The differences between the nationalist and state rights schools were, however, deep-rooted--altogether too fundamental to be obliterated by even the nationalizing swing of the war period; and in a brief time the old controversy of Hamilton and Jefferson was renewed on the former lines. The pull of political tradition and of sectional interest was too strong to be resisted. In the commercial and industrial East tradition and interest supported, in general, the doctrine of broad national powers; and the same was true of the West and Northwest. The South, however, inclined to limited national powers, large functions for the States, and such a construction of the Constitution as would give the benefit of the doubt in all cases to the States. The political theory current south of the Potomac and the Ohio made of state rights a fetish. Yet the powerful sectional reaction which set in after 1820 against the nationalizing tendency had as its main impetus the injustice which the Southern people felt had been done to them through the use of the nation's larger powers. They objected to the protective tariff as a device which not only brought the South no benefit but interfered with its markets and raised the cost of certain of its staple supplies. They opposed internal improvements at national expense because of their consolidating tendency, and because few of the projects carried out were of large advantage to the Southern people. They regarded the National Bank as at best useless; and they resisted federal legislation imposing restrictions on slavery as prejudicial to vested rights in the "peculiar institution."