In the 1820s and 1830s, as artisans, journeymen, sailors, longshoremen, and other workers organized the early trade-union movement as well as workers’ political parties, one principal demand was the abolition of imprisonment for debt. Inheritors of a radical political culture, their complaints echoed that biblical tradition of Jubilee mentioned in Leviticus, which called for the cancellation of debts, the restoration of lost house and land, and the freeing of slaves and bond servants every fifty years.

Falling into debt was a particularly ruinous affliction for those who aspired to modest independence as shopkeepers, handicrafters, or farmers. As markets for their goods expanded but became ever less predictable, they found themselves taking out credit to survive and sometimes going into arrears, often followed by a stint in debtors’ prison that ended their dreams forever.