WEBSTER 
 Speech in Reply to Hayne.
 
 ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.-No. 75. 
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYKE. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 JANUARY 26th, 1830. 
 
 BY DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 iStOBrnpfjfcal Sfcctcf) antt 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 EFFINGHAM MAYNARD & Co., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 771 BROADWAY AND 67 & 69 NINTH STREET.
 
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 355 
 
 LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, one of the greatest orators and statesmen 
 that this country ever produced, was born in the town of Salis- 
 bury (now known as Franklin), New Hampshire, on the 18th 
 of January, 1782. His father, Ebenezer Webster, was a distin- 
 guished soldier and officer in the Revolutionary War. After 
 the war, he moved with his large family into what was then the 
 savage wilds of New Hampshire. He was a man of little book- 
 learning, but with his strong mind and vigorous frame he be- 
 came a sort of intellectual leader in his neighborhood. He was 
 appointed a "side-judge" for the county, a place of considera- 
 ble influence in those days. His great aim was to educate his 
 children to the utmost of his limited ability. Captain Webster 
 married Abigail Eastman for a second wife. She was a woman 
 of more than ordinary intellect, and possessed a force of char- 
 acter which was felt throughout the humble circle in which she 
 moved. She was ambitious for her two sons, Ezekiel and 
 Daniel, that they should excel. The distinction attained by 
 both, and especially by Daniel, may well be traced in part to 
 her early promptings and judicious guidance. In the last year 
 of the Revolutionary War, in the humble house which his 
 father had built in the woods on the outskirts of civilization, 
 Daniel Webster was born. During his childhood, he was sickly 
 and delicate, and gave no promise of the robust and vigorous 
 frame which he had in his manhood. It may well be supposed 
 that his early opportunities for education were very scanty. 
 Because he was frail and delicate, Daniel's parents took great 
 pains to send him to the winter schools, oftentimes three miles 
 away from home. As an older half-brother said, " Dan was 
 sent to school that he might get to know as much as the other 
 boys." It is probable that the best part of his early education 
 was derived from the judicioiis and experienced father, and the 
 resolute, affectionate and ambitious mother. In those davs 
 books were very scarce and Daniel eagerly read every book ho 
 could find. He was fond of poetry and at the age of twelve 
 could repeat from memory the greater part of Watts' " Psalms 
 and Hymns." In his " Autobiography " he says : "I remember 
 that my father brought home from some of the lower towns 
 Pope's Essay on Man, published in a sort of pamphlet. I took 
 it, and very soon could repeat it from beginning to end. We 
 had so few books, that to read them once or twice was nothing. 
 AVe thought they were all to be got by heart." Attl.eage of 
 fourteen, he was sent to Phillips Academy, in Exeter, N. H.. 
 \>ut remained only nine months on account of the poverty 01 
 
 3
 
 4 LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 the family. The future orator found his greatest trouble at 
 Exeter in declaiming. "Many a piece," says Webster "did 
 I commit to memory, and recite and rehearse, in my own 
 room, over and over again ; yet when the day came, when the 
 school collected to hear declamations, when my name was 
 called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise 
 myself from it. When the occasion was over, I went home 
 and wept bitter tears of mortification." He now studied with 
 a clergyman at home and entered Dartmouth College in 1797. 
 The familiar story of how young Webster "worked his way" 
 through college and the self-denial and rigid economy he exer- 
 cised is told in his "Autobiography." After graduation, hard 
 pushed for money while studying law, how he took charge of 
 an academy at Fryeburg, Maine, for one dollar a day. He paid 
 his board by copying deeds and sent his spare money to help 
 his brother Ezekiel through Dartmouth. Webster was admit- 
 ted to the bar in 1805, began practice in Boscawen, and after- 
 wards in Portsmouth. He took a high rank in his profession 
 at once, and, in 1812, was elected a member of Congress. In 
 1816, he declined a re-election and removed to Boston. In the 
 next seven years he worked long and hard in his profession and 
 soon established his reputation as one of the ablest lawyers of 
 the land. In 1822 he was again sent to Congress and in 1828 he 
 was chosen a Senator. He remained in the Senate for twelve 
 years, when he was appointed Secretary of State by President 
 Harrison. In 1845 he returned to the Senate, and remained 
 until 1850, when he became Secretary of State under President 
 Fillmore. He resigned his office early in 1852 on account of his 
 health and retired to his home by the seaside at Marshfield, 
 Mass., where he died October 24 of the same year. 
 
 Daniel Webster is universally acknowledged to be the fore- 
 most of constitutional lawyers and of parliamentary debaters, 
 and without a peer in the highest realms of classic and patriotic 
 oratory. Many of his orations, as the famous Bunker Hill 
 Monument orations, the eulogy upon Adams and Jefferson, the 
 speech upon the trial of the murderers of Capt. Joseph White, 
 the " Reply to Hayne, " and others are universally accepted as 
 classics in modern oratory. Physically, Webster was a mag- 
 nificent specimen of a man. Such a form, such a face, such a 
 presence, are rarely given to any man. Webster's manner had 
 a wonderful impressiveness that intimacy never wore off. His 
 gracious bearing and gentle courtesy made him the delight of 
 every person he ever met. His oratory was in perfect keeping 
 with the man, gracious, logical, majestic, and often sublime. 
 He was by nature free, generous and lavish in his manner of 
 living. As a result his own private finances were often much 
 embarrassed. His wealthy admirers often tided him over his 
 financial straits. Hampered as he was financially, he never 
 sullied his great fame or enriched himself or others by political 
 Jobbery.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To understand fully the character and importance of the Great 
 Debate, as it was called in the newspapers of the day, something 
 should be known of the circumstances that immediately preceded 
 and accompanied it, and of the more distinguished persons who 
 participated in it. 
 
 It commenced in the Senate of the United States, in the 
 month of January, 1830, during the first session of the Twenty- 
 first Congress, and in the first year of the administration of 
 Andrew Jackson; and lasted, with occasional but brief interrup- 
 tions, four mouths. 
 
 Contemporaneous authority gives encouragement to a suspicion 
 that previous to the introduction of Foote's resolutions respecting 
 the public lands, it had been determined by the leaders of the 
 Jackson party to organize a crusade against Mr. Webster. The 
 subsidized presses of the party were most violent in their abuse of 
 his character, his history, and conduct. To revolutionize New 
 England, too, was a purpose they meditated and avowed; and, 
 preparatory to its accomplishment, the overthrow of Mr, Webster 
 seemed necessary. 
 
 Whether such conspiracy was ever matured or not, one fact is 
 incontestable that the nearest and most powerful friends of both 
 the Vice-President and Secretary of State simultaneously attacked 
 Mr. Webster, giving by the act to the world all the ordinary 
 evidence of preconcerted purpose. It was a combination of great 
 power, from the character and position of the parties who com- 
 posed it. They were all men of ability and reputation. 
 
 Benton discharged all sorts of missiles at the head of an adver- 
 sary, like a catapult. Tropes, metaphors, similes, unsavory 
 allusions, vituperative epithets, damnatory personalities, he hurled 
 upon the victim of his temporary anger. He neither sought nor 
 gave quarter one of the regular Black Hussars of debate. His 
 manner, if possible, was j r et more excited than his language, and 
 his voice more belligerent than either. His whole attitude was 
 defiance, and each gesture a provocation. On this occasion he 
 
 5
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 headed the assault upon Mr. Webster, or at least upon New 
 England. And it is not improbable that Mr. Webster had him in 
 view when, in his second speech, he spoke of "casting the 
 characters of the drama, assigning to each his part; to one the 
 attack, to another the cry of onset:" a supposition the more 
 likely, as Mr. Benton in his speech justified the suspicion that an 
 onslaught upon New England and New England men had been 
 premeditated before the introduction of this debate. 
 
 Hayne dashed into debate, like the Mameluke cavalry upon a 
 charge. There was a gallant air about him, that could not but 
 win admiration. He never provided for retreat; he never imagined 
 it. He had an invincible confidence in himself, which arose 
 partly from constitutional temperament, partly from previous 
 success. His oratory was graceful and persuasive. An impas- 
 sioned manner, somewhat vehement at times, but rarely if ever 
 extravagant; a voice well modulated and clear; a distinct, though 
 rapid enunciation; a confident, but not often offensive address: 
 these, accompanying and illustrating language well selected and 
 periods well turned, made him a popular and effective speaker. 
 
 Colonel Hayne was, incontestably, the most formidable of Mr. 
 Webster's opponents. He had more native and acquired ability 
 than any of them. Such is the concurrent opinion of all who 
 witnessed this great forensic contest; among others, of the Hon. 
 Mr. Everett of Massachusetts. 
 
 Such was the formidable character of the combination Mr. 
 Webster found himself compelled by circumstances to meet. 
 Never before, in Parliamentary annals, did one man encounter 
 such fearful odds. The whole moral influence of the adminis- 
 tration was directed against Mr. Webster. This, powerful at all 
 times, was doubly so now. 
 
 But it is due the memory of the distinguished patriot, soldier, 
 and statesman, Gen. Jackson, to say, that he never entertained 
 towards Mr. Webster any of that vehemence of personal bitter- 
 ness which he sometimes exhibited towards his opponents. He 
 was of too. magnanimous character to hate a magnanimous foe. 
 Mr. Webster never flattered, deceived, or abused him ; never 
 opposed his measures, but in an honorable manner, and with 
 respectful language. 
 
 On the 29th day of December, 1829, Mr. Foote of Connecticut 
 offered his resolution in the Senate of the United States.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 Some skirmishing immediately occurred between Benton, 
 Noble, Woodbury, Holmes, and Foote; but no one imagined it. 
 was soon to be followed by a regular engagement. A motion 
 being made and carried to postpone the consideration of the 
 resolution till the next Monday, the excitement for the time sub- 
 sided. When it next came up for consideration, on Monday, the 
 18th, Mr. Benton took the floor and made a speech bearing evident 
 indications of study and preparation. In the course of his 
 remarks he made a violent attack upon New England, its men 
 and institutions. He denounced the policy of New England 
 towards the West as illiberal and unjust, but extolled the gener- 
 osity of the South. "The West must still look," he said, "to 
 the solid phalanx of the South for succor." 
 
 He was followed by Colonel Hayne, who, after returning his 
 complimentary salute, "The South would always sympathize with 
 the West," poured also a broadside into New England. 
 
 The suddenness of this attack upon New England, its warmth 
 and evident malice, took Mr. Webster by surprise. He was not 
 even aware of Mr. Foote's intention to introduce any such resolu- 
 tion; but yet he could see no harm in its terms or purpose, nor 
 impropriety in its introduction. 
 
 As soon as Colonel Hayne concluded his speech, Mr. Webster 
 took the floor in reply. It was late, however, in the day, and he 
 gave way on a motion from Mr. Benton to adjourn. The next 
 day Mr. Webster replied to the speech of Colonel Hayne. The 
 growing interest of the controversy attracted a more than usuat 
 crowd to the Senate. It appeared evident to every one a drama 
 of some importance was going on. 
 
 On Tuesday, January 21st, the day after Mr. Webster's 
 speech, the Senate resumed again the consideration of Mr. 
 Foote's resolution. 
 
 Before the debate recommenced, Mr. Chambers of Maryland 
 rose and expressed a hope that the Senate would consent to postpone 
 further consideration of the resolution till the Monday following, 
 as Mr. Webster, who had taken part in it and wished to be present 
 at its continued discussion, had unavoidable engagements else- 
 where. 
 
 There was a case of some importance on argument before the 
 Supreme Court in which Mr. Webster was retained as counsel. 
 Compelled to watch its progress, for he knew not at what moment
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 he might be called upon to address the Bench, he had not been 
 able to command more than an occasional presence in the Senate. 
 He was not present when the resolution was introduced, nor 
 .more than a fractional portion of the time while Mr. Benton 
 spoke. 
 
 The request was denied him. Colonel Hayne rose in evident 
 agitation, and insisted that the debate should go on without post- 
 ponement. He said, with some superciliousness of manner and 
 with an angry intonation of voice, that he saw the gentleman from 
 Massachusetts in his seat, and presumed, if he really desired it, 
 he could make an arrangement which would enable him to be 
 present at the discussion that day. He would not consent that the 
 subject should be postponed, until he had had an opportunity of 
 replying to some of the observations which had fallen from the 
 gentleman the day before. Putting his hand to his heart, he 
 said " he bad something there which he wished to get rid of. 
 The gentleman had discharged his fire in the face of the Senate, 
 and he demanded an opportunity of returning the shot." 
 
 "Then it was," to use the words of a distinguished member of 
 Congress from a Southern State, who was present on the occasion, 
 " that Mr. Webster's person seemed to become taller and bigger. 
 His chest expanded nnd his eyeballs dilated. Folding his arms 
 in a composed, firm, and most expressive manner, he exclaimed: 
 ' Let the discussion proceed. I am ready. I am ready now to 
 receive the gentleman's fire.' " 
 
 Mr. Benton, who had gained the floor the day previous on the 
 conclusion of Mr. Webster's remarks, then rose and addressed 
 the Senate for an hour. 
 
 The warm blood of Colonel Hayne could not brook the post- 
 ponement of vengeance. He besought his friend from Missouri 
 to yield the floor while he replied to the Senator from Massachu- 
 setts. Mr. Benton gave a cheerful assent. 
 
 Colonel Hayne then rose and entered upon his speech. His 
 exordium was respectable in point of ability, and gave assurance 
 of a well- prepared speech. Every one must judge of it for him- 
 self. The high estimate that had previously been formed of his 
 talents and character disposed the Senate and audience to listen 
 attentively; and there was much in the earlier part of the speech 
 particularly to confirm the common opinion of his abilities and to 
 command attention.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 As he proceeded, bis tone and language became more vehe- 
 ment, his allusions more personal. There was an angry inflection 
 in his voice, indicative of loss of temper. His bearing betrayed a 
 good deal of self-confidence, at times almost arrogance. He 
 seemed certain of victory, and only doubtful how much of his 
 strength be should put forth. 
 
 Sympathizing and exulting friends surrounded him, from 
 whose countenances he read the apparent success of his philippic. 
 They urged him on with looks and encouraging words. The eye 
 of the Vice-President, which alone of his features ever indicated 
 an emotion, shone approvingly. Nor did he confine his assistance 
 to a glance of approbation. Constantly duiiug the progress of the 
 discussion he sent notes, suggestive, illustrative, and advisatory, to 
 the orator, by one of the pages of the Senate. 
 
 Colonel Hayne spoke this day, Thursday, January 21st, a little 
 more than an hour. The Senate then adjourned over till Monday 
 following. 
 
