The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution

by James Oakes Narrated by Bob Souer

Overview

An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln's antislavery strategies.



Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American slavery. With this understanding, Lincoln and his antislavery allies used every tool available to undermine the institution. Wherever the Constitution empowered direct federal action, they intervened. As a congressman in 1849 Lincoln sponsored a bill to abolish slavery in Washington, DC. He reentered politics in 1854 to oppose what he considered the unconstitutional opening of the territories to slavery by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.



President Lincoln took full advantage of the antislavery options opened by the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation, a military order of the president, undermined slavery across the South. It led to abolition by six slave states, which then joined the coalition to affect what Lincoln called the "King's cure": state ratification of the constitutional amendment that in 1865 finally abolished slavery.

Editorial Reviews

Sean Wilentz

"With this superb book, Oakes opens the way for a thorough retelling of the nation’s history from the American Revolution to the Civil War."

Garry Wills

"Eleanor Roosevelt used to say, ‘If you must compromise, compromise up.’ The champion compromiser up was Lincoln, as Oakes proves, avoiding the simple views of him as just opportunist or just emancipator. He knew where he was going, even when he had to obscure the goal."

Manisha Sinha

"Cogently argued, by one of our foremost historians of emancipation."

Sidney Blumenthal

"A diamond of historical scholarship, with deep research and understanding shining brilliantly in every facet."

Don Herzog

"I read this remarkable book with pleasure and admiration. Oakes writes like a dream."

Amy Dru Stanley

"On Lincoln, on the Civil War, on slavery’s downfall, on constitutional change—this is an indispensable book."

James M. McPherson James M. McPherson

"With crisp and lucid prose, Oakes provides a map that guides the reader through the zigs and zags of the path to freedom."

David S. Reynolds

"Brilliant…A landmark contribution."

Michael Burlingame

"No other scholar has shed more light on Lincoln’s way of dealing with slavery."

James M. McPherson

"With crisp and lucid prose, Oakes provides a map that guides the reader through the zigs and zags of the path to freedom."

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2020-09-19
A superb analysis of how the Constitution influenced the battle over slavery.

Although the Constitution is widely considered a sacred document, legal scholars disagree on what the various clauses mean, and activists denounce it as flawed by shameful racist compromises. Oakes agrees that the Founding Fathers did indeed compromise. However, he demonstrates that the end result was so sloppy that, before the Civil War, slavery supporters could claim that it protected their institution, and abolitionists had no doubt that it didn’t. For example, the Fifth Amendment states that no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. The Constitution refers to slaves as “persons,” but only abolitionists believed it. “Nowhere,” writes the author, “does the Constitution state that Congress cannot ‘interfere’ with slavery or abolition in a state, yet it was widely agreed that it could not.” The Constitution never mentions a right of “property in man” despite the assertion by Chief Justice Robert Taney in the 1857 Dred Scott decision that it does. Thus, the heated debate over slavery referred to principles absent from the text. Depending on one’s view, there existed a pro-slavery Constitution and an anti-slavery Constitution. Despite a lifelong dislike of slavery, Lincoln gets low marks from activists for his statements on racial equality, but he was a practical politician who needed to appeal to a Republican Party that contained members who were “thoroughgoing racial egalitarians.” “Others were unabashed racists in a way that Lincoln never was,” writes Oakes, who parses a complex topic with an impressive combination of deep insight and concision. Pressured during the famous 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas, who claimed that Lincoln was “an advocate for racial ‘amalgamation,’ ” he backpedaled. Other scholars fault him for keeping abolitionists at arm’s length and look down their noses at the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed few slaves. However, Oakes persuasively shows how, from the moment Lincoln assumed office, he made it clear by both rhetoric and action that slavery was doomed.

Many books discuss Lincoln and abolition, but this is among the best.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177585901
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos