leading. >> all episodes of american history tv lectures in history series are available to watch online, anytime, at c-span dot org slash history. pleas >> good morning. morning, my name is jonathan white and i am the vice chair of the lincoln forum. it's my pleasure to welcome tom clorox, who is a member of our executive committee to the stage, he is going to give a special presentation and then introduce our next speaker. >> good, morning everyone. . three years, ago the lincoln forum established an annual book prize. with a cash award of $1, 000, to honor outstanding scholarship on the life and career of our nation 16th president. published in the year preceding the presentation of the award. on behalf of the book prize committee, consisting of michel crowley, christian mick word or and daniel weinberg, it is my honor and pleasure to announce the 2021 lincoln book prize winner, james oakes for his book the crooked path to abolition, abraham lincoln and the anti slavery constitution. [applause] in his highly original and compelling book, oakes argues that lincoln abhorred slavery, was committed to ending it and worked within the confines of the u.s. constitution, which he viewed as an anti slavery document, to abolish it. in contrast, apologist for slavery and even some abolitionists view the constitution as a pro slavery document. or, as we and lord garrison labeled, it a covenant with death and an agreement with hail. and a well crafted, lawyerly like presentation, oakes describes an analyzes anti slavery constitutionalism that emerged in the antebellum period. the subject on which he will speak to us today. suffice it to say, lincoln and the republican party worked within the framework of this anti slavery interpretation of the constitution to pursue what oakes calls the anti slavery project. i set a policy designed to reverse slavery's expansion and ultimately lead to its abolition. oakes rightly points out that link its path to abolition was a crooked one. after, all lincoln believes strongly in the rule of law. he, as well as many abolitionist, maintained that the constitution prohibited a federal government from interfering with slavery in the states where it existed. plus, slavery had to be limited and ended within constitutional boundaries. it was the civil war, oakes argues, that allowed lincoln to pursue more aggressive measures that led to emancipation and, ultimately, to abolition with the 13th amendment. oakes and this fine book is timely. for a time when the lincoln legacy has come under stride and criticism from other quarters. this is either as a reluctant emancipator or even worse as an ardent white supremacist. oakes concise steady offers a contrast. a portrait of lincoln who was always anti slavery, albeit a slow-moving and sometimes inconsistent. who was president moving the nation closer to a position of true racial equality. a movement that was certainly not one of reluctance, but was, for its time, truly radical. before i call jim to the stage, i want to tell you a little bit about the book prize winner. jim holds a ph.d. from the university of california berkeley. he has been on the faculty of the graduate a city university of new york since 1997. he is the holder of the graduate school humanities chair since 1998. before coming to the graduate center, he's taught at princeton and northwestern universities. one of the leading historians of 19th century america, oakes has published several influential books, including the ruling race of 1982, slavery and freedom, an interpretation of the oldest south in 1990. the radical and the republican, frederick douglass, abraham lincoln, and the triumph of anti slavery politics 2007. and freedom national, the destruction of slavery in the united states, 1861 to 1865. it was published in 2012. the latter two garnered respectively in 2008 and 2013 lincoln prize. james oakes. [applause] >> well, i think it is fair to say that i am not known for my humility. [laughs] . i do have to say that to receive this award, from this place, from this organization, in this room with so many friends, old and you, and so many of the scholars whose work i have so respected, depended on for so long, it is a humbling experience. i thank the forum. i think tom and the committee for this award. i will cherish it forever. i also need to think harold holds her and the form for inviting me back to speak here. for those of you who have been coming for many years, you may recall the circumstances of my last speaking engagement. i had prepared a top and was rushing to finish it. i finished it the night before i was scheduled to leave new york at 6 am to drive down here. i decided to try it out on my wife. when i finished, she looked at me and said, that is awful. [laughs] you cannot possibly deliver that top. on the way down i was a scrambling to think about what i was going to do. i got here with ten minutes to spare. i scribbled a few notes. i spoke for ten or 15 of the 30 or 40 minutes i was allotted. despite my embarrassment, would i remember the most was how gracious the audience was, how complimentary, and that too is a memory that i cherish. i am glad to be able to make recompense today. [laughs] i do have a top. it will take about 40 minutes. i know that because i did not try it out on my wife. [laughs] she is usually right, that is why. the top is called the anti slavery constitution and it is based on the book that you just heard about. in the summer of 1854, the massachusetts anti slavery society sent out word of a large gathering to be held at harmony grove in -- 16 miles from boston on the 4th of july. for 50 cents, picnickers were offered to special trains to and from the grounds. handbills blared theme of the meeting. no slavery. it promised addresses from eminent speakers, among them, henry david thoreau. the speech that attracted the most attention and left the most lasting impression was delivered by the great abolitionist, garrison. much