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The Real Abraham Lincoln: His Story & Face Brought to Life with Motion and Color | Royalty Now — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:00hello everyone and welcome back to
0:01royalty now where we recreate famous
0:04figures from the past and talk about
0:05their history
0:06today we're talking about the great
0:08emancipator abraham lincoln one of the
0:11most important men in modern history
0:13we'll talk about his life his struggles
0:15with mental health and the war that
0:17would lead him to the decision that
0:18would change millions of lives forever
0:21at the end becca will talk about what he
0:23looked like and reveal her recreations
0:26so let's go ahead and get started
0:29[Music]
0:33abraham lincoln was born in kentucky on
0:35february 12 1809 to thomas and nancy
0:38lincoln
0:39thomas who would later be described by
0:41abraham lincoln as a drifter was a stern
0:44and demanding man who had led a harsh
0:46life
0:47he couldn't read or write and believed
0:49anything but an honest trade was an
0:51enormous waste of time
0:53nancy was very different
0:55she was mild yet strong described by
0:57lincoln's neighbors as superior to
0:59thomas
1:00she taught lincoln his abcs at a young
1:02age and is credited for giving lincoln
1:04the sweetness and patience he would
1:06later be known for
1:09they would move to indiana when abraham
1:11was seven years old thomas was adamant
1:13that abraham do most of the manual work
1:15needed to clear the land
1:17abraham would later state that his
1:19childhood on the farm was like being in
1:21a constant fight with trees logs and
1:24grubs a school opened up nearby nancy
1:28was able to convince thomas to let
1:29abraham and his sister sarah attend
1:32lincoln realized pretty quickly that he
1:34loved to read and he hated working on
1:36the farm
1:38unfortunately for abraham circumstances
1:40would keep him out of school for most of
1:42his young life
1:44when abraham was nine years old his
1:46mother nancy would die unexpectedly of
1:48milk sickness
1:50this would mark the first of many
1:51tragedies in lincoln's life
1:53and later descriptions of lincoln being
1:55melancholy all begin here with the death
1:57of his mother
2:00lincoln's father became quickly
2:01overwhelmed with keeping up the farm and
2:03caring for his children
2:05not long after the death of his wife
2:07thomas left them
2:09for at least six months even sarah
2:11survived off barely anything but dried
2:13berries nancy had stored before her
2:15death
2:16when thomas finally returned in december
2:18of 1819 he was accompanied by his new
2:21wife sally bush
2:23when abram saw them he ran towards them
2:25crying right past his father to the
2:27woman he had never met before
2:30sally bush would treat abraham as her
2:31own and begin to heal the wound that his
2:33mother's death had left him
2:35she's credited for giving abe his famous
2:37sense of humor and always made sure to
2:39find different books for abraham to read
2:41after he had finished his chores
2:44abraham would later say that his
2:45stepmother had been his best friend in
2:47this world and that no son could love a
2:49mother more than he loved her
2:52lincoln would forever refer to sally as
2:54mama
2:57by the time lincoln turned 18 he had
2:59already grown to his famous height
3:01six foot four and impressively lanky his
3:04teenage years had been spent mostly
3:06working for his father and although he
3:08had barely attended school he was always
3:10reading
3:11aesop's fables robinson crusoe the life
3:13of washington newspapers song books
3:16spelling books the bible lincoln began
3:18to tell stories and sermons to anyone
3:20that would listen
3:22but it was around this time that the
3:23second tragedy of his life struck
3:27just before his 19th birthday
3:29sarah his older sister his caretaker
3:32during those long six months alone
3:34died in childbirth
3:37lincoln spoke very little about his
3:38sister during his life but according to
3:41dennis hanks lincoln's cousin and good
3:43friend
3:44the loss of his sister was devastating
3:46she had been his only connection to his
3:48mother
3:49and now they were both gone
3:53in an attempt to distract himself he
3:55would go down to louisiana with his best
