Compare and contrast Zinn chapter 10 with Carnes Chapter 14 - Essay Example

It also provides the reader with a unique chance to process the truly subjective nature of historical analysis which, depending on the author, often creates a bias against or for histories noted ‘winners’. Author subjectivity is most evident when comparing and contrasting the dominant themes of both. Zinn (2003) and Carnes (2005) major commonality is the re-emergence of key themes contributing to the upheaval. Race, social class, possession, money, power, sovereignty, land and politics are seen as central by both.

Yet their dissection of each differs. Carnes attributes the emancipation of slaves to a happy by-product of North versus South. He wrote: Although he was simply paraphrasing a Lincoln letter and the sentiment is essentially correct, most voters did not look favourably upon the abolition of slavery but recognised they needed more numbers to make a successful war effort, it ignores the great lengths that people of race, and indeed the lower classes generally, went too to secure emancipation from slavery and elitism.

When it comes to slavery Carnes even goes as far as noting Lincolns Cabinet as being a major factor, he notes that “…Seward hoped to conciliate the North…Senator Salmon P. Chase represented the radicals…”(2005, 401). The implication being that Lincolns political nous and a cabinet that reflected the ‘people’ won what little freedoms the people experienced, again dwarfing the conscientious efforts of freedom campaigners. According to Zinn however, abolition and renter freedoms were the result of a tireless campaign by those affected and their sympathisers.

Freedom was not a happy coincidence but bore out of hard work and collective action. “Despite the protests of Dorr and a few others, the "Peoples Constitution" kept the word "white" in its clause designating voters. Angry Rhode