Yeaman

George Yeaman :

I can't vote for the amendment, 

Mr Lincoln….

Lincoln :

…I saw a barge once, Mr Yeaman, 

filled with coloured men in chains 

heading down the Mississippi 

to the New Orleans slave markets. 

It sickened me. 

And 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 so 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 :

….well, I'm sorry to hear that. 

Lincoln :

Loving Kindness, 

that most ordinary thing, came to me 

from other sources. 

I'm grateful for that. 

George Yeaman :

Well, I hate it, too, sir. 

Slavery, but... But we're entirely 

unready for emancipation. 

And there's too many questions... 

Lincoln :

We're unready for peace, 

too, ain't we? Yeah, when it comes, 

it'll present us with conundrums and dangers greater than any 

we faced during the war, 

bloody as it's been. 

We'll have to extemporise 

and experiment with 

what it is, when it is. 

I read your speech, George. 

Negroes and the vote, 

that's a puzzle. 

George Yeaman :

….no, no. But, but, but 

Negroes can't vote, 

Mr Lincoln. You're not suggesting 

we enfranchise coloured people? 

Lincoln :

I'm asking only that 

you disenthral yourself 

from The Slave Power. 

I'll let you know when there's 

an offer on my desk for surrender. 

There's none before us now. 

What's before us now, that's 

the vote on the 13th Amendment. 

And it's going to be so very close. 

You see what you can do.