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.