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"Mr. Lincoln, I've Decided to Trust You!" script, 1967
Page 27
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27 3RD READER - cont'd They are just what we would be in their situation. When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and is very difficult to get rid of it in a satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate that feeling." Did you not also state..."If all earthy powers were given to me, I should not know what to do with the existing institution." Now to our birthright problem...Did you not say..."My first impulse would be to free all slaves... (pause---thumbs next to page) ...and send them to Liberia to their own native land." Did this statement not give rise and seed to the bigots, who would shout for a hundred years...SEND THEM BACK TO AFRICA! Would this not corrupt one of their own called the Black Moses, Marcus Garvey, to beg, steal and extort money to remove his oppressed people from the crush of your words. How many Black Mothers dreaded the journey with the same latent fear that they gathered from their forbearers describing the horrid conditions of their crossing in slave galleons. How many souls did you mentally compress before good soil natured one soul, who stands before you now, mangled of body, benign of spirit, and crude before and after the sharp knife of a civilization that has out distanced the splendor of the Khans and the Caesars. Speak not of what is written, speak from your heart or did Booth, indeed do you mercy by having it splintered on the Ford place floor so that we cannot counsel that part of you which may have been the foulest." 1ST READER "I protest...this manner or questioning and badgering the witness to speak from his heart, as though his written words are not enough." MR. LINCOLN (waves the Reader aside--quietly--begans---to reader first---) "appreciate your kind words, but I do have a heart and it is touched now as it was many years ago. I am more touched now by the malignancy of my words...having been a lawyer, I must say that my first thought was to take a legalistic dodge and say, all that you've based your confrontation on, is the hot air of a politicians
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27 3RD READER - cont'd They are just what we would be in their situation. When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and is very difficult to get rid of it in a satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate that feeling." Did you not also state..."If all earthy powers were given to me, I should not know what to do with the existing institution." Now to our birthright problem...Did you not say..."My first impulse would be to free all slaves... (pause---thumbs next to page) ...and send them to Liberia to their own native land." Did this statement not give rise and seed to the bigots, who would shout for a hundred years...SEND THEM BACK TO AFRICA! Would this not corrupt one of their own called the Black Moses, Marcus Garvey, to beg, steal and extort money to remove his oppressed people from the crush of your words. How many Black Mothers dreaded the journey with the same latent fear that they gathered from their forbearers describing the horrid conditions of their crossing in slave galleons. How many souls did you mentally compress before good soil natured one soul, who stands before you now, mangled of body, benign of spirit, and crude before and after the sharp knife of a civilization that has out distanced the splendor of the Khans and the Caesars. Speak not of what is written, speak from your heart or did Booth, indeed do you mercy by having it splintered on the Ford place floor so that we cannot counsel that part of you which may have been the foulest." 1ST READER "I protest...this manner or questioning and badgering the witness to speak from his heart, as though his written words are not enough." MR. LINCOLN (waves the Reader aside--quietly--begans---to reader first---) "appreciate your kind words, but I do have a heart and it is touched now as it was many years ago. I am more touched now by the malignancy of my words...having been a lawyer, I must say that my first thought was to take a legalistic dodge and say, all that you've based your confrontation on, is the hot air of a politicians
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