i saw the light and it made a very special. that made it even more special. this is a depiction of the lanterns as they are floating in the river. >> [bell tolls] >> "american history tv," historian james oakes, prize-winning author of numerous books, discusses the evolution of president lincoln's anti-slavery politics. he describes the abolitionist movements of the day and how they helped transform a politically cautious a lincoln into in emancipator. this hour and 10 minute program was hosted by the lincoln group of the district of columbia. >> [applause] i am john elliff,

vice president. it is my pleasure this evening to introduce dr. james oakes, who is title is a distinguished professor of history at the city university of new york graduate center. he began his academic career as a student of one of the greatest mid 20th century exponents of the causes of the civil war and an understanding of slavery. and that is professor kenneth stamp. before he speaks, i just want to mention some of the works he is well known for. an early work called "slavery and freedom." biography ofual abraham lincoln and frederick douglass, "the radical and the republican." award-winning

"freedom national." recently, a most little collection of essays called, "the scorpion's sting: antislavery and the coming of the civil war." i will leave these on the table and you can come and look at them afterwards. and maybe decide to order one or two. so, without any more introduction, professor james oakes. >> [applause] going to take me a minute to get my paper out here. right one. well, thank you all for coming. thank you, john, for that introduction. and thank you, karen. i told karen when i walked in

that the fates were conspiring against this event. , but i't just the amtrak spent the weekend in bed with a horrible cold and you will hear some of that tonight. and then this rainstorm almost made it impossible for me to get her, but i'm here. and i am supposed to talk -- i was supposed to talk in may. what i was supposed to talk about i think was lincoln's legacy. lets see where i can put this. this may be trouble, folks. so, as you all know, we just passed through the 150th anniversary of abraham lincoln's assassination. this is the appropriate moment to think about his legacy. and not surprisingly, i have been invited to do so on several different occasions, but i have to confess at the outset that i'm always intimidated by that task. there are two reasons to this. the first is -- the fact that lincoln was assassinated raises the stakes in any discussion of

his legacy. his murder at the very and of a long and terrible war instantly transformed him from a president to something more like a secular saint. or to put it differently from a great president, to a minor. i can talk about presidents, but i really can't talk about saints. i can even explain why i think lincoln was a great resident, but i have nothing to say about martyrdom. at least nothing that might end up sounding cynical or inappropriate. whenever i talk about lincoln, i always feel the need to bring the discussion back down to earth. the second problem is the notion -- has to do with the notion of legacy. there are historians out there who are very good at drawing lessons from the past. on to think -- who can go the news hour and explain the immediate relevance of, say, teddy roosevelt foreign-policy

or reparations that germany was forced to pay after world war i and how that relates to the current financial crisis. i am not very good at that sort of thing. the lessons of history don't spring easily into my mind when i am sitting in my living room in the morning. this morning's "times" had a very good essay on german reparations. >> [laughter] dr. oakes: i recommend it. for me, history is about things that have happened a long time ago when things were very different from the way they are now. there are plenty of very good historians who are better than i am at taking around the past and digging up the past and coming up with the gems we can all admire. i don't think of myself as one of those. so i have generally been reluctant to talk about lincoln's legacy. happenedething that

that at first might seem completely unrelated. it was the movie "selma." it came out and caused a bit of a stir. you know the movie, i'm sure. it is about the famous march from selma to montgomery that was organized by martin luther king and others as part of a campaign to pressure president lyndon johnson into support of what became the voting rights act of 1965. i think that is a good movie. and though i do think some of the criticisms it has generated our fair, specifically many of my fellow historians have complained about the way it depicts president johnson's relationship to the civil rights movement. was he the reluctant advocate? someone who moved only when forced almost against his will to do so by the militant tactics of king and his fellow protesters? or west johnson the forceful political leader who brought it through the home stretch?

got the job done, as early clinton said several years ago. as you may recall, she got into trouble for saying something like that. in more general terms, the questions raised by the controversy over selma are very similar to the controversies i'm interested in as a historian for some time, except for that in my case, it is not about lyndon johnson's relationship to the civil rights unit -- movement, it is about abraham lincoln's relationship to the abolitionist movement. and that is where i am inclined to look whenever i think about lincoln's legacy. just as lbj was not a civil rights activist, lincoln was not an abolitionist. but turned out to be the president who, along with his fellow republicans in congress, ended up implementing the abolitionist agenda. so that is what i'm going to talk about. abraham lincoln's relationship

to the abolitionist movement because i think that is where his legacy lies. and that is where i see evidence of lincoln's greatness. so, with your indulgence, i will spend the next several minutes talking that about lincoln, but about abolitionism and anti-slavery politics. at the very and, i will wind my way -- end, i will wind my way back to the subject of lincoln's legacy. it is commonplace among historians that abraham lincoln was not an abolitionist. and there are good, solid reasons for believing this, not least of which that lincoln himself distanced himself from the movement. in his first public declaration of his antislavery principles, likins said that slavery was based on injustice and bad policy. and that abolitionists did more harm than good. he did not talk like an abolitionist, either. he never called for the

immediate abolition of slavery. he never did out the slaveholders as sinners. he never condemned the constitution. he never endorsed slave rebellions. he never advocated repeals of the illinois laws discriminating against blacks. he never wrote for an abolitionist newspaper. he spoke at temperate society meetings. but to my knowledge, he never spoke at an abolitionist meeting and never joined in abolitionist society. he never said that the federal government should help destroy slavery by surrounding the southern states with what abolitionists called a cordon of freedom. he never uttered the common metaphor -- the metaphor, and among republicans that unlike slavery to a scorpion that is surrounded by fire would sting itself to death. eric has aptly noted, lincoln was not an abolitionist and never claimed to be.

