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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
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Politics & government

THE CROOKED PATH TO ABOLITION

James Oakes

Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution

An award-winning scholar uncovers Lincoln's strategy for abolishing slavery in this groundbreaking history of the sectional crisis and Civil War.

Some celebrate Lincoln for freeing the slaves; others fault him for a long-standing conservatism on abolition and race. James Oakes gives us another option in this brilliant exploration of Lincoln and the end of slavery. Through the unforeseen challenges of the Civil War crisis, Lincoln and the Republican party adhered to a clear antislavery strategy founded on the Constitution itself. All understood the limits to federal power in the slave states, and the need for state action to abolish slavery finally. But Lincoln and the Republicans claimed strong constitutional tools for federal action against slavery, and they used those tools consistently to undermine slavery, prevent its expansion, and pressure the slave states into abolition. This antislavery Constitution guided Lincoln and his allies as they navigated the sectional crisis and the Civil War. When the states finally ratified the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, it was a confirmation of a long-held vision. James Oakes is one of our foremost Civil War historians, and two-time winner of the Lincoln Prize. A professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, he lives in New York City.

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Book Published 2021-01-12 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

On Lincoln, on the Civil War, on slavery's downfall, on constitutional change - this is an indispensable book.

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

Brilliant... A landmark contribution.

Author's piece: On Abraham Lincoln's Convoluted Plan For the Abolition of Slavery Read more...

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.

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

Oakes ably guides the reader through the Byzantine legal labyrinth of slavery American style... Oakes brings clarity and insight to a political conundrum of bewildering complexity. Read more...

Mr. Oakes, a distinguished Civil War historian and a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, describes the development of these constitutional antislavery strategies concisely and clearly. ... insightful analysis... Read more...

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.

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

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

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