Was Abraham Lincoln a Radical or a Conservative?

October 22, 2008

Lincoln even took to quoting Thomas Jefferson, a founding father more often associated with Jacksonian Democrats, citing Jefferson's belief that the personal rights of men were more important than the rights to property.

While Lincoln was "radicalized by the time he became president," said Oakes, "the more radical he became, the more he claimed to be conservative."

When the South began to secede from the union, Lincoln employed an underlying theme of conservatism, saying he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the law and expected Southern states to do the same.

"The essence of anarchy is secession," Lincoln believed, according to Oakes. Oakes called Lincoln "radical as to ends, conservative as to means."

Stonehill first-year student Tim Walsh, a history major, was among those who took advantage of the opportunity to question Oakes.

Walsh said everything he had learned about Lincoln suggested Lincoln's first priority was reuniting the country, not ending slavery.

But Oakes disagreed; saying Lincoln "refused every single compromise on slavery" that would have prevented war. By the time South Carolina seceded from the union, Lincoln had concluded there would be a war and that "he was not going to compromise on slavery," Oakes said.

In the end, his freeing of the slaves amounted to "close to a full-scale social revolution," Oakes said.

The professor, noting that his office is on the fifth floor of a nine-story building at 34th street.

"You guys are very lucky," Oakes said.

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