The chapter describes pre-Revolutionary War. They were having a hard time getting white men to fight and Indians and southern blacks weren’t allowed to fight. So they ended up getting a lot of men who are basically poor. Except for a few rich men that became generals there really aren’t any rich men in the war. The rich are trying to keep the poor people at a disadvantage by having them fight. Whereas the poor men are thinking by joining the war they will get respect, but they don’t. Instead after the war when they get home they find out that they were in debt and would loose everything. Luckily, the Blacks started fighting for freedom and rights in the North. And as the slavery in the north decreased the slavery in the south increased. Other then the slave change the social ladder stays the same after the war. The Indians continued to loose land and the poor white people stayed poor.
Then Zinn talks about making the constitution and how those who wrote it were rich men. Also how some laws and amendments were as good as they could have been and that some of them should have been worked on a little more.
So Zinn looks at the Revolutionary War from the lower class perspective and argues that the war was a transfer of economic power from a distant ruling class to a local class. In Zinn's perspective the war was about economics and the ideas/ideals of freedom were slogans to hook the poor. Do you agree completely with his assessment? Why or why not?
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