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| The Crooked Path to Abolition James Oakes |
Politicians of the time alleged that the Civil War was about something other than slavery. Jefferson Davis claimed it was about states rights, but, as Lincoln pointed out, slavery was the only state right being challenged. Not that Yankee politicians were more forthright. In the early years of the war, Lincoln said he was fighting solely to restore the Union. After the fact, most books by participants and historians have treaded lightly on slavery as the primary cause.
During and after the Constitutional Convention, slaveholding states had threatened to secede if they did not get their way. With a few brief interludes, slaveholders or slave tolerant politicians controlled the national government from its inception. The slave states had grown used to dominance, but a party had emerged who outspokenly threaten their “peculiar institution.” With the election of the first Republican President, the slaveholders made good on their decades-old threat to dismantle the Union.
The Crooked Path to Abolition is a timely book. Historians
are always looking for a niche perspective on Abraham Lincoln. James Oats has
picked a rare one. He doesn’t come up with a unique thesis and then cobble
together evidence to prove his thesis. For the most part, he compiles evidence
and then presents it impassively, allowing the reader to make up their mind.
Lincoln certainly took a crooked path to abolition. A purposeful path or the flailing of an uncertain politician?
Read the book and you decide.
(This is a research book for Maelstrom, a sequel to Tempest at Dawn.)
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