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 white farmer carrying a basket of corn on the note from The Citizens Bank of Washington, D.C. is transformed into a black slave carrying the same basket of corn on the $50.00 note issued by the Bank of Howardsville in Virginia.