The movie is about the last four months of Lincoln's life for which that
issue is debated.
"Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky
(now LaRue County). His family attended a Separate Baptists church, which had
high moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery
Lincoln grew up in an abolitionist church although it took him some time to
push the idea as political and not just personal. He had a common idea that
African-Americans were relatively intellectually inferior, shouldn't be jurors
or marry European-Americans (Lincoln-Douglas debates), but believed they
deserved the same legal and political rights to liberty and happiness as anyone
else. How to effect this in that place and time was something else.
Debate centers on how he managed change given strong opposing stances
socially. Change was opposed by many as going too far so was conceding to them
pragmatic or his personal view? Was the change slow because society had to be
changed carefully to preserve the Union or because he slowly changed as he
learned? Illinois was strongly prejudiced. Criticism alive since the Civil War
days emphasizes the hook or by crook methods to paint him as only concerned to
succeed as president. It's probably safer to figure he was in favor of
abolitionism at least and needed to be pragmatic about effecting change.
He held the idea of some noted abolitionists that integration wouldn't work
and sought to have African-Americans colonize several areas such as Liberia,
British Honduras, and the Chiriqui region of Panama (then Columbia). The
effort was a disaster. It's debated if he gave up the idea in 1864 only as too
difficult to execute and unrealistic or still held out for the possibility of
it.
In 1864, he also wrote to the governor of Massachusetts that "If, however, it
be really true that Massachusetts wishes to afford a permanent home within her
borders for all or even a large number of colored persons who wish to come to
her, I shall be only too glad to know it."
http://www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/Library/newsletter.asp?ID=54&CRLI=134
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-11/business/ct-perspec-1111-things-20121111_1_lincoln-property-thomas-lincoln-bixby-letter
"General Benjamin F. Butler claimed that Lincoln approached him in 1865 a few
days before his assassination, to talk about reviving colonization in Panama.
Historians have long debated the validity of Butler's account, as it was written
many years after the fact and Butler was prone to exaggeration of his own ex-
ploits as a general. Recently discovered documents prove that Butler and Lincoln
did indeed meet on April 11, 1865, though whether and to what extent they talked
about colonization is not recorded except in Butler's account. On that same day,
Lincoln gave a speech supporting a form of limited suffrage for blacks."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery#Colonization
It is known that he lived in a racially mixed area, talked with Frederick
Douglass, saw that African-American soldiers were helpful in the war, and grew.
By April 11, 1865, he advocated a limited idea of suffrage for African-Americans
who were intelligent and served the country. This indicates reason to expect he
could have grown more and things would have been better if he'd lived longer,
too.
http://www.kansas.com/2012/11/16/2569927/louis-p-masur-how-great-an-emancipator.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery
