78 
Indiana University Studies 
January and February, 1822, meetings of citizens were called 
in Richmond, Petersburg, Fredericksburg, and Nausemond 
County, Virginia; Wilmington, Fayetteville, and Edenton, 
North Carolina; Charleston and Colleton, South Carolina; and 
Savannah, Georgia.®® Not all of them, to be sure, adopted 
measures in opposition to the restrictive system ; the Charles- 
ton meeting adjourned without action, and that in Fredericks- 
burg actually went on record in favor of the system.®® But 
the great majority favored the repeal of the American naviga- 
tion acts. The Baltimore Chamber of Commerce likewise 
adopted a memorial in opposition to the system, which it pre- 
sented to Congress, while a committee of the legislature of 
Virginia recommended that their Congressmen be instructed 
to vote in favor of admitting the British colonial trade.^®® 
The movement in the South met with considerable opposi- 
tion in the newspapers of the North. The New York American 
indignantly pointed out that 
The object of the petitioners is no other than to induce Congress to give 
way in a course of restrictive measures gravely and deliberately adopted, 
and that too at the very moment when those measures are producing 
their contemplated effect, because, forsooth, the private interests of some 
individuals, or some districts, are suffering.^”^ 
The Neiv York Evening Post believed that the repeal of the 
American restrictive laws at that time would be “unprofit- 
able, impolitic, and injurious'’.^®^ Both papers were of the 
opinion that Great Britain would recede, and that, unless she 
did so, “both the honor and interests’" of the United States 
would be consulted by a continuation of the restrictions.^®® 
But not all the opposition came from the press of New York; 
it was found even in one center which had gone so far as to 
memorialize Congress against the American system. The 
Baltimore Telegraph felt there was only one condition upon 
which that system should be repealed : 
Connecticut Herald, Jan. 22, 1822. American Statesman and Evening Advertiser, 
Jan. 28, 1822. Netv England Palladium and Commercial Advertiser, Feb. 12, 15, 26, 
1822. Neiv York American (for the country), March 16, 1822. Niles’ Register, XXI, 
869 ; XXII, 12. 
^^Nexo England Palladium and Commercial Advertiser, Feb. 8, 1822. New York 
American (for the country), Feb. 13, 1822. 
'^^'^New England Palladium and Commercial Advertiser, Feb. 8, 1822. Niles’ Register, 
XXII, 12. 
loiNeiv York American (for the country), Jan. 23, 1822. 
New York Evening Post, Jan. 24, 1822. 
Ibid., Feb. 14, 1822. New York American (for the country), Feb. 16, 1822. 
