Original subtitles

- The door's locked from the inside?

- Yes, ma'am.

- Key, please.

My uncle is an invalid, he requires absolute privacy.

Do you understand?

See to it.

- We'll take a special overnight train.

I've cleared the tracks and had the telegraph lanes cut

from here to Baltimore.

These men intend to kill you.

You can't risk being recognized.

- Now

- This is not how I planned to get to Washington.

- Ladies and gentlemen,

some of you may have heard of him.

- His story has been passed down

from one generation to the next.

- Four score and seven years ago.

- He felt that democracy in its purest form

is for all people.

- All persons held as slaves

shall be thence forward and forever free.

- But there's something deeper than what he did.

It's about who he was.

- Lincoln grew up in poverty.

- Haven't done anything

to make anyone remember that I ever lived.

- He's living proof

that Americans can rise from obscurity to power.

- With that wit and that charm and that intellect.

- It's better to stay silent and be thought a fool

than to speak up and remove all doubt.

- He has this deep sense of empathy.

- He takes the Declaration of Independence.

- All men are created equal.

- And turns it into a nation's moral compass.

- As the country is breaking apart, there's a turning point

where he's gonna have to take a stand.

- Charge!

- Blood will be on your hands!

- Blood is already on my hands!

- You have to learn how to be a Commander in Chief.

- I can't have a war on two fronts.

- He was willing to admit he was wrong and to change.

- We can attack immediately.

- He was the right person at the right time.

- If we let this stand for one minute longer,

we might as well say goodbye to the whole thing.

Union, democracy,

all of it.

- Abe, come here.

Hold it steady.

- You think anyone will know mom is in there?

- God will know.

- We should put a marker, write her name on it.

- Leave it alone.

- When Lincoln's mother died, she had said to him,

Abraham, I'm going away from you now and I shall not return.

Death was a common traveler during that period of time.

- Lincoln's childhood was hard.

Lincoln's father was a carpenter some of the time,

farmer some of the time.

He wasn't good at making money.

- Abraham Lincoln had a hard scrabble,

poverty ridden existence.

- They lived on the frontier

in a one room cabin that had a dirt floor.

- There were times when he fell into

an extreme sense of sadness and melancholy,

that would stay with him the rest of his life.

- After the death of his mother,

his father traveled to civilization

looking for a replacement wife.

And he was left alone with his older sister

for months and months.

- How the children survived

that time alone on the frontier is hard to imagine.

They were foraging for food.

They looked like wild animals.

- In the early 1800s Lincoln is at the edge of

what is the American frontier.

- It's just six years after the Louisiana Purchase.

The nation expands all the way over to the Mississippi River

and parts of the northwestern and plains areas.

- We can trace

the movement of the American population

across the continent.

And the Lincoln family is exemplifying that trend

and they moved steadily westward.

- Frontier life is dangerous,

and consists of a lot of hard labor.

Clearing the land, chopping down trees,

removing tree stumps.

Lincoln is a hard worker,

but he doesn't like physical labor.

He's not someone who enjoys farming.

- After a few months,

Lincoln's father remarried a woman

named Sarah Bush Johnston.

- Hey, there you are.

Come on.

Go on.

- You can read, Abraham?

- Sorry, ma'am.

- It's all right.

- There's plenty of work out there.

Come on.

- We're used to reading about evil stepmothers,

Lincoln had a good stepmother.

She brought a little library of books.

She couldn't even read them herself, but she had them.

- And she forges an extraordinary bond with Abraham.

She understood him, she sympathized with him.

She would encourage him about reading

and education and ambition.

- He's basically self-taught.

He read some of the best writing in the English language.

The King James Bible, Shakespeare, and Greek classics,

and a few other adventure books thrown in

like Robinson Crusoe.

He was drawing from this incredibly rich fountain.

- He went to a primitive school for less than one full year

where he stood out.

One of his friends said,

his ambition soared beyond all the rest of us.

That while we were playing,

he was reading and rereading his books.

- The most impressive thing

about Lincoln's ability to teach himself

is his mastery of Euclid, he loved geometry.

- He's reading about George Washington.

He's reading about the founding fathers.

- He is reading that all men are created equal.

It's the most revolutionary statement

ever articulated by any founding country.

That is a mindblowing proposition.

- Where'd you get that?

- I borrowed it from Mr. Crawford.

- Put it away and get to bed.

I'm gonna need you to dig out them rocks

first thing tomorrow.

- His father didn't understand

why Abraham chose to read instead of to work on the farm.

He thought it was a sign of laziness.

But Abraham had a different set of ambitions.

Through everything he read, he began to imagine,

to envision another way of life.

- It rained last night.

- This is worth 75 cents.

- I'll work it off, I swear, Mr. Crawford.

- Three days working in my fields.

- This kid doesn't share the values

of physical labor with his father.

He yearns to fight his way out

of that daily struggle for survival.

- Crawford ought to be ashamed.

- Ouch. - Stay still.

- Three days work, nothing to show for it.

- I get to keep the book.

It's mine now.

- But despite the tension between them,

Abe got his storytelling talent from his father,

who did have a great sense of humor.

- So this preacher starts his sermon

by saying to the congregation, today I represent the Christ.

Just then this little blue lizard runs up his pants

and he starts to kick them pants off.

- A little blue lizard runs up the preachers leg.

Off come his pants.

The lizard runs under his shirt.

Well, that comes off too.

One little old lady from the congregation

can't take anymore.

She shouts to the preacher,

who's standing there, no pants, no shirt on.

If you represent the Christ I am done with the Bible!

- That yarn of a lie when your Pa told it,

and it's still a lie.

- It's a mighty good lie though.

- Gentlemen, names Denton Offutt,

looking for Mr. John Hanks.

- That's me.

- Need some men to build me a flatboat,

take some barrels down to New Orleans.

I heard you're a river man.

- New Orleans?

- I can't be gone that long, got a family to tend to.

- I'll pay you a decent wage.

- Well, I could go for you, Mr. Offutt.

I made a trip to New Orleans

with cousin John here a couple years back.

- This ain't a job for a jokester.

Serious work.

I'll take the group of ya.

- Whaddya say?

John, this could be my chance.

- All right.

- Got a deal then, huh?

- Thank you, Mr. Offutt.

-Pleasure sir.

- He could read about other people's adventures,

but now this was an adventure of his own.

He begins to create that wider world

that he's dreamed of since he was a little kid.

- He took his flatboat journey down the Mississippi River

to New Orleans and there he saw the big city.

He saw what a new world might look like

beyond the remote farm.

- And during the course of that visit,

he saw more than he had ever seen.

New Orleans was the largest slave trading port

in the United States.

- He saw human beings with hearts and minds

being sold like chattel, like animals, like furniture.

And it left a lasting and haunting impression on him.

- When he comes back home,

there was a law in Illinois at the time

that you had to give your wages to your father

until you reached the age of majority, which was 21.

He's now 21, so he can strike out on his own.

Offutt offers him a job to be a clerk in his general store.

- You'll be back by winter.

- I'm gonna be a clerk now, in a new store.

- Stores go under every day.

- So do farmers.

I'm gonna keep studying, be ready.

- You'll do fine.

- Bye, Pa.

Abraham Lincoln, I'm running for state assembly.

I'm newly arrived, it's not certain I will succeed.

You know, I heard a fella say once,

it's better to stay silent and be thought a fool

than to speak up and remove all doubt.

I would like to dance with you in the worst way.

- I'm not like other ladies, Mr. Lincoln.

It might not have been wise to make that speech.

- I'm afraid this might be my one and only term.

- There's not a nation on this earth

guilty of practices more shocking and bloody.

- Gonna be a big argument in this country.

I intend to be ready for it.

