CHAPTER VI
Realizing what a great benefit the Erie Canal had been to New York, by 1834, Pennsylvania had connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh by canals, the greater part of which had been completed by 1832;[109] but with the revision of the tariff of 1833, so injurious to her, as has been shown, she bent every effort to supplement her waterways with railroads, and, by 1835, there were some 200 miles of railroads in the State.[110] The bulk of these it is true were coal roads, but by 1839, a railroad had been completed from Philadelphia to Columbia (Pa.) 82 miles in length, and there was in process of construction 41¾ miles additional in a southwestwardly direction to Gettysburg.[111] Philadelphia also had a railroad connection with New York to the North and Baltimore to the South.
In New York by 1836, railroad communication between Albany and Utica was open for traffic,[112] and work was being pushed on the Erie railroad, starting from lower down on the Hudson towards Lake Erie.
In Maryland, the Baltimore and Ohio, begun about the same time as the Charleston and Hamburg, but, not as soon used for steam power operation, had by 1834 reached Harper’s Ferry, 82 miles.[113] There it connected by a viaduct over the Potomac River, with the Winchester Railroad, which by 1839, ran down the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia for 30 miles. A branch to Washington, some 33 miles in length, connected with the Richmond and Potomac Railroad[114] 70 miles in length, opened for traffic in 1836.[115] From Richmond, south, ran the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, in process of construction, and from Petersburg to Blakely, in North Carolina, complete, by 1839, to Wilmington by 1840.[116]
By 1842 the New York Central reached Buffalo, while, at the same time, Boston linked up with Albany.
The above vindicates the warning which Hayne issued to the people of South Carolina in 1835, upon the call from Ohio for Southern railroad connection, viz., that “New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore were moving for what was offered Charleston.”[117] In 1838 he declared to the people of Charleston:
“If after all we have said and done, we should falter in our course, our sister cities will very soon establish these connections, by which our doom will be sealed, and we shall deserve our fate.”[118]
To the people of South Carolina he said:
“It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that South Carolina is destined to sink down from her high and palmy state of prosperity ... unless her sons shall avail themselves of the present favorable opportunity.”[119]
Six months later, when striving to induce Calhoun to reconsider his announced resignation from the Directorship of the L. C. & C. Co., he admitted: