Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom

In “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom,” Zinn’s thesis is that the only way that slavery would be abolished in the Americas is if it was done under conditions controlled by whites, if it could even be done at all.

This article is about how despite the many attempts to break from slavery, it still remained persistent for many years in America. Zinn explains how most slaves that wanted to escape would do so by running away, while others did so by revolting. He talks of a few famous revolts by slaves, including those involving Nat Turner, John Brown, and the Underground Railroad of Harriet Tubman. Although there were not many instances, at one point poor whites were trying to help free slaves by running away, which was then stopped when they were paid to watch over slaves (a tactic to for these whites to produce buffers for black hatred). In addition religion was used for control of these slaves by plantation owners. Zinn explains these instances of slavery and attempts to abandon it to show how none of them really worked, not even very well by those up North including many abolitionists. The main reason for the failure of so many revolts and plans to end slavery is because the national government would not allow there to be an end to such a practice. The national government encouraged slavery and reinforced it, and would only really end it under conditions controlled by the whites, until the actions of Abraham Lincoln. Zinn explains how “Lincoln could skillfully blend the interests of the very rich and the interests of the black at a moment in history when these interests met” and how he could “Argue with lucidity and passion against slavery on moral grounds, while acting cautiously in practical politics.” However, at first Lincoln merely opposed slavery, but did not see blacks as equals. Zinn explains how it was not until,” The war grew more bitter, the casualties mounted, desperation to win heightened, and the criticism of the abolitionists threatened to unravel the tattered coalition behind Lincoln that he began to act against slavery.”


Zinn has a good point when he explains that the government would not abolish slavery or to anything to end it for that matter unless it was under the terms and conditions that they created. Clearly this was a dispute over power that the white government did not want to give up or lessen their hold on whatsoever. It took the intellectual thinking of Lincoln to start the long process, by starting out slow and gradually strengthening his argument opposing the practice of slavery and treatment of blacks period. For prior to Lincoln, even those abolitionists in the free North were often punished for standing up for their beliefs of ending slavery and attempting to help those slaves who were still being oppressed. Instead of whites looking upon what was just and humane, they chose to practice slavery to merely keep the power that they were “destined” to have.

I like this article because it gives detail of the many attempts of slaves as well as abolitionists to end slavery and how they ended up failing due to the rule of the white government. Zinn explains why whites were reluctant to compromise anything on the basis of slavery and why they refused to just end the practice. It explains how greed and wealth overpowered the rights of a human being, from the torture of blacks to the many laws passed to further oppress them. While racism may never end, hopefully it continues to gradually disappear one step at a time, as it has from the past beginning at the very roots of slavery.