"LINCOLN Transcript and sync: jcdr" "[Terrible battle and cannons noise]" "HAROLD GREEN:" "Some of us was in the Second Kansas Colored." "We fought the rebs at Jenkins' Ferry last April, just after they'd killed every Negro soldier they captured at Poison Springs." "So at Jenkins' Ferry, we decided warn't taking no reb prisoners." "And we didn't leave a one of 'em alive." "The ones of us that didn't die that day, we joined up with the116th U.S. Colored, sir." "From Camp Nelson Kentucky." "LINCOLN:" "What's your name, soldier?" "Private Harold Green, sir." "I'm Corporal Ira Clark, sir." "Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry." "We're waiting over there." "We're leaving our horses behind, and shipping out with the 24th Infantry for the assault next week on Wilmington." "LINCOLN:" "How long've you been a soldier?" "Two year, sir." "LINCOLN:" "Second Kansas Colored Infantry, they fought bravely at Jenkins' Ferry." "That's right, sir." "They killed a thousand rebel soldiers, sir." "They were very brave." "And making three dollars less each month than white soldiers." "Us 2nd Kansas boys..." "Another three dollars subtracted from our pay our pay for our uniforms." "That was true, yes sir, but...." "Equal pay now, but still no commissioned Negro officers." "LINCOLN:" "I am aware of that, Corporal Clark." "Yes, sir, that's good you're aware, sir." "It's only that..." "LINCOLN:" "Do you think the Wilmington attack..." "Now that white people have accustomed themselves to seeing Negro men with guns, fighting on their behalf, and now that they can tolerate Negro soldiers getting equal pay, maybe in a few years they can abide the idea of Negro lieutenants and captains." "In fifty years, maybe a Negro colonel." "In a hundred years... the vote." "What'll you do after the war, Corporal Clark?" "CLARK:" "Work, sir." "Perhaps you'll hire me." "Perhaps I will." "But you should know, sir, that I get sick at the smell of boot black and I cannot cut hair." "I've yet to find a man could cut mine so it'd make any difference." "CLARK:" "You got springy hair for a white man." "Yes, I do." "My last barber hanged himself." "And the one before that." "Left me his scissors in his will." "[Green laughs]" "– FIRST WHITE SOLDIER:" "President Lincoln, sir?" "– Evening, boys." "SECOND WHITE SOLDIER:" "We saw you at, um, we... – We were at, uh, at..." "– We was at Gettysburg!" "You boys fight at Gettysburg?" "Naw, we didn't fight there." "We just signed up last month." "We saw him two years ago at the cemetery dedication." "Yeah, we heard you speak, we, uh... ah damn, damn damn!" "Uh, hey, how tall are you anyway?" "!" "Jeez, shut up!" "Could you hear what I said?" "FWS:" "No, sir, not much." "It was...." ""Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." "That's good, thank you." "FWS: "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." "We are-we are-we are met on a great battlefield of that war."" "That's good, thank you." "SWS: "We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live." "– It is..."." "– His uncles, they died on the second day of fighting." "I know the last part. "It is... – VOICE:" "Company up!" "Move it out!" "– it is rather..." "LINCOLN:" "Boys, best go and find your company." "Thank you." "Thank you, sir." "God bless you." "LINCOLN:" "God bless you too." "CLARK: "That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." "That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." "LINCOLN:" "It's nighttime." "The ship's moved by some terrible power, at a terrific speed." "Though it's imperceptible in the darkness," "I have an intuition that we're headed towards a shore." "No one else seems to be aboard the vessel and I..." "I'm kinny aware of my aloneness." "LINCOLN:" "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams." "I reckon it's the speed that's strange to me," "I'm used to going a deliberate pace." "I should spare you Mary, I shouldn't tell you my dreams." "MARY:" "I don't want to be spared if you aren't!" "And you spare me nothing." "MARY:" "Perhaps it's... it's the assault on Wilmington port." "You dream about the ship before a battle, usually." "How's the coconut?" "Beyond description." "Almost two years, nothing mends." "Another casualty of the war." "Who wants to listen to a useless woman grouse about her carriage accident?" "– I do." "– Stuff!" "You tell me dreams, that's all, I'm your soothsayer, that's all I am anymore, I'm not to be trusted..." "Even if it wasn't a carriage accident, even if it was an attempted assassination." "– It was most probably an ass..." "– MARY:" "It was an assassin, whose intended target was you." "How's the plans coming along for the big shindy?" "I don't want to talk about parties." "MARY (CONT'D):" "You don't care about parties." "Not much but they're a necessary hindrance." "I know..." "I know what it's about, the ship." "It's not Wilmington Port, it's not a military campaign!" "It's the amendment to abolish slavery!" "Why else would you force me to invite demented radicals into my home?" "MARY:" "You're gonna try to get the amendment passed in the House of Representatives, before the term ends, before the Inauguration." "Don't spend too much money on the flub dubs." "No one's loved as much as you, no one's ever been loved so much by the people, you might do anything now." "Don't, don't waste that power on an amendment bill that's sure to defeat." "MARY:" "Did you remember Robert's coming home for the reception?" "I knew you'd forget." "That's the ship you're sailing on." "The Thirteenth Amendment." "MARY:" "You needn't tell me I'm right, I know I am." "Oh it's late, Mrs. Keckley." "She needs this for the grand reception." "It's slow work." "Good night." "Did you tell her a dream?" "– TAD:" "Papa?" "– LINCOLN:" "Hmm?" "TAD:" "Papa, I wanna see Willie." "LINCOLN:" "Me too, Taddie." "But we can't." "TAD:" "Why not?" "LINCOLN:" "Willie's gone." "Three years now." "He's gone." "♪Instrumental rendition of "We Are Coming Father Abra'am."" "The part assigned to me is to raise the flag, which, if there be no fault in the machinery, I will do, and when up, it will be for the people to keep it up." "That's my speech." "[Audience laughing and applauding]" "AUDIENCE:♪We are coming Father Abra'am three hundred thousand more" "♪From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore" "♪We leave our plows and workshops our wives and children dear" "SEWARD:" "Even if every Republican in the House votes yes, far from guaranteed, since when has our party unanimously supported anything?" "but say all our fellow Republicans vote for it," "We'd still be twenty votes short." "– Only twenty?" "– Only twenty!" "We can find twenty votes." "Twenty House Democrats who'll vote to abolish slavery, in my opinion..." "– To which I always listen." "– Or pretend to." "– With all three of my ears." "We'll win the war soon." "It's inevitable, isn't it?" "LINCOLN:" "Ain't won yet." "You'll begin your second term with semi-divine stature." "Imagine the possibilities peace will bring!" "Why tarnish your invaluable luster with a battle in the House?" "It's a rats' nest in there, the same gang of talentless hicks and hacks who rejected the amendment ten months ago." "We'll lose." "I like our chances now." "SEWARD:" "Well, consider the obstacles we would face." "The aforementioned two-thirds majority needed to pass an amendment." "We have a Republican majority, but barely more than fifty percent." "LINCOLN:" "Fifty-six." "We need Democratic support." "There's none to be had." "Since the House last voted on the amendment, there's been an election." "Sixty-four Democrats lost their House seats in November, that's... sixty-four Democrats looking for work come March – I know." "They don't need to worry about re-election, they can vote however it suits 'em." "But we can't, um..." "[knocks on door] buy the vote for the amendment, it's too important." "[Knocks on door]" "LINCOLN:" "I said nothing of buying anything." "We need twenty votes was all I said." "Start of my second term, plenty of positions to fill." "NICOLAY:" "Mr. President, may I present Mr. and Mrs. Jolly who've come from Missouri to..." "MR JOLLY:" "From Jeff City, President." "LINCOLN:" "Mr. Jolly." "Ma'am." "This by the fire's Secretary of State Seward." "Jeff City." "I heard tell once of a..." "Jefferson City lawyer, who had a parrot that'd wake him each morning, crying out, "Today is the day the world shall end as scripture has foretold."" "And one day..." "the lawyer shot him for the sake of peace and quiet, I presume, thus fulfilling, for the bird at least, its prophecy." "There's only one tollbooth in Jeff City, to the southwest, and this man Heinz Sauermagen from Rolla been in illegal possession for near two year, since your man General Schofield set him up there." "But President Monroe give that toll gate to my granpap and Quincy Adams... give my pap a letter saying it's our'n for keeps." "Mrs. Jolly got the..." "Show Mr. Lincoln the Quincy Adams letter." "LINCOLN:" "That's unnecessary, Mrs. Jolly." "Just tell me what you want from me." "Mr. Jolly's emphysema don't care for cigars." "Madame." "Do you know about the proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution?" "Yes sir, everybody knows of it." "The President favors it." "– But do you?" "– We do." "You know that it abolishes slavery?" "Yes sir." "I know it." "And is that why you favor it?" "What I favor is ending the war." "Once't we do away with slavery, the rebs will quit fighting, since slavery's what they're fighting for." "Mr. Lincoln, you always say so." "MRS JOLLY:" "With the amendment, slavery's ended and they'll give up, the war can finish then." "If the war finished first, before we end slavery, would..." "– President Lincoln says the war won't stop unless we finish slavery..." "– But... if it did." "The South is exhausted." "SEWARD:" "If they run out of bullets and men, would you still want your, uh..." "Who's your representative?" "LINCOLN:" "Jeff City?" "That's, uh, Congressman Burton?" ""Beanpole" Burton." "I mean, Josiah Burton, yes." "LINCOLN:" "Republican." "Undecided on the question of the amendment, I believe." "Perhaps you could call on him and inform him of your enthusiasm." "– Yeah..." "– SEWARD:" "Madam?" "If the rebels surrender next week, would you, at the end of this month, want Congressman Burton to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment?" "If that was how it was, no more war and all," "I reckon Mr. Jolly'd much prefer not to have Congress pass the amendment." "SEWARD:" "And, uh... why's that?" "Niggers." "MRS. JOLLY:" "If he don't have to let some Alabama coon come up to Missouri, steal his chickens and his job, he'd much prefer that." "The people!" "I begin to see why you're in such a great hurry to put it through." "Would you let me study this letter, sir, about the tollbooth?" "LINCOLN:" "Come back to me in the morning, and we'll consider what the law says." "LINCOLN:" "And be sure to