Lincoln and Booth

By William Vincent

The drama Lincoln and Booth (a dual tragedy) retellswith some fictional detail, of coursethe story of Abe Lincoln, a hardworking man of humble upbringing and a man of moral turpitude who shies from the egotistical, and of John Wilkes Booth, a man quite the opposite of Lincoln, a man of bombast and inflated moral principle based upon genetic or on bloodline vanity, leading to his ultimate dissolution and megalomania.

The play spans from the opening scenes of the biblical ironies surrounding the advent of the Lincoln era in politics all the way to the final assassination and escape of the Shakespearean megalomaniac Booth, who throughout, by the way, employs his deluded and disillusioned Shakespearean reasoning with great epigonal or bombastic conclusiveness while all the way, irony surely plays him all around and ever onward into his mad conviction that he is Brutus come again and Dixies savior.

In between both Wilkes and Abe is Edwin Booth, the great Northern actor (as his demented brother sees him, i.e., for his having formalized (too much) the style of acting away from Wilkes more wild, emotional style, generally labeled too Southern by Edwin.

Wilkes is ever taking on Edwin as a threat and someone he wishes to prove the lesser for both the betrayal of their southern roots (in acting) and of Dixie as well, especially of Maryland, Oh, Maryland a song Booth ever hums or sings out like a political fanatic.

The play ends not in Garretts Barn but (in a dream) on the deck of the USS Levant, where Booth meets Philip Nolan, in the fog, on the deck. Yes, Philip Nolan in the Man Without a Country, a book by Everett Hale, a book Booth had read in his recent days.

The sets need not be elaborate since this one, like Shakespeare plays themselves, requires little, for it relies on the language, which Booth himself, as well as Lincolnno less and admirer of the Bardbring to the fore of attention, making all extravagant scenery an option. Most necessary as a set piece, however, is the large, full-body mirror in the center stage that serves both as a swinging door from the realm of one White House room to another, as well as a conduit into the others prescience (at first) and later full consciousness, and thru which both protagonist and antagonist speak unknowingly, right at one another, the while more so engaged in monologues to themselves and yet directing other lines more poignantly at their adversary, who likewise happens to be at his own mirror, prepping and primping and worse, imagining the ominous or oppressive other.

Both Lincoln and Booth begin within their individual personas as characters in the real play of their lives and wind up, through the vicissitudes of the times and the pressures of political warfare, taking assumed characters (unconsciously and yet not without their true natures), which brought them both to the catastrophe of their tragic fates within this drama or play of their real livesa fact that amazed me during or later on in my research for this work.

William Vincent, author

If there is any staging or adaptational interest in this script or in any others I have as yet been unable to publish, I wrote myself into poverty in the love and the belief in them. Please visit www.beggarmuse@ yahoo. com for a list and/or discussions or arrangements. Leave a message.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543421125

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Copyright © 2017 by William Vincent.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5434-2111-8

      eBook         978-1-5434-2112-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 05/08/2017

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Production Notes

Part I Scenes 1— 9

Part II Scenes 1 — 9

Part III Scenes 1— 9

Part IV Scenes 1 — 11

Preface to this explosive Scene: Part IV Scene 5

Foreword

This play is to be published …A READER PLAY ONLY!

With the intention that it be so ONLY for a READER audience. It, as well as several others, were written in the late 60’s into the late 80’s— though updated or redacted SINCE, of course— in MY personal and hopeful response to the challenge set by Maxwell Anderson and the more hopeful attempt toward a rebirth or renascence of the VERSE PLAY, which brief movement, now known, did not go so well. BUT this author hopes there ARE STILL some or enough or MANY readers who would STILL like to read such as this READING PLAY, or let’s call it a quasi-historical, scenarial dramatic dialogue. But, since it fell on me that my original, shorter, let’s say, MORE realistic acting versions were NOT (as verse form) acceptable or NOT so hot an item any longer, I then no longer curtailed their length nor any the length of the character’s soliloquies as well, which in some cases would leave a modern real time (stage) actor exhausted and in cardiac arrest on-the-boards! Unless, that is, they were elocuted via (the actor’s) Voice Over(s) here and there, to take up the lengthier sections, during which the actor would take the time to do any stage business necessary AND to RE-ACT to its emotions, heated moments and intents, etc., until such times (as Directed) to cue back into ACT-ual verbal elocution (so said) throughout, and until, the END of the said monologues, per Director’s suggestions.

[Note: As an actor once, myself,

I had so performed them with the use of tape recorded V.O.’s and found them easily adaptable, and with plenty of re-ACT-ing time in order to, let’s say, in Booth’s case, to reveal the (his) MADNESS and the frantic extremism of his personal character over and above those classical political characters he SO identifiably proudly retained in his recitative memory and which he often proudly portrayed in his theatrical life, those whose ideals Booth revered and (I believe) came to visual ize his Self" THEIR divinely reborn, appointed hit man against perceived tyranny.

In the case now of "Lincoln and Booth, A Dual Tragedy as my title explicitly states, where EITHER of them (Lincoln OR Booth) becomes, at any given mo throughout the play, both PRO-agonist and ANT-agonist of the other"— as if either one were the North or South personified, let’s say, i.e., each others’ alternate opposition— THEN, one better sees what I saw in MY research of the two, the AMA-

ZING ironies pertinent in both the President AND in the Actor which so incredibly led the two as if historical/Biblical parallels. Facts therein show the two opposing worlds of the Bible (Lincoln as Moses) and Roman History (Booth as Cassius and Brutus) as IF in some kind of bizarre Historical/Biblical continuum.

And so as with Wilkes Booth, the actor, Lincoln ALSO often sits/stands alone and dwells in deep depression over his HEAVY LOAD of War and Death, his face/body movements alone able to convey plenty of RE-ACTION— head-in-hands and other gestures— to cleverly timed or spaced V.O. Direction, though HE in the cause of Good, the other in the cause of hatred and revenge FOR reasons purely of personal PRIDE and vainglorious conceit! Yes, Wilkes Booth as The Grand Fidei Defensor— in his OWN mind’s eye— of the slave holding SOUTH and its (Royal) society of Plantation profiteers, while Lincoln, the meek, righteous man or the voice of a Godly, more CHRIST ian Conscience. Yes, EACH, the sacrifice on some invisible altar, by the tenets of some inscrutable Fate as yet a reality in the lives of men…OR as it SURELY seemed THEN!

_____Author

Production Notes

This play is to be published with the intention that it be so ONLY for a READER audience. It, as well as several others, were done in the late 60’s into the 80’s— though updated or redacted SINCE, of course— in response to the challenge set by Maxwell Anderson and the attempt towards a rebirth or renascence of the VERSE PLAY, which brief movement as is known did not go so well. BUT this author hopes there ARE still some or enough or MANY readers who would STILL like to read such as this READING PLAY. P.S: Also, many extra scenes I wrote— hoping also to submit for possible T.V. serialization, which failed also—in order to save many extra scenes by extrap- and interpolation into other existing scenes in the main body of the original work, led to some extra long soliloquies or monologues, sometimes dialogues as well. Such can be allowed as a READING PLAY, but not in a normal staging, except for ONE idea, I and some actor friends proved successful via a little red pencil REDaction and a bit of technology.

The Approach

The best way to handle such (this dialogue of inner and sometimes other conflicted selves, i.e., WHEN there is or are such extra-long writing entailed) is for both the actor and director to work out which sections of such character revelation will be ACT-ually voiced by the actor (to his Audience) and which would better be—through the utilization of the same actor’s own V.O. (voice over) recording— vicariously enacted via the art of re-ACT-ing to his own thought processes as that inner dialogue he dwells upon in the course(s) of his character’s action(s).

