INT. LINCOLN'S OFFICE, WHITE HOUSE - MORNING

The cabinet has assembled. Lincoln heads the table, Seward at his left and EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War, 51, barrel- shaped, long bearded, bespectacled, at his right. Next to him are Secretary of the Navy GIDEON WELLES, 63, luxurious white hair (it's a wig) and a flowing snowy beard; Postmaster General WILLIAM DENNISON, 50; Secretary of the Interior JOHN USHER, 49; Secretary of the Treasury WILLIAM FESSENDEN, 59; and Attorney General JAMES SPEED, 53.

Nicolay and Hay are in chairs behind Lincoln, taking notes.

           LINCOLN
           (TO STANTON:)

Thunder forth, God of War!

Stanton clears his throat. He's noticed the singed edge.

           STANTON

We'll commence our assault on Wilmington from the sea. (PEEVED:) Why is this burnt? Was the boy playing with it?

           LINCOLN

It got took by a breeze several nights back.

           STANTON

This is an official War Department map! 24.

           SEWARD

And the entire cabinet's waiting to hear what it portends.

           WELLES

A bombardment. From the largest fleet the Navy has ever assembled.

           LINCOLN
           (TO WELLES:)

Old Neptune! Shake thy hoary locks!

Welles stands.

           WELLES

Fifty-eight ships are underway, of every tonnage and firing range.

Welles gestures on the map to the positions of many ships.

           STANTON

We'll keep up a steady barrage. Our first target is Fort Fisher. It defends Wilmington Port.

Stanton indicates the lines tracing artillery trajectories. These converge particularly heavily on Fort Fisher.

           JAMES SPEED

A steady barrage?

           STANTON

A hundred shells a minute.

There's a moment of shocked silence.

           STANTON (CONT'D)

Till they surrender.

           WILLIAM FESSENDEN

Dear God.

           WELLES

Yes. Yes.

           LINCOLN

Wilmington's their last open seaport. Therefore...

           STANTON

Wilmington falls, Richmond falls after. 25.

           SEWARD

And the war... is done.

The rest of the cabinet applauds, foot stomping, table slapping. Only John Usher doesn't join in.

           JOHN USHER

Then why, if I may ask are we not concentrating the nation's attention on Wilmington? Why, instead, are we reading in the HERALD - (he smacks a newspaper on THE TABLE)

• that the anti-slavery amendment is being precipitated onto the House floor for debate - because your eagerness, in what seems an unwarranted intrusion of the Executive into Legislative prerogatives, is compelling it to it's... to what's likely to be its premature demise? You signed the Emancipation Proclamation, you've done all that can be expected -

           JAMES SPEED
  

  The Emancipation Proclamation's merely a war measure. After the war the courts'll make a meal of it.

           JOHN USHER
  

  When Edward Bates was Attorney General, he felt confident in it enough to allow you to sign -

           JAMES SPEED
           (A SHRUG:)
  

  Different lawyers, different opinions. It frees slaves as a military exigent, not in any other -

           LINCOLN
  

  I don't recall Bates being any too certain about the legality of my Proclamation, just it wasn't downright criminal. Somewhere's in between. Back when I rode the legal circuit in Illinois I defended a woman from Metamora named Melissa Goings, 77 years old, they said she murdered her husband; he was 83. He was choking her; and, uh, she grabbed ahold of a stick of fire- 26.

wood and fractured his skull, `n he died. In his will he wrote "I expect she has killed me. If I get over it, I will have revenge."

This gets a laugh.

           LINCOLN (CONT'D)

No one was keen to see her convicted, he was that kind of husband. I asked the prosecuting attorney if I might have a short conference with my client. And she and I went into a room in the courthouse, but I alone emerged. The window in the room was found to be wide open. It was believed the old lady may have climbed out of it. I told the bailiff right before I left her in the room she asked me where she could get a good drink of water, and I told her Tennessee. Mrs. Goings was seen no more in Metamora. Enough justice had been done; they even forgave the bondsman her bail.

           JOHN USHER

I'm afraid I don't -

           LINCOLN

I decided that the Constitution gives me war powers, but no one knows just exactly what those powers are. Some say they don't exist. I don't know. I decided I needed them to exist to uphold my oath to protect the Constitution, which I decided meant that I could take the rebels' slaves from `em as property confiscated in war. That might recommend to suspicion that I agree with the rebs that their slaves are property in the first place. Of course I don't, never have, I'm glad to see any man free, and if calling a man property, or war contraband, does the trick... Why I caught at the opportunity. Now here's where it gets truly slippery. I use the law allowing for the seizure of property in a war knowing it applies only to the property of governments and 27.

citizens of belligerent nations. But the South ain't a nation, that's why I can't negotiate with 'em. So if in fact the Negroes are property according to law, have I the right to take the rebels' property from `em, if I insist they're rebels only, and not citizens of a belligerent country? And slipperier still: I maintain it ain't our actual Southern states in rebellion, but only the rebels living in those states, the laws of which states remain in force. The laws of which states remain in force. That means, that since it's states' laws that determine whether Negroes can be sold as slaves, as property - the Federal government doesn't have a say in that, least not yet - (a glance at Seward, THEN:)

• then Negroes in those states are slaves, hence property, hence my war powers allow me to confiscate em as such. So I confiscatedem. But if I'm a respecter of states' laws, how then can I legally free `em with my Proclamation, as I done, unless I'm cancelling states' laws? I felt the war demanded it; my oath demanded it; I felt right with myself; and I hoped it was legal to do it, I'm hoping still.

He looks around the table. Everyone's listening.

           LINCOLN (CONT'D)

Two years ago I proclaimed these people emancipated - "then, thenceforward and forever free." But let's say the courts decide I had no authority to do it. They might well decide that. Say there's no amendment abolishing slavery. Say it's after the war, and I can no longer use my war powers to just ignore the courts' decisions, like I sometimes felt I had to do. Might those people I freed be ordered back into slavery? That's why I'd like to get the Thirteenth Amendment through the House, and on 28.

its way to ratification by the states, wrap the whole slavery thing up, forever and aye. As soon as I'm able. Now. End of this month. And I'd like you to stand behind me. Like my cabinet's most always done.

A moment's silence, broken by a sharp laugh from Seward.

           LINCOLN (CONT'D)

As the preacher said, I could write shorter sermons but once I start I get too lazy to stop.

           JOHN USHER

It seems to me, sir, you're describing precisely the sort of dictator the Democrats have been howling about.

           JAMES SPEED

Dictators aren't susceptible to law.

           JOHN USHER

Neither is he! He just said as much! Ignoring the courts? Twisting meanings? What reins him in from, from...

           LINCOLN

Well, the people do that, I suppose. I signed the Emancipation Proclamation a year and half before my second election. I felt I was within my power to do it; however I also felt that I might be wrong about that; I knew the people would tell me. I gave `em a year and half to think about it. And they re- elected me. (BEAT) And come February the first, I intend to sign the Thirteenth Amendment.