Lincoln 2012 film

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, itll be for the people to keep it up. Thats my speech.

— Lincoln 2012 film art

I heard tell once of a Jeff City lawyer who had a parrot thatd 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, his prophecy.

— Lincoln 2012 film peace

Euclids first common notion is this: Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Thats a rule of mathematical reasoning. Its true because it works; has done and will always will do. In his book, Euclid says this is self-evident. You see, there it is, even in that two-thousand year old book of mechanical law: it is a self-evident truth of things which are equal to the same thing, are equal to each other. We begin with equality. Thats the origin, isnt it? That balance—thats fairness, thats justice.

— Lincoln 2012 film truth

Trust? Oh. Im sorry, I was under the misapprehension your chosen profession was politics. I never trusted the President, never trusted anyone, but hasnt he surprised you?

— Lincoln 2012 film politics

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?

— Lincoln 2012 film sin

Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner, Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our adversary, and leader of the Godforsaken Republican Party - our party - has asked for our assistance in banishing this country of the evil of slavery. Retain, even in opposition, your capacity for astonishment.

— Lincoln 2012 film god

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!

— Lincoln 2012 film men

The greatest measure of the 19th century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America.

— Lincoln 2012 film man

Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Tony Kushner, based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

— Lincoln 2012 film art

Pvt. Harold Green: Some of us was in the Second Kansas Colored. We fought the rebs at Jenkins Ferry last April, just after theyd killed every Negro soldier they captured at Poison Springs. So at Jenkins Ferry, we decided werent taking no reb prisoners. And we didnt leave a one of em alive. The ones of us that didnt die that day, we joined up with the 116th U.S. Colored, sir. From Camp Nelson Kentucky.

— Lincoln 2012 film live

Cpl. Ira Clark: Im Corporal Ira Clark, sir. Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry. Were waiting over there. Were leaving our horses behind, and shipping out with the 24th Infantry for the assault next week on Wilmington.

— Lincoln 2012 film wit

Cpl. Ira Clark: They killed a thousand rebel soldiers, sir. They were very brave. And making three dollars less each month than white soldiers.

— Lincoln 2012 film die

Cpl. Ira Clark: 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 the same pay - in a few years perhaps they can abide the idea of Negro lieutenants and captains. In fifty years, maybe a Negro colonel. In a hundred years - the vote.

— Lincoln 2012 film people

Cpl. Ira Clark: But you should know, sir, that I get sick at the smell of boot-black, and I cannot cut hair.

— Lincoln 2012 film you

Mary Todd Lincoln: I dont want to be spared if you arent. And you spare me nothing. Perhaps its the assault on Wilmington Port. You dream about the ship before a battle, usually.

— Lincoln 2012 film dream

Mary Todd Lincoln: 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?

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Mary Todd Lincoln: Stuff! You tell me dreams, thats all, Im your soothsayer, thats all I am anymore, Im not to be trusted with — Even if it was not a carriage accident, even if it was an attempted assassination.

— Lincoln 2012 film dreams

Mary Todd Lincoln: I know I know what its about. The ship, its not Wilmington Port, its not a military campaign! Its the amendment to abolish slavery! Why else would you force me to invite demented radicals into my home? Youre going to try to get the amendment passed in the House of Representatives before the term ends? Before the inauguration?

— Lincoln 2012 film men

William 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, wed still be twenty votes short.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

William Seward: Youll 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? Its a rats nest in there. The same gang of talentless hicks and hacks who rejected the amendment ten months ago; well lose.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Edwin Stanton: Well commence our assault on Wilmington from the sea Why is is this burned? Was the boy playing with it?

— Lincoln 2012 film men

Edwin Stanton: Well keep up a steady barrage. Our first target is Fort Fisher. It defends Wilmington port.

— Lincoln 2012 film age

John Usher: Then why, if I may ask are we not concentrating the nations attention on Wilmington? Why, instead, are we reading in the Herald that the anti-slavery amendment is being precipitated on the House floor for debate—because your eagerness, in what seems an unwarranted intrusion of the Executive into Legislative prerogatives, is compelling it to its to whats likely to be its premature demise? You signed the Emancipation Proclamation, youve done all that can be expected—

— Lincoln 2012 film war

James Speed: The Emancipation Proclamations merely a war measure. After the war the courts will make a meal out of it.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

John Usher: When Edward Bates was Attorney General, he felt confident in it enough to allow you to sign—

— Lincoln 2012 film war

James Speed: Different lawyers, different opinions. It frees slaves as a military exigent, not in any other—

— Lincoln 2012 film law

John Usher: It seems to me, sir, youre describing precisely the sort of dictator the Democrats have been howling about.

