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Memorial to the Senate of South Carolina December 1826 Formation of a standing committee on agriculture in the U.S. Senate in 1825 and in state legislatures inspired a brief moment of hope that the national and state governments might fund agricultural projects. In December 1825 James C. W. McDonnald and Antonio Della Torre petitioned the South Carolina Senate for funds to underwrite five years of labor (the time from planting to fruiting) establishing vineyards, olive groves, and silk production in the hill country of South Carolina.1 While the petitioners had cribbed the idea from Herbemont’s Observations on the Late Occurrences in Charleston, they brought something more to the table than audacity; Della Torre was the son of an Italian vintner and had connections with a community of grape growers in Italy who would emigrate to Carolina if monies were provided for passage. The South Carolina Senate declined to act upon their petition. Neither had actually made wine in the state. Nicholas Herbemont had. From 1814 to 1822 he had produced small quantities in order to refine the quality of his vintage. Having settled upon four grapes—the Madeira (Herbemont), Lenoir, Arena, and Bland’s Madeira —as optimal for his purposes, he began commercial production in 1823. Because he regularly had invited members of the legislature sitting in Columbia to sample his wine, the members of the standing committee had no doubt about the practicability of wine production when, after tabling McDonnald and Della Torre’s petition, Nicholas Herbemont submitted his “Memorial” in late 1826. It was accompanied by a copy of his November 20, 1826, speech to the Agricultural Society of South Carolina. Both documents were referred to the South Carolina Senate’s Committee on Agriculture for review. The committee’s chairman, Whitmarsh Seabrook, requested specifics about the level of subvention desired. Herbemont replied with a document specifying these. In the legislative papers these communications are found in Ser: s165005 Item 00073, 1827, and Ser: s165005 Item 00316, 1827, respectively. Only the “Memorial” was published, along with the response of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Seabrook responded to Herbemont’s proposal with a flattering refusal. The 1. “Memorial to the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate of the State of South Carolina,” American Farmer 7, no. 42 (January 6, 1826), 329–30. published letters 136 senate resolved “That it is expedient to encourage the cultivation of the vine in this state, but that the condition of the treasury will not authorize the appropriation of money for that purpose at this time.” This refusal, however, did not quell the controversy Herbemont had raised over whether the government should take an active hand in promoting agricultural enterprises. Because northern manufacturing interests had used the U.S. Congress’s Committees on Manufactures and Committees on Finance to push tariffs that had the potential to injure southern agriculture, some citizens wondered whether governmental advocacy on behalf of agriculture should be urged as a countermeasure. In 1828 the Senate Agriculture Committee resolved “To Enquire into the Expediency of Appropriating Money to Encourage Agricultural Interests.” The Nullification Crisis provoked by the Tariff of 1828 derailed efforts to form an effective policy of governmental encouragement for agriculture. To Herbemont’s dismay, the state senate chose not to act. Published in American Farmer 9, no. 42 (January 4, 1828), 332–33. To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate of the state of South Carolina, the following memorial is most respectfully submitted. gentlemen, It is undoubtedly most pleasing to see an individual make honest endeavours to improve his condition, by whatever talents and industry he is endowed with. It is a most glorious and interesting object, to view a whole community making great exertions to improve the happiness of thousands. These exertions are now making, and the present state of our country seems to require they should be made with additional vigour. This state of things may plead a better excuse for your memorialist, for presenting himself before your honourable body, than any thing else he could adduce, besides conceiving it the duty of every citizen, to add his efforts to the general mass, for the benefit of his country. He would then most respectfully represent, that a very great proportion of this state, perhaps nearly one half, consists of pine barrens, sand hills, and other light lands. That these, in their present state, are productive of little or no advantage to the individual proprietors, or to the state, either in valuable...

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