Lincoln (2012 film)

"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'll be for the people to keep it up. That's my speech."

"I heard tell once of a Jeff City lawyer who had a parrot that'd wake him each morning crying out, "Today is 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!"

"[to Cabinet members] As the preacher said; "I could write shorter sermons, but once I start I get too lazy to stop.""

"It was right after the Revolution, right after peace had been concluded. And Ethan Allen went to London to help our new country conduct its business with the king. The English sneered at how rough we are and rude and simple-minded and on like that, everywhere he went. Til one day he was invited to the townhouse of a great English lord. Dinner was served, beverages imbibed, time passed as happens and Mr. Allen found he needed the privy. He was grateful to be directed thence. Relieved, you might say. Mr. Allen discovered on entering the water closet that the only decoration therein was a portrait of George Washington. Ethan Allen done what he came to do and returned to the drawing room. His host and the others were disappointed when he didn't mention Washington's portrait. And finally his lordship couldn't resist and asked Mr. Allen had he noticed it - the picture of Washington - he had. Well what did he think of its placement? Did it seem appropriately located to Mr. Allen? And Mr. Allen said it did. The host was astounded. [mocking British accent] "Appropriate? George Washington's likeness in a water closet?" "Yes," said Mr. Allen, "where it will do good service. The whole world knows nothing will make an Englishman shit quicker than the sight of George Washington." I love that story."

"Euclid's first common notion is this: "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." That's a rule of mathematical reasoning. It's true because it works; has done and will always will do. In his book, Euclid says this is "self-evident." You see, there it is, even in that two-thousand year old book of mechanical law: it is a self-evident truth of things which are equal to the same thing, are equal to each other. We begin with equality. That's the origin, isn't it? That balance—that's fairness, that's justice."

"[pounds his hand on a table as his cabinet squabbles] 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!"

"Do you think we choose the times into which we are born? Or do we fit the times we are born into?"

"In times like this, I'm best alone."

"[last lines, from Second Inaugural speech] Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

"Trust? Oh. I'm sorry, I was under the misapprehension your chosen profession was politics. I never trusted the President, never trusted anyone, but hasn't he surprised you?"

"Nothing surprises you, Asa, therefore nothing about you is surprising. Perhaps that is why your constituents did not re-elect you to the coming term?"

"Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner, Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our adversary, and leader of the Godforsaken Republican Party - our party - Abraham Lincoln has asked for our help in accomplishing the death of slavery in America. Retain, even in opposition, your capacity for astonishment."

"How can I hold that all men are created equal, when here before me stands, stinking, the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold, pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood! You are more reptile than man, George! So low and flat, that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you!"

"I want the amendment to pass, so that the Constitution's first and only mention of slavery is its absolute prohibition. For this amendment, for which I have worked all my life and for which countless colored men and women have fought and died and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers... No, sir, no, it seems there's very nearly nothing I won't say."

"The greatest measure of the 19th century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America."

"[to Abraham Lincoln] No one's loved as much as you, no one's ever been loved so much, by the people. You might do anything now. Don't, don't waste that power on an amendment bill that's sure of defeat."

"[to Abraham Lincoln] You think I'm ignorant of what you're up to because you haven't discussed this scheme with me as you ought to have done? When have I ever been so easily bamboozled? I believe you when you insist that amending the Constitution and abolishing slavery will end this war. And since you're sending my son into the war, woe to you if you fail to pass the amendment."

"But all that was not enough for this dictator, who now seeks to insinuate his miscegenist pollution into the Constitution itself!"

"We are once again asked - nay, commanded - to consider a proposed thirteenth amendment which, if passed, shall set at immediate liberty four million coloreds while manacling the limbs of the white race in America. If it is passed - but it shall not pass!"

"Every member of the House loyal to the Democratic Party and the constituents it serves shall oppose!"

"Daniel Day-Lewis - President Abraham Lincoln"

"Sally Field - First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln"

"David Strathairn - Secretary of State William H. Seward"

"Tommy Lee Jones - Radical Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens"

"Hal Holbrook - Francis Preston Blair"

"Lee Pace - Democratic Congressman Fernando Wood"

"Peter McRobbie - Democratic Congressman George H. Pendleton"

"Bruce McGill - Secretary of War Edwin Stanton"

"Dakin Matthews- Secretary of the Interior John Palmer Usher"

"Jared Harris - Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant"

"James Spader - Republican Party operative William N. Bilbo"

"Tim Blake Nelson - lobbyist Richard Schell"

"John Hawkes - Republican operative Colonel Robert Latham"

"Bill Raymond - Schuyler Colfax"

"David Costabile - Republican Congressman James Ashley"

"Stephen Spinella - Radical Republican Congressman Asa Vintner Litton"

"Michael Stuhlbarg - Kentucky Democratic Congressman George Yeaman"

"Boris McGiver - Democratic Congressman, later Republican, Alexander Coffroth"

"Walton Goggins - Democratic Congressman Wells A. Hutchins"

"David Warshofsky - Democratic Congressmann William Hutton"

"Wayne Duvall - Radical Republican Senator Benjamin "Bluff Ben" Wade"

"Jackie Earle Haley - Confederate States Vice President Alexander H. Stephens"

"Gregory Itzin - John Archibald Campbell"

"S. Epatha Merkerson - Lydia Smith"

"Gloria Reuben - Elizabeth Keckley"

"Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Robert Todd Lincoln"

"Gulliver McGrath - Tad Lincoln"

"Joseph Cross - John Hay"

"Stephen Henderson - Lincoln's valet William Slade"