With what happened today in Connecticut, I am simply sick at heart. Please pray for all those affected by such incidences of insanity and violence. Please pray for all of us.
Peace,
Everett Jenkins
Friday, December 14, 2012
The Central Park Five
Back in the early 1970s, Hampshire College was a brand new academic institution with few amenities. It was not uncommon to see some Hampshire College students attending classes at Amherst and dining at Valentine Hall. After becoming acquainted with the various dining hall table cliques, I noticed that there would occasionally be an unfamiliar student with a sort of Beatles style hair cut sitting at the table with those who were what I would call the more "artistically inclined". I inquired as to who he was and was informed that he was a student from Hampshire College.
For some reason the image of this unfamiliar student stayed in my mind because 20 years later I saw him on television talking about his upcoming epic documentary on the Civil War. It was then that I knew that the Hampshire College student was Ken Burns and the rest of his story most of you already know.
The latest documentary from the Hampshire College alum is now in many of the more artsy theaters across the country. While it may not be the perfect Holiday movie fare, you may want to view it since it touches on many of the subjects that we have discussed this past year. The movie is entitled "The Central Park Five" and I for one shall endeavor to view it sometime next week. I hope you do the same.
Peace,
Everett Jenkins
P.S. A description of the movie may be found at:
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Yesterday, December 10, was the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You can learn more about the history behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at:
However, for now, it should suffice to simply read the words and to contemplate the significance of their meaning.
Peace.
PREAMBLE
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
Article 1.
- All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2.
- Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3.
- Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4.
- No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5.
- No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
- Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
- All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8.
- Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9.
- No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.
- Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11.
- (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
- (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12.
- No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13.
- (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
- (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14.
- (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
- (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15.
- (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
- (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16.
- (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
- (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
- (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 17.
- (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
- (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18.
- Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19.
- Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20.
- (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
- (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21.
- (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
- (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
- (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22.
- Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23.
- (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
- (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
- (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
- (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24.
- Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25.
- (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
- (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26.
- (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
- (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
- (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27.
- (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
- (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28.
- Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29.
- (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
- (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
- (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30.
- Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Hanukkah and Terras Irradient
Tomorrow, at sundown, Hanukkah begins. As the Wikipedia article referenced below relates, Hanukkah is also known as the Festival of Lights and the Jewish tradition of lighting candles for eight days is done in remembrance of a miracle that occurred some 2177 years ago.
As tomorrow approaches, it is my hope and prayer that each and every one of us will light a candle, but that the candle be not just a physical one, but the one within our hearts. If we all can do this, then the troubles that currently engage our sisters and brethren at Amherst College and beyond can begin to be more adequately addressed. After all, darkness cannot exist where there is light.
Also, if we are able to light a candle in our hearts, then we will all begin to live up to the full meaning of the motto of our alma mater -- Terras Irradient -- "Let them give light to the world." Only instead of it being "them", let it be "us."
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The Legacy of Thaddeus Stevens
Last night, while my girlfriend and I were settling in to watch the X-Factor, our conversation shifted to the email I had sent earlier in the day regarding "Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens". My girlfriend asked me if I had read the entire Wikipedia article regarding Thaddeus Stevens. I confessed to her that I had not. She then began to tear up and said that, in her mind, Stevens was greater than Lincoln because he lived a complete life of integrity that was dedicated throughout his life to the eradication of slavery. She mentioned not only his role in Congress but also his idealistic philosophy of egalitarianism. She was also amazed at the institutions of learning and inclusion that he bequeathed upon his death.
Today, I did read the full Wikipedia article on Thaddeus Stevens, and while I cannot say that Stevens was "greater" than Lincoln, I do believe that my girlfriend is right with regards to his leading a life of greater integrity. There is no ambiguity as to where Thaddeus Stevens stood, and I am reminded that when we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 2013, it would be a fitting tribute to remember Thaddeus Stevens since that too is part of his legacy.
*****
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792–August 11, 1868), of Pennsylvania, was a Republican leader and one of the most powerful members of the United States House of Representatives. As chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Stevens, a witty, sarcastic speaker and flamboyant party leader, dominated the House from 1861 until his death. He wrote much of the financial legislation that paid for the American Civil War. Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner were the prime leaders of the Radical Republicans during the war and Reconstruction era.
