April 14, Lincoln
woke up in a great mood, feeling probably more
cheerful than he'd felt ever in his life. He went on a carriage
ride with Mary. And then they get back
to the White House, and there's a group of
his friends who are there. And they're just leaving,
but he said, no, stay, I want to talk to you. And they kept talking, and
they were telling stories, and he's reading funny things. He no longer needs to
escape to go to the theater. But at 8 o'clock that night,
they tell him, you have to go. It had been in the newspaper
that morning that he would be at the theater that night. And now he had to keep
his word to the people who might come to
the theater thinking that he would be there. ACTOR: Some gals and mothers
would go away from a fellow when they found that out. But you don't valley
fortune, Miss Gusty? ACTRESS 1: My love,
you had better go. ACTOR: You crave
affection, you do. Now, I have no fortune, but I'm
filling over with affections, which I'm ready to pour
out all over you like apple sass over roast pork. ACTRESS 2: Mr.
Trenchard, you will please recollect you are
addressing my daughter, and in my presence. ACTOR: Yes, I'm offering her
my heart and hand, just as she wants them, with nothing else. ACTRESS 2: Augusta,
dear, to your room. ACTRESS 1: Yes, Ma
the nasty beast. ACTRESS 2: I am
aware, Mr. Trenchard, you are not used to the
matters of good society, and that, alone, will excuse
the impertinence of which you have been found guilty. ACTOR: Don't know the
manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to
turn you inside out, old gal, you sockdologizing old mantrap. [laughter] [gunshot] DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
Just think of it. For Lincoln, finally,
this punishing war has come to an end,
and he's able to feel a sense of the country
is going to go forward. I've done my part as a leader. And he only has five
days to appreciate that before he's killed. It drives me crazy. TED WIDMER: No
American president had been killed in office, and
the shock of the assassination was profound. It just unleashed a tremendous
outpouring of grief. His coffin was carried by
a new railroad car that had just been built
for his use and was called the United States. [train whistle] If there was a chance
to see the funeral train on the way back to Springfield,
everybody wanted to be there. In city after city, there
were crowds like Americans had never seen before. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
People connected to him. They know where he came from,
how hard that fight was. They saw a man
who was a good man who became a great president. Lincoln's biography is a
tale of America at a time when it is not yet fully made. The roughness and the
self-made aspects of it, the ambition and the hunger. HAROLD HOLZER: He's the living
proof that Americans can rise from poverty to triumph, the
promise of the American dream, which is that all men
should have an equal chance in the race of life. TED WIDMER: He reminded
Americans of something they were forgetting, that the
Declaration of Independence is a special piece of paper. It obligates us to respect the
human rights of all Americans and of all people. CHRISTY COLEMAN:
That's a journey that he takes by the time he is
assassinated at Ford's Theater. He has moved to a much higher
calling, understanding, and belief in terms of
what the nation could and should be, despite his
own prejudices and concerns when he starts. BARACK OBAMA: From
a contemporary lens, I think it's entirely
right and fair to look at some of
Lincoln's writings and say he was limited and
constrained by his times in ways that are disappointing. And then I can also say,
yeah, but look at what he did. That was really important and
took courage and took skill. He was not just ahead of
his time in terms of vision, but helped to drag the
country in a new direction. He dared to change the
rationale for the Civil War from preserving the
Union to removing the greatest stain of
American democracy-- slavery. ALLEN C. GUELZO:
Lincoln's legacy was to show us that
democracies can survive severe contest
within, and they shall not perish from the Earth. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Lincoln
had hoped that he could accomplish something
worthy so that he would be remembered after he died. It was that hope
that had powered him through his dismal
childhood, his string of political failures, and
the darkest days of the war that his story would be told. It will be told for
generations to come.