- Lincoln. - Mr. Douglas.

Nobody has ever looked at my lean, lank face

and expected me to be president.

- That's Lincoln?

- Let us have faith that right makes might.

- Four votes for Mr. Lincoln.

- Yes!

- How long can Sumter hold out for?

- Wait for- - You must send more ships.

- I say we withdraw.

- Fire!

- That your new man?

- Yeah, that's Lincoln.

- That's an illegal hold!

- I've never seen Armstrong lose.

How long they been at it?

- About an hour.

- Armstrong, preventing this will fail.

- It ain't over til I win.

- Call it a draw.

Then we both win.

- It's a draw.

- New Salem was a tough town.

There was a gang led by a tough guy named Jack Armstrong.

Newcomers had to prove themselves or be on the outs.

- New Salem itself is yet another one of these

just emerging frontier towns.

It's very small, just a few hundred people.

- But for Lincoln, it seems like a bustling metropolis.

There's a post office, there's three general stores,

there's a blacksmith's shop.

- It had an intellectual community,

it had a little debating society,

it had a teacher who loaned him books.

- He's demonstrated his physical prowess.

He's a hard worker.

He's also known for his intelligence.

- And he will have the funniest stories to tell.

He will have you and your friends in stitches.

- And Lincoln has to learn how to hustle.

He's a store owner, he's a land surveyor, a shopkeeper.

- Eventually Lincoln became a grocer and he sold whiskey.

He also becomes the village postmaster,

and that's where he first got news beyond Illinois.

Reading about issues far beyond his limited sphere.

- Everybody would come to the store,

they'd debate issues, they'd stay around and talk politics.

- He was always interested in politics.

He loved politics.

- In little towns like New Salem,

politicians running for office would come on Saturdays.

And gives speeches.

- Illinois needs railroads.

You got a railroad, you can get your goods to market.

Y'all elect me to state assembly

and I swear I'll bring the railroad right

here to New Salem.

- No, you won't. - I beg your pardon?

Who said that?

- I did.

See, the way I figure it,

if they do build that railroad it'll be near Springfield.

I saw as much in the paper.

And how far are we from Springfield?

About what, 20 miles?

That won't do us a lick of good.

See, this fella, he's right about us

needing to get to market,

but what we need in New Salem is to widen the river

so the steamships can get here.

Then this town will take off,

like a rabbit in front of a pack of wolves.

- Well, I could vote for both, waterway and the railroad.

- I don't think so, mister.

How much that railroad gonna cost?

A lot, right?

See, this fella, he might be able to talk

the hind leg off a donkey,

but if they build that railroad,

there won't be a dime left of tax money for our river.

Then we'll just be like the, like the runt of the litter,

left behind squinting for a meal when there's nothing left.

- Tell 'em Abe.

- There was something about the way Lincoln spoke.

He was able to translate complex issues

into something simple,

terms of the daily life of the people.

Within eight months of his being in New Salem,

the residents wanted him to run for the state legislature.

- At the time we have a two party system

with the Democrats and the Whigs.

And the Whig Party was most interested in

infrastructure that would help the country grow.

- Lincoln very much defines himself initially as a Whig.

An ardent advocate for the federal government

taking a particularly active role

in promoting improved railroads or turnpike networks,

and navigable rivers.

- in Lincoln's day, if you wanted to run for office,

you simply put out a handbill

telling what your promises were and what you stood for.

So at 23 years old he writes this handbill

and it's an extraordinary document.

First of all, most politicians put out a short document.

His is 2,000 words long, and it's very personal.

It starts saying, every man has his peculiar ambition.

Mine is to be esteemed by my fellow man.

And what he means by that is to accomplish something worthy

so my story will be told.

- In that same time, he talks about how he grew up.

I was born, I've ever remained

in the most humble walks of life.

If you elect me, I'm still gonna be this humble guy.

I'm not gonna become somebody different.

- And then he says, I promise you,

I will do everything I can to make my promises come true.

- He's a young man on the make, right?

And then he wasn't shy about it either.

Lincoln seems to emerge out of the roughness

and ambition and the hunger

of what was certainly a very young country.

He had pulled himself out of poverty.

There was no shame in saying, I want to be famous.

He's unembarrassed about forging alliances

with people who can help him.

He wants to make people like him.

He is a politician.

- I'm from New Salem, Abraham Lincoln.

I'm running for state assembly.

I'll tell you what, if I can toss this thing past yours,

you take a look at this?

It'll tell you where I stand.

- Hell, you toss this ball farther than me,

I'll vote for you.

- All right.

What about you boys? - You get all our votes.

- In 1834 Abraham Lincoln is elected

to the Illinois state legislature as a Whig,

a new political party established

by United States Senator, Henry Clay,

to promote infrastructure, a national bank, and tariffs.

And he becomes one of the Long Nine of Sangamon County,

- The Long Nine were a group of Whig legislators,

including Lincoln, who got their name

because they were all over six feet tall.

They advocated for internal improvements

for the state of Illinois,

that they wanted to move the state Capitol

from the sleepy little town of Vandalia

to Springfield, Illinois.

- We gotta move the capital from Vandalia to Springfield.

- But the Democrats will do whatever they can to stop us.

They're already trying to redraw Sangamon County lines.

That means two less seats for us.

- We want the capital in Springfield,

in Sangamon, in our county.

Why?

- Because there's value to having the power

in our own backyard.

- So, if it's valuable, shouldn't there

be a cost for it?

There's a spending bill coming up, right?

- Right.

- What if we tack on an amendment

that says whatever city gets the capital

will have to pay the state of fee for that privilege.

A large fee, $50,000.

Vandalia could never afford that.

But Sangamon could.

That's what I'm thinking.

- Lincoln was immediately perceived as different, unique,

wily and smart.

Taller than everyone else, funnier than everyone else,

stronger than everyone else.

He was a magnetic person.

He was always making friends and they gravitated to him.

And he meets John T. Stewart who advises him

that he should study the law.

- He had to study it all on his own, however.

He would have to borrow books from John Stewart,

who was 20 miles away.

He'd have to walk those 20 miles, borrow the book,

come back, read the book, return the book,

and then get another one.

But he passed the bar.

- He's now on his way, he's taken another step.

He's gonna be around people who make things happen.

- He would in fact, serve four terms

in the Illinois state legislature.

And with each term, his profile and his prestige would grow.

He promotes roads, he promotes canals.

- The American economy is transforming

in the early decades of the 19th century.

The transportation revolution is so crucial

to moving goods and people,

factories which are using new steam technology

makes cotton profitable in a way that it hadn't been.

Makes it the boom crop.

Changes the Southern economy,

where slave based agriculture becomes enormously profitable.

- The entire United States benefits from slavery,

even if they want to argue that they don't.

Northern cotton mills are reliant upon

the cotton produced by enslaved laborers in the south.

The insurance industry in New York City

is where slave holders bought policies

to protect the bodies of their enslaved men and women.

Merchants, bankers, the brokers,

the people who extended loans,

they are all tied up in the institution of slavery.

- It's this global enterprise.

In key areas of the deep south,

you're talking about communities

that are 60 to 70% enslaved.

So the use of terror and violence

have been the method of control.

- But there certainly were white northerners

who believed that slavery is morally wrong.

They are abolitionist.

- And at the heart of all of these things

is the story of Abraham Lincoln himself

and his own transformation.

- At the time, Lincoln was an anti-slavery man.

He didn't like slavery,

but that didn't mean that he was an abolitionist.

- He thought that eventually slavery would die away

and rot on the vine.

But as a politician, he had to be very, very cautious

in expressing his anti-slavery views.

- Once the capital gets moved to Springfield,

he arrives in Springfield on a horse

and two saddlebags with all of his possessions, that's it.