visit "Beanpole", and tell him that you support passage of the Amendment, as a military necessity." "NICOLAY:" "Thank you." "LINCOLN:" "Oh, Nicolay, when you have a moment..." "If procuring votes with offers of employment is what you intend," "I'll fetch a friend from Albany who can supply the skulking men gifted at this kind of shady work." "Spare me the indignity of actually speaking to Democrats." "Spare you the exposure and liability." "LINCOLN:" "Pardon me, that's a distress signal, which I am bound by solemn oath to respond to." "Tom Pendel took away the glass camera plates of slaves Mr. Gardner sent over because Tom says mama says they're too distressing, but..." "You had nightmares all night, mama's right to..." "I'll have worse nightmares, if you don't let me look at the plates again!" "LINCOLN:" "Perhaps." "SEWARD:" "We can't afford a single defection from anyone in our party, not even a single Republican absent when they vote." "You know who you've got to see." "Send over to Blair House." "Ask Preston Blair can I call on him around five o'clock." "God help you." "God alone knows what he'll ask you to give him." "If the Blairs tell 'em to, no Republican will balk at voting for the amendment." "MONTGOMERY BLAIR:" "No conservative Republican is what you mean." "PRESTON BLAIR:" "All Republicans ought to be conservative," "I founded this party in my own goddamned home to be a conservative antislavery party, not a hobbyhorse for goddamned radical abolitionists." "ELIZABETH BLAIR:" "Damp down the dyspepsia, daddy, you'll frighten the child." "MONTGOMERY:" "You need us to keep the conservative side of the party in the traces while you diddle the radicals and bundle up with Thaddeus Stevens's gang, you need our help." "– Yes, sir, I do." "– Well, what do we get?" "– Whoo!" "Blunt!" "Your manners, Monty, must be why Mr. Lincoln... pushed you out of his cabinet." "– PRESTON:" "He was pushed out." "– I wasn't pushed." "– Oh of course you weren't." "– MONTGOMERY:" "I agreed to resign." "– PRESTON:" "He was pushed out to placate the goddamn radical abolishonists!" "ELIZABETH:" "Oh Daddy, please!" "Daddy." "Oh." "You don't mind, boy, do you?" "He spends his days with soldiers." "– They taught me a song!" "– Did they?" "PRESTON:" "Soldiers know all manner of songs." "PRESTON:" "How's your brother Bob?" "He's at school now, but he's coming to visit in four days." "For the shindy!" "PRESTON: t school?" "Ain't that fine!" "Good he's not in the army!" "TAD:" "He wants to be, but mama said he can't..." "Dangerous life, soldiering." "Your mama is wise to keep him clean out of that." "Now... your daddy knows that what I want, in return for all the help I give him, is to go down to Richmond like he said I could, as soon as Savannah fell, and talk to Jefferson Davis." "PRESTON:" "Give me terms I can offer to Jefferson Davis to start negotiating for peace, he'll talk to me!" "Conservative members of your party want you to listen to overtures from Richmond." "That above all!" "They'll vote for this rash and dangerous amendment only if every other possibility is exhausted." "Our Republicans ain't abolitionists." "We can't tell our people they can vote yes on abolishing slavery unless at the same time we can tell 'em that you're seeking a negotiated peace." "ELIZABETH:" "Leo, it's a hundred miles to Richmond." "Get him drunk so he can sleep." "– Yes ma'am." "Here, daddy." "– Oh." "Thank you." "– Let's fix this up... – Where's my hat?" "– Leo has your hat." "All right?" "Go make peace." "Thunder forth, God of War!" "STANTON:" "We'll commence our assault on Wilmington from the sea." "Why is this burnt?" "Was the boy playing with it?" "LINCOLN:" "It got took by breeze several nights back." "This is an official War Department map!" "SEWARD:" "And the entire cabinet's waiting to hear what it portends." "WELLES:" "A bombardment." "From the largest fleet the Navy has ever assembled." "LINCOLN:" "Old Neptune, shake thy hoary locks!" "WELLES:" "Fifty-eight ships are underway, of every tonnage and firing range." "STANTON:" "We'll keep up a steady barrage." "Our first target is Fort Fisher." "It defends Wilmington Port." "JAMES SPEED:" "A steady barrage?" "A hundred shells a minute." "Till they surrender." "– WILLIAM FESSENDEN:" "Dear God." "– WELLES:" "Yes, yes." "LINCOLN:" "Wilmington's their last open seaport." "Therefore..." "STANTON:" "Wilmington falls, Richmond falls after." "SEWARD:" "And the war is done." "JOHN USHER:" "Then why, if I may ask, are we not concentrating the nation's attention on Wilmington?" "Why, instead, are we reading in the Herald, that the anti-slavery amendment is being precipitated onto the House floor for debate?" "Because your eagerness, in what seems an unwarranted intrusion of the Executive into Legislative prerogatives, is compelling it to it's... to what's likely to be its premature demise." "You hear?" "You signed the Emancipation Proclamation, you've done all that can be expected." "– The Emancipation Proclamation's merely a war measure." "After the war the courts will make a meal of it." "– When Edward Bates was Attorney General, he felt confident in it enough to allow you to sign." "– Different lawyers, different opinions." "It frees slaves as a military exigent, not in any other..." "LINCOLN:" "I don't recall Edward Bates being any too certain about the legality of my Proclamation... just it wasn't downright criminal." "Somewhere's in between." "Back when I rode the legal circuit in Illinois," "I defended a woman from Metamora named" "Melissa Goings, 77 years old." "They said she murdered her husband, he was 83." "He was choking her, and, uh, she grabbed a hold of a stick of fire wood and fractured his skull, 'n he died." "In his will he wrote:" ""I expect she has killed me." "If I get over it, I will have revenge." "No one was keen to see her convicted, he was that kind of husband." "I asked the prosecuting attorney if I might have a short conference with my client." "And she and I went into a room in the courthouse, but I alone emerged." "The window in the room was found to be wide open," "It was believed the old lady may have climbed out of it." "I told the bailiff..." "Right before I left her in the room, she asked me where she could get a good drink of water, and I told her Tennessee." "Mrs. Goings was seen no more in Metamora." "Enough justice had been done." "They even forgave the bondsman her bail." "– JOHN USHER:" "I'm afraid I don't see..." "– LINCOLN:" "I decided that the Constitution gives me war powers, but no one knows just exactly what those powers are." "Some say they don't exist." "I don't know." "I decided," "I needed them to exist to uphold my oath to protect the Constitution, which I decided meant that I could take the rebels' slaves from 'em as property confiscated in war." "That might recommend to suspicion that I agree with the rebs that their slaves are property in the first place." "Of course I don't." "I never have, I'm glad to see any man free, and if calling a man property, or war contraband, does the trick, why I caught at the opportunity." "Now here's where it gets truly slippery." "I use the law allowing for the seizure of property in a war knowing it applies only to the property of governments and citizens of belligerent nations." "But the South ain't a nation." "That's why I can't negotiate with 'em." "So if in fact the Negroes are property according to law, have I the right to take the rebels' property from 'em, if I insist they're rebels only, and not citizens of a belligerent country?" "And slipperier still:" "I maintain it ain't our actual Southern states in rebellion, but only the rebels living in those states, the laws of which states remain in force." "The laws of which states remain in force." "That means, that since it's states' laws that determine whether Negroes can be sold as slaves, as property, the Federal government doesn't have a say in that, at least not yet, then Negroes in those states are slaves, hence property, hence" "my war powers allow me to confiscate'em as such, so I confiscated 'em." "LINCOLN:(CONT'D):" "But if I'm a respecter of states' laws, how then can I legally free'em with my Proclamation as I done, unless I'm cancelling states' laws?" "I felt the war demanded it." "my oath demanded it," "I felt right with myself, and I hoped it was legal to do it" "I'm hoping still." "Two years ago I proclaimed these people emancipated," "" then, thenceforward and forever free."" "But let's say the courts decide I had no authority to do it." "They might well decide that." "Say there's no amendment abolishing slavery." "Say it's after the war, and I can no longer use my war powers to just ignore the courts' decisions, like I sometimes felt I had to do," "Might those people I freed be ordered back into slavery?" "That's why I'd like to get the Thirteenth Amendment through the House, and on its way to ratification by the states, wrap the whole slavery thing up, forever and aye, as soon as I'm able," "Now!" "End of this month!" "And I'd like you to stand behind me, like my cabinet's most always done." "As the preacher said, I could write shorter sermons but once I start I get too lazy to stop." "JOHN USHER:" "It seems to me, sir, you're describing precisely the sort of dictator the Democrats have been howling about." "JAMES SPEED:" "Dictators aren't susceptible to law." "USHER:" "Neither is he!" "He just said as much!" "Ignoring the courts, twisting meanings, what... what reins him in from, from..." "– Well, the people do that, I suppose." "I signed the Emancipation Proclamation a year and half, before my second election," "I felt I was within my power to do it." "However I also felt that I might be wrong about that." "I knew the people would tell me," "I gave 'em a year and half to think about it, and they reelected me." "And come February the first, I intend to sign the Thirteenth Amendment." "LINCOLN:" "Well, Mr. Representative Ashley!" "Tell us the news from the Hill." "– JAMES ASHLEY:" "Ah!" "Well, news..." "– Why for instance is this thus, and what is the reason for this thusness?" "James, we want you to bring the anti- slavery amendment to the floor for debate." "– Excuse me, what?" "– Immediately." "You are the amendment's manager, are you not?" "I am, of course, but..." "And we're counting on robust radical support, so tell Mr. Stevens we expect him to put his back into it." "It's not going to be easy, but we trust..." "– It's impossible." "No, I am sorry, no, we can't organize anything immediately in the House." "I have been canvassing the Democrats since the election, in case any of them softened after they got walloped." "But they have stiffened if anything, Mr. Secretary, there aren't nearly enough votes..." "– LINCOLN:" "We're whalers, Mr. Ashley!" "Whalers?" "As in, um... whales?" "LINCOLN:" "We've been chasing this whale for a long time." "We've finally placed a harpoon in the monster's back." "It's in, James, it's in!" "We finish the