# The Birth of a Nation

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Cast and Crew :
| Cast ||
| Role | Actor |
| | Lillian Gish |
| | Mae Marsh |
| | Miriam Cooper |
| | Henry B. Walthall |
| | Ralph Lewis |
| | George Siegmann |
| | Mary Alden |
| | Walter Long |
| | Robert Harron |
| | Wallace Reid |
| | Joseph Henabery |
| | Elmer Clifton |
| | Spottiswoode Aitken |
| | Jennie Lee |
| | Donald Crisp |
| | Monte Blue |
| | Peggy Cartwright |
| | John Ford |
| | D. W. Griffith |
| | Walter Huston |
| | Elmo Lincoln |
| | Eugene Pallette |
| | Erich von Stroheim |
| | Raoul Walsh |
| | Edmund Burns |
| | George Beranger |
| | Josephine Crowell |
| | Gibson Gowland |
| | Jules White |
| | Russell Hicks |
| | Bob Burns |
| Crew ||
| Production company | David W. Griffith Corp. |
| Distributor | D. W. Griffith, Netflix |
| Director | D. W. Griffith (d. 1948) |
| Producer | D. W. Griffith |
| Screenwriter | D. W. Griffith, Frank E. Woods (d. 1939) |
| Cinematographer | Billy Bitzer (d. 1944) |
| Editor | D. W. Griffith |
| Composer | Joseph Carl Breil (d. 1926) |
| Production designer | D. W. Griffith |
| Based on available information, the latest crew member that is relevant to international copyright laws died in 1948, meaning that this film may be in the public domain in countries and jurisdictions with 75 years p.m.a. or less, as well as in the United States. ||
GRIFFITH FEATURE FILMS
Produced exclusively by
D. W. Griffith
DG
D W Griffith
A PLEA FOR THE ART OF THE MOTION PICTURE
We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word—that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.
D. W. Griffith
presents
The Birth of a Nation
Adapted from Thomas Dixon's novel
"The Clansman"
COPYRIGHT 1915DAVID W GRIFFITHCORPORATION
The Players
¶ If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain.
¶ The bringing of the African to America planted the first seed of disunion.
¶ The Abolitionists of the Nineteenth Century demanding the freeing of the slaves.
¶ In 1860 a great parliamentary leader, whom we will call Austin Stoneman, was rising to power in the National House of representatives.
¶ We find him with his young daughter, Elsie, in her apartments in Washington.
¶ Some time later.
¶ Elsie with her brothers at the Stoneman country home in Pennsylvania.
Dear Ben:—
True to my promise brother and I are coming to visit you, arriving in Piedmont on Friday next. We are both just dying to see you again and to meet your Kith and Kin.
¶ In the Southland.
¶ Piedmont, South Carolina, the home of the Camerons, where life runs in a quaintly way that is to be no more.
¶ Bennie Cameron, the eldest son.
¶ Margaret Cameron, a daughter of the South, trained in the manners of the old school.
¶ The mother, and the little pet sister.
¶ The kindly master of Cameron Hall.
¶ Hostilities.
Dear Ben:—
True to my promise brother and I are coming to visit you, arriving in Piedmont on Friday next. We are both just dying to see you again and to meet your Kith and Kin.
¶ The visit of the Stoneman boys to their Southern friends.
¶ Chums— the younger sons.
¶ North and South.
¶ "Where did you get that hat?"
¶ Over the plantation to the cotton fields.
¶ By way of Love Valley.
¶ He finds the ideal of his dreams in the picture of Elsie Stoneman, his friend's sister, whom he has never seen.
¶ In the slave quarters.
¶ The two-hour interval given for dinner, out of their working day from six till six.
¶ The Gathering Storm.
¶ The power of the sovereign states, established when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the individual colonies in 1781, is threatened by the new administration.
CHARLESTON, S. C., UNITED STATES OF
IF THE NORTH CARRIES THE ELECTION, THE SOUTH WILL SECEDE
¶ The Stoneman library in Washington, where his daughter never visits.
¶ Charles Sumner, leader of the Senate, confers with the master of Congress.
¶ Lydia Brown, Stoneman's housekeeper
¶ The mulatto aroused from ambitious dreamings by Sumner's curt orders.
¶ The great leader's weakness that is to blight a nation.
¶ The visitors called back to their northern home.
¶ The chums promise to meet again.
¶ Young Stoneman vows the old vow that his only dreams shall be of her till they meet again.