 The town was full of excitement. The severe nature of Colonel 
 Hayne's attack, the ability with which it was conducted, his great 
 reputation, the eminence of the combatants, and the doubtful 
 issue of the contest afforded ample scope for various discussion. 
 The friends of Colonel Hayne were much elated at what they 
 considered his brilliant debut, and confidently predicted his ulti- 
 mate triumph. Mr. Webster's friends doubted and hoped. 
 
 It was not alone the combined strength of the administration 
 party in the Senate Mr. Webster had to fear. He could not but 
 be in doubt respecting his political allies. To make the argument 
 which should satisfy all without offending either of these classes 
 seemed a task difficult to be accomplished. 
 
 Fortunately for the country and his own fame, his doubts on 
 the subject were removed. His warmest friends urged with 
 great eagerness upon him an unequivocal, unreserved declaration 
 of his views. None were more trusted, nor esteemed by him 
 than Samuel Bell, then a Senator from New Hampshire. 
 
 On the morning of the speech, after he had gone to the Capitol, 
 he called Mr. Bell into the robing-room of the Senate, and told 
 him his difficulty. " You know, Mr. Bell," said he, " my con- 
 stitutional opim'ons. There are among my friends in the Senate 
 some who may not concur in them. What is expedient to be done?" 
 Mr. Bell, with great emphasis of manner, advised him to speak
 
 10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 out, boldly and fully, bis thoughts upon, the subject. "It is a 
 critical moment," said he, " and it is time it is high time the 
 people of this country should know what this Constitution is." 
 " Then, "replied Mr. Webster, "by the blessing of Heaven, they 
 shall learn, this day, before the sun goes down, what I understand 
 it to be." 
 
 It was on Tuesday, January the 26tb, 1830, a day to be here- 
 after forever memorable in Senatorial annals, that the Senate 
 resumed the consideration of Foote's Resolution. There never 
 was before in the city an occasion of so much excitement. To 
 witness this great intellectual contest multitudes of strangers had 
 for two or three days previous been rushing into the city, and the 
 hotels overflowed. As early as nine o'clock of this morning 
 crowds poured into the Capitol in hot haste; at twelve o'clock 
 the hour of meeting the Senate Chamber, its galleries, floor, and 
 even lobbies was filled to its utmost capacity. The very stairways 
 were dark with men, who hung on to one another, like bees in a 
 swarm. 
 
 The House of Representatives was early deserted. An adjourn- 
 ment would have hardly made it emptier. The Speaker, it is 
 true, retained his chair, but no business of moment was or could 
 be attended to. Members all rushed in to hear Mr. Webster, and 
 no call of the House or other Parliamentary proceedings could 
 compel them back. The floor of the Senate was so densely 
 crowded, that persons once in could not get out, nor change their 
 position; in the rear of the Vice-Presidential chair the crowd was 
 particularly intense. 
 
 Mr. Webster perceived, and felt equal to, the destinies of the 
 moment. The very greatness of the hazard exhilarated him. 
 His spirits rose with the occasion. He awaited the time of onset 
 with a stern and impatient joy. 
 
 A confidence in his own resources, springing from no vain 
 estimate of his power, but the legitimate offspring of previous 
 severe mental discipline, sustained and excited him. He had 
 gauged his opponents, his subject, and himself. 
 
 He was too, at this period, in the very prime of manhood. He 
 had reached middle age an era in the life of man when the 
 faculties, physical or intellectual may be supposed to attain their 
 fullest organization and most perfect development. Whatever
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 there was in him of intellectual energy and vitality, the occasion, 
 his full life and high ambition, might well bring forth. 
 
 He never rose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordinary 
 audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulousness in his 
 voice, or manner: nothing hurried, nothing simulated. The calm- 
 ness of superior strength was visible everywhere in countenance, 
 voice, and bearing. A deep-seated conviction of the extraordinary 
 character of the emergency, and of his ability to control it, seemed 
 to possess him wholly. If an observer, more than ordinarily 
 keen-sighted, detected at times something like exultation in his 
 eye, he presumed that it sprang from the excitement of the 
 moment and the anticipation of victory. 
 
 The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepressible and 
 universal, that no sooner had the Vice President assumed the 
 chair than a motion was made and unanimously earned, to postpone 
 the ordinary preliminaries cf Senatorial action, and to take up 
 immediately the consideration of the resolution. 
 
 No one who was not present can understand the excitement of 
 the scene; no one, who was, can give an adequate description of 
 it. No word-painting can convey the deep, intense enthusiasm, 
 the reverential attention, of that vast assembly; nor limner trans- 
 fer to canvas their earnest, eager, awe-struck countenances. 
 Though language were as subtile and flexible as thought, it still 
 would be impossible to represent the full idea of the scene. There 
 is something intangible in an emotion which cannot be trans- 
 ferred. The nicer shades of feeling elude pursuit. Every 
 description, therefore, of the occasion seems to the narrator him- 
 self most tame, spiritless, unjust. 
 
 Much of the instantaneous effect of the speech arose, of course, 
 from the orator's delivery the tones of his voice, his countenance 
 and manner. 
 
 The variety of incident during the speech, and the rapid 
 fluctuation of passions, kept the audience in continual expectation 
 and ceaseless agitation. There was no chord of the heart the 
 orator did not strike, as with a master-hand. The speech was a 
 complete drama of comic and pathetic scenes, one varied excite- 
 ment laughter and tears gaining alternate victory. 
 
 A great portion of the spcecli is strictly argumentative an 
 exposition of constitutional law. But grave as such portion 
 necessarily is, severely logical, abounding in no fancy or episode,
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 it engrossed throughout the undivided attention of every intelligent 
 hearer. Abstractions, under the glowing genius of the orator, 
 acquired a beauty, a vitality, a power to thrill the blood and 
 enkindle the affections, awaking into earnest activity many a 
 dormant faculty. His ponderous syllables had an energy, a 
 vehemence of meaning in them, that fascinated while they 
 startled. 
 
 The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the 
 spell-bound audience in deep and melodious cadence, as waves 
 upon the " far-resounding" sea. The Miltonic grandeur of his 
 words was the fit expression of his thought, and raised his 
 hearers up to his theme. 
 
 The speech was over, but the tones, of the orator still lingered 
 upon the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the close, re- 
 tained their position. The agitated countenance, the heaving 
 breast, the suffused eye, attested the continued influence of the 
 spell upon them. Hands that in the excitement of the moment 
 had sought each other, still remained closed in an unconscious 
 grasp. Eye still turned to eye, to receive and repay mutual 
 sympathy; and everywhere around seemed forgelfuluess of all but 
 the orator's presence and words. 
 
 The New England men walked down Pennsylvania Avenue 
 that day, after the speech, with a firmer step and bolder air 
 "pride in their port, defiance in their eye." You would have 
 sworn they had grown some inches taller in a few hours' time. 
 They devoured the way in their stride. They looked every one 
 in the face they met, fearing no contradiction. They swarmed in 
 the streets, having become miraculously multitudinous. They 
 clustered in parties, and fought the scene over one hundred times 
 that night. Their elation was the greater by reaction. It knew 
 no limits or choice of expression. Not one of them but felt he 
 had gained a personal victory; not one who was not ready to 
 exclaim, with gushing eyes, in the fullness of gratitude, " Thank 
 God I too am a Yankee!" 
 
 C. W. MARCH Webster and Ms Contemporaries. 
 
 The foregoing introduction condensed from Mr. March's book will prove 
 interesting as giving an eye-witness's account of incidents in the great 
 debate.
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON FOOTE'S RESO- 
 LUTION, ON THE 26TH OF JANUARY, 1830. 
 
 X" MR. PRESIDENT : When the mariner has been tossed for 
 
 / many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he natu- 
 
 / rally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest 
 
 / glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far 
 
 the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us 
 
 imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther on the 
 
 V waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we de- 
 
 ^ parted, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we 
 
 now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution. 
 
 The secretary read the resolution, as follows : 
 " Resolved, That the committee on public lands be instructed 
 to inquire and report the quantity of public lands remaining 
 unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be ex- 
 pedient to limit for a certain period the sales of the public 
 lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for 
 sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price. And, 
 also, whether the office of surveyor-general, and some of the 
 land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the 
 public interest ; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures 
 to hasten the sales and extend more rapidly the surveys of 
 the public lands." 
 
 We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is which is 
 actually before us for consideration ; and it will readily occur 
 to every one, that it is almost the only subject about which 
 something has not been said in the speech, running through 
 two days, by which the senate has been now entertained by 
 the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wiae 
 range of our public affairs, whether past or present every- 
 thing, general or local, whether belonging to national politics 
 
 13
 
 14 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 or party politics seems to have attracted more or less of the 
 honorable member's attention, save only the resolution before 
 the senate. He has spoken of everything but the public lands; 
 they have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his ex- 
 cursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a passing 
 glance. 
 
 When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday 
 morning, it so happened that it would have been convenient 
 for me to be elsewhere. The honorable member, however, did 
 not incline to put off the discussion to another day. He had 
 a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to discharge it. 
 That shot, sir, which it was kind thus to inform us was com- 
 ing, that we might stand out of the way. or prepare ourselves 
 to fall before it and die with decency, has now been received. 
 Under all advantages, and with expectation awakened by the 
 tone which preceded it, it has been discharged, and has spent 
 its force. It may become me to say no more of its effect, than 
 that, if nobody is found, after all, either killed or wounded by 
 it, it is not the first time, in the history of human affairs, that 
 the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to 
 the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto. 
 
 The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, 
 told the senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, 
 that there was something rankling here, which he wished to 
 relieve. 
 
 [Mr. Hayne rose and disclaimed having used the word rank- 
 ling.] 
 
 It would not, sir, be safe for the honorable member to 
 appeal to those around him, upon the question whether he 
 did in fact make use of that word. But he may have been 
 unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims 
 it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, 
 he had yet something here, he said, of which he wished to rid 
 himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a 
 great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is 
 nothing Jiere, sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness ; 
 neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more 
 troublesome than either, the consciousness of having been in
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 15 
 
 the wrong. There is nothing, either originating here, or now 
 received here by the gentleman's shot. Nothing original ; for 
 I had not the slightest feeling of disrespect or unkindness 
 toward the honorable member. Some passages, it is true, had 
 occurred since our acquaintance in this body, which I could 
 have wished might have been otherwise ; but I had used phil- 
 osophy and forgotten them. When the honorable member 
 rose in his first speech, I paid him the respect of attentive lis- 
 tening ; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must 
 say even astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was far- 
 ther from my intention than to commence any personal war- 
 fare. And through the whole of the few remarks I made in 
 answer, I avoided, studiously and carefully, everything which 
 I thought possible to be construed into disrespect. And, sir, 
 while there is thus nothing originating here which I wished at 
 any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must repeat also, that 
 nothing has been received here which rankles, or in any way 
 gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member 
 of violating the rules of civilized war ; I will not say that he 
 poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were 
 not, dipped in that which would have caused rankling if they 
 had reached, there was not as it happened, quite strength 
 enough in the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes 
 now to gather up those shafts, he must look for them else- 
 where ; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object 
 at which they were aimed. 
 
 The honorable member complained that I had slept on his 
 speech. I must have slept on it, or not slept at all. The mo- 
 ment the honorable member sat down, his friend from Missouri 
 rose, and, with much honeyed commendation of the speech, 
 suggested that the impressions which it had produced were too 
 charming and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments 
 or other sounds, and proposed that the senate should adjourn. 
 Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this 
 excellent good feeling ? Must I not have been absolutely ma- 
 licious, if I could have thrust myself forward, to destroy sen- 
 sations thus pleasing? Was it not much better and kinder, 
 both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow others also the
 
 16 SPEECH IN KEPLY TO HATNE. 
 
 pleasure of sleeping upon them ? But if it be meant, by 
 sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply 
 to it, it is quite a mistake. Owing to other engagements, I 
 could not employ even the interval between the adjournment 
 of the senate and its meeting the next morning, in attention 
 to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless, sir, the mere 
 matter of fact is undoubtedly true. I did sleep on the gentle- 
 man's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on 
 his speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is 
 quite possible that in this respect, also, I possess some advan- 
 tage over the honorable member, attributable, doubtless, to a 
 cooler temperament on my part ; for, in truth, I slept upon 
 his speeches remarkably well. 
 
 But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of 
 such a reply. Why was he singled out? If an attack has 
 been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it ; it 
 was made by the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered 
 the gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it ; and 
 because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech, which, 
 if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious 
 impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original 
 drawer of the bill. I found a responsible endorser before me, 
 and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to 
 his just responsibility, without delay. But, sir, this interrog- 
 atory of the honorable member was only introductory to 
 another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had turned ^.ipon 
 him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should find 
 an overmatch, if I ventured on a contest with his friend from 
 Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member, ex gratia modestice, 
 had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a com- 
 pliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would 
 have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, 
 and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one 
 of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light 
 and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be 
 bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from 
 themselves. Bnt the tone and manner of the gentleman's 
 question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 17 
 
 to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It 
 had an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the 
 loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not allow me to 
 pass it over without notice. It was put as a question forme to 
 answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer, 
 whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch 
 for myself, in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is 
 extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone, for the 
 discussions of this body. 
 
 Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are more applica- 
 ble elsewhere than here, and fitter for other assemblies than 
 this. Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and what we 
 are. This is a senate, a senate of equals, of men of individual 
 honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. 
 We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a 
 hall for mutual consultation and discussion ; not an arena for 
 the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for 
 no man ; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. 
 But then, sir, since the honorable member has put the question 
 in a manner that calls for an answer, I will give him an answer; 
 and I tell him, that, holding myself to be the humblest of the 
 members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his friend from 
 Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of his friend 
 from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing 
 whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating 
 whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I 
 may see fit to say, on the floor of the senate. Sir, when ut- 
 tered as matter of commendation or compliment, I should dis- 
 sent from nothing which the honorable member might say of 
 his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my own. 
 But when put to me as a matter of taunt, I throw it back, and 
 say to the gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing less 
 likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal 
 character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from in- 
 tentional irony, which otherwise, probably, would have been its 
 general acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by this 
 mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by 
 casting the characters of the drama" assigning to each his part,
 
 18 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 to one the attack, to another the cry of onset ; or if it be thought 
 that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any 
 laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that 
 any, or all of these things will shake any purpose of mine, I 
 can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly 
 mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose temper and 
 character he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow my- 
 self, on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into 
 any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, 
 into crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may 
 perhaps find that, in that contest, there will be blows to take as 
 well as blows to give; that others can state comparisons as 
 significant, at least, as his own, and that his impunity may pos- 
 sibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he 
 may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his 
 resources. 
 
