I went to see the Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln, last night, and found it both impressive and deeply moving. Was there any other president who bore as many burdens as Lincoln did? I don’t think so. FDR probably comes closest, but at least in World War II he was fighting a war that everyone (well, except for Joe Kennedy, the recent biography of whom I just reviewed for Boston mag) agreed was an imperative. Not so the Civil War. And the deaths! Imagine feeling the responsibility of such bloodshed for a war that much of the country didn’t want, and whose Union aims provoked massive division. Lincoln does something quite remarkable: It both shows the greatness of the man and also his humanity, the terrible toll that the conduct of the war exacted on him. Lincoln’s humanity, his soul, are what made him such a great leader for his time; they are also what made him feel the pain of slavery and the terrible destruction of war so deeply. We think often of the great sacrifice Lincoln made, though not voluntarily, that night at Ford’s Theater; what it hinders us from considering is how the burden of leadership was draining the life from Lincoln even before he was shot.

A striking thing about this film is how incredibly relevant it feels—how many of the debates that divided the country then divide us still.

Think that’s an exaggeration? I don’t. What are the Republican accusations that our president is actually from Africa but a strange continuity of the idea, held by some slavery opponents from the colonial era to the 1860s, that we should send African slaves back to their original continent. (Even if they weren’t born there.)

What is Mitt Romney’s accusation that 47% of Americans just want to be taken care of by the government but a bastard descendant of the question—voiced in the movie—What will the slaves do with freedom?

And what is the current movement on the part of tens of thousands of white people in several southern states to secede from the United States but…well, basically the same movement to secede from the union that led to Fort Sumter?

This recent phenomenon was written up in the Times a couple days ago in an article that struck me as deeply depressing and somewhat bizarre.

Here’s the depressing part:

In Texas, talk of secession in recent years has steadily shifted to the center from the fringe right. It has emerged as an echo of the state Republican leadership’s anti-Washington, pro-Texas-sovereignty mantra on a variety of issues, including health care and environmental regulations. For some Texans, the renewed interest in the subject serves simply as comic relief after a crushing election defeat.

But for other proponents of secession and its sister ideology, Texas nationalism — a focus of the Texas Nationalist Movement and other groups that want the state to become an independent nation, as it was in the 1830s and 1840s — it is a far more serious matter.

Texas governor Rick Perry, who not too long ago wanted to lead this country, says he is opposed to secession, but not too long ago, he was actually promoting it.

Other states with secessionist movements include Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Sound familiar?

The Times piece first linked to above goes into all this without one mention of race or the quite-plausible possibility that this is a desperate reaction to the reelection of a black president. That’s either a smart recognition of the fact that once you start discussing this, it’s hard to stop, or a bizarre omission.

But it is impossible not to think of these things while watching Lincoln, and it makes me think that one consequence of the Obama presidency is this: It is flushing the racists out into the open.

I was delighted to see that my Brooklyn theater was sold out at the 5:45 showing of Lincoln, as it had been at the 2:30 one. I don’t mean to sound like Peter Travers, but, really—every American should see this movie.