The Radical and the Republican

Oakes gives Chapter 3 a provocative title, as though to set up the discord, or better the disconnect, that existed between Lincoln and Douglass during the years that led up to the Civil War and the first few years of the conflict. However, Oakes is quick to point out that many of the issues between the two, or mostly issues Douglass perceived Lincoln having, were not the result of a difference of opinion but rather a “temperamental divide” (90). Douglass was passionate, whereas Lincoln was stoic (92), and the two men approached both the way they spoke, wrote, and acted in public accordingly. Douglass often mistook Lincoln’s stoicism for disinterest, while Lincoln, due to Douglass’s radicalism, shied away from openly endorsing the man in public. This divide is most eloquently displayed by the reaction both men had to John Brown and his raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1959.

Apart from discussing their character differences, Chapter 3 also speaks to the way the men differed in their interpretation of what “the constitution allow[ed] the federal government to do with slavery” (109)—yet another fundamental difference that made it seem as though the men were further apart ideologically than was the actual case.