves, their former Southern "masters" got creative in keeping them legally enslaved as sharecroppers, charged rent for their shacks almost as much as they were paid for their labor. Many, many more were sent to prison for minor offenses and worked to death on chain gangs. The luckier ones had the means to move away but prejudice was just as strong in most people in the US and here we still are today, trying to make things right to live up to the words "All Men Are Created Equal".
Daniel Day Lewis was amazing. Springfield, Illinois where Lincoln had his home is but 100 miles from me. My opinion of Lincoln was he was the greatest of Presidents. Daniel Day Lewis said in preparing to play Lincoln and finding Lincon's voice he fell in love woth Lincoln. Lewis said Lincoln was his most likable person person and character. Other characters were harder to shake after playing them but Lincoln was the one he absolutely adored as a person.
aww lincoln was my granddad's favorite president and i'm so glad i got to take him to see this movie. he hadn't seen a movie in theaters for at least 30 years at the time.
Take it from a historian with a MA in history and a lifelong fascination with Lincoln; he was every bit the great leader and good person you saw in the movie, and much, much more 😉
Umm.. Was he a good person? Do we really know? Personally, I don't take people's word for it without investigating the person for myself. 🌈 📚 Reding Rainbow (TV show) taught generations of peole that. "You dont have to take my word for it"- LeVar Burton In other words, "See it for yourself to believe it." How do I know you genuinely hold a Masters degree in History? You want me to believe that without question. "Tea without the reciepts, is just gossip" To understand Lincoln as an individual, a person needs to hear the lived experiences from as many different groups of people available, and then come to your own conclusion. Native American experiences get glossed over. Civil War was not simply North v South, it was all the different cultures and communities that were fighting for their own vision of what freedom looked like to them. The US during this time were invading Native territory, the Spanish territory, etc. Those battles were given a different name like 'Dakota War" because it was 2 groups of people opposing one another. (oversimply put) The North & South was called the Civil War, because the leaders of those States were European. Europeans v Europeans. Same heritage that split and relocated over a length of time due to different ideals. Read up on the Dakota War. While Lincoln did free the slaves, he also gave Grant orders to march Natives to POW camps, now known as reservations. All those people that Lincoln fast tracked without trial, were native american people. Its the reason for the largest mass execution in US history in Mankato Minnesota. 300 POWs, 38+2 were hanged, the rest were forced up river to the Reservatios in SD, NE, ND, and Canada, where they are still being held today by the government. People are complicated, Lincoln was no different. It all depends on Lincoln's actions, and whether you benefited by his actions or were further oppressed by his actions. People will not take your word for it blindly without context, ya?
@Peg__ Granted, you don't have to solely take my word regarding my master's. In retrospect, that probably wasn't necessary, I'll admit. But yes, I spent the better part of the past few years researching Native American history in conjunction with Lincoln's presidency, so I have indeed read up on it. And yes, I'm very well aware of the Dakota War and the executions. And I never suggested or meant to imply that Lincoln wasn't complicated or was himself perfect. I just didn't think such a deeply analytical historical discussion was going come out of a RUclips video comment section.
Hi Dawn, There is a great three part documentary on the History channel that covers Abraham Lincolns life, that would be very informative for you. Keep up the great reactions
The movie that complements this, in my opinion, is "Abe Lincoln In Illinois". It's old, from 1940, in black and white. It was made from a stage play. It ends when Lincoln wins his first election to President, so it provides some of that background to Lincoln's earlier life. The actor who plays Lincoln in that film is Raymond Massey. A reviewer of the film on the IMDB, jpowell180, says in their review that Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abe, saw Massey in a play and remarked on the similarity of the voice of Massey to his father Abraham.
There were people who tried to keep slaves after the Civil War but the Union Army occupied the Southern States. And they would imprison plantation owners.
The young lady who played Mary Todd Lincoln's handmaiden is a great actor and was one of Tina Turner's dancers/vocalists on her tours. Her name escapes me.
Mary Lincoln and her sisters grew up on a wealthy Kentucky plantation. Three of the sisters all left Kentucky and went to the free state of Illinois; they despised slavery because they knew what it really was.
Lincoln fan since I was knee high of a grasshopper. I beg to differ. I think in many ways Lincoln would agree too. George Washington he set the whole thing from revolution to U.S. Presidency. Many, many rules and traditions were set into motion by George Washington. Lincoln was giant because he had dwarves precede and succeeded him.
@chrisholmes4507 Washington was a great President. The perfect person for the formation of the new nation. I would just choose Lincoln as the greatest because he kept the union together by prosecuting the civil war and began the process of freeing the slaves.
I've read everything I can get my hands on ever since I went to a lecture from a Lincoln scholar in Los Angeles. Abraham grew up dirt poor (as we say in America) and had only one year of formal schooling and was mostly self-taught in fields such as the Bible, engineering, farming and law. Having read law, he passed the bar exam and became a prosperous attorney . He had three sons who lived past infancy. I loved Tommy Lee Jones as Senator Stevens who was a radical Republican abolitionist as was Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, former Governor of and Senator from New York State. Lincoln knew Shakespeare well and quoted him often. His favorite play was "Julius Caesar," oddly enough since it was the story of a political assassination. "Richmond" is mentioned often because Richmond, Virginia was the capitol of the Confederate government.
Another telling of Lincoln’s youth was “Abe Lincoln in Illinois”, which ends with him boarding the train to Washington. The full story of the American Civil War is told very well in the American television miniseries “The Civil War”, directed by Ken Burns. It will be a long journey but well worth it.
Lincoln had 3 sons - Robert, Willie, and Tad. Willie died at age 11 aftér a bout of either rheumatic fever or measles. He died just as Licoln and his family were travelling to Washington to be sworn in.
Sally Field was also in "Steel Magnolias" and "Smokey and the Bandit". The Bible says we're all descended from Adam and Eve. Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky, and had a really interesting life.
My grandfather was a Shamon, he helped me through many hard times growing up an adopted white kid in a native community who was also gender dysphoric. He once told me "We are all equally beset upon by the universe, we all must be born to get here, we all suffer at the whim of an unfeeling universe, we all risk death every day and then one day we all must succumb to it. That is how I know that we are all equal in Nature, and thus in the eyes of God". Lincon was one of my heroes growing up. Thanks for sharing another reaction. Bless and be well.