 But, sir, the coalition ! The coalition ! Ay, "the murdered 
 coalition !" The gentleman asks, if I were led or frighted into 
 this debate by the specter of the coalition. " Was it the 
 ghost of the murdered coalition," he exclaims, " which haunted 
 the member from Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of 
 Banquo, would never down?" "The murdered coalition! 1 ' 
 Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late adminis- 
 tration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not 
 spring up in the senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, 
 or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, in- 
 deed, from a very low origin, and a still lower present condi- 
 tion. It is one of the thousand calumnies with which the press 
 teemed, during an excited political canvass. It was a charge, 
 of which there 'was not only no proof or probability, but which 
 was in itself wholly impossible to be true. No man of common 
 information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was of that 
 class of falsehoods, which, by continued repetition, through all 
 the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading 
 those who are already far misled, and of further fanning pas- 
 sion already kindling into flame. Doubtless it served in its day, 
 and in greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having 
 done that, it has sunk into the general mass of stale and loathed
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 19 
 
 calumnies. It is the very cast-off slough of a polluted and 
 shameless press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the 
 sewer, lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power 
 of the honorable member to give it dignity and decency, by at- 
 tempting to elevate it, and to introduce it into the senate. He 
 cannot change it from what it is, an object of general disgust 
 and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch 
 it, is more likely to drag him down, down, to the place where 
 it lies itself. 
 
 But, sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, 
 entirely happy in his allusion to the story of Banquo's murder 
 and Banquo's ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the 
 enemies of the murdered Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit 
 would not down. The honorable gentleman is fresh in his 
 reading of the English classics, and can put me right if I am 
 wrong; but, according to my poor recollection, it was at those 
 who had begun with caresses and ended with foul and treach- 
 erous murder that the gory locks were shaken. The ghost of 
 Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed 
 no innocent man. It knew where its appearance would strike 
 terror, and v:ho would cry out, A ghost ! It made itself visible 
 in the right quarter, and compelled the guilty and the con- 
 science-smitten, and none others, to start, with, 
 
 "Pr'ythee, see there 1 behold ! look ! lo! 
 If I stand here, I saw him !" 
 
 Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, sir ?) who had thought 
 to shield themselves by concealing their own hand, and laying 
 the imputation of the crime on a low and hireling agency in 
 wickedness; who had vainly attempted to stifle the workings 
 of their own coward consciences by ejaculating through white 
 lips and chattering teeth, "Thou canst not say I did it!" I 
 have misread the great poet if those who had no way partaken 
 in the deed of the death, either found that they were, or feared 
 that they should be, pushed from their stools by the ghost of 
 the slain, or exclaimed to a specter created by their own fears 
 and their own remorse, " A vaunt! and quit our sight! " 
 There is another particular, sir, in which the honorable mem
 
 20 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 ber's quick perception of resemblances might, I should think, 
 have seen something in the story of Banquo, making it not al- 
 together a subject of the most pleasant contemplation. Those 
 who murdered Banquo, what did they win by it ? Substantial 
 good ? Permanent power ? Or disappointment, rather, and 
 sore mortification ; dust and ashes, the common fate of vault- 
 ing ambition overleaping itself ? Did not even-handed justice 
 ere long commend the poisoned chalice to their own lips ? 
 Did they not soon find that for another they had " 'filed their 
 mind?" that their ambition, though apparently for the mo- 
 ment successful, had but put a barren scepter in their grasp ? 
 Ay, sir, 
 
 " a barren scepter in their gripe 
 Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand, 
 No son of theirs succeeding." 
 
 Sin, I need pursue the allusion no farther. I leave the hon- 
 orable gentleman to run it out at his leisure, and to derive 
 from it all the gratification it is calculated to administer. If 
 he finds himself pleased with the associations, and prepared to 
 be quite satisfied, though the parallel should be entirely com- 
 pleted, I had almost said, I am satisfied also ; but that I shall 
 think of. Yes, sir, I will think of that. 
 
 I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited 
 slavery, in all future times, northwest of the Ohio, as a meas- 
 ure of great wisdom and foresight, and one which had been at- 
 tended with highly beneficial and permanent consequences. I 
 supposed that, on this point, no two gentlemen in the senate 
 could entertain different opinions. But the simple expression 
 of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only into a labored 
 defense of slavery, in the abstract, and on principle, but also 
 into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the 
 system of domestic slavery now existing in the southern states. 
 For all this, there was not the slightest foundation, in any- 
 thing said or intimated by me. I did not utter a single word 
 which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on the 
 slavery of the south. I said, only, that it was highly wise and 
 useful, in legislating for the northwestern country while it was 
 yet a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves ; and
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 21 
 
 added, that I presumed there was in the neighboring state of 
 Kentucky, no reflecting and intelligent gentleman who would 
 doubt that, if the same prohibition had been extended, at the 
 same early period, over that commonwealth, her strength and 
 population would, at this day, have been far greater than they 
 are. If these opinions be thought doubtful, they are never- 
 theless, I trust, neither extraordinary nor disrespectful. They 
 attack nobody and menace nobody. And yet, sir, the gentle- 
 man's optics have discovered, even in the mere expression of 
 this sentiment, what he calls the very spirit of the Missouri 
 question. He represents me as making an onset on the whole 
 south, and manifesting a spirit which would interfere with, 
 and disturb their domestic condition ! 
 
 Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me, than as it is com- 
 mitted here, and committed without the slightest pretense of 
 ground for it. I say it only surprises me as being done here ; 
 for I know full well, that it is, and has been the settled policy 
 of some persons in the south, for years, to represent the people 
 of the north as disposed to interfere with them in their own 
 exclusive and peculiar concerns. This is a delicate and sensi- 
 tive point in southern feeling ; and of late years it has al- 
 ways been touched, and generally with effect, whenever the ob- 
 ject has been to unite the whole south against northern men or 
 northern measures. This feeling always carefully kept alive, 
 and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination 
 or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine. 
 It moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and the same di- 
 rection. But it is without any adequate cause, and the suspi- 
 cion which exists wholly groundless. There is not and never 
 has been, a disposition in the north to interfere with these in- 
 terests of the south. Such interference has never been sup- 
 posed to be within the power of government ; nor has it been 
 in any way attempted. The slavery of the south has always 
 been regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left with the 
 states themselves, and with which the federal government had 
 nothing to do. Certainly, sir, I am, and ever have been, of that 
 opinion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the 
 abstract, is no evil. Most assuredly I need not say I dif-
 
 22 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 fer with him, altogether and most widely, on that point. I re- 
 gard domestic slavery as one of the greatest, of evils, both 
 moral and political. But though it be a malady, and whether 
 it be curable, and if so, by what means ; or, on the other hand, 
 whether it be the vulnus immedicabile of the social system, I 
 leave it to those whose right and duty it is to inquire and to 
 decide. And this I believe, sir, is, and uniformly has been, the 
 sentiment of the north. 
 
 But as to the Hartford convention, sir, allow me to say, 
 that the proceedings of that body seem now to be less read and 
 studied in New England than farther south. They appear to 
 be looked to, not in New England, but elsewhere, for the pur- 
 pose of seeing how far they may serve as a precedent. But 
 they will not answer the purpose, they are quite too tame. 
 The latitude in which they originated was too cold. Other 
 conventions, of more recent existence, have gone a whole bar's 
 length beyond it. The learned doctors of Colleton and Abbe- 
 ville have pushed their commentaries on the Hartford collect 
 so far, that the original text-writers are thrown entirely into 
 the shade. I have nothing to do, sir, with the Hartford con- 
 vention. Its journal, which the gentleman has quoted, I 
 never read. So far as the honorable member may discover 
 in its proceedings a spirit in any degree resembling that 
 which was avowed and justified in those other conventions to 
 which I have alluded, or so far as those proceedings can be 
 shown to be disloyal to the constitution, or tending to disunion, 
 so far I shall be as ready as any one to bestow on them repre- 
 hension and censure. 
 
 Having dwelt long on this convention, and other occurrences 
 of that day, in the hope, probably, (which will not be gratified,) 
 that I should leave the course of this debate to follow him at 
 length in those excursions, the honorable member returned, and 
 attempted another object. He referred to a speech of mine in 
 the other house, the same which I had occasion to allude to 
 myself, the other day ; and has quoted a passage or two from it, 
 with a bold, though uneasy and laboring air of confidence, as 
 if he had detected in me an inconsistency. Judging from the 
 gentleman's manner, a stranger to the course of the debate
 
 SPEECH IN REPI/S TO HAYNE. 23 
 
 and to the point in discussion would have imagined, from so 
 triumphant a tone, that the honorable member was about to 
 overwhelm me with a manifest contradiction. Any one who 
 heard him, and who had not heard, what I had, in fact, previ- 
 ously said, must have thought me routed and discomfited, as 
 the gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath blows all this 
 triumph away. There is not the slightest difference in the 
 sentiments of my remarks on the two occasions. What I said 
 here on Wednesday is in exact accordance with the opinion 
 expressed by me in the other house in 1825. Though the 
 gentleman had the metaphysics of Hudibras, though he were 
 able 
 
 "to sever and divide 
 A hair 'twixt north and northwest side,' 1 
 
 he yet could not insert his metaphysical scissors between the 
 fair reading of my remarks in 1825, and what I said here last 
 week. There is not only no contradiction, no difference, but, 
 in truth, too exact a similarity, both in thought and language, 
 to be entirely in just taste. I had myself quoted the same 
 speech ; had recurred to it, and spoke with it open before me ; 
 and much of what I said was little more than a repetition 
 from it. 
 
 I need not repeat at large the general topics of the honora- 
 ble gentleman's speech. When he said yesterday that he did 
 not attack the eastern states, he certainly must have forgot- 
 ten, not only particular remarks, but the whole drift and tenor 
 of his speech ; unless he means by not attacking, that he did 
 not commence hostilities, but that another had preceded him 
 in the attack. He, in the first place, disproved of the whole 
 course of the government, for forty years, in regard to its dis- 
 position of the public land; and then, turning northward and 
 eastward, and fancying he had found a cause for alleged nar- 
 rowness and niggardliness in the "accursed policy" of the 
 tariff, to which he represented the people of New England as 
 wedded, he went on for a full hour with remarks, the whole 
 scope of which was to exhibit the results of this policy, in 
 feelings and in measures unfavorable to the west. I thought
 
 24 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 his opinions unfounded and erroneous, as to the general 
 course of the government, and ventured to reply to then). 
 
 The gentlemen had remarked on the analogy of other crfses, 
 and quoted the conduct of European governments toward 
 their own subjects settling on this continent, as in point, to 
 show that we had been harsh and rigid in selling; when we 
 should have given the public lands to settlers without price. 
 I thought the honorable member had suffered his judgment to 
 be betrayed by a false analogy; that he was struck with an 
 appearance of resemblance where there was no real similitude. 
 I think so still. The first settlers of North America were en- 
 terprising spirits, engaged in private adventure, or fleeing 
 from tyranny at home. When arrived here, they were forgot- 
 ten by the mother country, or remembered only to be op- 
 pressed. Carried away again by the appearance of analogy. 
 or struck with the eloquence of the passage, the honorable 
 member yesterday observed, that the conduct of government 
 toward the western emigrants, or my representation of it, 
 brought to his mind a celebrated speech in the British parlia- 
 ment. It was, sir, the speech of Colonel Barre. On the 
 question of the stamp act, or tea tax, I forget which, Colonel 
 Barre had heard a member on the treasury bench argue, that 
 the people of the United States, being British colonists, planted 
 by the maternal care, nourished by the indulgence, and pro- 
 tected by the arms of England, would not grudge their mite 
 to relieve the mother country from the heavy burden under 
 which she groaned. The language of Colonel Barre, in reply 
 to this, was : "They planted by your care? Your oppression 
 planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny, and 
 grew by your neglect of them. So soon as you began to care 
 for them, you showed your^care by sending persons to spy out 
 their liberties, misrepresent their character, prey upon them, 
 and eat out their substance." 
 
 And how does the honorable gentleman mean to maintain, 
 that language like this is applicable to the conduct of the gov- 
 ernment of the United States toward the western emigrants, 
 or to any representation given by me of that conduct ? Were 
 the settlers in the west driven thither by our oppression ?
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 25 
 
 Have they flourished only by our neglect of them ? Has the 
 government done dothing but to prey upon them, and eat out 
 their substance ? Sir, this fervid eloquence of the British 
 speaker, just when and where it was uttered, and fit to re- 
 main an exercise for the schools, is not a little out of place, 
 when it is brought thence to be applied here, to the conduct of 
 our own country toward her own citizens. From America to 
 England, it may be true ; from Americans to their own govern- 
 ment, it would be strange language. Let us leave it to be re- 
 cited and declaimed by our boys against a foreign nation ; not 
 introduce it here, to recite and declaim ourselves against our 
 own. 
 
 We approach, at length, sir, to a more important part of 
 the honorable gentleman's observations. Since it does not ac- 
 cord with my views of justice and policy to give away the- 
 public lands altogether, as mere matter of gratuity, I am 
 asked by the honorable gentleman on what ground it is that I 
 consent to vote them away in particular instances. How, he 
 inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments, my 
 support of measures appropriating portions of the lands to par- 
 ticular roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particu- 
 lar institutions of education in the west ? This leads, sir, to 
 the real and wide difference in political opinion between the 
 honorable gentleman and myself. On my part, I look upon 
 all these objects as connected with the common good, fairly 
 embraced in its object and its terms ; he, on the contrary, 
 deems them all, if good at all, only local good. This is our 
 difference. The interrogatory which he proceeded to put, 
 at once explains this difference. " What interest," asks he, 
 "has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio? 1 ' Sir, this very 
 question is full of significance. It develops the gentleman's 
 whole political system ; and its answer expounds mine. Here 
 we differ. I look upon a road over the Alleghanies. a canal 
 round the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the 
 Atlantic to the western waters, as being an object large and 
 extensive enough to be fairly said t<> be for the common bene- 
 fit. The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key to 
 his construction of the powers of the government. He may
 
 26 SPEECH IN KEPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 well ask what interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio. 
 On his system, it is true, she has no interest. On that system, 
 Ohio and Carolina are different governments, and different 
 countries; connected here, it is true, by some slight and ill- 
 defined bond of union, but in all main respects separate and 
 diverse. On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a 
 canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, 
 only follows out his own principles; he does no more than ar- 
 rive at the natural conclusions of his own doctrines ; he only 
 announces the true results of that creed which he has adopted 
 himself, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus 
 declares that South Carolina has no interest in a public work 
 in Ohio. 
 
 Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not rea- 
 son thus. Our notion of things is entirely different. We look 
 upon the states, not as separated, but as united. We love to 
 dwell on that union, and on the mutual happiness which it 
 has so much promoted, and the common renown which it has 
 so greatly contributed to acquire. In our contemplation, Car- 
 olina and Ohio are parts of the same country ; states, united 
 under the same general government, having interests, com- 
 mon, associated, intermingled. In whatever is within the 
 proper sphere of the constitutional power of this government, 
 we look upon the states as one. We do not impose geograph- 
 ical limits to our patriotic feeling or regard; we do not follow 
 rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude, to find bounda- 
 ries, beyond which public improvements 'do not benefit us. 
 We who come here, as agents and representatives of these 
 narrow-minded and selfish men of New England, consider 
 ourselves as bound to regard with an equal eye the good of 
 the whole, in whatever is within our power of legislation. 
 Sir, if a railroad or canal, beginning in South Carolina and 
 ending in South Carolina, appeared to me to be of national 
 importance and national magnitude, believing as I do, that 
 the power of government extends to the encouragement of 
 works of that description, if I were to stand up here and ask, 
 What interest has Massachusetts in a railroad in South Caro- 
 lina ? I should not be willing to face my constituents. These
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO UAYNE. 27 
 
 same narrow-minded men would tell me, that they had sent 
 me to act for the whole country, and that one who possessed 
 too little comprehension, either of intellect or feeling, one 
 who was not large enough both in mind and in heart, to em- 
 brace the whole, was not fit to be entrusted with the interest 
 of any part. 
 
 Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the government 
 by unjustifiable construction, nor to exercise any not within 
 a fair interpretation. But when it is believed that a power 
 does exist, then it is, in my judgment, to be exercised for the 
 general benefit of the whole. So far as respects the exercise 
 of such a power, the states are one. It was the very object of 
 the constitution to create unity of interests to the extent of 
 the powers of the general government. In war and peace we 
 are one ; in commerce, one ; because the authority of the gen- 
 eral government reaches to war and peace, and to the regula- 
 tion of commerce. I have never seen any more difficulty in 
 erecting lighthouses on the lakes, than on the ocean; in im- 
 proving the harbors of inland seas, than if they were within 
 the ebb and flow of the tide ; or in removing obstructions in 
 thr vast streams of the west, more than in any work to facili- 
 tate commerce on the Atlantic coast. If there be any power 
 for one, there is power also for the other ; and they are all 
 and equally for the common good of the country. 
 
 Sir, to these questions retort would be justified ; and it is 
 both cogent and at hand. Nevertheless, I will answer the 
 inquiry, not by retort, but by facts. I will tell the gentleman 
 irfti-n, and Jc, and why New England has supported meas- 
 ures favorable to the west. I have already referred to the 
 early history of the government, to the first acquisition of the 
 lands, to the original laws for disposing of them, and for gov- 
 erning the territories where they lie ; and have shown the 
 influence of New England men and New England principles 
 in all these leading measures. I should not be pardoned were 
 I to go over that ground again. Coming to more recent times, 
 and to measures of a less general character, I have endeavored 
 to prove that everything of this kind, designed for western 
 improvement, has depended on the votes of New England ; all
 
 28 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 this is true beyond the power of contradiction. And now, sir, 
 there are two measures to which I will refer, not so ancient 
 as to belong to the early history of the public lands, and not 
 so recent as to be on this side of the period when the gentleman 
 charitably imagines a new direction may have been given to 
 New England feeling and New England votes. These meas- 
 ures, and the New England votes in support of them, may be 
 taken as samples and specimens of all the rest. 
 
 In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820), the people of the 
 west besought congress for a reduction in the price of lands. 
 In favor of that reduction, New England, with a delegation of 
 forty members in the other house, gave thirty-three votes, and 
 one only against it. The four southern states, with over fifty 
 members, gave thirty-two votes for it, and seven against it. 
 Again, in 1821 (observe again, sir, the time), the law passed 
 for the relief of the purchasers of the public lands. This was 
 a measure of vital importance to the west, and more especially 
 to the southwest. It authorized the relinquishment of con- 
 tracts for lands which had been entered into at high prices, 
 and a reduction in other cases of not less than thirty-seven and 
 a half per cent, on the purchase-money. Many millions of 
 dollars, six or seven, I believe, at least, probably much more, 
 were relinquished by this law. On this bill, New England, 
 with her forty members, gave more affirmative votes than the 
 four southern states, with their fifty-two or three members. 
 These two are far the most important general measures re- 
 specting the public lands which have been adopted within the 
 last twenty years. They took place in 1820 and 1821. That 
 is the time when. 
 
 As to the manner how, the gentleman already sees that it was 
 by voting in solid column for the required relief ; and, lastly, 
 as to the cause why, I tell the gentleman it was because the 
 members from New England thought the measures just and 
 salutary ; because they entertained toward the west neither 
 envy, hatred, nor malice ; because they deemed it becoming 
 them, as just and enlightened men, to meet the exigency which 
 had arisen in the west with the appropriate measure of relief ; 
 because they felt it due to their own characters, and the char-
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 29 
 
 acters of their New England predecessors in this government, 
 to act toward the new states in the spirit of a liberal, patron- 
 izing, magnanimous policy. So much, sir, for the cause why, 
 and I hope that by this time, sir, the honorable gentleman is 
 satisfied ; if not, I do not know when, or how, or why he ever 
 will be. 
 
 This government, Mr. President, from its origin to the peace 
 of 1815, had been too much engrossed with various other im- 
 portant concerns to be able to turn its thoughts inward, and 
 look to the development of its vast internal resources. In the 
 early part of President Washington's adminstration, it was 
 fully occupied with completing its own organization, providing 
 for the public debt, defending the frontiers, and maintaining 
 domestic peace. Before the termination of that administration, 
 the fires of the French revolution blazed forth, as from a new- 
 opened volcano, and the whole breadth of the ocean did not 
 secure us from its effects. The smoke and the cinders reached 
 us, though not the burning lava. Difficult and agitating ques- 
 tions, embarrassing to government and dividing public opin- 
 ion, sprung out of the new state of our foreign relations, and 
 were succeeded by others, and yet again by others, equally 
 embarrassing and equally exciting division and discord, 
 through the long series of twenty years, till they finally issued 
 in the war with England. Down to the close of that war, no 
 distinct, marked, and deliberate attention had been given, or 
 could have been given, to the internal condition of the coun- 
 try, its capacities of improvement, or the constitutional power 
 of the government in regard to objects connected with such 
 . improvement. 
 
 The peace, Mr. President, brought about an entirely new 
 and a most interesting state of things ; it opened to us other 
 prospects and suggested other duties. We ourselves were 
 changed, and the whole world was changed. The pacification 
 of Europe, after June, 1815, assumed a firm and permanent 
 aspect. The nations evidently manifested that they were dis- 
 posed for peace. Some agitation of the waves might be ex- 
 pected, even after the storm had subsided, but the tendency 
 was, strongly and rapidly, toward settled repose.
 
 30 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 It so happened, sir, that I was at that time a member of 
 congress, and, like others, naturally turned my attention to 
 the contemplation of the newly altered condition of the coun- 
 try and of the world. It appeared plainly enough to me, as 
 well as to wiser and more experienced men, that the policy of 
 the government would naturally take a start in a new direc- 
 tion ; because new directions would necessarily be given to 
 the pursuits and occupations of the people. We had pushed 
 our commerce far and fast, under the advantage of a neutral 
 flag. But there were now no longer flags, either neutral or 
 belligerent. The harvest of neutrality had been great, but 
 we had gathered it all. With the peace of Europe, it was 
 obvious there would spring up in her circle of nations a re- 
 vived and invigorating spirit of trade, and a new activity in 
 all the business and objects of civilized life. Hereafter, our 
 commercial gains were to be earned only by success in a close 
 and intense competition. Other nations would produce for 
 themselves, and carry for themselves, and manufacture for 
 themselves, to the full extent of their abilities. The crops of 
 our plains would no longer sustain European armies, nor our 
 ships longer supply those whom war had rendered unable to 
 supply themselves. It was obvious that, under these circum- 
 stances, the country would begin to survey itself, and to esti- 
 mate its own capacity of improvement. 
 
 And this improvement how was it to be accomplished, and 
 who was to accomplish it ? We were ten or twelve millions 
 of people, spread over almost half a world. W T e were more 
 than twenty states, some stretching along the same seaboard, 
 some along the same line of inland frontier, and others on op- 
 posite banks of the same vast rivers. Two considerations at 
 once presented themselves, in looking at this state of things, 
 with great force. One was, that that great branch of improve- 
 ment which consisted in furnishing new facilities of intercourse 
 necessarily ran into different states in every leading instance, 
 and would benefit the citizens of all such states. No one state, 
 therefore, in such cases, would assume the whole expense, nor 
 was the cooperation of several states to be expected. Take the 
 instance of the Delaware breakwater. It will cost several mill-
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 31 
 
 ions of money. Would Pennsylvania alone ever have con- 
 structed it ? Certainly never, while this Union lasts, because 
 it is not for her sole benefit. Would Pennsylvania, New Jer- 
 sey, and Delaware have united to accomplish it at their joint 
 expense? Certainly not. for the same reason. It could not 
 be done, therefore, but by the general government. The same 
 may be said of the large inland undertakings, except that, in 
 them, government, instead of bearing the whole expense, coop- 
 erates with others who bear a part. The other consideration 
 is, that the United States have the means. They enjoy the 
 revenues derived from commerce, and the states have no abun- 
 dant and easy sources of public income. The custom-houses 
 fill the general treasury, while the states have scanty resources, 
 except by resort to heavy direct taxes. 
 
 Under this view of things, I thought it. necessary to settle, at 
 least for myself, some definite notions with respect to the pow- 
 ers of the government with regard to internal affairs. It may 
 not savor too much of self-commendation to remark, that, with 
 this object, I considered the constitution, its judicial construc- 
 tion, its contemporaneous exposition, and the whole history of 
 the legislation of congress under it ; and I arrived at the 
 conclusion, that government had power to accomplish sundry 
 objects or aid in their accomplishment, which are now com- 
 monly spoken of as INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. That con- 
 clusion, sir, may have been right, or it may have been wrong. 
 I am not about to argue the grounds of it at large. I say 
 only, that it was adopted and acted on even so early as in 
 1816. Yes, Mr. President, I made up my opinion, and deter- 
 mined on my intended course of political conduct, on these 
 subjects, in the fourteenth congress, iu 1816. And now, Mr. 
 President, I have further to say, that I made up these opin- 
 ions, and entered on this course of political conduct, Teucro 
 ditce.* Yes, sir, I pursued in all this a South Carolina track 
 on the doctrines of internal improvement. South Carolina, 
 as she was then represented in the other house, set forth in 
 1816 under a fresh and leading breeze, and I was among the 
 
 *At the time when this speech was made, Mr. Calhoun was vice president, 
 and president of the senate.
 
 32 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 followers. But if my leader sees new lights and turns a sharp 
 corner, unless I see new lights also, I keep straight on in the 
 same path. I repeat, that leading gentlemen from South 
 Carolina were first and foremost in behalf of the doctrines of 
 internal improvements, when those doctrines came first to be 
 considered and acted upon in congress. The debate on the 
 bank question, on the tariff of 1816, and on the direct tax, 
 will show who was who, and what was what, at that time. 
 
 The tariff of 1816 (one of the plain cases of oppression and 
 usurpation, from which, if the government does not recede, 
 individual states may justly secede from the government) is, 
 sir, in truth, a South Carolina tariff, supported by South Car- 
 olina votes. But for those votes it could not have passed in 
 the form in which it did pass; whereas, if it had depended on 
 Massachusetts votes, it would have been lost". Does not the 
 honorable gentleman well know all this ? There are certainly 
 those who do, full well, know it all. I do not say this to re- 
 proach South Carolina. I only state the fact-, and I think it 
 will appear to be true, that among the earliest and boldest 
 advocates of the tariff, as a measure of protection, and on the 
 express ground of protect ion, were leading gentlemen of South 
 Carolina in congress. I did not then, and cannot now, under- 
 stand their language in any other sense. While this tariff of 
 1816 was under discussion in the house of representatives, an 
 honorable gentleman from Georgia, now of this house, (Mr. 
 Forsyth), moved to reduce the proposed duty on cotton. He 
 failed, by four votes, South Carolina giving three votes 
 (enough to have turned the scale) against his motion. The 
 act, sir, then passed, and received on its passage the support 
 of a majority of the representatives of South Carolina present 
 and voting. This act is the first in the order of those now 
 denounced as plain usurpations. We see it daily in the list, 
 by the side of those of 1824 and 1828, as a case of manifest 
 oppression, justifying disunion. I put it home to the honor- 
 able member from South Carolina, that his own state was not 
 only " art and part" in this measure, but the causa causdixi. 
 Without her aid, this seminal principle of mischief, this root 
 of Upas, could not have been planted. I have already said,
 
 SPEKCII IN REPLY TO IIAYNB. 33 
 
 and it is true, that this act proceeded on the ground of pro- 
 tection. It interfered directly with existing interests of great 
 value and amount. It cut up the Calcutta cotton trade by 
 the roots, but it passed, nevertheless, and it passed on the 
 principle of protecting manufactures, on the principle against 
 free trade, on the principle opposed to that ichich lets us 
 alone. 
 
 Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of important and 
 leading gentlemen from South Carolina, on the subject of in- 
 ternal improvement, in 1816. I went out of congress the 
 next year, and, returning again in 1823, thought I found 
 South Carolina where I had left her. I really supposed that 
 all things remained as they were, and that the South Carolina 
 doctrine of internal improvements would be defended by the 
 same eloquent voices, and the same strong arms, as formerly. 
 In the lapse of these six years, it is true, political associations 
 had assumed a new aspect and new divisions. A party had 
 arisen in the south hostile to the doctrine of internal improve- 
 ments, and had vigorously attacked that doctrine. Anti- 
 consolidation was the flag under which this party fought ; and 
 its supporters inveighed against internal improvements, much 
 after the manner in which the honorable gentleman has now 
 inveighed against them, as part and parcel of the system of 
 consolidation. Whether this party arose in South Carolina 
 herself, or in her neighborhood, is more than I know. I think 
 the latter. However that may have been, there were those 
 found in South Carolina ready to make war upon it, and who 
 did make intrepid war upon it. Names being regarded as 
 things in such controversies, they bestowed on the anti-im- 
 provement gentlemen the appellation of radicals. Yes, sir, 
 the appellation of radicals, as a term of distinction applicable 
 and applied to those who denied the liberal doctrines of inter- 
 nal improvement, originated, according to the best of my rec- 
 ollection, somewhere between North Carolina and Georgia. 
 Well, sir, these mischievous radicals were to be put down, and 
 the strong arm of South Carolina was Stretched out to put 
 them down. About this time, sir, I returned to congress. 
 The battle with the radicals had been fought, and our South
 
 34 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 Carolina champions of the doctrines of internal improvement 
 had nobly maintained their ground, and were understood to 
 have achieved a victory. We looked upon them as conquer- 
 ors. They had driven back the enemy with discomfiture, a 
 thing, by the way, sir, which is is not always performed when 
 it is promised. 
 
