7 Score and 7 Years Ago, a Similar Albany

David James/DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in a scene from the film “Lincoln.”

New York's capital city can't seem to catch a break. A string of corruption and sex scandals and byzantine power struggles have frustrated would-be reformers; the State Senate is so divided that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said last week that “I expect the leadership situation to be fluid and subject to influence for some time.”

Now comes Steven Spielberg with a reminder that legislative high jinks have a long and co lorful history in Albany. In his new film, “Lincoln,” which is performing well at the box office, Albany has a brief but telling mention, in which the secretary of state, William H. Seward, tells President Lincoln that if he is serious about passing the 13th Amendment, to abolish slavery, it would require unseemly arm-twisting and patronage promises best left to the experts in such skulduggery.

“I'll fetch a friend from Albany,” says Seward, who before serving in the Lincoln administration had been the governor and then a United States senator from Ne w York.

“He can supply operatives for the field work, spare me the indignity of actually speaking to Democrats,” Seward says. “Spare you the exposure and liability.”

The reference is historically accurate, according to Harold Holzer, a Lincoln historian who wrote the young adult official companion book to the movie, called “Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America.” Mr. Holzer said that “Lincoln was behind all the arm-twisting, deals, job offers, near-bribes and legislative trade-offs that made passage of the 13th Amendment happen in the House,” but that Albany helped with the mechanics.

“The reference is to former Governor and Senator William Seward's longtime reliance on the Albany machine run by his mentor-guru, publisher and political boss, Thurlow Weed,” Mr. Holzer said in an e-mail. “It's a nice inside message to the days when Albany was fully functional, if barely legal.”

The author of the “Lincoln” screenplay, Tony Kushner, said parallels to Albany today were unintentional, but not unwelcome.

“I didn't include it as a comment on any current situation - I really tried to stay very specific and true to the place and moment about which we made the movie - Washington, January 1865,” Mr. Kushner said in an e-mail. “But of course as a proud New Yorker, I was delighted that when proto-lobbyists capable of stealth and sleight-of-hand were needed, Lincoln and Seward turned at once to Albany!”

Mr. Kushner said of Albany, “As it is today, it was in the mid-19th century a boot camp for an unapologetically, um, pragmatic brand of politics.” And Seward and Weed, he said, “were experienced Albany hands, which from what I've read hasn't changed a whole lot in the past 113 years.”