TRANSPORTATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. C)35 



certain large " settlements." Since towns represent the thoughts and in- 

 terests of communities, while the " settlements " had represented chiefly 

 family influences, the significance of the changes is obvious. Railroads 

 made upper South Carolina even more strongly democratic than it had 

 been before. 



3rd. The railroads facilitated negro deportations from the State and 

 thus tended to reduce the wealth of the low country, whence the chief 

 movement took place, while, by cheapening transportation, they vastly 

 augmented that of the upper and middle country. As a consequence, 

 the low country gradually lost the social and political ascendency in the 

 State, which, acquired in colonial days, had been retained until the ad- 

 vent of railroads took it away. Thus it happened that in building the 

 Charleston and Hamburg railway, Charleston unconsciously initiated a 

 movement which ultimately subverted her influence in the State, and de- 

 flected the course of social and political development in the Common- 

 wealth, away from the aristocratic modes, which its origin and history 

 had fixed upon the low country, and towards those principles which un- 

 derlay the development of upper South Carolina, and which are the expo- 

 nents of popular institutions both in government and society. 



4th. The railroads stimulated the extension of cotton culture and made 

 Western provisions so cheap that the farmers neglected the production of 

 food at home. By cheapening the transportation of corn and bacon to 

 the cotton lands, and cheapening the carriage of cotton to the seaboard,. 

 an unaccustomed adjustment of prices came about, which misled the 

 farmers into that vicious semblance of economy of which the evil eff'ects 

 are still seen and felt throughout the State, whereby the independence 

 and the substantial comforts of farm life are sacrificed to the pursuit of 

 money returns from a large cotton crop. 



5th. After the railroads were finished, the highways, which had been, 

 so early located, and which were built and maintained by so costly, and 

 even oppressive a system of personal road service, Avere of little use as 

 main arteries for trade and travel, but the former cross-roads, connecting 

 the new towns and the railroad stations with the country around them, 

 became important thoroughfares. Owing to the peculiar topography of 

 the country, and to the course of the railroads along the ridges, these old 

 cross-roads were ill adapted to such requirements, while the road laws 

 were not elastic enough to remedy the inconvenience by applying to 

 them the means used in building the former highways. Hence to this 

 day some towns and many important railroad stations are almost inac- 

 cessible in bad weather. This affects even the prosperity of the railroads,, 

 for good common roads are essential as feeders to the railroads. 



0th. No precautions have been at any time taken to obtain for the Legis- 