 I go to other remarks of the honorable member; and I have 
 to complain of an entire misapprehension of what I said on the 
 subject of the national debt, though I can hardly perceive how 
 any one could misunderstand me. What I said was, not that I 
 wished to put off the payment of the debt, but, on the contrary, 
 that I had always voted for every measure for its reduction, as 
 uniformly as the gentleman himself. He seems to claim the 
 exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce the public charge. I 
 do not allow it to him. As a debt, I was I am for paying it, 
 because it is a charge on our finances, and on the industry of the 
 country. But I observed that I thought I perceived a morbid 
 fervor on that subject, an excessive anxiety to pay off the debt, 
 not so much because it is a debt simply, as because, while it 
 lasts, it furnishes one objection to disunion. It is a tie of com- 
 mon interest, w r hile it continues. I did not impute such motives 
 to the honorable member himself, but that there is such a feel- 
 ing in existence I have not a particle of doubt. The most I said 
 was, that if one effect of the debt was to strengthen our Union, 
 that effect itself was not regretted by me, however much others 
 might regret it. The gentleman has not seen how r to reply to 
 this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doc- 
 trine that a national debt is a national blessing. Others, I must 
 hope, will find much less difficulty in understanding me. I dis- 
 tinctly and pointedly cautioned the honorable member not to 
 understand me as expressing an opinion favorable to the contin- 
 uance of the debt. I repeated this caution, and repeated it more 
 than once; but it was thrown away. 
 
 On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misun- 
 derstood. The gentleman had harangued against " consolida- 
 tion." I told him, in" reply, that there was one kind of consoli- 
 dation to which I was attached, and that was the consolidation 
 of our Union; that this was precisely that consolidation to
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 35 
 
 which I feared others were not attached; that such consoli- 
 dation was the very end of the constitution, the leading -object, 
 as they had informed us themselves, which its framers had kept 
 in view. I turned to their communication, and read their very 
 words, "the consolidation of the Union," and expressed my 
 devotion to this sort of consolidation. I said, in terms, that I 
 wished not in the slightest degree to augment the powers of 
 this government; that my object was to preserve, not to en- 
 large; and that by consolidating the Union I understood no 
 more than the strengthening of the union, and perpetuating it. 
 Having been thus explicit, having thus read from the printed 
 book the precise words which I adopted, as expressing my own 
 sentiments, it .passes comprehension how any man could under- 
 stand me as contending for an extension of the powers of the 
 government, or for consolidation in that odious sense in which 
 it means an accumulation, in the federal government, of the 
 powers properly belonging to the states. 
 
 Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a 
 charge made by me against South Carolina, the honorable 
 . member, Mr. President, has taken up a new ci-usade against 
 New England. Leaving altogether the subject of the public 
 lands, in which his success, perhaps, had been neither distin- 
 guished nor satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the topic of 
 the tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault on the opinions, 
 politics and parties of New England, as they have been exhib- 
 ited in the last thirty years. This is natural. The " narrow 
 policy" of the public lands had proved a legal settlement in 
 South Carolina, and was not to be removed. The "accursed 
 policy" of the tariff, also, had established the fact of its birth 
 and parentage in the same state. No wonder, therefore, the 
 gentleman wished to carry the war, as he expressed it, into 
 the enemy's country. Prudently willing to quit these sub- 
 jects, he was, doubtless, desirous of fastening on others that 
 which could not be transferred south of Mason and Dixon's 
 line. The politics of New England became his theme; and it 
 was in this part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me 
 with sore discomfiture. Discomfiture ! Why, sir, when he 
 attacks anything which I maintain, and overthrows it, when
 
 36 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 he turns the right or left of any position which I take up, 
 when he drives me from any ground I choose to occupy, he 
 may then talk of discomfiture, but not till that distant day. 
 What has he done ? Has he maintained his own charges ? 
 Has he proved what he alleged ? Has he sustained himself in 
 his attack on the government, and on the history of the north, 
 in the matter of the public lands ? Has he disproved a fact, 
 refuted a proposition, weakened an argument, maintained by 
 me ? Has he come within beat of drum of any position of 
 mine? O, no ; but he has "carried the war into the enemy's 
 country !" Carried the war into the enemy's country ! Yes, 
 sir, and what sort of a war has he made of it ? Why, sir, he 
 has stretched a drag-net over the whole surface of perished 
 pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy paragraphs, and fuming 
 popular addresses ; over whatever the pulpit in its moments 
 of alarm, the press in its heats, and parties in their extrava- 
 gance, have severally thrown off in times of general excite- 
 ment and violence. He has thus swept together a mass of 
 such things as, but that they are now old and cold, the public 
 health would have required him rather to leave in their state 
 of dispersion. For a good long hour or two, we had the un- 
 broken pleasure of listening to the honorable member, while 
 he recited with his usual grace and spirit, and with evident 
 high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, addresses, and all the et cet- 
 eras of the political press, such as warm heads produce in 
 warm times; and such as it would be "discomfiture" indeed 
 for any one, whose taste did not delight in that sort of read- 
 ing, to be obliged to peruse. 
 
 Mr. President, I shall not it will not, I trust, be expected 
 that I should either now or at any time, separate this farrago 
 into parts, and answer and examine its components. I shall 
 hardly bestow upon it all a general remark or two. In the 
 run of forty years, sir, under this constitution, we have exper- 
 ienced sundry successive violent party contests. Party arose, 
 indeed, with the constitution itself, and, in some form or 
 other, has attended it through the greater part of its history. 
 Whether any other constitution than the old articles of con- 
 federation was desirable, was itself a question on which part-
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 37 
 
 ies formed ; if a new constitution were framed, what powers 
 should be given to it was another question ; and when it had 
 been formed, what was, in fact, the just extent of the powers 
 actually conferred was a third. Parties, as we know, existed 
 under the first administration, as distinctly marked as those 
 which have manifested themselves at any subsequent period. 
 The contest immediately preceding the political change in 
 1801, and that, again, which existed at the commencement of 
 the late war, are other instances of party excitement, of some- 
 thing more than usual strength and intensity. In all these 
 conflicts there was, no doubt, much of violence on both and 
 all sides. It would be impossible, if one -had a fancy for such 
 employment, to adjust the relative quantum of violence be- 
 tween these contending parties. There was enough in each, 
 as must always be expected in popular governments. With a 
 great deal of proper and decorous discussion, there was min- 
 gled a great deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimination 
 and abuse. In regard to any party, probably, at one of the 
 leading epochs in the history of parties, enough may be found 
 to make out another equally inflamed exhibition, as that with 
 which the honorable member has edified us. For myself, sir, 
 I shall not rake among the rubbish of bygone times, to see 
 what I can find, or whether I cannot find something by which 
 I can fix a blot On the escutcheon of any state, any paity, or 
 any part of the country. General Washington's administra- 
 tion was steadily and zealously maintained, as we all know, 
 by New England. It was violently opposed elsewhere. We 
 know in what quarter he had the most earnest, constant, and 
 persevering support, in all his great and leading measures. 
 We know where his private and personal character was held 
 in the highest degree of attachment and veneration ; and we 
 know, too, where his measures were opposed, his services 
 slighted, and his character vilified. We know, or we might 
 know, if we turned to the journals, who expressed respect, 
 gratitude, and regret, when he retired from the chief magis- 
 tracy, and who refused to express either respect, gratitude or 
 regret. I shall not open those journals. Publications more 
 abusive or scurrilous never saw the light, than were sent forth
 
 38 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 against Washington, and all his leading measures, from 
 presses south of New England. But I shall not look them up. 
 I employ no scavengers, no one is in attendance on me, ten- 
 dering such means of retaliation ; and if there were, with an 
 ass's load of them, with a bulk as huge as that which the gen- 
 tleman himself has produced, I would not touch one of them. 
 I see enough of the violence of our own times, to be no way 
 anxious to rescue from forgetfulness the extravagances of 
 times past. 
 
 Besides, what is all this to the present purpose? It has 
 nothing to do with the public lands, in regard to which the 
 attack was begun ; and it has nothing to do with those senti- 
 ments and opinions which, I have thought, tend to disunion, 
 and all of which the honorable member seems to have adopted 
 himself, and undertaken to defend. New England has, at 
 times so argues the gentleman held opinions as dangerous 
 as those which he now holds. Suppose this were so ; why 
 should he therefore abuse New England ? If he finds himself 
 countenanced by acts of hers, how is it that, while he relies on 
 these acts, he covers, or seeks to cover, their authors with re- 
 proach ? But, sir, if in the course of forty years, there have 
 been undue effervescences of party in New England, has the 
 same thing happened nowhere else ? Party animosity and 
 party outrage, not in New England but elsewhere, denounced 
 President Washington, not only as a federalist, but as a tory, 
 a British agent, a man who in his high office sanctioned cor- 
 ruption. But does the honorable member suppose, that if I 
 had a tender here who should put such an effusion of wicked- 
 ness and folly into my hand, I would stand up and read it 
 against the south ? Parties ran into great heats again in 1799 
 and 1800. What was said, sir, or rather what was not said, 
 in those years, against John Adams, one of the signers of the 
 declaration of independence, and its admitted ablest defender 
 on the floor of congress ? If the gentleman wishes to increase 
 his stories of party abuse and frothy violence, if he has a de- 
 termined proclivity to such pursuits, there are treasures of 
 that sort south of the Potomac, much to his taste, yet un- 
 touched. I shall not touch them.
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNK. 39 
 
 The gentleman, sir, lias spoken at large of former parties, 
 now no longer in being, by their received appellations, and 
 has undertaken to instruct us, not only in the knowledge' of 
 their principles, but of their respective pedigrees also. He has 
 ascended to their origin, and run out their genealogies. With 
 most exemplary modesty, lie speaks of the party to which he 
 professes to have belonged himself, as the true Pure, the only 
 honest, pati'iotic party, derived by regular descent, from 
 father to son, from the time of the virtuous Romans ! Spread- 
 ing before us the family tree of political parties, he takes es- 
 pecial care to show himself snugly perched on a popular bough ! 
 He is wakeful to the expediency of adopting such rules of de- 
 scent as shall bring him in, in exclusion of others, as an heir 
 to the inheritance of all public virtue and all true political 
 principle. His party and his opinions are sure to be orthodox; 
 heterodoxy is confined to his opponents. He spoke, sir, of the 
 federalists, and I thought I saw some eyes begin to open and 
 stare a little, when he ventured on that ground. I expected 
 he would draw his sketches rather lightly, when he looked on 
 the circle round him, and especially if he should cast his 
 thoughts to the high places out of the senate. Nevertheless, 
 he went back to Rome, ad annum urbe condita, and found 
 the fathers of the federalists in the primeval aristocrats of that 
 renowned empire. He traced the flow of federal blood down 
 through successive ages and centuries, till he brought it into 
 the veins of the American tories, of whom, by the way, there 
 were twenty in the Carolinas for one in Massachusetts. From 
 the tories he followed it to the federalists ; and, as the federal 
 party was broken up, and there was no possibility of trans- 
 mitting it further on this side of the Atlantic, he seems to 
 have discovered that it has gone off collaterally, though 
 against all the canons of descent, into the ultras of France, 
 and finally become extinguished, like exploded gas, among the 
 adherents of Don Miguel ! This, sir, is an abstract of the gen- 
 tleman's history of federalism. I am not about to controvert 
 it. It is not, at present, worth the pains of refutation ; be- 
 cause, sir, if at this day any one feels the sin of federalism 
 lying heavily on his conscience, he can easily procure remis-
 
 40 SPEECH IN KEPLY TO HATNE. 
 
 sion. He may even obtain an indulgence, if he be desirous 
 of repeating the same transgression. It is an affair of no dif- 
 ficulty to get into this same right line of patriotic descent. A 
 man nowadays is at liberty to choose his political parentage. 
 He may elect his own father. Federalist, or not, he may if he 
 choose, claim to belong to the favored stock, and his claim will 
 be allowed. He may carry back his pretensions just as far 
 as the honorable gentleman himself ; nay, he may make himself 
 out the honorable gentleman's cousin, and prove, satisfactorily, 
 that he is descended from the same political great-grand- 
 father. All this is allowable. We all know a process, sir, by 
 which the whole Essex junto could, in one hour, be all washed 
 white from their ancient federalism, aud come out, every one 
 of them, an original democrat, dyed in the wool ! Some of 
 them have actually undergone the operation, and they say it 
 is quite easy. The only inconvenience it occasions, as they 
 tell us, is a slight tendency of the blood to the face, a soft suf- 
 fusion, which, however, is very transient, since nothing is said 
 by those whom they join, calculated to deepen the red on the 
 cheek, but a prudent silence observed in regard to all the 
 past. 
 
 Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it is, into 
 New England, the honorable gentlemen all along professes to 
 be acting on the defensive. He elects to consider me as hav- 
 ing assailed South Carolina, and insists that he comes forth 
 only as her champion, and in her defense. Sir, 1 do not ad- 
 mit that I made any attack whatever on South Carolina. 
 Nothing like it. The honorable member, in his first speech, 
 expressed opinions, in regard to revenue and some other top- 
 ics, which I heard both with pain and with surprise. I told 
 the gentleman I was aware that such sentiments were enter- 
 tained out of the government, but had not expected to find 
 them advanced in it ; that I knew there were persons in the 
 south who speak of our Union with indifference or doubt, 
 taking pains to magnify its evils, and to say nothing of its 
 benefits ; that the honorable member himself, I was sure, 
 could never be one of these ; and I regretted the expression of 
 such opinions as he had avowed, because I thought their ob-
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 41 
 
 vious tendency was to encourage feelings of disrespect to the 
 Union, and to weaken its connection. This, sir, is the sum 
 and substance of all I said on the subject. And this consti- 
 tutes the attack which called on the chivalry of the gentle- 
 man, in his own opinion, to harry us with such a foray among 
 the party pamphlets and party proceedings of Massachusetts ! 
 If he means that I spoke with dissatisfaction or disrespect of 
 the ebullitions of individuals in South Carolina, it is true. 
 But if he means that I had assailed the character of the state, 
 her honor, or patriotism, that I had reilected on her history 
 or her conduct, he has not the slightest ground for any such 
 assumption. I did not even refer, I think, in my observations, 
 to any collection of individuals. I said nothing of the recent 
 conventions. I spoke in the most guarded and careful man- 
 ner, and only expressed my regret for the publication of opin- 
 ions, which 1 presumed the honorable member disapproved as 
 much as myself. In this, it seems, I was mistaken. I do not 
 remember that the gentleman had disclaimed any sentiment, 
 or any opinion, of a supposed anti- union tendency, which on 
 all or any of the recent occasions has been expressed. The 
 whole drift of his speech has been rather to prove, that, in 
 divers times and manners, sentiments equally liable to my ob- 
 jection have been promulgated in New England. 
 
