Another constant source of irritation were the parliamentary Acts of Navigation and Trade (page 104, § 44). In the continental colonies there was no popular sentiment against smuggling or other interference with the operation of these obnoxious laws. In no colony were the Acts strictly observed; had they been enforced they would have worked unbearable hardship. Massachusetts particularly offended the Board of Trade by openly refusing to provide for their more rigorous execution; coupling its stubborn behavior with the bold assertion, quite contrary to ministerial ideas, that the colonists were "as much Englishmen as those in England, and had a right, therefore, to all the privileges which the people of England enjoyed." 129. Political and Social Conditions (1700-1750). Sidenote: Virginia ideas _versus_ New England ideas. In the colonies, as afterwards in the States, there was a continual contest for supremacy between Virginia, where political power was lodged in the aristocratic class, and New England, where there was a voluntary recognition of aristocracy, but where the body of the people ruled. Virginia ideas strongly influenced North Carolina on the south, and Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania on the north. The tone of life in South Carolina was purely southern, with no trace of Virginian characteristics; New York, also free from Virginian methods, was strongly influenced by New England ideas. Sidenote: Political affairs in the South; The governing class in Virginia were of strong English stock, and when occasion for political action offered, were ready for it, proving themselves good soldiers and statesmen, and furnishing some of the most powerful leaders in the revolt against the mother-country. Their protracted fights with the French and Indians inured them to habits of the camp; while quarrels with their governors, and bickerings with the home government over the Navigation Acts (page 104, § 44) and the impressment of seamen, furnished schooling in constitutional agitation. By the middle of the eighteenth century the majority of Virginians were natives of the soil, and their attachment to England was weaker than that of their fathers; while the considerable foreign element weakened the bond of union with the mother-country. In Maryland general hostility to the Church of England and its impolitic attempt to suppress dissent, was an important factor in widening the breach. North Carolina continued to be distinguished for disorder and a low state of morals, education, and wealth, and produced no great leaders in the opposition to Great Britain. The people, having a keen perception of their rights, were eager enough in the patriot cause; but there was a large Tory party, and consequently fierce internal dissensions characterized the history of the colony throughout the Revolutionary agitation. Being dependent on England for trade and supplies, the aristocratic planters of South Carolina were drawn much closer to the