but he also pointed out that lincoln was a part of a broader antislavery movement. that embraced far more americans than the smaller more abolitionist movement. and this raises the question, what was the relationship between abolitionism and this broader anti-slavery movement? or what is the difference between the two? and specifically, what is lincoln's relationship to the abolitionists? to answer that question, i'm going to narrow my focus to the point where the two movements intersected. and that point was politics. abolitionist itself was a broader movement. it was a radical movement that embraced americans were formally excluded from the political system. tens of thousands of women, nevertheless actively engaged in the abolitionist movement. tens of thousands of freed blacks, most of whom were denied the right to vote, but also actively engaged in the abolitionist movement.

so strictly speaking, the abolitionist movement was not a political movement. at least not in the sense that it embraced only those were formally engaged in politics as voters or officeholders. above all, abolitionism was dedicated to publicizing the evils of slavery, economics, and the political evils through speeches, pamphlets, newspapers, fares, petitions. all with the goal of persuading americans to get to the problem of slavery. but abolitionists were also practical people. they understood that in the and, thesolution -- end, solution had to be a political solution. so they commonly framed their arguments in careful legal and custom personal terms. they worked hard and with remarkable success to formulate be politically viable anti-slavery platform, and agenda, a series of specific

policies that were designed to stop and then reverse the expansion of slavery. policies that would, as lincoln later put it, put to slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. and to that nd, abolitionists -- end, abolitionists to on a long history. in order to understand lincoln, we have to understand that history. in particular, we have to understand one of the crucial assumptions that every american, including the most radical abolitionists to the most reactionary posts slavery conservatives excepted before the civil war, and that is what i call the federal -- that is, everyone agreed, everybody agreed that the constitution did not allow the federal government to abolish slavery in a state, or to interfere with slavery in a

state where it already existed. which raises the obvious question, how did a national abolitionist movement expected to use the federal government to get slavery abolished in the southern's dates if the constitution didn't allow the government to do that? abolitionists' answer to that came from a man named benjamin in september 1821, shocked by the south's defeat of attempts to require misery to abolish slavery as a condition to admission to the union. he began publishing a newspaper called "the genius of universal emancipation." in the very first number, he spelled out a six or seven point program designed to get slavery abolished. things the federal government could do that would cause the states to abolish slavery. the federal government, he said, should ban slavery from the

territories. it should abolish slavery in washington dc. it should suppress the domestic slave trade. it should pay for the colonization of freed slaves to, if they preferred, haiti, or preferably in his view, to western territories where they would block the expansion of slavery and ultimately come into the union as free states. ask thatt he did not congress interfere with slavery in the states directly. he did not call for an emancipation proclamation. he did not oppose a 13th amendment. what he wanted was this coup. the set of federal policies that was stopped slavery's expansion and encourage the states to begin to abolish slavery on their own. actually restart the process that had stopped unexpectedly with new jersey in 1804. several years later, he moved to baltimore and invited a protege to come help him invite --

editors newspaper. and his name was william lloyd garrison. within a few years, garrison would become the most vocal and most famous abolitionist in the united states. although he remained known for the militancy of his rhetoric and tactics, garrisons agenda was essentially the same one formulated by his mentor. the clearest expression of that guerra's own -- garrisonian agenda can be found in the preamble to the constitution of the american antislavery society, both of which garrison wrote at the founding convention meeting in philadelphia in december 1833. start,e start, from the garrison and his fellow abolitionists acknowledge that the constitution did not allow the federal government to interfere with slavery in the states.

quote, we fully and unanimously recognized the sovereignty of each state to legislate exclusively on the subject of slavery, which is tolerated within its limits. he wrote. we can see, quote, that congress under the present constitution has no right to interfere with any of the slave states in relationship to this momentous subject. we will, however, do all that is lawfully within our power, the delegates about, to bring about the extinction of slavery. in article two, he became specific. the society would, quote, endeavor in a constitutional way nd to the -- an e domestic slave trade, abolish slavery, mostly in the territories, especially the district of columbia, and likewise prevent the extension of it to any state that may hereafter be admitted to the union. with these policies in place,

