ABSTRACT
Colonial Virginia declared its belief in natural and inalienable rights, popular sovereignty, and government for the common good, even before the Declaration of Independence. But it soon became the belief of doctrinaires, and not a single other Southern state enacted these doctrines of equality until after the Civil War. In the older states representatives were assigned arbitrarily to counties, districts and towns, with little regard to population. This was for the purpose of putting the control in the hands of wealthy planters. As the economic power of the planter waned, his political power became more and more indispensable to the maintenance of his income and profits. Holding his industrial system secure by this political domination, the planter turned to the more systematic exploitation of his black labor. The planters entirely misconceived the extent to which democracy was spreading in the North. They thought it meant that the laboring class was going to rule the North for labor's own economic interests.
