One of the major subject matters of the film was how Lincoln fought and dealt with all the challenges of trying to get the 3th Amendment passed. What I recall in previous courses that I took in high school and college about the succession of the southern states, and Lincoln were stories that I believe were very much polished and not very accurate about the main reason why the Civil War happened, or what the circumstances were surrounding Lincolns reasons or intentions for pushing for the 3th amendment. I and many others were taught that the Civil War was about slavery and thats about all that was ever truly taught on the matter, especially in public schools. Like most of the topics in history books, they are just little pieces to a bigger pie, and if you want to learn more, youll have to do it on your own time. It seems the road to getting the amendment passed was a lot more difficult than most professors, or teachers would like to go into details about, or that I had been taught. For an amendment to the constitution to be passed, it has to be passed with a 2/3 majority in Congress, and the Republicans did not have a 2/3 majority in the House of Representatives. This made passing the amendment extraordinarily tou
gh since Democrats were in control.
When the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln made his intentions for the restoration of the Union known as loudly as possible. However early in the war, the Union started keeping escaped slaves as opposed to returning them to their owners as agreed previously, so runaway slaves gained their freedom once they escaped to the North. The movie shows Lincoln and his cabinet working to convince different democrats to vote for the change in the constitution which would abolish slavery. Lincoln is shown using the spoils system techniques, offering and sometimes bribing government positions to democrats who had recently been voted out of their seats in Congress and wouldnt be returning to the House of Representatives. Secretary of State William H. Seward, Representative John B. Alley, and others were told by Lincoln to win Democrats votes by any means necessary and promised government posts and campaign contributions to outgoing Democrats willing to switch sides. Seward had a large fund for direct bribes which was intended to help push their agenda in Congress. Ashley, who reintroduced the measure into the house, also lobbied numerous Democrats to vote in desire of the measure.