Take, for example, the scene: Garrett’s Barn in PartIV, the very end of the four part dramatization:

Booth is laid up, broken ankle and all, in Garrett’s barn. Dialogue develops it that he and his tragically too impressionable poor friend are surrounded by Conger’s posse. After his weird dream of Phillip Nolan and the fantastically fabricated ship name, the US Garrett Levant, Booth is frantically caught between the devil and the deep. He hobbles about, looking out through various chinks— not yet aware that one of those chinks is soon to be his porthole to al di la— muttering to himself, and listening to his own rebuttals, excuses, and what not. He nervously fidgits with loading and rechecking his loading of his gun, etc., while seeking the best place to conceal himself. Through it all, the interplay of his own V.O. plays to his own mutterings, sometimes vehement denials, such as where he says: NO! I won’t say that! I am NOT SORRY! It comes out of him in a fit of rage that he (himself) should now be beginning (or even thought to appear so) to have regrets or doubts about his sanity and reasoning in the whole tragic affair.

When he is not muttering or delivering his own dialogue, he may well be glancing upward as though listening to that Voice (or voice over) from above, so to speak, then muttering or cursing back to himself and so on.

In other scenes, throughout, say, at his mirror, he may stare at himself in the mirror as he listens to his inner rambling V.O., mulling what each piece of it may mean or re-mean to his success in the ultima. Such V.O. technique also frees the actor to lots of business— dressing, applying cologne, loading a gun— whatever ’s required toward the process/progress, while it will surely relieve the actor of much unnecessary voice strain and energy expenditure as well as provide for ample re-ACT-ing, which I have forever and always agreed shows any act-er at his best.

Part I Scenes 1— 9

Sc. I Prologue scene. Elijah Sets campaign into cognizance and shows Biblical characters in advance of Lincoln’s mysteriously fated? election win.

Sc.2 The Private Meeting of influentials with David Wilmot, the press and Thurlow Weed

Sc.3. The Home of Asia Booth in New York sister of JWB. A just post-election, pre-war glimpse of Wilkes Booth.

Sc.4 Plotting at the National Hotel, a SECESHsionist caterer to Southern preferences.

Sc.5 A post election gathering of rebels in Harford County, Maryland, or Booth territory.

Sc.6 The White House for Lincoln’s 1st inaugural *Colonel Stone

Sc.7 The Lincoln Suite: Discussion of his Cooper Union speech

Sc.8 Lincoln’s Offices, Seward and discussions of the slave problem

Sc.9 The Lincolns go To the Theater, and a primary Booth/Lincoln face off of attitudes.

Part I Scene__1__: The Illinois Circuit: A Montage of Coming Election

[A shadow man with a beard works behind the scrim on his print press. He lifts off a sheet/page and comes out of shadow, nails it to post. Unseen by any of the off stage voices of a crowd, it reads: Elijah Murdered. One or two of these people emerge from the cacophony of babble and point to his shadow image yet at work behind the scrim]

Man 1:     There ‘e is!

Man 2:            Elijah!

Man 3:               Damned abolitionist!

Elijah:   [comes out]

Be wakened for the scourge of the Lord hath come.

The Abolitionist has, like Moses, arrived to plead against the Sun Belt pharaoh’s chains, crying, let my people go! I am but ONE, Elijah Lovejoy, cries out from (said) Wilderness!

Both printer AND prophet… ‘Was I not SENT? By that very press-age, my trade, my God giv’n gift, to publish what I see, that YOU too should see was I not placed? Look to, and hear my words: ALL men are free! The negro, too, IS A MAN! BORN of man, image of God; have y’ NOT sense? But that in your vanity ‘stand to worship Mammon, an image NOT of God, in whose abundance y’ stake claim! But an image of the Idol! now gloating once again. John, too, has come, out ’the wilderness, John Brown.

Man 2:      Prophesy, Elijah…

Man 3:                Shut up, you damn fool!

