TV REVIEWS : ‘Lincoln’ Takes a Look at the Mind of the Man

Nearly every President has had his impossible moment, when the essential political balance between personal ideals, national necessity and the practical is tipped in one direction because events force his hand. Abraham Lincoln’s presidency was one long impossible moment--from the day he was inaugurated to the night he was shot, spanning a Civil War that killed more than 600,000 Americans and changed the national identity.

Many argue that this identity change was from a collection of states to one indivisible union. The argument in Bill Jersey and Judith Leonard’s PBS special, “Abraham Lincoln: A New Birth of Freedom” (tonight at 7:30 on KCET-TV Channel 28; 8:30 on KVCR-TV Channel 24) is something else: The Civil War, which forced Lincoln’s hand to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all Southern slaves, also forced the country to begin acknowledging all its citizens as equal.

But more than a political discussion, this is a program about Lincoln’s mind, and how it changed, and how it changed the races. In a style that openly apes Ken (“Civil Wars”) Burns’ blending of expert talking heads, period images and dramatic readings of primary sources, Jersey and Leonard follow Lincoln from his escape from his backward father to his Illinois lawyer days and into the raging abolitionist debate of the 1850s.

Lincoln isn’t idealized here; historian Charles Strozier notes Lincoln’s early racism when he stated that just because he wanted to free a slave woman didn’t mean that he wanted to marry her. He could be the abolitionist Republican party candidate in 1860 because he was to the left of most Northern whites, but to the right of hard-line abolitionists. As commander-in-chief, he oversaw flawed, reluctant generals and border states that might secede if abolition was pushed too soon.

By 1863, events compelled him to sign the Emancipation Proclamation and deliver the Gettysburg Address and cross an ideological divide from politician to visionary. But the full effects weren’t felt until a century later; Congressman John Lewis’ recollection of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery freedom march helps personalize the struggle, but the film otherwise draws a feeble connection between periods, and ignores our present racial tensions.

And what of Lincoln’s mind? The many historians give us plenty of insights--from wife Mary’s devotion to Lincoln’s insecurities--but more than the too-brief clips with New York Gov. and self-professed Lincoln fan Mario Cuomo might have provided that special view that only one chief executive can have for another. Cuomo’s book, “Lincoln on Democracy,” does it much better.