The Charleston and Hamburg Railroad was chartered in 1828, and by 1831 was making fair progress. There must have been in contemplation at that date, the original plan of the fork to Columbia, and a continuation West, through North Carolina and Tennessee; for the first projector in Georgia, James A. Merriwether, mentions it in a letter to Elias Horry of date June 8th, 1831.[92] In answer Elias Horry advises him distinctly that the company desires “the completion of a railroad, if possible, by way of the Saluda Gap,” but sees the importance of the one across Georgia, and advises that connection be made with Savannah, which should reap some of the advantages which she is entitled to.[93] [Illustration: U. S. 1830 WHITES WHITES & BLACKS NEGROES RAILWAYS COMPLETED ” PROJECTED] In the very year in which Calhoun was advising the people:— “if all other effectual resistance should fail, it would be their duty to take measures to concentrate the voice of the South, which should plainly announce to their Northern brethren that either the Bill (Force) or the political connection must yield:—”[94] in his report on the completion of the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad in 1833, Elias Horry alludes to the “Western and Atlantic Railroad Convention” held in Asheville, North Carolina, September 3rd, 1832, for a “Railroad up the French Broad River,” at which were pointed out the many and great advantages that would be produced ... not less in a political than in a commercial point of view, so indissolubly connecting the Southern and Western interests, strengthening the bonds of union and thereby perpetuating all the blessings of our valuable institutions.[95] But with the death of Horry in 1834, the project seems to have slumbered until, in October, 1835, a well thought out statement, emanating from a group of citizens of Ohio, one of whom was General Harrison, brought the matter up again,[96] and on July 4th, 1836, delegates from Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, at Knoxville, launched the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad to connect the West and South. Hayne became President of the company and Calhoun a Director. From the outset, however, Calhoun was a continually disturbing element. He was never able to shake off the view that railroads, if not adjuncts to water courses, would be failures. It was a natural view in his day, if it was an ignorant one, and one honestly held; but it was injurious to the enterprise.