That quote is beautiful!! Was your grandfather quoting from someplace, or are those his own words? If a quote, do you know where from? If his own words, may I share them around? If I were to share them, would he prefer to be named or not, and if so, to whom may I attribute those beautiful words?
Dawn, I love your passion for this truly great man. He carried the burden of the entire country on his shoulders, and it eventually led to his death. His wife, Mary, was a complete nut job, but he remained true and loyal to her. He had a girl he was enamored with when he was young, Ann Rutledge, although not much is known about the extent of their relationship as she died young. Mary Todd went through a great deal of emotional pain, losing three of her four children and eventually her husband, so it wasn't smooth sailing as a marriage. An interesting fact: The actor brother of assassin John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth saved Robert Todd Lincoln, the President's son, from dying by pulling him from the tracks, after he slipped, just before the train would have hit him. Edwin was a Unionist while his Brother was a radical Separatist. At the time of the event, ironically, Edwin Booth was traveling with his friend John T. Ford, owner of Ford's Theater, where the President was assassinated.
@@titanuranus3095 Sorry if you don't appreciate the truth, but she was institutionalized for psychiatric disease in 1875. Yes, she suffered tremendous losses, but Lincoln had to deal with a lot of disruptive issues with her and she is amongst the most poorly regarded first ladies by many historians. There's nothing wrong with being a nut job, most people I know fit into that category. Please take a deep breath and relax.
According to reports at the time, DDL's voice for Lincoln here is pretty accurate. Higher pitched, certainly not deep. Never heard it described as weak, however that's meant, but certainly higher in range.
Lincoln used a messenger to congress because the president generally only visits Congress when invited because of the purposeful division of government. Congress is considered the people's house and the president is not allowed to interfere with their daily work. The President can however send messages to congress or invite Congressional members to the W.H.
Hal Holbrook, the actor who portrayed Francis Blair in this movie, had portrayed Abraham Lincoln in a miniseries from the 1970s. He won an Emmy for his performance. You should check it out. He was brilliant. Holbrook also portrayed Lincoln in the 1986 miniseries, "North and South: Book II".
Obscure historical fact: President Abe Lincoln's eldest son Robert (Levitt's character) had his life saved by a famous actor Edwin Booth, who was the older brother of John Wilkes Booth a few months before John Wilkes Booth would assassinate President Abe Lincoln. Robert was standing on a crowded train platform and as the train was approaching the crowd that was waiting surged forward a bit knocking Robert from the platform and in the path of the oncoming train. Edwin Booth and few others were able to lift Robert back onto the platform before he was hit. Edwin had no idea who he had saved until he got a letter from President Lincoln thanking him for saving Robert.
If you're ever in Washington DC, Ford's Theater has a museum devoted to Lincoln. One of the artifacts is one of the pillows that laid under Lincoln's head as he lay dying. It even has his blood stains.
Thaddeus Stevens is from my city and buried here. I try to get there once a year. Just went two weeks ago and laid some flowers. General Reynolds is here too, for real civil war buffs
Dawn, I think you would really, really like "Young Mister Lincoln" from 1939, yes it is very old, but that means it was made only 70 some years after the fact, when the love for Lincoln was still very great.
If you're watching civil war movies you HAVE TO watch Gone with the Wind. Not only considered one of the best movies ever made but it's fits your recent trend of movies
GWTW is old, dated and very CSA sympathetic. It makes a poor CW drama, with nice cinemaphotography, some great acting, but it IS 1939 and very pre-civil rights.
GWtW was good for its time when people wanted to believe in the happy Negro. It is well made but once you are aware of the truth you can enjoy performances while realizing it might be insulting to many others .
gwtw Is a horrid film. Scarlet is a spoiled privilege narcissistic brat. It continues the myth that the south started the war for Nobel purposes when it was about power and slavery.
Lincoln was consumed with the war and with politics. He had little time for anything else. His wife, Mary, was emotionally needed and Lincoln was aloof. Their marriage was tempestuous. He was widely considered to be ugly. When running for president, he was accused of being "two faced". He responded, “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?” He had wit which was appreciated then and now. He's a beloved figure, but he was reviled by many during his life. This movie captures some of that. He had few allies in his corner. The fact that he got much of what he wanted shows what a political genius he was.
*The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by the House of Representatives with a vote of 119 to 56, narrowly reaching the required two-thirds majority.* In the Senate, the amendment was passed by a vote of 38 to 6, which was eight votes more than constitutionally required. _JC
Dawn, there's a video of a game show from the 1950s that features a man who as a very young boy was in the theater the night that Lincoln was shot. So amazing to realize that in some ways it's that close. I was once at a small Civil War museum that was in a three-storey house. I was the only one there as I wandered through it and they had a lock of Lincoln's hair in a small container right up against the glass. I remember bending down with my nose practically touching the glass, just amazed that hair from the great man's head was so close to me.
I really think he was our greatest President. The American Founding Father's thought that slavery would die out on it's own, but it became too valuable after the cotton gin was invented. Lincoln was our least educated President, he had only a first grade education. He loved to learn and educated himself. Even after he studied and became a lawyer, he never stopped learning. He studied high level math and geometry because he found it interesting.
From under which under-educated and easily bamboozled Aryan evangelical rock did you come? Lincoln was self-educated. To the point where, he had a license to practice law in Illinois before he went into the House of Representatives. Full stop.
That is why slavery festered on for 84 years before the civil war began. The North and the South both had backed themselves into a wall and the center couldn't hold. @@josephwallace202
You need to watch Free State Of Jones to see what happened in the some places in the US following the civil war, a hard watch though. Thanks for uploading, Dawn Marie.
Lincoln had to grieve for his dead sons. He also grieved for the nation's sons, the soldiers so many families gave to the Union cause. Lincoln grieved deeply for the soldiers who nobly advanced the cause of freedom for slaves.