— Lincoln 2012 film you

John Usher: Neither is he! He just said as much! Ignoring the courts? Twisting meanings? What reins him in from, from

— Lincoln 2012 film meaning

Abraham Lincoln: Well, the people do that, I suppose. I signed the Emancipation Proclamation a year and a half before my second election. I felt I was within my power to do it; however I felt that I might be wrong to do it; I knew the people would tell me. I gave em a year and a half to think about it. And they re-elected me. And come February the first, I intend to sign the Thirteenth Amendment.

— Lincoln 2012 film people

William Seward: And were counting on robust radical support, so tell Mr. Stevens we expect him to put his back into it, its not going to be easy, but we trust

— Lincoln 2012 film war

James Ashley: Its impossible. No, I am sorry, no, we cant 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 arent nearly enough votes—

— Lincoln 2012 film sin

William Seward: Why wasnt I consulted?! Im Secretary of State! You, you, you informally send a reactionary dotard, to— What will happen, when these peace commissioners arrive?

— Lincoln 2012 film war

William Seward: Oh, splendid! And next the Democrats will invite them 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 theyre here to make peace? Well lose every Democrat weve got, more than likely conservative Republicans will join them, and all our work, all our preparing the ground for the vote, laid waste, naught for naught.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

William Seward: Oh, the Blairs promise, do they? You think theyll 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!

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Abraham Lincoln: What hope for any Democratic votes, William, if word gets out that Ive refused a chance to end the war? You think word wont get out? In Washington?

— Lincoln 2012 film hope

Abraham Lincoln: If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me

— Lincoln 2012 film time

Abraham Lincoln: Since we have the floor next in the debate, I thought Id suggest you might temper your contributions so as not to frighten our conservative friends?

— Lincoln 2012 film friends

Thaddeus Stevens: Ashley insists youre ensuring approval by dispensing patronage to otherwise undeserving Democrats.

— Lincoln 2012 film sin

Abraham Lincoln: I cant ensure a single damn thing if you scare the whole House with talk of land appropriations and revolutionary tribunals and punitive thisses and thats—

— Lincoln 2012 film evolution

Thaddeus 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. Well 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. Well 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.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Abraham Lincoln: Thats the untempered version of reconstruction. Its not Its not exactly what I intend, but we shall oppose one another in the course of time. Now were working together, and Im asking you—

— Lincoln 2012 film time

Abraham Lincoln: When the people disagree, bringing them together requires going slow till theyre ready to make up—

— Lincoln 2012 film people

Thaddeus Stevens: Ah, shit on the people and what they want and what theyre ready for! I dont 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 the wig. The people elected me! To represent them! To lead them! And I lead! You ought to try it.

— Lincoln 2012 film god

Abraham Lincoln: I admire your zeal, Mr. Stevens, and I have tried to profit from the example of it. But if Id listened to you, Id have declared every slave free the minute the first shell struck Fort Sumter; then the border states wouldve gone over to the Confederacy, the war wouldve been lost and the Union along with it, and instead of abolishing slavery, as we hope to do in two weeks, wed be watching helpless as infants as it spread from the American South into South America.

— Lincoln 2012 film hope

Thaddeus Stevens: 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 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 countrys infinite abundance with Negroes.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Abraham Lincoln: A compass, I learnt when I was surveying, itll point you True North from where you are standing, but its got no advice about the swamps and deserts and chasms youll 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, whats the use of knowing True North?

— Lincoln 2012 film advice

Edwin Stanton: They cannot possibly maintain under this kind of an assault! Terrys got ten thousand men surrounding the Goddamned fort! Why doesnt he answer my cables?

— Lincoln 2012 film god

Edwin Stanton: I want to hear that Fort Fisher is ours and Wilmington has fallen! Send another damn cable! The problems their commander, Whiting. He engineered the fortress himself. The damned things his child; hell defend it till his every last man is gone. He is not thinking rationally

— Lincoln 2012 film self

Ulysses S. Grant: Gentlemen, I suggest you work some changes to your proposal before you give it to the President.

