Original subtitles

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

(MEN CLAMORING)

(YELLING)

(SCREAMING)

(GROANING)

MAN: Some of us was in the Second Kansas Colored.

We fought the Rebs at Jenkins' Ferry last April

just after they killed every Negro soldier

they captured at Poison Springs.

So at Jenkins' Ferry,

we decided warn't takin' 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 the 1 1 6th 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 have you been a soldier?

Two years, sir.

LINCOLN: The 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 $3 less each month than white soldiers.

Us Second Kansas boys...

Another $3 subtracted from our pay for our uniforms.

That was true, yes sir, but that's changed.

Equal pay now, but still no commissioned Negro officers.

LINCOLN: I'm aware of that, Corporal Clark.

Yes, sir. That's good that you're aware, sir...

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 will you do after the war, Corporal Clark?

Work, sir.

-Hm. -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 that it'd make any difference.

IRA: You got springy hair for a white man.

Yes, I do.

My last barber hanged himself. (CHUCKLES)

And the one before that.

Left me his scissors in his will.

(CHUCKLES)

YOUNG MAN 1 : President Lincoln, sir.

Good evening, boys.

YOUNG MAN 2: We saw you, and...

-We were at... -We was at Gettysburg.

You boys fight at Gettysburg?

No, 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... (STAMMERING) Goddamn.

Uh, hey, how tall are you, anyway?

Aw, jeez, shut up.

Could you hear what I said?

YOUNG MAN 1 : No, sir. Not much.

It was...

"Four score and seven years ago,

"our fathers brought forth from this continent

"a new nation, conceived in liberty

"and dedicated to the proposition

"that all men are created equal."

That's good. Thank you.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

"testing whether that nation or any nation

"so conceived and so dedicated,

"can long endure.

(STAMMERING)

"We are met on a great battlefield of that war."

That's good, thank you.

YOUNG MAN 2: "We 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."

His uncles, they died on the second day of fighting.

I know the last part. It is, uh...

OFFICER: Company up! Moving out!

You boys best go and find your company.

-And thank you. -Thank you, sir.

-God bless you. -God bless you, too.

God bless you.

"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.

Ship's moved by some terribie power

at a terrific speed.

And 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.

I'm very keenly aware of my aloneness.

"I could be bounded in a nutshell

"and count myself a king of infinite space

"were it not that I have bad dreams."

Hmm.

I reckon it's the speed that's strange to me.

I'm used to going at a deliberate pace.

I should spare you, Molly.

I shouldn't tell you my dreams.

I don't want to be spared if you aren't.

And you spare me nothing.

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 to you anymore.

I'm not to be trusted

even if it was not a carriage accident.

Even if it was an attempted assassination.

It was most probably an accident.

It was an assassin whose intended target was you.

How are the plans coming along for the big shindy?

I don't want to talk about parties.

You don't care about parties.

Not much, but they're a necessary hindrance.

(LINCOLN SIGHS)

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?

You're going to 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 flubdubs.

No one is 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 of defeat.

Did you remember Robert's coming home for the reception?

Mm?

I knew you'd forget.

That's the ship you're sailing on,

the 1 3th Amendment.

You needn't tell me I'm right. I know I am.

-(DOOR CREAKING) -Oh!

Oh, it's late, Mrs. Keckley.

Well, she needs this for the grand reception.

It's slow work.

Good night.

Did you tell her a dream?

(DOOR OPENS)

(KISSES)

-Papa. -Mm-hmm.

Papa, I want to see Willie.

LINCOLN: Me, too, Taddie, but we can't.

TAD: Why not?

LINCOLN: Willie's gone.

It's three years now he's gone.

(PLAYING A MARCH)

(MUSIC STOPS)

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'll be for the people to keep it up.

That's my speech.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

(AUDIENCE CLAPPING)

ALL: (SINGING) We are coming, Father Abraham

Three hundred thousand more

From Mississippi's winding stream

And from New England's shore

We leave our plow and workshops

Our wives...

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?

(LAUGHS) "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?

Well, it 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 rat's nest in there.

It's the same gang of talentless hicks and hacks

who rejected the amendment 1 0 months ago.

We'll lose.

I like our chances now.

Well, consider the obstacles that we'd face.

The aforementioned two-thirds majority

needed to pass an amendment.

We have a Republican majority, but barely more than 50%.

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 64 Democrats looking for work come March.

I know.

They don't need to worry about re-election.

They can vote however it suits them.

But we can't buy the vote for the amendment.

-It's too important. -(KNOCKING ON DOOR)

I said nothing of buying anything.

We need twenty votes was all I said.

Start of my second term, plenty of positions to fill.

(CROWD OUTSIDE CLAMORING)

Mr. President, may I present

Mr. and Mrs. Jolly who've come from Missouri...

From Jeff City, President.

Mr. Jolly.

Ma'am.

And this here by the fire is Secretary of State Seward.

(DOOR CLOSES)

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, uh, one day

the lawyer shot him,

for the sake of peace and quiet, I presume.

Thus fulfilling, for the bird at least,

his prophecy.

There's only one toll booth in Jeff City,

to the southwest

and this man Heinz Sauermagen from Rolla

been in illegal possession for near two yar

since your man General Schofield

set him up there.

But President Monroe give that toll gate

to my granpap

and Quincy Adams

(CLEARS THROAT) give my pap a letter

saying it's our'n for keeps.

Mrs. Jolly got the...

Show Mr. Lincoln the Quincy Adams letter.

That's unnecessary, Mrs. Jolly.

Just tell me what you want from me.

(COUGHS)

Mr. Jolly's emphysema don't care for cigars.

Madame, do you know about the proposed

1 3th Amendment of the Constitution?

Yes, sir, everybody knows of it.

The President favors it.

-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 we do away with slavery, the Rebs'll quit fighting

since slavery's what they're fighting for.

Mr. Lincoln, you always says so.

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...

President Lincoln says the war won't stop

unless we finish slavery.

But if it did.

The South is exhausted.

If they run out of bullets and men

would you still want your...

Who's your Representative?

Jeff City? That's Congressman Burton.

"Beanpole" Burton.

I mean, Josiah Burton, yes, sir.

A Republican,

undecided on the question of the amendment, I believe.