And he gets an offer to have a junior partnership

in a law practice with John Stewart, his fellow legislator.

- He moved to Springfield, Illinois on April 15th, 1837.

I always find that to be bizarrely coincidental.

He was 28 years old when he moved

and he had 28 years more to live to the very day.

- You can try it on if you like.

- Oh no, thank you, I'm only looking.

- Can I help you?

- How much would a bed cost?

Well, I can sell you one for $17.

- 17.

I see.

Thank you.

Here's the thing, mister.

- Joshua, Joshua Speed. - Oh, Abraham Lincoln.

I'm newly arrived and I'm a freshly minted lawyer

and it's not certain I will succeed.

- Jury's still out, is it?

- Jury hadn't even been chosen yet.

The thing of it is is I don't have money for the bed,

not yet.

- Do you have any prospects?

- Yes, I'm partnering with John Stewart.

He's well-established.

- I've got a room upstairs with a bed in it, you know,

if you're looking for a share.

Come on, take a look and see if you like it.

- Yeah.

- These are the boys, by the way.

- Hi, gentlemen. - Abe Lincoln.

- The man managing the store is a young man

named Joshua Speed.

Speed and Lincoln take an almost

instant liking to each other.

The two are about as close as anyone really gets

to Abraham Lincoln,

who was otherwise a very, very private person.

- For the next four years, they lived in the same room,

they slept in the same bed.

There were more people than beds in those days.

- When business was over with the store for the day,

in the back room

all the young political, ambitious types would gather.

- It's there that he meets Stephen Douglas,

the Little Giant as he's called

because he's short of stature, but huge in personality.

And as a Democrat, he's opposed to government support

for infrastructure projects.

- And Douglas becomes Lincoln's

lifelong political rival.

- And then in 1837, a sustained recession

hit the state of Illinois.

Up til that point,

Lincoln had been the champion of infrastructure projects.

- The economy is a disaster

and funding for those damn improvement bills,

it's as dead as that bear under your feet, Lincoln.

And if you keep going,

your career will soon enjoy the same fate.

- A bad economy doesn't mean that improvements

to roads and waterway should stop, Douglas.

If anything, they should be built faster.

- Faster?

Now you've lost me.

- If it's raining, do you stop building a roof

and stand there getting wet, or do you build a double quick?

Building faster will bring back business and trade.

- It doesn't make sense.

- No, it's delusional.

- I made a promise to look out for the people of Sangamon.

- Well, you wouldn't be the first politician

to break a promise.

- Or the last.

- I'm telling my Whigs to vote for more funding.

You should tell your Democrats to do the same.

It takes a little courage to do what's right.

- Was it a courageous man who digs his own grave?

Or just a fool.

- You know, I heard a fella say once,

it's better to stay silent and be thought a fool

than to speak up and remove all doubt.

- Spin all the country wisdom you like, Lincoln.

It won't make you right.

- You planning on pouring that?

- Thank you.

- I didn't expect to see you here, Lincoln.

- Oh.

- Mr. Douglas, you haven't introduced your friend.

- Ms. Mary Todd, this is Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

- Ms. Todd, I am honored.

- Mr. Lincoln's a stubborn Whig,

determined to drop his carriage over a cliff

when everyone else has reigned in their horses.

- Perhaps Mr. Lincoln sees a road

where you don't, Mr. Douglas.

- Ms. Todd, I would like to dance with you in the worst way.

- Lincoln had a great passion for women.

He was very bashful, he was very shy,

but that didn't mean

that he was not always thinking about women.

- Mary Todd was the Belle of the town.

She was beautiful, she was witty.

She attracted many suitors.

She was actually courted by Stephen Douglas, among others.

She was educated, she came from a long line of diplomats,

ambassadors, governors.

She was very interested in politics.

- She was from a prominent Whig political family.

Her father was a slave holder,

but he was also a Whig who knew Henry Clay,

who was Lincoln's political hero.

- I myself am a great admirer of Henry Clay.

- Really?

Wow, I didn't think that a lady like yourself would be-

- Interested in politics?

I hope you'll find I'm not like other ladies, Mr. Lincoln.

Now tell me,

what is this cliff you're determined to drive over?

- Lincoln felt an instant connection to

her and she, to him.

She saw something in him right away.

- Well, Mr. Lincoln,

you said you wanted to dance with me in the worst way

and you certainly did.

- Oh, well. - Don't look so wounded.

It's not your dancing skills I'm interested in.

- Finally, it seems like all those pieces of his life

came together to allow him to rise

beyond the adverse circumstances

of his childhood on the frontier.

- At the time, like Lincoln, there's another young man

who was trying to rise up

through education and literacy to escape.

Frederick Douglass had been born into slavery,

he was separated from his mother

when he was about a year old.

He was chosen when he was about eight or nine years old

to go to Baltimore

to be the house servant for his master's family.

His mistress had never had a slave before

and didn't know that it was illegal to teach him

to read and write.

And so out of the goodness of her heart

she began to teach young Frederick his ABCs.

- And the more he reads, it's a fire in his belly.

This is why they don't want to educate the Negro,

because when we become aware, when we understand,

we can no longer be enslaved.

- And Frederick knew that he would one day

make his attempt to escape.

- Fred?

Fred!

- You got the ticket?

- Had to show em my papers before they'd sell it to me.

Straight through to Newark, then a ferry.

Listen, that's where you have to be extra careful.

They slave catches on the lookout there.

- Anna, I'll be all right.

- You don't know that.

Let me see your sailor's pass again.

They catch you this time they gonna sell you south.

- I have to go.

- Douglass was helped by my great, great, great grandmother,

Anna Murray, who was the first in her family

to be born free.

She sold a feather bed to help finance his escape.

She sold the sailors disguise that he would wear,

and he carried with him seaman's protection papers

that he had borrowed from a friend.

- It's dangerous because there's slave patrols

looking for runaways.

- There were lots of consequences

for people that attempted to run away

and that were recaptured.

People would have their feet cut off, other limbs cut off.

They would have to wear

these grotesque contraptions around their necks.

- Severe whipping with a bullwhip,

cutting your Achilles tendon.

You can still work, can't run.

And the ultimate punishment is death.

- He successfully escaped on that train and then by boat.

And he would taste freedom for the first time

in New York City.

Anna would join him two weeks later and become his wife.

- In Springfield, Abraham and Mary courted for two years.

But they had kind of a stormy courtship.

Opposites attract

and they were definitely opposite in temperament.

He was laconic and laid back,

she was mercurial, she was temperamental.

But they decided to get married.

- Meanwhile, because of the sustained recession in Illinois,

the state legislature can't finish these projects

that Lincoln has promised his constituents he will deliver.

And he shouldered the blame and he actually said then

that and that he would not run

for the legislature the next time.

So it seemed like it was the end of his political career.

- Abraham and Mary were supposed to be married

on January 1st, 1841, but Lincoln got cold feet.

They broke up, he called it the fatal 1st of January.

- And now he'd broken two promises.

He broke the promise to his constituents

and he'd broken his promise to Mary.

And he said at the time that the chief gem of his character

was his ability to keep his word,

and now that he was no longer confident he could do that,

he wasn't sure he could do anything.

That's what led him into this most profound depression

that he had ever suffered.

His friends worried that he might take his life.

- Joshua's Speed, his roommate,

actually hides all of Lincoln's knives and razorblades.

- Meanwhile, Joshua Speed announces

that he's closing up shop in Springfield

and moving back to Kentucky.

Lincoln loses his closest friend.

- You're off then?

- What will you do?

- I'll be better or I'll be dead.

Don't worry, Speed, I won't die.

Haven't done anything

to make anyone remember that I ever lived.

