Lincoln (2/2)

Beginning
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& Yeaman: Now who among us is prepared to give Negroes the vote?.. And, and, what shall follow upon that? Universal enfranchisement?... Votes for women?....

& Grant: If you want to discuss peace with President Lincoln, consider revisions.
    Stephens: If we’re not to discuss a truce between warring nations, what in heaven’s name can we discuss?
    Grant: Terms of surrender.

& Lincoln: You think we choose to be born? Are we fitted to the times we’re born into?

& 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, mmm, Euclid says this is “self-evident.” You see? There it is, even in that 2,000-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’s balance. That’s... That’s fairness. That’s justice.

& Ashley: Say you believe only in legal equality for all races, not racial equality. I beg you, sir. Compromise. Or you risk it all.

& Stevens: I don’t hold with equality in all things, just equality before the law, nothing more.

& Pendleton: Your frantic attempt to delude us now is unworthy of a representative. It is, in fact, unworthy of a white man!
    Stevens: 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. How dare you? Yet even you, Pendleton, who should have been gibbeted for treason long before today. Even worthless, unworthy you ought to be treated equally before the law!

& Lincoln: 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.

& Mary Todd: 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.
    Lincoln: Seward doesn’t want me leaving big muddy footprints all over town...
    Mary Todd: 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!

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& Ashley: What if the peace commissioners appear today, or worse...
    Lincoln: I can’t listen to this anymore. I can’t accomplish a goddamn 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 are stepped out upon the world stage now! Now! With the fate of human dignity in our hands! Blood’s been spilt to afford us this moment! Now! Now! Now! And 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. These votes must be procured!

& Seward: We need two yeses, three abstentions, or four yeses and one more abstention, and the amendment will pass...
    Lincoln: 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?
    Lincoln: Buzzards’ guts, man!! I am the President of the United States of America clothed in immense power! You will procure me these votes!

& 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.
    Pendleton: It is highly unusual, sir.
    Colfax: This isn’t usual, Mr. Pendleton... This is history.

& Colfax: The final vote... Eight absent or not voting... Fifty-six votes against... One hundred and nineteen votes for. With a margin of two votes...

& Lincoln: 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.

& Grant: We’ve won the war. Now you have to lead us out of it.

& Mary Todd: You have an itch to travel?
    Lincoln: Mm-hmm. I’d like that. To the West, by rail.
    Mary Todd: Overseas.
    Lincoln: The Holy Land.
    Mary Todd: Awfully pious for a man who takes his wife out buggy-riding on Good Friday.
    Lincoln: Jerusalem. Where David and Solomon walked. I dream of walking in that ancient city...

& Mary Todd: 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.
    Lincoln: You must try to be happier. We must, both of us. We’ve been so miserable for so long...

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