deed now, we can't wait!" "Or with one flop of his tail, he'll smash the boat and send us all to eternity." "SEWARD:" "On the 31st of this month." "Of this year." "Put the amendment up for a vote." "BLUFF WADE:" "Whalers?" "ASHLEY:" "That's what he said." "The man's never been near a whale ship in his life!" "Withdraw radical support, force him to abandon this scheme, whatever he's up to." "He-He..." "He drags his feet about everything, Lincoln." "Why this urgency?" "We got it through the Senate without difficulty because we had the numbers." "Come December you'll have the same in the House." "The amendment'll be the easy work of ten minutes." "ASA VINTNER LITTON:" "He's using the threat of the amendment to frighten the rebels into an immediate surrender." "SCHUYLER COLFAX:" "I imagine we'd rejoice to see that." "Will you rejoice, when the Southern states have re-joined the Union pell-mell as" "Lincoln intends them to, and one by one each refuses to ratify the amendment?" "If we pass it, which we won't." "Why are we... co-operating with-with him?" "We all know what he's doing, and we all know what he'll do." "We can't offer up abolition's best legal prayer to his games and tricks." "He's said he'd welcome the South back with all its slaves in chains." "Three years ago he said that." "To calm the border states when we were..." "– VOICE:" "I don't." "THADDEUS STEVENS:" "You said "we all know what he'll do." I don't know." "– LITTON:" "You know he isn't to be trusted." "– Trust?" "Oh..." "I'm sorry, I was under the misapprehension your chosen profession was politics." "I've never trusted the President." "I never trust anyone." "But hasn't he surprised you?" "LITTON:" "No, Mr. Stevens, he hasn't." "Nothing surprises you, Asa." "Therefore nothing about you is surprising." "Perhaps that is why your constituents did not re-elect you to the coming term." "It's late, I'm old, I'm going home." "STEVENS (CONT'D):" "Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner," "Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our... adversary and.... leader of the god forsaken Republican Party, our party." "Abraham Lincoln has asked us to work with him to accomplish the death of slavery in America." "Retain, even in opposition, your capacity for astonishment." "The President is never to be mentioned." "Nor I. You're paid for your discretion." "W.N. BILBO:" "Hell, you can have that for nothin', what we need money for is bribes." "It'd speed things up." "SEWARD:" "No." "Nothing strictly illegal." "ROBERT LATHAM:" "It's not illegal to bribe Congressmen." "They starve otherwise." "I have explained to Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Latham that we're offering patronage jobs to the Dems who vote yes." "Jobs and nothing more." "– SEWARD:" "That's correct." "BILBO:" "Congressmen come cheap!" "Few thousand bucks'll buy you all you need." "The President would be unhappy to hear you did that." "Well, will he be unhappy if we lose?" "The money I managed to raise for this endeavor is only for your fees, your food, and lodgings, sir." "Uh huh." "If that squirrel-infested attic you've quartered us in's any measure, you ain't raised much." "Shall we get to work?" "[Gavel slams down]" "COLFAX:" "The House recognizes Fernando Wood," "[Democrats applaud] the honorable representative from New York." "FERNANDO WOOD:" "Estimable colleagues." "Two bloody years ago this month, his Highness King Abraham Africanus the First," "our Great Usurping Caesar, violator of habeas corpus and freedom of the press, abuser of states' rights..." "HIRAM PRICE:" "If Lincoln really were a tyrant, Mr. Wood, he'd'a had your empty head impaled on a pike!" "And the country better for it!" "Your radical republican autocrat ruling by fiat and martial law, affixed his name to his on a heinous and illicit Emancipation Proclamation, promising it would hasten the end of the war, which yet rages on and on." "WOOD (CONT'D):" "He claimed, as tyrants do, that the war's emergencies permitted him to turn our army..." "LATHAM:" "The New York delegation's looking decidedly uninspired." ".. and radical Republicanism's abolitionist fanaticism!" "[Shouts and boos from Republicans]" "WOOD (CONT'D):" "His Emancipation Proclamation has obliterated millions of dollars..." "RICHARD SCHELL:" "Over in Pennsylvania..." "who's the sweaty man eating his thumb?" "LATHAM:" "Unknown to me." "Seems jumpy." "Perhaps he'll jump." "But all that was not enough for this dictator, who now seeks to insinuate..." "BILBO:" "Jesus!" "When's this son-of liberty sonofabitch gonna sit down?" "SCHELL:" "John Ellis is going to break his watch if he doesn't stop." "WOOD (CONT'D):" "We are once again asked... nay, commanded to consider a proposed thirteenth amendment." "Which, if passed, shall set at immediate liberty four million coloreds while manacling the limbs of the white race in America" "If it is passed." "But it shall not pass!" "What's more interesting is how dismal and disgruntled Mr. Yeaman appears." "WOOD (CONT'D):" "Every member of this House...." "LATHAM:" "He should be cheering right now, but..." "W.N. BILBO:" "Looks like he ate a bad oyster." "WOOD (CONT'D): .. and the constituents which it serves shall oppose!" "STEVENS:" "A point of order, Mr. Speaker, if you please?" "Mr. Speaker, I still have the floor, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania is out of order!" "– STEVENS:" "When will Mr. Wood conclude his interminable gabble?" "Some of us breathe oxygen, and we find the mephitic fumes of his oratory a lethal challenge to our pulmonary capacities." "WOOD:" "We shall oppose this amendment, and any legislation that so affronts natural law, insulting to God as to man!" "Congress must never declare equal those whom God created unequal!" "STEVENS:" "Slavery is the only insult to natural law, you fatuous nincompoop!" "GEORGE PENDLETON (SHOUTING):" "ORDEEER!" "Procedure!" "Mr. Speaker, Mr. Wood has the floor!" "Instruct us, Oh Great Commoner, what is unnatural, in your opinion?" "Niggrahs casting ballots?" "Niggrah representatives, is that natural, Stevens?" "Intermarriage?" "STEVENS:" "What violates natural law, slavery, and you, Pendleton, you insult God!" "You unnatural noise." "[Avalanche of boos and cheers]" "JAMES ASHLEY:" "Mr. Coffax, please, use your gavel." "– ASHLEY:" "You are out of order!" "– COFFAX:" "Order in the Chamber!" "ASHLEY:" "Instruct the sergeant of arms to suppress this!" "ASHLEY:" "We are in session!" "TOM PENDEL:" "Please don't encourage this!" "Don't encourage this!" "TAD:" "You're back, you're back, you're back, you're back!" "I am." "Your goat got big." "Here, help me get one of these to my room." "Is she in there?" "TAD:" "She's asleep, probably." "– You need help, sir?" "I can..." "– No, sir, I don't." "No." "– PETITIONER:" "I can..." "– ROBERT:" "No." "Could you bring your pa this letter I writ about my insolvency proceedings?" "ROBERT:" "You deliver your own goddamned petition..." "TAD: .. 'cause there's a new book that Sam Beckwith says is about finches, and finches' beaks, about how they..." "He's here, Mrs. Cuthbert!" "He's here!" "– Robbie..." "– Hi, ma." "– Oh, Robbie..." "– Hey." "Robbie." "Oh!" "MARY:" "What...?" "You're only staying a few days." "Why'd you pack all of that?" "Well, I don't know how long I'm..." "Go tell your father Robert's home!" "Mr. Nicolay says daddy's secluded with Mr. Blair." "Tell him anyway." "– You forget to eat, exactly like him." "– No..." "You'll linger a few days extra, after the reception, before you go back to school." "Well, I don't know if I'm gonna go back to s..." "We'll fatten you up before you return to Boston." "– All right, mama." "– All right." "Oh Robbie..." "PRESTON BLAIR:" "Jefferson Davis is sending three delegates:" "Stephens, Hunter and Campbell." "Vice President of the Confederacy, their former Secretary of State, and their Assistant Secretary of War." "They're coming in earnest to propose peace." "I know this is unwelcome news for you." "Now hear me." "I went to Richmond to talk to traitors, to smile at and plead with traitors," "because it'll be spring in two months, the roads'll be passable, the Spring slaughter commences." "Four bloody Springs now!" "Think of my Frank, who you've taken to your heart, how you'll blame yourself if the war takes my son as it's taken multitudes of sons." "Think of all the boys who'll die if you don't make peace." "You must talk with these men!" "I intend to, Preston." "And in return, I must ask you..." "– No, this is not horsetrading, this is life!" "– LINCOLN:" "NOT NOW!" "LINCOLN:" "Bob." "I'm sorry." "LINCOLN:" "Welcome home." "– ROBERT:" "Thank you." "You're looking fit, Robert." "Harvard agrees with you." "– Mr. Blair." "– Preston, son." "LINCOLN:" "If you just give us a moment please, Robert." "Thank you." "I will procure your votes for you, as I promised, sir." "You've always kept your word to me." "Those Southern men are coming." "I beg you, in the name of Gentle Christ, sir." "LINCOLN:" "I understand." "Talk peace with these men." "I understand, Preston." "LATHAM:" "We have one abstention so far." "SCHELL:" "Jacob Graylor." "SHELL:" "He'd like to be Federal Revenue Assessor for the Fifth District of Pennsylvania." "LATHAM:" "So the total of representatives voting three weeks from today is reduced to 182, which means 122 yes votes to reach the requisite two thirds of the House." "Assuming all Republicans vote for the amendment." "Then, despite our abstention, to reach a two-thirds majority we remain 20 yeses short." "LATHAM (CONT'D):" "For which we're seeking from among 64 lame duck Democrats." "Fully 39 of these we deem unredeemable no votes." "BILBO:" "The kind that hates niggers, hates God for making niggers." "LATHAM:" "The Good Lord on High would despair of their souls." "SEWARD:" "Thank you for that pithy explanation, Mr. Bilbo." "SCHELL:" "We've abandoned these 39 to the Devil that possesses them." "SCHELL:" "The remaining lame ducks, on whom we've been working with a purpose." "Charles Hanson." "Giles Stuart." "Nelson Merrick." "Homer Benson." "And lastly..." "BILBO:" "Clay Hawkins." "Of Ohio." "CLAY HAWKINS:" "T-tax collector for the Western Reserve, it..." "Th-that pays handsomely." "BILBO:" "Don't just reach for the highest branches, they sway in every breeze." "Assistant Port Inspector of Marlston looks like the ticket to me." "HAWKINS:" "Uh, boats, they-they make me sick." "So just stand on the dock." "Let the Assistant Assistant Port Inspector's stomach go weak." "SEWARD:" "And lastly, Democratic yes vote number six." "Hawkins from Ohio." "– LINCOLN;" "Six." "– SEWARD:" "Well, thus far." "SEWARD:" "Plus Graylor's abstention." "From tiny acorns and so on." "– LINCOLN:" "Wha'd Hawkins get?" "NICOLAY:" "Postmaster of the Millersburg Post Office." "He's selling himself cheap, ain't he?" "SEWARD:" "Aye, he wanted tax collector of the Western Reserve, a first-term congressman who couldn't manage reelection," "I felt it unseemly