the federal government would tilt the scale, tilt the balance of federal power in ways that favor the expansion of freedom over the expansion of slavery. and the study of roshan -- the study erosion of slavery. -- steady erosion of slavery. certain things are going to drop out. the supreme court declares the domestic slave trade off-limits. so that drops out of the abolitionist agenda. after 1850 when congress passes the fugitive slave act, repealing the fugitive slave act goes on to the agenda. but the basic idea remains the same. 1840's, antislavery radicals had transformed that agenda, that they had developed, this formulas they had formulated, into a concrete form

endorsed first in 1840 and 1844. and in 1848 by the free soil party. that agenda also got a name. congress would surround the south with what was called a cordoned of freedom. it does, depriving slavery of all federal support and indeed of any protection beyond the borders of the slave states themselves. thereby encouraging slavery to die a natural death. the government were not administer the fatal blow, rather, quote, like a scorpion by fire, slavery would eventually sting itself to death. one state at a time. so, that is the abolitionist agenda. abolitionist ideology, abolitionist culture, abolitionist hatred of lincoln, who was the most radical us, but there was -- they never really

bothered to look at the actual agenda, policy, proposals they had. when you do that, also to the interesting things start to appear in the history. so, we have the agenda. and having specified it this way, it is not possible, for to abraham turn lincoln and take another look at the question i'm asking this evening: what is lincoln's relationship to the abolitionist movement? how much of that abolitionist agenda was lincoln committed to? the answer, it turns out, is most of it. by 1861, the year he became president, lincoln was publicly committed to abolitionists in washington dc. revising the fugitive slave act to make renditions more difficult for the slaveholders and processing -- repressing slavery on the high seas.

he had also adopted the most important principles of abolitionism. he denounced the proslavery claim that the declaration of independence applied only to white people and are given repeatedly that blacks and whites were equally entitled to the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. and like the abolitionists, lincoln rejected the principle of property in man and argued that the slaves were not protected as property under the constitution. let's take a closer look at those positions. first, in 1837, lincoln is a wake. he is serving in the illinois legislature. meanwhile, in washington dc, there is an enormous congressional fight underway caused by the flood of petitions sent by abolitionists demanding abolition in washington dc. southerners responded to that campaign in two ways. one of which is familiar.

first, they imposed this notorious gay gruel. that automatically tables all and i slavery petitions. they also did something else. southern states sent lists of formal demands to northern states demanding that those states formally repudiate all the efforts to abolish slavery in washington dc and suppress abolitionist societies the viewer states. the illinois legislature responded with a series of resolutions denouncing abolitionism and declaring that abolitionism in washington dc would be, quote, a monstrous act of bad faith. sixoln is one of only legislators to vote against those resolutions. and a few weeks later, he and one other legislature issued a famous formal protest. they declared -- that is where they declared slavery was based

on both injustice and bad policy. and more supposed -- specifically insisted that congress had the power under the constitution to abolish slavery in the district of columbia. that waiting is not accidental. proslavery extremists had ruleified the gay gruel -- on the ground that slaves were a constitutionally protected form of property. therefore, congress cannot abolish slavery without trampling the property rights of slaveholders. they should be gagged because they were demanding that congress -- that congress do something it cannot legally do under the constitution. abolitionists responded to that argument by claiming that the constitution recognized slaves on the as, quote, persons held to service. never as property. in short, there was no

constitutional right of property in slaves. and, hence, congress could, under the constitution, abolish slavery in washington dc. thatwas the very language lincoln used in the 1837 protest. when he declared that congress could, under the constitution, abolished slavery and d.c., he was taking what everyone at the time would have recognized as the abolitionist position. mid-1840's,he lincoln staked out a second position that congress should and ban slavery from the left and territories. on october 3, 1845, lincoln wrote a letter to dearly -- a self-described abolitionist explaining that, quote, i hold it to be a paramount duty of the free states to let slavery of the other states alone, standard stuff, while on the other hand i hold it equally to be clear that we should never knowingly lend

ourselves directly or indirectly to prevent slavery from dying a natural death or allow it to find new places point to live when they can no longer exist in the old. here, again, lincoln's language is important precisely because it echoes the language garrison himself had inserted into the 1830's the constitution of the american anti-slavery society. congress had no power to abolish slavery in the states where it existed, but it should matter allow slavery to expand into new places notion into anything to hinder slavery's, quote, natural death within the states. lincoln was elected to congress shortly thereafter and when he arrived in washington, another debate was already boiling. introduced by the pennsylvania democratic congressman, it would ban all slavery from all this

territories acquired by the united states in its recent war against mexico. struggle was protected. it came up repeatedly for votes. and in every one of those votes, lincoln supported the ban on slavery in the territories. he likewise voted repeatedly in resolution,ry bill, or petition calling for abolition in washington dc. he even drafted his own bill for that purpose. by 1849, when his one and only term in congress came to an end, lincoln was on record in both his beaches and his votes in favor of banning slavery from the western territories and abolishing it in washington dc. 1850, congress passed that infamous fugitive slave act setting off waves of protest in the north. protests prompted by a series of notorious attempts to rescue

