Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery

In collaboration with the New-York Historical Society, the Bryant Park Reading Room presents a series of free lectures on popular topics including biography, the Supreme Court, Civil War history, and more.

Abraham Lincoln always hated slavery, but when he took office in 1861 he did not challenge its legitimacy in areas of the country where it was deemed legal. In a desperate effort to hold the nation together, he even considered a constitutional amendment that would bar Congress from interfering with slavery in the slave states. Historian Daniel W. Crofts examines Lincoln’s statecraft during that tense period and how the war to save the Union would ultimately transform the 16th president into the “Great Emancipator.”

Daniel W. Crofts, a professor emeritus of history at The College of New Jersey, is the author of Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union.