Founders Lecture with James Oakes

2021 Founders Lecture

Thursday, October 14, 2021

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

The Crooked Path meticulously traces the steps by which Lincoln activated the antislavery powers of the Constitution and neutralized its weaknesses, and the leaders of the many branches of antislavery activism from whom he borrowed and with whom he strategized and often disagreed.  Finally, Lincoln was able to achieve the “king’s cure for all the evils” of slavery – its abolition by both Federal and State powers, by statute and by Constitution – and even envision a post-slavery society of racial equality and voting rights for freed men.

James Oakes holds the Humanities Chair in the Department of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  Author also of multiple essays, articles, and op-eds, and twice winner of the Lincoln Prize (in 2008 and 2013), he is widely praised for writing that is scholarly, timely and accessible.  The Crooked Path has been called superb, brilliant, indispensable, and cogent.

*This lecture will be held via Zoom. Registration is required but free. Links to the webinar & recording will be distributed to registered guests ONLY.

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