escaped slaves from the clutches of federal authority. it was precisely the deployment of federal troops and commissioners to assist southern masters in the rendition of their fugitive slaves on northern soil that was so controversial. many northern states have passed personal liberty laws designed to thwart southern slave catchers by guaranteeing those accused of being runaways the rights of due process. you cannot just pick a person of the street and take them back into slavery. the fugitive slave act overrode all of those state laws, making the federal government the chief enforcement agent of the fugitive slave clause of the constitution. like most northerners, lincoln hated the fugitive slave act and began to argue that it should be revised. the reasoning was simple. the fugitive slave clause implied that the federal government should enforce it. it also necessarily imply that the federal government could

determine on its own how to enforce it. but differently, the southerners were going to demand that the southerners force the cause -- then those same southerners had to accept the fact that congress was free to enforce the clause bypassing what amounted to a national personal liberty law. twice during the crisis, lincoln offered that proposal to the south. federal government will accept responsibility for enforcing the fugitive slave laws of the constitution -- clause of the constitution, but it will only do so and what lincoln called the privileges and immunities to which all citizens are entitled. that is due process. at the risk of being redundant, i'm going to point out that that language that lincoln was using was critical. two years earlier, chief justice roger had declared in the dred scott decision that blacks were

not and had never been citizens of the united states. now, a fugitive slave law, no matter how it was written, only apply to african-americans. almost by definition since blacks were it slave. -- were enslaved. so when lincoln said that a revised act should respect, quote, the privileges and immunities to which all citizens are entitled, he was effectively contradicting the claim that blacks were not citizens of the united states. once again, if you was seen taking a position most commonly associated with abolitionists. and this brings me to the fourth and last of the issues i want to discuss. this one has nothing to do with a specific policy of banning slavery. instead, it has to do with the basic principles of radical abolitionism. which was racial equality. from the 1780's through

reconstruction, abolitionists distinguished themselves not simply by their principled opposition to slavery, but also by their commitment to racial equality. african-americans were entitled to their freedom, abolitionists argued, because the principal upon which the nation was founded upon his two white and blacks alike. ,nd slaves were emancipated abolitionists also argued, the free blacks should be incorporated into the body power take as full citizens with all privileges and immunities to which all citizens are entitled. it should be obvious that abraham lincoln took almost exactly the same position on racial equality. beginning with the first major and i slavery speech in 1854, where lincoln repeatedly argued that it applied to whites and blacks alike.

claimer stephen douglas' that settlers in the territory should be free to to slavery based on what he called popular sovereignty. to qualify' position as popular sovereignty, lincoln said, you have to use -- assume that black people can be treated as property. but if the negro is a man, lincoln argued, then my old faith tells me that all men are created equal. he decried attempts by douglas and his fellow democrats, north and south, restrict the principles of jefferson's declaration to what repairs by 1860, lincoln haddix added his racial -- lincoln had expanded also to the-- broader privileges and immunities of citizenship by the time he be came president, lincoln was on record in support of most of the major policies

associated with the abolitionist movement. nor was he a johnny-come-lately to the cause. he endorsed abolition in washington dc, banned slavery from the territories, he would impede the slaveholders in their efforts, and he openly endorse the proposition that blacks were citizens of the united states and that blacks and whites were equally entitled to the same special mandal rights -- same special lincoln was also committed to the action repression of slavery on the high seas. heave also pointed out that endorsed what i think is the single most important proposition, that there was no such thing as a constitutional right of property in slaves. i have said enough to make my point, or at least enough to raise the question, if by the time he became president lincoln had endorsed nearly all the principles and policies of the

abolitionists, why do we keep saying that lincoln was not an abolitionist and never claimed to be? if lincoln consistently endorsed the most radical principles and consistencies, why do historians refer to lincoln as a moderate? harris tellliam c us repeatedly that lincoln was deeply, profoundly, fundamentally a conservative? lies in theanswer 50th year of frames of reference historians are assuming when described lincoln's politics in those terms. for example, lincoln can be plausibly labeled a moderate republican in the 1850's. but in the 1850's, when he central political issue of the day was slavery, the spectrum of public opinions drifted far to the right of the republican party. to borrow the familiar

categories we take from the french revolution, the right-wing of american politics in the 1850's was firmly and unambiguously occupied by southerners, especially southern democrats, especially in the deep south. the interests of the 1850's might have included the wakes and -- wigs at the northern democrats. the republicans then occupied the left-wing of american politics in the 1850's, so when we say that lincoln was a moderate, it can only mean he was a moderate within the left-wing of the american spectrum. and that, by my light, puts in pretty far to the left. there is a second frame of reference historians often use to label lincoln a moderate and that is more appropriate to the point i want to make here. lincoln was a moderate compared to the abolitionists and the radical republicans. now, it probably seems obvious

that my response to that claim, given everything i have already said, is that it is simply wrong. most important and substantive policies and principles, lincoln's positions were perfectly in accord with the abolitionists. but that is not what i'm going to say. because this is the point of my talk when i finally ignite you towards my conclusion -- i finally notch you towards my conclusion about lincoln's legacy. for that, i backtrack a little. the devil is in the detail. the difference between lincoln and the abolitionists lie less in the fundamental antislavery positions they should then in the several ways of the proposed to implement their antislavery policies and in the limits lincoln placed on some of his anti-slavery principles.