- Lincoln isn't in such a state of depression,

he can barely drag himself out of bed.

- He had been going on such a high, in a sense,

going from the fields to political office, a lawyer,

to about to marry a woman from a very elite family.

And it all comes apart.

- But that drive that he'd had

ever since he was a little kid, ever since his mother died,

to create something that would allow his story to be told,

saved him.

He finished his term in the state legislature.

He went back to his practice of law.

He and Mary had stayed apart for an entire year.

And then finally in 1842 friends brought them back together

and they renewed their engagement, they got married.

- His ambition provided the fuel of energy for him

and his aim will next be for the United States Congress.

He is elected to Congress as a Whig

and the Whigs were bitterly critical of the Mexican War.

Mexican War broke out in 1846

and was widely viewed as the pet project

of democratic president James Knox Polk.

War with Mexico could open new territory

for the extension of slavery.

- Going through with that speech today?

- I am.

- What speech?

- Lincoln wants to put our president in his place

over the Mexican War.

- I wouldn't do that, the president's popular.

Don't poke the bear.

- But what if the bear is wrong.

President Polk provoked this war

'cause he wants California and the whole west

and he wants them as slave states.

Slave power's got to be reigned in.

That's the end of it.

- We agree.

But if you make a speech against the president

before the fighting's even over, you'll be crucified.

And for what?

- Lincoln makes a speech in Congress

denouncing President Polk

for a triggering the Mexican War on false pretenses.

- The war was incredibly popular.

The United States won a huge amount of land,

including future states of California

and New Mexico and Arizona.

So the Democrats use that against Lincoln

to basically try and paint him as not being patriotic.

- The speech backfired on Lincoln

and he suffered for it.

- Can't have been so bad.

- I won't talk about it.

- It might not have been wise to have made that speech,

but it needed to be said.

Presidents can just go to war because they want to,

it's outrageous.

- Well

- I'm afraid this might be my one and only term.

- You'll make other speeches.

I know you will.

- At the end of 1849, he's a lame duck,

he comes back to Springfield, Illinois,

very dispirited, he's out of politics.

- He felt like a failure, he wasn't popular.

He embarrassed himself.

- So he turns back to the law,

traveling the big eighth judicial circuit in Illinois.

- He was quite happy early in his marriage.

They had a nice home on Jackson Street in Springfield.

He had two children at that time, Robert and Edward.

- And as Lincoln is practicing law

and making a reputation for himself,

the country is increasingly having to deal with slavery.

- The issue is dividing the nation.

- The slave holding south

wants to to not only maintain slavery,

but also be able to expand it west

into those territories that have been acquired

through the war with Mexico.

- And then the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

says northern states have an obligation

to return slaves that have fled

from the south into the north.

And the north is up in arms, they are absolutely livid.

- People are being kidnapped,

bounty hunters are going into the north

and capturing free people,

whether they've been free for generations or not,

it just is if you got a random black person

and I can get to 'em, I can capture them and take them away.

Lincoln is aware of all this.

- At the same time,

the abolitionists they're agitating against slavery

through the formation of societies,

publication of newspapers,

the lecturers that are going about the country,

whipping folks up against slavery.

- The most important abolitionists

are formerly enslaved men and women.

What better way to describe slavery

than someone like a Frederick Douglass.

- After escaping from slavery,

Frederick Douglass wrote his first autobiography.

It became a bestseller, made him a household name.

It made him an instant celebrity,

and he joined the anti-slavery lecture circuit.

- What to the American slave is your 4th of July?

I answer, a day that reveals to him

more than all other days in the year,

the gross injustice and cruelty

to which he is the constant victim.

To him, your celebration is a sham.

Your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.

Your sermons and Thanksgivings

with all their religious parade and solemnity

are to him mere, bombast, fraud, deception,

impiety and hypocrisy.

A thin veil to cover up crimes

which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There's not a nation on this earth

guilty of practices more shocking and bloody

than are the people of these United States

at this very hour.

- Gents of the jury, if it's all right by you,

I'll just remind you of a few of the facts of this case.

Poor Mr. Fleming,

he almost got burnt in a fire,

and his legs, they were broken, getting away.

Now, Mr. Fleming, he begged the doctor to fix him up

and well, my client obliged.

But now Fleming is complaining

that one of his legs didn't straight

and that it's the doctor's fault.

And I do, I reckon that's his right, to complain, I mean.

- Lincoln was an extraordinarily good lawyer.

When he was in front of a jury,

he sort of was just having a conversation with them.

- Usually judge David Davis was the presiding judge.

He became a good friend of Lincoln's.

- Your honor, may I perform a demonstration?

This is the bone of a young chicken.

Pretty flexible.

Probably heal pretty good if injured.

Now this is the bone of one that's done some living.

Your honor, may I ask the plaintiff to stand?

- Stand up.

- Gentlemen of the jury,

I think you'll all agree that Mr. Fleming here is,

well, he's no spring chicken.

- I ain't none kinda chicken.

- But you are complaining that you now have a limp

and you want some money for it.

Now, if it were me,

I'd get down on my knees and thank my heavenly father.

And also this doctor for legs to stand on at all.

Thank you, judge, nothing further.

- Lincoln is so good at persuading a jury,

he's almost imagining that he's really had

his political game for his life.

It's about as far as he's likely to get.

- He was very well-respected.

He established the most successful law practice

in central Illinois.

- Lincoln's able to make a good living, ride circuit,

and tell tall tales and tell funny stories.

He's got this self-deprecating humor and folksy charm

combined with a high intellect.

That's a pretty potent combination.

- He's reading philosophy,

he's reading history and literature.

He's growing his mind.

- And then Stephen A. Douglas,

Lincoln's long time rival,

United States, Senator from Illinois,

introduced a law in 1854

that he thought would end slavery agitation forever.

And it was called the Kansas Nebraska Act.

- The Kansas Nebraska Act

says the new territories of Kansas Nebraska,

when they come into the union

can choose themselves by popular sovereignty

whether they want to come in

as a free state or a slave state.

- With this act,

the balance between free states and enslave states

is going to be thrown into jeopardy.

Since the Missouri Compromise of 1820,

northerners thought slavery will never

be north of the southern border of Missouri.

Now, potentially there could be even more slave states

and they will have even more power.

- And that's just unacceptable, to Lincoln.

Rather than reduce and ultimately eliminate

the existence of slavery in this country over time,

which is how Lincoln imagined it,

this might allow slavery's power to grow.

- But he's out of politics.

He's still on the road throughout his judicial circuit,

making friends and telling jokes.

- So we stayed with this old lady.

Now, this fella',

he loved anything to do with our revolution

and he venerated any artifacts he found.

So when he had heard that this old woman

still had a dress that she'd worn during that time,

oh, he begged her to bring it out.

Well, the lady, she takes out this dusty dress from a trunk

and this fella is so excited

that he oh so tenderly kisses it.

Well, he old woman watches this and she says,

mister, if you want to kiss something old,

why don't you kiss my ass?

It's 16 years older than that dress.

- Evening edition, the Kansas Nebraska Act,

they passed it.

- There goes the compromise. - Good riddance.

- No, Douglas is a fool!

- Let the people decide.

- You're talking rubbish! - This is a democracy!

- Lincoln was outraged by this.

- There comes a point for him

when morality and the idea of the expansion of human dignity

takes the fore.

- Abe?

- Judge, you say that A is white and B is black.

So, it's color that dictates that hierarchy?

- Abe, it's five in the morning.

You've been up all night?

- I've got to start at the beginning

in order to see this through to the end.

That's what this is all about, isn't it?

A lighter man having the right to enslave the darker?

By that rule, you oughta be slave to the first man you meet

with a fairer skin than your own.

