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Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic is a fundamental reinterpretation of law and politics in America between 1790 and 1850, the crucial period of the Republic's early growth and its movement toward industrialism. The book is the most detailed study yet available of the intellectual and institutional processes that created the foundation categories framing all the basic legal relationships involving working people at work. But it also brings out the political and social significance of those categories, and of law's role in their creation. Tomlins argues that it is impossible to understand outcomes in the interaction between law and labor during the early Republic unless one also understands the preeminence that legal discourse was assuming at the time in American society as a whole, and the particular social and political reasons for that preeminence. Because of the breadth and novelty of its interpretation this is a book not just for those interested in the history of law or the history of labor, but for anyone interested in the broad stream of American political and social history.
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Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic is a fundamental reinter- pretation of law and politics in America between 1790 and 1850. The most detailed study yet available of the basic legal relationships involving working people at work in an industrializing economy, the book also reveals the crucial political and social significance of those relationships and the law's role in their creation. Not just for those interested in the history of law or the history of labor, this is a book for anyone interested in the broad stream of American political and social history. Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic CHRISTOPHER L. TOMLINS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Victoria 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1993 First published 1993 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tomlins, Christopher L., 1951Law, labor, and ideology in the early American republic / Christopher L. Tomlins. p. cm. ISBN 0-521-43278-2 (he). - ISBN 0-521-43857-8 (pb) 1. Labor laws and legislation - United States - History - 19th century. 2. Industrial relations - United States - History - 19th century. I. Title. KF3369. T65 1993 344.73'01 - dc20 [347.3041] 92-17452 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-521-43278-2 hardback ISBN 0-521-43857-8 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2002 For Sheila Tomlins, for Jean Douglas, and, especially, for Ann and Jasmin and Meredith Contents Preface and acknowledgments Prologue: two moments of the republic page xi 1 PART 1. LAW AND THE FACTS OF AMERICAN LIFE 1. Law: the modality of rule 2. Police: the pursuit of happiness 3. An excess of democracy 19 35 60 PART 2. LAW, LABOR, AND STATE Introduction: dictates of wise policy 4. Combination and conspiracy 5. The American conspiracy cases 6. Commonwealth against Hunt 101 107 128 180 PART 3. LAW, AUTHORITY, AND THE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP Introduction: the nomenclature of power 7. The law of master and servant 8. Master and servant in republican America An interlude: on law and economy 223 232 259 294 PART 4. THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ORDER Introduction: a sign of the times 9. Mechanism 10. The law of industrial accidents Epilogue: "free Ameriky" Index 301 306 331 385 391 It is common that those who labor shoul