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Nullification in South Carolina, rSjo-iSj-f 743 How were they to be reconciled? The West must have some visible ap- propriations to counterbalance those for the improvement of the Harbours, fortifications &c of the Atlantic States, of which they were exceedingly jealous. And in the distribution of every acre of the public land they felt a deep solicitude. He would therefore gratify them with a system of internal Improvevienis. And here he spoke fully and freely of his opin- ions on this subject. He said he had always doubted of the Constitu- tionality of Internal Improvements and that in all his Reports and Speeches on the subject, he had never once committed himself on the Constitutional ground. That he had refused to do so in his Bonus Bill Report, against the wishes both of Clay and Lowndes, telling them that he had his doubts. That he thought he had made that Report in the strictest conformity with the wishes of the President, and was completely thunderstruck when Mr. Madison placed his Veto on it. He told him that if any the slightest hint had been given that neither he nor the administration would have been embarrassed by it. Mr. Madison did it to please Mr. Jefferson ! Mr. Calhoun said he had been immediately transferred from Congress to the War Department and had never had an opportunity of vindicating himself from the various charges made upon him on this score wh. he felt himself prepared to do most triumph- antly whenever called upon in such a manner that he could come out with propriety. Mr. Clay, he said, had seized upon In. Im. as a hobby and ridden it to death. Carried it much further than he ever intended to do and made it odious. In fact for the last five years, he said, he had seen that it would not do and had told his friends in Congress that the system, as carried on, must be arrested. Mr. Calhoun proposed to amend the Constitution for the purpose of making these In. Imp. and to make the public lands the great fund to be set apart for that purpose. He did not agree with Mr Hayne in his project of giving those lands away, wh. would at once unsettle the whole landed property of the U. S. Nor did he think as well of Mr. Webster's plan of doling them away by littles to the people, thus constituting them a great gambling fund, for corrupt speculations. The advantages to the South from this system would be very great. By connecting the channels of the West with those to the Atlantic it would bring the trade at once to its point, thro' the Southern States. He spoke of the Union of the Ohio and the Kenhawa wh. would make Virginia one state. Of the trade that would come to Charleston through the Saluda Gap wh. together with a rail-road from that city to Florence on the Tennessee river, and a canal thro' the cape of Florida would make it the great City of the South. ^ The Free Trade System was that of the South and thus would she reap the advan- tages. He did not dwell upon this latter proposition, but showed that in this manner the interests of the West and South might readily be reconciled. But how was the North to be prevailed on to give up the pro- tecting system? Mr. Calhoun said that he was for direct taxation ulti- 1 Many letters on the subject are printed in Calhoun's Corycsfiiudcncc.