of what garrison had to say that day was familiar to all opponents of slavery. july 4th is, of course, the anniversary of the declaration of independence. and even the most mainstream of mainstream anti slavery politicians would have nodded in agreement as garrison insisted that the famous phrase, all men are created equal, meant that every human being was equally entitled to their freedom and that slavery was a violation of that sacred principle. samewhen garrison held up a cof the fugitive slave act of 1850, and set it on fire, those same mainstream politicians might have winced but they would not have disagreed with the sentiment. they all hated the law. some wanted it revised, some thought it should have been appealed outright, and some thought that the fugitive slave law was unconstitutional. that is where most anti-slavery folks parted company with garrison. he did not think that the fugitive slave act was on unconstitutional. he thought that the law was perfectly consistent with the constitution. he felt the same way about the kansas nebraska act passed a few months before, which reopened the nebraska territory to slavery. he felt the same way about the rendition of anthony burns, a fugitive slave who had recently been marched through the streets of boston by federal troops, returning him to slavery in the face of 50,000 protesters. most of a slavery's opponents fought that the kansas nebraska act was inconsistent with the constitution. most believed that anthony burns had been deprived of his constitutional rights. not william lloyd garrison. none of the recent victories of the so-called slave power. fugitive slave act, the kansas nebraska act, the rendition of anthony burns. none of these were violations of the constitution, garrison insisted. if anything, they were caused by the constitution. the source and parent of all of the other atrocities, garrison declared that day, was the constitution itself, which he then denounced as a covenant death and in agreement with. striking another match, garrison held up a copy of the u.s. constitution and set it to flames as well. with that, at least part of the crowd turned against a garrison as hisses and boos world of from the anti slavery audience. nowadays, scholars and journalists tend to agree with you garrisons denunciation of the constitution as a pelosi pro slavery document, it is not hard to see why. the constitution contains several clauses that protected slavery. there was the fugitive slave cause i would give slaveholders the constitutional right to enter into the free states and capture their escaped slaves. there was the notorious of three fifths clause which enhanced the power of the slave states in the house of representatives and the electoral college. the biggest problem was a federalism. everyone agreed that slavery was a state institution and that it did not allow the federal government to abolish slavery in a state where it was illegal. for these and other reasons, garrison denounced the constitution as a pro slavery document. we need to take more seriously the hisses and boos that rang out from garrisons anti slavery and listeners. at the moment he torched the constitution, most abolitionists and virtually all anti slavery politicians disagreed with him. this is including abraham lincoln. he and they believed that the constitution was an anti slavery document. as early as 1813, the prominent black leader, james forton, defended our noble constitution as that glorious fabric of collective wisdom. a fabric that 14 believed incorporated the, principle of human rights, universal rights, proclaimed in the declaration of independence. anti slavery politicians had a saying. within the constitution, freedom is the role, slavery is the exception. what does this mean? it meant that the founders had produced a constitution that overwhelmingly favored freedom. which, to create a unified nation, made a couple of deplorable but alas, necessary exceptions, notably the three fifths and slavery clauses. again, they were considered exceptions in a constitution that, as a general rule, favored freedom over slavery. which this moment i want to re-can destruct this interpretation of the constitution, a constitution that lincoln believed in and which profoundly shaped his approach to slavery and racial equality while he was president during the civil war. for the next ten minutes or so, i will not mention lincoln at all. instead, to repeat, i'm going to run through a very brief history of anti slavery constitutionalism as it developed in the decades before lincoln made anti slavery the centerpiece of his own policies, which did not happen until 1854. so, the anti slavery constitution. in 1776, one americans declared their independence from great britain, there was no need to compromise between the slave and free states, because there were no free states. 13 a slave colonies had declared their independence and become 13 slave states. by 1787, however, things had changed dramatically. inspired by the revolution, northern states had begun to abolish slavery. for's constitution did so in 1777, the pennsylvania legislation had passed a gradual abolition statute, the first of its kind in its history, in 1780. massachusetts courts abolished slavery a few years later, as did the legislators in the remaining new england states. both houses of the new york legislature had voted to abolish slavery as well. as a result, at the constitution convention involving a, pro slavery and anti slavery delegates encounter one another. they argued with one another. if they were to reach an agreement on a new constitution, they would have to compromise. that, notoriously, is what the founders did. the result of those compromises was a document that included both pro slavery and anti slavery call clauses. the slaveholders secured the protection, denounced by garrison, the slave clauses, but the opponents of slavery secured the authorization from the