t of a wealthy and powerful elite, based on ability rather than caste. Like European counterparts Americans believed that only those with land would have nay interest in the affairs government. Law was first administered in the colonies without benefit of lawyers. The clergy of New England pressed hard for rule by Biblical law. The average settlement wanted the kind of laws and procedures which was known in Europe. In working out thier legal systems developed systems which freed them from the rigid technicalities of medieval jurisprudence so prevalent in Europe. The Great Awaking that swept through Britain also came to America. The great Awaking and American enlightenment promoted higher eduction in the colonies and also joined to promote separation of church and state. By the middle of the eighteenth century there was less church going people in America than any other country in the western world. America used the ideals of Enlightenment to promote modification and reforms in society, not revolution. There are several features that sets the southern colonies apart from thier northern neighbors. The most striking of which is slavery. The spread of slavery made a society whose continuance depended on a rigid discipline. This prominent feature gives southern life a distinctive and separate sense, creating in the course of time a nation with in a nation. Land tenure in the south was marked by the accumulation of many large estates. This in turn gave rise to a yawning abyss between the very rich and the very poor. Another feature eighteenth century south was that public benevolence played some role in the founding of the southern colonies, and southern governments can only be thought of as a benevolent aristocratic oligarchy. The pulse of religion did not pound with the same beat as in New England nor did the southern religious class ever acquire the prestige and power that quickly won it dominance in the puritan colonies of the north. Anot...