conclusion, imy want to show that in most lincoln took positions that were unambiguously antislavery, but also just shy of the radical position.sts so rather than say that lincoln was not an abolitionist, maybe we should say that he was not quite an abolitionist. of a stance on abolitionists in the district of columbia. the position he took in 1837 remade the position he took right up until he sent the washington, d.c. abolition statute in the spring of 1862. that was unambiguously anti-slavery. proslavery radicals were our great that the congress had no power to abolish slavery in d.c. lincoln rejected that. said congress did have the ability to abolish slavery in the district.

but saying there is a broad spectrum, there's a spectrum of opinion among those who agreed with lincoln that congress did have the power to abolish slavery in washington. that is, people who did not think the explicit proslavery position are all over the place on the southern position. for this to the right with someone like henry clay. congress did have the power to abolish slavery in d.c., clay argued, but it can never do so because that would unleash a horde of savage, racially inferior africans into the mainstream of where society, causing all manner of unspeakable habits. this was not the position lincoln took. nor did he take the somewhat less hysterical position of the majority in the illinois legislature. those elected officials did admit in the resolutions that congress have the power to abolish slavery in d.c., but to do so, remember, they said would

be a monstrous act of bad faith. that was the position against with which lincoln watched his protest. he argued that congress not only could, but should exercise its authority to abolish every in the district whenever the people of district petitioned congress to do so. that is not clay's position. 'ut it wasn't the abolitionists position, either. they argued that congress not only have the power to abolish slavery, but that it had a moral obligation to do so regardless of what the vote within the district thought of the idea. washington dc was national property and the constitution made the american people through congress the sovereign authority over the district. if congress chose to exercise abolishingity, but slavery, then congress was free to do so and should do so

without reference to the will of the city's occupants. when congress finally did abolish slavery without consulting voters in the district, lincoln signed the bill into law. it wasn't quite the bill he would have wished, he said, but as he had already supported it, he was perfectly willing to sign it anyway. lincoln did something similar with his first expressions of support for banning slavery in the territories. go back to that lever from 1845 that i quoted earlier to his friend. he was a liberty party man. his supporter of that abolitionist politics. he was tried to recruit antislavery wigs to the cause. lincoln argued liberty men and wigs could join hands without ever having to yield anything. wigsinciple, anti-slavery and liberty party man were in agreement.

but some disgusted by the way wigs and democrats had excluded slavery from national politics, wanted to create their own party. the same thing happened in 1848 when, for the first time, tens of thousands of northern voters abandoned the two major parties because of their refusal to consider the slavery issue at a national level and went over to the free soil party. once again, lincoln held back. despite the fact that he agreed , youfree soilism principle would not take that last step of abandoning the wig party. lincoln's position on the fugitive slave act was similarly anomalous. most antislavery petition -- politicians interpreted the fugitive slave clause in jacksonian terms, which is to say they were hostile to the

notion that there is such a thing as implied powers in the current tuition. we would say they were strict constructions. ,he fugitive slave clause strictly speaking, did not contain an enforcement provision , so they argued, and that meant that harassment was left to the states. lincoln came at the clause from the perspective of a wig who believed there were federal powers that were implied in the constitution. the power to build internal improvements and the like. so lincoln, the fact that the founders had put a fugitive slave clause into the constitution, clearly implied a federal and power -- federal power to enforce it. think,tively, i lincoln's position was more radical in that it rested on the

premise that the federal government could enforce civil rights within the state. a position that from the established until the 14th amendment. but in the context of the 1850's, lincoln positioned himself more moderately. abolitionists often call for outright resistance. radical republicans did listed as unconstitutional. but lincoln disagreed. it was a bad law, he said. but it was not unconstitutional. lincoln's views on racial equality fit into this familiar pattern. here, too, he positions himself far to the left of the majority of voters, but to the right of the more egalitarianism. blacks and white were equally entitled to the same fundamental rights and to the same privileges and immunities as citizenship. that much lincoln and the abolitionists could agree on.

but for decades, the abolitionist movement had engaged in a two-pronged struggle against not only slavery in the southern states, but also against a raft of racial discriminatory laws in the northern states. and that far, lincoln would not go. he made it clear in that famous remarks of charleston during his debates with stephen douglas, quote, paraphrase, actually, i have never been in favor of a long blacks to vote or hold office or a long blacks and whites to marry. it was true that he had never favor those things. he never said he is opposed to them, either. that is the point. he never came out against racial discrimination through a abolitionists and republicans did. lincoln seriously doubted that the majority of whites would ever allow blacks to live as equal citizens in the united states, certainly not in illinois.

