Lincoln2012

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

Abraham Lincoln:
I don't envy Him His task. He may wish He'd chosen an instrument for His purpose more wieldy than the House of Representatives.

Elizabeth Keckley:
Then you'll see to it.

Abraham Lincoln:
Are you afraid of what lies ahead? For your people? If we succeed?

Elizabeth Keckley:
White people don't want us here.

Abraham Lincoln:
Many don't.

Elizabeth Keckley:
What about you?

Abraham Lincoln:
I... I don't know you, Mrs. Keckley. Any of you. You're... 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 I'll get used to you. But what you are to the nation, what'll become of you once slavery's day is done, I don't know.

Elizabeth Keckley:
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 will bring. Freedom's first. As for me: My son died, fighting for the Union, wearing the Union blue. For freedom he died. I'm his mother. That's what I am to the nation, Mr. Lincoln. What else must I be?