federal government to ban the importation of african slaves beginning in 1808, the first such such authorization in history. the constitution gave congress the power to ban slavery from u.s. territories. the delegates from the deep south state tried to secure a constitutional right of property in their slaves, but they were thwarted by the anti slavery delegates. as a result, the constitution refers to slaves as persons, not as property. and then there was federalism. what scholars call the federal consensus. the universal agreement that slavery was a state institution. this was by far the most significant constitutional principles shaping anti slavery politics, for although the federal consensus meant that congress could not interfere with, that is abolish state slavery in the states, it also meant that slavery was restricted to the states where it was legal. it should be obvious that a constitution that had pro slavery and anti slavery elements would lead inevitably to competing interpretation of the document and to conflicts over what's power the federal government had over slavery, short of abolition in the states. this was more than a theoretical possibility. in a real sense, in the actual history of the united states, when it comes to slavery, there were two different interpretations of the constitution. there was the pro slavery constitution, the one that garrison burned and calhoun defended, and there was the anti slavery constitution, the one that lincoln and the republican party subscribed to. over the course of seven decades of acrimonious debate over slavery, both sides elaborated on their own incompatible understandings of the constitution. in those decades, between 1790 and 1860, the opponents of slavery proved to be particularly good at colonizing more and more parts of the constitution for anti-slavery purposes. it is an impressive list and taking off the various clauses is going to seem a little dizzying. with apologies and advanced, here goes. opponents of slavery, naturally, invoked the inter state laws allowed congress congress has powered to to i override the domestic slave trade while they said that congress cannot do that. the navigation clause is still empowering congress to regulate the slave trade. what about the fifth amendment? does it not state emphatically that no person can be deprived of liberty without due process of law? doesn't the privileges and unity clause mean that the slave clause could not be enforced in disregard of the accused fugitives habeas corpus and trial by jury. they write, southerners insisted that slaves could not possibly have because slaves are property and not persons. for the same reasons, the slaveholders blanched when the opponents of slavery is going to -- buy the fourth amendment ban on the unreasonable seizures. was the power to establish slavery in the trump era tories. this is dedicated to congress. no, said anti slavery northerners. the tenth amendment deprived congress to allow slavery anywhere the federal government was sovereign. as it was put in 1848, congress can no longer make a slave than a king. of the various features of the constitution's evoked by slavery opponents, the most by far, the one that determine the fate of all the others was to arrest slaves as property. the property question was the linchpin of the slavery debate. the -- that the constitution was recognized and protected slaves as property. opponents of slavery flatly delighted that the constitution was supporting one's property of man. from those two contradictory readings of the text, a significant conclusions about slavery followed. beyond the text there was the spirit of the constitution. as early as 1820, anti slavery politicians claim that the fundamental human equality was the guiding principle of the constitution. not only does the fifth amendment declare that every person was presumptively entitled to liberty and property, life liberty and property, the preamble declares that the very purpose of the government was to secure the blessings of liberty to everyone. from a constitution they believe only made a couple of concessions to slavery but was on balance for anti slavery, in both text and spirit, opponents of slavery derived the popular aphorism i mentioned earlier, the constitution made freedom the rule and slavery the exception. all of which raised the question, if the constitution was an anti slavery document, but congress could not abolish slavery in a state where it was illegal, what could congress do? as it turned out, the question broke down into two separate ones. what could the federal government to do about slavery in peacetime, and what could it do about slavery in wartime? in answering these questions, the opponents of slavery developed what i call, the anti slavery project. let me just say, i've been calling it the anti slavery project for ten or 11 years. it is not a response to recent events. [laughs] the anti slavery project. in times of peace, the federal government could suppress the atlantic slave trade, prosecute a slave smugglers, regulate the domestic slave trade, recognize the natural right to freedom of slaves who rebelled on ships, pining for the open slate -- deny admission of any new slave states to the union, abolish slavery in washington d.c., and inhibited fugitive slave renditions by protecting the due process rights of accused fugitives. if the federal government did all of those things, it would effectively surround the slave states with free oceans, free territories and truly freeze soil. what's anti slavery radicals called the cordon of freedom. the anti slavery project would thereby constrict the south within that cordon, slowly strangling slavery and eventually forcing the slave states to abolish slavery on their own. the metaphor they used for this, often, was like a scorpion skirt by fire, slavery would sting itself to death. the scorpions staying, title of a book i one thread. , or as lincoln