- That's not all there is to it, and you know it.

- So it's not just color that justifies

one man owning another?

- There are other ways a man might be superior to another.

- You're saying that whites are intellectually superior?

And so they have a right to enslave blacks?

Follow that rule and you're bound to be slave

to the first man you meet that's smarter than you.

- Well, then I'm your slave, Abe.

- No.

- Unless you are fool enough

to think you can figure it all out in one night.

- But it has got to be figured out.

Can't you see?

This, this Kansas Act,

just opened the door to slavery in every single state.

Gonna be a big argument in this country, judge.

I intend to be ready for it.

- Get him!

Get him!

- Call it Bleeding Kansas.

That Kansas Nebraska Act kicks open

the door to slavery existing anywhere

and that leads to serious bloodshed.

- Most settlers want Kansas to be a free state,

but border ruffians from Missouri,

which was a slave state, invade Kansas and steal elections

to try to make it a slave state.

There's a full fledged war going on.

- For Lincoln, the young lawyer,

there's this series of events from 1850 through 1860

that are going to sharply shape

his thinking about what's happening to his country.

- There's the fugitive slave law,

there's the Kansas Nebraska Act,

there's the Dred Scott decision.

- Dred Scott is an enslaved man in Missouri

who was taken to a free state, so he sues for his freedom

on the basis of having been in a free state.

And this case goes all the way

to the United States Supreme Court.

- The Dred Scott decision essentially says that,

black Americans, if they're enslaved their property, period,

and therefore they don't have a right to suit.

- The Supreme Court ruled that black people

had never been and could not be

citizens of the United States.

So blacks have no rights,

which white men are bound to respect.

- Which leads us to John Brown.

John Brown is an abolitionist zealot.

He settled in Kansas and he believes through his faith

that it is his calling and his purpose in this life

to end the atrocity of slavery in the United States,

because it's an antithesis to God.

- John Brown was either a maniac or a saint.

He was a white man who cared enough about black freedom

to try to start a revolution.

And in Kansas, John Brown hacked to death

five pro slavery men.

- Lincoln saw that all these series of events

divided the country.

It divided every party.

The Whig Party divides between the anti-slavery Whigs

and the pro-slavery Whigs.

The Democratic Party divides

between the anti-slavery Democrats

and the pro-slavery Democrats.

The Whig Party eventually is gonna collapse

as a result of this.

And out of this comes the New Republican Party.

- This new party, this Republican Party,

begins in earnest in the early 1850s

and its platform isn't anti-slavery,

it's no extension of slavery into the western territories.

- But there are radical Republicans who say,

slavery is vile, evil, we need to get rid of slavery.

- In the late 1850s, the rhetoric within Congress

was becoming increasingly hot.

Charles Sumner of Massachusetts

was one of the radical wing of the Republican Party.

He had made a speech called "The Crime against Kansas"

on the floor of Congress,

where he used very salacious language

about a US Senator from South Carolina named Andrew Butler.

- Senator Sumner,

you have impugn the honor of my cousin, Senator Butler.

- All I've done is told the world the truth,

that your cousin backs the hideous Kansas Act

and he has a mistress who he obeys without question.

An ugly mistress, whose name is slavery.

- Sumner's carried out unconscious,

unable to return to the Senate for three years.

After the caning of Sumner,

in the north there is a visceral reaction

to an attack right in the Capitol.

Rallies are formed,

mass numbers of people begin to join the Republican Party.

Meanwhile, in the south, however,

Preston Brooks has become a hero.

People start carrying canes around

as if they're gonna attack somebody.

The split between the north and the south

goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

- Lincoln's so unsettled by what's happening

that he decides, I need to be a part of this.

This is an ambition he had since he was young

to be a part of something that was bigger than himself.

- He may have been somewhat content being a lawyer,

but he obviously still had the political bug.

He still had the itch.

- Lincoln helped form the Republican Party in Illinois.

And he becomes the leading candidate in 1858

for the next Senate run,

running against Stephen Douglas,

who was not only now already a Senator,

but he's the presumptive presidential candidate in 1860

for the Democratic Party.

- Lincoln gives an acceptance speech

and it's the most radical thing he's ever said.

And his friends, hearing him rehearse it,

had begged him not to deliver that speech.

They thought it would end his career.

- Lincoln's speech uses a biblical phrase

from the book of Mark, calling America a house divided.

- He declares, a house divided shall not stand.

We can't have a nation that's half slave and half free.

It does mark a turning point in his mind.

He recognizes that in his political life,

he's gonna have to object to slavery

in a way that is tougher and more controversial.

- Lincoln begins to campaign through the state

and invites Douglas to a series of joint debates.

Douglas writes back and says,

I'm under no obligation to meet jointly with you.

I'm the incumbent Senator,

I'm the most famous politician in America at this moment.

Why am I going to give you space on a platform with me?

But Douglas can't resist.

- How you doing, everyone?

Thank you so much for coming out.

I Appreciate you.

- Douglas comes in as the champion.

He comes in to train with a special car decorated.

He comes with servants and his secretaries.

- Mayor, good to see you.

- And Lincoln has to walk

from one debate to another.

The reputation of Lincoln and Douglas

were both on the line here.

- They literally are setting up

the conflict in the nation.

- Now I've known Lincoln from when we were both young men,

and no one can compete with him in wrestling,

or a foot race or on whiskey in his grocery store.

We served on the state legislature together.

And then Mr. Lincoln submerged for a time,

until he reappeared in the hallowed halls of Congress,

where he distinguished himself

by his opposition to the war with Mexico.

Taking the side of the common enemy against his own country.

And he, again, submerged.

He came up again in 1854,

this time in cahoots with Fred Douglass

and his abolitionist friends,

just in time to create this black Republican platform.

- That's right, Douglas, hit him again.

- Lincoln you're two faced!

- If I had two faces you think I'd be wearing this one?

- This old rivalry has come to roost.

- Very good, very good.

- Lincoln felt that his life had been a flat failure

compared to Douglas's.

Douglas had gotten further than he had,

and now they're running against each other for the Senate.

- Now, I am no giant like judge Douglas.

I'm a mere mortal.

No, his ambition, it far exceeds my own.

His party, they all expect him to be president one day.

And then they will all reap the benefits of his greatness.

But nobody has ever looked at my lean, lank face

and expected me to be president.

- People come to these debates

with all the fervent love and attention

that they would bring to a giant sporting event today.

But these were more important

than any sporting event could have been.

- I am here to talk about basic principles.

Now, if the Negro is a man,

while then my ancient faith teaches me

that all men are created equal,

and that there can be no moral right

in connection with one man making a slave of another.

- Now let's talk about principle.

I care more for the great principle of self government,

the right of the people to rule,

than I do for all the Negros in Christiandom.

- When a white man governs himself, that is self-governed.

But when he governed himself

and he also governs another man,

that is more than self government, there is despotism.

- Mr. Lincoln and his ilk want Negro equality in all things.

If they get their way,

Negroes and whites will be permitted to marry.

Negroes will serve on juries.

Negroes will vote.

- During these debates,

Lincoln's not an abolitionist by any stretch,

but he's inadvertently making their arguments

as he's looking for logic

in the constitutionality of all this.

- And he goes way back to Euclid.

Euclid is very much about how you prove something

beyond any shadow of a doubt.

And he's working toward crushing the fallacious arguments

on behalf of slavery.

- But like most people of the day,

he absolutely fervently believes

that black people are inferior,

and whether they're enslaved or freed.

- Just because I believe the Negro should be free,

does not mean that I want to marry one.

As a nation, we began by declaring

that all men are created equal.

We now practically read it all men are created equal,

except Negroes.

Soon it will read, all men are created equal

except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.

Negroes, like many other men,

may not be equal in all things.

