INT. LINCOLN'S OFFICE - NIGHT

Lincoln is seated at the head of the cabinet table along with Seward. Ashley, Preston and Montgomery Blair. Hay and Nicolay sit in their usual chairs.

           PRESTON BLAIR
           (ANGRY:)

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

           JAMES ASHLEY

Oh God... (TO LINCOLN:) 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 - 98.

JAMES ASHLEY (CONT'D) MONTGOMERY BLAIR

• and we'll be discredited, We don't need a goddamned the amendment itself will be abolition amendment! Leave tainted. What if, what if the Constitution alone! State these peace commissioners by state you can extirpate - appear today? Or worse, on the morning -

           LINCOLN
  

  I can't listen to this anymore! I can't accomplish a goddamned 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's stage now, now, with the fate of human dignity in our hands! Blood's been spilt to afford us this moment!

He points around the table at Ashley, Monty, Preston.

           LINCOLN (CONT'D)

Now now now! And you grousle and heckle and dodge about like pettifogging Tammany Hall hucksters! See what is before you! See the here and now! That's the hardest thing, the only thing that accounts! 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, and these votes must be procured.

           SEWARD

We need two yeses, three abstentions, or four yeses and one more abstention and the amendment will pass -

           LINCOLN

You got a night and a day and a night and several perfectly good hours! Now get the hell out of here and get `em!

           JAMES ASHLEY

Yes but how? 99.

           LINCOLN

Buzzards' guts, man.

Lincoln rises, and keeps rising, till he seems eight feet tall.

           LINCOLN (CONT'D)

I am the President of the United States of America, clothed in immense power! You will procure me these votes.