One of those actors you noticed was Hal Holbrook. His xoice is closer to the tone of Abe's speaking voice. He has multiple credits for his portrayals. Also does an excellent Mark Twain. Henry Fonda, Walter Huston, Gregory Peck, Raymond Massey, and Sam Waterston all have been the great man. Abe has fought zombies and vampires, and he's helped BILL AND TED pass their history class. Best since Kelly Mac
D.W. Griffith directed a movie called, Abraham Lincoln, (1930) that goes as far back as his birth. You get to see Lincoln meet Mary Todd, become a lawyer and everything.
Mary Todd Lincoln was born a southern belle whose family were wealthy slaveowners. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln had four sons. Eddie died of tuberculosis in 1850 at age 4, Willy died of typhoid in 1862 at age 12 while Lincoln was President. Her husband was murdered in front of her eyes in 1865, and her youngest son Thomas (Tad) died of pneumonia in 1871 at age 18. This last death finally broke her and her only surviving son Robert had her briefly committed to an insane asylum. Modern historians speculate that she may have had bipolar disorder, but having your whole family die one by one while your husband is in charge of a war against your homeland would break anyone. She was poorly regarded as a First Lady, but she's a tragic figure all around.
Watching Dawn fangirl over Abraham Lincoln is the cutest thing ever.
Lincoln was just a man, but he was one hell of an extraordinary man. He is definitely on of those people in history you’d love to travel back and time and meet. Love your reaction!
Really? Goggle Racist Lincoln quotes. People are so naive.
@@MrRondonmon Ugh! Historical context is important to consider Lincoln was a man of HIS time, not OUR time. He was a man who despised the institution of slavery when it existed. While he certainly would have left it to continue if it stopped the secession of Southern States, or ended the Civil War in the early years, he is the one who seized the initiative to end slavery by the War’s end. So I wouldn’t be so smug about pointing out that Lincoln still had prejudice attitudes about the equality of black people to whites, when it is clear in both his long held beliefs and actions that the enslavement of black people was immoral and had to end.
As to the question about Thaddeus Stevens and his housekeeper who he was in bed with. He was never publicly seen with his housemaid but there were rumors that she was secretly with him. When he died he left everything he had to her
You’ll be glad to know that Robert Todd Lincoln lived to the age of 82 and was present when the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in the 1920s.
I could spend years writing anecdotes about Lincoln, so I'll restrain myself to just one, in consideration for everybody's sanity.
Once Lincoln was riding the train and discussing morality and motivations with a friend. The friend argued that people were capable to be selfless, and Lincoln took the position that people would only do what benefitted them.
Somewhere along the argument, Lincoln looked out the window and saw a lamb lying on the rails, about to be run over by their train.
Quickly the activated the emergency brakes, and then left the train, lifted the lamb and placed it safely by the rails before returning to his train car.
His friend, watching all that, said that Lincoln had just made his point for him, that it was a selfless act.
"Not at all", replied Lincoln. "Do you have any idea how awful I'd feel if that lamb died?"
Considering the geometry of the situation, I suspect that story is every bit as fictional as Lincoln's story about Ethan Allen (he never held any diplomatic post or went overseas for any reason) but it is every bit as good of a story.
The speeches and insults that Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) says on the House floor are things that the real life Thaddeus Stevens said. They took his lines from Congressional minutes. Also, when you hear Lincoln's pocket watch tick, they recorded one of his actual watches and played it.
My favorite Stevens insult went something along the lines of "Surely you are a bastard because i knew your wife's husband and he was an honorable man." He really did have an acidic tongue. LOL.
Actually 🤓, Lincoln had a high pitched and kind of scratchy voice. It's just that tall men who portray him tend to have deep voices.
@@Billy-zv6gv It's documented that he had a higher pitched voice.
Of course there’s no real recording, but he is described as having a higher pitched tenor voice.
100%correct
Because there was documentation to say he had a voice that was different. Than what he loved he had a higher pitched voice called history books
Like David Beckham.
You can be an honorary American Dawn. Your love and respect for Lincoln is contagious. You picked an amazing one to like. His actions to end the war and abolish slavery the way he did is the stuff of legend. The amendments in our constitution are what we try to live by as Americans. Thanks for the great reaction. p.s. Amendments to the Constitution are very difficult to get passed, that's why there are not that many to date.
Lol, at the same time this movie showed how Lincoln could swim in the Washington swamp and the alligators would flee because they would be afraid, he would eat THEM.
I had ancestors on both sides. Two of them were captured in defeated armies, imprisoned but quickly paroled. They promised to not bear arms again. Later POWs were ill treated. If you weren't defeated earlier, you went from battle to battle, you were eventually killed. Fifty years later their descendants married ;-)
When I was in the 8th grade, 1961, I we were required to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution, the introduction to the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg address. We also discussed their importance. Then in 9th grade civics were studied the Constitution (not in depth but we went through each section and the Amendments) and state and local laws.
Every American should..., especially the under-educated and easily bamboozled Christian-based fascists.
And then, in the 1980, Al Sharpton had a march, declaring Civics to be "racist" and liberals removed it from classrooms nationwide. Now, no one knows shit about what it means to keep a democracy.
Kids today don’t even know what those things are, and if they did, they’d tell you to get fucked if you asked them to memorize it!
@@MichaelSSmith-hs5pwYou have a point. My grandson doesn't even get any homework and he's in 6th grade. I remember getting homework starting in the 1st grade (we had to practice our reading with our parents even though English was not my parents first language). We had homework throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school.
@@mikealvarez2322 Yes, I remember doing all those things too, & we turned out O.K.
How to scare the new generations of kids? Put them in a room with a rotary telephone, an Analog clock, a television set with no remote, a folded paper map (no GPS), a vacuum tube radio with the dials on the front. Then leave the directions on how to use these things on a piece of lined notebook paper in cursive writing. They will go NUTS!! lol -enjoy the thought. 😁
Not just a great President but rumour has it that he was also a pretty good Vampire Hunter
Lewis is amazing as always, but Jones absolutely steals the show and it's his delivery of his equality before the law speech that I keep coming back to this movie for.
Bruce McGill really does an outstanding job as Stanton.
Interesting. What draws you to that scene? It is not a powerful piece of oratory. Jones kind of swallows the line because he is making Stevens lie about his true beliefs to achieve the political objective.