Perhaps you could call on him

and inform him of your enthusiasm.

Yeah.

SEWARD: Madame.

If the Rebels surrendered next week

would you, at the end of this month

want Congressman Burton to vote

for the 1 3th Amendment?

If that was how it was, no more war and all

I reckon Mr. Jolly much prefer not to have

Congress pass the amendment.

SEWARD: Hmm. And, uh

why is that?

Niggers.

If he don't have to let some Alabama coon

come up to Missouri

steal his chickens and his job,

we'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 toll booth?

Come back to me in the morning

and we'll consider what the law says.

You be sure to

visit Beanpole.

Tell him that you support passage of the amendment

as a military necessity.

NICOLAY: Thank you.

Oh, Nicolay, when you have a moment.

(CROWD CLAMORING)

(DOOR CLOSES)

If procuring votes

with offers of employment is what you intend

I'll fetch a friend from Albany

who can supply the skulky men

gifted at this kind of shady work

and spare me the indignity

of actually speaking to Democrats.

Spare you the exposure and liability.

(KNOCKING ON DOOR)

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.

You had nightmares all night long.

I'll have worse nightmares if you don't let me look

at the plates again.

Perhaps.

You can't afford a single defection

from anyone in the 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 5:00.

God help you.

God alone knows what he'll ask you to give him.

If the Blairs tell them to,

no Republican will balk at voting for the amendment.

No conservative Republican is what you mean.

All Republicans ought to be conservative.

I founded this party,

in my own goddamn home, to be a

conservative anti-slavery party,

not a hobbyhorse for goddamn radical abolitionists.

Damp down the dyspepsia, Daddy.

You'll frighten the child.

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?

Whoa! Blunt!

Your manners, Monty, must be why Mr. Lincoln

pushed you out of his Cabinet.

-I wasn't pushed! -Oh, of course you weren't.

He was pushed out to placate the damn radicals!

-I agreed to resign. -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? (LAUGHS)

Soldiers know all manner of songs.

How's your brother Bob?

He's at school now, but he's coming

to visit in four days for the shindy.

At school. Ain't that fine?

Good he's not in the Army.

He wants to be, but Mama said he cannot.

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 can give him

is to go down to Richmond, like he said I could

as soon as Savannah fell

and talk to Jefferson Davis.

Now 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 them

that you're seeking a negotiated peace.

Leo, it's 1 00 miles to Richmond.

Get him drunk so he can sleep.

Yes, ma'am.

Here, Daddy.

Oh.

-Thank you. -Yes, sir, all right.

Where's my hat?

Leo has your hat.

All right?

Go make peace.

Thunder forth, God of War.

We'll commence our assault on Wilmington from the sea.

Why is this burnt?

Was the boy playing with it?

It got took by a breeze several nights back.

This is an official War Department map.

And the entire Cabinet's waiting

to hear what it portends.

WELLES: A bombardment.

From the largest fleet the Navy has ever assembled.

Old Neptune, shake thy hoary locks!

Fifty-eight ships are under way,

of every tonnage and firing range.

STANTON: We'll keep up a steady barrage.

Our first target is Fort Fisher.

It defends Wilmington Port.

SPEED: A steady barrage?

A hundred shells a minute.

Till they surrender.

-Dear God. -(ALL MURMURING)

LINCOLN: Wilmington's their last open seaport, therefore...

Wilmington falls, Richmond falls after.

And the war is done.

MEN: Hear, hear!

Then why, if I might 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 what's...

To what's likely to be its premature demise.

MEN: Hear, hear!

You signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

You've done all that could be done.

The Emancipation Proclamation's

merely a war measure. After the war, the courts...

When Edward Bates was Attorney General,

he felt confident enough to let you sign it!

Different lawyers, different opinions.

It frees slaves as a military exigent. Not...

I don't recall Edward Bates being any too certain about

the legality of my proclamation.

Just it wasn't downright criminal.

(ALL CHUCKLING)

Somewheres in between.

Mm.

Back when I rode the legal circuit in Illinois,

I defended a woman from Metamora

named Melissa Goings.

Seventy-seven years old.

They said she'd murdered her husband. He was 83.

He was choking her

and she grabbed a hold of a stick of firewood

and fractured his skull and he died.

In his will, he wrote,

(CHUCKLES)

"I expect she has killed me."

(ALL LAUGHING)

"If I get over it, I will have revenge."

(LAUGHTER CONTINUES)

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.

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.

(CHUCKLING) 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.

(MEN LAUGHING)

Mrs. Goings was seen no more in Metamora.

Enough justice had been done.

They even forgave the bondsman her bail.

USHER: I'm afraid I don't see...

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 I could take

the Rebels' slaves from them

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. 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.

Well, the South ain't a nation.

That's why I can't negotiate with them.

So if, in fact, the Negroes are property,

according to the law,

have I the right to take the Rebels' property

from them, 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 them

as such, so I confiscate them.

But if I'm a respecter of states' laws,

how then can I legally free them

with my Proclamation as I done?

Unless I'm canceling 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."

Now 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 1 3th Amendment through the House,

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."

(MEN CHUCKLING)

It seems to me, sir, you're describing

precisely the sort of dictator

the Democrats have been howling about.

SPEED: Dictators aren't susceptible to law.

USHER: Neither is he. He just said as much.

Ignoring the courts? Twisting meanings?

What reins him in from... From...

Well, the people do that, I suppose.

I signed the Emancipation Proclamation,

what, a year and a 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 them a year and a half to think about it,

and they re-elected me.

And come February the first,

I intend to sign the 1 3th Amendment!

(PEN CLATTERS ON TABLE)

(CROWD CLAMORING)

(DOOR CLOSES)

Well, Mr. Representative Ashley.

Tell us the news from the Hill.

ASHLEY: Ah, well, the 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,

-immediately. -Excuse me, what?

You are the amendment's manager, are you not?

I am, of course, but...

Then 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...

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 have softened

after they got walloped, but

they have stiffened, if anything, Mr. Secretary.

There aren't nearly enough votes.

We're whalers, Mr. Ashley.

Whalers? As in, uh... Whales?

We've been chasing this whale for a long time.

And we 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.

On the 31 st of this month, of this year,

put the amendment up for a vote.

Whalers?

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.

