2023 Rolland Lecture

“Duelling Constitutions” Presented by Dr. James Oakes May 2, 2023 at 7 p.m. EDT Allen County Public Library Theater, Lower Level 2   The Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana Announces the 2023 Rolland Lecture with James Oakes: The great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison famously burned a copy of the US Constitution, denouncing it […]

“Duelling Constitutions”

Presented by Dr. James Oakes

May 2, 2023 at 7 p.m. EDT

Allen County Public Library Theater, Lower Level 2

The Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana Announces the 2023 Rolland Lecture with James Oakes:

The great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison famously burned a copy of the US 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.  This lecture, “Duelling Constitutions,” will examine the way the national debate over slavery was also a debate over the meaning of the Constitution.

James Oakes is a professor of history at the City University of New York. His most recent book is The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution, published by W. W. Norton in January 2021.

The lecture is available for viewing on Internet Archive.

Any questions can be emailed to [email protected]