Howard Zinn

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Why would the white elite control the end of slavery?

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The white elite controlled the end of slavery to maintain economic and social power. According to Zinn, government-led emancipation allowed limits on freedom that preserved exploitation of African American labor. During Reconstruction, limited reforms and the eventual acceptance of Southern subjugation of blacks by Northern whites facilitated industrial expansion in the South. This control ensured that radical changes in racial equality were avoided, reflecting the North's pre-existing racial attitudes.

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Zinn argues in chapter nine of A People's History of the United States, entitled "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom," that emancipation by the government would allow it to "set limits" that would allow it to be "pulled back to a safer position." In other words, emancipation would be limited in order to control and profit from the labor of African Americans. He stresses the limited gains and ultimate setbacks of Reconstruction, particularly the refusal of even Radicals to enact substantial land reforms. He also points to the end of Reconstruction, in which Southerners eventually embraced the "new capitalist order" while persuading Northern Republicans to abandon attempts at bringing about racial justice through federal action. Through its actions, the federal government managed Reconstruction in such a way as to avoid a truly radical change. With the end of Reconstruction, Northern whites accepted the subjugation of blacks in the South in order to establish industry there. Zion points to the racism prevalent in the North before the Civil War to demonstrate that the "North . . . did not have to undergo a revolution in its thinking in order to accept the subordination of the Negro." 

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