said, putting slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. point cannot be emphasized wrongly enough. the goal of the anti slavery project was to cripple slavery by thwarting its insatiable need to expand, weakening it internally to the point where the southern states, following the lead of the northern states, eventually abolished slavery on their own. that was in peacetime. but if the slave states seceded from the union and there is a, war the constitution gave the federal government still more ways of attacking slavery. ever since the american revolution, that consensus among american statesman was that belligerence could rightfully emancipate enemy states in an effort to win a war or suppress an insurrection. as a confederation congress affirmed in 1787 in the u.s. congress reaffirmed in 1789, belligerent were allowed to confiscate personal property of the enemy in ageist or lawful war. since slaves were defined as personal property under state law, they could be confiscated by the federal government during a lawful war. but, because the constitution recognize slaves as persons, not as property, confiscated slaves would be emancipated under federal authority. all of that was clear to american statesman by the 17 90s. a letter generation of abolitionists formulated a forfeiture of rights doctrine in an influential pamphlet, published in 1837. william j. responded to repeated southern threats of secession, warning that if a slave states seceded from the union it would automatically forfeit its claim to any constitutional protection of slavery. the states remaining in the union would that be freed of any obligation to suppress slave insurrections or return fugitive slaves. thus, secession and war strength and the anti slavery project substantially, and enhancing the power of the federal government to undermine slavery. such was the anti slavery constitution, as it had of all by the time abraham lincoln entered politics in the 1830s and evolved still further by the time he took up anti slavery as a central theme of his politics in the 1850s. it is not to say about lincoln suddenly became hostile this labor in 1854, he had always hated slavery. he won, said he could not remember a time when he did not so feel. he had entered politics as a whip, northern wig and that meant that, although his primary interest lead elsewhere, he did over time endorse various elements of the anti slavery project. hardly a surprise since the northern were overwhelmingly anti slavery. i'll still an illinois state legislature, lincoln publicly that slavery as an injustice declared, that contrary to what press others saying, congress could, under the constitution, abolish slavery in washington, d.c.. the 1840s, during his single term in the house of representatives, lincoln drafted a bill to abolish slavery in the district of columbia. moreover, he had entered congress at a time, at the very moment, when it'd become bitterly divided over the disposition of the territory recently taken from mexico. northerners overwhelmingly demanded that slavery be banned from the newly acquired territory and lincoln voted repeatedly to support the ban. when the whig party collapsed and 1850s, it was a logical move for lincoln to move the new anti slavery republican party. in 1850, for he redefined himself as an anti slavery politician whose principles were based on the anti slavery constitution. he began, as urgently, first to advocate due process rights for he's fugitives. he called, repeatedly, for the suppression of the illegal atlantic slave trade at a time when the illegal trade was expanding in places like new york city. he invoked the forfeiture of rights doctrine, warning southerners, that if they seceded from the union, the free states would be relieved of their obligation to return fugitive slaves. one of all the policies lincoln interest, the one most likely to lead to abolition was the exclusion of slavery from the territories. whenever the effort to spread slavery into the new territories was fairly handed off, lincoln said, institution will then be on a course ultimate extinction. slavery can only become extinct by being restricted to its present limits and dwindling out. excluding slavery from the territories, he believed, acted like a restrictive fence that deprived starving and famishing cattle of access to food and water. fencing slavery in would lead to wet lincoln called its natural demise. although he was never explicit about how that would happen, he accepted the conventional anti slavery wisdom that slavery needed to expand to survive. with annexation, he said, quote, slaves may be sent to texas and continue in slavery that otherwise might have been liberated. he was a critical premise of lincoln's position, allowing expansion would perpetuate the enslavement of persons who, had they've been fenced within the older states, would have been emancipated. we should never knowing we lend ourselves, directly or indirectly, to prevent slavery from dying a natural death. to find new places for it to live when it can no longer live in the old. we know that the opening of new countries to slavery tends to the perpetuation of the institution, lincoln observed, and so does keep man in slavery who would otherwise be free. for lincoln and for many scholars in our own time, preventing slavery's expansion would lead directly to emancipation. lincoln justified his commitment to the anti slavery project by repeatedly referencing the anti slavery constitution, beginning with its egalitarians barrett. he once like in the declaration of independence to a picture, the constitution to its frame. this put lincoln in direct opposition to northern democrats like stephen douglas, who read the declaration demean that only white people are created equal. and just a pro slavery southerners like john c calhoun and jefferson davis, who argued that only states were created equal. for a link, in all men are created equal meant