CONSTITUTIONS Dueling

LECTURE BY DR. JAMES OAKES

Dr. James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History, American Studies and Africana Studies at the City University of New York, will discuss the mid-19th century debate over the meaning of the Constitution at 6 p.m., May 3 in the Indiana State Museum Auditorium. Admission is free, but registration is encouraged.

Oakes’ lecture, “Dueling Constitutions,” will examine the way the national debate over slavery was also a debate over the meaning of the Constitution. The great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison famously burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution, denouncing it as a “compact with the devil” and an “agreement with hell.” But another great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, argued the opposite, that the Constitution was an abolitionist document and that it was a mistake for the opponents of slavery to hand the nation’s founding charter over to proslavery forces.

Oakes is a leading historian of 19th-century America, exploring the history of the United States from the Revolution through the Civil War. His books include The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution (W.W. Norton, 2021) and The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. He holds the Humanities Chair at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he is distinguished professor of history, American studies and Africana studies.

Oakes’ lecture is supported by the Friends of the Lincoln Collection.