Lincoln had a complex, evolving but not completely enlightened view of slavery and civil rights (complex, meaning his views were suffused with political ideas and principles, such as the supremacy of states rights in matters of slavery, that people today might find pretty calloused and morally expedient). Yet he could be pretty unequivocal about his denunciation of the act itself. Team of Rivals, the book upon which this film is based, quotes Lincoln as saying that "if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." He probably held some racist views - appearing to doubt the equal intellectual capacity of all races - but he also treated Frederick Douglass as an equal on a moral, spiritual, and possibly mental plane. His comfortable idea that blacks and whites were better off living separately and never co-mingling was shattered upon the realization that many blacks identified themselves with America just as much as whites. I'm also hoping to read the recently released book about Lincoln and slavery, which will probably give a more complete view on this issue.
Anyway, there are multiple thematic angles that Spielberg could take with this film, so I'm interested in the events that it will actually cover. The only question with the screenplay is whether it can condense so much information into a two hour film.
EDIT: I'd rather that they cast based upon acting talent than appearances, but in this case I do think that appearances are important. According to John Nicolay, a secretary of Lincoln, photographs were "powerless" to capture the animations and subtle raw emotions of his countenance.