the only way blacks could ever choose the kind of civil and social already through which they were entitled, lincoln believed, was by voluntarily emigrating to a colony somewhere outside the borders of the united states. wherever that was, it wasn't abolitionists. some historians claim that lincoln hated the abolitionists. but there is no evidence. with thedence does -- evidence does suggest is that lincoln's fairly consistent pattern of taking positions close to but somewhat as radical than the abolitionists. indeed, the closer he came to agree with the abolitionists, the more determined he seemed to be to distance himself from them. his argument was always the same. it'd push antislavery principles too far, you'll end up doing more hundred good. you solace in that 1837 protest. having denounced slavery as an , he immediately

distance himself from the movement by declaring that abolitionism hurt her cause more than it helped. he said effectively the same thing about the liberty party, that he disagreed with its principles and thought it did more harm than good to the anti-slavery cause. a decade later, he very expressively caution as fellow to put ans not denunciation of the unconstitutionality of the clause into the republican platform. but that would go too far. -- that that would go too far. whether he positions himself in this way from severe -- sincere conviction or strategy hardly matters. and with lincoln, is impossibly hard to tell the difference. what we can say that lincoln understood to very important things. first, he fully recognize that his own positions were quite close to those of the abolitionists.

he wants joked that the difference between him and radical republican senator charles sumner was six weeks. he was behind the radicals, but not far behind them. and second, lincoln viewed radical complaints about his being too conservative as useful to the antislavery cause because they may link its position seem more moderate -- because they made lincoln's position seem more moderate. garrison sometimes indicated that by taking the extreme makinghe did, he was life easier for less militant abolitionists. abolitionist militancy and radical c related -- little doubt that lincoln was sensitive to that sort of positioning. the more radical lincoln's and has slavery politics became, the more strikingly he insisted that

he was a conservative. lincoln and the abolitionists knew what they were all up to. at least twice in early 1862, lincoln met with radical abolitionists, once with phillips and again with conway, and told each of them that it was useful to the cause of emancipation to go out and denounce lincoln as a hopeless reactionary and they should by all means go and do so. radical criticism would provide cover for his less critical antislavery agenda. in telephone conversations, lyndon johnson told martin that thinking to do almost precisely the same thing. if it helps you to go out into the streets and put pressure on me to support a civil rights act, by all means, go out into the streets. say what you need to say about me. it can only make my job easier. with manyft us

legacies, but here is the one that most captures my own imagination. he understood the importance of the abolitionist movement. every and has slavery position lincoln took him every principle he enunciated, he got from the abolitionists. his agenda was their agenda. lincoln thought of the radicals as the indispensable base of the republican party. but in the very act of establishing a radical position on slavery, they made it easier for lincoln to position his own anti-slavery position as the safer, or moderate position. this worth remembering because we live in a cynical age. we don't trust politicians to do what needs to be done. we don't even trust politics as a means of getting things done. like this, it is tempting to look back at ascoln's age and nostalgic if there was a time when giants roamed the earth, when great man

gave the speeches, when liberty was more important than lobbying, when principles matter or than parties. we missa mistake to understand lincoln's legacy if we were one indisputable -- if we ignore one indisputable fact about them, that he was a partisan politician cared a back room wheeler -- politician. a backroom wheeler and dealer. it was an element of calculation in nearly every reform and every political position he took. negatehis not to lincoln's legacy, but to explain it. it is not enough to think goodbyes and say the right things. lincoln had plenty of good thoughts and he usually said the right things. indeed, they were some of the most radical thoughts of his day. and he often said that better than most people. usually did. but as a politician, the truly

gifted politicians, lincoln also knew how to express his thoughts in ways that made it easier for americans to vote for anti-slavery principles and stick with them through four of the nation's most painful years. lincoln understood that the abolitionist movement was necessary but not sufficient to destroy slavery. and in a democracy, a reform movement or a civil rights movement succeeds only by translating its demands into concrete policies. but movement don't enact laws and implement policies. politicians do that. democracy works best when it fulfills its most solemn promises when reformers and politicians come together and achieve great things. and therein lies lincoln's legacy. anti-presidedcal over the most radical social revolution in american history. he was not in abolitionist and

he never claimed to be, but abraham lincoln did as much as anyone man ever did to make abolitionism safe for democracy. thank you. >> [applause] dr. oakes: i can take questions if you have any. if you are still awake. kind of form in here. -- warm in here. yeah, sure. >> i take it you would say that steven spielberg got it right because isn't that basically what he showed in the movie that the way he got the 13th amendment through congress was -- dr. oakes: [indiscernible] lincoln is a politician, yeah. he wheels and deals. he doesn't pay off people for their votes the way he does and

the movie, but as i was explaining on the way over -- stevenson knew, as well. to get laws passed. he didn't need a lecture from lincoln about how to get to true north because nobody knew better than he appeared he knew how to get the bills. he was a smart guy. that is what we need to understand about these guys. they were brilliant politicians and you need those kinds of people. you have to have politicians that can get things done if you want a democracy to work. yeah. >> [indiscernible] i congratulate you. i wanted to ask you, however, could you say if it's more about how lincoln's views with that politicking may have evolved over time doing his presidency? the way you presented it was kind of, like, he sort of was on board with abolitionism by the

