The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes
The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes
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The Crooked Path to Abolition
Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution

Author: James Oakes

Narrator: Bob Souer

Unabridged: 6 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/12/2021


Synopsis

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.

About James Oakes

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Reviews

Goodreads review by Bill on April 04, 2022

This is a short book that, Oakes explains, started as an essay and was expanded into book form. It’s both a reiteration and a continuation, a consolidation and an expansion, of his earlier Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865, which traced the legislative and......more

Goodreads review by Stacey on October 01, 2020

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of "The Crooked Path to Abolition" in exchange for an honest review. I am really interested in Abraham Lincoln and anything pertaining to his history. Therefore I jumped at the chance to read and review this new book. I will say that the book is well resea......more

Goodreads review by Colleen on November 10, 2022

James Oakes always seem to look at issues in history in a way that other historians hadn't thought of and that is one of the great strengths of his work. He is also a lucid and interesting writer. In this book, he follows the evolution of Lincoln's thinking on emancipation from his early days to the......more

Goodreads review by Porter on August 31, 2021

Decent book if you are new to Lincoln and don't really know the subject. Unfortunately it is hard to write something new and compelling about him. The one key point that I will remember from this book is how after announcing the Emancipation Proclamation, but before it went into effect, Lincoln had to......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on May 18, 2023

A truly great book always seems to be too short; that certainly applies here. I enjoyed this book immensely, I just wish that it were longer. While the author touched on some important subjects, I felt that any one of the chapters could have been expanded into its own book length study. Overall a ve......more