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today as it was in 1830, and that it will grow more imperative as civilization advances and larger federations of independent states are formed. The principles for which South Carolina contended at that early day will yet furnish the basis for a federation of the world.

South Carolina in 1830 presented a view of enlightened free government that may be universally accepted before the end of the twentieth century. If that should be the result of modern liberalization of thought and political relations, the figure of Robert Y. Hayne will be one of the most magnificent on the canvas of history.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SANTEE CANAL

The Santee Canal. The project of connecting the Santee River with the Cooper is one of the most interesting enterprises for internal improvement in South Carolina history. When the people began to enjoy the blessings of peace, about 1786, a great spirit of enterprise seized upon them and internal improvements became the chief question of the day in many States of the Union, and South Carolina was not exempt from the "spirit of the age." So she began to spend money very liberally on roads and canals, the Santee Canal being the one toward which most of her energies were directed. In 1786 a perpetual charter with a grant of ample powers and privileges was obtained for the construction of the canal. Among the names of the incorporators we find those of John and Edward Rutledge, Generals Sumter and Marion, and Judges Gaillard and Grimke.

The enterprise, which had for its object the carrying of the commerce of the interior to Charleston, was wisely conceived, because the Santee River is the channel through which flow the waters of all the larger streams of the up-country. One of the affluents of the Santee, the Saluda, has its remote source in Greenville County near the celebrated Caesar's Head. These streams have been described as follows:

"Soon ceasing to be a mountain torrent it [the Saluda] visits as a bold stream the old districts of

Pendleton, Greenville, Laurens, Abbeville, Edgefield, Newberry, and Lexington; another, the Broad, rises in the Hickory Nut Gap, in North Carolina and, passing near the town of Rutherford, it enters Spartanburg in South Carolina and, enlarged by the affluence of Pacolet and other smaller rivers, it visits the district of York, Union, Chester, Fairfield, and Richland. Effecting at Columbia a junction with the Saluda, it receives the name of the Congaree, and hastens to meet the other great affluent of the Santee, washing the district of Richland on the north and then of Lexington and Orangeburg on the south.

"In the Blue Ridge of North Carolina rises the Catawba, which in its course passes near the towns of Lincolnton and Charlotte. On entering South Carolina, between York and Lancaster and passing thence by the town of Camden, above which it is known as the Wateree, it washes the soil of Sumter and of Richland before it joins the Congaree and forms the Santee. The great river thus formed by its mighty affluents, flows down to the sea with Orangeburg and Charleston on its south and Sumter, Williamsburg, and Georgetown on its north bank. Thus more than half the State may use the waters of this noble stream as their commercial highway, and the imagination can put no limits to the amount of manufacturing industry which may be fostered by its waterpower. No project of internal improvement ever offered such rich and continually increasing rewards as this did. Important as the upper country was at that epoch, it had a sure prospect of indefinitely increasing importance, and the canal which

brought the great river into close connection with Charleston, might be considered a property whose value would indefinitely increase with time and with the development of the country."

The canal was opened in 1800 and remained in use till 1850.

South Carolina Railway.-But the South Carolina railway destroyed the canal. This was the first steam railway that went into operation in America designed for the transportation of both passengers and merchandise, the first upon which United States mails were carried, and at the time the longest continuous line in the world, extending from Charleston to Hamburg. South Carolinians naturally feel proud of the enterprise in this new order of communication and transportation; but when this road was extended to Camden, affording to so much of the country that the canal was designed to help a better means of reaching Charleston, it completely wrecked the first great effort to establish a system of communication and transportation by water. So, too, the day may come when automobiles running by electric power and the mobile system of trolley lines may have a tremendous and disastrous effect upon the railways.

Let us not, then, when we look upon the remains of the old Santee Canal, speak of it as the "monument to the folly of our fathers," but know that, in their day, they showed wisdom in its conception and construction; and so, likewise, are those wise in their day and generation who construct railways, though they may be displaced by automobiles or airships in the course of time.

CHAPTER XVIII

NULLIFICATION

Nullification Period.-The Nullification Period must ever be regarded as one of the most momentous in our history. The questions as to our form of government raised at that time were of the most delicate and yet of the profoundest character. Questions of taxation are always difficult, requiring, for their proper solution, nice distinctions, a wide knowledge of conditions, and clear perception of the principles of right and justice. When such problems are accompanied by questions as to the delegated and reserved rights of the States under our Federal system, involved equally with the method of taxation, the finest intellectuality is needed to expound them with sufficient simplicity and clearness for the comprehension of the people.

There was practically no difference of opinion in South Carolina as to the inequalities of the tariff tax. All agreed that the government had no right to tax one industry for the benefit of another, and that this is done under every system of tariff for protection. None disputed that the government had a right to levy a revenue tax for the support of the government, and all agreed, in a general way, as to the reserved rights of the State; but there was the most profound and intense spirit of opposition on the part of many citizens of South Carolina of the highest intelligence and culture,

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