(STAMMERING) 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 will be the easy work of 1 0 minutes.

He's using the threat of the amendment

to frighten the Rebels into an immediate surrender.

I imagine we'd rejoice to see that.

Will you rejoice when the Southern states

have rejoined 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 cooperating 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 said he'd welcome the South back

with all its slaves in chains.

Three years ago he said that, to calm the border states.

STEVENS: I don't!

You said we all know what he'll do. I don't know.

You know he isn't to be trusted.

Trust? Oh.

I'm sorry, I was under the misapprehension

that your chosen profession was politics.

I never trusted the President, never trusted anyone,

but hasn't he surprised you?

ASA: No, Mr. Stevens, he hasn't.

(SIGHS) 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.

(CHUCKLES)

It's late.

I'm old.

I'm going home.

Lincoln, the inveterate dawdler.

Lincoln, the Southerner.

Lincoln, the capitulating compromiser,

our adversary, and

leader of the godforsaken 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.

Hell, you can have that for nothing.

What we need money for is bribes, to speed things up.

SEWARD: No, nothing strictly illegal.

It's not illegal to bribe Congressmen,

they'd starve otherwise.

I have explained to Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Latham that

we are offering patronage jobs

to the Dems who vote yes.

-Jobs and nothing more. -That's correct.

Congressmen come cheap.

Few thousand bucks will buy you all you need.

The President would be unhappy to hear you did that.

(CHUCKLES) Will he be unhappy if we lose?

The money I managed to raise for this endeavor

is only for your fees, your food and lodging.

Uh-huh.

If that squirrel-infested attic

you've quartered us in is any measure,

you ain't raised much.

Shall we get to work?

(GAVEL BANGING)

The House recognizes Fernando Wood,

(ALL CLAMORING)

the honorable Representative from New York.

Estimable colleagues.

Two bloody years ago this month

His Highness,

King Abraham Africanus the First,

(MEN CLAMORING)

our great usurping Caesar,

violator of habeas corpus and freedom of the press,

abuser of states' rights...

If Lincoln really were a tyrant, Mr. Wood,

he'd have had your empty head

impaled on a pike!

(MEN CHEERING AND APPLAUDING)

And the country better for it!

Radical Republican autocrat,

ruling by fiat and martial law,

affixed his name to his heinous and illicit

Emancipation Proclamation

promising it would hasten the end of the war,

which yet rages on and on.

He claimed, as tyrants do

that the war's emergencies

permitted him to turn our army into...

The New York delegation is looking decidedly uninspired.

...and radical Republicanism's abolitionist fanaticism!

(MEN CLAMORING)

His Emancipation Proclamation

has obliterated millions of dollars...

Over in Pennsylvania,

who's the sweaty man eating his thumb?

LATHAM: Unknown to me. Seems jumpy.

Perhaps he'll jump.

(MEN CLAMORING)

But all that was not enough for this dictator,

who now seeks to insinuate...

Jesus.

When's this son of liberty sum-a-bitch gonna sit down?

John Ellis is gonna break his watch if he doesn't stop.

WOOD: We are once again asked, nay

commanded, to consider a proposed 1 3th Amendment

(MEN CLAMORING)

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!

(MEN CHEERING AND CLAMORING)

What's more interesting

is how dismal and disgruntled

Mr. Yeaman appears.

WOOD: Every member of this House...

He should be cheering right now.

Looks like he ate a bad oyster.

WOOD: ...Party and the constituents it serves

shall oppose...

Point of order, Mr. Speaker, if you please.

Mr. Speaker, I still have the floor.

And the gentleman from Pennsylvania

is out of order!

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 capabilities!

(MEN LAUGHING)

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!

(MEN CHEERING)

Slavery is the only insult to natural law,

you fatuous nincompoop!

(MEN LAUGHING AND CHEERING)

Order!

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?

(MEN CLAMORING)

What violates natural law?

Slavery and you.

Pendleton, you insult God!

You unnatural noise.

(MEN LAUGHING AND CHEERING)

Mr. Colfax, please, use your gavel!

-You are out of order! -Order in the Cabinet!

ASHLEY: Instruct the Sergeant-at-Arms

to suppress this!

We are in session!

-Please don't encourage this! -(GOAT BLEATS)

Don't encourage this!

(LAUGHS)

You're back! You're back! You're back!

(LAUGHS)

I am. The goat got big.

Help me get one of these to my room.

-She in there? -She's asleep, probably.

-You need help, sir? -No, sir.

They went to see Avonia Jones last night

in a play about Israelites.

Could you bring your pa this letter I writ

about my insolvency proceeding?

Deliver your own goddamn petition.

There's a new book. Sam Beckwith

says it's about finches and finches' beaks,

about how they change.

(WHISPERS) He's here.

He's here! Mrs. Cuthbert, he's here!

-Robbie. -Hi, Mom.

-Oh, Robbie. -Hey.

-Robbie. -Hey.

Oh.

(TAD CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)

You're only staying a few days, why'd you pack all that?

Well, I don't know how long...

Go tell your father Robert's home.

Mr. Nicolay says Daddy's secluded with Mr. Blair.

Tell him anyway.

-Did you forget to eat? -(CHUCKLES)

-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 going to go back...

We'll fatten you up before you return to Boston.

-All right, Mom. -All right.

Oh, Robbie.

Jefferson Davis is sending three delegates.

Stephens, Hunter and Campbell.

Vice President of the Confederacy,

the 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 will be passable,

the spring slaughter commences.

Four bloody springs now.

Think of my Frank,

whom 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 will die

if you don't make peace.

You must talk with these men.

I intend to, Preston.

In return, I must ask you to support our push for the amendment...

No, this is not horse trading.

(KNOCKING ON DOOR)

Not now!

Bob. I'm sorry.

-Welcome home. -Thank you, sir.

Looking fit, Robert. Harvard agrees with you.

-Mr. Blair. -Fit and rested.

Could you give us a moment, please, Robert? Thank you.

I will procure your votes for you, as I promised.

You have always kept your word to me.

Those Southern men are coming.

I beg you, in the name of gentle Christ, sir.

I understand.

Talk peace with these men.

I understand, Preston.

LATHAM: We have one abstention so far.

SCHELL: Jacob Graylor.

He'd like to be Federal Revenue Assessor

for the 5th District of Pennsylvania.

So the total of Representatives

voting three weeks from today is reduced to 1 82,

which means 1 22 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 twenty yeses short.

For which we're seeking

from among 64 lame duck Democrats.

Fully 39 of these we deem unredeemable no votes.

The kind that hates niggers.

Hates God for makin' niggers.

The Good Lord on high would despair of their souls.

Thank you for that pithy explanation, Mr. Bilbo.

We've abandoned these 39 to

the devil that possesses them.

We would...

The remaining lame ducks, on whom we've been working with a purpose.

Charles Hanson.

Congressman.

My colleagues and I would like a moment of your time.

I wonder if you've given much thought...

Giles Stuart.

Rather clumsy.

LATHAM: Nelson Merrick.

Homer Benson.

My name is Richard Schell.

I wanted you to have a look at this prospectus here.

And lastly,

Clay Hawkins. Of Ohio.

Tax Collector for the Western Reserve.

That pays handsomely.

Don't just reach for the highest branches,

they sway in every breeze.

Assistant Port Inspector in Morristown

looks like the ticket to me.

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.

Six?

Well, thus far.

Plus Graylor's abstention.

-From tiny acorns and so on. -What did Hawkins get?

Postmaster of the Millersburg Post Office.

He's selling himself cheap, ain't he?

Well, he wanted Tax Collector of the Western Reserve.

First term Congressman who couldn't manage reelection.

I felt it unseemly

and they bargained him down to Postmaster.

Scatter them over several rounds of appointments

so no one notices, then burn this ledger,

please, after you're done.

Time for my public opinion bath.

Might as well let them in.

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 that you would never.

Not without consulting me, you wouldn't.

Because why on earth would you?

Much obliged.

SEWARD: Why wasn't I consulted?

I'm Secretary of State.

And you informally send a reactionary dotard to...

What will happen, do you imagine,

when these peace commissioners arrive?

We'll hear them out.

Oh. Splendid.

And next, the Democrats will invite them

up to hearings on the Hill.

And the newspapers... Oh, 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 them, and all our work,

all our preparing the ground for the vote

laid waste for naught.

The Blairs 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've 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."

A disaster. This is a disaster.

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 1 3 votes.

Them fellas from Richmond ain't here yet.

(INDISTINCT TALKING)

(SHIP HORN BLOWING)

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 them. Don't think...

You're delaying, that's your favorite tactic.

-Be useful... -You won't tell me no,

but the war will be over in a month, and you know it will.

I've found that prophesying

is one of life's less profitable occupations.

(CHUCKLING)

Why do some slaves cost more than others?

Uh, if they're still young and healthy,

or if the women can still conceive, they pay more.

Put them back in the box, you scoundrel.

We'll return them to Mr. Gardner's studio

day after next.

Be careful with them now.

These things should have stayed on the calf.

When you were a slave, Mr. Slade, did they beat you?

I was born a free man.

Nobody beat me except I beat them right back.

(KNOCKING ON DOOR)

Mr. Lincoln...

Mrs. Keckley was a slave. Ask her if she was beaten.

-TAD: Were you... -Tad.

KECKLEY: 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.

She never goes in there.

The reception line is already stretching out the door.

See, I'll be the only man over 1 5 and under 65

in this whole place not in uniform.

I'm under 1 5.

My head hurts so.

I prayed for death the night Willie died.

My headaches are how I know I didn't get my wish.

How to endure the long afternoon

and deep into the night.

I know.

Trying not to think about him. How will I manage?

-Somehow. You will. -Somehow?

Oh.

Somehow. Somehow.

Every party.

Every...

And now

four years more in this terrible house,

reproaching us.

He was a very sick little boy.

We should have canceled that reception, shouldn't we?

We didn't know how sick he was.

I knew. I knew.

I saw that night (VOICE BREAKING) he was dying.

Three years ago, the war was going so badly.

We had to put on a face.

(VOICE BREAKING) But I saw Willie was dying.

Molly...

(SOBBING) I saw him.

It's too hard.

(KISSES)

Too hard.

-(CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) -(LAUGHING)

Oh, gracious saints!

(INDISTINCT)

She's just ten feet yonder. I'd like to keep my job.

-How nice to see you. -Nice to see you.

Senator Sumner. It's been much too long.

"Oh, who can look on that celestial face..."

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. -Mrs. Lincoln.

Madame President, if you please.

(LAUGHS)

Don't convene another subcommittee

to investigate me, sir.

I'm teasing. Smile, Senator Wade.

I believe I am smiling, Mrs. Lincoln.

As long as your household accounts

are in order, madam,

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 on 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.

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 contribution

so as not to frighten our conservative friends.

Ashley insists you're ensuring approval

by dispensing patronage

to otherwise undeserving Democrats.

I can't ensure a single damn thing

if you scare the whole House silly

with talk of land appropriations

and revolutionary tribunals.

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.

(CHUCKLING) It is 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.

When the people disagree, bringing them together

requires going slow until they're ready to...

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 them.

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, but

if I'd listened to you,

I'd have declared every slave free

the minute the first shell struck Fort Sumter.

And the border states would have gone over

to the Confederacy, the war would have 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.

Oh, 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 towards 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 learned when I was surveying,

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?

Robert's going to plead with us to let him enlist.

Make time to talk to Robbie. You only have time for Tad.

Tad is young.

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!

Secretary Stanton has sent over

to tell you that as of half an hour ago

the shelling of Wilmington Harbor has commenced.

(DOOR CLOSING)

They cannot possibly maintain under this kind of an assault.

Terry has got 1 0,000 men surrounding the goddamn port.

Why doesn't he answer...

Fort Fisher is a mountain of a building, Edwin.

It's the largest fort they have, sir.

Twenty-two big Seacoast guns on each rampart.

They've been reinforcing it for the last two years.

They've taken 1 7,000 shells since yesterday!

I want to hear Fort Fisher is ours

and Wilmington has fallen.

Send another damn cable!

The problem's their commander, Whiting!

He engineered the fortress himself,

the damn thing's his child.

He'll defend it till his every last man is gone.

LINCOLN: "Come on out, you old rat!"

(CHUCKLES) That's what Ethan Allen called out

to the commander of Fort Ticonderoga in 1 776.

"Come on out, you old rat!"

(SIGHS) Of course, there were only

40 odd Redcoats at Ticonderoga.

There is one Ethan Allen story that I'm very partial to.

No, 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.

I need the B&O sideyard schedules for Alexandria!

I asked for them this morning!

(LAUGHING) It was right after the Revolution,

right after peace had been concluded.

And 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 and beverages imbibed,

time passed, as happens, and

Mr. Allen found he needed the privy.

He was grateful to be directed thence.

(CLEARS THROAT)

-Relieved, you might say. -(LAUGHTER)

(CHUCKLES)

Now, Mr. Allen discovered

on entering the water closet,

that the only decoration therein

was 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.

Finally, His Lordship couldn't resist and asked Mr. Allen

had he noticed it, the picture of Washington.

He had.

Well, 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?" (CHUCKLES)

"George Washington's likeness in a water closet?"

"Yes," said Mr. Allen. "Where it'll do good service.

"The whole world knows nothing will make an Englishman

"shit quicker than the sight of George Washington."

(ALL LAUGHING)

I love that story.

(CLICKING)

(INDISTINCT TALKING)

Fort Fisher is ours. We've taken the port.

And Wilmington?

We've taken the fort,

but the city of Wilmington has not surrendered.

How many casualties?

(TELEGRAPH CONTINUES CLICKING)

-Heavy losses. -And more to come.

It sours the national mood. It might suffice...

To what? To bring this down?

Not in a fight like this. This is to the death.

That's gruesome.

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"?

(INDISTINCT TALKING)

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...

George, please, stay on course.

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.

(GAVEL BANGING)

The floor belongs to the mellifluent gentleman

from Kentucky, Mr. George Yeaman.

I thank you, Speaker Colfax.

(SIGHS)

Although I am disgusted by slavery,

(MEN AGREEING)

I rise on this sad and solemn day

to announce that I'm opposed to the amendment.

(MEN APPLAUDING)

We must consider what will become of colored folk

if four million are, in one instant, set free.

They'll be free, George,

that's what will become of them.

(MEN LAUGHING)

Think how splendid

if Mr. Yeaman switched.

Too publicly against us. He can't change course now.

Not for some miserable little job, anyways.

And we will be forced to enfranchise

the men of the colored race.

It would be inhuman not to.

Now who among us is prepared to give Negroes the vote?

(ALL SHOUTING IN PROTEST)

And, and,

what shall follow upon that?

Universal enfranchisement?

Votes for women?

(ALL YELLING)

We...

WOOD: Bless my eyes.

If it isn't the Postmaster of Millersburg, Ohio.

(DOOR CLOSES)

Mr. LeClerk felt honor-bound to inform us

(SNIFFING)

of your disgusting betrayal.

Your prostitution.

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.

A deal is a deal.

You men know better than to piss your pants

just 'cause there's talk about peace talks.

-Look, I'll find another job! -My neighbors in Nashville,

they found out I was loyal to the Union,

they came after me with gelding knives.

-I'll find another job. -You do right, Clay Hawkins.

I want to do right! But I got no courage!

BILBO: Wait. You wanted... What was it?

A tax man for the Western Reserve?

Hell, you can have the whole state of Ohio if you want...

Oh, crap.

(GRUNTS)

SEWARD: Eleven votes?

Two days ago, we had twelve. What happened?

There are defections in the ranks.

It's the goddamn rumors

regarding the Richmond delegation.

-Yes. The peace offer. -Groundless.

-And yet the rumors persist. -They are ruining us.

Among the few remaining Representatives

who seem remotely plausible,

there is a perceptible increase in resistance.

Resistance, hell.

Thingamabob Hollister, Dem from Indiana.

I approached him, sumbitch near to murdered me.

Colorado Territory... What's this one?

Job description... Taxpayers and...

Oh, shit! Cracky!

(GUN FIRES)

(PEOPLE EXCLAIM IN SURPRISE)

(GROANS)

Fuck you, you son of a bitch! Goddamn!

-Perhaps you pushed too hard. -I push nobody.

Perhaps we need reinforcements.

If Jeff Davis wants to cease hostilities,

who do you think is going to give a genuine solid shit

to free slaves?

Get back to it.

And gentlemen, good day.

We are at an impasse.

Tell Lincoln to deny the rumors, publicly.

Tell us what you expect of us.

I expect you to do your work.

And have sufficient sense and taste

not to presume to instruct the President.

Or me.

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.

Mr. Lincoln tell you to tell us this?

It says "securing peace for our two countries"

and it goes on like that.

-I don't... -There is just one country.

You and I, we're citizens of that country.

I'm fighting to protect it from armed rebels.

From you.

But Mr. Blair, he told us,

he told President Jefferson Davis that we...

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 Department.

"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 they're going back

"without any expression of interest 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.

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, uh...

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 1 3th Amendment.

(CLOCK TICKING RAPIDLY)

(MUMBLING)

Here's a 1 6-year-old boy,

they're going to hang him.

He's with the Fifteenth Indiana Cavalry near Bulford.

It 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?

I don't know, sir. I don't know who you're, uh...

-What time is it? -It's 3:40 in the morning.

Don't let him pardon any more deserters.

Mr. Stanton thinks you pardon too many.

He's generally apoplectic on the subject.

He oughtn't have done that, crippled his horse.

That was cruel, but you don't just hang

a 1 6-year-old boy for that...

Ask the horse what he thinks.

...for cruelty. There'd be no 1 6-year-old boys left.

(SIGHS)

Grant wants me to bring the secesh delegates

to Washington.

So there are secesh delegates?

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?

(SIGHS)

War's nearly done, ain't that so?

What use is one more corpse?

Any more corpses?

Do you need company?

LINCOLN: ln times like this, I'm best alone.

(SIGHS)

"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.

Yes, sir.

Shall I transmit, sir?

You think we choose to be born?

I don't suppose so.

Are we fitted to the times we're born into?

Well, I don't know about myself.

You may be,

sir. Fitted.

What do you reckon?

Well, I'm an engineer.

I reckon there's machinery,

but no one's done the fitting.

You're an engineer.

You must know Euclid's axioms and common notions.

I must have in school, but...

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.

Just read me back the last sentence

of the telegram, please.

