TAXATION AND DEBT. 645 



was directed to redeem and extinguish the same by the 31st of Decem- 

 ber, 1824. The bank was chartered until May, 1836. 



With the return of peace another period of great prosperity com- 

 menced. The assets of the State were gradually realized by the bank, 

 and its effective capital amounted, in 1819, to $1,372,500. In this year 

 also Stephen Elliott, the learned and distinguished president of the bank, 

 placed the value of property in South Carolina, at $200,000,000. 



The subject of internal improvements was discussed in South Carolina 

 as early as 1687, but it was ninety-nine years later before the Santee 

 Canal Company was incorporated, and this work was completed in 1800, 

 at a cost of £150,000 sterling. Other private companies, for the improve- 

 ment of the Wateree, Catawba and Edisto rivers, were incorporated in 

 1787. It was not, however, until the year 1816 that the office of civil 

 and military engineer to the State was established, and aid given by the 

 State to these improvements, at the rate of $50,000 a year. This expendi- 

 ture was soon much increased, and by the year 1826, the State had paid 

 out more than $2,000,000 in internal improvements, chiefly for canals 

 and turnpikes, and of this sum, $1,550,000 remained as a debt. 



Thus it happened that the extravagant expenditures indulged in by 

 many of the States on account of internal improvements, which threat- 

 ened them with bankruptcy, and culminated in the financial crisis of 

 1836-42, occurred some years earlier in Carolina than elsewhere. So that 

 in 1827, when the Charleston and Hamburg railroad — the first railroad 

 built in the world with a view to its operation by locomotive steam 

 poAver — was projected, the already depleted treasury only aided the 

 private companj', who obtained the charter, by a loan of $100,000, secured 

 by mortgage, payable in seven years, and bearing five per cent, interest. 



In 1830, the Bank of the State was rechartered until 1856. It had 

 discharged $215,931 of the principal of the State debt. This burden, 

 however, had been increased, by the expenditures for internal improve- 

 ments, to $1,892,880, leaving about $1,676,949 still due. The available 

 assets of the bank at this date amounted to $3,768,292. During the suc- 

 ceeding decade, the debt of the State and assets of the bank were both 

 largel}'^ increased, as will appear from the following staiements : 



When the South Carolina Railroad, one hundred and thirty-seven 

 miles in length, was completed, in 1834, the most brilliant anticipations 

 of its success were entertained. The State had once again become pros- 

 perous ; cotton rose from eight to fifteen cents per pound, and thence, i"n 

 1836, to twenty cents. The idea of developing great interior routes of 

 communication occupied the public mind throughout the entire United 

 States, and seized for a second time upon South Carolina. 



The Charleston, Louisville and Cincinnati Railroad and Banking Com- 