Historians' views of Stevens have swung sharply since his death as interpretations of Reconstruction have changed. The Dunning School (1890s–1940s) held Stevens responsible for demanding harsh treatment of the white South and violating American traditions of republicanism, depicting Stevens as a villain for his advocacy of harsh measures in the South. This highly negative characterization held sway into the 1950s.[1] The rise of the neo-abolitionist school in the 1950s[2] led to a greater appreciation of Stevens' work on civil rights for Freedmen. A recent biographer characterizes him as, "The Great Commoner, savior of free public education in Pennsylvania, national Republican leader in the struggles against slavery in the United States and intrepid mainstay of the attempt to secure racial justice for the Freedmen during Reconstruction, the only member of the House of Representatives ever to have been known as the 'dictator' of Congress."[3]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Early Life
Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont, on April 4, 1792. His parents had arrived there from Methuen, Massachusetts around 1786. He suffered from many hardships during his childhood, including a club foot. The fate of his father, Joshua Stevens, an alcoholic, profligate shoemaker who was unable to hold a steady job, is uncertain. He may have died at home, abandoned the family, or been killed in the War of 1812; in any case, he left his wife, Sally (Morrill) Stevens, and four small sons in dire poverty.[4] Having completed his course of study at Peacham Academy, Stevens entered Dartmouth College as a sophomore in 1811, and graduated in 1814; before doing so, he spent one term and part of another at the University of Vermont. He then moved to York, Pennsylvania, where he taught school and studied law. After admission to the bar, he established a successful law practice, first in Gettysburg in 1816, then in Lancaster, in 1842. He later took on several young lawyers, among them Edward McPherson, who later became his protégé and ardent supporter in Congress.
[edit] Personal Life
Stevens never married, though there were rumors about his 23-year relationship (1845–68) with his widowed quadroon[5] housekeeper, Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813-1884),[6] [7] Thomas Frederick Woodley's 1937 biography of Stevens, The Great Leveler [8] examines Smith's interest in Mary Todd Lincoln and her friendship with Elizabeth Keckley, Mrs. Lincoln's dressmaker. Smith patterned her hair and dresses on Mrs. Lincoln. Carl Sandburg described Smith as "a comely quadroon with Caucasian features and a skin of light-gold tint, a Roman Catholic communicant with Irish eyes ... quiet, discreet, retiring, reputed for poise and personal dignity."[9] Smith had two sons, William and Isaac, by her late husband, Jacob Smith, and she and Stevens raised the latter's nephews, whom he adopted in the 1840s.[10]
During her time with Stevens—neighbors considered her his common law wife[11], and she was frequently called "Mrs. Stevens" by people who knew her, according to Sandburg[12]—she invested in real estate and other businesses and owned a prosperous boarding house.[13]
When Stevens died, Smith was at his bedside, along with his nephews Simon and Thaddeus Stevens Jr., two African American nuns, and several other individuals.[14] Under Stevens's will, Smith was allowed to choose between a lump sum of $5,000 or a $500 annual allowance; she was also allowed to take any furniture in his house.[15] With the inheritance, she purchased Stevens's house, where she had lived for many years, and the adjoining lot.[16]
[edit] Political Life
At first, Stevens belonged to the Federalist Party, but switched to the Anti-Masonic Party, then to the Whig Party, and finally to the Republican Party. In 1833, he was elected on the Anti-Masonic ticket to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he served intermittently until 1842.[17] He introduced legislation to curb secret societies, to provide more funds to Pennsylvania's colleges, and to put a constitutional limit on state debt. He refused to sign the new state constitution of 1838 because it did not give the right to vote to black citizens. He also came to the defense of a new state law, passed on April 1, 1834, providing free public schools. Newly elected members of the Pennsylvania State Senate tried to repeal the public education act, while the lower house tried to preserve it. Although Stevens had been reelected with instructions to favor repeal, in a great speech, he defended free public education and persuaded the Pennsylvania Assembly to vote 2–1 in favor of keeping the new law.
Stevens devoted most of his enormous energies to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power—the conspiracy he saw of slave owners to seize control of the federal government and block the progress of liberty. In 1848, while still a Whig party member, Stevens was elected to serve in the House of Representatives. He served in congress from 1849 to 1853, and then from 1859 until his death in 1868.[18]
He defended and supported Native Americans, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, Jews, Chinese, and women. However, the defense of runaway or fugitive slaves gradually began to consume the greatest amount of his time, until the abolition of slavery became his primary political and personal focus. He was actively involved in the Underground Railroad, assisting runaway slaves in getting to Canada.[10] An Underground Railroad site has been discovered under his office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.[19]
During the American Civil War Stevens was one of the three or four most powerful men in Congress, using his slashing oratorical powers, his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, and above all his single-minded devotion to victory. His power grew during Reconstruction as he dominated the House and helped to draft both the Fourteenth Amendment and the Reconstruction Act in 1867.