¶ The First Call for 75,000 Volunteers. President Lincoln signing the proclamation.
AN HISTORICAL FACSIMILE of the President's Executive Office on that occasion, after Nicolay and Hay in "Lincoln, A History"
¶ Abraham Lincoln uses the Presidential office for the first time in history to call for volunteers to enforce the rule of the coming nation over the individual states.
¶ The Stoneman brothers departing to join their regiment.
¶ After the first battle of Bull Run.
¶ Piedmont's farewell ball on the eve of the departure of its quota of troops for the front.
¶ Bonfire celebration in the streets.
¶ While youth dances the night away, childhood and old age slumber.
¶ The first flag of the Confederacy baptized in glory at Bull Run.
¶ Daybreak.
¶ The time set for the troops' departure.
¶ The assembly call.
¶ Their state flag.
¶ The spirit of the South.
CONQUER WE MUST FOR OUR CAUSE IS JUST VICTORY OR DEATH
¶ A mother's gift to the cause—three sons off for the war.
¶ Elsie on her return to her aunt's home in Washington tells her father of her brothers' leaving for the front.
¶ Two and a half years later.
¶ Ben Cameron in the field has a letter from home.
and you have really grown a moustache—oh my! I'm just dying, dying to see you. Well, I'm growing up too—they say I'm such a big girl now you wouldn't know me xxxxxx(kisses)
Your little big Sis
¶ News from the front.
¶ Little sister wears her last good dress as a ceremonial to the reading of her brother's letter.
¶ Piedmont scarred by the war.
¶ An irregular force of guerillas raids the town.
The first negro regiments of the war were raised in South Carolina.
¶ The scalawag white captain influences the negro militia to follow his orders.
¶ A company of Confederate state troops informed of the raid.
¶ The Confederates to the rescue.
¶ After the rescue.
¶ Letters from home revive tender reveries for "the little Colonel."
¶ On the battlefield.
¶ War claims its bitter, useless, sacrifice.
¶ True to their promise, the chums meet again.
¶ News of the death of the youngest Cameron.
¶ Others also read war's sad page.
¶ The last of their dearest possessions to be sold for the failing cause.
¶ Elsie Stoneman goes as a nurse in the military hospitals.
¶ While the women and children weep, a great conqueror marches to the sea.
¶ The torch of war against the breast of Atlanta.
¶ The bombardment and flight.
¶ The death of the second Cameron son.
¶ The last grey days of the Confederacy.
¶ On the battle lines before Petersburg, parched corn their only rations.
¶ A sorely needed food train of the Confederates is misled on the wrong road and cut off on the other side of the Union lines.
¶ General Lee orders an attempt to break through and rescue the food train.
¶ A bombardment and a flanking movement are started to cover the charge.
¶ The action before daybreak with artillery duel in distance.
¶ "The little Colonel" receives his orders to charge at an appointed moment.
¶ The intrenchments of the opposing armies separated by only a few hundred feet.
¶ The masked batteries.
¶ The field artillery.
¶ The mortars.
¶ "The little Colonel" leads the final desperate assault against the Union command of Capt. Phil Stoneman.
¶ Two lines of intrenchments taken but only a remnant of his regiment remains to continue the advance.
¶ All hope gone, "the little Colonel" pauses before the last charge to succor a fallen foe.
¶ The Unionists cheer the heroic deed.
¶ In the red lane of death others take their places and the battle goes on into the night.
¶ War's peace.
¶ The North victorious.
¶ News of the death of their second son and of the eldest being near death in a Washington hospital.
¶ War, the breeder of hate.
¶ The woman's part.
¶ "The little Colonel" in the military hospital set up in the Patents Office where Elsie Stoneman is a nurse.
and remember above all my request that you use your influence in any way possible for the welfare of my old boarding school friend Col. Ben Cameron, who has been committed to your hospital.
Lovingly your bro.
Phil
¶ "Though we had never met, I have carried you about with me for a long, long time."
¶ Mother Cameron comes from Piedmont to visit her stricken eldest boy.
¶ "I am going into that room to my boy. You may shoot if you want to."
¶ The army surgeon tells of a secret influence that has condemned Col. Cameron to be hanged as a guerilla.
¶ "We will ask mercy from the Great Heart."
¶ The mother's appeal
¶ "Mr. Lincoln has given back your life to me."
¶ Her son convalescent, Mrs. Cameron starts back for Piedmont to attend the failing father.
¶ Back at home with the good news.