everyone. men and women, black and white, all were entitled to the natural right of liberty. if the negro is a man, he once said, my good faith tells me that all men are created equal. although lincoln had always hated, slavery he had never been much of a racial egalitarian. but as his commitment to the anti slavery constitution intensified, as the principal of fundamental human equality became the organizing theme of his politics, his views on race shifted subtly in a more a gala therrien direction. if the spirit of the constitution was anti slavery, so is the text. here, lincoln confrontation with the pro slavery constitution was directed an ambiguous. over the decades, at a northern activists, writers than politicians steadily develop the anti slavery interpretation of the constitution, southerners had responded in kind with an increasingly radical, pro slavery interpretation. again, the linchpin of that debate was the right of property. in the pro slavery reading, slave ownership was expressly protected by the constitution as a property right. consequently, congress could not abolish slavery in washington, d.c., because that would violate the slave holders rights of property. congress, likewise, had no power to ban slavery from the territories. indeed, precisely because slaves were protected as property, the constitution obliged congress to protect slavery in the territories. fugitive slaves were not entitled to due process rights because slaves were property. moreover, slavery and the u.s. was restricted to black people and black people, according to supreme court justice roger tani had, quote, no waits the rights the white man was bound to respect. including, of course, the rights of due process. the pro slavery interpretation of the constitution was summed up in the 1816 dred scott decision. the fact that it was universally denounced among republicans, including, lincoln is a telling indication of how widespread anti-slavery constitutionalism was among northern opponents of slavery. or us -- new york tribune granted the decision, quote, just so much more await as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any washington ballroom. a convention of colored citizens in troy, new york denounce tony's ruling as, quote, a foul and infamous lie in striking contrast to the sacred guarantees for liberty with which the constitution abounds. as owen lovejoy, the radical anti slavery congressman from illinois, put it, i love the constitution. all i want is to get the country back to the position of the fathers. i want the constitution that my fathers gave me, baptized in blood, and not the constitution of judge tony. no doubt, roger tony spoke for the majority, then sitting on the supreme court. the descendants issued by justices curtis and maclean undoubtedly reflected the anti slavery constitutionalism of the majority of northerners. for an anti slavery politician like lincoln, tony's claim that the constitution expressly recognize the right of property and slaves had to be refuted. and that is what lincoln set out to do, most systematically, and most forcefully and his famous speech at the cooper institute in lower manhattan. it was early 1860, an election year. lincoln called the fever of presidential ambition and went to new york to establish his ideological bona fides with eastern republicans, many of whom were hostile to the front runner, william seward, and we're anxious to have a look at the increasingly attractive alternative from illinois. lincoln's theme at the cooper institute was the relationship between slavery and the constitution. both specific policy terms and ultimately in broad legal terms. the policy question was straightforward. does the constitution empower the federal government to ban slavery from the territories? yes, lincoln answered. that is what the constitution allows, and that is what the framers clearly intended. by lincoln's count, the 23 of the delegates to the constitutional convention also voted in congress on various measures to ban slavery from the territories and of those 26 -- 23, 21 support of the ban. the framers themselves endorsed banning slavery from the territories. but then, lincoln shifted to the most important constitutional issue at stake. southerners were wrong to demand aggressive federal protections for slavery, lincoln said. for when you make such demands, this is one quote -- , you have a specific and well understood illusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories and hold them there as property. but no such right is specifically written into the constitution. that instrument is literally silent about any such right. we, on the constitution, denied that such a right has any existence in the constitution, even by implication. not only does the constitution not recognized the right of slaves, on the contrary, wherever that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a person, never property. and perhaps paraphrasing james madison, lincoln concluded that quote, this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery was employed on purpose to exclude from the constitution the idea that there could be property in man. that was six years after william lloyd garrison gave that famous speech, denouncing the constitution and setting it on fire. as i've tried to make clear, virtually all anti slavery caused -- politicians, including lincoln, disagreed with garrison as did the already of abolitionists. abolitionists were moving in the opposite direction, towards the claim that the constitution was not simply an anti slavery document, it was an abolitionist document that did, after all, allow congress to abolish slavery in a state. this abolitionist interpretation of the constitution was made with particular force by frederick douglass, in a speech he gave in glasgow. a month after lincoln spoke at the cooper institute. and one year after that, having won election to the presidency, lincoln gave another