Elijah: I TELL you NOW…there is YET one who comes, even now raised up, to break your evil bondage. Of humble cloth he comes to turn guilt’s mirrors on hideous vanity’s spite before RIGHTeousness! He is one who’s of the Word and VERY near, whose truth will sidle past false politic guises, show Democracy but another sham of furtive tyrants when ITS people sleep. AWAKEN! AWAKEN!

[He steps back behind scrim to continue turning his press. Shadows of men with clubs and vile epithets rush him and curse and beat him to death as the light there dies away. Behind another section of scrim, lighted as the other faded, a man in a stovepipe hat comes on, begins speaking from shadows behind it, as he emerges into the regular light, now up full.]

LincolnVoice:   We think the Dred Scott decision dread’ erroneous…

Stephen Doug:   What would ya rather, A NIGGER go SCOT FREE!? [laughter]

Part I Scene__1__: The Illinois Circuit: A Montage of Coming Election

Man 3:      You tell ‘im, Judge!

Man 2:                Let the tall man speak…

Lincoln:      We know, too, that the Court which made it often overrules its very own decisions. What confidence can exist in vacillation?

[He now emerges into the light in full view. As he does, some of the off stage people from before emerge opposite, following Stephen Douglas, all to whom Lincoln is addressing. The debate begins.]

Steph.Doug:   So then, who— YOU, sir— shall guide US? Why then TELL US, you are SO wise…

Lincoln: They are not, as you may have inferred from pomp’n’ stance, the final, infallible word on ANY issue—much the same for which a pope’s attacked—but that God bestirs the hearts of common men to decry such pride. Object, as they might, sir, in turn, they must, in the end, so recognize OUR crucible of choice is in the people. It was even an ancient Roman who had said: "The welfare of the people is the supreme law"—NOT SO our Supreme Court, now, if you’ll allow.

Man 2:      That’s what we want to hear. You tell ‘im, Abe!

[Lincoln is thronged by people and mimes speaking and having some punch with them during the entrance of J.C. Breckinridge to Douglas’ side]

J.C.Breck:   So who’re these BLACK republicans, this honest Abe?

Ste.Doug:   The late great Whig party, sir, no more, see…

J.C.Breck:   ‘N how’d the plowshare become the veritable Jaw? And NOT of the ASS— ‘though he speak like one.

Ste.Doug:   No, but an elephant— their party symbol— blowing off!

J.C.Breck:   But elephants fear a mouse…[realizing his slip]

Ste.Doug:   I’m not a mouse, merely because I’m small, sir.

J.C.Breck:   I meant, little…only in that sense, Little Giant. Yet THIS giant needs t’ be slain, an’ very soon, sir.

Part I Scene__1__: The Illinois Circuit: A Montage of Coming Election

He dares threat’n the very livelihood of the South with this, his/their Black republicanism, ‘call it…

…a term of appropriate color…to SO sully themselves!

Not lily white, sir, only that aboliti’nist hue of black!

How’d ‘e even get on the scene?

Ste.Doug: Democracy’s side door. Via some low profile lawyer, like himself, J.C., that is when ‘e left off bein’ the farmer he still looks. Yeah, ‘lawyer, ‘name o’ Herndon.

J.C.Breck: Never heard of him, sir.

Ste.Doug: Well that may be, but therefore he ‘s on the stage now, from backwoods, city-nameless, to the NOMEN-Nation, sir. Before others neared the caucus, this Herndon named him. NOW, here he looms, champion of the common man.

J.C.Breck: Looms?! No, he needs our cotton looms, look at ‘im… Attack him on his shabby clothes to get some laughs. Get him, SOMEhow, or I’ll join the fray!

Ste.Doug: Now, that could only be divisive for our party. YOU… as V.P…. to the old mole, Buchanan, ‘WOULD SPLIT the party, top and bottom, sir, You’d but pull HIS rug out from under ALL of US!

J.C.Breck: Too much is at stake to let this clown get far. I’ve heard he’s a reputation for wrestling, too. You know how that carries in the commoner’s fantasies.