3:56friend alan but when they arrived they
3:59were met with a slave presence they had
4:01never seen before
4:03it was here that lincoln saw his first
4:04slave auction the evil that his parents
4:06had been so adamantly against was right
4:09in front of his eyes for the first time
4:11a husband and a wife
4:13a mother and her child
4:15sold separately never to see each other
4:17again
4:19if slavery is not wrong
4:21nothing is wrong
4:23abraham lincoln
4:28when lincoln returned home he decided it
4:30was time for him to strike out on his
4:31own
4:32at the age of 22 he moved to new salem
4:35illinois and began his new life
4:38during his first year he'd find work at
4:40a general store and join the local
4:42debate club
4:43it was here that people first noticed
4:45abe's incredible talent at public
4:47speaking
4:49not long after abraham met a woman named
4:51dan rutledge
4:52they'd become close friends and then
4:54fell in love they agreed that they would
4:57get married but only after anne finished
4:59her studies
5:01soon enough the people of new salem
5:03impressed with abe's intelligence and
5:04wit began to encourage abe to get into
5:06politics
5:08in 1832 he would run for state office
5:10for the first time
5:12and although he lost
5:14277 out of the 300 votes cast in new
5:16salem were for lincoln
5:19in 1834 abraham would try again only
5:23this time he won
5:24he was officially an illinois state
5:26congressman he was studying to become a
5:28lawyer and in no time anne would be
5:30finished with school and they would
5:32finally be able to get married
5:34but tragedy seemed to follow lincoln
5:36everywhere he went
5:38in 1835 ann rutledge finished with her
5:42schooling finally returned to new salem
5:45but not long after her arrival a wave of
5:47typhoid hit the town
5:49on august 25th 1835
5:52and died at the age of 22.
5:57i am now the most miserable man living
6:00if what i feel were equally distributed
6:02to the whole human family
6:04there would not be one cheerful face on
6:06the earth
6:08whether i shall ever be better i i
6:09cannot tell
6:11i awfully forbade i shall not
6:13but to remain as i am is impossible
6:16i must die or be better it appears to me
6:21abraham decided he would get better
6:24it may have simply been time or maybe it
6:26was just lincoln completely diving into
6:28his work
6:29but in 1836
6:31abraham was able to pass the illinois
6:32bar completing his goal of becoming a
6:34lawyer and he also won re-election
6:38by 1843 he had become a leader of the
6:40newly formed whit party and decided that
6:42it might be time to finally settle down
6:45after a long courtship lincoln would
6:47marry a woman named mary todd
6:50within a year they would have a baby boy
6:52and lincoln would open up his own law
6:54practice
6:55after the failed presidential campaign
6:57of his political idol henry clay and the
6:59following annexation of texas as a slave
7:01state
7:02lincoln realized that the country was at
7:04a pivotal moment
7:05the balance of slave states to free
7:07states was even and the next few years
7:09would decide which direction the country
7:11went
7:12he would begin to speak publicly against
7:13slavery passionately speaking on the
7:15house floor
7:17and although he wasn't calling for
7:18slavery's full abolishment in the united
7:20states just yet he co-wrote a bill to
7:22abolish slavery outright in washington
7:24dc
7:25unfortunately for lincoln these radical
7:27views would backfire he would lose
7:30support from his voters and soon his
7:32party had divided itself over the issue
7:34of slavery
7:35after the whig party won the 1848
7:37presidential election it was clear that
7:39lincoln was being etched out
7:41[Music]
7:42at the age of 40 lincoln found himself
7:44without a party and realized that his
7:46political career was most likely over
7:50over the next five years the debate over
7:52slavery became more and more hostile
7:54years of compromise between the north
7:56and south only delayed the issue
7:59lincoln had spent these years mostly
8:01focusing on his law practice and more
8:03recently was mourning the loss of his
8:05second son
8:07but in 1854 a man named stephen a
8:10douglas proposed a bill called the
8:11kansas nebraska act
8:14the act would allow those states to