and they bargained him down to Postmaster." "Scatter 'em over several rounds of appointments, so no one notices, and burn this ledger, please, after you're done." "LINCOLN:" "Time for my public opinion bath." "Might as well let 'em in." "LINCOLN:" "Seven yeses with Mr. Ellis." "Thirteen to go." "One last item, an absurdity, but..." "My associates report that among the Representatives, a fantastical rumor's bruited about, which I immediately disavowed," "that you'd allowed bleary old Preston Blair to sojourn to Richmond to invite Jeff Davis to send commissioners up to Washington with a peace plan." "I, of course, told them you would never.." "Not without consulting me, you wouldn't..." "Because why on earth would you?" "ALEXANDER STEPHENS:" "Much obliged." "SEWARD:" "Why wasn't I consulted?" "!" "I'm Secretary of State!" "You... you-you informally send a reactionary dottard to..." "What will happen, do you imagine, when these peace commissioners arrive?" "– We'll hear 'em out." "– Oh, splendid!" "And next the Democrats will invite 'em up to hearings on the Hill, and the newspapers, well, the newspapers the newspapers will ask" ""why risk enraging the Confederacy over the issue of slavery when they're here to make peace?"" "We'll lose every Democrat we've got, more than likely conservative Republicans will join 'em, and all our work, all our preparing the ground for the vote, laid waste, for naught." "The Blairs have promised support for the amendment if we listen to these people." "Oh, the Blairs promise, do they?" "You think they'll keep their promise once we have heard these delegates and refused them?" "Which we will have to do, since their proposal most certainly will be predicated on keeping their slaves!" "What hope for any Democratic votes, Willum, if word gets out that I've refused a chance to end the war?" "You think word won't get out?" "In Washington?" "It's either the amendment or this Confederate peace, you cannot have both." ""If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me..."" "SEWARD:" "Oh, disaster." "This is a disaster!" "LINCOLN:" "Time is a great thickener of things, Willum." "Yes, I suppose it is." "Actually I have no idea what you mean by that." "Get me thirteen votes." "Them fellers from Richmond ain't here yit." "ROBERT:" "You drafted half the men in Boston!" "What do you think their families think about me?" "The only reason they don't throw things and spit on me is 'cause you're so popular." "I can't concentrate on-on British mercantile law," "I don't care about British mercantile law." "I might not even want to be a lawyer." "It's a sturdy profession, and a useful one." "Yes, and I want to be useful, but now, not afterwards!" "I ain't wearing them things, Mr. Slade, they never fit right." "The missus will have you wear 'em." "Don't think about leaving 'em." "You're delaying, that's your favorite tactic." "You won't tell me no, but the war will be over in a month, and you know it will!" "LINCOLN:" "I've found that prophesying is one of life's less prophet-able occupations." "TAD:" "Why do some slaves cost more than others?" "Ah, if they're still young and healthy, if the women can still conceive, they'll pay more." "– Put 'em back in the box, you scoundrel." "We'll return them to Mr. Gardner's studio day after next." "Be careful with'em, now." "These things should've stayed on the calf." "TAD:" "When you were a slave, Mr. Slade, did they beat you?" "SLADE:" "I was born a free man." "Nobody beat me except I beat them right back." "Mr. Lincoln, could you come with me..." "Mrs. Keckley was a slave." "Ask her if she was beaten." "– TAD:" "Were you?" "– Tad!" "MRS. KEKLEY:" "I was beaten with a fire shovel when I was younger than you." "You should go to Mrs. Lincoln." "She's in Willie's room." "ROBERT:" "She never goes in there." "JOHN HAY:" "The reception line is already stretching out the door." "See, I'll be the only man over fifteen and under sixty-five in this whole place not in uniform." "I'm under fifteen." "MARY:" "My head hurts so." "I prayed for death the night Willie died." "The headaches are how I know I didn't get my wish." "How to endure the long afternoon that go deep into the night." "LINCOLN:" "I know." "Trying not to think about him." "How will I manage?" "– Somehow you will." "– Somehow." "MARY:" "Somehow." "Somehow." "Somehow..." "MARY:" "Every party, every..." "And now..." "Four years more in this terrible house... reproaching us." "He was a very sick little boy." "We should've cancelled that reception, shouldn't we?" "– We didn't know how sick he was." "– I knew, I knew..." "I saw that night he was dying." "Three years ago, the war was going so badly, and we had to put on a face." "– But I... saw Willie was dying." "– Molly." "– I saw him." "– Listen." "LINCLON:" "It's too hard." "LINCOLN:" "Too hard." "WILLIAM SLADE:" "She's just ten feet yonder." "I'd like to keep my job." "MARY:" "Senator Sumner, it has been much too long." "CHARLES SUMNER: "Oh, who can look on that celestial face and..."" "– And...?" "– James Ashley, ma'am," "– we've met several times." "– Praise Heavens, praise Heavens, just when I had abandoned hope of amusement, it's the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee!" "THADDEUS STEVENS:" "Mrs. Lincoln." "Madame President if you please." "Oh, don't convene another subcommittee to investigate me, sir!" "I'm teasing!" "Smile, Senator Wade." "I believe I am smiling, Mrs. Lincoln." "STEVENS:" "As long as your household accounts are in order, Madame, we'll have no need to investigate them." "You have always taken such a lively, even prosecutorial interest in my household accounts." "Your household accounts have always been so interesting." "Yes, thank you, it's true, the miracles I have wrought out of fertilizer bills and cutlery invoices, but I had to!" "Four years ago, when the President and I arrived, this was pure pigsty." "Tobacco stains in the turkey carpets." "Mushrooms, green as the moon, sprouting from the ceilings!" "And a pauper's pittance allotted for improvements." "As if your committee joined with all of Washington awaiting, in what you anticipated would be our comfort in squalor, further proof that my husband and I were prairie primitives, unsuited to the position to which an error of the people," "a flaw in the democratic process, had elevated us." "The past is the past, it's a new year now, and we are all getting along, or so they tell me." "I gather we are working together!" "The White House and the other House, hatching little plans together." "– ROBERT:" "Mother?" "– What?" "– You're creating a bottleneck." "– Oh!" "MARY:" "Oh, I'm detaining you." "And more importantly, the people behind you." "How the people love my husband, they flock to see him by their thousands on public days!" "They will never love you the way they love him." "How difficult it must be for you to know that." "And yet how important to remember it." "Since we have the floor next in the debate," "I thought I'd suggest you might... temper your contributions so as not to frighten our conservative friends?" "STEVENS:" "Ashley insists you're ensuring approval by dispensing patronage to otherwise undeserving Democrats." "LINCOLN:" "I can't ensure a single damn thing if you scare the whole House with talk of land appropriations, revolutionary tribunals, punitive..." "STEVENS:" "When the war ends, I intend to push for full equality, the Negro vote, and much more." "Congress shall mandate the seizure of every foot of rebel land and every dollar of their property." "We'll use their confiscated wealth to establish hundreds of thousands of free Negro farmers, and at their side soldiers armed to occupy and transform the heritage of traitors." "We'll build up a land down there of free men and free women and free children and freedom." "The nation needs to know that we have such plans." "That's the untempered version of reconstruction." "LINCOLN:" "It's not..." "It's not quite exactly what I intend, but we shall oppose one another in the course of time." "Now we're working together, and I'm asking you..." "For patience, I expect." "LINCOLN:" "When the people disagree, bringing them together requires going slow till they're ready to make up." "Ah, shit on the people, and what they want, and what they're ready for," "I don't give a goddamn about the people and what they want!" "This is the face of someone who has fought long and hard for the good of the people without caring much for any of 'em." "And I look a lot worse without my wig." "The people elected me!" "To represent them!" "To lead them!" "And I lead!" "You ought to try it!" "I admire your zeal, Mr. Stevens, and I have tried to profit from the example of it." "If I'd listened to you, I'd've declared every slave free the minute the first shell struck Fort Sumter." "Then the border states would've gone over to the confederacy, the war would've been lost and the Union along with it, and instead of abolishing slavery, as we hope to do in two weeks, we'd be watching helpless as infants as it spread" "from the American South into South America." "STEVENS:" "Oh God, how you have longed to say that to me." "You claim you trust them." "But you know what the people are." "You know that the inner compass that should direct the soul toward justice has ossified in white men and women, north and south, unto utter uselessness through tolerating the evil of slavery." "White people cannot bear the thought of sharing this country's infinite abundance with Negroes." "A compass, I learnt when I was surveying, it'll... it'll point you True North from where you're standing, but it's got no advice about the swamps and deserts and chasms that you'll encounter along the way." "If in pursuit of your destination, you plunge ahead, heedless of obstacles, and achieve nothing more than to sink in a swamp..." "What's the use of knowing True North?" "LINCOLN:" "Robert's gonna plead with us to let him enlist." "Make time to talk to Robbie." "You only have time for Tad." "– But Tad's young." "MARY:" "So is Robert." "Too young for the army." "Plenty of boys younger than Robert signing up..." "Don't take Robbie." "Don't let me lose my son." "[Knocking on door]" "Go away!" "We're occupied!" "NICOLAY:" "Secretary Stanton has sent over to tell you that as of half an hour ago, the shelling of Wilmington harbor has commenced." "STANTON:" "They cannot possibly maintain under this kind of an assault." "Terry's got ten thousand men surrounding the Goddamned fort, why doesn't he answer my cables?" "– WELLES:" "Fort Fisher is a mountain of a building, Edwin." "MAJOR ECKERT:" "It's the largest fort they have, sir." "WELLES:" "Twenty-two big seacoast guns on each rampart." "MAJOR ECKERT:" "They've been reinforcing it for the last two years" "STANTON:" "They've taken 17,000 shells since yesterday!" "I want to hear that Fort Fisher is ours and Wilmington has fallen!" "Send another damn cable!" "The problem's their commander." "Whiting!" "He