The middle colonies were New York, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, two belonging to England, and two to Wm. Penn.  The Southern colonies were Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, all belonging to England.  Brought together by common cause were English, French, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Quakers, Episcopalians, Catholics and all desired forms of religious worship.  Wise legislation indeed was needed to harmonize these conflicting elements and dispositions merely on general principles.  But when grave questions came then trouble began.  What was to the commercial interest of one section seemed to militate against the prosperity of the other, and the glorious ending of the war for independence was soon clouded by the acts of Congress concerning the polity of the United States.

The African Slave Trade, begun by the North for purposes of profit, became a bone of contention till the year 1808, when the law was passed against the further importation of foreign slaves.  Those already owned and employed must on no account be disturbed.  They might increase and multiply adlibitum on their own plantations, but they were the legitimate property of their owners.  Even when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Act, he said that he had not the right as President to do it, but that it must be done as a war measure.  By depriving the southern soldier of his laborers, the homes must go to waste and the strife most cease.

Politically each of the original colonies was independent had its own assembly and its own governor.  From the very first this idea of State sovereignty was inherent, and consequently it was granted.  The royal colonies sent all legislative acts to England to be approved or vetoed by the king.  It must have required patience to await the going and returning of the documents across the “vasty deep” in that day.  These royal colonies so governed by the king, were New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia.  In the proprietary colonies, or those granted by royalty to individuals, the owner appointed the governor, but the king exercised the right of veto in Pennsylvania and Delaware, but not in Maryland.  The charter colonies were Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.  These held charters from the king permitting a complete government by themselves.  At this time black slaves were in all the states.  Even after the New England States had grown rich by the selling of the negroes to the south, where the climate suited their natures, they kept up the traffic in white slaves who, too poor to pay their passage to the new land flowing with milk and honey, sold themselves, hoping to buy back their freedom in the, perhaps near future.