But if they are men,

they are entitled to their right

to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The real issue, which will last long after

the tongues of judge Douglas and I are silent,

is the eternal struggle between these two principles,

between right and wrong.

- What Lincoln does so brilliantly

is he takes that core language

of the Declaration of Independence

and turns it into a nation's moral compass.

And he couples that with constitutionality.

And he couples that with scripture,

he has a really powerful argument.

- This is where Lincoln makes his name.

One debate after another.

Everything had prepared him for the repertoire of talents

that he was able to show in these debates.

He's telling stories, he's funny.

He can talk philosophically, he can talk politically.

- The Lincoln Douglas debates helped Lincoln,

it raised his profile, lifted him up a lot.

But he loses the election.

- One of the things about Lincoln that's amazing

is that he loses a lot, but the great ones in life

take a loss and they come back.

- Even though he loses this election,

once again the loss becomes a platform for him to grow.

Underlying it all is there's a passion that he has,

a passion for that cause of antislavery,

which is coming to a head.

- In 1859, John Brown, who left Kansas.

He and his small band of people, blacks and whites,

many of them his own children,

went into what was then Western Virginia

to a town called Harper's Ferry,

which was a federal armory, to attack the arsenal.

He's trying to organize an army of interracial folks

to go into the south, arm the slaves,

and destroy the slave system.

- Those who would not join him, like Frederick Douglass,

gave him moral support and gave him funds.

- The attack was a disaster.

- John Brown was captured and executed

and he sacrificed two of his sons.

- In the south there is an absolute fear

that there are more John Browns out there lurking.

The thought of a massive slave rebellion

unhinged white southerners.

And so we start to see more talks about secession.

Meanwhile, many people in the north celebrated Brown.

Church bells are tolling.

People thought that what he had done

was the right thing to do.

Using violence to end slavery

in a way that most Republican politicians,

including Lincoln,

were not willing to even consider at this point.

And the reaction to Brown is so important

in setting up the election of 1860.

- In 1860, the Republican Party

was only running a second presidential candidate.

Many Republicans assumed that the famous New Yorker,

William Henry Seward, would be the Republican nominee.

- Seward had carried the banner

of the anti-slavery movement for a decade,

he was a great orator,

and beloved in large sections of the north.

- But Dred Scott, Kansas Nebraska Act, John Brown,

all these things have been ripping the country apart.

Seward was not a candidate

who people saw as could bring that together.

- So Republican leaders in the east

began looking around for other possible alternatives.

- The Young Men's Republican Union

decides to organize a series of lectures in New York.

- Lincoln accepted the invitation immediately.

He was relatively unknown in the east.

If he can make an impression there,

then he can leave an impression nationwide.

The day of the speech he had his photograph taken

by Matthew Brady.

That's an awareness

that he's making himself a national figure.

- I'd like to start by expressing

my sincere gratitude to the

Young Men's Central Republican Union

for all the work they've done to publicize-

- By the time he got to Cooper Union,

even though he's gotten a new suit, it's badly wrinkled,

his hair was disheveled.

He does look awkward.

- That's Lincoln?

Looks like he slept in a barn.

- Mr. Lincoln, is there anything you need?

- No, Mr. McCormick.

I reckon if I needed anything, it's too late now.

- Eminent citizen of the west,

ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.

- Mister chairman and citizens of New York.

The facts I will deal with,

the facts I will deal with tonight are nothing new to you.

If there shall be any novelty,

it may be in the mode

of presenting the facts and observations.

- Sounds like an out of tune fiddle.

- Give him a chance.

- Lincoln comes out

with his Indiana hick accent filling the air.

A man taking notes writes,

this is New York, this will never do.

- And now if they would listen, as I suppose they will not,

I would address a few words to the southern people.

You have a specific and well understood illusion

to an assumed constitutional right

to take slaves into federal territories

and hold them there as property.

But no such right

is specifically written in the Constitution.

Your purpose then, plainly stated,

is that you will destroy the government

unless you be allowed to construe

and enforce the Constitution as pleased.

You will rule or ruin in all events.

- Something happens around 10 minutes in.

His voice relaxes, its high pitch tininess melts

into something more endurable, more bearable.

His eyes begin to flash.

- Wrong as we think slavery is,

we can yet afford to let it alone where it is.

But can we allow it to spread into the national territories

and overrun us here in the free states?

If our sense of duty forbids this,

then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.

Let us have faith that right makes might.

And in that faith, let us to the end,

dare to do our duty as we understand it.

- Here here!

What do you think of Lincoln now?

- I appreciate that very much.

I appreciate that very much.

- He mesmerized this crowd.

- After the Cooper Union speech, he was all over the media.

If it had been on the internet today,

it would have gone viral.

- The next morning, every newspaper in New York City

carried an account of this speech.

And it's reprinted in Detroit, in Washington, in Chicago,

even a German language version of this speech.

- Invitations poured into him

to go on further speeches all throughout New England.

- You have the 1860 election coming up.

There are some Republicans who see

this guy in Lincoln that is fresh,

he's folksy, he's moderate.

- He does seem to not be as radical as William Seward,

the absolute front runner or Salmon Chase,

the governor of Ohio.

He's not as conservative as Edward Bates,

a judge, former Congressman, from Missouri.

Those are the three main contenders for the nomination.

So step-by-step, he's accepting the fact that,

I'm really running for the president of the United States.

And then he had this extraordinary team

headed by judge Davis going to be his representative

at the Republican National Convention.

And they loved him.

They wanted to do everything they could for him.

- Now judge, you've got to make sure that everyone knows

which delegation they're supposed

to make friends with in Chicago.

- I've drawn up a list for our people to look after.

- Tell them not to press too hard or fuss too much.

- We have to make some fuss.

There'll be a lot of New York men there

pushing hard for Seward.

If he takes it on the first ballot we're licked.

- He won't. - He might.

I understand that I'm not anybody's first love,

but I could be people's second.

If I'm the second biggest frog in that puddle,

I got a fighting chance to jump over the biggest one.

- What we've got to do

is get the delegates from Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio

to go Lincoln.

- Isn't Ohio just gonna go to Chase?

- Yeah, and Pennsylvania'll be solid Cameron.

- That's just the first ballot.

They're gonna have to switch to somebody.

But we're gonna have to promise them something,

to make it worth their while.

- No.

No, judge.

Don't make any pledges that will tie me up.

Okay?

I can't be there so you've got to do as I would do.

- The Republican National Committee

meets in May, 1860 in Chicago.

- It's a very exciting thing,

the Republican Party is feeling its oats.

- The presidential nominee for the Republican Party,

needs 233 votes to win.

- So while Lincoln is in Springfield,

he has his friends on the ground in Chicago,

headed by Judge Davis, organizing as busily as beavers.

- Order!

Fellow Republicans, please join your delegations.

- His team knows that the importance is

to win the battleground states,

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana.

- We're about to begin the first ballot.

- I know you're gonna vote Cameron in the first ballot.

What about Lincoln in the second?

Can you swing Pennsylvania our way?

- That's a big ask.

- What's it gonna take?

- What've you got?

- As the first round of voting goes,

Seward, as expected, gets the most votes.

- The extraordinary thing is

that Lincoln comes in second.

- Seward might have some problems.

He's too radical.

The backdrop of all of this

is we've just dealt with an execution of John Brown

and the fever around John Brown.

You've got this relatively new party

talking about holding slavery where it is,

but you also know that people who have aligned themselves

with Republicans are saying, end it now.

- And so the Republican Party has to make a determination,

principle

electability.

- We're about to begin the second ballot.

- So, what did Pennsylvania say?

- They want treasury for Cameron.

- Abe said, make no pledges, remember?