8:15decide for themselves whether they
8:17wanted to be free or owned slaves
8:20the idea was that letting the people
8:21handle the issue themselves would take
8:23it out of political hands
8:25but this could not have been further
8:26from what happened
8:28it would instead lead to what is now
8:29called bleeding kansas
8:31anti-and pro-slavery settlers began a
8:33state-level civil war over kansas
8:36election fraud assault and the political
8:38killing of more than a hundred men would
8:40raise tensions over the issue of slavery
8:42to a boiling point
8:44after years away from political life
8:46lincoln's outrage at the idea of letting
8:48the union fall to the will of
8:49slave-owning states is what finally
8:51brought him out of hiding
8:53in one of his first speeches back
8:55lincoln would calmly vent that outrage
8:59nearly 80 years ago we began by
9:01declaring that all men are created equal
9:05but now from that beginning we have run
9:06down to the other declaration
9:08that for some men to enslave others is a
9:11sacred rite of self-government
9:13these principles cannot stand together
9:15and whoever holds to one must despise
9:18the other
9:20in 1858 lincoln would run as a
9:22republican for the u.s senate against
9:24stephen a douglas the very man who had
9:26brought him back into politics
9:28over the course of seven debates that
9:30author allen c guelzo calls the debates
9:33that defined america douglas and lincoln
9:35would speak on slavery morality the
9:38constitution and what they would do to
9:40solve the problem that lincoln thought
9:42was destroying the nation
9:44a house divided against itself cannot
9:47stand
9:48i believe this government cannot endure
9:50permanently half slave and have free
9:54i do not expect the union to be
9:56dissolved i do not expect the house to
9:58fall
9:59but i do expect it will cease to be
10:01divided
10:02it will become all one thing or all the
10:04other
10:07citizens from all over the midwest would
10:09travel by train to see the debates
10:12anyone who missed it in person was able
10:14to read the transcript the next day
10:16lincoln and douglas knew they were
10:18speaking to the whole nation
10:20when the votes came in on election day
10:22lincoln had won the popular vote by over
10:2424 000 ballots but he lost in the
10:27electoral college giving douglas the
10:29seat in the senate
10:31lincoln would take the loss bitterly but
10:33the widespread media coverage of the
10:35event and lincoln's stellar performance
10:37propelled him into the national
10:38spotlight
10:40it wasn't long before rumors began to
10:42swirl of his potential nomination for
10:44president
10:46lincoln would begin campaigning around
10:48the nation people who had never seen him
10:50in person before would catch their first
10:51glimpse and be caught totally by
10:53surprise
10:55in an ill-fitted suit with disheveled
10:57hair and bags under his eyes lincoln
10:59would time and time again deliver
11:01perfectly reasoned intelligent and witty
11:04speeches to the amazement of the crowd
11:06for the first 10 minutes i couldn't
11:08believe the way he looked the way he
11:10sounded his accent but after those 10
11:12minutes the flash of his eyes the ease
11:15of his presentation overcame all doubts
11:18and i was enraptured
11:19[Music]
11:20his speeches would begin to spread in
11:21newspapers and pamphlets all over the
11:24north and within months he was the
11:26front-runner for the presidency
11:28he had gone to win the 1860 presidential
11:30election
11:31a little over a month later before he
11:34was even sworn in
11:36south carolina would secede from the
11:38nation
11:39in an attempt by congress to stop the
11:41secession crisis the crittenden
11:43compromise was conceived
11:45the proposal included six constitutional
11:47amendments that would make slavery a
11:49permanent part of the constitution
11:52if these had passed there would forever
11:54be a constitutional right to be a slave
11:56owner
11:58lincoln said he would rather suffer
12:00death than agreed to the outrageous
12:01proposal
12:03by the time lincoln was inaugurated on
12:05march 4th 1861 six more southern states
12:08had joined south carolina by leaving the
12:10union
12:11when confederate shots were fired at
12:13fort sumter on april 12 1861 the