¶ Appomattox Courthouse, on the afternoon of April 9, 1865, the surrender of Gen. Robt. E. Lee, C. S. A., to Gen. U. S. Grant, U. S. A.
AN HISTORICAL FACSIMILE of the Wilmer McLean home as on that occasion, and the principals and their staffs, after Col. Horace Porter in "Campaigning with Grant."
¶ The end of state sovereignty.
¶ The soul of Daniel Webster calling to America: "Liberty and union, one and inseparable, now and forever."
¶ The same day, Col. Cameron is discharged and leaves for home.
¶ The feast for the returning brother.
¶ Parched corn and sweet potato coffee.
¶ "Southern ermine", from raw cotton, for the grand occasion.
¶ The homecoming.
¶ The Radical leader's protest against Lincoln's policy of clemency for the South.
¶ "Their leaders must be hanged and their states treated as conquered provinces."
¶ "I shall deal with them as though they had never been away."
¶ The South under Lincoln's fostering hand goes to work to rebuild itself.
BOARDING.
¶ "And then, when the terrible days were over and a healing time of peace was at hand"......came the fated night of April 14, 1865.
¶ To the theatre.
¶ A gala performance to celebrate the surrender of Lee, attended by the President and his staff.
¶ The young Stonemans present.
AN HISTORICAL FACSIMILE of Ford's theatre as on that night, exact in size and detail, with the recorded incidents, after Nicolay and Hay in "Lincoln, a History"
¶ The play: "Our American Cousin," starring Laura Keene.
¶ Time, 8:30.
¶ The arrival of the President, Mrs. Lincoln, and party.
¶ Mr. Lincoln's personal bodyguard takes his post outside the Presidential box.
¶ To get a view of the play, the bodyguard leaves his post.
¶ Time, 10:13.
¶ Act III, Scene 2.
¶ John Wilkes Booth
¶ "Sic semper tyrannis!"
¶ Stoneman told of the assassination.
¶ "You are now the greatest power in America."
¶ The news is received in the South.
THE NEW SOUTH
J. H. SEARS, Editor and Proprietor
Port Royal, Saturday, April 22, 1865
The Fullon arrived here last Thursday afternoon (18th), bringing the startling news of the assassination of President Lincoln, and an attempt upon the life of Secretary Seward. It has thrown our community into the deepest gloom. The flags all over the islands and on the shipping were instantly placed at half-mast. We have only room for a brief summary of the facts from our exchanges. Papers of the 15th say:
"An unlooked for and terrible calamity has be-
¶ "Our best friend is gone. What is to become of us now!"
¶ End of the first part.
The Birth of a Nation
¶ Second part—Reconstruction.
¶ The agony which the South endured that a nation might be born.
¶ The blight of war does not end when hostilities cease.
¶ This is an historical presentation of the Civil War and Reconstruction Period, and is not meant to reflect on any race or people of today.
¶ Excerpts from Woodrow Wilson's "History of the American People:"
¶ ".....Adventurers swarmed out of the North, as much enemies of the one race as of the other, to cozen, beguile, and use the negroes.....In the villages the negroes were the office holders, men who knew none of the uses of authority, except its insolences."
¶ "....The policy of the congressional leaders wrought...a veritable overthrow of civilization in the South.....in their determination to 'put the white South under the heel of the black South.'"
WOODROW WILSON
¶ "The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation.....until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country."
WOODROW WILSON
¶ The uncrowned king.
¶ The Executive Mansion of the Nation has shifted from the White House to this strange house on the Capitol Hill,
¶ Stoneman's protege, Silas Lynch, mulatto leader of the blacks.
¶ "Don't scrape to me. You are the equal of any man here."
¶ The great Radical delivers his edict that the blacks shall be raised to full equality with the whites.
¶ Senator Sumner calls.
¶ Forced to recognize the mulatto's position.
¶ The Senator urges a less dangerous policy in the extension of power to the freed race.
¶ "I shall make this man, Silas Lynch, as a symbol of his race, the peer of any white man living.
¶ Sowing the wind.
¶ Stoneman, ill at his daughter's apartments, sends Lynch South to aid the carpetbaggers in organizing and wielding the power of the negro vote.
¶ Lynch makes Piedmont his headquarters.
¶ Starting the ferment.
¶ The black party celebration.
¶ Inducing the negroes to quit work.
EQUALITY
EQUAL RIGHTS EQUAL POLITICS EQUAL MARRIAGE.
FORTY ACRES AND A MULE FOR EVERY COLORED CITIZEN.