[Lincoln steps forward from the people now to bring about the contin-

uation of the debate. A man shouts to Douglas]

Man 2:      Go to it, Little Giant… He eggs you on, Judge.

[He steps to Lincoln]

Ste.Doug:   A new suit, now, Mister Lincoln, or…

[Laughter at Lincoln’s misfit, shabby suit, with elbow cuffs ]

Lincoln:      Well, it’s hard goin’ ta find suit ‘ll fit a tall fella.

Ste.Doug: So, tell us, Stovepipe, what’s under your hat? What great wisdom do you hide that we poor fools do not as yet know, sir… ’bout slavery, that is?

Lincoln:      "We republicans inculcate with whatever wit

Part I Scene__1__: The Illinois Circuit: A Montage of Coming Election

that the negro is a man, that his bondage is cruelly wrong, ‘n’ that the Field of his oppression, let’s say, might NOT be enlarged. We hold more to our said Missouri Compromise.

Ste.Doug:                          But Popular Soverignty,

as I’ve proposed it, sir, will better! than compromise,

and in no manor lose! "Each single state may choose

whether slave or free!"

Man 2:             Yeah! That’s tellin’ im, Judge.

Lincoln:      ‘My esteemed colleague then says, in effect proclaims,

that if any man choose to enslave another man

no third man then shall ever be allowed to object."

Voice:      ‘Tallest sucker in Illinois, that’s for sure!

Lincoln:      I say again: "Our slave, so called, is a man!

And the Democrats deny (or dwarf) his manhood;

dwarf to insignificance the wrong of his bondage;

cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him

and call the indefinite spreading of his bondage

a sacred right of the self-governed.

Man 2:                  Woe, Judge…

Voice:      He can’t answer that one.

Voice:               ‘Stovepipe’s a cookin’!

Voice:      BeWARE, Abe Lincoln! Ya big black ape man, ya!

Voice:      Simmer it, hot head!

Voice:                ‘You pretty ugly yo’self!

[Here a Special Audience in the pit or the first rows of special ticket holders

as participants here and there, here, lift up signs, placards etc., with various

slogans: Grease Monkeys for the Ape man" Mud Sills of Society for A. Lin-

coln." and so on, a few for Douglas]

Voice:      ‘Haint got a chance! We need them niggers workin’!

In our fields, Judge! Without ’em, haint no profits!

Lincoln:      "Slavery is wrong! The Democratic policy

in regard to that institution will not tolerate

the merest breath nor the slightest hint

Part I Scene__1__: The Illinois Circuit: A Montage of Coming Election

of the least degree of wrong about it, people.

That is the real issue! …that WILL continue

in this country when these poor tongues

of Judge Douglas and myself shall long be silent.

hear me, fellow Americans: It is of two principles.

The one is the Common Right. …of Humanity…

and the other the Divine Right …of Kings!

The same principle in whatever shape it develops.

The same spirit that says: YOU toil and work

and earn your bread, and I will take and eat it.

No matter in what shape it comes, from the mouth

of a king, who seeks to live by the fruit

of YOUR labor, or from one race as an apology

for the enslavement of another; it IS the very

same principle."

Voice:            Beware Lincoln.

Lincoln:                      I thank you…

But onward fellow Americans. Let’s sweep this right

into office… this wrong out of our doors. Farewell…

[As Lincoln and the Douglas camp slowly disappear as fading shadows

behind the scrim section, the crowd of attendants breaks off after a fade

out and up again becoming another crowd elsewhere in the country, some

taking news papers as news hawkers come in with them, shouting]

News:      Mad John says repent! Leads Slave revolt in Virginie!

Voice:     NOW what madman comes upon OUR stage here?

Voice:      Name’s John Brown.

News:             Brown Seizes Harper’s Ferry!

Read all about it, folks. The Intelligencer here.

Voice:      Harper’s Fe… the arsenal?!