 Then, sir, the gentleman has no fault to find with these re- 
 cently promulgated South Carolina opinions. And certainly 
 he need have none; for his own sentiments, as now advanced, 
 and advanced on reflection, as far as I have been able to com- 
 prehend them, go the full length of all these opinions. I pro- 
 pose, sir, to say something on these, and to consider how far 
 they are just and constitutional. Before doing that, however, 
 let me observe that the eulogium pronounced on the character 
 of the state of South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman, for 
 her revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concur- 
 rence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member 
 goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, 
 or distinguished character, South Carolina has produced. I 
 claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride, of her great 
 names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all, the Lau-
 
 42 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 rences, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Mari- 
 ons, Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in 
 by state lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable 
 of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their 
 day and generation, they served and honored the country, and 
 the whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the 
 whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman him- 
 self bears does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his 
 patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had 
 first opened upon the light of Massachusetts, instead of South 
 Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a 
 Carolina name so bright, as to produce e-nvy in my bosom ? 
 No, sir, increased gratification and delight, rather. I thank 
 God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able 
 to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that 
 other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall be 
 found, sir, in my place here in the senate, or elsewhere, to sneer 
 at public merit, because it happens to spring up beyond the lit- 
 tle limits of my own state or neighborhood; when I refuse, for 
 any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American 
 talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and 
 the country; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, 
 if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue, in any son of the 
 south, and if, moved by local prejudice or gangrened by state 
 jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his 
 just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the 
 roof of my month ! 
 
 Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge in 
 refreshing remembrance of the past; let me remind you that, 
 in early times, no states cherished greater harmony, both of 
 principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. 
 AVould to God that harmony might again return ! Shoulder 
 to shoulder they went through the revolution; hand in hand 
 they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt 
 his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, 
 if it exists, alienation, and distrust are the growth, unnatural 
 to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, 
 the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYXE. 43 
 
 Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachu- 
 setts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge 
 for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by 
 heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and 
 Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will 
 remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great 
 struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of 
 every state from New England to Georgia; and there they 
 will lie forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its 
 first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, 
 there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of 
 its original spirit. If discord and disuniqn shall wound it, if 
 party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if 
 folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary 
 restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union, by 
 which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the 
 end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; 
 it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may 
 still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it will 
 fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of 
 its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 
 
 There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far 
 the most grave and important duty, which I feel to be de- 
 volved on me by this occasion. It is to state, and to defend, 
 what I conceive to be the true principles of the constitution 
 under which we are here assembled. I might well have de- 
 sired that so weighty a task should have fallen into other arid 
 abler hands. I could have wished that it should have been 
 executed by those whose character and experience give weight 
 and influence to their opinions, such as cannot possibly be- 
 long to mine. But, sir, I have met the occasion, not sought 
 it; and I shall proceed to state my own sentiments, without 
 challenging for them any particular regard, with studied 
 plainness, and as much precision as possible. 
 
 I understand the honorable gentleman from South Caro- 
 lina to maintain, that it is a right of the state legislatures to 
 interfere, whenever, in their judgment, this government tran- 
 scends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of 
 its laws.
 
 44 SPEEC1I IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 I understand him- to maintain this right, as a right existing 
 under the constitution, not as a right to overthrow it on the 
 ground of extreme necessity, such as would justify violent 
 revolution. 
 
 I understand him to maintain an authority, on the part of 
 the states, thus to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the 
 exercise of power by the general government, of checking it, 
 and of compelling it to conform to their opinion of the extent 
 of its powers. 
 
 I understand him to maintain, that the ultimate power of 
 judging of the constitutional extent of its own authority is not 
 lodged exclusively in the general government, or any branch 
 of it; but that, on the contrary, the states may lawfully de- 
 cide for themselves, and each state for itself, whether, in a 
 given case, the act of the general government transcends its 
 power. 
 
 I understand him to insist, that, if the exigency of the case, 
 in the opinion of any state government, require it, such state- 
 government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act 
 of the general government which it deems plainly and palpa- 
 bly unconstitutional. 
 
 This is the sum of what I understand from him to be the 
 South Carolina doctrine, and the doctrine which he maintains. 
 I propose to consider it, and co'mpare it with the constitution. 
 Allow me to say, as a preliminary remark, that I call this the 
 South Carolina doctrine only because the gentleman himself has 
 so denominated it. I do not feel at liberty to say that South 
 Carolina, as a state, has ever advanced these sentiments. I 
 hope she has not, and never may. That a great majority of 
 her people are opposed to the tariff laws, is doubtless true. 
 That a majority, somewhat less than that just mentioned, con- 
 scientiously believe these laws unconstitutional, may probably 
 also be true. But that any majority holds to the right of di- 
 rect state interference at state discretion, the right of nullify- 
 ing acts of congress by acts of state legislation, is more than 
 I know, and what I shall be slow to believe. 
 
 That there are individuals besides the honorable gentleman 
 who do maintain these opinions, is quite certain. I recollect
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 45 
 
 the recent expression of a sentiment, which circumstances at- 
 tending its utterance and publication justify us in supposing 
 was not unpremeditated: "The sovereignty of the state- 
 never to be controlled, construed, or decided on, but by her 
 own feelings of honorable justice." 
 
 The inherent right in the people to reform their government 
 I do not deny ; and they have another right, and that is, to 
 resist unconstitutional laws, without overturning the govern- 
 ment. It is no doctrine of mine that unconstitutional laws 
 bind the people. The great question is, Whose prerogative is 
 it to decide on the constitutionality or unconstitutionally of 
 the laws ? On that, the main debate hinges. 
 
 This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government 
 and the source of its power. Whose agent is it ? Is it the 
 creature of the state legislatures, or the creature of the peo- 
 ple ? If the government of the United States be the agent of 
 the state governments, then they may control it, provided 
 they can agree in the manner of controlling it ; if it be the 
 agent of the people, then the people alone can control it, re- 
 strain it, modify, or reform it. It is observable enough, that 
 the doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends leads 
 him to the necessity of maintaining, not only that this general 
 government is the creature of the states, but that it is the 
 creature of each of the states severally, so that each may as- 
 sert the power for itself of determining whether it acts within 
 the limits of its authority. It is the servant of four-and- 
 t went y masters, of different wills and different purposes, and 
 yet bound to obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no less) 
 arises from a misconception as to the origin of this government 
 and its true character. It is, sir, the people's constitution, 
 the people's government, made for the people, made by the 
 people, and answerable to the people. The people of the 
 United States have declared that this constitution shall be the 
 supreme law. We must either admit the proposition, or dis- 
 pute the authority. The states are, unquestionably, sovereign, 
 so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law. 
 But the state legislatures, as political bodies, however sover- 
 eign, are yet not sovereign over the people. So far as the
 
 46 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 people have given power to the general government, so far 
 the grant is unquestionably good, and the government holds 
 of the people, and not of the state governments. We are all 
 agents of the same supreme power, the people. The general 
 government and the state governments derive their authority 
 from the same source. Neither can, in relation to the other, 
 be called primary, though one is definite and restricted, and 
 the other general and residuary. The national government 
 possesses those powers which it can be shown the people have 
 conferred on it, and no more. All the rest belongs to the 
 state governments, or to the people themselves. So far as the 
 people have restrained state sovereignty, by the expression of 
 their will, in the constitution of the Uuited States, so far, it 
 must be admitted, state sovereignty is effectually controlled. 
 I do not contend that it is, or ought to be, controlled farther. 
 The sentiment to which I have referred propounds that state 
 sovereignty is only to be controlled by its own "feeling of 
 justice;" that is to say, it is not to be controlled at all, for 
 one who is to follow his own feelings, is under no legal con- 
 trol. Now, however men may think this ought to be, the fact 
 is, that the people of the United States have chosen to impose 
 control on state sovereignties. There are those, doubtless, 
 who wish they had been left without restraint ; but the con- 
 stitution has ordered the matter differently. To make war, 
 for instance, is an exercise of sovereignty ; but the constitu- 
 tion declares that no state shall make war. To coin money is 
 another exercise of sovereign power; but no state is at liberty 
 to coin money. Again, the constitution says that no sovereign 
 state shall be so sovereign as to make a treaty. These prohi- 
 bitions it must be confessed, are a control on the state sover- 
 eignty of South Carolina, as well as of the other states, which 
 does not arise " from her own feelings of honorable justice." 
 Such an opinion, therefore, is in defiance of the plainest pro- 
 visions of the constitution. 
 
 Resolutions, sir, have been recently passed by the legislature 
 of South Carolina. I need not refer to them ; they go no far- 
 ther than the honorable gentleman himself has gone, and I 
 hope not so far. I content myself, therefore, with debating 
 the matter with him.
 
 SPEECH IN EEPLY TO HAYNE. 47 
 
 And now, sir, what I have first to say on this subject is, 
 that at no time, and under no circumstances, has New Eng- 
 land, or any state in New England, or any respectable body 
 of persons in New England, or any public man of standing in 
 New England, put forth such a doctrine as this Carolina doc- 
 trine. 
 
 The gentleman has found no case, he can find none, to sup- 
 port his own opinions by New England authority. New Eng- 
 land has studied the constitution in other schools, and under 
 other teachers. She looks upon it with other regards, and 
 deems more highly and reverently both of its just authority 
 and its utility and excellence. The history of her legislative 
 proceedings may be traced. The ephemeral effusions of tem- 
 porary bodies, called together by the excitement of the occa- 
 sion, may be hunted up; they have been hunted up. The 
 opinions and votes of her public men, in and out of congress, 
 may be explored. It will all be in vain. The Carolina doc- 
 trine can derive from her neither countenance nor support. 
 She rejects it now ; she always did reject it; and till she loses 
 her senses, she always will reject it. The honorable member 
 has referred to expressions on the subject of the embargo law, 
 made in this place, by an honorable and venerable gentleman, 
 (Mr. Hillhouse,) now favoring us with his presence. He quotes 
 that distinguished senator as saying, that, in his judgment, 
 the embargo law was unconstitutional, and that, therefore, in 
 his opinion, the people were not bound to obey it. That, sir, 
 is perfectly constitutional language. An unconstitutional law 
 is not binding; but then it does not rest with a resolution or a 
 law of a state legislature to decide whether an act of congress 
 be or be not constitutional. An unconstitutional act of con- 
 gress would not bind the people of this district, although they 
 have no legislature to interfere in their behalf; and, on the 
 other hand, a constitutional law of congress does bind the 
 citizens of every state, although all their legislatures should 
 undertake to annul it by act or resolution. The venerable 
 Connecticut senator is a constitutional lawyer, of sound prin- 
 ciples and enlarged knowledge: a statesman practised and 
 experienced, bred in the company of Washington, and holding
 
 48 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 just views upon the nature of our governments. He believed 
 the embargo unconstitutional, and so did others; but what 
 then ? Who did he suppose was to decide that question ? The 
 state legislatures ? Certainly not. No such sentiment ever 
 escaped his lips. 
 
 Let us follow up, sir, this New England opposition to the 
 embargo laws; let us trace it, till we discern the principle 
 which controlled and governed New England throughout the 
 whole course of that opposition. We shall then see what sim- 
 ilarity there is between the New England school of constitu- 
 tional opinions, and this modern Carolina school. The gen- 
 tleman, I think, read a petition from some single individual 
 addressed to the legislature of Massachusetts, asserting the 
 Carolina doctrine; that is, the right of state interference to 
 arrest the laws of the Union. The fate of that petition shows 
 the sentiment of the legislature. It met no favor. The opin- 
 ions of Massachusetts were otherwise. They had been ex- 
 pressed in 1798, in answer to the resolutions of Virginia, and 
 she did not depart from them, nor bend them to the times. 
 Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, as she felt herself to be, 
 she still held fast her integrity to the Union. The gentleman 
 may find in her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction 
 with the measures of government, and great and deep dislike 
 to the embargo; all this makes the case so much the stronger 
 for her; for, notwithstanding all this dissatisfaction and dis- 
 like, she claimed no right, still, to sever asunder the bonds 
 of the Union. There was heat, and there was anger in her 
 political feeling. Be it so; her heat or her anger did not, 
 nevertheless, betray her into infidelity to the government. 
 The gentleman labors to prove that she disliked the embargo 
 as much as South Carolina dislikes the tariff, and expressed 
 her dislike as strongly. Be it so; but did she propose the 
 Carolina remedy ? did she threaten to interfere, by state 
 authority, to annul the laws of the Union? That is the ques- 
 tion for the gentleman's consideration. 
 
