One hundred and four "inhabitants & freeholders of Abbeville District" seek the repeal to "the Restrictions laid by the State Legislature at the Session before the last for preventing ... negroes into this State." They argue that said act, and “the Act Supplementary to it,” is "a direct Bar to the Increase of wealth and population of the upper and Middle Districts." In addition, they assert that "persons from the Back parts of the Middle and Northern States," who planned on resettling in South Carolina, "have by the Opperation of that Law ... been Stoped on our fruntiers & Either Setted with their property" in North Carolina or Georgia. The petitioners complain that the law has thus deprived the state "of the means of increasing population & of the wealth & Industry of a number of Honest Respectable Setlers." They purport that "if the Law Continues [it] will for years prevent that Increase of wealth and population which the natural goodness of our Soil and the Healthiness of our Climate and the freedom of our government Give hopes these Districts would Obtain." They therefore pray "that you will Either Absolutely Repeal the Act of 1800 & the Act Supplementary to it passed last Session or that you will so modify the same as to Remove the Grievences of which we so now Justly Complain."
Result: Rejected.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