Voice:             Some omen here now, eh?

‘Can jus’ hear ‘im ranting…

[Fade up on another platform looks like a stone facade with a platform on which

the mad John Brown appears, full of fervent frenzy.]

J.Brown:            Revolt, you slaves!

Take up these arms— your arms, bought ‘n’ paid,

and defend yourselves! You are free men, all,

in a declaration signed by this country’s fathers.

Part I Scene__1__: The Illinois Circuit: A Montage of Coming Election

No better right have you nor any man

to march against a government of oppressors!

[A few of the chorus who have become Richmond Grays, now pass out

arms from hands (off stage). A man with a cavalier hat steps forward to

lead them all.]

Tho.Jackson:   What’s your name, soldier?

JWB:               Wilkes Booth, sir,

colonel Jackson, sir… I joined the Richmond Grays

the moment I heard of it, sir, this nigger rebellion.

Jackson:      You’re the actor?

JWB:            Yes sir, direct from Richard III…

into Richmond Grays— ‘n’proud to serve you, sir.

Jackson:      Stay close, Booth, and hold this small contingent.

Any o’ them try t’escape the windows, shoot ’em.

You give the command.

JWB:               I will do so, colonel…

[Jackson waves others to follow. He leads them around behind Brown’s

platform, they appearing as shadows on near scrim. ]

J.Brown:      Hear me, Richmond! Hear me out, one and all:

I am but another cries from the wilderness.

You did not know old Elijah, but you killed ‘im.

Now I am John… a citizen in his right…

to protest here, to fight oppression if need be

[Brown now enters behind scrim to become another shadow as someone

yells out ]

Voice:      It’s the Grays! Look out, John Brown…

[Grays enter in a rage, beating Brown’s protectors, grabbing him. Others

trying to slip out the windows are shot dead as a rope is seen coming down

as shadow on scrim, going round Brown’s neck. He is hanged. All is silent

as all others drift off stage as a John Brown song is faintly heard. Slowly in

the dim light left for the hanging image on the scrim, two large door/mirror

frames come down on to the stage, one S.R. one S.L. then]

Full Fade Out

Part I Scene__2__: The Private Offices of David Wilmot

D.Wilmot:   SO… Whennnnnn shall we… FEW… meet again?

I’d asked this question only some weeks ago.

Now here we are once more. Planets poise

and the tides do ebb in wake of their influence,

not too unlike ourselves. Is Seward out of it?

Horace Greeley, sir…

H.Greeley:             Go west, Mister Wilmot…

Thur.Weed:   Me, TOO, y’ mean?

H.Greeley:             Ah, a claim jumper. Sure!

Thur.Weed:   Yet what to find, out there, that glitters more?

Not all the gold they assay could stake acclaim

more WORTH-y to OUR standards than this office.

POTUS is EVER more than ever sought here.

D.Wilmot:   Ah, but THIS is our SURE dilemma, gentlemen.

We’re all most certain Seward’s dropped the ball.

Yet in the wake now of our yet hopeful claims,

and though even we ALL prospect another in mind,

still, WHO can replace this GIANT of our hopes?

H.Raymond:   Giant? You don’t mean…

Greeley:               ‘Favor Chase, myself…

Raymond:   Then chase yourself, Mr. Greeley.

Greeley:                   HE’s a PRESident, sir!

AND from Pennsylvania, a state y’all KNOW WELL

WE MUST carry in order to win. And, further, sirs,

if this young party is EVER to shed THAT LABEL

black republicans why, then, the moreso "CHASE,

NOT he whose name I sense ‘comes up any moment now.

Wilmot:      Oh, we KNOW who you mean. An’ y’ may be right

Mr. Greeley… Lord knows that TOO sticky LABEL—

all WE knowing, TOO, what its critics mean by black—

hurts us, SURE. Yet, still, we’re to weigh it all

and furthermore NOT disregard our men of letters.

Greeley:      ‘Meaning Massachusetts. ‘Everyone of them, no?