 No doubt, sir, a great majority of the people of New Eng- 
 land conscientiously believed the embargo law of 1807 uncon- 
 stitutional; as conscientiously, certainly, as the people of Soufh
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 49 
 
 Carolina hold that opinion of the tariff. They reasoned thus: 
 Congress has power to regulate commerce; but here is a law 
 they said, stopping all commerce and stopping it indefinitely. 
 The law is perpetual ; that is, it is not limited in point of time, 
 and must of course continue until it shall be repealed by some 
 other law. It is as perpetual, therefore, as the law against 
 treason or murder. Now is this regulating commerce, or de- 
 stroying it ? Is it guiding, controlling, giving the rule to 
 commerce, as a subsisting thing, or is it putting an end to it 
 altogether ? Nothing is more certain, than that a majority in 
 New England deemed this law a violation of the constitution. 
 The very case required by the gentleman to justify state inter- 
 ference had then arisen. Massachusetts believed this law to 
 be " a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power 
 not granted by the constitution." Deliberate as it was, for it 
 was long continued; palpable she thought it, as no words in 
 the constitution gave the power, and only a construction, in 
 her opinion most violent, raised it; dangerous it was, since it 
 threatened utter ruin to her most important interests. Here, 
 then, was a Carolina case. How did Massachusetts deal with 
 it? It was, as she thought, a plain, manifest, palpable viola- 
 tion of the constitution, and it brought ruin to her doors. 
 Thousands of families, and hundreds of thousands of individ- 
 uals, were beggared by it. While she saw and felt all this, 
 she saw and felt also, that, as a measure of national policy, it 
 was perfectly futile; that the country was noway benefited by 
 that which caused so much individual distress; that it was ef- 
 ficient only for the production of evil, and all that evil in- 
 flicted on ourselves. In such a case, under such circum- 
 stances, how did Massachusetts demean herself ? Sir, she re- 
 monstrated, she memorialized, she addressed herself to the 
 general government, not exactly " with the concentrated 
 energy of passion," but with her own strong sense, and the 
 energy of sober conviction. But she did not interpose the arm 
 of her own power to arrest the law, and break the embargo. 
 Far from it. Her principles bound her to two things; and 
 she followed her principles, lead where they might. First, to 
 submit to every constitutional law of congress, and secondly,
 
 50 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 if the constitutional validity of the law be doubted, to refer 
 that question to the decision of the proper tribunals. The 
 first principle is vain and ineffectual without the second. A 
 majority of us in New England believed the embargo law un- 
 constitutional ; but the great question was, and always will be 
 in such cases, Who is to decide this ? Who is to judge be- 
 tween the people and the government ? And, sir, it is quite 
 plain, that the constitution of the United States confers on the 
 government itself, to be exercised by its appropriate depart- 
 ment, and under its own responsibility to the people, this 
 power of deciding ultimately and conclusively upon the just 
 extent of its own authority. If this had not been done, we 
 should not have advanced a single step beyond the old con- 
 federation. 
 
 Being fully of opinion that the embargo law was unconstitu- 
 tional, the people of New England were yet equally clear in 
 the opinion it was a matter they did not doubt upon that 
 the question, after all, must be decided by the judicial tribu- 
 nals of the United States. Before these tribunals, therefore, 
 they brought the question. Under the provisions of the law, 
 they had given bonds to millions in amount, and which were 
 alleged to be forfeited. They suffered the bonds to be sued, 
 and thus raised the question. In the old-fashioned way of 
 settling disputes, they went to law. The case came to hear- 
 ing, and solemn argument; and he who espoused their cause, 
 and stood up for them against the validity of the embargo 
 act, was none other than that great man, of whom the gentle- 
 man has made honorable mention, Samuel Dexter. He was 
 then, sir, in the fullness of his knowledge, and the maturity 
 of his strength. He had retired from long and distinguished 
 public service here, to the renewed pursuit of professional 
 duties, carrying with him all that enlargement and expansion, 
 all the new strength and force, which an acquaintance with 
 the more general subjects discussed in the national councils is 
 capable of adding to professional attainment, in a mind of true 
 greatness and comprehension. He was a lawyer, and he was 
 also a statesman. He had studied the constitution, when he 
 filled public station, that he might defend it. He had exam-
 
 SPEECH IN KEPLY TO HAYNE. 51 
 
 ined the principles that might maintain them. More than all 
 men, or at least as much as any man, he was attached to the 
 general government and to the union of the states. His feel- 
 ings and opinions all ran in that direction. A question of 
 constitutional law, too, was, of all subjects, that one which 
 was best suited to his talents and learning. Aloof from tech- 
 nicality, and unfettered by artificial rule, such a question gave 
 opportunity for that deep and clear analysis, that mighty 
 grasp of principle, which so much distinguished his higher 
 efforts. His very statement was argument; his inference 
 seemed demonstration. The earnestness of his own conviction 
 wrought conviction in others. One 'was convinced, and be- 
 lieved, and assented, because it was gratifying, delightful, to 
 think, and feel, and believe, in unison with an intellect of such 
 evident superiority. 
 
 Mr. Dexter, sir, such as I have described him, argued the 
 New England cause. He put into his effort his whole heart, 
 as well as all the powers of his understanding ; for he had 
 avowed, in the most public manner, his entire concurrence 
 with his neighbors on the point in dispute. He argued the 
 cause ; it was lost, and New England submitted. The estab- 
 lished tribunals pronounced the law constitutional, and New 
 England acquiesced. Now, sir, is not this the exact opposite 
 of the doctrine of the gentleman from South Carolina ? Ac- 
 cording to him, instead of referring to the judicial tribunals, 
 we should have broken up the embargo by laws of our own ; 
 we should have repealed it, quoad New England ; for we had 
 a strong, palpable, and oppressive case. Sir, we believed the 
 embargo unconstitutional ; but still that was matter of opinion, 
 and who was to decide it ? We thought it a clear case ; but, 
 nevertheless, we did not take the law into our own hands, be- 
 cause we did not wish to bring about a revolution, nor to 
 break up the Union ; for I maintain, that between submission 
 to the decision of the constituted tribunals, and revolution, or 
 disunion, there is no middle ground ; there is no ambiguous 
 condition, half allegiance and half rebellion. And, sir, how 
 futile, how very futile it is, to admit the right of state inter- 
 ference, and then attempt to save it from the character of un-
 
 52 SPEECH IN KEPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 lawful resistance, by adding terms of qualification to the 
 causes and occasions, leaving all these qualifications, like the 
 case itself, in the discretion of the state governments. It 
 must be a clear case, it is said, a deliberate case, a palpable 
 case, a dangerous case. But then the state is still left at lib- 
 erty to decide for herself what is clear, what is deliberate, what 
 is palpable, what is dangerous. Do adjectives and epithets 
 avail anything ? Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that 
 the merits of both sides of a controversy appear very clear, 
 and very palpable, to those who respectively espouse them ; 
 and both sides usually grow clearer as the controversy ad- 
 vances. South Carolina sees unconstitutionally in the tariff ; 
 she sees oppression there, also, and she sees danger. Pennsyl- 
 vania, with a vision not less sharp, looks at the same tariff, 
 and sees no such thing in it ; she sees it all constitutional, all 
 useful, all safe. The faith of South Carolina is strengthened by 
 opposition, and she now not only sees, but resolves, that the 
 tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive, and dangerous ; 
 but Pennsylvania not to be behind her neighbors, and equally 
 willing to strengthen her own faith by a confident asseveration, 
 resolves, also, and gives to every warm affirmative of South 
 Carolina, a plain, downright, Pennsylvania negative. South 
 Carolina to show the strength and unity of her opinion, 
 brings her assembly to a unanimity, within seven voices ; 
 Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in this respect any more than 
 in others, reduces her dissentient fraction to a single vote. 
 Now, sir, again, I ask the gentleman, What is to be done? 
 Are these states both right ? Is he bound to consider them 
 both right ? If not, which is in the wrong ? or rather, which 
 has the best right to decide ? And if he, and if I, are not to 
 know what the constitution means, and what it is, till these 
 two state legislatures, and the twenty-two others, shall agree 
 in its construction, what have we sworn to, when we have 
 sworn to maintain it ! I was forcibly struck, sir, with one re- 
 flection, as the gentleman went on in his speech. He quoted 
 Mr. Madison's resolutions, to prove that a state may interfere, 
 in a case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a 
 power not granted. The honorable member supposes the
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 53 
 
 tariff law to be such an exercise of power ; and that conse- 
 quently a case has arisen in which the state may, if it see fit, 
 interfere by its own law. Now it so happens, nevertheless, 
 that Mr. Madison deems this same tariff law quite constitu- 
 tional. Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, in his 
 judgment, no violation at all. So that, while they use his 
 authority for a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very 
 case before them. All this, sir, shows the inherent futility, I 
 had almost said a stronger word, of conceding this power of 
 interference to the states, and then attempting to secure it 
 from abuse by imposing qualifications of which the states 
 themselves are to judge. One of two things is true ; either 
 the laws of the Union are beyond the discretion and beyond 
 the control of the states ; or else we have no constitution of 
 general government, and are thrust back again to the days of 
 the confederacy. 
 
 Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman's doctrine 
 had been received and acted upon in New England, in the 
 times of the embargo and non-intercourse, we should probably 
 not now have been here. The government would very likely 
 have gone^to pieces, and crumbled into dust. No stronger case 
 can ever arise than existed under those laws ; no states can 
 ever entertain a clearer conviction than the New England 
 states then entertained ; and if they had been under the 
 influence of that heresy of opinion, as I must call it, which 
 the honorable member espouses, this Union would, in all 
 probability, have been scattered to the four winds. I ask the 
 gentleman, therefore, to apply his principles to that case ; 
 I ask him to come forth and declare, whether, in his opinion, 
 the New England states would have been justified in interfer- 
 ing to break up the embargo system under the conscientious 
 opinions which they held upon it ? Had they a right to annul 
 that law ? Does he admit or deny ? If what is thought palpa- 
 bly unconstitutional in South Carolina justifies that state in 
 arresting the progress of the law, tell me whether that which 
 was thought palpably unconstitutional also in Massachusetts 
 would have justified her in doing the same thing. Sir, I deny 
 the whole doctrine. It has not a foot of ground in the consti-
 
 54 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 tution to stand on. No public man of reputation ever ad- 
 vanced it in Massachusetts in the warmest times, or could 
 maintain himself upon it there at any time. 
 
 I must now beg to ask, sir, Whence is this supposed right of 
 the states derived ? Where do they find the power to inter- 
 fere with the laws of the Union ? Sir, the opinion which the 
 honorable gentleman maintains is a notion founded in a total 
 misapprehension, in my judgment, of the origin of this govern- 
 ment, and of the foundation on which it stands. I hold it to be 
 a popular government, erected by the people; those who ad- 
 minister it, responsible to the people ; and itself capable of be- 
 ing amended and modified, just as the people may choose it 
 should be. It is as popular, just as truly- emanating from the 
 people, as the state governments. It is created for one pur- 
 pose; the state governments for another. It has its own pow- 
 ers ; they have theirs. There is no more authority with them 
 to arrest the operation of a law of congress, than with congress 
 to arrest the operation of their laws. We are here to admin- 
 ister a constitution emanating immediately from the people, and 
 trusted by them to our administration. It is not the creature 
 of the state governments. It is of no moment to the argument, 
 that certain acts of the state legislatures are necessary to fill our 
 seats in this body. .That is not one of their original state pow- 
 ers, a part of the sovereignty of the state. It is a duty which 
 the people, by the constitution itself, have imposed on the state 
 legislatures; and which they might have left to be performed 
 elsewhere, if they had seen fit. So they have left the choice of 
 president with electors; but all this does not affect the propo- 
 sition that this whole government, president, senate, and house 
 of representatives, is a popular government. It leaves it still 
 all its popular character. The governor of the state (in some 
 of the states) is chosen, not directly by the people, but by those 
 who are chosen by the people, for the purpose of performing, 
 among other duties, that of electing a governor. Is the gov- 
 ernment of the state, on that account, not a popular govern- 
 ment? This government, sir, is the independent offspring 
 of the popular will. It is not the creature of state legislatures; 
 nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the people brought
 
 SPEEC11 IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 55 
 
 it into existence, established it, and have hitherto supported it, 
 for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain sal- 
 utary restraints on state sovereignties. The states cannot now 
 make war; they cannot contract alliances; they cannot make, 
 each for itself, separate regulations of commerce ; they cannot 
 lay imposts; they cannot coin money. If this constitution, 
 sir, be the creature of state legislatures, it must be admitted 
 that it has obtained a strange control over the volition of its 
 creators. 
 
 The people, then, sir, erected this government. They gave 
 it a constitution, and in that constitution they have enumerated 
 the powers which they bestow on it. They have made it a 
 limited government. They have defined its authority. They 
 have restrained it to the exercise of such powers as are granted; 
 and all others, they declare, are reserved to the states or the 
 people. But, sir, they have not stopped here. If they had, 
 they would have accomplished but half their work. No defi- 
 nition can be so clear, as to avoid possibility of doubt; no 
 limitation so precise, as to exclude all uncertainty. Who, then, 
 shall construe this grant of the people ? Who shall interpret 
 their will, where it may be supposed they have left it doubtful ? 
 With whom do they repose this ultimate right of deciding on 
 the powers of the government ? Sir, they have settled all this 
 in the fullest manner. They have left it with the government 
 itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, the very chief end, the 
 main design, for which the whole constitution was framed and 
 adopted, was to establish a government that should not be 
 obliged to act through state agency, or depend on state opinion 
 and state discretion. The people had had quite enough of that 
 kind of government under the confederacy. Under that sys- 
 tem, the legal action, the application of law to individuals, be- 
 longed exclusively to the states. Congress could only recom- 
 mend; their acts were not of binding force, till the states had 
 adopted and sanctioned them. Are we in that condition still ? 
 Are we yet at the mercy of state discretion and state construc- 
 tion ? Sir, if we are, then vain will be our attempt to maintain 
 the constitution under which we sit. 
 
 But, sir, the people have wisely provided, in the constitution
 
 56 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 itself, a proper, suitable mode and tribunal for settling questions 
 of constitutional law. There are in the constitution grants of 
 powers to congress, and restrictions on those powers. There 
 are, also, prohibitions on the states. Some authority must, 
 therefore, necessarily exist, having the ultimate jurisdiction to 
 fix and ascertain the interpretation of these grants, restrictions, 
 and prohibitions. The constitution has itself pointed out, or- 
 dained, and established that authority. How has it accom- 
 plished this great and essential end ? By declaring, sir, that 
 " the constitution, and the laws of the United States made in 
 pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, any- 
 thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. '' 
 
 This, sir, was the first great step. By this the supremacy 
 of the constitution and laws of the United States is declared. 
 The people so will it. No state law is to be valid which comes 
 in conflict with the constitution, or any law of the United 
 States passed in pursuance of it. But who shall decide this 
 question of interference ? To whom lies the last appeal ? This, 
 sir, the constitution itself decides also, by declaring " that the 
 judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the con- 
 stitution and laws of the United States." These two provis- 
 ions, sir, cover the whole ground. They are, in truth, the key- 
 stone of the arch ! With these it is a government; without 
 them it is a confederacy. In pursuance of these clear and ex- 
 press provisions, congress established, at its very first session, 
 in the judicial act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, 
 and for bringing all questions of constitutional power to the 
 final decision of the supreme court. It then, sir, became a 
 government. It then had the means of self-protection ; and 
 but for this, it would, in all probability, have been now among 
 the things which are past. Having constituted the government, 
 and declared its powers, the people have further said, that, since 
 somebody must decide on the extent of these powers, the. gov- 
 ernment shall itself decide; subject, always, like other popular 
 governments, to its responsibility to the people. And now, sir, 
 I repeat, how is it that a state legislature acquires any power to 
 interfere ? Who, or what, gives them the right to say to the
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNB. 57 
 
 people, " We, who are your agents and servants, for one pur- 
 pose, will undertake to decide, that your other agents and ser- 
 vants, appointed by you for another purpose, have transcended 
 the authority you gave them !" The reply would be, I think, 
 not impertinent, " Who made you a judge over another's ser- 
 vants? To their own masters they stand or fall." 
 
