Slavery Without Freedom Analysis

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Howard Zinn Historian, author, civil rights activist, World War II veteran, intellectual and professor attempted to write about “Slavery without submission, Emancipation without freedom.” Zinn claims were “the United States government's support of slavery was based on an overpowering practicality. A system harried by slave rebellions and conspiracies (Gabriel Prosser, 1800; Denmark Vesey, 1822; Nat Turner, 1831) developed a network of controls in the southern states, hacked by the laws, courts, armed forces, and race prejudice of the nation's political leaders.” The United States government's support of slavery was based on an overpowering practicality. In 1790, a thousand tons of cotton were being produced every year in the South. By 1860,…show more content…
Lincoln did believe that slavery was morally wrong, but there was one big problem; It was allowed by the highest law in the land, the Constitution. The nation’s founding fathers, who also struggled with how to address slavery, did not explicitly write the word “slavery” in the Constitution, but they did include key clauses protecting the institution, including a fugitive slave clause and the three-fifths clause, which allowed Southern states to count slaves for the purposes of representation in the federal government. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a military measure, it didn’t apply to border slave states like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, all of which had remained loyal to the Union. Lincoln also exempted selected areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control in hopes of gaining the loyalty of whites in those states. In practice, then the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t immediately free a single slave, as the only places it applied were places where the federal government had no control. Slaves were not solely freed off the fact that enslavement was “morally wrong” but it was practical. Lincoln himself said "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without…show more content…
A&E Television Networks, 21 Sept. 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom." Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. "Why Did the North Want to End Slavery during the Civil War." American Civil War Forum. Web. 10 Nov.

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