Though they ended up on opposite sides of the Civil War, at one point Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee had a few things in common. Both men believed slavery to be a moral evil. They also both supported Colonization—a movement that called for the transportation of emancipated slaves back to Africa or to territories in Central America. “The message was, you should be free, just not here,” explains Howard University historian Edna Greene Medford in the fascinating new docuseries Lincoln’s Dilemma. Lee went to his grave a staunch believer in Colonization. Lincoln eventually abandoned the idea, but, as we learn from Lincoln’s Dilemma, not until after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
While there's no shortage of Abraham Lincoln biographies out there, very few trace the former president's evolution on the issue of slavery as closely and compassionately as Lincoln's Dilemma. Even the most devoted amateur historians will learn something new from this series. Directed by Barak Goodman and Jacqueline Olive and available in four installments on Apple+, Lincoln’s Dilemma revisits America’s Civil War era, paying particular attention to President Lincoln’s journey towards embracing emancipation. At the heart of Lincoln’s Dilemma is an effort to undo two centuries worth of hagiography that the series contends has flattened this deeply enigmatic president into a two-dimensional character, as uncomplicated and convenient as a superhero. It’s a mighty and necessary goal, one that the docuseries achieves—then overcomplicates.
Lincoln’s Dilemma is elegantly narrated by Jeffrey Wright of Westworld and Boardwalk Empire and includes an impressive, diverse roster of experts. Journalists, historians, organizers, and activists all lend their thoughts to enliven the series, based on historian David S. Reynold’s award-winning book, Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times. The size and scope of the enlisted historians is Lincoln’s Dilemma’s most impressive accomplishment. Viewers see Lincoln as a military leader, a legal expert, a backslider, a do-gooder, a naysayer, and, perhaps most importantly, a politician dead-set on unifying a fractured nation above all else. Consider the cast of Lincoln’s Dilemma to the very few experts who commented throughout Ken Burns’s problematic take on the Civil War and the benefits of the former’s “more is better” approach become even clearer—one expands the historical record, the other confirms its biases.
What sets Lincoln's Dilemma apart from prior accounts of emancipation is its centering of Frederick Douglass. The series’ directors constructed the narrative so that Douglass is seen as a powerful catalyst who often forces a reticent Lincoln into action. In various scenes, they are discussed in direct succession, with extra attention devoted to the way the two men quarreled, first like stubborn opponents, eventually, like admiring acquaintances. Lincoln's reservations had real consequences, and putting the two men side by side makes that plain to see. For example, when Douglass first suggested allowing formerly enslaved people to serve in the Union army, Lincoln rebuffed his advice, afraid that doing so might alienate his moderate allies in Congress. But by 1862, the Union was in desperate need of soldiers. As General Lee’s army advanced further north, a potential early victory receded. Who knows how many lives would have been spared had Lincoln heeded Douglass’s advice; maybe thousands, maybe none. Thankfully, the docuseries doesn’t bother with hypotheticals. It stacks facts together, in a way they haven’t been arranged before, and asks its audience to take in the view.
Lincoln’s Dilemma is most powerful in its middle episodes, as the former president’s transformation takes hold. His decency, the series’ talking heads explain, lies not in his dedication to free the slaves but in his openness to influence. Beautiful, animated photographs tell the story of Lincoln feeling moved by his conversations with former slaves in “contraband camps,” the name given to the communities of self-emancipated African Americans who lived together in makeshift shelters inside cities like Washington, D.C.
If there’s a fault in Lincoln’s Dilemma, it’s in its scope, which can at times feel more ambitious than its format allows. The series doesn’t need to justify its existence. There are many obvious reasons why now is the right time to revisit the storied president’s legacy. Still, Lincoln’s Dilemma frequently insists on connecting the dots for viewers, and occasionally this particular strand of analysis stiffens it. This is especially true in the last episode, which extends well beyond President Lincoln’s assassination.
The series ends with an attempt to summarize other eras like Reconstruction, the backlash Lost Cause movement, and Jim Crow to show how efforts to achieve emancipation and equality did not end with Abraham Lincoln. They still persist today and are indeed stifled by the exact, oversimplified narratives that Lincoln’s Dilemma seeks to correct. Drawing these connections is essential work, crucial to improving our understanding of America’s whitewashed history. But the truncated discussion Lincoln’s Dilemma offers viewers at the tail-end of the series feels both rushed and overwrought; the analysis goes on too long while, at the same time, isn’t nearly enough. To properly trace these connections to the present, another documentary is necessary—one that the team behind Lincoln’s Dilemma is more than capable of making.
