Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/126

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The First Test of Strength
107

bulls. Coopers, and other "demagogues and agitators."[1]

Plots of the votes in the legislature on the convention question, especially that of the Senate, show that most of the votes against the convention project came from the upper districts and from a few of the parishes near Charleston.[2]

The interior districts which were opposed were in most cases those where the slave population had not yet reached 50 per cent of the total population.[3]

  1. Gazette, December 30, 1830.
  2. See Maps II and III.
  3. In looking over a series of maps (of which those printed in this volume are but a fraction) showing the geographical location of the centers of support of the two parties, one notices that the northern counties tended to vote consistently with the Union party, and that in general those counties which opposed the things for which the State Rights party stood were those in which the introduction of the institution of slavery had made least progress.

    The negro population had reached 50 per cent of the total population in Beaufort, Colleton, Charleston, Williamsburg, and Georgetown by 1790; in Sumter and Richland by 118oo; in Orangeburg and Kershaw by 1810; in Marlboro by 1820; in Darlington, Fairfield, and Newberry by 1830; in Barnwell, Edgefield, and Abbeville by 1840; in Chester, Union, and Laurens by 1850; it had not reached 50 per cent in Horry, Marion, Chesterfield, Lancaster, York, Spartanburg, Greenville, Pendleton, and Lexington by 1850.

    In the maps published in this volume the districts indicated by dots were those in which a majority of the people opposed the Nullifiers, while the districts indicated by straight lines were those in which a majority voted with the Nullifiers.