Lincoln (2012)

Peter McRobbie: George Pendleton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Thaddeus Stevens : How can I hold that all men are created equal when here before me stands, stinking, the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio? Proof that some men ARE inferior, endowed by their maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold, pallid slime in their veins instead of hot, red blood! YOU are more reptile than man, George, so low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you!

  George Pendleton : How dare you!

  Thaddeus Stevens : Yet even YOU, Pendleton - who should have been gibbetted for treason long before today - even worthless, unworthy you ought to be treated equally before the law! And so again, sir, and again and again and again, I say, I do not hold with equality in all things, only with equality before the law! Nothing more.

• Clerk - Edward McPherson : Roll call concludes. Voting is completed. Now...

  Schuyler Colfax : Mr. clerk? Please call my name. I want to cast a vote.

  George Pendleton : I object! The Speaker doesn't vote.

  Clerk - Edward McPherson : The Speaker may vote if he so chooses.

  George Pendleton : It is highly unusual, sir.

  Schuyler Colfax : This isn't usual, Mr. Pendleton. This is history.

• George Pendleton : Instruct us, oh, Great Commoner. What is unnatural, in your opinion? Niggrahs casting ballots? Niggrah representatives? Is that natural, Stevens? Intermarriage?

  Thaddeus Stevens : What violates natural law? Slavery and you! Pendleton, you insult God. You unnatural noise.

  [an avalanche of boos and cheers as Democrats rally to Wood, Republicans rally to Stevens] 

  James Ashley : Mr. Colfax! Please, use your gavel! They are...

  [to Democrats] 

  James Ashley : You are out of order!

  Schuyler Colfax : [banging the gavel]  Order in the chamber!

  James Ashley : [shouting to Colfax]  Direct the sergeant of arms to suppress this!

  [to Democrats] 

  James Ashley : We are in session!

• George Pendleton : I appeal to my fellow Democrats, to all Republican representatives who give a fig for peace!

• Fernando Wood : [Clay Hawkins enters]  Bless my eyes, if it isn't the Post Master of Millersburg Ohio!

  George Pendleton : Mr. LeClerk felt honor-bound to inform us... of your disgusting betrayal. Your prostitution.

  Fernando Wood : Is that true, Postmaster Hawkins? Is your maidenly virtue for sale?

• George Pendleton : Are you despairing, or merely lazy? This fight is for The United States of America! Nothing suffices. A rumor? Nothing! They're not lazy! They're busily buying votes! While we hope to be saved by the national mood?

  [looks over at Stevens, at his desk consulting with Ashley and Julian] 

  George Pendleton : Before this blood is dry, when Stevens next takes the floor, taunt him. You excel at that. Get him to proclaim what we all know he believes in his coal-colored heart. That this vote is meant to set the black race on high, to niggerate

  [sic] 

  George Pendleton : America...

  Fernando Wood : George, please. Stay on course.

  George Pendleton : Bring Stevens to full froth. I can ensure that every newspaperman from Louisville to San Francisco will be here to witness it and print it.

  [Colfax gavels the chamber to order] 

• James Ashley : The President has answered you, sir. Your peace offer is a fiction.

  George Pendleton : That is not a denial. It is a lawyer's dodge.