speech. his first inaugural address, and which he invoked the forfeiture of rights doctrine, morning at the slave states that if they persisted in their rebellion, quote, your fugitive slaves now only partially returned, will not be returned at all. it was not the first time lincoln had issued the threat. in a speech he gave in cincinnati, in 1855, he had warned that with secession, fugitive slaves would not be returned and so would -- it is not surprising that, at the very moment that he assumed the presidency, lincoln threatened to override the fugitive slave clause. lincoln made good on his threat, within weeks of the outbreak of the war, by endorsing the action of u.s. army generals who refused to return contraband slaves to their owners. on july 8th, in conversation with senator orville browning about fugitive slaves, lincoln agreed that quote, the government should norwood send back to bondage such as coming to our lines. that's july 18th, 19 1861. after congress -- lincoln acted on his constitutional powers outs commander in chief, to emancipate the contraband on the grounds of military necessity. in the year and a half before lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation, thousands upon thousands of enslaved people were emancipated, as they came into union lines in northern virginia on the sea islands of south carolina and georgia, on the peninsula, in western missouri, in arkansas, even in washington d.c.. this was the wartime anti slavery constitution in practice, and a very early stage. from those beginnings, lincoln's anti slavery policies became more radical. the goal of anti slavery constitutionalism had never been to provoke a war meant emancipate slaves of the military necessity. the goal of the anti slavery project was to push her the slave states into abolishing slavery on their own. and to that end, lincoln and late 1861 drafted inoculations tattooed that was a model for the fort state slave states that remained in the union. the first half of 1862, he signed off on a raft of congressional bills that implemented the project. those laws made it a crime for anyone in the u.s. military to participate in the capture and return of fugitives leaves, abolished slavery and washington d.c., required west virginia to abolish slavery as a condition for admission to the union, and banned slavery from the western territories. in his first year as president, lincoln negotiated a treaty with great britain that led, within a few years, to the end of the 350 year old atlantic slave trade. they were building the quarter of freedom. as the crisis moved into its 16 year, the anti slavery policy federally became more aggressive with the emancipation proclamation, or became revelation. in the early months of 1862, lincoln began to warn the loyal border states that emancipation would soon lead to abolition. his famous proclamation of january 1st, 1863, it declared emancipation universal in all the disloyal parts of the south. in the middle of that year, lincoln began using emancipation to weaken slavery in all of the southern states, until one by one, they began to abolish slavery on their own. this was the original goal of the abolitionists. federal encouragement of state abolition, i will now rattling radicalized by war. in the last year of the war, six slave states, under direct pressure from lincoln, abolished slavery on their own. arkansas was first, followed by louisiana, maryland, virginia, missouri, and tennessee. the effect was dramatic. when lincoln was elected president in 1860, there were 15 slaves and -- and 18 free states in the union. that proportion made it inconceivable that an abolitionist amendment could ever be ratified by the nation airy -- necessary three quarters of the states. by the end of january, 1865, three new free states have been added to the union, kansas, west virginia, and nevada. and together, with the six slave states that had abolished slavery, the proportion had changed dramatically. on the day congress sent the 13 a amendment to the state for ratification, there were 27 free states and nine slave states. that is 27 out of 36, or three quarters the number needed for ratification. lincoln detected the hand of providence at work in this outcome. abolitionists were inspired, when in his second inaugural -- he deemed slavery so fundamental and astounding to -- it was astounding. tracing the anti slavery constitution back to the founding era, and reconstructing the emergence of the anti slavery project as i've just done, runs the risk of obscuring what was, in reality, a circuitous and uncertain path to abolition. there are too many temptations to lose sight of how astounding the outcome was. an intellectual historian, for example, put emphasized the continuity of the language of the founders to the wording of the 13th amendment. in 1784, thomas jefferson proposed a land ordinance that would have banned slavery in all the western territories before they became states. quote, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, jefferson bill declared. otherwise, punishment of crimes wear of the party shall be duly convicted. congress passed a northwest in ordinance of 1787, three years later, banning slavery in the northwest territories. in jefferson's language, it survived nearly intact. the northwest ordinance was, again, reenacted in 1789 by the first congress operating under the new constitution. therefore, it became a touchstone for all opponents of slavery. in 1846, the northern congressman, david will maduro, -- who recently acquired from mexico. his favors proviso, declared that quote, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of the said territory, except for crime wear of the party shall have been duly convicted. from there the language made its way into the 13th amendment of the constitution. it reads, as you all know, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereas the party shall have been duly convicted shell