"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."

(TELEGRAPH CLICKING)

(INDISTINCT TALKING)

COLFAX: The World, the Herald, the Times,

New York, Chicago,

the Journal of Commerce,

even your hometown paper's here.

Say you believe only in legal equality for all races,

not racial equality.

I beg you, sir.

Compromise. Or you risk it all.

(SIGHS)

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?

Is that not the true purpose of the amendment?

To promote your ultimate and ardent dream to elevate...

The true purpose of the amendment, Mr. Wood,

you perfectly named,

brainless obstructive object...

(LAUGHTER)

Now you have always insisted, Mr. Stevens,

that Negroes are the same as white men are.

The true purpose of the amendment...

I don't hold with equality in all things,

only with equality before the law. Nothing more.

(MEN SHOUTING IN PROTEST)

That's... That's not so.

You believe that Negroes are entirely equal to white men.

You've said it a thousand times!

For shame! For shame!

Stop prevaricating and answer Representative Wood!

I don't hold with equality in all things,

only with equality before the law.

After the decades of fervent advocacy...

He's answered your questions!

This amendment's not to do with race equality.

I don't hold with equality in all things,

only with equality before the law, and nothing more!

Who'd ever have guessed that old nightmare

capable of such control?

He might make a politician someday.

I need to go.

Mrs. Keckley.

Your frantic attempt to delude us now

is unworthy of a representative.

It is, in fact, unworthy of a white man!

(MEN SHOUT APPRECIATIVELY)

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,

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

who should have been gibbeted for treason

long before today.

Even worthless, unworthy you

ought to be treated equally before the law!

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)

And so again, sir, again and again and again I say,

I do not hold with equality in all things,

only with equality before the law.

(MEN CHEERING)

Mr. Speaker, will you permit this vile, boorish man

to slander and to threaten me?

And to reduce these proceedings

on this most important matter into an anarchic

and tawdry burlesque?

(MEN CONTINUE CHEERING)

(MEN SHOUTING)

You asked if ever I was surprised.

Today, Mr. Stevens,

I was surprised.

You've led the battle for race equality for 30 years.

The basis 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 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's very nearly nothing I won't say.

(BELL TOLLING)

I'm not going in.

You said you wanted to help me.

But this is just a clumsy attempt to discourage me.

I've been to Army hospitals. I've seen surgeries.

I went and visited the malaria barges with Mama.

She told me she didn't take you inside.

I snuck in afterwards.

I've seen what it's like. This changes nothing.

Well, at all rate, son,

I'm happy to have your company.

-LINCOLN: Good morning, Jim. -Hello, Mr. President.

-Good to see you again. -Good to see you.

Well, boys, first question. You getting enough to eat?

Hello, sir.

-What's your name, soldier? -Robert.

-Good to meet you, Robert. -Nice to meet you.

-What's your name? -Kevin.

Tell me your names as I go past.

I'd like to know who I'm talking to. Kevin.

-Mr. President. John. -John. I've seen you before.

Mr. President.

LINCOLN: Make sure you get some steak.

I wouldn't mind one myself, right now.

(SNIFFS)

(SOBBING)

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, it's not me getting killed.

(BREATHING HEAVILY)

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!

I can't lose you.

LINCOLN: He'll be fine, Molly.

City Point's a way back from the front lines

and the fighting.

He'll be an adjutant, running messages for General Grant.

The war will take our son.

A sniper, or a shrapnel shell, a 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.

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. -That's simply not true.

And if the slaughter of Cold Harbor's

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 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 this very natural ambition?

And if I refuse to take the high road?

If I won't pick 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, to help me! -That's right, that's right...

When you refused so much as to comfort Tad,

a child who was not only sick, dangerously sick,

but beside himself with grief!

I was holding him in my arms when he died.

But your grief, your grief, your inexhaustible grief!

How dare you throw that up at me?

And his mother wouldn't let him near her

because she's screaming from morning to night!

I couldn't risk him seeing how angry I was!

Pacing the halls, howling at shadows

and furniture and ghosts!

(SOBBING)

I ought to have done it for Tad's sake,

for everybody's goddamn 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.

(SIGHS)

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. Every day 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.

(SINGING OPERA)

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.

(SOFTLY) 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.

Thank you.

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.

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.

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.

-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.

Now 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.

Negroes have been fighting and dying for freedom

since the first of us was a slave.

I never heard any ask what freedom would bring.

Freedom is first.

As for me,

my son died fighting for the Union,

wearing the Union blue.

For freedom he died.

And I'm his mother.

That's what I am to the nation, Mr. Lincoln.

What else must I be?

My whole hand's gonna be proud in about five seconds.

Let's see how proud you can be.

(BANGING ON DOOR)

Go away. That watch fob, is that gold?

You keep your eyes off my fob.

Gentlemen, you have a visitor.

BILBO: Goddamn! LATHAM: Hey, Bill.

(LINCOLN CLEARS THROAT)

Well, I'll be fucked.

I wouldn't bet against it.

Mr...uh?

W. N. Bilbo.

Yeah, Mr. Bilbo. Gentlemen.

Sir.

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've got your face on 'em.

The Secretary of State here tells me that you got

1 1 Democrats in the bag. That's encouraging.

Oh, you've got no cause to be encouraged, sir.

Are we being fired?

"We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow."

I'm here to alert you boys

that the great day of reckoning is nigh upon us.

The Democrats we've yet to bag, sir,

the patronage jobs simply won't bag 'em.

They require more convincing, Mr. President.

Mm-hmm. Do me a favor, will you?

Sure.

It snagged my eye in the paper this morning

that the Governor Curtin

is set to declare a winner in the disputed

Congressional election for the...

Pennsylvania 1 6th District.

District. What a joy to be comprehended.

Hop on a train to Philadel, call on the Governor...

Send Latham. Or Schell.

No, he'll do fine. Just polish yourself up first.

(CHUCKLES)

The incumbent is claiming he won it. Name of...

Coffroth.

-That's him. -SCHELL: Coffroth.

-He's a Democrat. -I understand that.

-Silly name. -LINCOLN: A little bit silly.

Uh, 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,

then he'd better pay a visit to Thaddeus Stevens.

SEWARD: Well, pity poor Coffroth.

