Equality and Corporal Punishment: Wage Labor's Crisis of Legitimation, 1795–1835

Abstract:In the decades following the Revolution, American culture enthusiastically embraced the classical-republican ideals of equality and personal freedom from domination. But as nascent industrialism took hold in America, a wage-labor paradigm began to emerge which conflicted violently with these principles. Supported by a legal framework, transferred from England's feudal past, known as the doctrine of master and servant, wage labor demanded inequality, subordination, and fostered dependency. The most dramatic conflict, however, arose from the doctrine's disciplinary cornerstone—the sanctioning of brutal corporal punishment to enforce employer authority. This created a crisis of legitimation for the wage system. And because the doctrine of master and servant was clearly at odds with republican ideology, wage labor's crisis became law's crisis. This article argues that the abandonment of corporal punishment in favor of more subtle forms of coercion was accompanied by a legal discourse that contributed to the legitimation of an emerging wage-labor regime. This discourse transcended its legal origins to support a broader legal-moral ideology of opportunity that rationalized and, paradoxically, underpinned domination, dependency, and inequality amid strenuous assertions of justice.