¶ The Freedman's Bureau.
¶ The negroes getting free supplies.
¶ The charity of a generous North misused to delude the ignorant.
FREEDMANS BUREAU.
¶ "This sidewalk belongs to us as much as it does to you, 'Colonel' Cameron."
¶ Stoneman, advised by his physician to seek a milder climate and desiring to see his policies carried out at first hand, leaves for South Carolina.
¶ Their arrival in Piedmont.
¶ Influenced by his children he has selected the home town of the Camerons for his sojourn.
¶ "Yo' northern low down black trash, don't try no airs on me."
¶ "Dem free-niggers f'um de N'of am sho' crazy."
¶ Lynch's second meeting with "the little Colonel."
¶ The black's condescension.
¶ Lynch a traitor to his white patron and a greater traitor to his own people, whom he plans to lead by an evil way to build himself a throne of vaulting power.
¶ The Southern Union League rally before the election.
FORTY ACRES AND A MULE FOR EVERY COLORED CITIZEN.
EQUALITY
EQUAL RIGHTS EQUAL POLITICS EQUAL MARRIAGE.
¶ Stoneman the guest of honor.
¶ Enrolling the negro vote.
¶ The franchise for all blacks.
FREEDMANS BUREAU.
¶ "Ef I doan' get 'nuf franchise to fill mah bucket, I doan' want it nohow."
¶ The love strain is still heard above the land's miserere.
¶ The love token.
¶ Bitter memories will not allow the poor bruised heart of the South to forget.
¶ Still a North and a South.
¶ Pride battles with love for the heart's conquest.
¶ "I'll watch you safely home."
¶ Love's rhapsodies and love's tears.
¶ Election day.
¶ All blacks are given the ballot, while the leading whites are disfranchised.
¶ Receiving the returns.
¶ The negroes and carpetbaggers sweep the state.
¶ Silas Lynch is elected Lieut. Governor.
¶ Celebrating their victory at the polls.
¶ Encouraged by Stoneman's radical doctrines, Lynch's love looks high.
¶ "The little Colonel" relates a series of outrages that have occurred.
¶ "The case was tried before a negro magistrate and the verdict rendered against the whites by the negro jury."
¶ Even while he talks, their own faithful family servant is punished for not voting with the Union League and Carpetbaggers.
¶ The faithful soul enlists Dr. Cameron's sympathy.
¶ The riot in the Master's Hall.
¶ The Negro party in control in the State House of Representatives, 101 blacks against 23 whites, session of 1871.
AN HISTORICAL FACSIMILE of the State House of Representatives of South Carolina as it was in 1870. After photograph by "The Columbia State."
¶ Historic incidents from the first legislative session under Reconstruction.
¶ The honorable member for Ulster.
¶ The speaker rules that all members must wear shoes.
¶ It is moved and carried that all whites must salute negro officers on the streets.
¶ The helpless white minority.
¶ White visitors in the gallery.
¶ Passage of a bill, providing for the intermarriage of blacks and whites.
¶ Later.
¶ The grim reaping begins.
Gus, the renegade, a product of the vicious doctrines spread by the carpetbaggers.
¶ In agony of soul over the degradation and ruin of his people.
¶ The inspiration.
¶ The result.
¶ The Ku Klux Klan, the organization that saved the South from the anarchy of black rule, but not without the shedding of more blood than at Gettysburg, according to Judge Tourgee of the carpet-baggers.
¶ Their first visit to terrorize a negro disturber and barn burner.
¶ Lynch's supporters score first blood against the Ku Klux.
¶ The new rebellion of the South.
¶ "We shall crush the white South under the heel of the black South."
¶ "Your lover belongs to this murderous band of outlaws."
¶ The tryst.
¶ Confirmed in her suspicions, in loyalty to her father she breaks off the engagement.
¶ "But you need not fear that I will betray you."
¶ Over four hundred thousand Ku Klux costumes made by the women of the South and not one trust betrayed.
¶ Little sister consoles the disconsolate lover.
¶ Against the brother's warning, she goes alone to the spring.
¶ "You see, I'm a Captain now—and I want to marry—"
¶ "Wait, missie, I won't hurt yeh."
¶ "Stay away or I'll jump!"
¶ For her who had learned the stern lesson of honor we should not grieve that she found sweeter the opal gates of death.
¶ And none grieved more than these.
¶ The son's plea against his father's radical policy.
¶ Gus hides in "white-arm" Joe's ginmill.
