Twelve Years A Slave And Lincoln: Movie Analysis

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The movies Twelve Years A Slave and Lincoln show the connection between slavery and public policy in the nineteenth century and how each individually affected both slaves and politician, specifically through the characters of Solomon Northup, Abraham Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens.
Solomon Northup in Twelve Years A Slave and his experiences illuminate slavery as an institution in the South. The first aspect of slavery Solomon experiences is a separation from his family. While most slaves are separated through being sold to different families, Solomon’s family members continued their free lives while he was kidnapped and sold. The film also depicts the pure torture and racism experienced by the slaves. Though Solomon’s first owner, Ford, personally treated him well, he couldn’t or didn’t stop the helper, Tibeats, in his attacks on
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As the Civil War continued, Lincoln became more ideologically opposed to slavery rather than just desiring it as a means to end the war. Regardless, he wanted to pass the 13th amendment, and a large burden on him was assuring it had enough votes to pass. Though many wanted an end to slavery, this alone wasn’t enough to unite them, as the president soon learned. For the issue of slavery, he had to appeal to both the radical Republicans who wanted complete racial equality, like Thaddeus Stevens, the conservative Republicans who wanted legal equality, and the Democrats who just wanted to stop the war. As the Confederate grew weaker, the pressure grew for Republicans including Lincoln to pass the amendment before their opportunity of using ending the war as an excuse was gone. Dealing with slavery was an incredibly difficult issue for Lincoln and other politicians because of the unique way they had to approach it. For Lincoln’s team, this meant individually addressing representatives and bribing them for

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