— Lincoln 2012 film change

Ulysses S. Grant: Theres just one country. You and I, were citizens of that country. Im fighting to protect it from armed rebels. From you.

— Lincoln 2012 film fight

Ulysses S. Grant: 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.

— Lincoln 2012 film peace

Alexander H. Stephens: If were not to discuss a truce between warring nations, what in heavens name can we discuss?

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Fernando Wood: Ive 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 the true purpose of the amendment? To promote your ultimate and ardent dream to elevate—

— Lincoln 2012 film purpose

Thaddeus Stevens: The true purpose of the amendment, Mr. Wood, you perfectly named, brainless, obstructive object?

— Lincoln 2012 film purpose

Thaddeus Stevens: The true purpose of the amendment I dont hold with equality in all things, only with equality before the law and nothing more.

— Lincoln 2012 film purpose

Fernando Wood: Thats not true! You believe that Negroes are entirely equal to white men. Youve said it a thousand times—

— Lincoln 2012 film time

Thaddeus Stevens: I dont hold with equality in all things, only with equality before the law and nothing more.

— Lincoln 2012 film law

George Pendleton: You have long insisted, have you not that the dusk-colored race is no different from the white one?

— Lincoln 2012 film you

Thaddeus Stevens: I dont hold with equality before in all things, only with equality before the law and nothing more.

— Lincoln 2012 film law

George Pendleton: Your frantic attempt to delude us now is unworthy of a representative. It is, in fact, unworthy of a white man!

— Lincoln 2012 film man

Thaddeus 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!

— Lincoln 2012 film men

Thaddeus Stevens: 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! 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.

— Lincoln 2012 film reason

Abraham Lincoln: Hell be fine, Molly. City Points away back from the front lines, and fighting, hell be an adjutant running messages for General Grant.

— Lincoln 2012 film age

Mary Todd Lincoln: 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! Hell die, uselessly, and how will I ever forgive you? Most men, their firstborn is their favorite. Youyouve always blamed Robert for being born, for trapping you in a marriage thats only ever given you grief and caused you regret!

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Mary Todd Lincoln: And if the slaughter of Cold Harbor is on your hands same as Grant, God help us! Well pay for the oceans of spilled blood youve sanctioned, the uncountable corpses well be made to pay with our sons dear blood.

— Lincoln 2012 film god

Abraham Lincoln: Justjust 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, can you imagine hell forgive us if we continue to stifle this very natural ambition?!

— Lincoln 2012 film self

Abraham Lincoln: a child who was not only sick, dangerously sick, but beside himself with grief! Oh, but your grief! Your grief! Your inexhaustible grief!

— Lincoln 2012 film grief

Abraham Lincoln: cause shes screaming from morning to night pacing the corridors, howling at shadows and furniture and ghosts! I ought to have done it, I ought have done for Tads sake, for everybodys Goddamned sake, I should have clapped you in the madhouse!

— Lincoln 2012 film god

Mary Todd Lincoln: Then do it!! Do it! Dont you threaten me, you do it this time! Lock me away! Youll have to, I swear, if Robert is killed.

— Lincoln 2012 film time

Mary Todd Lincoln: You think Im ignorant of what youre up to because of this you havent 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.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Mary Todd Lincoln: No one has ever lived who knows better than you, the proper placement of footfalls on treacherous paths. Seward cant do it. You must. Because if you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, sir. You will answer to me.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Elizabeth Keckley: I know the vote is only four days away; I know youre concerned. Thank you for your concern over this, and I want you to know: Theyll approve it. God will see to it.

— Lincoln 2012 film god

Abraham Lincoln: I dont envy Him His task. He may wish Hed chosen an instrument for His purpose more wieldy than the House of Representatives.

— Lincoln 2012 film purpose

Abraham Lincoln: I I dont know you, Mrs. Keckley. Any of you. Youre familiar to me, as all people are. Un-accommodated, 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 Ill get used to you. But what you are to the nation, whatll become of you once slaverys day is done, I dont know.

— Lincoln 2012 film people

Elizabeth Keckley: What my people are to be, I cant say. Negroes have been fighting and dying for freedom since the first of us was a slave. I never heard any ask what freedom will bring. Freedoms first. As for me: My son died, fighting for the Union, wearing the Union blue. For freedom he died. Im his mother. Thats what I am to the nation, Mr. Lincoln. What else must I be?