exist within the united states. so there you have, it a perfectly straight line from jefferson, to the confederation of congress, to the u.s. congress, to the -- to the 13th amendment. it makes it look all so an example. there were other ways of making abolition seem inevitable, overly enthusiastic admirers of abraham lincoln, and i count myself an invite admirer. sometimes suggest that he was destined all along to free the slaves. overly enthusiastic socialist -- social inch historians make it seem that the slaves made abolition inevitable. by the time lincoln got around to issuing the emancipation proclamation, one distinguished historian was declared, no force on earth could have he revolution begun by the slaves themselves. but there were plenty of earthly forces that could have halted the revolution, lincoln was not destined to become a great emancipator, and intellectual histories can sometimes create the illusion of a straight path from 1784, one in fact the path to abolition was never straight. if the slave states had kept their wits about them, and remained in the union, republicans would not have controlled both houses of congress and passed all of those anti-slavery laws. they would have been no war, and no emancipation as a military necessity. nor did the mere fact that there was a war make abolition inevitable. the north had to win the war, and that was no short saying. it was predictable enough that republicans would admit three new slave free states to the union, but what are we to make of all of those six sleeve states that did abolish slavery? the truth is, as thomas payne once said of the british royal family, the lineage of those state appalachians will not bear watch looking into. to the handful of counties around washington d.c. really count as the loyal state of virginia? did a handful of parishes around new orleans really count as the loyal state of louisiana? to say that the state of tennessee abolished slavery as something of a stretch, maryland would not have abolished slavery if lincoln had not allowed the soldiers to vote a process that, as john white demonstrated, was marked by a number of wet are for mystically termed irregularities. even though every one of those states ratified the 13th amendment, a couple of northern states refused to secure ratification in late 1865. it took, of all things, and encourage doubly racist president, andrew johnson, to force the hands of a couple of encourage oblique pro slavery states. south carolina and mississippi, for heaven sakes. it was, indeed, a very crooked path to abolition. i have no more insight into the relations of divine providence than abraham lincoln. but i would suggest that whatever role the almighty played in the destruction of slavery, it nevertheless required lincoln's reelection. there is nothing at all inevitable about that. if lincoln had lost, it almost certainly would have meant that the republicans would not have secured enough votes in the house of representatives to overcome democratic opposition to the 13th amendment. president elect, george mcclelland, would not have lobbied as lincoln did to secure the necessary votes in the house. and as president, mcclelland would not have demanded abolition has the price of peace. only with lincoln's victory and the victory of the republican party is it possible to view the abolition of slavery as something close to inevitable. no one understood this better than william lloyd garrison. no presidential election has ever occurred at all comparable in magnitude, solemnity and far-reaching consequences, garrison wrote, as the returns of the 1864 vote came in. with lincoln's victory secured, garrison declared, the doom of rebellion and slavery is now irrevocably pronounced. so, fundamental and astounding? yes. and yet, could not have happened without the anti slavery project, without the peacetime project a federal pressure on southern states to abolish slavery in concert with the wartime project of military emancipation in the enlistment of black troops. all of, it justified by a constitution that lincoln believed made freedom the rule and slavery the exception. take that away and there is no 13th amendment. and so, we are left to ponder one of the great paradoxes of american legal history. it took an anti slavery constitution to jettison anti slavery constitution. thank you. [applause] >> we have a couple minutes for questions. so, please use the microphones on either side of the auditorium. >> hi, i'm boris carnahan from virginia -- have a couple questions about the forfeiture of rights. specifically about chapter five of your book. as i understand, it you're arguing that the lincoln administration had, as a practical matter, established a firm emancipation policy for fugitives from slavery by the end of 1861. maybe january of 1862 with the latest. my question, my first question, then, is, if that's why you don't even mention the second confiscation act or the emancipation proclamation in chapter five? do you think that those documents are simply redundant? my second question is, that if that's the case -- >> it's not the case. >> of. if it is the case, that there is a firm emancipation proclamation -- excuse, me policy, sorry, by the end of 1861. how come no one seems to have noticed? frederick douglass, still arguing for a firmaments beijing policy in september of 1862. are they just not in the loop as to what the government was actually doing? as far as the mensa patient is concerned? or am i not love? >> it's a very interesting question, i struggled with it myself. i've been the process of writing an article based on a wide sampling of newspaper and diary reactions to general benjamin butlers contraband ruling in late may of 1861. in which lincoln's order response to the contraband policy was, as you note, to send a letter telegram to butler in fortress, monroe, saying your decision not to return fugitive slaves is approved. that telegram was reprinted