After independence, support for centralized government in the United States was encouraged among rebellious and disenfranchised white laborers through the creation of a permanently subordinate black slave caste available for economic exploitation.

The demand for images of slavery on Southern currency, which came about as a part of the growing importance of the "slavery question," caught printers off guard. They responded by changing their existing images of white laborers into black slaves. 

Notice how the solitary rider on the $1.00 note from Michigan, stopped to watch a group of white harvesters becomes an overseer with a whip taking stock of black slaves picking cotton on the $5.00 note from South Carolina.

  "Slave Overseer With Whip"
Collection of Dr. Harold Rhodes III
Charleston, South Carolina

       State of Michigan  $1.00

       State of South Carolina  $5.00