Wilmot:      ‘Understood, sir… …the likes of Wendall Phillips,

Everett Hale, Emerson, and all their voluble others—

in the Abolitionist cause!

Part I Scene__2__: The Private Offices of David Wilmot

Raymond:             Their writings force us

where legists obliged to truth may not demur,

but to interplead our consciences for that cause.

Now as editor of the times, I read our letters,

every day, sirs… No doubt you, too… But, now,

if I may, I would nominate…

Wilmot:                Feel free, Mr. Raymond…

Raymond:   As editor of the Times…

Greeley:                Yes, yes, I think we got that…

Raymond:   LARGEST of readerships— all respects to Mr. Greeley.

I SEE that GIANT. ‘Saw him step out of the shadows,

‘from the woods …‘on to four clear cut stumps now.

But I see how your grins obviate my naming him.

Then let me just say, he affirms our deepest convictions…

In his address to the Cooper Union…

Greeley:                      I would object, sir.

There’s even another better.

DudField:             Yeah, Ohio’s Judge McLean?

Greeley:      Don’t insult me, Mr. Field! I am no idiot, sir.

Health portrays him doleful to republican youth,

albeit the most decent candidate one could wish…

DudField:   Who, then, Crittenden… Hale… Cassius Clay?

Wilmot:      Cassius Clay… AND Lincoln! …What a fight!

Raymond:   I had the floor, gentlemen… …Only hear me now…

In his Cooper Union speech…

Greeley:               Yes, it showed savvy.

But, if anything ’bout him, it showed more his dodging

of the fray, sirs. B’sides his criticizing John Brown,

I heard NO definites therein. He dodged it, sirs.

D.Field:      That in itself, sometimes, a sign of true wisdom:

"He who turns’n’runs away"…

Wilmot:                   … Well said…Yes…

.Field:      Yet I found it quite strange ‘he raised the term assassin

Of John Brown?! …But I see that’s another topic.

Part I Scene__2__: The Private Offices of David Wilmot

Greeley:      I thought so, too.

Weed:            An assassin to our rights!

Though deference to Mr. Greeley, slavery is indeed

a thrashing fish in any politician’s pocket.

And who dares snag it directly ‘s likely himself

to get himSELF hooked. I thought Lincoln clever.

Wilmot:      Alright, gentlemen… Let’s get on with this now.

Foremost for US, we MUST seriously consider

WHO can carry the ballot! We surely must win

Illinois, Indiana, New York and Pennsylvania

toward any reas’nable hope for electoral success.

Assuming New England inquires full after Lincoln,

I suspect his poll of votes there shall appear a castle

to any OUR Mates.

D.Field:             That may well be, Mr. Wilmot,

However, as just learned, Richmond’s convention

has only today dispersed… to reconvene in Baltimore

come this JUNE! Thus, NOW they shall follow OURS!

Plus, NOW, there’s talk of a new Democratic ticket:

that is Hale of Massachusetts with Bell, Tennessee

That’s a run for anyone’s money. Damn Democrats!

Raymond:  Of this Union Party now— yet another party, heh—

I’ll read this news flash ‘received some hours ago.

"This constitutional Union Party’s proposals

include a preamble, thus: Experience has demonstrated

that platforms adopted by the partisan

conventions of the country have had the efffect

to mislead and deceive the people, and at the

same time widen the political divisions of the

country by the creation and encouragement of

geographical and purely sectionalist parties."

Wilmot:      Exactly! It must be stopped. Too many parties!

Raymond:   But no, no, only listen; LET me continue it.

They call on voters of patriotism and of duty

to "recognize no other political principle

than the Constitution itself AND the Union!

and the enforcement of its laws only," unquote.

Weed:      But can such a ticket hold? Too late, I think.

The Constitutional Unionists in New England

would not trust to Bell, old Whig he still is.