in newspapers all around the country, and republican newspapers, accompanied by editorial saying, we told you so, we tell you you wouldn't get your fugitive slaves back. and southerners papers published it at, with editorial saying, we told you, so we told you they wanted to keep a fugitive slaves and wouldn't return them. that they would emancipate them. so, there is a sense that it was known but it was not yet formulated and the general emancipation policy. which is different from and i think more radical than the policy of simply emancipating slaves to come in the union lines. that proclamation is authorized by the second confiscation act. it is understood to be authorized, that the horrors greely letter, the letter that prompted lincoln's letter to greely says, a month after the last past, he writes a famous editorial prayer 20 million saying why haven't you issued the proclamation required by the recent confiscation act? i do think that a general emancipation, declaration of emancipation, for all areas in rebellion in january, first 1860, one is a radicalization of a policy of emancipating slaves who happen to come into union lines. i hope that satisfies you. it's still, the thing is, after you have that policy, by late 1862, 1863, excuse me, republicans come back to congress and they know that it wasn't going to work. that it was going to be enough. that's when you see the introduction of the 13th amendment of that's why 1864 and all those state abolitionists become so important. yes? >> sir, red and chrome from quincy, illinois, the city that elected both diva douglas and hickman to the senate, from the fifth and professional district. my question is, as you mentioned four times the 13th amendment that followed the civil war but not once the 13th amendment that preceded the civil war, in which abraham lincoln indicated, during his inaugural address, he was willing to accept slavery and willing to make it an amendable. >> -- go ahead. >> -- corwin amendment. he did say it was going to be made permanent unamenable. doesn't that indicate that the straight line you talk about was actually a pretty wide circle? >> no. but it's an important question, and it comes up all the time. that core would amendment reaffirms that consensus, it is or is that the constitution shall not be changed so as to allow the federal government to abolish slavery in a state. but everybody already agreed that congress could not abolish slavery in a state and that's why the southerners said, this is meaningless. it's also one of about a half of a dozen first 13th amendments that were introduced at the time. that one gets a lot of attention and, i think, a lot of misreading. doesn't really change with the constitution was already understood to ban. the fact, is at no point in the civil war did congress abolish civil slavery in a state, they would never violate that principle. the only way to get around it is the pass a constitutional amendment that violated, that band slavery, in the entire united states. >> -- amendable by the u.s. constitution -- >> it doesn't matter. congress never violated that principle. congress never passed a law abolishing slavery in a state. , so amending that would have said that congress can pass a law abolishing slavery in the state, but that's not how they did it. anyway, the amendment didn't go anywhere. sorry, okay, sorry, one more question. >> good morning, sam carmen from maryland. and a recent book by noah feldman he claims that lincoln was a constitutional dictator. how does that jive with your book? >> it does not. [laughs] those of you who don't now know a feldman's book, i have a very longer view of it coming out. in the new york review of books. for those who don't know, noah feldman's argument is that there is not anti slavery constitution and lincoln was dedicated to our constitution that protected slavery unambiguously. and, in order for this strict, legal list, constitutionalist to get to the point where he was willing to issue an illegal, unconstitutional emancipation proclamation, he had to accustomed sell to violating the constitution. which he did, first, by using coercion to get the slave states back into the unions, the seceded states back to the union. and, second by making himself into a tyrant violated civil liberties with unprecedented abandon. those two violations of the constitution made it easier for lincoln to make his final, complete and total violation of the constitution, the emancipation proclamation. every step of that argument, i think, is mistaken. every single step. [applause] >> i got the crooked path earlier this fall and read it into nights. it is a fantastic book and i cannot commend it enough. please join us again after lunch and please, again, join me in thanking our speaker. [applause] recently, on american history tv, first ladies from lady bird johnson to melania trump talked about the role of the first lady, their time in the white house and the issues important to them. here's a portion featuring lady bird johnson. >> many years ago, when i was the wife of a brand new texas congressman, i snapped photographs outside these iron gates. i never imagined that one day i would live on the other side of that fence. like many tourists, i have the distinct feeling that this has belonged, in part, to me. i think that's a feeling that everybody who visits here shares. just like the thousands who come here each year, i was impressed by the majesty of the great state rooms on the first floor and was proud of the stream of history that ran through each of them. what the passerby doesn't always realize is that there are two sides to the white house. the official side that remains in the public eye and the private side, that the public rarely sees. the living quarters for the president and his family. this is our living room. actually, it's the west end of the long haul. it's the nerve center and crossroad of all our family activities. an intimate