“I lead,” says the powerful Congressman to Abraham Lincoln. “You should try it sometime.” The Civil War President, as captured in Daniel Day-Lewis’ towering, burrowing performance, is obviously the central role in Steven Spielberg’s movie of the Tony Kushner script about the battle to pass the 13th Amendment. But in a large, distinguished cast, Tommy Lee Jones leads by example as Stevens, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the fulminous architect of this crucial legislative victory. The Texas actor slips smoothly into the mind, skin and voice of this starchy arch-Yankee: born and raised in Massachusetts, schooled in New Hampshire and Vermont and representing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Jones has often played men with a prickly intelligence driven to obsessive lengths; here the wit and rage are directed toward the goal of freeing black slaves. It’s a flinty, inspiring turn.