engineered the fortress himself." "The damned thing's his child." "He'll defend it till his every last man is gone." "He is not thinking..." "LINCOLN (SHOUTING):" ""Come on out, you old rat!"" "LINCOLN:" "That's what..." "That' what Ethan Allen called to the commander of Fort Ticonderogain in 1776." ""Come on out, you old rat!"" "Aah, 'course there were only forty odd redcoats at Ticonderoga." "But there is one Ethan Allen story that I'm... – STANTON:" "No!" "– .. very partial to..." "No, you're... you're going to tell a story!" "I don't believe... that I can bear... to listen to another one of your stories right now!" "STANTON:" "I need the BO sideyard schedules for Alexandria!" "I asked for them this morning!" "[Lincoln laughing]" "It was right after the Revolution, right after peace had been concluded, and, hum..." "Ethan Allen went to London to help our new country conduct its business with the king." "The English sneered at how rough we are, and rude and simple-minded and on like that, everywhere he went, till one day he was invited to the townhouse of a great English lord." "Dinner was served, beverages imbibed, time passed, as happens, and" "Mr. Allen found he needed the privy." "He was grateful to be directed thence." "Relieved, you might say." "[Everyone laughs]" "Now, Mr. Allen discovered on entering the water closet that the only decoration therein was a... a portrait of George Washington." "Ethan Allen done what he came to do, and returned to the drawing room." "His host and the others were disappointed when he didn't mention Washington's portrait." "And finally His Lordship couldn't resist, and asked Mr. Allen had he noticed it, the picture of Washington." "He had." "What did he think of its placement, did it seem appropriately located to Mr. Allen?" "Mr. Allen said it did." "His host was astounded!" "Appropriate?" "George Washington's likeness in a water closet?" "Yes, said Mr. Allen, where it'll do good service." "The whole world knows nothing'll make an Englishman shit quicker than the sight of George Washington." "[Everyone laughs]" "I love that story." "[Cable telegraph clicking]" "CHARLES BENJAMIN:" "Fort Fisher is ours." "We've taken the port." "WELLES:" "And Wilmington?" "ECKERT:" "We've taken the fort, but the city of Wilmington has not surrendered." "STANTON:" "How many casualties?" "– FERNANDO WOOD:" "Heavy losses." "– GEORGE PENDLETON:" "And more to come." "WOOD:" "Sours the national mood." "That might suffice to discourage him..." "– PENDLETON:" "To bring this down?" "Not in a fight like this." "This is to the death." "WOOD:" "It's gruesome!" "PENDLETON:" "Are you despairing, or merely lazy?" "This fight is for The United States of America." "Nothing "suffices"!" "A rumor?" "Nothing!" "They're not lazy." "They're busily buying votes!" "While we hope to be saved by "the national mood?" "!"" "Before this blood is dry, when Stevens next takes the floor, taunt him." "You excel at that." "Get him to proclaim what we all know he believes in his coal-colored heart:" "that this vote is meant to set the black race on high, to niggerate America." "WOOD:" "George, please." "Stay on course." "PENDLETON:" "Bring Stevens to full froth." "I can ensure that every newspaperman from Louisville to San Francisco will be here to witness it and print it." "SCHUYLER COLFAX:" "The floor belongs to the mellifluent gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. George Yeaman." "YEAMAN:" "I thank you, Speaker Colfax." "Although..." "I'm disgusted by slavery" "I rise on this sad and solemn day." "to announce that I'm opposed to the amendment." "We must consider what will become of colored folk if four million are in one instant set free." "LITTON:" "They'll be free, George." "That's what'll become of them!" "SCHELL:" "Think how splendid if Mr. Yeaman switched." "LATHAM:" "Too publicly against us." "He can't change course now." "BILBO:" "Not for some miserable little job anyways." "We will be forced to enfranchise the men of the colored race." "It would be inhuman not to!" "Who among us is prepared to give Negroes the vote?" "[boos throughout the chamber] YEAMAN:" "And, and!" "What shall follow upon that?" "Universal enfranchisement?" "Votes for women?" "[Cheers and boos]" "WOOD:" "Bless my eyes, if it isn't the Post Master of Millersburg Ohio!" "PENDLETON:" "Mr. LeClerk felt honor-bound to inform us of your disgusting betrayal." "Your prostitution." "WOOD:" "Is that true, Postmaster Hawkins?" "Is your maidenly virtue for sale?" "HAWKINS:" "If my neighbors hear that I voted yes for nigger freedom and no to peace, they will kill me." "BILBO:" "A deal is a deal and you men know better than to piss your pants just cause there's talk about peace talks." "– HAWKINS:" "Look, I'll find another job." "– BILBO:" "My neighbors in Nashville, they found out I was loyal to the Union, they came after me with gelding knives!" "– HAWKINS:" "Any other job!" "– BILBO:" "You do right, Clay Hawkins... – HAWKINS:" "I want to do right!" "– BILBO: and make yourself some money..." "BILBO: .. in the bargain!" "– HAWKINS:" "But I got no courage!" "BILBO:" "Wait!" "You wanted, what was it, tax man for the Western Reserve, hell you can have the whole state of Ohio if you..." "Aw, crap." "SEWARD:" "Eleven votes?" "!" "Two days ago we had twelve!" "What happened?" "– There are defections in the Richmond..." "– It's the goddamned rumors regarding... – LATHAM:" "Yes!" "The peace offer!" "– SEWARD:" "Groundless." "SEWARD:" "I told you that." "– LATHAM:" "And yet the rumors persist." "SCHELL:" "They are ruining us." "Among the few remaining representatives who seem remotely plausible there is a perceptible increase in resistance." "BILBO:" "Resistance, hell!" "Thingamabob Hollister, Dem from Indiana?" "I approached him, the sumbitch near to murdered me!" "– SEWARD:" "Perhaps you push too hard." "– BILBO:" "I push nobody." "Perhaps we need reinforcements." "If Jeff Davis wants to cease hostilities, who do you think'll give a genuine solid shit to free slaves?" "Get back to it." "SEWARD:" "And gentlemen, good day." "SCHELL:" "We are at an impasse." "LATHAM:" "Tell Lincoln to deny the rumors." "Publicly." "SCHELL:" "Tell us what you expect of us." "SEWARD:" "I expect you to do your work." "And to have sufficient sense and taste not to presume to instruct the President." "Or me." "SCHELL:" "Is there a Confederate offer or not?" "GRANT:" "Gentlemen..." "I suggest you work some changes to your proposal before you give it to the President." "We're eager to be on our way to Washington." "ALEXANDER STEPHENS:" "Did Mr. Lincoln tell you to tell us this?" "GRANT:" "It says..."securing peace... for our two countries." And it goes on like that." "– I don't know what you..." "– There's just one country." "And you and I, we're citizens of that country." "I'm fighting to protect it from armed rebels." "From you." "Mr-Mr." "Blair, he-he told us, he... he told President Davis we were..." "A private citizen like Preston Blair can say what he pleases since he has no authority over anything." "If you want to discuss peace with President Lincoln, consider revisions." "If we're not to discuss a truce between warring nations, what in heaven's name can we discuss?" "Terms of surrender." "GRANT: "Office United States Military Telegraph War Dept." "For Abraham Lincoln," "President of the United States, January 20, 1865." "I will state confidentially that I am convinced, upon conversation with these Commissioners, that their intentions are good and their desire sincere to restore peace and union." "I fear now their going back, without any expression of interest."" "[Seward's voice takes over]" ""...from anyone in authority, Mr. Lincoln will have a bad influence."" ""I will be sorry should it prove impossible for you to have an interview with them." "I am awaiting your instructions." "U.S. Grant, Lieutenant General Commanding Armies United States"." "After four years of war and..." "near 600,000 lives lost, he believes we can end this war now." "My trust in him is marrow deep." "SEWARD:" "You could bring the delegates to Washington." "In exchange for the South's immediate surrender, we could promise them the amendment's defeat." "They'd agree, don't you think?" "We'd end the war." "This week." "Or if you could manage, without seeming to do it, to...." "The peace delegation might encounter delays as they travel up the James River." "Particularly with the fighting around Wilmington." "Within ten days time, we might pass the Thirteenth Amendment." "LINCOLN:" "Here's a sixteen year old boy." "They're gonna hang him..." "He was with the 15th Indiana Calvary near Beaufort, seems he lamed his horse to avoid battle." "I don't think even Stanton would complain if I pardoned him," "You think Stanton would complain?" "JOHN HAY:" "I don't know, sir, I don't know who you're, uh..." "What time is it?" "LINCOLN:" "It's three forty in the morning." "NICOLAY:" "Don't let him pardon any more deserters..." "HAY:" "Aah, Mr. Stanton thinks you pardon too many." "He's generally apoplectic on the subject." "LINCOLN:" "He oughtn't to have done that, crippled his horse, that was cruel, but you don't just hang a sixteen year old boy for that..." "HAY:" "Ask the horse what he thinks." ".. for cruelty." "There'd be no sixteen year old boys left." "Grant wants me to bring the secesh delegates to Washington." "HAY:" "So there are secesh delegates?" "LINCOLN:" "He was afraid, that's all it was." "I don't care to hang a boy for being frightened, either." "What good would it do him?" "War's nearly done, ain't that so?" "What use one more corpse?" "Any more corpses?" "HAY:" "Do you need company?" "LINCOLN:" "In times like this, I'm best alone." "LINCOLN: "Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, City Point." "I have read your words with interest."" ""I ask that, regardless of any action I take in the matter of the visit of the Richmond commissioners," "you maintain among your troops military preparedness for battle, as you have done until now."" ""Have Captain Saunders convey the commissioners to me here in Washington."" ""A. Lincoln" and the date." "– SAMUEL BECKWITH:" "Yes sir." "Shall I transmit, sir?" "LINCOLN:" "You think we choose to be born?" "BECKWITH:" "I don't suppose so." "LINCOLN:" "Are we fitted to the times we're born into?" "BECKWITH:" "Well, I don't know about myself." "You may be..." "sir." "Fitted." "What do you reckon?" "HOMER BATES:" "Well, I'm an engineer." "BATES:" "I reckon there's machinery but..." "no one's done the fitting." "LINCOLN:" "You're an engineer." "You must know Euclid's axioms and common notions." "BATES:" "I must've in school, but..." "LINCOLN:" "I never had much of schooling, but I read Euclid, in an old book I borrowed." "Little enough ever found its way in here, but... once learnt it stayed learnt." "Euclid's first common notion is this:" ""Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other."" "That's a rule of mathematical reasoning." "It's