HOTEL AND SALOON
CARRIAGES BOUGHT, SOLD AND EXCHANGED
¶ Townsmen enlisted in the search of the accused Gus, that he may be given a fair trial in the dim halls of the Invisible Empire.
¶ The trial.
¶ Guilty.
¶ On the steps of the Lieut. Governor's house.
¶ The answer to the blacks and carpetbaggers.
KKK
¶ Morning.
¶ Lynch accepts the challenge by ordering negro militia reinforcements to fill the streets.
¶ Having embroiled Lynch in the uprising, Stoneman takes his temporary departure to avoid the consequences.
¶ The Clans prepare for action.
¶ "Brethren, this flag bears the red stain of the life of a Southern woman, a priceless sacrifice on the altar of an outraged civilization."
¶ "Here I raise the ancient symbol of an unconquered race of men, the fiery cross of old Scotland's hills........I quench its flames in the sweetest blood that ever stained the sands of Time!"
¶ The summons delivered to the Titan of the adjoining county to disarm all blacks that night.
¶ Spies dispatched to hunt out whites in possession of the costume of the Ku Klux.
¶ The penalty—death.
¶ Lynch happy at last to wreak vengeance on Cameron House.
¶ The bitterness of ideals crushed.
¶ The scalawag white Captain, in accordance with the Carpetbaggers' policy, makes the arrest.
¶ Appealing to Elsie Stoneman to have her father intervene.
¶ The faithful souls take a hand.
¶ The master in chains paraded before his former slaves.
¶ Hoping to effect a rescue, the faithful souls pretend to join the mockers.
¶ "Is I yo' equal, cap'n,—jes like any white man?"
¶ Elsie learns her brother has slain a negro in the rescue of Dr. Cameron.
¶ Awaiting her father's expected arrival.
¶ The social lion of the new aristocracy.
¶ The little cabin occupied by two Union veterans becomes their refuge.
¶ The former enemies of North and South are united again in common defence of their Aryan birthright.
¶ Her father failing to return, and ignorant of Lynch's designs on her, Elsie goes to the mulatto leader for help.
¶ Lynch's proposal of marriage.
¶ Lynch's reply to her threat of a horsewhipping for his insolence.
¶ "See! My people fill the streets. With them I will build a Black Empire and you as a Queen shall sit by my side."
¶ Summoning the Clans.
¶ Lynch, drunk with wine and power, orders his henchmen to hurry preparations for a forced marriage.
¶ "I want to marry a white woman."
¶ The Clans being assembled in full strength, ride off on their appointed mission.
¶ And meanwhile, other fates—
¶ "The lady I want to marry is your daughter."
¶ The town given over to crazed negroes brought in by Lynch and Stoneman to overawe the whites.
¶ White spies disguised.
¶ The Union veterans refuse to allow Dr. Cameron to give himself up.
¶ While helpless whites look on.
¶ Ku Klux sympathizers victims of the black mobs.
¶ News of the danger to the little party in the besieged cabin.
¶ Disarming the blacks.
¶ The next election.
HOTEL
¶ The aftermath.
¶ At the sea's edge, the double honeymoon.
¶ Dare we dream of a golden day when the bestial War shall rule no more.
¶ But instead—the gentle Prince in the Hall of Brotherly Love in the City of Peace.
¶ "Liberty and union, one and inseparable, now and forever!"
THE BIRTH OF A NATION
¶ THE END
Copyright 1915David W. GriffithCorporation
* ↑ Inconsistent with the format of the rest of the film, this particular intertitle was centered and did not contain a pilcrow. (Wikisource contributor note)
* ↑ According to this GeoCities transcription, a scenery line of "¶ "The little Colonel" orders Gus to keep away." appears after this line, presumably at around 2:03:32, when "the little Colonel" encounters Silas Lynch after Elsie leaves. However, for some reason, that line does not appear in this version of the film. (Wikisource contributor note)
* ↑ According to this GeoCities transcription, a scenery line of "¶ Parade of the Clansman." appears after this line, presumably at around 3:09:21, when there is a sudden skip in the video. However, for some reason, that line does not appear in this version of the film. (Wikisource contributor note)
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
Copyright law abroad tends to consider the following people authors of a film:
* The principal director
* The screenwriter, and/or other writers of dialogue
* The composer/lyricist (if the film is accompanied by sound)
* The cinematographer
* By extension, the authors of any works that may serve as the basis for a film's plot
The longest-living of these authors died in 1948, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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