- Abe's not here.

- So what did you tell them?

- Lincoln is in Springfield the entire time.

- Mr. Lincoln, good luck for today.

- I appreciate that, Mr. Hay.

- Don't you have anything for us?

- All I have is this message from Judge Davis,

I'm very hopeful, don't be excited.

Any idea what that means?

- After the second ballot, Seward gains a few more votes,

Lincoln gains many more

as delegations now switch to Lincoln.

They call for a third ballot.

- That idea that I would like to be your second love

if I can't get your first love

means that people who might've gone for Chase or Bates

now are going for Lincoln.

- That concludes the third ballot.

And as yet, no candidate has the majority.

So we will now reconvene.

- So on the final round of voting,

Lincoln has 231 and a half votes.

All he needs is another one and a half votes.

- Order.

Order!

The state of Ohio wishes to change its vote.

Ohio, what is your final vote?

Ohio, give me a vote now, what is your final vote?

Order!

The state of Ohio wishes to change its vote.

It wishes to switch four votes from Mr. Chase

to Mr. Lincoln.

- We've won.

- Send a telegram to Springfield, straight away!

Yes!

Yes, yes, yes, Lincoln, Lincoln!

- The gentlemen walks into the theater,

and sets his stovetop hat down beside him.

Well, he gets so wrapped up in the drama

that he didn't realize that old stout woman

come and sit down right next to him.

Yes?

It's from Chicago.

- Congratulations, sir.

- Mr. Hay, thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen. - Congratulations.

- Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Wow.

Well, thank you. gentlemen.

If you'll excuse me,

there's a little woman on Eighth Street

who will be glad to hear the news.

- Yes she will.

- Lincoln's nomination shocked people.

They had expected Seward to win,

but this new guy had won.

And there's an excitement and they rally around him.

- When Lincoln gets the nomination in May of 1860

in the north, he's the surprise nominee.

He doesn't have that much experience running anything.

He's not that well known.

- Frederick Douglass and other African-Americans

were not too sure of Lincoln.

Just because he was a Republican

doesn't mean that this man is an abolitionists

or that he's going to do us any good.

- At the same time, he's hated in the south,

and it was pretty clearly a racist hatred.

There were accusations that he had African blood

or his wife did.

Southern newspapers call him terrible names,

he's a baboon, he's a gorilla.

He's illiterate, he's a tyrant.

- But going into the general election,

there's a great possibility that the Republicans will win,

because the Democratic Party has split apart.

- There are four candidates in the election of 1860.

Of course, Lincoln for the Republican Party.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has split itself

into two factions.

You have John Breckenridge,

who's representing the white slaveholding south.

You have Stephen Douglas representing white northerners.

And then you have the Union Party led by John Bell.

- This is one of the most exciting elections

in American history to that point.

- The future of the nation,

the future of the democracy really seemed at stake.

In Europe during this time, some experiments in democracy

in France and Germany had failed

and had gone back to being monarchies and dictatorships.

This great American experiment in democracy

was so new and so fragile.

- Meanwhile, Lincoln's at home in Springfield.

It was not considered proper for a candidate

to really campaign for himself in those days.

- But during the election,

Matthew Brady's photograph of Lincoln

was so widely reproduced, that picture was everywhere.

It was in illustrated newspapers,

engravings for display,

pins you could wear on your lapel.

- A few weeks before the election,

Lincoln's receiving letters from people and reading them.

And he receives a letter from an 11 year old girl.

She asked him to grow a beard.

She said that she thought he would look better

and Lincoln does grow a beard and it looks good on him.

He's listening to his constituency.

- The day of the general election,

he's restless all day long.

He's been so familiar with disappointment

that he just fears something bad will happen.

About nine o'clock he and Judge Davis and the friends

go to the Telegraph office to hear the returns coming in.

Finally at midnight,

the word comes in

that New York has gone Republican.

Then the church bells ring, people gather in the streets.

This new guy had won.

And then he runs home, as he says,

to tell Mary and famously says, Mary Mary, we are elected.

Mary always believed that he had a destiny.

She surely believed in him

at the lowest moments of his life.

And now his great moment has arrived.

- But Lincoln, our most beloved president,

won with the second worst popular vote.

He only got 39.8% of the vote, which is very small.

We now get worried if someone has less than 50%,

he had less than 40%.

In the electoral college he

got more than half, got 180,

but still it was not

a resounding victory.

- Southern states have been saying, if this man is elected,

we will have no choice but to secede.

And as soon as he is elected,

South Carolina decided to have a secession convention

and by December of 1860, they decide to leave the Union.

- In February of 1861, seven US states seceded.

The Confederate government formed

and puts Jefferson Davis in place as president.

- They're seceding, for one thing and one thing only,

and that is the preservation of slavery and its expansion.

Anybody who says its' states' rights, it's tariffs,

this is nonsense.

You have not read the articles of secession

that every single state laid out.

And in every single one of them they've made very clear

why they are seceding.

And it is to preserve the institution of slavery

to control that financial interest forever.

- Lincoln believed over optimistically,

that there was a way

to get these southern slave holding states

back in the Union once he actually got to Washington.

But before he left Illinois,

Lincoln decided to visit his stepmother one more time.

He had refused to visit his father on his death bed,

so his father died without Lincoln seeing him again.

- If it were up to me,

you'd have no part in being a president.

The way folks talk, I can't help but worry about you.

- Oh, stop your worrying, I'll be fine.

Gotta get him a proper stone.

- He'd be proud of you.

- You always see the best in folks, momma.

We'll see each other again, I promise.

- On February 11th, 1861,

Lincoln begins the train journey to Washington D.C.

It would have been nice to take the shortest route,

but he couldn't go through Kentucky, the state he was born,

or Virginia, because it was too dangerous.

He wrote a letter to a friend

that he was worried he might be lynched.

So he has to go in this very winding roundabout route

over 1900 miles.

Whenever Lincoln comes in anywhere,

everybody comes out to see him.

- There's hope, but there's also this fear.

People would have known

that the southern states have seceded.

These are difficult times

and there are credible assassination threats

against Lincoln.

- There was intelligence of a

massive conspiracy

to try to assassinate him as he came through Baltimore.

The leader of the plot had a system of drawing lots,

pieces of paper with a red dot on them.

And those who got a red dot would try to kill Lincoln

with guns and knives and grenades.

But Allen Pinkerton, who was a railroad detective,

penetrated the conspiracy with operatives.

- Davis? - Mr. Pinkerton.

It's all true.

Anyone who picked one with a red dot is an assassin.

- How many have red dots?

- Eight.

- It's worse than I thought.

- The door's locked from the inside?

- Yes, ma'am.

- Key, please.

My uncle is an invalid, he requires absolute privacy.

Do you understand?

- We'll take a special overnight train.

I've cleared the tracks

and had the telegraph lanes cut from here to Baltimore.

These men intend to create a diversion with the police

and stab you to death.

- That's all?

Like Julius Caesar.

- You need to take this seriously, Abe.

You have fierce enemies.

- If I sneak into the Capitol with fear,

I'm showing good people there's reason to fear.

- Sir, the worst thing that could happen

is you don't make it to Washington at all.

You can't risk being recognized.

- Take care of it.

- This is my associate, Mrs. Kate Warne.

- Mr. Lincoln, it's an honor.

- Mrs. Warne, I am far to plain to pass for your uncle.

- Not at all, sir.

- I take comfort in the idea

that common folk are the best lookin'.

That's why the lord made us so many.

Well

this is not how I planned to get to Washington.

- Lincoln goes from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

to Philadelphia, to Baltimore, to Washington

at night in secret wearing a disguise.

