Lincoln behind the scenes gags

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

[a nervous man enters hesitantly, closing the door behind]

Thaddeus Stevens: You are Canfrey?

Alexander Coffroth: Coffroth, Mr. Stevens, Alexander Coffroth, I'm... I'm...

Thaddeus Stevens: [skeptically] Are we representatives of the same state?

Alexander Coffroth: [stammers] Y... yes sir! We sit only three desks apart.

Thaddeus Stevens: [Stevens waves him into a chair] I haven't noticed you.

[Coffroth sits]

Thaddeus Stevens: I'm a Republican, and you, Coughdrop, are a Democrat?

Alexander Coffroth: [stammers] Well... uh... I... um... that is to say...

Thaddeus Stevens: The modern travesty of Thomas Jefferson's political organization to which you have attached yourself like a barnacle has the effrontery to call itself The Democratic Party. You are a Dem-o-crat. What's the matter with you? Are you wicked?

Alexander Coffroth: Well, I felt... um...

Thaddeus Stevens: Never mind, Coffsnot. You were ignominiously trounced at the hustings in November's election by your worthy challenger, a Republican.

Alexander Coffroth: No, sir, I was not, um, trounced. Uh, he wants to steal my seat. I didn't lose the election.

Thaddeus Stevens: What difference does it make if you lost or not? The governor of our state, is... a Democrat?

Alexander Coffroth: No, he's... he's a...

[stammers]

Alexander Coffroth: a Re... re... re...

Thaddeus Stevens: Re...

Alexander Coffroth: Re...

Thaddeus Stevens: [nods] Pub...

Alexander Coffroth: pub...

Thaddeus Stevens: Li...

Alexander Coffroth: Li...

Thaddeus Stevens: Can.

Alexander Coffroth: Can. Republican.

Thaddeus Stevens: I know what he is. This is a rhetorical exercise. And Congress is controlled by what party? Yours?

[Coffroth shakes his head]

Thaddeus Stevens: Your party was beaten, your challenger's party now controls the House, and hence the House Committee on Elections, so you have been beaten. You shall shortly be sent home in disgrace. Unless...

Alexander Coffroth: I know what I must do, sir! I will immediately become a Republican and vote yes for...

Thaddeus Stevens: No! Coffroth will vote yes but Coffroth will remain a Democrat until after he does so.

Alexander Coffroth: Why wait to switch? I'm happy to switch...

Thaddeus Stevens: We want to show the amendment has bipartisan support, you idiot. Early in the next Congress, when I tell you to do so, you will switch parties. Now congratulations on your victory, and get out.

George Yeaman: I can't vote for the amendment, Mr. Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln: I saw a barge once, Mr. Yeaman, filled with colored 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, 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: [nods his head] I... Well, I'm sorry to hear that.

Abraham Lincoln: Lovingkindness, 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. There's too many questions...

Abraham Lincoln: We're unready for peace too, ain't we?

[both chuckle]

Abraham Lincoln: When it comes, it'll present us with conundrums and dangers greater than any we've faced during the war, bloody as it's been. We'll have to extemporize and experiment

[rises from sitting on the desk]

Abraham Lincoln: with what it is when it is.

[takes the seat beside Yeaman, no longer towering over Yeaman, leans forward and looks Yeaman in the eye]

Abraham Lincoln: I read your speech, George. Negroes and the vote, that's a puzzle.

George Yeaman: No, no. But, but, but Negroes can't, um, vote, Mr. Lincoln. You're not suggesting that we enfranchise colored people.

Abraham Lincoln: I'm asking only that you disenthrall yourself from the slave powers. 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 Thirteenth Amendment. It's going to be so very close. You see what you can do.

[exits leaving Yeaman, considering]