— Lincoln 2012 film freedom

Abraham 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, n 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. He took us out from Kentucky to get away from em. He wanted Indiana kept free. He wasnt 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 didnt care for one another, Mr. Yeaman.

— Lincoln 2012 film freedom

Abraham Lincoln: Loving kindness, that most ordinary thing, came to me from other sources. Im grateful for that.

— Lincoln 2012 film kindness

George Yeaman: I hate it, too, sir, slavery, but - but we’re entirely unready for emancipation. Theres too many questions-

— Lincoln 2012 film hate

George Yeaman: No, no, but, but, but But Negroes cant, um, vote, Mr. Lincoln. Youre not suggesting that we enfranchise colored people.

— Lincoln 2012 film people

Abraham Lincoln: Im asking only that you disenthrall yourself from the slave powers. Ill let you know when theres an offer on my desk for surrender. Theres none before us now. Whats before us now, thats the vote on the Thirteenth Amendment. Its going to be so very close. You see what you can do.

— Lincoln 2012 film power

Preston Blair: Weve managed our members to a fare-thee-well, youve had no defections from the Republican right to trouble you, whereas to what you promised— where the hell are the commissioners?!

— Lincoln 2012 film man

James Ashley: Oh God Its 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 and well be discredited, the amendment itself will be tainted. What if, what if these peace commissioners appear today? Or worse, on the morning—

— Lincoln 2012 film god

Montgomery Blair: We dont need a goddamned abolition amendment! Leave the Constitution alone! State by state you can extirpate—

— Lincoln 2012 film god

William Seward: We need two yeses. Three abstentions. Four yeses and one more abstention and the amendment will pass.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Abraham Lincoln: Youve got a night and a day and a night and several perfectly good hours! Now get the hell out of here and get them!

— Lincoln 2012 film good

Abraham Lincoln: Buzzards guts, man. I am the President of the United States of America, clothed in immense power! You will procure me these votes.

— Lincoln 2012 film power

Lydia Hamilton Smith: You cant bring your housekeeper to the House. I wont give them gossip. This is enough. This is its more than enough for now.

— Lincoln 2012 film you

Lydia Hamilton Smith: Adopted. An amendment to the Constituion 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.

— Lincoln 2012 film art

Lydia Hamilton Smith: Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.

— Lincoln 2012 film power

Alexander Stephens: Let me be blunt. Will the Southern states resume their former position in the Union speedily enough to enable us to to enable us to block ratification of this here Thirteenth Amendment?

— Lincoln 2012 film men

Alexander Stephens: If this could be given me in writing, as Vice President of the Confederacy, Id bring that document with celerity to Jefferson Davis.

— Lincoln 2012 film writing

Alexander Stephens: Surrender wont be thought of unless youve assured us, in writing, that well be readmitted in time to block this amendment.

— Lincoln 2012 film writing

William Seward: Youll not be conquered people, Mr. Hunter. You will be citizens, returned to the laws and the guarantees of rights of the Constitution.

— Lincoln 2012 film war

Alexander Stephens: 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 wont know ourselves anymore.

— Lincoln 2012 film ya

Abraham Lincoln: We aint here to discuss reconstruction, we have no legal basis for that discussion. But I dont want to deal falsely. The Northern states will 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 Ive been working on that.

— Lincoln 2012 film work

Alexander Stephens: 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.

— Lincoln 2012 film death

Abraham Lincoln: It may be youre right. But say all we done is show the world that democracy isnt chaos, that there isnt a greater strength in a peoples union? Say weve shown that a people can endure awful sacrifice and yet cohere? Mightnt 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 mustve been proven by now. Shall we stop this bleeding?

— Lincoln 2012 film people

Abraham Lincoln: Liberality all around. Not punishment, I dont want that. And their leaders, Jeff and the rest of them, they escape, leave the country while my backs turned, that wouldnt upset me none. When peace comes, it mustnt just be hangings.

— Lincoln 2012 film peace

Ulysses S. Grant: You always knew that - what this was going to be: Intimate, and ugly. You mustve needed to see it close when you decided to come down here.

— Lincoln 2012 film you

Mary Todd Lincoln: When they look at you, at what it cost to live at the heart of this, theyll wonder at it. Theyll wonder at you. They should. But they should also look at the wretched woman by your side, of they want to understand what this was truly like. For an ordinary person. For anyone other than you.

— Lincoln 2012 film art

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