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Everyone in the political world saw Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln” this weekend, and leading commentators are telling us that one of its primary lessons is that today’s legislators need to re-learn the need for “compromise.” David Brooks set the tone for this interpretation, and others, such as Al Hunt and yesterday’s Meet the Press panelists, have pushed similar conclusions.

This is bad history. It’s folly to apply the Civil War to the present to begin with, but if we must do this, one of the key lessons of “Lincoln,” and his life and times, is that he knew when not to compromise. History was shaped largely by Lincoln’s intransigence at the right moments.

It’s true that Lincoln was not an abolitionist. He believed working within the political system was more productive than insisting on grand goals he deemed beyond reach at the time. But that’s only part of the story. What’s more notable from the events depicted in the movie is Lincoln’s refusal to budge on core principles — when it counted most.
 
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