before going farther i must speak of a pestilent doctrine then held in south carolina, which underlay the whole controversy, and was the animating cause of the antagonism of the southern leaders to the patriotic representatives of the north. this was known as nullification, and mr. calhoun was its sponsor. to explain: south carolina claimed the right to overrule any law of the general government which did not please her, or which her courts might judge to be unconstitutional. if she did not see fit to pay customs, she claimed that the government could not coerce her. all power was reposed in her own executive, her own legislature, and her own judiciary, and the national power was subordinate to them.
it will be easily seen that this was a most dangerous doctrine to hold, one which if allowed would everywhere subject the national authority to contempt. the united states never had an external foe half so insidious or half so dangerous as this assumption which had grown up within its own borders.
to return to the great debate. when col. hayne took his seat at the close of his second speech his friends gathered round him in warm congratulation. mr. webster’s friends were sober. much as they admired him, they did not see how he was going to answer that speech. they knew that he would have little or no time for preparation, and it would not do for him to make an ordinary or commonplace reply to such a dashing harangue. so on the evening of monday the friends of mr. webster walked about the streets gloomy and preoccupied. they feared for their champion.
but how was it with him? during col. hayne’s speech he calmly took notes. occasionally there was a flash from the depths of his dark eyes as a hint or a suggestion occurred to him, but he seemed otherwise indifferent and unmoved, he spent the evening as usual, and enjoyed a refreshing night’s sleep.
in the morning of the eventful day three hours before the hour of meeting crowds set their faces towards the capitol. at twelve o’clock the senate chamber—its galleries, floors and even lobbies—was filled to overflowing. the speaker retained his place unwillingly in the house, but hardly enough members were present to transact business.
when the fitting time came mr. webster rose. he was in the full vigor of a magnificent manhood, the embodiment of conscious strength. he gazed around him, never more self-possessed than at that moment. he saw his adversaries with their complacent faces already rejoicing in his anticipated discomfiture; he looked in the faces of his friends, and he noted their looks of anxious solicitude; but he had full confidence in his own strength, and his deep cavernous eyes glowed with “that stern joy which warriors feel in foemen worthy of their steel.”
there was a hush of expectation and a breathless silence as those present waited for his first words.
he began thus: “mr. president, when the mariner has been tossed for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally 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 further on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to form some conjecture where we now are. i ask for the reading of the resolution.”
this was felt to be a happy exordium, and was sufficient to rivet the attention of the vast audience.
after the resolution was read mr. webster continued: “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 wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present, everything, general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party politics, seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable members 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 excursions 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, which it was kind thus to inform us was coming, 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.”
referring to col. hayne’s statement that there was something rankling here (indicating his heart) which he wished to relieve, mr. webster said: “in this respect, sir, i have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. there is nothing here, 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 the wrong.... 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 gentleman of violating the rules of civilized war; i will not say 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 these shafts he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they were aimed.”
col. hayne and his friends, as they listened to these words, breathing a calm consciousness of power not unmixed with a grand disdain, must have realized that they had exulted too soon. indeed hayne’s friends had not all looked forward with confidence to his victory. senator iredell, of north carolina, to a friend of hayne’s who was praising his speech, had said the evening previous, “he has started the lion—but wait till we hear his roar, or feel his claws.”
while i do not propose to give an abstract of this famous oration, i shall quote some of the most brilliant and effective passages, well known and familiar though they are, because they will be re-read with fresh and added interest in this connection. there was not a son of massachusetts, nay, there was not a new englander, whose heart was not thrilled by the splendid tribute to massachusetts.
