The government should thus open an escape to the worker from the wage
system into self-employment by way of free land. After years of
agitation, the same cry was taken up by the Western States eager for
more settlers to build up their communities and this combined agitation
proved irresistible and culminated in the Homestead law of 1862.
The Homestead law opened up the road to self-employment by way of free
land and agriculture. But in the sixties the United States was already
becoming an industrial country. In abandoning the city for the farm, the
wage earner would lose the value of his greatest possession--his skill.
Moreover, as a homesteader, his problem was far from solved by mere
access to free land. Whether he went on the land or stayed in industry,
he needed access to reasonably free credit. The device invented by
workingmen to this end was the bizarre "greenback" idea which held their
minds as if in a vise for nearly twenty years. "Greenbackism" left no
such permanent trace on American social and economic structure as
"Republican education" or "free land."
The lure of "greenbackism" was that it offered an opportunity for
self-employment.
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