From the very start, the South, favored by a mild climate, rich soil, and broad, low-lying valleys, developed an agricultural life.  Slavery was introduced at an early date, and flourished, the warm climate being congenial to the negro, and the rude manual labor of the field suited to his meagre capabilities.  The result of these influences was to develop in the South a system of large ill-worked manors or estates.  The predominance of slave labor, discouraged the immigration of free labor, and the South remained comparatively thinly settled.  The moral effect of slavery upon the white population was bad.  Habits of thriftlessness and laziness were engendered among the free population, and their social relations corrupted.

In the North, an indented coast with many good harbors, a rugged soil, and a wintry climate, encouraged the development of a commercial and manufacturing life.  Slave labor here proved itself scarcely profitable, neither the climate nor the nature of the work required, being suited to the frames and abilities of the African.  As compared with the South, the North soon became thickly settled, and largely as a result of this, adopted the small area of the town or township as its most important unit of local government, instead of the larger area, the county, used in the South.  This essential difference in the system of local government in the North, from that of the South, has remained unchanged to this day, and has exercised great influence upon the political habits of the peoples of these two sections.

At the time of the adoption of the constitution, these differences between the northern and southern colonies were not so great as they were soon to become.  As contrasted with the North, the agricultural character of the South was already marked, but the designation of these two sections as “free” and “slave” states had not yet come into use.  It was the remarkable development of the cultivation of cotton consequent upon the invention of Whitney’s cotton gin in 1793, that gave the tremendous impetus to the increase of slavery in the South.  While prior to the introduction of this machine, scarcely a single pound of cotton could be separated from the seed by a man in a day, Whitney’s gin made it possible to prepare for market three hundred and fifty pounds per day.  The nature of the cotton plant rendered it peculiarly fitted to the climate and soil of the South, and the ease with which it could be cultivated and prepared for market, made the application of slave labor extremely profitable.  In 1789 many of the southern states exhibited evidences of a desire and intention to ultimately abolish slavery, but from this time we hear nothing more of this.  After 1800 the number of slaves increased rapidly.  The census of 1790 showed in the southern colonies 650,000, while that of 1820 showed the number to be over 1,580,000.  From 1800 to 1865 the political life of the South is largely explainable by the interest of its people in, and devotion to, the institution of slavery.