During the period of 1760-1820, working life in the America was shaped on a number of levels and in a number of ways by the framing of the United States Constitution. For example, in New England settlements agrarian conflict arose between those such as Henry Knox who hoped to validate dubious land claims going back to seventeenth-century "proprietary grants" and courageous settlers who justified their land holdings by "revolutionary patriotism" (Taylor 17). Many of what were known as the "leading men" - typically mill owners and traders - arose from the settler culture and became Jeffersonians, using state politics to help resolve the conflict (Taylor 18). In a like manner, Jeffersonians and the leading men served as champions of the settlers and patriotism.
Such conflicts based on constitutional framing evolved laws such as the Betterment Act of 1808, a land reform act that placed valuations on land (Taylor 19). In this sense, the framing of the Constitution led to the evolution of the American legal system after the Revolutionary War. This analysis will discuss how working life in America was shaped by the U.S. Constitution, a document whose framing led to the evolution of the U.S. legal system after the Revolutionary War.
In Labor in America: A History, Melvyn Dubofsky and Foster Rhea Dulles provide a survey of labor in U.S. history. In the authors' view, those who shaped the U.S. Constitution framed America's most significant document in ways that influenced labor concerns and issues. The U.S. Constitution is a combination of two elements that construct our normative reality; "the legal act of the highest power (the Constitution) and constitutional jurisprudence, wherein this act is construed and developed" (Jarasiunas 24). In this sense, there are acts in the Constitution that are specific, such as the right to property ownership, and those that leave room for interpretation by Supreme Court...