[edit] Radical Republicanism
In July 1861 Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution stating the limited war aim of restoring the Union while preserving slavery; Stevens helped repeal it in December. In August 1861, he supported the Confiscation Act, which said owners would forfeit any slaves they allowed to help the Confederate war effort. By December he was the first congressional leader pushing for emancipation as a tool to weaken the rebellion. He called for total war on January 22, 1862:
"Let us not be deceived. Those who talk about peace in sixty days are shallow statesmen. The war will not end until the government shall more fully recognize the magnitude of the crisis; until they have discovered that this is an internecine war in which one party or the other must be reduced to hopeless feebleness and the power of further effort shall be utterly annihilated. It is a sad but true alternative. The South can never be reduced to that condition so long as the war is prosecuted on its present principles. The North with all its millions of people and its countless wealth can never conquer the South until a new mode of warfare is adopted. So long as these states are left the means of cultivating their fields through forced labor, you may expend the blood of thousands and billions of money year by year, without being any nearer the end, unless you reach it by your own submission and the ruin of the nation. Slavery gives the South a great advantage in time of war. They need not, and do not, withdraw a single hand from the cultivation of the soil. Every able-bodied white man can be spared for the army. The black man, without lifting a weapon, is the mainstay of the war. How, then, can the war be carried on so as to save the Union and constitutional liberty? Prejudices may be shocked, weak minds startled, weak nerves may tremble, but they must hear and adopt it. Universal emancipation must be proclaimed to all. Those who now furnish the means of war, but who are the natural enemies of slaveholders, must be made our allies. If the slaves no longer raised cotton and rice, tobacco and grain for the rebels, this war would cease in six months, even though the liberated slaves would not raise a hand against their masters. They would no longer produce the means by which they sustain the war."[20]
Stevens led the Radical Republican faction in their battle against the bankers over the issuance of money during the Civil War. Stevens made various speeches in Congress in favor of President Lincoln and Henry Carey's "Greenback" system, interest-free currency in the form of fiat government-issued United States notes that would in effect threaten the bankers' profits in being able to issue and control the currency through fractional reserve loans. Stevens warned that a debt-based monetary system controlled by for-profit banks would lead to the eventual bankruptcy of the people, saying "the Government and not the banks should have the benefit from creating the medium of exchange," yet after Lincoln's assassination the Radical Republicans lost this battle, and a National banking monopoly emerged in the years after.
Stevens was so outspoken in his condemnation of the Confederacy that Major General Jubal Early of the Army of Northern Virginia made a point of burning much of his iron business, at modern-day Caledonia State Park, to the ground during the Gettysburg Campaign. Early claimed that this action was in direct retaliation for Stevens's perceived support of similar atrocities by the Union Army in the South.
Stevens was the leader of the Radical Republicans, who had full control of Congress after the 1866 elections. He largely set the course of Reconstruction. He wanted to begin to rebuild the South, using military power to force the South to recognize the equality of freedmen. When President Johnson resisted, Stevens proposed and passed the resolution for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.
Stevens told W. W. Holden, the Republican governor of North Carolina, in December 1866, "It would be best for the South to remain ten years longer under military rule, and that during this time we would have Territorial Governors, with Territorial Legislatures, and the government at Washington would pay our general expenses as territories, and educate our children, white and colored and both."[21]
[edit] Death
Thaddeus Stevens died at midnight on August 11, 1868, in Washington, D.C., less than three months after the acquittal of Johnson by the Senate. Stevens's coffin lay in state inside the Capitol Rotunda, flanked by a Black Honor Guard (the Butler Zouaves from the District of Columbia).[22] Twenty thousand people, one half of whom were African American, attended his funeral in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He chose to be buried in the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery, because it was the only cemetery that would accept people without regard to race.
Stevens wrote the inscription on his headstone that reads: "I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race, by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life, equality of man before his Creator."
Stevens's monument is at the intersection of North Mulberry Street and West Chestnut Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
[edit] Legacy
Stevens dreamed of a socially just world, where unearned privilege did not exist. He believed from his personal experience that being different or having a different perspective can enrich society. He believed that differences among people should not be feared or oppressed but celebrated.[23] In his will he left $50,000 to establish Stevens, a school for the relief and refuge of homeless, indigent orphans. "They shall be carefully educated in the various branches of English education and all industrial trades and pursuits. No preference shall be shown on account of race or color in their admission or treatment. Neither poor Germans, Irish, or Mahometan, nor any others on account of their race or religion of their parents, shall be excluded. They shall be fed at the same table."
This original bequest has now evolved into Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. The college continually strives to provide underprivileged individuals with opportunities and to create an environment in which individual differences are valued and nurtured.
In Washington, D.C., the Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School was built in 1868 as one of the first publicly funded schools for black children. President Jimmy Carter's daughter, Amy Carter, attended the school.[24]
Stevens County, Kansas and the Thaddeus Stevens School in Lyndon Center, Vermont were named for Stevens.[25]
Locations named in honor of Thaddeus Stevens in Pennsylvania include the community of Stevens,[24] Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in New Castle,[24] Stevens School in York, Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in the Chartiers neighborhood of Pittsburgh (built in 1940 with architectural details by Charles Bradley Warren), Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in Chambersburg, Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in Williamsport, and Stevens High School in Lancaster. Also, Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School which was in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, during the 1940s and ’50s until it was torn down.
Buildings associated with Stevens are currently being restored by the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with an eye toward focusing on the establishment of a $20 million museum. These include his home, law offices, and a nearby tavern. The effort also celebrates the contributions of his housekeeper, Lydia Hamilton Smith, who was involved in the underground railroad.
[edit] Cinematic portrayals
Austin Stoneman, the naive and fanatical congressman in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, was modeled on Stevens. Additionally, he was portrayed as a villain in The Clansman, the second novel in the trilogy upon which Birth of a Nation was based. He was also portrayed (by Lionel Barrymore) as a villain and fanatic in Tennessee Johnson, the 1942 MGM film about the life of President Andrew Johnson. In Steven Spielberg's 2012 film Lincoln, Stevens is played by Tommy Lee Jones and portrayed as a fierce and courageous abolitionist.[26]
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Take Five and Uncle Shag
When I was a young boy, my father would sometimes take us to Los Angeles to visit my Uncle Shag and Aunt Nootsy. Uncle Shag was a very dark man who had spent some time in the Navy. He had seen a bit of the world and, in his own way, had a certain sophistication about him. During many of the visits, one of the things Uncle Shag would do would be to play some jazz records on his High Fidelity record player while he, and my father, and my uncles and their friends would be sipping on something volatile. In their own way, these black men were in their prime at that time and it seemed that the jazz they played and the conversations they had while imbibing on the libations was their essence of cool.
It has been many years since those days of my youth, and Uncle Shag died almost 30 years ago. But today, I was reminded of those days by the passing of one of the jazz greats of those days gone by. It was announced that Dave Brubeck died today. He may be gone but his music lives on ... and in my mind so too do the memory of Uncle Shag, Aunt Nootsy, Uncle Bob, Aunt Ruby, and Mom and Dad. Take Five, my friends...
Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens
Last night, I took my girlfriend to see the movie "Lincoln." Coming from another country, my girlfriend is not very familiar with certain aspects of American history. Indeed, some of our more engaging conversations have been about some of the more "illusionary" depictions made in her favorite American film "Gone With the Wind". Thanks to Oprah's interview of Steven Spielberg, my girlfriend became fascinated with the concept behind the film "Lincoln" and so last night we went and saw it.
"Lincoln" is a sober, serious film and the acting performances turned in by Daniel Day Lewis, as Lincoln, and Sally Field, as Mary Todd Lincoln, are remarkable. I strongly recommend that people see the film, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of the terrible sacrifices made by so many to make this country what it is today. The full characterization of the iconic Lincoln is rather thought provoking and demonstrates the complexity of the man and of the times.
For me, the highlight of the movie was the performance by Tommy Lee Jones, as Thaddeus Stevens. I was unaware of the role of Thaddeus Stevens during the Civil War Congress and the struggle to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. This movie highlights the role and brought Thaddeus Stevens to life. You can find out more about Thaddeus Stevens at
Tommy Lee Jones has come a long way since first appearing in Love Story in 1970. He has long been one of my favorite actors and this role as Thaddeus Stevens shows why.
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