A Moment in Lincoln's Life in the Movie "Lincoln" by Spielberg

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The Daniel Day-Lewis Lincoln Movie
Lincoln is a 2012 American biographical film starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Steven Spielberg produced and directed the historical drama and focused on the last four months of Lincoln’s life, mainly his focus on abolishing slavery by pushing the United States House of Representatives to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. The film was a box office success and was hailed for its exceptional cast, especially Daniel Day-Lewis, praised for his witty and dignified portrayal of Abraham Lincoln.
A moment in Lincoln’s life that I would like to analyze from the film was his basement meeting with Thaddeus Stevens. He rebuffs the latter's radicalism and requests him to temper his zeal to not agitate the conservative side and lose their support in passing the Thirteenth Amendment. The Democrats in Congress are opposed to ending slavery, and Steven's radical suggestions about land appropriations and revolutionary tribunals might scare them into opposing the Thirteenth Amendment. Steven is determined to push for full black equality (including the right to vote) and is willing to confiscate the properties of the dissidents and use them to settle hundreds of thousands of free black farmers. He abhors the institution of slavery and believes that everyone who directly participates in it or profits from it or even tolerates its hideousness poisons it. However, Lincoln describes Steven's plan to restore freedom in the South as the untempered version of reconstruction and fears it may end up frustrating his long-held desire to see the Thirteenth Amendment passed.
The conversation reveals Lincoln’s shrewdness and pragmaticism: unlike Stevens, he understands that such radical suggestions for change are idealist, yet abolishing slavery requires pragmaticism. He uses the compass analogy to illustrate his point. Lincoln points out that while a compass points clear and unfailingly to the north, the traveler must also consider that the compass does not indicate the geographic obstacles in the way. Therefore, the traveler must be willing to circumvent the swamps on his path, even if it means slightly altering his course of travel. This analogy shows Lincoln's willingness to understand his opponents and use suitable parallels to make a point. Lincoln uses the analogy of the compass to demonstrate to Stevens that the direct path to abolishing slavery is impractical and may even sabotage every effort to amend the constitution. He shows Stevens that American politics is a rough-and-tumble business, and one must exercise prudence and restraint when dealing with political opponents to achieve set objectives.
On the whole, Lincoln is not entirely a comprehensive biography. Instead, it covers particular times in his final months in office and primarily how Lincoln addresses the problem of ensuring the Amendment passes in Congress before the Civil War concludes. The civil war ending would spell the bill's doom, but personally, ending the war would stop unnecessary suffering. Lincoln is shown to be a practical man and tough enough to confront the situation realistically. He is not above political vote-buying: for instance, he...