He arrives in Washington, six A.M., unannounced,

and he was attacked in the press,

depicted in these crazy disguises, including kilts,

doing the McLincoln Highland Fling,

and just ridiculed.

Not a good thing for a president

who was coming to Washington to exhibit courage.

Frederick Douglass says,

at least now Mr. Lincoln knows what it's like

to travel on the Underground Railroad.

- When Lincoln ascends to the presidency

and he issues his first inaugural address,

African-Americans are waiting in anticipation

to see what he's going to say.

Because by this time

seven states have seceded from the Union

and African-Americans are thinking,

this is our opportunity.

You know, this is the time to end slavery.

You got this Republican who has won,

he's not an abolitionist,

but you've got enough Republicans

who are ready to move

on these people who are seen as traitors to the country.

- His first inaugural address

is a moment fraught with tension.

- There were still

very serious fears of assassination.

- Fellow citizens of the United States,

in your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,

and not in mine, is the momentous issue of Civil War.

- Lincoln wanted the speech to be strong

without being threatening,

to try to stem the tide of secession.

- The government will not assail you.

You can have no conflict

without yourselves being the aggressors.

- He says federal forts and armories would be protected.

And at the same time, he says, I'm not a threat.

And he promised to enforce the hated fugitive slave law.

- We are not enemies, but friends.

We must not be enemies.

Though passion may have strained,

it must not break our bonds of affection.

- Lincoln had shown this speech to William Seward

and Seward made corrections.

And then Seward looked at the ending of the draft

and it says, it's your choice, my friends in the south,

will it be peace or a sword?

And Seward says, you can end it like this.

So Seward writes out a really good idea.

Lincoln looks at the suggestion

and displaying as much brilliance as an editor

as he showed as a writer,

he recast Seward's proposal into poetry.

- The mystic chords of memory,

stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave

to every heart and hearthstone all over this broad land

will yet swell the chorus of the Union

when again touched, as surely they will be,

by the better angels of our nature.

- This beautifully crafted final paragraph

steps away from threats and just says, remember,

we are all part of the same country

with equally valid memories of the revolution

that not only gave us our independence,

but created a new kind of country.

- But Lincoln was totally disappointing

to Frederick Douglass and other black men and women.

Because in that first inaugural address,

Lincoln talked about the fact that he had no inclination,

no right, to actually do anything about slavery,

where it already existed.

- But he's also telling the south,

he will not permit an illegal rebellion

to happen without a response.

- Lincoln has an immediate military problem on his plate.

- When those states in the south secede,

they take over many of the federal arsenals and forts.

That leaves the United States

with just a few federal ports that it keeps,

including Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.

- The first day after his inauguration,

he receives a message from Major Anderson at Fort Sumter,

telling him that they are running out of supplies

and unless an expedition can bring them relief,

they will have to evacuate.

- Lincoln and the federal government maintained

that all federal property still belongs to the Union.

- So he meets with his cabinet.

The night Lincoln won the election

he had made a decision that will define his presidency

to put each of his chief three rivals,

Seward and Chase and Bates,

into the top positions of the cabinet.

William Seward as Secretary of State.

Salmon Chase, Secretary of the Treasury,

Edward Bates, Attorney General.

Each one of those three rivals thought

he should have been president instead of Abraham Lincoln.

And they think that Lincoln's rather unremarkable,

but Lincoln realized the country is in peril.

These are the most able men in the country.

They each represented a different point of view,

the moderate, conservative, and radical.

I need them by my side.

President Lyndon Johnson might've talked about that issue

in less noble terms.

He liked to say, it's better to have your enemies

inside the tent pissing out

than outside the tent pissing in.

- General Scott says we have no hope

but to surrender Fort Sumter.

- Yes.

And I think he's right.

- But Mr. Seward, only yesterday,

I gave my solemn vow to hold, occupy, and possess our forts.

I believe you helped me craft that passage.

- The situation has changed, sir.

Fort Sumter can't hold out, not without supplies.

And the South Carolinians

have made their intentions more than clear.

I advise withdrawal.

It'll make it seem like our idea,

not that this a secessionists have forced us out.

- It seems the most reasonable course.

- No.

I'd be encouraging their rebellion.

The country would crumble.

- It's already crumbling.

We need time to shore it back up.

Wait for cooler heads.

- We must send more ships.

A fleet carrying reinforcements and long guns.

I'll bet a bombardment will force them to back off.

- Since when were you a Navy man, Blair?

I say, we withdraw.

- Mr. President, look where compromise has gotten us.

We have to crush them now before they grow stronger.

- I will not be the first to fire on my country men.

I told them that my speech too.

- That leaves no alternative.

- How long can Sumter, hold out for?

- General Scott thinks 26 days.

- How many of you say give up the fort?

- You have to give up the fort,

or we'll bring this country to war.

- Those weeks of anticipation before Fort Sumter,

where the hardest weeks for him.

He's still hoping that maybe there'd be some way

to prevent a war.

- Look.

All the papers want to know

what you're gonna do about that fort.

- Well, so do I.

- Huh.

You have done a fine job with this scrapbook, Willie.

- He's thinking, if I provision Fort Sumter,

it might bring about a war.

If I don't do that,

then maybe we're gonna look like

we're so emboldening the south

that it will make the secession even more permanent.

There's division in the cabinet as to what he should do.

- Seward is talking to South Carolina.

He's having discussions with the secessionist leaders.

Basically suggesting that this can be negotiated,

things can be worked out.

And he's doing so without Lincoln's knowledge or approval.

- If we send troops down south

we'll lose Virginia, Arkansas, all the border states.

Time is running out.

Abandoning the fort is inevitable.

We can't let the rebels humiliate us by overrunning it.

The sooner we leave on our own, the better.

Now we have a clear cut majority in agreement,

so it's decided.

- No, it's not decided, Secretary Seward.

It's not decided until I decide it.

- Mr. President.

- Now, I reckon that everything

Secretary Seward says is true.

But there are also other things that are true.

One of them bein' that I'm not willing to go back on my word

and I'm also not ready to give up.

The way I see it,

is that surrender would be ruinous to the Union

by discouraging the folks at home

and encouraging our adversaries.

And it might get this illegal confederacy

recognized by foreign powers.

I have talked to a Navy man

who's got a plan to send supplies by sea

backed by a warship.

And I have decided to do it.

- Lincoln's response was brief and firm.

That puts Seward pretty firmly in his place

and it is something of a tribute to Seward

that he understood that Lincoln was the boss

and that there was more to Abraham Lincoln

than he had originally thought.

- Lincoln doesn't want to create war.

So he tries to, again, thread the needle on this.

And he says to the governor of South Carolina,

look, I will just send food and water.

I won't send one more man, not one more grain of powder,

not one more bullet to Fort Sumter.

You couldn't be against someone

getting food or water, could you?

He puts the Confederacy in a bind.

If they allow the ship to come in, the stalemate continues.

If they fire, well then the Confederacy has fired

the first shot of the war.

- The Confederates decide to ask Major Anderson

to surrender the fort.

Anderson says, no.

- Fire!

- The Confederates fire for 36 hours

until finally the United States flag

is lowered within Fort Sumter.

- Is there any word on the Powhatan?

I need to know the minute Fort Sumter's resupplied.

- This is for you.

- We're at war.

- Charge!

- I hope you boys all reenlist.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause I need every single one of you.

- What can I do for you?

- It's about that army of yours.

Came by to find out when you were intending to use it again?

- Why don't you leave military matters to military men?

- This war has nothing to do with generals.

- The rebels fight on their own land.

- There's something else too.

- Make this a war for abolition

and we'll drive Kentucky to the rebels.

It'll lead to insurrection in the north,

massacre in the streets.

And the rebels will only fight harder.

Blood will be on your hands.

- Blood is already on my hands!