12:16american civil war began
12:18faced with a daunting task of preserving
12:20the union lincoln's famous compassion
12:23would turn to calculated coldness
12:25it would immediately arrest thousands of
12:27suspected confederate sympathizers
12:29ignoring a supreme court justice's order
12:31to let them go
12:32he suppressed free media declared
12:34martial law and greatly expanded
12:36presidential war powers his aggressive
12:38attitude rallied northern men in droves
12:41within days 75 000 men had volunteered
12:44to preserve the union
12:46unfortunately for lincoln the north
12:47would suffer major losses in the first
12:49year of the war
12:50mostly due to the pretentiousness and
12:53cowardice of one of his generals george
12:54mcclone
12:56but also because the confederacy had
12:57taken lincoln's best soldier
13:00robert e lee had been lincoln's first
13:02choice to lead the union army but when
13:04his home state of virginia seceded from
13:05the nation he declined and joined the
13:07southern army instead
13:09it was now one of the better reasons
13:11lincoln couldn't sleep at night
13:13on most nights of the war lincoln could
13:15be found obsessively waiting for
13:17telegraph updates
13:19he knew the casualties of every battle
13:21what had happened
13:23what had gone wrong
13:25and he knew that morale in the north was
13:27beginning to fade
13:29even england was showing signs of
13:31support for the confederacy any
13:33involvement or recognition by another
13:35global power would surely end any
13:37remaining support for the war
13:40abraham's dream of preserving the union
13:42was fading quickly
13:44at the worst imaginable time
13:46willie lincoln's 11 year old boy
13:49died of typhoid fever
13:51lincoln's wife mary todd would have a
13:54mental breakdown
13:55and abraham was inconsolable
13:59but if lincoln's life of tragedy had
14:01taught him anything it was that even in
14:02the darkest of times he could find a way
14:04to move forward
14:06everything that had happened to him in
14:07his life had led him to this and he
14:10would not fail the millions of lives
14:12that now depend on him
14:13[Music]
14:15in order for europe to stay out of the
14:16conflict abraham would have to make them
14:18realize what this american struggle was
14:21truly about
14:23on september 22nd 1862
14:26abraham lincoln issued the emancipation
14:28proclamation
14:30i do order and declare that all persons
14:33held as slaves within said designated
14:36states
14:37and parts of states shall be then
14:39thenceforward and forever free
14:45but the executive order would mean
14:46nothing unless the north won the war
14:49the proclamation would also allow for
14:51african americans the very group that
14:53had the most to fight for to join the
14:54union army
14:56nearly 200 000 african-american soldiers
14:58would answer the call and take their
15:00fate into their own hands
15:02union soldiers everywhere now felt more
15:04strongly that this was a battle for good
15:06versus evil a mission from god to
15:09liberate millions from the evil of
15:11slavery
15:13in the summer of 1863 the confederate
15:16army met the union army at a small town
15:1880 miles outside of dc
15:20called gettysburg
15:22over the next three days
15:2450 thousand men would lose their lives
15:27and what is still the deadliest day in
15:29us history
15:32in a short speech dedicated to the men
15:33who lost their lives that day lincoln
15:35would begin with his now famous words
15:39four score and seven years ago
15:41our fathers brought forth on this
15:43continent a new nation conceived in
15:45liberty and dedicated to the proposition
15:47that all men are created equal
15:50now we are engaged in a great civil war
15:53testing whether that nation or any
15:55nation so conceived and so dedicated can
15:58long endure
16:00the world will little note nor long
16:02remember what we say here but it can
16:04never forget what they did here
16:08robert e lee would formally surrender to
16:10the union on april 9 1865
16:13and the civil war would come to an end
16:15after the deaths of nearly one million
16:17americans
16:19[Music]
16:21lincoln who had aged decades during the
16:23course of the war was finally free from
16:25the misery and unimaginable pressure of
16:28the last four years