(LAUGHTER)

(KNOCKING ON DOOR)

It opens!

You are Canfrey?

Coffroth, Mr. Stevens. Alexander Coffroth.

Are we representatives of the same state?

(STAMMERS) Yes, sir. We sit only three desks apart.

I haven't noticed you.

I'm a Republican and you, Coughdrop, are a Democrat?

(STAMMERING) Well, uh, I, um, that is to say...

The modern travesty of Thomas Jefferson's

political organization

to which you've attached yourself like a barnacle

has the effrontery to call itself the Democratic Party.

You are a Democrat. What's the matter with you?

Are you wicked?

-Well, I felt... -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 trounced.

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, he's a...

(STAMMERING)

Re-...

-...-pub-...-lic-... -...-pub-...-lic-...

-...-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...

No!

Coffroth will vote yes,

but Coffroth will remain a Democrat

until after he does so.

Why wait to switch? I'm happy to...

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've been hunting.

Aw, hell.

George Yeaman.

Yes. Yeaman.

Among others.

-But Yeaman, that'd count. -Yeah.

Y-E-A-M-A-N.

I got it.

Kentucky.

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 smallholding dirt farmer

could compete with slave plantations

so 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.

Well, I hate it, too, sir.

Slavery, but...

But we're entirely unready for emancipation.

And there's too many questions...

We're unready for peace, too, ain't we?

(BOTH CHUCKLE)

Yeah, when it comes, it'll present us with conundrums

and dangers greater than any we 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 Negroes can't

uh, 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 1 3th Amendment.

And it's going to be so very close.

You see what you can do.

I can't make sense of it.

What he died for.

Mr. Lincoln, I hate them all.

I do. All black people.

(DOOR OPENS)

(DOOR SHUTS)

I am a prejudiced man.

Well, 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 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.

(CARRIAGE PULLS AWAY)

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?

Oh, my God. It's true.

You... You lied to me.

Mr. Lincoln, you evaded my request for a denial

that there is a Confederate peace offer,

because there is one!

We are absolutely guaranteed to lose the whole thing.

We don't need a goddamn abolition amendment!

Leave the Constitution alone!

ASHLEY: What if the peace commissioners

appear today, or worse...

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.

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.

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.

(SIGHS)

(SIGHS DEEPLY)

(CROWD MURMURING)

(MURMURING STOPS)

We welcome you, ladies and gentlemen,

first in the history of this people's chamber,

to your House.

(APPLAUSE)

(GAVEL POUNDS)

COLFAX: Mr. Ashley, the floor is yours.

(APPLAUDING)

On the matter of the joint resolution before us,

presenting a 1 3th 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.

(CHEERING)

(BOOING)

By mutual agreement,

we shall hear brief, final statements,

(LAUGHTER)

beginning with

the honorable George Pendleton of Ohio.

(APPLAUSE)

I have 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.

(SHOCKED CLAMORING)

WOOD: Is it true, sir?

Are there Confederate commissioners in the capital?

I have no idea where they are or if they've arrived.

WOOD: They'll arrive.

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!

WOOD: Postpone the vote!

DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVES: (CHANTING) Postpone the vote!

Postpone the vote! Postpone the vote!

Postpone the vote!

-Postpone the vote! -SERGEANT: Gentlemen!

Postpone the vote!

Postpone the vote! Postpone the vote!

I have made a motion!

Does anyone care to second my motion?

(CHANTING CONTINUES)

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.

SCHELL: He must deny peace commissioners are in the city.

Quick, man. Quick.

(PANTING)

(GROANING)

(COUGHING)

(GROANS)

(PANTING)

This is precisely what Mr. Wood wishes me

to respond to?

Word for word, this is precisely

the assurance that he demands of me?

Yes, sir.

(PANTING)

(CHUCKLING)

Give this to Mr. Ashley.

Uh, I feel I have to say, Mr. Lincoln, that...

Could you please just step outside?

You want to have a chat now,

with the whole of the House of Representatives

waiting on this?

Making false representation to Congress, is...

-It's... -It's impeachable,

but I've made no such false representation.

But there are.

There is a delegation from Richmond.

Give me the note, Johnnie.

Please, deliver that to Mr. Ashley.

(CROWD MURMURING)

(MURMURING DIES DOWN)

From the President.

"So far as I know, there are no

"peace commissioners in the city

"nor are there likely to be."

-(CROWD MURMURING) -(GAVEL POUNDING)

"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.

That is not a denial.

It is a lawyer's dodge!

Mr. Haddam, is your faction satisfied?

The conservative Republican faction is satisfied.

And we thank Mr. Lincoln.

I move to table Mr. Wood's motion.

Tabled!

-(SCATTERED APPLAUSE) -(CROWD MURMURING)

Mr. Colfax, I order the main question.

A motion has been made to bring the bill

for the 1 3th Amendment to a vote.

Do I hear a second?

I second the motion.

(POUNDS GAVEL) So moved, so ordered.

The Clerk will now...

Quiet, please!

The Clerk will now call the roll for the voting.

We begin with Connecticut.

Mr. Augustus Benjamin,

on the matter of this amendment, how say you?

Nay!

CLERK: Mr. Arthur Bentleigh.

Nay! (SPITS)

Mr. John Ellis, how say you?

ELLIS: Aye!

-MAN: What! -(CROWD EXCLAIMING)

(POUNDING TABLES)

Missouri next. Mr. Walter Appleton.

APPLETON: I vote no.

Mr. Josiah Burton.

Beanpole Burton is pleased to vote yea!

(SCATTERED CLAPPING)

CLERK: The State of New Jersey.

-Mr. Nehemiah Cleary. -CLEARY: No!

Mr. James Martinson.

Mr. Martinson has delegated me

to say he is indisposed.

And he abstains.

Mr. Austin J. Roberts.

Also indisposed, also abstaining.

CLERK: Illinois concluded.

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 Frederick

votes against the amendment.

(CLOCK TICKING)

Webster Allen votes no.

-(TYPEWRITER CLACKING) -Webster Allen,

Illinois, Democrat,

votes no.

Halberd Law, Indiana, Democrat,

votes no.

Archibald Moran, yes.

Ambrose Baylor, yes.

Mr. Walter H. Washburn.