Lincoln's assassin brought about evils that persist today.
Truth. I was born only a decade before the turn of this century in Texas. The resentment towards northerners is still palpable, thanks to Grant's retributive recronstruction.
Exactly. We'd have a far better country otherwise. Please see my comments above. Cheers!
Lincoln is among our most revered Presidents because he led with conviction for what was right, in spite of a howling hoard of people all around him telling him he was wrong about everything and undermining him frequently. He stood like a rock, leading by example, and kept our country from ripping apart permanently. There was probably no one else at the time who could have done it.
When I lived in Richmond, Va., where “Lincoln” was filmed, my old boss was an extra in the movie. His beard and glasses gave him a very 19th century appearance, so he played the clergyman in Lincoln‘s death scene, standing behind the bed.
Before the scene was shot, Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day Lewis were discussing how to position Lincoln on the bed. John spoke up and said diagonally which, historically, is what happened.
He said the two of them swung around and looked at him like he had just stepped off a flying saucer from Mars, then turned around and continued their discussion. After that, he said kept his suggestions to himself. 😄
Hehe I’m from Richmond too. Those big directors/actors do have their egos. Even when surrounded by well read locals from the town that welcomed their film production
He should have gone on and said, "That is historically accurate."
@@odysseusrex5908 Agreed.
Lincoln was depicted as having a deep voice in movies for years. But accounts from the time state it as being quite high, like a kettle.
Lincoln's wife Mary really was mentally unstable (and said to be a real piece of work at best of times). The story they mention about her being inconsolable for days and weeks after Willie's death is more or less how it went in real life. Lincoln actually did threaten to lock her up in a madhouse if she didn't stop her wailing.
Later, years after Lincoln's death and the death of Tad (their youngest son) in 1871 she went completely off the rails and Robert was forced to have her committed for a brief period of time. She lived her last years in poor health, confined to her sister's home.
The hospital to which she was committed, Bellevue Place sanitarium is now (sadly) condos. It's 6 blocks from my house.
The Gettysburg Address is probably the best two minute speech in political history. Any time, any where. For most of us Americans, Abraham Lincoln is thought of as our best President. Of course, opinions vary, but if you took a vote among all Americans, I am confident Ol' Abe would win, in a landslide. Loved your reaction, and the way you "loved" Lincoln. Very touching.
The actor who finishes the speech while walking away during the first scene actually went on to play Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma (2014). I like to think that was a cool, unofficial passing of the torch between leaders.
I still think it was Washington. Not only did he win our independence, he made the difficult and fateful decision to give up power when he could have easily made himself king. He gave birth to democracy in the modern world!
Yeah, General George Washington did a lot of great things, but he had a lot of help, and a really good spy network. Lincoln had to do a lot of things on his own, and he preserved the Union at a critical time. Plus he got killed for his trouble. Washington was almost like a Saint, Lincoln was a down to earth hero.@@Christobanistan
It wasn't until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865 that almost all the slaves were freed. Some Native American tribes still held black slaves. Since these tribes were considered as separate nations it took treaty negotiations to finally end slavery. The Creek Indians finally freed their slaves in June 1866, a full year and 2 months after the war ended.😮
There are no audio recordings of Abe but he was said to have a raspy thin voice. It was hard to hear in the days before microphones and PA systems so people tended to be very quiet when he spoke. In movies they give him a much deeper loud voice. He was the greatest US president, no question about it. People made fun of his looks and in one debate the other guy called him "two faced". He replied "If I had two faces do you really think I would be wearing this one"?
From what I have read Sally Fields plays a very accurate Mrs. Lincoln. She was reported to be despondent and hysterical for much of her time in the Capital. It, of course, got worse after his assassination. Good reaction.
No box of chocolates was Mary Todd Lincoln.
Wound up in an asylum. Yes, she was probably a bit unbalanced beforehand. And yes, she came from a very bifurcated area of the country. And yes, she was no help to Lincoln in the end. But if Lincoln had been loved by no one, who would he have been?
Her oldest surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, had her committed to a mental institution.
A weird coincidence is that Robert Lincoln was also in the same city for the two other Presidential assassinations that occurred in his lifetime (President Garfield in 1881 in Washington like his father and President McKinley in 1901 in the city of Buffalo). After that, Robert Lincoln moved to rural Vermont so that it was unlikely he would ever be in the same city as the President ever again.
It was very very common for classmates from different Universities, especially West Point, to have fought on different sides of the war. There was a Confederate general who fell at Gettysburg and his last wish was have a message given to his friend, a Union general. When the Union army told him that the general had fallen, he was completely inconsolable as he lay there dying himself. Don't remember their names, but its shown in the movie Gettysburg, which is the most historically accurate Civil War movie to date BY FAR.
Confederates should really be looked back on the way Germany looks back on the Nazis.
Gettysburg is a tremendous movie that stayed within known history. I agree.
Lewis Armistead and Winfield Scott Hancock were close friends, although only Armistead died at Gettysburg.
J.J. Pettigrew went to UNC.
@@StanSwan No, they shouldn't. The modern tendency to equate Southern slavery with the Holocaust, and imagine every plantation as Auschwitz in miniature, is no more accurate than pretending the war was really over the tariff rather than slavery.
My maternal grandfather was born on the day Lincoln died.
April 15, 1865. April 15th is also the day the Titanic sunk.
John Ford's movie, "Young Mr Lincoln", tells about Abe's younger years.
Played by Henry Fonda, who was quite young at the time himself, but turned in a stellar performance.
Tommy Lee Jones also owned as Thaddeus Stevens. A true hero and troll who fought for what was morally right.
When I was a kid around 1965, my original family [parents and brother] stopped in to Springfield Illinois to Lincoln's home and burial tomb on the way home from a vacation out west. In 2019 my wife and I went to Lincoln's home again, now run by the National Park system. They have a big museum for Lincoln that was not there in the 1960's. When you walk inside the museum to the big lobby, it was startling... real life looking color statues [like wax museum thing] of Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, and kids all standing there as if to personally greet everyone. It was so stunning that I cried. For a few seconds, they looked real!! When I got to see the inside of his home again, just a short few blocks block away, I noticed the wall paper in the bedroom was the SAME original wallpaper I saw when I was a kid. There is also an official National Parks building 1/2 block from the home with history and short films etc. The Ranger who took us on the tour said that was one of the few rooms the replica wallpaper was not needed yet. I told him I had seen the same wall paper some 55 years before as a kid...Lincoln's tomb is across town a little ways in the cemetery. I truly wish I could get you, Dawn, TO that town and museum and house...to see for yourself.
