But it was when taking up for consideration the condition of the Northern States after 1833 that the absolute ineffectiveness of the revision of the tariff, at that time, to cure the wrongs of trade was most glaringly exhibited. Even with a declining export, Massachusetts, in the six years brought in goods to the amount of the value she had imported in the previous twelve, and with those of Maryland, exceeded those of the Gulf ports. The trade of Pennsylvania was indeed crippled. But while the exports of New York fell behind those of Louisiana, in the value of import goods in the six years, the importation of the previous twelve were exceeded. The revision of the tariff in 1833 had not only not got at the root of the trouble, it had apparently aggravated it; for it had while injuring Pennsylvania, stimulated Massachusetts, New York and Maryland to make on importation what they had lost on manufactures; while, in place of the money so expended remaining in circulation in the United States, a great volume of it must have gone abroad. The panic of 1837, which came in the spring, and which followed the greatest of New York’s importations, a figure not attained again in fourteen years of increasing population, had its origin in New York. It did much to cramp the Southern railroad movement of that date; but neither it nor the panic of 1839 did as much to ham-string Southern effort as the divided councils and unfortunate rivalries of South Carolina and Georgia and Hayne and Calhoun.

It might have been unreasonable to have expected Georgians to have assisted a road to the West to pass through North Carolina from Charleston, to the neglect of their own State, and they had every right to start their “rival system,” as an apologist styles it; but for South Carolinians to abandon what was under way in their own State backed by North Carolina and Tennessee, however weakly, and to pour their money into Georgia, when at the very threshold there was refusal to permit the bridging of the Savannah river for them, was the very extremity of folly, no matter by whom advocated, and for writers of history to characterize as a bubble and fiasco the great scheme launched by the Knoxville Convention in 1836, is simply to indicate a lack of understanding of all that was involved in that undertaking, and to resolutely shut eyes to the nature of the obstructions which blocked its progress at the time it was most essential to push it most determinedly.

As it was by the railroads that the Slavery Question was eventually settled, it is interesting to note that the first intelligent move towards railroad construction in the United States was contemporaneous with the great speech of Robert Y. Hayne in the United States Senate in 1827 on the Negro Question. Some evidence has been adduced to indicate the probability of his responsibility for the first suggestion of a railroad to be operated by steam power, in the United States, in 1821 to run from Charleston to Augusta, with a fork to Columbia.[88] While Hayne may have been this early suggester, it is quite possible and not all improbable that the suggester, “H”, might have been Elias Horry. But six years later, when the movement took definite shape, Hayne in the United States Senate made an utterance, which may be considered as, at that time, representing the view of his section concerning the Negro Question, viz., that:

“The history of the country has proved that where the relative proportion of the colored population to the white was greatly diminished, slaves ceased to be valuable and emancipation followed of course ... wherever free labor was put into full and successful operation, slave labor ceased to be valuable.”[89]

“Time and patience,” he had then contended, were alone necessary to solve the Negro Problem. But Nullification in 1832 and the Abolition ebullition of 1835 had, however, later affected the sections profoundly and from this latter date the political history of the Republic depended more and more upon the influences which could be brought to bear upon the West by the South and the North, and upon the South and the North by the West. Every influence which contributed to homogeniety was an influence towards peaceful development. That the Hayne of 1835 was, ipsissimus verbis, the Hayne of 1827 cannot be claimed; but to no statesman in the Union was the necessity more apparent for the promotion of this homogeneity than to him to whom had been confided by the representatives of nine States the stupendous task of pushing the great Western railroad from Charleston to Cincinnati, the front door of the great West for “free social and commercial intercourse,”[90] with:

“Reciprocal dependence from Michigan to Florida, by establishing connections in business, promoting friendships, abolishing prejudices, creating greater uniformity in political opinions and blending the feeling of distant portions of the country into a union of heart.”[91]

The “rival system,” in favor of which Calhoun abandoned Hayne’s railroad in 1838, was not in all probability originally designed for but eventually became the vehicle of a scheme of political conquest, which aimed at an approach to the back door of the West through the new State of Arkansas. This statement may be received with impatience, but examination will show its truth.

The Charleston and Hamburg Railroad was chartered in 1828, and by 1831 was making fair progress. There must have been in contemplation at that date, the original plan of the fork to Columbia, and a continuation West, through North Carolina and Tennessee; for the first projector in Georgia, James A. Merriwether, mentions it in a letter to Elias Horry of date June 8th, 1831.[92] In answer Elias Horry advises him distinctly that the company desires “the completion of a railroad, if possible, by way of the Saluda Gap,” but sees the importance of the one across Georgia, and advises that connection be made with Savannah, which should reap some of the advantages which she is entitled to.[93]

U. S. 1830
WHITES
WHITES & BLACKS
NEGROES
RAILWAYS COMPLETED
” PROJECTED