Another reason for the rise in slave imports was a promise in the Constitution that the national government would not end the nation's participation in the international slave trade until 1808, and planters wished to stock up before the market closed. The slave-driven economy of the late 18th and early 19th centuries produced huge amounts of plantation staples, nearly all of them sold to international buyers. In 1790 there were few cities. Only 5 percent of the population lived in towns with more than 2,500 inhabitants. And only five communities had more than 10,000 inhabitants. Each of these five cities was an Atlantic seaport and handled the exporting of American farm staples and the importing of Old World manufactured goods.
They performed very little manufacturing of their own. After 1793, when Britain and France entered a long period of war, American seaports handled increased exports as war-torn Europe bought a lot of American food. They also began to handle more of the trade between European countries and their island colonies in the Caribbean. Thus the work of the plantations, the seaport towns, and (to a lesser extent) the farms of the United States was tied to foreign trade. The new government of the United States worked to foster and protect that trade, and these efforts led the new nation into the War of 1812. Growth of Democracy Another potential problem for members of the new government who prized order was the rapid growth and increasing democracy of American society. The revolutionary rhetoric of equality and natural rights seeped into every corner of American life.
Even the poorest white men demanded the basic dignity that republics promised their citizens. Some women began to dream in that direction, as did slaves. In 1800 a slave named Gabriel led a slave revolt in Richmond, Virginia. His small army marched into the state capital under the banner Death or Liberty.Religious change also contributed to the new democratic character of the republic.
The established churches of colonial days declined-in part because they were relatively cold and formal, and also because their status as established churches aroused democratic resentment. At the same time, a great revival among the common people made Baptists and Methodists the largest American churches. Baptists grew from 400 to 2,700 congregations between 1783 and 1820; Methodists grew from 50 to 2,700 churches in the same years. These churches emphasized preaching over ritual, stressed Bible-reading congregations over educated ministers, favored spiritual freedom over old forms of hierarchical discipline, and encouraged conversions. Of crucial importance to the revival was the conversion of slaves and, in turn, the slaves' transformation of Christianity into a religion of their own. By the second decade of the 19th century, most American slaves were Christians-most of them Baptists and Methodists.
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