“mr. president, i shall enter upon no encomium on massachusetts; 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 disunion 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.”
mr. webster shows his magnanimity by pronouncing, in like manner, an eulogium upon his opponent’s native state, which is in bright contrast with the mean and unjust attacks of col. hayne upon massachusetts. this is what he says:
“let me observe that the eulogium pronounced on the character of south carolina by the honorable gentleman for her revolutionary and other merits meets my hearty concurrence. i shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, of 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 laurenses, the rutledges, the pinkneys, the sumters, the marions, 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 one of the treasures of the whole country. him whose honored name the gentleman himself 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 envy in my bosom? no, sir; increased gratification 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 little 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 mouth!”
it must not be supposed that mr. webster’s speech was merely of a personal character. in a sound and logical manner he discussed the limits of constitutional authority, and combated the pernicious doctrine of state supremacy, which thirty years later was to kindle a civil war of vast proportions, the starting-point being south carolina. at the risk of quoting paragraphs which my young readers may skip, i proceed to introduce an extract which may give an idea of this part of the oration.
“we approach at length, sir, to a more important part of the honorable gentleman’s observations. since it does not accord 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 profound sentiments my support of measures appropriating portions of the land to particular roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular 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 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?’ 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 to be for the common benefit. the gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key to his construction of the powers of the government. he may 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 south 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 south 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 arrive 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 reason thus. our notion of things is entirely different. we look upon the states not as separated but 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 south carolina and ohio are parts of the same country, states united under the same general government, having interests common, 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 geographical limits to our patriotic feelings or regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains and lines of latitude to find boundaries 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 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 carolina? i should not be willing to face my constituents. these 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 embrace the whole, was not fit to be intrusted with the interests of our part.”
this will give an idea of the broad national sentiments entertained and expressed by the senator from massachusetts. it is certainly in strong contrast to the narrow sectional views of col. hayne and john c. calhoun.
towards the close of his speech mr. webster describes in an amusing way a supposed conflict in south carolina between the customs officers of the government and a local force led by his opponent. it was playful, but col. hayne was moved by the ridicule with which it covered him more than by any of mr. webster’s arguments.
it need hardly be said that the entire address was listened to with rapt attention. as it proceeded those friends of mr. webster who doubted his ability to cope with the southern champion, and who had listened to his first words with feelings of anxious solicitude, became cheerful and even jubilant. in fact they changed aspects with hayne’s friends who had awaited the opening of the speech with supercilious disdain. the calm power, the humorous contempt, with which mr. webster handled the doughty champion annoyed them not a little.
i do not mean to underrate the ability or eloquence of col. hayne. upon this point it is sufficient to quote the opinion of mr. everett, the tried and intimate friend of daniel webster, who says: “it is unnecessary to state, except to those who have come forward quite recently, that col. hayne was a gentleman of ability very far above the average, a highly accomplished debater, an experienced politician, a person possessing the full confidence of his friends, and entirely familiar with the argument on which the theory controverted in mr. webster’s speech rests.”
mr. march, in his “reminiscences of congress,” a book from which i have received valuable help in the composition of this chapter, describes hayne’s oratory in these terms:
“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 was the napoleonic warfare: to strike at once for the capital of the enemy, heedless of danger or cost to his own forces. not doubting to overcome all odds, he feared none, however seemingly superior. of great fluency and no little force of expression, his speech never halted, and seldom fatigued.”
mr. webster swept on to the close of his speech with power unabated. some of his friends had feared he could not sustain his elevated flight, that he would mar the effect of his great passages by dropping to the commonplace. they had no need to fear. he thoroughly understood his own powers. at length he reached the peroration—that famous peroration, so well known, yet, in spite of its familiarity, so impossible to omit here.
“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, belligerent; 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, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory, ‘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 seas and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every american heart—liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”
hayne attempted a reply to this speech, but it had little effect. it was followed by a telling résumé of his positions by mr. webster, and so far as these two speakers were concerned the discussion closed.
it is remarkable how little effort this famous oration cost it author. the constitutional argument, to be sure, was familiar to him, and he had but to state it, but for the great passages, including the exordium, the peroration, the encomium upon massachusetts, the speaker was indebted to the inspiration of the moment; yet they are so compact, so fitly expressed, so elegantly worded, that he would be a bold man who should suggest even a verbal change.
