Did the film "Lincoln" get it right?

So in class we watched the movie "Lincoln."  Although a very good film that honors Abraham Lincoln and his courageous (he had to have thought he might be killed by radicals) efforts to pass the 13th amendment (abolish slavery), the film is not entirely accurate in portraying the real fight to abolish slavery.

The end of slavery did not come because Lincoln and the House of Representatives voted for the Thirteenth Amendment.  The movie focuses on three weeks of a 4 month period in 1865.  General William Tecumseh Sherman’s army was marching through South Carolina, where slaves themselves were seizing plantations and dividing up land among themselves. In essence, they were seizing their freedom. Slavery was dying on the ground and in the battlefield, not just in the House of Representatives. You get no sense of that in the movie.

Watching the film, Lincoln is dedicated to the great task of getting the House to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. But the film fails to note that Lincoln did not support the Thirteenth Amendment when it was proposed in 1864—by the Women’s National Loyal League, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Lincoln’s view at that point was that slavery should be abolished on a state-by-state basis, since slavery had been created by state law.  In his mind he struggled with state's rights and war powers and what the Constitution allowed him to do legally.

Another question I raised in history class and it was proposed in the film (but not really answered) is why the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln issued on January 1, 1863, did not free all slaves. Lincoln knew that, under the Constitution, the president had no power to repeal laws passed by states—including the laws making slavery legal in the South. But he did feel he had the power as commander-in-chief to take action in wartime that he deemed a “military necessity” to save the government.   Thus the Emancipation Proclamation was a military measure that applied only to slaves in areas under Confederate control. A half-million slaves in the four border states and West Virginia remained enslaved. Lincoln believed that once the “military necessity” had passed, legislation would be required to end slavery permanently.

I  feel that historians have proved that slaves themselves help end slavery-leading to the 13th amendment.  The fact that the movie leaves out the effort of slaves and black Americans and their impact to end slavery is probably the biggest disappointment in the movie.  So I will remember the movie as an effort to honor Lincoln and his courage to confront the issue, but also that more important contributions by others were left out and not given due credit.

So I need you to analyze, in particular, the powers Lincoln felt he had and what the Constitution allows.  I will need you to look at Obama and his use of executive powers (blog I did last spring in class) (Executive Powers blog) and compare the similarities.  I will also need to know your opinion and reasoning behind it on your feelings for this movie and towards Lincoln.  How should history remember him?  Did he abuse his powers?  Answer the above in a 300 word movie review/essay format.