They saw themselves in the Enlightenment tradition, had faith in science and reason and believed in progress. The desire for social change shaped the Enlightenment debate about God, and led many to reject divine authority.
They kept the people together
Without big farms to run, the people in the North did not rely on slave labor very much. In the South, the economy was based on agriculture. ... The North wanted the new states to be “free states.” Most northerners thought that slavery was wrong and many northern states had outlawed slavery.