 Sir, I deny this power of state legislatures altogether. It 
 cannot stand the test of examination. Gentlemen may say, 
 that, in an extreme case, a state government might protect 
 the people from intolerable oppression. Sir, in such a case, the 
 people might protect themselves, without the aid of the state 
 governments. Such a case warrants revolution. It must make, 
 when it comes, a law for itself. A nullifying act as a state 
 legislature cannot alter the case, nor make resistance any more 
 lawful. In maintaining these sentiments, sir, I am but assert- 
 ing the rights of the people. I state what they have declared, 
 and insist on their right to declare it. They have chosen to 
 repose this power in the general government, and I think it 
 my duty to support it, like other constitutional powers. 
 
 For myself, sir, I do not admit the jurisdiction of South Car- 
 olina, or any other state, to prescribe my constitutional duty, 
 or to settle, between me and the people, the validity of laws of 
 congress, for which I have voted. I decline her umpirage. I 
 have not sworn to support the constitution according to her con- 
 struction of its clauses. I have not stipulated by my oath of 
 office or otherwise, to come under any responsibility, except 
 to the people, and those whom they have appointed to pass 
 upon the question, whether laws, supported by my votes, con- 
 form to the constitution of the country. And, sir, if we look 
 to the general nature of the case, could anything have been more 
 preposterous, than to make a government for the whole Union, 
 and yet leave its powers subject, not to one interpretation, but 
 to thirteen or twenty-four interpretations ! Instead of one tri- 
 bunal, established by all, responsible to all, with power to de- 
 cide for all, shall constitutional questions be left to four-and- 
 twenty popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for itself, and 
 none bound to respect the decisions of others; and each at lib- 
 erty, too, to give a new construction on every new election of
 
 58 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 its own members ? Would anything, with such a principle in 
 it, rather with such a destitution of all principle, be fit to be 
 called a government ? No, sir. It should not be denominated 
 a constitution. It should be called, rather, a collection of top- 
 ics for everlasting controversy; heads of debate for a disputa- 
 tious people. It would not be a government. It would not 
 be adequate to any practical good, or fit for any country to live 
 under. 
 
 To avoid all possibility of being misunderstood, allow me to 
 repeat again, in the fullest manner, that I claim no powers 
 for the government by forced or unfair construction. I admit 
 that it is a government of strictly limited powers ; of enumer- 
 ated, specified, and particularized powers ; and that whatsoever 
 is not granted, is withheld. But notwithstanding all this, and 
 however the grant of powers may be expressed, its limit 
 and extent may yet, in some cases, admit of doubt ; and 
 the general government would be good for nothing, it would 
 be incapable of long existing, if some mode had not been pro- 
 vided in which those doubts, as they should arise, might 
 be peaceably, but authoritatively solved. 
 
 And now, Mr. President, let me run the honorable gen- 
 tleman's doctrine a little into its practical application. Let us 
 look at his probable modus operandi. If a thing can be done, 
 an ingenious man can tell how it is to be done. Now I 
 wish to be informed hoiv this state interference is to be put in 
 practice, without violence, bloodshed, and rebellion. We will 
 take the existing case of the tariff law. South Carolina is said 
 to have made up her opinion upon it. If we do not repeal it, 
 (as we probably shall not,) she will then apply to the case the 
 remedy of her doctrine. She will, we must suppose, pass 
 a law of her legislature, declaring the several acts of congress, 
 usually called the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they re- 
 spect South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. So far, all is a 
 paper transaction, and easy enough. But the collector at 
 Charleston is collecting the duties imposed by these tariff laws. 
 He, therefore, must be stopped. The collector will seize 
 the goods if the tariff duties are not paid. The state authori- 
 ties will undertake their rescue ; the marshal, with his posse,
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 59 
 
 will come to the collector's aid, and here the contest begins. 
 The militia of the state will be called out to sustain the nulli- 
 fying act. They will march, sir, under a very gallant leader ; 
 for I believe the honorable member himself commands the 
 militia of that part of the state. He will raise the NULLIFYING 
 ACT on his standard, and spread it out as his banner ! It will 
 have a preamble, bearing, that the tariff laws are palpable, 
 deliberate, and dangerous violations of the constitution ! He 
 will proceed, with his banner flying, to the custom-house in 
 Charleston, 
 
 " All the while, 
 Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 
 
 Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the collector that he 
 must collect no more duties under any of the tariff laws. 
 This he will be somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with a 
 grave countenance, considering what hand South Carolina 
 herself had in that of 1816. But, sir, the collector would not, 
 probably, desist at his bidding. He would show him the law 
 of congress, the treasury instruction, and his own oath of 
 office. He would say, he should perform his duty, come what 
 might. 
 
 Here would come a pause ; for they say that a certain still- 
 ness precedes the tempest. The trumpeter would hold his 
 breath awhile, and before all this military array should fall on 
 the custom-house, collector, clerks, and all, it is very probable 
 some of those composing it would request of their gallant 
 commander-in-chief to be informed a little upon the point of 
 law; for they have, doubtless, a just respect for his opinions 
 as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery as a soldier. They 
 know he has read Blackstone and the constitution, as well as 
 Turenne and Vauban. They would ask him, therefore, some- 
 thing concerning their rights in this matter. They would 
 inquire, whether it was not somewhat dangerous to resist a 
 law of the United States. What would be the nature of their 
 offence, they would wish to learn, if they, by military force 
 and array, resisted the execution in Carolina of a law of the 
 United States, and it should turn out, after all, that the law 
 was constitutional ! He would answer, of course, treason.
 
 60 SPEECH IN EEPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 No lawyer could give any other answer. John Fries, he 
 would tell them, had learned that, some years ago. How, 
 then, they would ask, do you propose to defend us ? We are 
 not afraid of bullets, but treason has a way of taking people 
 off that we do not much relish. How do you propose to 
 defend us? "Look at my floating banner," he would reply ; 
 "see there the nullifying law!" Is it your opinion, gallant 
 commander, they would then say, that, if we should be 
 indicted for treason, that same floating banner of yours would 
 make a good plea in bar? "South Carolina is a sovereign 
 state," he would reply. That is true ; but would the judge 
 admit our plea ! "These tariff laws," he would repeat "are 
 unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, dangerously." That 
 may all be so ; but if the tribunal should not happen to be of 
 that opinion, shall we swing for it ? We are ready to die for 
 our country, but it is rather an awkward business, this dying 
 without touching the ground ! After all, that is a sort of hemp 
 tax worse than any part of the tariff. 
 
 Mr. President, the honorable gentleman would be in a 
 dilemma, like that of another great general. He would have 
 a knot* before him which he could not untie. He must cut it 
 with his sword. He must say to his followers, "Defend your- 
 selves with your bayonets ;" and this is war civil war. 
 
 Direct collision, therefore, between force and force, is the 
 unavoidable result of that remedy for the revision of unconsti- 
 tutional laws which the gentleman contends for. It must 
 happen in the very first case to which it is applied. Is not 
 this the plain result ? To resist by force the execution of a 
 law, generally, is treason. Can the courts of the United 
 States take notice of the indulgence of a state to commit 
 treason? The common saying that a state cannot commit 
 treason herself, is nothing to the purpose. Can she authorize 
 
 * A knot the Gordian knot. Gordins, a Phrygian peasant, was chosen 
 king by the Phrygians. He consecrated his wagon to Jupiter, and so skill- 
 fully tied the yoke to the pole that the ends of the cord could not be seen. 
 It was current rumor that whoever untied the knot should be King of Asia, 
 and when Alexander the Great was shown it, he cut it with his sword, say- 
 ing, " It is thus we loose our knots."
 
 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 61 
 
 others to do it ? If John Fries had produced an act of Penn- 
 sylvania, annulling the law of congress, would it have helped 
 his case? Talk about it as we will, these docti'ines go the 
 length of revolution. They are incompatible with any peacea- 
 ble administration of the government. They lead directly to 
 disunion and civil commotion ; and therefore it is, that at 
 their commencement, when they are first found to be main- 
 tained by respectable men, and in a tangible form, I enter my 
 public protest against them all. 
 
 The honorable gentleman argues, that if this government 
 be the sole judge of the extent of its own powers, whether that 
 right of judging be in congress or the supreme court, it equally 
 subverts state sovereignty. This the gentleman sees, or thinks 
 he sees, although he cannot perceive how the right of judging, 
 in this matter, if left to the exercise of state legislatures, has 
 any tendency to subvert the government of the Union. The 
 gentleman's opinion may be, that the right ought not to have 
 been lodged with the general government ; he may like better 
 such a constitution as we should have under the right of state 
 interference ; but I ask him to meet me on the plain matter of 
 fact. I ask him to meet me on the constitution itself. I ask 
 him if the power is not found there, clearly and visibly found 
 there ? 
 
 But, sir, what is this danger, and what are the grounds of 
 it ? Let it be remembered that the constitution of the United 
 States is not unalterable. It is to continue in its present form 
 no longer than the people who established it shall choose to 
 continue it. If they shall become convinced that they have 
 made an injudicious or inexpedient partition and distribution 
 of power between the state governments and the general gov- 
 ernment, they can alter that distribution at will. 
 
 If anything be found in the national constitution, either by 
 original provision or subsequent interpretation, which ought 
 not to be in it, the people know how to get rid of it. If any 
 construction be established unacceptable to them, so as to be- 
 come practically a part of the constitution, they will amend 
 it, at their own sovereign pleasure. But while the people 
 choose to maintain it as it is, while they are satisfied with it,
 
 62 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 and refuse to change it, who has given, or who can give, to 
 the state legislatures a right to alter it, either by interference, 
 construction, or otherwise ? Gentlemen do not seem to recol- 
 lect that the people have any power to do anything for them- 
 selves. They imagine there is no safety for them, any longer 
 than they are under the close guardianship of the state legis- 
 latures. Sir, the people have not trusted their safety, in re- 
 gard to the general constitution, to these hands. They have 
 required other security, and taken other bonds. They have 
 chosen to trust themselves, first, to the plain words of the in- 
 strument, and to such construction as the government itself, 
 in doubtful cases, should put on its own powers, and under 
 their oaths of office, and subject to their responsibility to 
 them; just as the people of a state trust their own state gov- 
 ernment with a similar power. Secondly, they have reposed 
 their trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, and in their 
 own power to remove their own servants and agents whenever 
 they see cause. Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the ju- 
 dicial power, which, in order that it might be trustworthy, 
 they have made as respectable, as disinterested, and as inde- 
 pendent as was practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to 
 rely, in case of necessity, or high expediency, on their known 
 and admitted power to alter or amend the constitution, peace- 
 ably and quietly, whenever experience shall point out defects 
 or imperfections. And, finally, the people of the United 
 States have at no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, au- 
 thorized any state legislature to construe or interpret their 
 high instrument of government; much less, to interfere, by 
 their own power, to arrest its course and operation. 
 
 If, sir, the people in these respects had done otherwise than 
 they have done, their constitution could neither have been 
 preserved, nor would it have been worth preserving. And if 
 its plain provisions shall now be disregarded, and these new 
 doctrines interpolated in it, it will become as feeble and help- 
 less a being as its enemies, whether early or more recent, 
 could possibly desire. It will exist in every state, but as a 
 poor dependent on state permission. It must borrow leave to 
 be ; and will be, no longer than state pleasure, or state discre-
 
 SPEECH IN EEPLY TO HAYNE. 63 
 
 tion, sees fit to grant the indulgence, and prolong its poor ex- 
 istence. 
 
 But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. 
 The people have preserved this, their own chosen constitution, 
 for forty years, and have seen their happiness, prosperity, and 
 renown grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. 
 They are now, generally, strongly attached to it. Overthrown 
 by direct assault, it cannot be ; evaded, undermined, NULLIFIED, 
 it will not be, if we, and those who shall succeed us here, as 
 agents and representatives of the people, shall conscientiously 
 and vigilantly discharge the two great branches of our public 
 trust, faithfully to preserve, and wisely to administer it. 
 
 Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent 
 to the doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. 
 I am conscious of having detained you and the senate much 
 too long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous de- 
 liberation, such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and 
 important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is 
 full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of 
 its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade 
 myself to relinquish it, without expressing once more my deep 
 conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than the union 
 of the states, it is of most vital and essential importance to 
 the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to 
 have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the 
 whole country, and the preservation of our federal Union. It 
 is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consider- 
 ation and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are 
 chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our 
 country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of 
 our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its ori- 
 gin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate com- 
 merce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these 
 great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and 
 sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration 
 has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings ; 
 and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, 
 and our population spread farther and farther, they have not
 
 64 SPEECH IN REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a 
 copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. 
 
 I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to 
 see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have 
 not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the 
 bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have 
 not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, 
 to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of 
 the abyss below ; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor 
 in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be 
 mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best 
 preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the 
 people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. "While the 
 Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread 
 out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not 
 to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that 
 curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never 
 may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be 
 turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not 
 see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a 
 once glorious Union ; on states dissevered, discordant, belliger- 
 ent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, 
 in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance 
 rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known 
 and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its 
 arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe 
 erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its 
 motto, no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this 
 worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty 
 first and Union afterwards ;" but everywhere, spread all over 
 in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as 
 they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind 
 under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every 
 true American heart Liberty and Union, now and forever, 
 one and inseparable !
 
 ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, 
 
 Classes in English Literature, Beading, Grammar, etc* 
 
 EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 
 
 Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's Life, Prefatory and 
 Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. 
 
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 (Cantos I. and II.) 
 
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 seroso. 
 
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 III. .and IV.) 
 
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 Julius Cafisar. (Selections) 
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 et. 
 
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 57 Tennyson's In Metnoriam. 
 
 58 Church's Story of the ^Eneid. 
 
 59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 
 
 60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to 
 
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 Conden 
 
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 English Version by Thos. Franck- 
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 Washington's Farewell Ad- 
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 86 Dickens's Cricket on the 
 
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 89 Cowper's Task, Book II. 
 
 90 Wordsworth's Selected Poems. 
 
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