Part I Scene__2__: The Private Offices of David Wilmot

D.Field:      They COULD trust Bell WITH the Cerberus-voiced

Everett Hale on guard; he’s Harvard’s best, sirs.

Raymond:   STILL I say ABE LINCOLN! The man’s a legend

in that coveted mid west block we seek to win.

He IS the one, sirs. Why, alone! he’d carry

Illinois and Indiana— quite near ‘native of both.

Weed:      AND the Buckeye as well, I would bet you, gents.

He’d come out of our luge like a greased bobsled.

D.Field:      Then what, Seward— with New York— his mate?

Greeley:      SEWARD, his V.P?! NOHHHH-HO-HO-HO!

‘Be like asking Napoleon to be a corporal.

Raymond:   He WOULD…IF it would give US New York, sir,

and probably Pennsylvania WHO went for HIM!

They’d be invincible.

Greeley:             So would Cameron with Chase.

Wilmot:      Yes, that’s true… A very plausible ticket, Horace.

D.Field:      Now consider Harry Hamlin of Maine…

Wilmot:                   What’s that!?

Why, yes, indeed, Mr. Field. …Hamlin’s the mate!

Any seconds, gents.

Raymond:          I’d second that…

Th. Weed:                I, too.

Greeley:      ANYONE! that‘ll PRY UP Old Buchanan!

I’ll second him…

D.Field:          Lincoln ‘d win no matter who…

But, how now, does our friend Horace a-Gree-ly?

Go West, and we DID, and we pulled our candidate.

AND, in the east, his mate. How ironic ‘once more

an old Hannibal shall lead our Elephant corps.

cis-Alpine ‘cross New England’s slippery polls.

I’d predict right now, gentlemen, we have a WIN!

Greeley:      But only for this slavery issue. I doubt that…well…

I still think, however, Chase will be his mate.

Part I Scene__2__: The Private Offices of David Wilmot

Th.Weed:   Abe Lincoln will do the right thing. He’s legend.

Raymond:   And his wife’s a Todd— of our old Ken-tuc-kee.

Her father ‘legend as well… Deceased in 49,

her old dad’s yet a TRIBUTE to electoral afterlife.

Wilmot:      Of the old Free Soil, that state ‘ch ‘LED the debate!

Kentucky’d turn Union if Lincoln but smells of election.

Greeley:      True, but it doesn’t cotton to the hard line South.

But yes, she just might.

D.Field:             It adds up, gentlemen.

Wilmot:      Lincoln and Hamlin it is. Let me hear it, sirs.

All:      Yea-aaaaaaaaaaaaaa…

Greely,others:            Nay-yyyyyyyyyy!

Wilmot:      We shall reconvene soon. Let’s call it for now.

[All rise, shaking hands as the lights

Fade Out.

Part I Scene__3__: Willard Hotel, Washington.

[JWB stands before his mirror, drinking and reading reviews. Asia comes up to

mirror and Booth goes in to her space in time through the frame. They are in the

heat of a political imbroglio. Throughout this scene there is a blue cast to the

lighting, signifying unreal time.]

Asia:      Wilkes, you must cease your rant!

JWB:                  It’s not rant!

Just like Edwin, you’re growing…

Asia:                Yes, GROWing!

Besides, Mother’s here… She’ll be out here soon.

JWB:      …traitor to your ROOTS! …to the SOUTH, to OUR

…whole past, Asia, …to good old Maryland, which,

in the plush of New York society here you’ve fo’got.

Asia:      How a childish light prefigures fits of madness.

Look at you, all riled up; our youth’s now past…

JWB:      ‘Nothing CHILDish about PATRIOTism, dear sister.

Asia:      You revert, often enough, to Bel Aire, the old farm,

‘s though something as yet unsettled took issue there.

I’m your older sister!

JWB:             So respected. But hear me, too…

"Time WILL come— whether conquered or conqueror—

when that braggart North’ll groan at not being able

to swear they fought the Southland MAN for Man!"

Asia:      And it might just come to that, your man to