Nominated for 12 Academy Awards including Best Picture but won for Best Actor Daniel Day Lewis and Best Production Design
Should have swept the awards that year. I think that was the last time I watched them.
You should know that amending the US Constitution is extremely difficult. It takes a two-thirds vote of both chambers of Congress (the House and Senate) and then it requires *three-quarters* of the state legislatures to ratify the proposed Amendment. Only then is the Amendment enacted. For the "Reconstruction Amendments" (13, 14, and 15), they simply didn't count the Confederate states. Those states then had to officially ratify those Amendments before being re-admitted to the union.
Actually, they *did* count the seceded states, because Lincoln never considered the states actually seceded. So he needed two former Confederate states to ratify the amendment, which turned out to be Louisiana and Tennessee.
Actually, no they didn't. The Congressional Representatives from the Confederate states were not seated, and therefore the quorum in Congress was calculated without them. @@stevencass8849
This was shot in and around Richmond in late 2011 while I was in film school at VCU. Some of my friends actually dropped out of classes to go work as production assistants on it. A few actors with bit parts wound up in our summer productions the next year so it was fun spotting them in Lincoln when it came out in theaters.
Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood, Last of the Mohicans, In the Name of the Father and the Crucible are all movies with Daniel Day Lewis that you should be checking out for sure. An early somewhat large part he has is in a movie called The Bounty, with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, which I also highly, highly recommend. A super great movie. Another movie that has Daniel Day Lewis, albeit in very very small part in one of his very first movies, is Gandhi. Another biographical film like Lincoln, starring Ben Kingsley and directed by Richard Attenborough. I highly, highly recommend this movie as well. Gandhi was a life changing movie for me when I saw it in High School. Really can't recommend it enough.
5:43 "I don't think that happened. I think, after slavery was abolished, the war kept goin'."
It could be described as a _bit_ of an oversimplification to say that the cause of the Civil War was southern secession and the cause of southern secession was legislation about slavery, because the fact is, there was a time when slavery was _every_ bit as popular in New York as it was in Texas. The fact is, every country in the _world_ has some kind of history with slavery if you look back far enough.
The complete list of causes are detailed in a book called _Don't Know Much About the Civil War_ by Kenneth C. Davis, but for now, suffice it to say that there were at least _two_ questions settled in the Civil War. First, it answered the question about whether slavery will continue to be legal, and second, it settled the question about whether the US will permit states to secede.
My 2nd-Great-Grandfather saw Abraham Lincoln at Fort Monroe in 1862.
They filmed a bunch of outdoors shots in Petersburg, Virginia. (next city over). Its messes with my head seeing places Ive stood or walked, in a movie.
Just like I felt watching Dumb & Dumber
13:28
He just snorted a pinch of pulverized/powdered tobacco. Much like when snorting cocaine, the nicotine hits the mucous membrane inside the nose and produces a rush.
@Blue
They called this "snuff" and I believe it is still available from tobacconists today..
Daniel Day Lewis solidified his legend as the greatest actor in the history of cinema with this performance. Fight me.
Pretty sure he solidified that decades before this film. But regardless, it's a an amazing film and performance.
That's some fighting talk! Pistols or swords, sir? My claim is that Daniel Day Lewis already solidified his legend as the greatest actor in the history of cinema with his performance in "The Last of the Mohicans".
@@scipioafricanus5871 Yep. Most would agree.
@@scipioafricanus5871 See "The Incredible Lightness of Being".
'There Will Be Blood' was the outstanding performance for me. only for him to surpass it in 'Lincoln'.
No explanations needed Dawn. Of course you would not know too much about U.S. history as a Scot. Do not worry.
There are schools in Scotland, y'know...
@@haywoodsmith2822 they teach classes about the American Civil War in Scotland?
@@haywoodsmith2822Does a Chinese school teach their kids all about the American civil war?
Or do they teach their kids matters related to Chinese history?
@@haywoodsmith2822 we know little Scottish history here in America. So I was just saying it is ok to not know much US history when you are from Scotland.
@@haywoodsmith2822
Let’s try an experiment, shall we?
Without Googling, what can you tell us about Henry VII, George V, Benjamin Disraeli or Mary of Teck?
No cheating now!
This movie was based on the book "team of Rivals". In it there's a small story of a speech Lincoln made that was so good that it was lost to history. How, you ask?
Well, Lincoln didn't keep his speech notes after he made them, so there's no copy from him. The reporters that covered it didn't register it either, because they were too busy hearing, mesmerized by it.
And so it was lost. It would be a good use for a time machine to send a person to record it.
That is a BIG, LONG book, but worth every word that Doris Goodwin wrote.
06:50 Hal Holbrook, best known for his portrayal of Mark Twain, also portrayed Lincoln in a TV mini-series. @cruesome2, Holbrook's Lincoln had that high-pitched, scratchy voice you mention.
I love that all of us in the comments adore how dawn adores Lincoln ❤And that this man toched the world and not just Americans but all people
Lincoln did not have a deep voice. One of the very fine things about Daniel Day-Lewis's performance is his high pitched voice.
13:33 He was snorting snuff, tiny bits of chopped up tobacco leaves. Snorting it was a common way of using tobacco in those days.
19:00 They have already lost one son, Willie. Believe me, the idea that they will have one left is no comfort to a parent looking at losing yet another, any more than having Robert and Tad was a comfort when they lost Willie. The human heart doesn't work that way. I am overlooking that the movie glosses over the death of Eddy, in 1850, at the age of three.
19:39 Mary Todd Lincoln was a shrewish person with serious mental problems that were quite beyond the medical science of the day to treat. After Mr. Lincoln's death, their eldest son Robert was forced to put her in an insane asylum.
The President of the United States can no more sit in on a session of the Congress can the King can sit in on a session of Parliament.
