Lincoln2012

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

James Ashley:
Oh God... It's 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 we'll be discredited, the amendment itself will be tainted. What if, what if these peace commissioners appear today? Or worse, on the morning-

Montgomery Blair:
We don't need a goddamned abolition amendment! Leave the Constitution alone! State by state you can extirpate-

Abraham Lincoln:
[pounds his hand on the table] 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're stepped out upon the world stage now, now, with the fate of human dignity in our hands. Blood's been spilled to afford us this moment! Now! Now! Now! And you grouse so and heckle and dodge about like pettifogging Tammany Hall hucksters! See what is before you! see the here band now! That's the hardest thing, the only thing that counts! 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.

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

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

James Ashley:
Yes. But how?

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