true because it works." "Has done and always will do." "In his book, hmm..." "Euclid says this is "self-evident."" "D'you see, there it is, even in that two thousand year old book of mechanical law:" "it is a self evident truth that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." "We begin with equality." "That's the origin, isn't it?" "That balance, that's... that's fairness." "That's justice." "Just read me back the last sentence of that telegram, please." "BECKWITH: "Have Captain Saunders convey the commissioners to me here in Washington."" "A slight emendation if you would, Sam." ""Have Captain Saunders convey the gentlemen aboard the River Queen as far as Hampton Roads, Virginia, and there wait until..."" "".. further advice from me."" ""Do not proceed to Washington."" "COLFAX:" "The World, the Herald and the Times, New York, Chicago, the Journal of Commerce, even your hometown paper's here." "ASHLEY:" "Say you believe only in legal equality for all races, not racial quality." "I beg you, sir." "Compromise." "Or you risk it all." "WOOD:" "I've asked you a question, Mr. Stevens, and you must answer me." "Do you or do you not hold that the precept that" ""all men are created equal" is meant literally?" "WOOD (CONT'D):" "Is that not the true purpose of the amendment?" "To promote your ultimate and ardent dream to elevate..." "STEVENS:" "The true purpose of the amendment, Mr. Wood, you perfectly-named, brainless, obstructive object?" "[Everyone laughing]" "Now you have always insisted, Mr. Stevens, that Negroes are the same as white men are." "The true purpose of the amendment..." "[Chamber totally silent]" "I don't hold with equality in all things, only with equality before the law and nothing more." "That's not so!" "You..." "You believe that Negroes are entirely equal to white men." "You've said it a thousand times..." "– PENDLETON:" "For shame!" "For shame!" "Stop prevaricating and answer, Representative Wood!" "I don't hold with equality in all things, only with equality..." "– After the decades" "STEVENS: .. and nothing more!" "ASHLEY:" "He's answered your questions!" "This amendment has naught to do with race equality!" "– S:" "I don't hold with equality in all things..." "– P:" "You have long insisted, have you not... – S: only with equality before the law..." "– P: that the dusk colored race... – S: and nothing more." "– P: is no different from the white one." "MARY:" "Who'd ever've guessed that old nightmare capable of such control?" "He might make a politician someday... – MRS. KECKLEY:" "I need to go." "– MARY:" "Mrs. Keykley!" "PENDLETON:" "Your frantic attempt to delude us now is unworthy of a representative." "It is in fact, unworthy of a white man!" "How can I hold that all men are created equal, when here before me stands, stinking, the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Maker with dim wits," "impermeable to reason with cold pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood!" "You are more reptile than man, George, so low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you!" "PENDLETON:" "How dare you!" "Yet even you, Pendleton, who should have been gibbetted for treason long before today, even worthless unworthy you ought to be treated equally before the law!" "[Everyone cheers and applauds]" "And so again, sir, and again and again and again I say:" "I DO NOT HOLD WITH EQUALITY IN ALL THINGS." "ONLY WITH EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW." "PENDLETON:" "Mr. Speaker, will you permit this vile boorish man to slander ant to threaten me and..." "LITTON:" "You asked... if ever I was surprised." "Today..." "Mr. Stevens," "I was surprised." "You've led the battle for race equality for thirty years!" "The basis of... of every hope for this country's future life, you denied Negro equality!" "I'm nauseated." "You refused to say that all humans are, well... human!" "Have you lost your very soul, Mr. Stevens" "Is there nothing you won't say?" "I'm sorry you're nauseous, Asa, that must be unpleasant." "I want the amendment to pass." "So that the Constitution's first and only mention of slavery is its absolute prohibition." "For this amendment, for which I have worked all of my life and for which countless colored men and women have fought and died and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers." "No, sir, no." "It seems there is very nearly nothing I won't say." "RERT:" "I'm not going in." "LINCOLN:" "You said you wanted to help me." "This is..." "This is just a clumsy attempt at discouragement." "I've been to army hospitals, I've seen surgeries," "I went and visited the malaria barges with mama." "LINCOLN:" "She told me she didn't take you inside." "I snuck in afterwards." "I've seen what it's like, this changes nothing." "At all rates, I'm happy to have your company." "LINCOLN:" "Morning, Jim." "ARMY SURGEON:" "Hello, Mr. President." "LINCOLN:" "Good to see you again." "Well boys, first question:" "You getting enough to eat?" "FIRST PATIENT:" "Hello, sir." "– What's your name, soldier?" "– Robert." "Robert." "Good to meet you, Robert." "KEVIN:" "Nice to meet you." "– What's your name?" "– Kevin." "Tell me your names as I go past." "I like to know who I'm talkin' to." "Kevin." "– Mr. President, John." "– John." "I've seen you before." "– Mr. President..." "LINCOLN:" "Make sure you get some steak, I wouldn't mind..." "LINCOLN:" "What's the matter, Bob?" "I have to do this!" "And I will do it and I don't need your permission to enlist." "That same speech has been made by how many sons, to how many fathers since the war began?" ""I don't need your damn permission, you miserable old goat," "I'm gonna enlist anyhow!"" "And what wouldn't those numberless fathers have given to be able to say to their sons as..." "I now say to mine," ""I'm commander-in-chief, so in point of fact, without my permission, you ain't enlisting in nothing, nowhere, young man."" "It's mama you're scared of, not me getting killed." "I have to do this!" "And I will!" "Or I will feel ashamed of myself for the rest of my life." "Whether or not you fought is what's gonna matter." "And not just to other people, but to myself." "I won't be you, pa." "I can't do that." "But I don't want to be nothing." "LINCOLN:" "He'll be fine, Molly." "City Point's away back from the front lines, from the fighting, he'll be an adjutant running messages for General Grant." "The war will take our son!" "A sniper, or a shrapnel shell, or typhus!" "Same as took Willie, it takes hundreds of boys a day!" "He'll die uselessly, and how will I ever forgive you?" "Most men, their firstborn is their favorite, but you, you've always blamed Robert for being born, for trapping you in a marriage that's only ever given you grief and caused you regret." "– LINCOLN:" "That's simply not true." "And if the slaughter of Cold Harbor is on your hands same as Grant, God help us!" "We'll pay for the oceans of spilled blood you've sanctioned, the uncountable corpses we'll be made to pay with our son's dear blood." "Just, just this once, Mrs. Lincoln," "I demand of you to try and take the liberal and not the selfish point of view." "Robert will never forgive himself." "You imagine he"ll forgive us if we continue to stifle his very natural ambition?" "!" "And if I refuse to take the highroad, if I won't take up the rough old cross, will you threaten me again with the madhouse, as you did when I couldn't stop crying over Willie," "when I showed you what heartbreak, real heartbreak looked like, and you hadn't the courage to countenance it, to help me..." "LINCOLN:" "That's right." "When you refused so much as to comfort Tad... – M:" "I was in the room with Willie, – L: the child who was not only sick," "– M:" "I was holding him..." "– L: but beside himself with grief?" "– M: in my arms as he died!" "– L:" "Oh but your grief, your grief, your..." "L: inexhaustible grief!" "– M:" "How dare you throw that at me?" "!" "– L:" "And his mother won't let him near her, – M:" "I couldn't let Tad in!" "– L: 'cos she's screaming from morning to night, – M:" "I couldn't risk him" "M: seeing how angry I was!" "– L: pacing the corridors, howling at shadows and furniture and ghosts!" "I ought to have done it, I ought have done for Tad's sake, for everybody's goddamned sake, I should have clapped you in the madhouse!" "Then do it!" "Do it!" "Don't you threaten me, you do it this time, lock me away!" "You'll have to, I swear!" "If Robert is killed..." "[Mary sobbing]" "I couldn't tolerate you grieving so for Willie because I couldn't permit it in myself, though I wanted to, Mary." "I wanted to crawl under the earth, into the vault with his coffin." "And I still do." "Everyday I do." "Don't speak to me about grief." "I must make my decisions, Bob must make his, you yours." "And... bear what we must, hold and carry what we must." "What I carry within me, you must allow me to do it, alone as I must." "And you alone, Mary, you alone..." "may lighten this burden, or render it intolerable." "As you choose." "[Opera:" "Gounod's Faust]" "MARY:" "You think I'm ignorant of what you're up to because you haven't discussed this scheme with me as you ought to have done." "When have I ever been so easily bamboozled?" "I believe you when you insist that amending the constitution and abolishing slavery will end this war." "And since you are sending my son into the war, woe unto you if you fail to pass the amendment." "Seward doesn't want me leaving big muddy footprints all over town." "No one has ever lived who knows better than you the proper placement of footfalls on treacherous paths." "Seward can't do it." "You must." "Because if you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, sir, you will answer to me." "MRS. KECKLEY:" "I know the vote is only four days away." "I know you're concerned." "Thank you for your concern over this, and I want you to know, they'll approve it." "God will see to it." "LINCOLN:" "I don't envy him His task." "He may wish He'd chosen an instrument for His purpose more wieldy than the House of Representatives." "MRS. KECKLEY:" "Then you'll see to it." "Are you afraid of what lies ahead for your people?" "If we succeed?" "White people don't want us here." "– LINCOLN:" "Many don't." "– What about you?" "I don't know you, Mrs. Keckley." "Any of you." "You're familiar to me, as all people are." "Unaccommodated, poor, bare, forked creatures such as we all are." "You have a right to expect what I expect, and likely our expectations are not incomprehensible to each other." "I assume I'll get used to you." "But what you are to the nation, what'll become of you once slavery's day is done, I don't know." "What my people are to be, I can't say." "I never heard any ask what freedom will bring." "Freedom's a first." "As for me..." "My son died, fighting for the Union... wearing the Union blue." "For freedom he died." "I'm his mother." "That's what I am to the nation, Mr. Lincoln." "What else must I be?" "BILBO:" "My whole