Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and the Independence of Enslaved People

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By the mid-19th century, free laborers were no longer independent in the sense that Thomas Jefferson or even Alexander Hamilton had intended when the nation was new. What had changed, and what impacts did these changes have on people, society, and the economy?
Indeed, Thomas Jefferson and even Alexander Hamilton played a significant role in ensuring the independence of enslaved people. The American Revolution was an opportunity for African Americans to struggle for emancipation. The Constitution had been a significant blow to African Americans. It failed to interfere with state rules that disenfranchised most free blacks based on color and poverty. At the same time, the Bill of Rights provided nothing to enslaved people, who were not taken as citizens in the first place. While the American Revolution allowed some enslaved individuals to gain their freedom, it also laid the groundwork for economic developments leading to the enslavement of even more people (Clark and Hewitt 248).
By the Mid-19th century, changes in the American economy occurred. There was a shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. A majority of the Northerners hoped that economic prosperity would ensure that they got their material independence. In the South, the plantations had expanded slavery and given rise to a growing propertyless and dependent workforce (Clark and Hewitt 326). Hence, the people in the North, where slavery was increasingly disappearing, felt that they would become independent proprietors. However, industrialization changed this hope. The rise of industrialization and the growth of large factories and businesses required more wage labor than independent free labor. No longer could free labor to remain independent since the factories required a constant supply of laborers. Hence, laborers were forced to sell their labor for wages to secure factory opportunities. Wage labor hence grew to become the most dominant means of production. At the start of the 1800s, only 12% of the US labor force worked for wages. By the 1860s, the proportion had grown to about 40%, with the majority of the wage employees concentrated in the North.
One of the significant impacts of the shift from independent free labor to wage labor was the loss of autonomy and control for many workers. When America was new, free laborers could control their work. The freedom allowed them to set their terms of labor depending on what catered to their best interests. However, as wage labor became common, workers depended mainly on their employers for livelihoods. Laborers could not work on their terms since their employers dictated working terms. Hence, free laborers lost independence, which reduced ...