WASHBURN: Votes no.

And Mr. George Yeaman, how say you?

(WHISPERING) My vote ties us.

Sir, Mr. Yeaman,

I didn't hear your vote.

I said "Aye", Mr. McPherson!

Aye!

Traitor!

Order!

(CLAMORING)

COLFAX: Order in my chamber!

Mr. McPherson, you may proceed.

CLERK: Mr. Clay R. Hawkins of Ohio.

-Goddamn it, I'm voting yes. -(LOUD PROTESTS)

I don't care, you shoot me dead!

You shoot me dead! I am voting yes!

Mr. Edwin F. LeClerk.

No!

Oh, to hell with it. Shoot me dead, too! Yes!

(OUTRAGED PROTESTS)

I mean...

Abstention. Abstention!

(CROWD MURMURING)

MAN: Spineless! No gender.

Mr. Alexander Coffroth.

I vote

yes.

(APPLAUDING)

SERGEANT: Yea.

(TYPEWRITER CLACKING)

James Brooks...

Nay.

Josiah Grenelle...

Yea.

Meyer Strauss...

Nay.

-CLERK: Mr. Joseph Marstern. -Nay.

-CLERK: Mr. Chilton A. Elliot. -No!

-CLERK: Mr. Daniel G. Stuart. -I vote yes.

-CLERK: Mr. Howard Guilfoyle. -Yea.

-CLERK: John F. McKenzie. -Yea.

-CLERK: Andrew E. Fink. -Nay.

-CLERK: Mr. John A. Castle. -Yea.

-CLERK: Mr. Hanready. -Nay.

-CLERK: And Mr. Rufus Warren? -Yea.

CLERK: The roll call concludes.

The voting is completed. Now...

Mr. Clerk, please call my name.

I want to cast a vote.

PENDLETON: I object.

The Speaker doesn't vote.

The Speaker may vote if he so chooses.

It is highly unusual, sir.

This isn't usual, Mr. Pendleton.

This is history.

How does Mr. Schuyler Colfax vote?

Aye, of course.

(CROWD LAUGHING)

The final vote.

Eight absent or not voting.

Fifty-six votes against.

One hundred and nineteen votes for.

With a margin of two votes...

(CLOCK TICKING)

(CHURCH BELLS CHIMING FAINTLY)

(CHIMING GETS LOUDER)

(CANNONS BLASTING)

(ALL CLAMORING)

(CHEERING)

We chose great leadership.

(BELLS TOLLING)

ALL: (SINGING) We'll rally round the flag, boys

We'll rally once again

Shouting the battle cry of freedom

We will rally from the hillside

We'll gather from the plain

Shouting the battle cry of freedom

The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!

Down with the traitor

And up with the star

Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom!

Congratulations, Mr. Chairman.

The bill, Mr. McPherson. May I?

(SINGING CONTINUES)

The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!

That's, that's the official bill.

I'll return it in the morning.

Creased,

but unharmed.

Shouting the battle cry of freedom

We are springing to the call Of the loyal, true and brave

Shouting the battle cry of freedom

-(PEOPLE CHEERING) -(BAND PLAYING)

And we'll fill our vacant ranks

With a million freemen more

Shouting the battle cry of freedom

The Union forever!

Hurrah, boys, hurrah!

Down with the traitor And up with the star

A gift for you.

The greatest measure of the 1 9th century,

passed by corruption,

aided and abetted by the purest man in America.

I wish you had been present.

-I wish I'd been. -It was a spectacle.

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.

Read it to me again, my love.

-"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."

(CROWD CHEERING)

(SHIP HORN BLOWING)

Let me be blunt.

Will the Southern states

resume their former position in the Union

speedily enough to enable us

to block ratification to this here

1 3th Amendment?

I'd like peace immediately.

Yes, and?

I'd like your states restored to

their practical relations with the Union immediately.

If this could be given to me in writing,

as Vice President of the Confederacy,

I'd bring that document

with celerity, to Jefferson Davis.

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.

This is the arrogant demand of a conqueror.

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 will be subject to a Supreme Court

benched by bloody 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 will ratify, most of them.

As I figure it, it remains for two of the Southern states

to do the same,

even after all are readmitted.

And I've 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 the democratic process,

as frustrating as that can be...

Come, sir.

Spare us, at least, these pieties.

Did you defeat us with ballots?

How have 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.

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 have been proved by now.

Shall we stop this bleeding?

(RUMBLING)

Once he surrenders,

send his boys back to their homes

and their farms, their shops.

Yes, sir.

As we discussed.

Liberality all around, not punishment.

I don't want that.

And their leaders, Jeff and the rest of them,

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 1 0 years older than you were a year ago.

Hmm.

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.

You always knew that.

What this was going to be.

Intimate and ugly.

You must have needed to see it close

when you decided to come down here.

Hmm.

We've made it possible for one another to do terrible things.

We've won the war.

Now you have to lead us out of it.

You have an itch to travel?

Mm-hmm. I'd like that.

To the West, by rail.

Overseas.

The Holy Land.

(MARY CHUCKLES)

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.

You must try to be happier.

We must, both of us.

We've been so miserable for so long.

I did say some colored men...

The intelligent, the educated, and the

veterans. I qualified it.

Mr. Stevens is furious.

He wants to know why you qualified it.

No one heard the intelligent or educated part.

All they heard was the first time

any president has ever made mention

of Negro voting.

Still, I wish I'd mentioned it in a better speech.

Mr. Stevens also wants to know

why you didn't make a better speech.

-(ALL CHUCKLING) -(KNOCK ON DOOR)

NICOLAY: Mrs. Lincoln is 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.

-Am I in trouble? -No, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Slade.

I suppose it's time to go.

Though I would rather stay.

-(GRUNTING) -(SWORDS CLANKING)

(MAN LAUGHS)

(SWORDS CONTINUE CLANKING)

(AUDIENCE GASPS)

(AUDIENCE EXCLAIMS)

The President has been shot!

(AUDIENCE GASPS)

The President

has been shot! At Ford's Theater!

(CROWD CLAMORING)

(WOMEN SHRIEKING)

No. No!

(SCREAMS)

It's 7:22 in the morning.

Saturday, the 15th of April.

It's all over.

The President is no more.

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 250 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 3,000 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