hand's gonna be proud in about five seconds." "– LATHAM:" "Oh, it is?" "What you got goin'?" "– BILBO:" "Let's see how proud you gonna be." "– BILBO:" "Yeah?" "– LATHAM:" "Go away!" "– LATHAM:" "That watch fob, is that gold?" "– BILBO:" "You keep your eyes off my fob!" "– SEWARD:" "Gentlemen..." "– LATHAM:" "Nines paired!" "– SEWARD: .. you have a visitor." "– BILBO:" "Oh my God damn!" "Well, I'll be fucked." "I wouldn't bet against it, Mr...?" "– W.N. Bilbo." "– Yeah, Mr. Bilbo." "Gentlemen." "– Sir..." "BILBO:" "Why are you here?" "No offense, but Mr. Seward's banished the very mention of your name, he won't even let us use fifty-cent pieces 'cause they got your face on 'em." "LINCOLN:" "The Secretary of State here tells me that, uh, you got eleven Democrats in the bag, that's encouraging." "LATHAM:" "Oh, you've got no cause to be encouraged," "Sir." "Uh..." "SCHELL:" "Are we being... fired?" "LINCOLN: "We have heard the chimes of midnight, Master Shallow."" "I'm here to alert you boys that the great day of reckoning is nigh upon us." "SCHELL:" "The Democrats we've yet to bag, sir." "The patronage jobs simply won't bag 'em." "They require more... convincing, Mr. President." "LINCOLN:" "Mm-hmm." "Do me a favor, will ya?" "BILBO:" "Sure." "LINCOLN:" "I snagged my eye in the paper this morning, and Governor Curtin is set to declare a winner in the disputed Congressional election for the..." "BILBO:" "Pennsylvania 16th District." ".. District." "What a joy to be comprehended." "Hop on a train to Philadell, call on the Governor..." "SEWARD:" "Send Latham." "Or Schell." "LINCOLN:" "No, he'll do fine, just..." "polish yourself up first." "[Bilbo laughs]" "LATHAM:" "The incumbent is claiming he won it." "LATHAM:" "Name of, uh..." "– BILBO:" "Coffroth." "– LINCOLN:" "That's him." "– SCHELL:" "Coffroth." "SCHELL:" "He is a Democrat." "– LINCOLN:" "I understand that." "– BILBO:" "Silly name." "– LINCOLN:" "A little bit silly." "LINCOLN:" "Huh, Tell Governor Curtin it'd be much appreciated if he'd invite the House of Representatives to decide who won." "He's entitled to do that." "He'll agree to it." "Then advise Coffroth, if he hopes to retain his seat, that he'd better pay a visit to Thaddeus Stevens." "SEWARD:" "Oh, pity poor Coffroth!" "[All laugh]" "[Knocks on door] STEVENS:" "It opens!" "STEVENS:" "You are Canfrey?" "Coffroth, Mr. Stevens," "Alexander Coffroth, I'm..." "STEVENS:" "Are we representatives of the same state?" "Y-yes sir, We sit only three desks apart." "STEVENS:" "I haven't noticed you." "I'm... a Republican, and you, Coughdrop, are a Democrat?" "Well..." "Um, that is to say, I..." "STEVENS:" "The modern travesty of Thomas Jefferson's political organization to which you have attached yourself like a barnacle has the effrontery to call itself The Democratic Party." "You are a Dem-O-crat." "What's the matter with you?" "Are you wicked?" "Well, I felt, um, formerly, I..." "Never mind, Coffsnot, you were ignominiously trounced at the hustings in November's election by your worthy challenger, a Republican." "No, sir, I was not, um, trounced!" "Uh, he wants to steal my seat!" "I didn't lose the election..." "What difference does it make if you lost or not, the governor of our state, is..." "A Democrat?" "No, he's a..." "A, um, a Ruh..." "Re." "Re." "– Pub." "– Pub." "– Li." "– Li." "– Can." "– Can." "Republican." "I know what he is." "This is a rhetorical exercise." "And Congress is controlled by what party?" "Yours?" "Your party was beaten, your challenger's party now controls the House, and hence the House Committee on Elections, so you have been beaten." "You shall shortly be sent home in disgrace." "Unless..." "I know what I must do, sir," "I will immediately become a Republican and vote yes for..." "NO!" "Coffroth... will vote yes, but Coffroth will remain a Democrat until after he does so." "Why wait to switch?" "I'm happy to switch..." "We want to show the amendment has bipartisan support, you idiot." "Early in the next Congress, when I tell you to do so, you will switch parties." "Now congratulations on your victory, and get out." "Now... give me the names of whoever else you been hunting." "– LATHAM:" "George Yeaman." "– SCHELL:" "Yes." "Yeaman." "BILBO:" "Among others." "But Yeaman, that'd count." "– LATHAM:" "Y-E-A-M-A-N." "– LINCOLN:" "I got it." "LATHAM:" "Kentucky." "YEAMAN:" "I can't vote for the amendment, Mr. Lincoln." "I saw a barge once, Mr. Yeaman, filled with colored men in chains, heading down the Mississippi to the New Orleans slave markets." "It sickened me." "And more than that, it brought a shadow down, a pall around my eyes." "Slavery troubled me as long as I can remember in a way it never troubled my father, though he hated it, in his own fashion." "He knew no small holding dirt farmer could compete with slave plantations." "He took us out from Kentucky... to get away from 'em." "He wanted Indiana kept free." "He wasn't a kind man, but there was a rough moral urge for fairness, for freedom in him." "I learnt that from him, I suppose, if little else from him." "We didn't care for one another, Mr. Yeaman." "– Well, I'm sorry to hear that." "– Loving kindness, that most ordinary... thing came to me from other sources.." "I'm grateful for that." "YEAMAN:" "I..." "I hate it, too, sir... slavery, but... but we're entirely unready for emancipation." "There's too many questions..." "– We're unready for peace too, ain't we?" "Yeah, when it comes, it'll present us with conundrums and dangers greater than any we've faced during the war, bloody as it's been." "We'll have to extemporize and experiment with what it is, when it is." "I read your speech, George." "Negroes and the vote, that's a puzzle." "No, no, but-but-but but Negroes can't..." "um... vote, Mr. Lincoln." "You're not suggesting we enfranchise colored people." "I'm asking only that you disenthrall yourself from the slave powers." "I'll let you know when there's an offer on my desk for surrender." "There's none before us now." "What's before us now, that's the vote on the Thirteenth Amendment." "It's going to be so very close." "You see what you can do." "WILLIAM HUTTON:" "I can't make sense of it, what he died for." "Mr. Lincoln, I hate them all, I do, all black people." "I am a prejudiced man." "I'd change that in you if I could, but that's not why I come." "I might be wrong, Mr. Hutton, but I expect colored people will most likely be free." "And when that's so, it's simple truth that your brother's bravery, and his death, helped make it so." "Only you can decide whether that's sense enough for you, or not." "My deepest sympathies to your family." "PRESTON BLAIR:" "We've managed our members to a fare thee-well." "You've had no defections from the Republican right to trouble you." "Whereas as to what you promised... where the hell are the commissioners?" "!" "JAMES ASHLEY:" "Oh my God..." "It's true!" "You... you lied to me, Mr. Lincoln!" "You evaded my requests for a denial that- that there is a Confederate peace offer because... because there is one!" "We are absolutely guaranteed to lose the whole thing!" "MONTGOMERY BLAIR:" "We don't need a goddamned abolition amendment." "M.B.:" "Leave the Constitution alone!" "– ASHLEY:" "What if... what if... .. these peace commissioners appear today, or..." "ASHLEY: .. or worse, on the morning..." "– M.B.:" "State by state you can extirpate..." "I can't listen to this anymore." "I can't accomplish a goddamned thing of any human meaning or worth until we cure ourselves of slavery, and end this pestilential war," "and whether any of you or anyone else knows it, I know I need this!" "This amendment is that cure!" "We're stepped out upon the world's stage now, NOW!" "With the fate of human dignity in our hands!" "Blood's been spilt to afford us this moment!" "Now now now!" "But you grousle and heckle and dodge about like pettifogging Tammany Hall hucksters!" "See what is before you!" "See the here and now!" "That's the hardest thing, the only thing that accounts!" "Abolishing slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage" "but of unborn millions to come." "Two votes stand in its way, and these votes must be procured!" "We need two yeses, three abstentions, or four yeses and one more abstention and the amendment will pass." "You got a night and a day and a night and several perfectly good hours, now get the hell out of here and get 'em!" "ASHLEY:" "Yes." "But how?" "Buzzards' guts, man." "I am the President of the United States of America, clothed in immense power!" "You will procure me these votes." "LITTON:" "We welcome you, ladies and gentlemen, first in the history of this people's chamber, to your House!" "COLFAX:" "Mr. Ashley, the floor is yours." "ASHLEY:" "On the matter of the joint resolution before us, presenting a Thirteenth Amendment to our national Constitution, which was passed last year by the Senate, and which has been debated now by this estimable body for the past several weeks," "today we will vote..." "[Cheers, boos, applause]" "By mutual agreement, we shall hear brief final statements, beginning with the honorable George Pendleton of Ohio." "PENDLETON:" "I've just received confirmation of what previously has been merely rumored!" "Affidavits!" "From loyal citizens recently returned from Richmond." "They testify that Commissioners have indeed come north and ought to have arrived by now in Washington City, bearing an offer of immediate cessation of our civil war!" "[The chamber explodes]" "WOOD:" "Is it true, sir?" "WOOD:" "Are there Confederate commissioners in the Capitol?" "ASHLEY:" "I don't..." "I have no idea where they are or if they've arrived." "WOOD:" "If they've arrived?" "!" "PENDLETON:" "I appeal to my fellow Democrats, to all Republican representatives who give a fig for peace!" "Postpone this vote until we have answers from the President himself!" "[ Democrats begin to chant] Postpone the vote!" "Postpone the vote!" "Postpone the vote!" "Postpone the vote!" "Postpone the vote!" "Postpone the vote!" "AARON HADDAM:" "Gentlemen!" "WOOD:" "I have made a motion!" "Does anyone here care to second my motion?" "[ Democrats still shouting] Postpone the vote!" "Postpone the vote!" "HADDAM:" "Gentlemen." "The conservative faction of border and western Republicans cannot approve this amendment, about which we harbor grave doubts... if a peace offer is being held hostage to its success." "Joining together with our Democratic colleagues, I second the motion to postpone." "[Bilbo mumbles] LATHAM:" "Quick, man!" "Quick!" "LINCOLN:" "This is precisely what Mr. Wood wishes me to respond to?" "Word for word, this is precisely the assurance that he demands of me?" "BILBO:" "Yes sir." "Give this to Mr. Ashley." "JOHN HAY:" "I feel, um, I have to say, Mr. Lincoln, that this..." "Could you please just step outside?" "!" "You gonna have a chat now, with the whole of the House of Representatives waiting on that?" "Making false representation to Congress is..." "It's, it's..." "– It's