Steven Spielberg's Lincoln

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The movie illustrates the constant tension that exists among the core values of American democracy. In class we learned that the three core principles are majority rule, political freedom, and political equality. These American values often conflict with each other in practice. Although majority rule, political freedom, and political equality are often in conflict with one another none of these principles by itself is enough to make a government democratic. When these three principals are balanced democracy is created. The promise of democratic process is not efficiency, agreement, clarity, or speed. The fundamental promise of democracy as a process is that all citizens have the right to participate in the process of deciding who gets what. The movie did a great job of explaining this. There were people who wanted to free the slaves and those who wanted to keep them as their property. Neither one can get their way. They have to find a way to compromise. Majority rule was conflicting with freedom and equality of all of its citizens. Slaves were citizens too. Even if they only counted as 3/5 of a person at first. So because of the fundamental promise of democracy they also had a say in what happens. Slaves deserved as much freedom and equality as everyone else and that’s why Lincoln was trying to pass the thirteenth amendment.

The movie illustrates many dynamics between the executive and the legislative powers in the United States. One example is when President Lincoln and his team have to work hard behind the scenes to assure enough yes votes from Democrats, which may require some compromise in other areas. There is a lot of debate in the House of Representatives over the advisability of the amendment. Some politicians see peac...

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...ore. They discuss what might happen after the proposed amendment passes. Keckley claims that blacks are not worried about racial prejudices and their social and economic prospects –yet. “Freedom’s first,” she says firmly.

This course helped me to better understand politics in the United States. Well to start off I actually know what politics actually are. According to Harold D. Laswell Politics is “who gets what, when, and how.” According to David Easton (1953) Politics is the “authoritative allocation of values.” In other words, politics is the process of coming to some definitive understanding of who is going to get what or whose values everyone is going to live by. Politics is a process of conflict management and resolution. Politics at its core involves dynamic relationships revolving around the struggle for power and influence in any given society.

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