Lincoln Page #30

state, is...? A Democrat?

ALEXANDER COFFROTH

No, he's a...

(baffled, terrified:)

A, um, a Ruh...

THADDEUS STEVENS

Re.

ALEXANDER COFFROTH

Re.

THADDEUS STEVENS

(NODS)

Pub.

ALEXANDER COFFROTH

Pub.

THADDEUS STEVENS

Li.

ALEXANDER COFFROTH

Li.

THADDEUS STEVENS

Can.

ALEXANDER COFFROTH

Can.

Republican.

THADDEUS STEVENS

I know what he is. This is a

rhetorical exercise. And Congress

is controlled by what party? Yours?

Coffroth doesn't know whether to answer. He shakes his head.

THADDEUS STEVENS (CONT'D)

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.

94.

ALEXANDER COFFROTH

I know what I must do, sir! I will

immediately become a Republican and

vote yes for -

THADDEUS STEVENS

NO! Coffroth will vote yes but

Coffroth will remain a Democrat

until after he does so.

ALEXANDER COFFROTH

Why wait to switch? I'm happy to

SWITCH -

THADDEUS STEVENS

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.

INT. A BEDROOM IN THE ST. CHARLES HOTEL - LATE NIGHT

Continue with Lincoln and his operatives around the card

table.

LINCOLN:

Now give me the names of whoever

else you been hunting.

Schell, Latham and Bilbo exchange looks, then:

ROBERT LATHAM:

George Yeaman.

RICHARD SCHELL:

Yes. Yeaman.

W.N. BILBO

Among others. But Yeaman: That'd

count.

ROBERT LATHAM:

(HELPFULLY)

Y-E-A-M-A-N

Lincoln looks up from his notepad, smiling.

LINCOLN:

I got it.

95.

ROBERT LATHAM:

Kentucky.

INT. SEWARD'S OFFICE, STATE DEPARTMENT - DAY

Seward sits at his grand desk, looking on with an anxious

scowl. Lincoln sits on the edge of Seward's desk. Yeaman sits

in a chair facing him.

GEORGE YEAMAN:

I can't vote for the amendment, Mr.

Lincoln.

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.

(BEAT)

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 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.

GEORGE YEAMAN:

(EMBARRASSED)

I... Well, I'm sorry to hear that -

LINCOLN:

Lovingkindness, that most ordinary

thing, came to me from other

sources. I'm grateful for that.

GEORGE YEAMAN:

I hate it, too, sir, slavery, but -

but we're entirely unready for

emancipation. There's too many

QUESTIONS -

96.

LINCOLN:

(LAUGHS)

We're unready for peace too, ain't

we? When it comes, it'll present us

with conundrums and dangers greater

than any we've faced during the

war, bloody as it's been. We'll

have to extemporize and experiment

with what it is when it is.

Lincoln moves from the desk to take the seat beside Yeaman,

no longer towering over him. He leans forward and rests a

hand on Yeaman's knee.

LINCOLN (CONT'D)

I read your speech, George. Negroes

and the vote, that's a puzzle.

GEORGE YEAMAN:

No, no, but, but, but - But Negroes

can't, um, vote, Mr. Lincoln.

You're not suggesting that we

enfranchise colored people.

LINCOLN:

I'm asking only that you

disenthrall yourself from the slave

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