Impeachable." "I've made no false representation." "But there are!" "There is a delegation from Richmond." "LINCOLN:" "Give me the note, Johnnie." "Please deliver that to Mr. Ashley." "ASHLEY:" "From the President:" ""So far as I know, there are no peace commissioners in the city nor are there likely to be"." "PENDLETON: "So far as I know"?" "!" "That means nothing!" "Are there commissioners from the South or aren't there?" "!" "ASHLEY:" "The President has answered you, sir." "Your peace offer is a fiction!" "PENDLETON:" "That is not a denial, it is a lawyer's dodge!" "ASHLEY:" "Mr. Haddam, is your faction satisfied?" "The conservative Republican faction's satisfied, and we thank Mr. Lincoln." "I move to table Mr. Wood's motion." "COLFAX:" "Tabled!" "ASHLEY:" "Speaker Colfax, I order the main question." "A motion has been made to bring the bill for the Thirteenth Amendment to a vote." "Do I hear a second?" "– LITTON:" "I second the motion." "COLFAX:" "So moved, so ordered." "The Clerk will now..." "Quiet please." "COLFAX:" "The clerk will now call the roll for the voting." "CLERK:" "We begin with Connecticut." "Mr. Augustus Benjamin, on the matter of this amendment, how say you?" "Nay!" "– CLERK:" "Mr. Arthur Bentleigh." "– Nay!" "CLERK:" "Mr. John Ellis, how say you?" "– Aye!" "– A DEMOCRAT:" "What?" "[Colfax gavels for order]" "CLERK:" "Missouri next." "Mr. Walter Appleton." "I vote no!" "CLERK:" "Mr. Josiah Burton." "Beanpole Burton is pleased to vote yea!" "clerk:" "The State of New Jersey." "Mr. Nehemiah Cleary." "No." "CLERK:" "Mr. James Martinson." "ASHLEY:" "Mr. Martinson has delegated me to say he is indisposed..." "and he abstains." "– Mr. Austin J. Roberts." "– Also indisposed, also abstaining." "CLERK:" "Illinois concluded." "CLERK:" "Mr. Harold Hollister, how say you?" "– No." "CLERK:" "Mr. Hutton?" "Mr. William Hutton, cast your vote." "William Hutton, remembering at this moment his beloved brother Fredrick, votes against the amendment." "SOLDIER:" "Webster Allen votes no." "[Cable telegraph clicking]" "[READING] Webster Allen..." "Illinois..." "Democrat... votes..." "[Cable telegraph keeps clicking] No." "Halberd Law..." "Indiana..." "Democrat... votes... no." "[Sergeant keeps reading as it comes] Archibald Moran..." "Yes." "Ambrose Bailer... yes." "– CLERK:" "Mr. Walter H. Washburn." "– Votes no." "And Mr. George Yeaman, how say you?" "[Total silence]" "[Yeaman mumbles inaudibly]" "Sorry Mr. Yeaman, I didn't hear you vote." "I said aye, Mr. McPherson." "AAAAAYE!" "– WOOD:" "Traitor!" "WOOD:" "Traitor!" "– COLFAX:" "Order!" "COLFAX:" "Order in that chamber!" "COLFAX:" "Mr. MacPherson, you may proceed." "CLERK:" "Mr. Clay R. Hawkins of Ohio." "Goddamn it, I'm voting yes." "I don't care, shoot me dead!" "You shoot me dead, I-I am voting yes!" "CLERK:" "Mr. Edwin F. LeClerk." "No!" "Oh to hell with it, shoot me dead too." "Yes!" "LECLERK:" "I mean..." "Abstention." "Abstention." "CLERK:" "Mr. Alexander Coffroth." "I..." "Vote..." "Yes." "[Cable clicking, Sergeant reading] Yea." "James..." "Brooks..." "Nay." "Josiah..." "Grinnell..." "Yea." "Meyer..." "Straus..." "– Nay." "– CLERK:" "Mr. Joseph Marstern?" "– Nay." "– Mr. Chilton A. Elliot?" "– No!" "– Mr. Daniel G. Stuart?" "– I vote yes." "– Mr. Howard Guilefoyle." "– Yea." "– John F. McKenzie." "– Yea." "– Andrew E. Fink." "– Nay." "– Mr. John A. Kassim." "– Yea." "– Mr. Hanready." "– Nay." "– And Mr. Rufus Warren?" "– Yea." "CLERK:" "The roll call concludes, voting is completed, now..." "COLFAX:" "Mr. Clerk..." "Please call my name." "I want to cast a vote." "PENDLETON:" "I object!" "The Speaker doesn't vote!" "COLFAX:" "The Speaker may vote if he so chooses." "It is highly unusual, sir." "This isn't usual, Mr. Pendleton." "This is history." "CLERK:" "How does Mr. Schuyler Colfax vote?" "Aye, of course." "The final vote." "eight absent or not voting, fifty six votes against, one hundred nineteen votes for, with a margin of two votes..." "[Bells begin to peal throughout the city]" "[Bells are joined by a cannonade]" "[Representatives applaude, weep, shout, dance, yell]" "Ashley, this time we've made it!" "clerk:" "Congratulations, Mr. Chairman." "With the bill, Mr. McPherson, may I...?" "CLERK:" "That's... that's the official bill." "I'll return it in the morning." "Creased..." "but unharmed." "STEVENS:" "A gift for you." "STEVENS:" "The greatest measure of the Nineteenth Century, passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America." "Aah, I wish you'd been present." "– LYDIA SMITH:" "I wish I'd been." "– It was a spectacle." "LYDIA:" "You can't bring your housekeeper to the House." "I won't give them gossip." "This is enough." "This is..." "It's more than enough for now." "STEVENS:" "Read it to me again, my love." "LYDIA: "Proposed"... – And adopted." "– Adopted." ""An Amendment to the Constitution of the United States." "Section One:" "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."" "– Section Two." "– "Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation."" "[All cheer Lincoln's arrival]" "ALEXANDER STEPHENS:" "Let me be blunt." "Will the southern states resume their former position in the Union speedily enough to enable us to block ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment?" "LINCOLN:" "I'd like peace immediately." "STEPHENS:" "Yes, and...?" "LINCOLN:" "I'd like your states restored to their practical relations to the Union immediately." "If this could be given me in writing, as Vice President of the Confederacy," "I'd bring that document with celerity to Jefferson Davis." "SEWARD:" "Surrender, and we can discuss reconstruction." "Surrender won't be thought of unless you've assured us, in writing, that we'll be readmitted in time to block this amendment." "HUNTER:" "This is the arrogant demand of a conqueror." "SEWARD:" "You'll not be a conquered people, Mr. Hunter, you will be citizens." "Returned to the laws and the guarantees of rights of the Constitution." "Which now extinguishes slavery." "And with it our economy." "All our laws will be determined by a Congress of vengeful Yankees, all our rights'll be subject to a Supreme Court benched by Black Republican radicals." "All our traditions will be obliterated." "We won't know ourselves anymore." "We ain't here to discuss reconstruction, we have no legal basis for that discussion." "But I don't want to deal falsely." "The Northern states'll ratify, most of 'em." "As I figure, it remains for two of the Southern states to do the same, even after all are readmitted." "And I been working on that." "Tennessee and Louisiana." "Arkansas too, most likely." "It'll be ratified." "Slavery, sir... it's done." "If we submit ourselves to law, Alex, even submit to losing freedoms... the freedom to oppress, for instance... we may discover other freedoms previously unknown to us." "Had you kept faith with democratic process, as frustrating as that can be..." "– CAMPBELL:" "Come sir, spare us at least these pieties." "Did you defeat us with ballots?" "STEPHENS:" "How've you held your Union together?" "Through democracy?" "How many hundreds of thousands have died during your administration?" "Your Union, sir, is bonded in cannon fire and death." "LINCOLN:" "It may be you're right." "But say all we done is show the world that democracy isn't chaos, that there is a great invisible strength in a people's union?" "Say we've shown that a people can endure awful sacrifice and yet cohere?" "Mightn't that save at least the idea of democracy to aspire to?" "Eventually, to become worthy of?" "At all rates, whatever may be proven by blood and sacrifice must've been proved by now." "Shall we stop this bleeding?" "LINCOLN:" "Once he surrenders, send his boys back to their homes, their farms, their shops." "GRANT:" "Yes sir... as we discussed." "LINCOLN:" "Liberality all around." "No punishment." "I don't want that." "And the leaders" "Jeff and the rest of 'em... if they escape, leave the country while my back's turned, that wouldn't upset me none." "When peace comes it mustn't just be hangings." "By outward appearance, you're ten years older than you were a year ago." "Some weariness has bit at my bones." "I never seen the like of it before." "What I seen today." "Never seen the like of it before." "GRANT:" "You always knew that..." "what this was going to be." "Intimate, and ugly." "You must've needed to see it close when you decided to come down here." "LINCOLN:" "We've made it possible for one another to do terrible things." "GRANT:" "And we've won the war." "Now you have to lead us out of it." "You've an itch to travel?" "I'd like that." "To the West by rail." "Overseas." "The Holy Land." "Awfully pious for a man who takes his wife out buggy-riding on Good Friday." "Jerusalem." "Where David and Solomon walked." "I dream of... walking in that ancient city." "All anyone will remember of me is I was crazy and I ruined your happiness." "Anyone thinks that doesn't understand, Molly." "When they look at you, at what it cost to live at the heart of this," "they'll wonder at it." "They'll wonder at you, they should." "But they should also look at the wretched woman by your side, if they want to understand what this was truly like." "For the ordinary person." "For anyone other than you." "We must try to be happier." "We must." "Both of us." "We've been so miserable for so long." "LINCOLN:" "I did say some colored men, the intelligent, the educated, and veterans, I qualified it." "ASHLEY:" "Mr. Stevens is furious, he wants to know why you qualified it." "COLFAX:" "No one's heard the intelligent or the educated part." "All they heard was the first time any president has ever made mention of Negro voting." "LINCOLN:" "Still, I wish I had mentioned it in a better speech." "ASHLEY:" "Mr. Stevens also wants to know why you didn't make a better speech." "NICOLAY:" "Mrs. Lincoln's waiting in the carriage." "She wants me to remind you of the hour, and that you'll have to pick up Miss Harris and Major Rathbone." "– LINCOLN:" "Am I in trouble?" "– SLADE:" "No, sir." "Thank you, Mr. Slade." "LINCOLN:" "I suppose it's time to go, though I would rather stay." "OWNER OF THE THEATER:" "The President has been shot!" "The President has been shot at Ford's Theater!" "DR. BARNES:" "It's... 7:22 in the morning," "Saturday the 15th of April." "It's all over." "The President is no more." "STANTON:" "Now he belongs to the ages." "LINCOLN:" "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away." "Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk," "and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword," "as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said" ""the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."" "With malice toward none, with charity for all," "with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds," "to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan," "to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." "Transcript and sync: jcdr"