The Radical and the Republican

Having given the reader a broad understanding of the early events and people who shaped the mind and political leanings of Frederick Douglass, Oakes uses the second chapter to do the same with Abraham Lincoln. While paying attention not to overly simplify the similarities between the upbringing of the two, it nevertheless becomes clear that they are both “self-made” men who have come from humble backgrounds to find themselves on the grand stage of American political discourse.

From the beginning, Oakes instills in the reader Lincoln’s disdain for the institution of slavery; it is, after all, indicated in the name of the chapter. He then traces Lincoln’s political influences from his early life as a clerk and lawyer in Illinois, through his short-lived tenure as a representative from Sangamon County, to the Illinois State Legislature, to his great affinity towards the work and principle of Henry Clay, “the beau-deal of a statesman” (41), whose policies Lincoln ultimate refined and bettered.

Chapter 2 also serves as a means by which Oakes can recount nearly 40 years of history and political action that set the stage for the American Civil War.