16:30a few days later on april 14th
16:32lincoln was said to have been the
16:34happiest his wife had ever seen him
16:36mary and lincoln would take a carriage
16:38ride through washington where he was
16:39seen smiling and waving
16:42we must both be more cheerful in the
16:44future he would say to his wife
16:48that night they would attend a comedy
16:50together at ford theater
16:52during one of its many roars of laughter
16:54a shot suddenly rang out
16:58john wilkes booth an actor and
17:00confederate sympathizer shot abraham
17:02lincoln directly in the back of the head
17:06by the time they reached a doctor there
17:08was nothing that could be done
17:10at 7 22 a.m on april 15 1865
17:16abraham lincoln died
17:22just before his death lincoln made sure
17:24that the fight for the union the deaths
17:26of so many men and his emancipation
17:29proclamation would not be in vain
17:32the 13th amendment abolished slavery and
17:35indentured servitude in the united
17:37states of america
17:38the freedom of millions of men women and
17:41children from the cruelty and hellish
17:43reality of slavery had finally arrived
17:50lincoln is one of the most celebrated
17:52men in modern history
17:54every tragedy every failure every
17:56struggle he went through taught him the
17:58compassion and fortitude he would need
18:00to eventually lead his nation out of its
18:02darkest time
18:04the great emancipator has become a moral
18:06compass for the american people and to
18:08me is a symbol of what a truly great man
18:11is
18:19so what did abraham lincoln really look
18:21like
18:23this is our first time covering a
18:25subject who has been photographed but
18:27lincoln's life is just too fascinating
18:29for us to ignore
18:31my goal with this section will be to
18:33talk about how lincoln's contemporaries
18:35described him and then of course reveal
18:37some recreations and animations that
18:39look more photorealistic to really bring
18:41him back to life
18:44lincoln seemed an incredibly hard man to
18:46truly capture
18:48lincoln's secretary john nicolai writes
18:51lincoln's features were the despair of
18:53every artist who undertook his portrait
18:56they put into their pictures the large
18:58rugged features and strong prominent
19:00lines they made measurements to obtain
19:02exact proportions but the picture
19:05remained hard and cold the picture was
19:07to the man as the grain of sand to the
19:09mountain as the dead to the living
19:12there are many pictures of lincoln
19:14there is no portrait of him
19:17author walt whitman agreed saying none
19:20caught the deep though subtle and
19:21indirect expression of this man's face
19:24there's something else there a painter
19:26from another time or generation is
19:29needed
19:31quotes about lincoln's appearance all
19:32agree he was a tall thin man slightly
19:35awkward with an intellectual face he
19:38also was described as having a sadness
19:40about him which is no surprise given the
19:42many tragedies that he suffered
19:44it seems he still managed to be very
19:46kind and his eyes were much softer and
19:49more emotional than the rest of his face
19:52unique in appearance lincoln was also
19:54unique in voice and mannerisms
19:57he had a very distinct voice and
19:58speaking style so much that nearly
20:01everyone that listened to him remarked
20:02upon it somehow
20:04journalist horace white described
20:06lincoln as having a thin tenor or rather
20:08falsetto voice almost as high-pitched as
20:11whistle
20:12the new york herald reported that his
20:14voice had a frequent tendency to dwindle
20:17into a shrill and unpleasant sound
20:20lincoln was said to have spoken slowly
20:22pausing between words and phrases
20:24letting his words really sink in and
20:26despite the shrillness of his voice his
20:28words still resonate with us even today
20:31so let's take a look at some recreations
20:33and motion of abraham lincoln now
20:38[Music]
21:06to
21:12[Music]
21:57thank you all so much for watching it
21:59was such a pleasure talking history with
22:01you all today please check out our etsy
22:03store for prints and bookmarks of your
22:04favorite subjects including lincoln and
22:07we'll see you all for the next video
22:30you

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