s against Whigs.

But in the sense that the battle of Alamance was a conflict against
privilege, and for equality of political rights and power, it was indeed
a preliminary battle of the Revolution, although fought against many of
the very men who later professed Revolutionary doctrines in North
Carolina. The need of recognizing the importance of the interior led to
concessions in the convention of 1776 in that state. "Of the forty-four
sections of the constitution, thirteen are embodiments of reforms sought
by the Regulators."[120:1] But it was in this period that hundreds of
North Carolina backwoodsmen crossed the mountains to Tennessee and
Kentucky, many of them coming from the heart of the Regulator region.
They used the device of "associations" to provide for government in
their communities.[120:2]

In the matter of apportionment, North Carolina showed the same lodgment
of power in the hands of the coast, even after population preponderated
in the Piedmont.[120:3]

It is needless to comment on the uniformity of the evidence which has
been adduced, to show that the Old West, the interior region from New
England to Georgia, had a common grievance against the coast; that it
was deprived throughout most of the region of its due share of
representation, and neglected and oppressed in local government in large
portions of the section. The familiar struggle of West against East, of
democracy against privileged classes, was exhibited along the entire
line. The phenomenon must be considered as a unit, not in the fragments
of state histories. It was a struggle of interior against coast.

VI. Perhaps the most noteworthy Western activity in the Revolutionary
era, aside from the aspects already mentioned, was in the part which the
multitude of sects in the Old West played in securing the great
contribution which the United States made to civilization by providing
for complete religious liberty, a secular state with free churches.
Particularly the Revolutionary constitutions of Pennsylvania and
Virginia, under the influence of the back country, insured religious
freedom. The effects of the North Carolina upland area to secure a
similar result were noteworthy, though for the time ineffective.[121:1]

VII. As population increased in these years, the coast gradually yielded
to the up-country's demands. This may be illustrated by the transfer of
the capitals from the lowlands to the fall line and Valley. In 1779,
Virginia chang