Thaddeus Stevens's relationship with his maid was an open secret in Washington.
In my opinion, Lincoln is one of the four greatest movies ever made. It is on par with Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Gone with the Wind. The fact that you were fascinated even though you didn't understand everything that was happening shows its greatness.
For a couple of excellent movies that concentrate on Lincoln's life before he became President, check out Abe Lincoln in Illinois, starring Raymond Massey and Young Mr. Lincoln, starring Henry Fonda.
"a giraffe bone?" is one of my favourite things you've ever said on your channel, keep up the brilliant work Dawn!
I had to rewind it to make sure I caught that correctly, then I probably didn’t stop laughing for three minutes.
Fun reaction! Lincoln and his wife were very well respected in Springfield, Illinois and Mary loved being part of high society there. Washington D.C. however, considered them to be rough hewn country bumpkins, and the press was very cruel to them, even suggesting Lincoln was half black, the worst insult they could come up with at the time. High society in D.C. flat out rejected them which crushed Mary and made her resentful.. Mary was unstable, prone to hysterics, and grossly overspent on the White House dishes, silverware, curtains, et al, and her own dresses to compensate for her feelings of being snubbed. No one called Lincoln "Abraham", or "Abe", because he didn't care for that name. He signed his documents "A. Lincoln" whenever possible. The brass plate on the front door of his Springfield home still says that. Part of Lincoln's amazing ability was to turn enemies into staunch supporters. He exceeded all expectations people had about him and I believe he was the smartest politician and the best President we've ever had.
As to what happened to the freed slaves, their former Southern "masters" got creative in keeping them legally enslaved as sharecroppers, charged rent for their shacks almost as much as they were paid for their labor. Many, many more were sent to prison for minor offenses and worked to death on chain gangs. The luckier ones had the means to move away but prejudice was just as strong in most people in the US and here we still are today, trying to make things right to live up to the words "All Men Are Created Equal".
Daniel Day Lewis was amazing. Springfield, Illinois where Lincoln had his home is but 100 miles from me. My opinion of Lincoln was he was the greatest of Presidents. Daniel Day Lewis said in preparing to play Lincoln and finding Lincon's voice he fell in love woth Lincoln. Lewis said Lincoln was his most likable person person and character. Other characters were harder to shake after playing them but Lincoln was the one he absolutely adored as a person.
aww lincoln was my granddad's favorite president and i'm so glad i got to take him to see this movie. he hadn't seen a movie in theaters for at least 30 years at the time.
Take it from a historian with a MA in history and a lifelong fascination with Lincoln; he was every bit the great leader and good person you saw in the movie, and much, much more 😉
Umm.. Was he a good person? Do we really know?
Personally, I don't take people's word for it without investigating the person for myself.
🌈 📚 Reding Rainbow (TV show) taught generations of peole that.
"You dont have to take my word for it"- LeVar Burton
In other words, "See it for yourself to believe it."
How do I know you genuinely hold a Masters degree in History? You want me to believe that without question.
"Tea without the reciepts, is just gossip"
To understand Lincoln as an individual, a person needs to hear the lived experiences from as many different groups of people available, and then come to your own conclusion.
Native American experiences get glossed over.
Civil War was not simply North v South, it was all the different cultures and communities that were fighting for their own vision of what freedom looked like to them.
The US during this time were invading Native territory, the Spanish territory, etc.
Those battles were given a different name like 'Dakota War" because it was 2 groups of people opposing one another. (oversimply put)
The North & South was called the Civil War, because the leaders of those States were European. Europeans v Europeans. Same heritage that split and relocated over a length of time due to different ideals.
Read up on the Dakota War.
While Lincoln did free the slaves, he also gave Grant orders to march Natives to POW camps, now known as reservations.
All those people that Lincoln fast tracked without trial, were native american people.
Its the reason for the largest mass execution in US history in Mankato Minnesota. 300 POWs, 38+2 were hanged, the rest were forced up river to the Reservatios in SD, NE, ND, and Canada, where they are still being held today by the government.
People are complicated, Lincoln was no different. It all depends on Lincoln's actions, and whether you benefited by his actions or were further oppressed by his actions.
People will not take your word for it blindly without context, ya?
@Peg__ Granted, you don't have to solely take my word regarding my master's. In retrospect, that probably wasn't necessary, I'll admit.
But yes, I spent the better part of the past few years researching Native American history in conjunction with Lincoln's presidency, so I have indeed read up on it.
And yes, I'm very well aware of the Dakota War and the executions.
And I never suggested or meant to imply that Lincoln wasn't complicated or was himself perfect. I just didn't think such a deeply analytical historical discussion was going come out of a RUclips video comment section.
Gettysburg is another great Civil War movie. It is about the bloodiest and arguably the most important battle of that war. Highly recommend it.
Gettysburg was awesome
Hi Dawn, There is a great three part documentary on the History channel that covers Abraham Lincolns life, that would be very informative for you. Keep up the great reactions
The movie that complements this, in my opinion, is "Abe Lincoln In Illinois". It's old, from 1940, in black and white. It was made from a stage play. It ends when Lincoln wins his first election to President, so it provides some of that background to Lincoln's earlier life. The actor who plays Lincoln in that film is Raymond Massey. A reviewer of the film on the IMDB, jpowell180, says in their review that Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abe, saw Massey in a play and remarked on the similarity of the voice of Massey to his father Abraham.
There were people who tried to keep slaves after the Civil War but the Union Army occupied the Southern States. And they would imprison plantation owners.
I share a birthday with Lincoln. He's always been my favorite President.
The young lady who played Mary Todd Lincoln's handmaiden is a great actor and was one of Tina Turner's dancers/vocalists on her tours. Her name escapes me.
She may be a great actress, but she is no actor.
One of the best movies ever! Everyone did such a great job! Especially Daniel Day Lewis.
Mary Lincoln and her sisters grew up on a wealthy Kentucky plantation. Three of the sisters all left Kentucky and went to the free state of Illinois; they despised slavery because they knew what it really was.
Lincoln was our greatest President.
