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 changed her seat of government from Williamsburg to Richmond; in 1790, South Carolina, from Charleston to Columbia; in 1791, North Carolina, from Edenton to Raleigh; in 1797, New York, from New York City to Albany; in 1799, Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Lancaster. VIII. The democratic aspect of the new constitutions was also influenced by the frontier as well as by the prevalent Revolutionary philosophy; and the demands for paper money, stay and tender laws, etc., of this period were strongest in the interior. It was this region that supported Shays' Rebellion; it was (with some important exceptions) the same area that resisted the ratification of the federal constitution, fearful of a stronger government and of the loss of paper money. IX. The interior later showed its opposition to the coast by the persistent contest against slavery, carried on in the up-country of Virginia, and North and South Carolina. Until the decade 1830-40, it was not certain that both Virginia and North Carolina would not find some means of gradual abolition. The same influence accounts for much of the exodus of the Piedmont pioneers into Indiana and Illinois, in the first half of the nineteenth century.[122:1]