time he became president that he sort of worked carefully. some ofimself changed his ideas were he grew more comfortable with certain tenets. could you talk a little bit about organic changes -- dr. oakes: sure. yeah. the centralis -- point, he grows in office. and i have made the point elsewhere, too, i think he was -- his positions in 1860 are more radical than they were in 1854 when he first comes in. politics atenters the advocates the missouri compromise. that is not an acceptable position for him anymore. now he wants an absolute ban on slavery in the territories. and that is his bottom line. he never said anything about citizenship the way he was thereng until after --

were hints of it here and there, but after the dred scott decision he starts saying things about black citizenship. so the movement is there. even before the war starts. and then alter the work, it is not just lincoln. they are realizing things, they are learning from a vent, they are coming to realize that the agenda that they had for all these years, this peacetime agenda, wasn't going to be enough. they shift to military emancipation, they shift from thented emancipation to -- in 1863, we see lincoln use military emancipation as a club on states to get them to abolish slavery. and he gets five states to abolish state -- slavery. and without those dates, the ratio of free states to slave

states in january of 1865 when the amendment goes to the states would have made it impossible for that amendment to get through. nobody, nobody could have imagined that before the civil war. nobody was talking about a 13th amendment. so he is moving with events, learning with events, but they often move the wrong way. johnson moved with events. >> [indiscernible] -- the losses and everything was particularly large and moving his thinking? dr. oakes:hmmm. >> if there had been no civil war, do think these would have been different? dr. oakes: i don't know. i get asked the question a lot about whether it would have worked.

it was a peacetime policy, right? and over the years, there have been different answers. i could give you an explanation for why it wouldn't work, i could give you an explanation for why it would work. but what i tend to say now is nothing worked without a war. have aerpretation you house livery got abolished fails if there is no war. lincoln can't issue in emancipation proclamation without a war. slaves cannot free themselves without a war. it is all -- but on the other they will tell you that wars are historically the greatest single source of mass enslavement. wars do not automatically lead to abolition. they usually lead in the exact opposite direction. usually after wars, you enslave the people. so, there is nothing automatic in the work that is great to make lincoln -- war that is

going to make lincoln move in a more antislavery direction the less he is already primed to move in that direction anyway. so he response to the will war -- he response to the war in ways consistent to how he has been advocating for a very long time. and it is not just him. i think his party is moving in that way. in ways that, you know, for all -- for all that i think we have not understood about the pre-civil war origins of abolition and military emancipation, we still have to come to terms with the fact that the word changed everything and made things imaginable that were unimaginable. >> do you think mary lincoln's family, being a slaveholding family, may have influenced lincoln's earlier reluctance? dr. oakes: no. what relaxants are you talking

about? -- reluctance are you talking about? >> she was from kentucky and i think several of her siblings were in the confederate military. so i'm just wondering if in the earlier times, lincoln may have held back on abolitionists -- dr. oakes: but he didn't. he takes his anti-slavery position publicly early. he is young. how old is he in 1837? his second term in the legislature? he is pretty young when he whents making -- when he -- i have always -- been anti-slavery, i cannot remember a time when i wasn't, right? you have to take that at face value. his parents went to an anti-slavery church.

i don't think mary's family -- don't think she was anti-slavery -- proslavery. i don't think that had much influence. yes. >> [indiscernible] -- and also the comments that you made about the agenda. of the abolitionists and to lincoln subscribing or prescribing to that begs the question that in comparison to lyndon johnson, who took a situation and try to do the best he could with it but he was a really dedicated to that cause when he came into office, it seems like lincoln had a cause and the president to give him the opportunity to do it. dr. oakes: true. back to my original reluctance to make historical parallels, every situation is different. you are absolutely right.

lincoln gets elected as an anti-slavery president. lyndon johnson takes office as the accidental byproduct of an assassination. he had much more of a role in passing the 1957 civil rights act then people previously understood. but, yes, that is correct. he had never run for office as a civil rights advocate the way hisoln had made antislavery -- his identity as a politician from 1854 on. yes. you have a question? yes. >> first, i want to thank you for that outstanding presentation. and i what to know about the relationship with frederick douglass and lincoln, how they used each other and what that -- how that evolved. dr. oakes: it takes a book to

answer. >> [laughter] > , what i argueefly in the book is frederick douglas , when he escapes from slavery, he goes to new england, enters the anti-slavery movement through the garrisonian portal -- i call it. he goes to place where garrison is particularly strong. garrison's position has become extremely critical of the constitution as a hopelessly proslavery document, he has therefore argued that people should not vote. he enters the abolition movement with a kind of anti-politics -- there is nothing possible under this constitution. it is not clear how he thinks slavery will get abolished. it is not clear how garrison

