Louisiana and Aaron Burr 257 



who were members of the constitutional convention 

 voted in favor of the abolition of slavery. 9 In Ten- 

 nessee no such effort was made, but the leaders of 

 thought did not hesitate to express their horror of 

 slavery and their desire that it might be abolished. 

 There was no sharp difference between the attitudes 

 of the Northwestern and the Southwestern -States 

 toward slavery. 



North and South alike, the ways of life were sub- 

 stantially the same, though there were differences, 

 of course, and these differences tended to become 

 accentuated. Thus, in the Mississippi Territory the 

 planters, in the closing years of the century, began 

 to turn their attention to cotton instead of devoting 

 themselves to the crops of their brethren further 

 north ; and cotton soon became their staple product. 

 But as yet the typical settler everywhere was the 

 man of the .axe and rifle, the small pioneer farmer 

 who lived by himself, with his wife and his swarm- 

 ing children, on a big tract of wooded land, perhaps 

 three or four hundred acres in extent. Of this three 

 or four hundred acres he rarely cleared more than 

 eight or ten; and these were cleared imperfectly. 

 On this clearing he tilled the soil, and there he 



9 John Mason Brown, "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," 

 229. Among the men who deserve honor for thus voting 

 against slavery was Harry Innes. One of the Baptist preach- 

 ers, Gerrard, was elected Governor over Logan, four years 

 later ; a proof that Kentucky sentiment was very tolerant of 

 attacks on slavery. All the clergymen, by the way, also 

 voted to disqualify clergymen for service in the legisla- 

 tures. 



