In 1860, Abraham Lincoln (and the Republican Party) stood as the only viable alternative to the moral indifference of Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas’s “popular sovereignty” and the pro-slavery politics of Vice President John Breckinridge of Kentucky. This lecture will argue that Lincoln was a savvy but principled politician who tried to restore the Spirit of ’76 as the leading principle of American self-government. Without a return to the equality principle of the Declaration of Independence, which Lincoln insisted included black people, he believed the nationalization of slavery would occur through the acquiescence of white northerners. If they permitted its expansion into the federal territories, Lincoln predicted that the legal groundwork would be set to prevent northern states from continuing to prohibit slavery by their laws or constitution. The lecture will focus on Lincoln’s skill in promoting a freedom agenda irrespective of race as he avoided the charge of fanatica
Dr. Lucas Morel, head of the politics department at Washington & Lee University, joined the Academic Freedom Alliance when it was founded in March 2021.