. The matter is now undergoing
consultation. Weak-kneed damned fools are in the movement for a new
candidate to supplant the President. Everything is darkness, doubt,
and discouragement."

No liberty has been taken with an essential detail of history in the
development of the action except to slightly shift the dates of two
incidents for dramatic unity. In neither case does the change of date
affect the validity of the scene as used.

THOMAS DIXON

DIVISION INTO ACTS

PROLOGUE: The Lincoln cabin in the woods of Indiana, 1820.

ACT I: In the President's room, the morning of August 23, 1864.

ACT II: The same, that evening.

ACT III: Scene 1. Jefferson Davis' room three days later, in Richmond.
Morning.

Scene 2. Same as Acts I and II.

EPILOGUE--VICTORY. The Platform of the second Inauguration, March 4,
1865, before the Capitol at Washington.

A MAN OF THE PEOPLE

PROLOGUE

PERSONS OF THE PROLOGUE

ABE _A Boy of Ten._
SARAH _His Sister._
TOM LINCOLN _His Father._
NANCY _His Mother._
THE DOCTOR _An Old-fashioned Pioneer._

PROLOGUE

SET SCENE: _The rough-hewn log cabin of Tom Lincoln is seen in the
center surrounded by the forest wilderness of Southern Indiana, 1820._

_The cabin door is cut in level with the ground. There is no shutter to
the door and no window to the cabin._

_Right and Left of the door opening are rude benches of split logs. On
the walls are stretched a coon and a small bear, squirrel and muskrat
skins. In the foreground on the right is seen an old-fashioned wash pot
set on three stones. Near the wash pot is fixed in the ground a pole,
on the top of which are hung six gourds cut for martin swallows to nest
in. Beside it are a rude bench and two wash tubs. On the left is a
crude settee made of a split log with legs set in augur holes and a
rough back made of saplings. An old-fashioned doctor's saddle-bags hang
across the back of the settee. The trees are walnut, beech and
oak--undergrowth of dogwood, sumac and wild grapevines. These vines,
festooned over the cabin, give a sinister impression. A creek winds
down through the hills behind the cabin._

AT RISE: SARAH _is seen softly tiptoeing toward the cabin door. She
pauses, listens and slowly peeps inside. She listens again and then
slips away and calls_.

SARAH

Abe! Abe!

[SARAH _goes