The entire permitting and licensing apparatus was designed to keep “cheap southern labor” out. “Cheap sounthern labor” is a euphemism for blacks. Sadly, whites sat buy and watched the leviathan grow because, at the time, it was doing their will.
We got government schooling the same way. Protestants, fearing the growing Papist horde would breed them into a powerful majority, demanded compulsory education to indoctrinate the Catholics into the Protestant work ethic.
Today we have a government school system indoctrinating people against the Protestant work ethic. Go figure.