1. The availability of land had profound effects on the social, economic, and political structure of the colonial South into the nineteenth century. Land was a major economic asset in the colonies, and its price remained reasonable. Ownership of land was a key to social position and to participation in politics as well as to economic success. Plantation owners headed the list of landowners in the colonial South, and they possessed enormous acreage. No more than 30 percent of the white male population in the South remained landless. Among the landowning classes, 30 percent owned more than 500 acres, 60 percent owned between 100 and 500 acres, and 30 percent had between 100 and 300 acres in South Carolina. Land ownership created new elites, as did geographic mobility. This reduced class conflict in the South. The possession of land guaranteed political participation.
The plantation system developed to have a continuing and cheap workforce for the large plantations, and this was especially important given the prominence of agriculture in the South. After the Revolution, political participation found the South a largely Republican stronghold, and national issues were of great importance to those who did so participate. The desire for more land caused many Southerners to look to the West to the land beyond settlement, and this led to states such as Kentucky and Tennessee before the Revolution and further after. Land speculators played a role in the opening of these new regions, and one of the political fights carried with these settlers was whether slavery would be adopted in these new territories.
2. Hamilton's primary concern was to encourage a dynamic capitalist economy, and he believed that a dynamic central leadership was what was needed most to achieve this. However, he despaired of accomplishing this in America in a virtuous way, and more and more a harsh view of human nature colored his thinking. he believed tha...