Lincoln fan since I was knee high of a grasshopper. I beg to differ. I think in many ways Lincoln would agree too. George Washington he set the whole thing from revolution to U.S. Presidency. Many, many rules and traditions were set into motion by George Washington.
Lincoln was giant because he had dwarves precede and succeeded him.
@chrisholmes4507 Washington was a great President. The perfect person for the formation of the new nation. I would just choose Lincoln as the greatest because he kept the union together by prosecuting the civil war and began the process of freeing the slaves.
I've read everything I can get my hands on ever since I went to a lecture from a Lincoln scholar in Los Angeles. Abraham grew up dirt poor (as we say in America) and had only one year of formal schooling and was mostly self-taught in fields such as the Bible, engineering, farming and law. Having read law, he passed the bar exam and became a prosperous attorney . He had three sons who lived past infancy. I loved Tommy Lee Jones as Senator Stevens who was a radical Republican abolitionist as was Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, former Governor of and Senator from New York State. Lincoln knew Shakespeare well and quoted him often. His favorite play was "Julius Caesar," oddly enough since it was the story of a political assassination. "Richmond" is mentioned often because Richmond, Virginia was the capitol of the Confederate government.
Another telling of Lincoln’s youth was “Abe Lincoln in Illinois”, which ends with him boarding the train to Washington.
The full story of the American Civil War is told very well in the American television miniseries “The Civil War”, directed by Ken Burns. It will be a long journey but well worth it.
Sad but amazing documentary.
Lincoln had 3 sons - Robert, Willie, and Tad. Willie died at age 11 aftér a bout of either rheumatic fever or measles. He died just as Licoln and his family were travelling to Washington to be sworn in.
Sally Field was also in "Steel Magnolias" and "Smokey and the Bandit".
The Bible says we're all descended from Adam and Eve.
Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky, and had a really interesting life.
Who cares what the "Bible" says; it is a Middle Eastern screed written by illiterates.
The Bible also gives instructions on how slaves are to be treated. White supremacy uses Genesis 9 and the curse of Ham to justify their racism.
You are watching some bangers, this is one of my favorite movies ever with one of th greatest actors of all time!
We are all in love with Lincoln
it was a good decision to have the movie take place over a specific short time period instead of his whole life. it gives the movie focus and depth
Tommy Lee Jones, Daniel Day Lewis, Billy Bob Thornton... all these 3 name actors! 😀
Billy Bob isn't in this picture. But Timothy Blake Nelson is 😂
@@dansdiscourse4957 I thought it was Sarah Jessica Parker!
@@bossfan49 They all bought houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and their favorite 80s singer Olivia Newton-John.
My grandfather was a Shamon, he helped me through many hard times growing up an adopted white kid in a native community who was also gender dysphoric. He once told me "We are all equally beset upon by the universe, we all must be born to get here, we all suffer at the whim of an unfeeling universe, we all risk death every day and then one day we all must succumb to it. That is how I know that we are all equal in Nature, and thus in the eyes of God". Lincon was one of my heroes growing up. Thanks for sharing another reaction. Bless and be well.
That quote is beautiful!! Was your grandfather quoting from someplace, or are those his own words? If a quote, do you know where from? If his own words, may I share them around? If I were to share them, would he prefer to be named or not, and if so, to whom may I attribute those beautiful words?
Fun fact: Daniel Day Lewis actually travelled back in time and lived as Abraham Lincoln for this role.
So you didn't like Forrest Gump's mother as Mary Todd Lincoln. That's because Sally Field is a genius actor.
I remember her playing the title role in "Giget" a TV sitcom from the 1960s. She was pretty good in that too.
"Why cant he be alive forever?"
A wild John Wilkes Booth appears.....
Dawn, I love your passion for this truly great man. He carried the burden of the entire country on his shoulders, and it eventually led to his death. His wife, Mary, was a complete nut job, but he remained true and loyal to her. He had a girl he was enamored with when he was young, Ann Rutledge, although not much is known about the extent of their relationship as she died young. Mary Todd went through a great deal of emotional pain, losing three of her four children and eventually her husband, so it wasn't smooth sailing as a marriage. An interesting fact: The actor brother of assassin John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth saved Robert Todd Lincoln, the President's son, from dying by pulling him from the tracks, after he slipped, just before the train would have hit him. Edwin was a Unionist while his Brother was a radical Separatist. At the time of the event, ironically, Edwin Booth was traveling with his friend John T. Ford, owner of Ford's Theater, where the President was assassinated.
And President Roosevelt carried the burden of the entire world on his shoulders during WW II, and was one of its casualties.
I think you are unkind to Mary Todd, she suffered a lot in life and don't deserve being called a nutjob.
@@titanuranus3095 Sorry if you don't appreciate the truth, but she was institutionalized for psychiatric disease in 1875. Yes, she suffered tremendous losses, but Lincoln had to deal with a lot of disruptive issues with her and she is amongst the most poorly regarded first ladies by many historians. There's nothing wrong with being a nut job, most people I know fit into that category. Please take a deep breath and relax.
@@titanuranus3095 She was considered a nutjob at the time by people who knew her. Her claiming to be "Mrs. President" was over the top.
@@jnagarya519 "claiming to be" are you positing that the and Lincoln wasn't married?
Actually Lincoln had a voice that kinda shocked people. This big dude actually had a high pitched, weak voice according to research.
High-pitched maybe, but weak??!! Why? He couldn’t get the words out?? that’s your embellishment, and it doesn’t make any sense-understand?
According to reports at the time, DDL's voice for Lincoln here is pretty accurate. Higher pitched, certainly not deep. Never heard it described as weak, however that's meant, but certainly higher in range.
Which made the trash talk before his boxing matches entertaining in its own right.
@BubbaCoop
"Big guy, big reach...skinny guys fight to the burger"
-Tyler Durden
@@billparrish4385 Yes. He was described as having a "trumpet call" voice that carried very far.
Lincoln used a messenger to congress because the president generally only visits Congress when invited because of the purposeful division of government. Congress is considered the people's house and the president is not allowed to interfere with their daily work. The President can however send messages to congress or invite Congressional members to the W.H.
The actor who talked about founding the party was Hal Holbrook.