.hinks -- except, we do know lincoln starts of life as a whig politician. he is not an antislavery politician. what happens to these two guys, particularly over the course of see1840's-18 50's, you lincoln's politics become more and more antislavery. garrison'sandons version of the constitution, -- and moves over to western europe where he is influenced by different type of abolitionism. by 1860, he accepts that that sort of politics is possible, and lincoln has become an antislavery politician. they are converging. lincoln.s skeptical of

he moved from the position that the restitution of hopelessly proslavery to another extreme, smallch, he is part of a part of the abolitionist who believe that the constitution it it couldery, and be abolished by legislation. from that stance, he criticizes lincoln's much more mainstream position. he becomes more skeptical of lincoln. war, he course of the comes to appreciate lincoln. he meets lincoln three times. a each of those meetings, he by theway impressed sincerity of the guy. after the second meeting in august 1864, lincoln is

desperate to get slavery abolished. that's it. he recognizes the death and sincerity of lincoln's antislavery commitment and decides, i will go see the second inaugural. by the end, i think they admired ked one another very much. , he is rest of his life an agitator. he never gave up. he always used lincoln in his ng at speeches to ba congress for not continuing the project. what would lincoln do if he were alive? he wouldn't let the stuff in the south go on. it is a great story. a fascinating story. two of the people that i most admire in the 19th century. douglass coming to accept and

understand why lincoln took positions that were just shy of the radical position, and why that is what had to be done in a democracy. it isalysis is nothing -- his analysis. he says in his famous speech, measured by pure abolitionists standards, he was slow, cold, reluctant, but measure him by the sense of his country, and he was radical, committed. i think that is right. i think douglass got it right. >> where were you from jungle where were you raised? dr. oakes: lincoln? >> history in general?

students that take your class? dr. oakes: they agree with me. [laughter] so compelling. i'm from new york. born in the bronx. when i was an undergraduate, i read this book by this guy named kenneth stamp names "the peculiar institution," and i was blown away. i went to berkeley and studied with him. answer.the simple i was inspired by his work and have been interested ever since. my students? >> [indiscernible] no.n't -- i

, i think in this day allage, notwithstanding this nonsense about the confederate flag and all the stuff, i think white southerners have, very long way. i think the confederate stuff is increasingly marginal. i live in an ivory tower. i see people who are educated. the white southerners i meet are very responsive to the kind of stuff that i'm talking about. i think one of the things i'm if i amor example, threat lincoln and the republicans posed to slavery in 1860 was a real one, it wasn't radical abolitionism in the sense that we will march wasn free the slaves -- it

we are going to make slavery die state-by-state. they knew that. what i'm doing is saying end,sion bites, in the have turned out to be a spectacular miscalculation, but it was not a hysterical overreaction to a nonexistent threat. when i say that, i find white southern historians appreciate that. i'm not making those people hysterical. i'm saying, yes, they understood what the threat was and they made a calculation that slavery is safer if we leave. it turned out to be spectacularly wrong, but wasn't hysterical. it wasn't a misjudgment. i find a lot of my fellow historians, especially white southerners appreciate that. i'm not turning the south into a bunch of foaming at the mouth

nutcase or the civil war and accident. >> would it be fair to say that in the south, in the election of 1860, lincoln is viewed as definitely an abolitionist and the radical republicans are saying, he is ok, but the best we've got. dr. oakes: no. i think radical republicans are all over the place about him. some of the most radical -- owen lovejoy, there is no one more radical. he loved him. he defended lincoln all the time. if you look into congressional records -- you know, i think you have to get over this mythology that they hated each other. it's like, does nancy pelosi hate obama? the frustrations of the group of people that are basically on the same side?

you have to be careful when you read that rhetoric. they are on the same side and they know they are. lincoln doesn't veto any of his bills. agenda, and they all know what the agenda is. thaddeus stevens is a good deal more practical minded about how to get things done. whenhing i discovered writing the book, radicals push for what they could get, and when they didn't, they compromised a bit. conservatives did the same thing. conservatives wanted gradual abolition, and couldn't get it. radicals didn't want conversation -- compensat ion. what you got was a unanimous with radicals and

conservatives both compromising of the because they saw the greater good. they weren't willing to sacrifice the good for perfection. >> [indiscernible] dr. oakes: yes. they saw lincoln as an abolitionist. i don't think that is completely wrong. the agenda, if you subtract all of the militant rhetoric, and all the talk about cultural stance, he is there. he takes the same position on most of the fundamental issues. he had to know. when he offered those compromise enforces, ok, we will the fugitive slave law for you, but you have to give us a personal liberty law, when they are in congress saying, their passing these personal liberty

laws. so lincoln is saying, let's have a national personal liberty law. they're not stupid. they may have been wrong, but not stupid. yet? mythologizede have lincoln to the point where he can not be useful in counteracting the cynicism we have today about politics. you are doing a magnificent job of helping with that, but i'm wondering about the general view. dr. oakes: yes. we have mythologized lincoln. yths.so have m have lincoln the tyrant. lincoln the racist. whatever. the it is a hard to get a middle ground.

i said in the introduction, i forget in which book, there's too much hyperbole in the way we talk about lincoln. i don't know. people use lincoln for whatever they want to use them for. it is hard to say. i we done? we are done. thank you. [applause] >> first lady helen taft made several notable changes to the white house. obvious with replacing the white male ushers with african-american staff. she also raised funds to create a memorial for the victims of the titanic's. but, her greatest legacy was bringing japanese cherry blossom