cited, as a precedent worthy of following, the stand taken by South Carolina statesmen in 1816.[1] The anti-tariff South Carolinians of 1830, however, excused these men of 1816 on the ground that they had voted for the tariff distinctly as a temporary measure, to be reduced to 20 per cent in three
- ↑ Patriot, March 3, 1830.
congressmen, and their representative, Colonel William Drayton, in particular, to support the memorial (Mercury, January 4, 1830; Courier, January 4). The congressmen were thus placed between two fires, as the state legislature had asked them to discourage this step. The Charleston meeting was said to have been an open meeting, previously announced, attened by some 820, and engineered by no previous organization (Courier, January 4, 1830). The Mercury tried to show, however, that it was the work of an interested faction, and such was in part probably the case.
Both the Courier and the Patriot (February 3 and January 21, 1830, respectively) held that, though Congress did not possess the constitutional power to execute a general system of internal improvements, it might, as in this case, invest the national funds in a manner that did not in any manner affect the sovereign and reserved rights of the states. The New York American thought this distinction more specious than real. The Patriot argued that this was not an infringement on state sovereignty, though the construction of a general system by the central government without the consent of the states would be; and, more to the point, that this was a mode by which South Carolina might get some benefits from the system if Congress were to persist in it. A letter was sent to Drayton by the Charleston committee, requesting him to support the memorial in which Congress was asked to buy stock in the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company. He replied that he could not do so, because he did not believe such a