If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you’d better hurry up and go. It’s sure to be on the short list for Academy Awards. Daniel Day-Lewis plays our 16th president so convincingly you’d swear old Abe rose from his grave and possessed him. Remember Lewis’ brash, assholiness in Gangs of New York? Well, he’s nothing like that in Lincoln. His voice is so meek and sweet, and he spits parables like Jesus. Here’s the trailer…

This movie is teeming with great actors…nobody sucks. Everyone brings it. Sally Fields was a very convincing first lady, who played the hysterical and borderline bad-shite crazy “Molly Lincoln.” But what struck me as applicable for reportage on BB&W was the brief, although poignant side story of radical Republican, Thaddeus Stevens, the congressman who fervently pushed for the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which would outlaw human slavery in America forever.

When the amendment is passed, Thaddeus requests the original copy of the vote record, hobbles home and is greeted by a black woman, ostensibly his maid. In bed, we see Thaddeus pass the document to his left, where we see the same black woman lying in bedclothes by his side. He says, “A present of for you,” and she takes it, pleased at the outcome. They kiss. In that slip of a scene, we discover which might be Thaddeus’ motivation for being such a cantankerous old goat during the congressional debates.

Thaddeus was not the hottie, but he sure was an integral part of enacting the 13th Amendment.