Lincoln
Lincoln

Thaddeus Stevens: I don't hold with equality in all things, just equality before the law, nothing more.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln: [to Ulysses S. Grant] Each of us has made it possible for the other to do terrible things.

Lincoln
Lincoln

William Seward: Gentleman, you have a visitor.
W.N. Bilbo: [checking his friend cards] Oh my God, goddamn...
W.N. Bilbo: [President Lincoln walks in] I'll be fucked.
Abraham Lincoln: I wouldn't bet against it, Mr...?
W.N. Bilbo: W.N.Bilbo.
Abraham Lincoln: Yeah,

Mr. Bilbo. Gentlemen...
Robert Latham: Sir.
W.N. Bilbo: 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 got your face on 'em.
Abraham Lincoln: The Secretary of State here tells me that, uh... you got eleven Democrats in the bag.

That's encouraging.
Richard Schell: Oh, you've got no cause to be encouraged. Sir. Uh...
Robert Latham: Are we being... fired?
Abraham Lincoln: [quoting Shakespeare] 'We have heard the chimes of midnight, Master Shallow.' I'm here to alert you boys that the great day of reckoning is nigh upon us.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Ulysses S. Grant: [to Lincoln] By outward appearance, you're 10 years older than you were a year ago.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln: All we've 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?

Lincoln
Lincoln

Robert Lincoln: I have to do this! And I will do it, and I don't need your permission to enlist!
Abraham Lincoln: That same speech has been made by how many sons to how many fathers since this war began? 'I don't need your damn permission, you miserable old goat! I'm gonna enlist anyhow!' What wouldn't those numberless fathers have given to be able to say

to their sons, as I say now to mine, I am commander-in-chief, so in point of fact, without my permission, you ain't enlisting in nothing, nowhere young man!
Robert Lincoln: It's mama you're scared of, not me getting killed!
Abraham Lincoln: [Lincoln slaps him, then tries to hug him; Robert pushes him away]
Robert Lincoln: 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 matters. 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.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Thaddeus Stevens: Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner, Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our adversary, and leader of the God forsaken 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.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln: [greeting a pair of visitors from Jefferson City] I heard tell once of a Jefferson City lawyer who had a parrot that would wake him each morning crying out 'today's 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.
[the

guests don't laugh]

Lincoln
Lincoln

Ulysses S. Grant: If you want to discuss peace with President Lincoln, consider revisions.
Alexander Stephens: If we're not to discuss a truce between warring nations, what in heaven's name can we discuss?
Ulysses S. Grant: Terms of surrender.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln: [on General Grant] My trust in him is marrow deep.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Edwin Stanton: [seeing Lincoln begin to address the room as news comes in from Wilmington] You're going to tell one of your stories! I can't stand to hear another one of your stories!

Lincoln
Lincoln

[Giving a speech at a dedication, Lincoln stands beside the flagpole, and with great ceremony takes off his hat, removes a piece of paper from inside and unfolds it, then puts on his glasses]
Abraham Lincoln: [reading] 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 shall be for the people to keep it up.


[takes off his glasses and re-folds the paper]
Abraham Lincoln: That's my speech.
[laughter]

Lincoln
Lincoln

Thaddeus Stevens: I haven't noticed you. I'm a Republican, and you, Coughdrop, are a Democrat?

Lincoln
Lincoln

W.N. Bilbo: The kind that hates niggers, hates God for making niggers.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln: When the people disagree, bringing them together requires going slow until they're ready to...
Thaddeus Stevens: 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 'em. And now I look a lot worse without my wig.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln: I did say *some* colored men, the intelligent, the educated, and veterans, I qualified it.
James Ashley: Mr. Stevens is furious. He wants to know why you qualified it.
Schuyler Colfax: No one heard the "intelligent" or the "educated" part. All they heard was the first time any president has ever made mention of Negro

voting.
Abraham Lincoln: Still, I wish I'd mentioned it in a better speech.
James Ashley: Mr. Stevens also wants to know why you didn't make a better speech.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Thaddeus Stevens: [responding to a knock at the door] It opens!

Lincoln
Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln: 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.

Lincoln
Lincoln

Thaddeus Stevens: You are a democrat. What's the matter with you? Are you wicked?

Lincoln
Lincoln

Fernando Wood: Estimable colleagues, two bloody years ago this month, his Highness, King Abraham Africanus the First, our Great Usurping Caesar, violator of habeas corpus and freedom of the press, abuser of states' rights.