Hal Holbrook, the actor who portrayed Francis Blair in this movie, had portrayed Abraham Lincoln in a miniseries from the 1970s. He won an Emmy for his performance. You should check it out. He was brilliant. Holbrook also portrayed Lincoln in the 1986 miniseries, "North and South: Book II".
Obscure historical fact: President Abe Lincoln's eldest son Robert (Levitt's character) had his life saved by a famous actor Edwin Booth, who was the older brother of John Wilkes Booth a few months before John Wilkes Booth would assassinate President Abe Lincoln.
Robert was standing on a crowded train platform and as the train was approaching the crowd that was waiting surged forward a bit knocking Robert from the platform and in the path of the oncoming train. Edwin Booth and few others were able to lift Robert back onto the platform before he was hit. Edwin had no idea who he had saved until he got a letter from President Lincoln thanking him for saving Robert.
If you're ever in Washington DC, Ford's Theater has a museum devoted to Lincoln. One of the artifacts is one of the pillows that laid under Lincoln's head as he lay dying. It even has his blood stains.
Lincoln was voted once as the greatest American to which I agree too
I forgot what a great cast this movie had. Thx for the reaction,Dawn Marie.
Speaking as a US citizen ... you probably know about our history then many of my fellow countrymen.
Thaddeus Stevens is from my city and buried here.
I try to get there once a year.
Just went two weeks ago and laid some flowers.
General Reynolds is here too, for real civil war buffs
Dawn, I think you would really, really like "Young Mister Lincoln" from 1939, yes it is very old, but that means it was made only 70 some years after the fact, when the love for Lincoln was still very great.
That would be a good choice - Dawn already fancies Henry Fonda from "12 Angry Men"
Delighted laughter: "He said shit."
This, the whole reaction, was wonderful.
How did it go? 100 years later, the National guard was required some places in the South to enforce the integration of schools.
Lincoln, the greatest president we ever had. Talk about having a full plate. He was a man of God. And a true patriot.
If you're watching civil war movies you HAVE TO watch Gone with the Wind. Not only considered one of the best movies ever made but it's fits your recent trend of movies
GWTW is old, dated and very CSA sympathetic. It makes a poor CW drama, with nice cinemaphotography, some great acting, but it IS 1939 and very pre-civil rights.
GWtW was good for its time when people wanted to believe in the happy Negro. It is well made but once you are aware of the truth you can enjoy performances while realizing it might be insulting to many others .
gwtw Is a horrid film. Scarlet is a spoiled privilege narcissistic brat. It continues the myth that the south started the war for Nobel purposes when it was about power and slavery.
If you’ve not watched Ken Burns’ The Civil War, produced PBS. It’s one of the best documentaries there is about the war.
Burns is a flaming liberal, but I have to agree.
Your choices continue too impress
Lincoln was consumed with the war and with politics. He had little time for anything else. His wife, Mary, was emotionally needed and Lincoln was aloof. Their marriage was tempestuous. He was widely considered to be ugly. When running for president, he was accused of being "two faced". He responded, “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?” He had wit which was appreciated then and now. He's a beloved figure, but he was reviled by many during his life. This movie captures some of that. He had few allies in his corner. The fact that he got much of what he wanted shows what a political genius he was.
*The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by the House of Representatives with a vote of 119 to 56, narrowly reaching the required two-thirds majority.* In the Senate, the amendment was passed by a vote of 38 to 6, which was eight votes more than constitutionally required. _JC
The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in lands not controlled by the Federal Government, which was basically the states in rebellion.
Dawn, there's a video of a game show from the 1950s that features a man who as a very young boy was in the theater the night that Lincoln was shot. So amazing to realize that in some ways it's that close. I was once at a small Civil War museum that was in a three-storey house. I was the only one there as I wandered through it and they had a lock of Lincoln's hair in a small container right up against the glass. I remember bending down with my nose practically touching the glass, just amazed that hair from the great man's head was so close to me.
I really think he was our greatest President. The American Founding Father's thought that slavery would die out on it's own, but it became too valuable after the cotton gin was invented. Lincoln was our least educated President, he had only a first grade education. He loved to learn and educated himself. Even after he studied and became a lawyer, he never stopped learning. He studied high level math and geometry because he found it interesting.
From under which under-educated and easily bamboozled Aryan evangelical rock did you come?
Lincoln was self-educated. To the point where, he had a license to practice law in Illinois before he went into the House of Representatives. Full stop.
"This problem will take care of itself" is generally bad political economy.
That is why slavery festered on for 84 years before the civil war began. The North and the South both had backed themselves into a wall and the center couldn't hold. @@josephwallace202
Also the only president to have a patent for an invention.
Washington has to be up there. He turned down being king, then set the precedent of only two terms as president.
Dawn Marie, Sally Fields who plays Lincoln’s wife, played Forrest Gump’s mother in Forrest Gump.
You need to watch Free State Of Jones to see what happened in the some places in the US following the civil war, a hard watch though. Thanks for uploading, Dawn Marie.
Lincoln was a literary genius...nearly everything he wrote was amazing
Highly recommend to anyone that if they want to watch Lincoln with a youtube reactor, let it be Dawn Marie. Best one for the job! :)
Lincoln had to grieve for his dead sons. He also grieved for the nation's sons, the soldiers so many families gave to the Union cause. Lincoln grieved deeply for the soldiers who nobly advanced the cause of freedom for slaves.
An enjoyable reaction for certain. Lincoln's boyhood home in Southern Indiana is an incredible place to visit. The trail of 12 stones amazes.
One of those actors you noticed was Hal Holbrook. His xoice is closer to the tone of Abe's speaking voice. He has multiple credits for his portrayals. Also does an excellent Mark Twain. Henry Fonda, Walter Huston, Gregory Peck, Raymond Massey, and Sam Waterston all have been the great man. Abe has fought zombies and vampires, and he's helped BILL AND TED pass their history class. Best since Kelly Mac
Be proud. Be VERY proud. You know more about American History than most people in the United States. 🥰
'Can't imagine this world without you - Thanks for what you bring.
D.W. Griffith directed a movie called, Abraham Lincoln, (1930) that goes as far back as his birth. You get to see Lincoln meet Mary Todd, become a lawyer and everything.