. Be this as it may, Hayne was a ready and copious orator, a highly-educated lawyer, a man of varied accomplishments, shining as a writer, speaker, and counselor, equally qualified to draw up a bill or to advocate it, quick to memories, well fortified by wealth and marriage connections, dignified, never vulgar nor unmindful of the feelings of those with whom he mingled, Hayne moved in an atmosphere where lofty and chivalrous honor was the ruling sentiment. . This is the sense in which the Framers of the Constitution use the word consolidation; and in which sense I adopt and cherish it. . Northern states intended to strengthen the federal government, binding the states in the union under one supreme law, and eradicating the use of slave labor in the rapidly growing nation. No hanging over the abyss of disunion, no weighing of the chances, no doubting as to what the Constitution was worth, no placing of liberty before Union, but "liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable." Webster-Hayne debate - Wikisource, the free online library The next day, however, Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster rose with his reply, and the northern states knew they had found their champion. . Before his term as a U.S. senator, Hayne had served as a state senator, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, South Carolina's Speaker of the House, and Attorney General of South Carolina. I am opposed, therefore, in any shape, to all unnecessary extension of the powers, or the influence of the Legislature or Executive of the Union over the states, or the people of the states; and, most of all, I am opposed to those partial distributions of favors, whether by legislation or appropriation, which has a direct and powerful tendency to spread corruption through the land; to create an abject spirit of dependence; to sow the seeds of dissolution; to produce jealousy among the different portions of the Union, and finally to sap the very foundations of the government itself. Jackson himself would raise a national toast for 'the Union' later that year. I will struggle while I have life, for our altars and our fire sides, and if God gives me strength, I will drive back the invader discomfited. But, according to the gentlemans reading, the object of the Constitution was to consolidate the government, and the means would seem to be, the promotion of injustice, causing domestic discord, and depriving the states and the people of the blessings of liberty forever. . . Having thus distinctly stated the points in dispute between the gentleman and myself, I proceed to examine them. Rather, the debate eloquently captured the ideas and ideals of Northern and Southern representatives of the time, highlighting and summarizing the major issues of governance of the era. In 1830, the federal government collected few taxes and had two primary sources of revenue. Broadside Advertisement for Runaway Slave, Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Free-Soiler, Free & Slave-holding States and Territories. The Hayne-Webster Debate - Constitution.org Sir, we will not stop to inquire whether the black man, as some philosophers have contended, is of an inferior race, nor whether his color and condition are the effects of a curse inflicted for the offences of his ancestors. He must cut it with his sword. In contrasting the state of Ohio with Kentucky, for the purpose of pointing out the superiority of the former, and of attributing that superiority to the existence of slavery, in the one state, and its absence in the other, I thought I could discern the very spirit of the Missouri question[1] intruded into this debate, for objects best known to the gentleman himself. we find the most opposite and irreconcilable opinions between the two parties which I have before described. Competing Conceptions of Union and Ordered Liberty in While the debaters argued about slavery, the economy, protection tariffs, and western land, the real implication was the meaning of the United States Constitution. The debate was on. In The Webster-Hayne Debate, Christopher Childers examines the context of the debate between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and his Senate colleague Robert S. Hayne of South Carolina in January 1830.Readers will finish the book with a clear idea of the reason Webster's "Reply" became so influential in its own day. Webster and the northern states saw the Constitution as binding the individual states together as a single union. One of the most storied match-ups in Senate history, the 1830 Webster-Hayne debate began with a beef between Northeast states and Western states over a plan to restrict . The Most Famous Senate Speech January 26, 1830 The debate began simply enough, centering on the seemingly prosaic subjects of tariff and public land policy. Sir, when gentlemen speak of the effects of a common fund, belonging to all the states, as having a tendency to consolidation, what do they mean? The Webster-Hayne Debate: Defining Nationhood in the Early American What started as a debate over the Tariff of Abominations soon morphed into debates over state and federal sovereignty and liberty and disunion. Webster rose the next day in his seat to make his reply. Even Benton, whose connection with the debate made him at first belittle these grand utterances, soon felt the danger and repudiated the company of the nullifiers. Finally, sir, the honorable gentleman says, that the states will only interfere, by their power, to preserve the Constitution. But it was the honor of a caste; and the struggling bread-winners of society, the great commonalty, he little studied or understood. Though the debate began as a standard policy debate, the significance of Daniel Webster's argument reached far beyond a single policy proposal. . So they could finish selling the lands already surveyed. The specific issue that sparked the Webster-Hayne debate was a proposal by the state of Connecticut which said that the federal government should halt its surveying of land west of the Mississippi and focus on selling the land it had already surveyed to private citizens. Andrew Jackson & the Nullification Crisis | The Hermitage Our notion of things is entirely different. South Carolina nullification was now coming in sight, and a celebrated debate that belongs to the first session exposed its claims and its fallacies to the country. In coming to the consideration of the next great question, what ought to be the future policy of the government in relation to the public lands? . The Hayne-Webster Debate was an unplanned series of speeches in the Senate, during which Robert Hayne of South Carolina interpreted the Constitution as little more than a treaty between sovereign states, and Daniel Webster expressed the concept of the United States as one nation. This would have been the case even if no positive provision to that effect had been inserted in that instrument. . They attack nobody, and menace nobody. This is the sum of what I understand from him, to be the South Carolina doctrine; and the doctrine which he maintains. Historians love a good debate. If I had, sir, the powers of a magician, and could, by a wave of my hand, convert this capital into gold for such a purpose, I would not do it. . I shrink almost instinctively from a course, however necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings, and sectional jealousies. Under that system, the legal actionthe application of law to individuals, belonged exclusively to the states. . The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. Daniel webster, in a dramatic speech, showed the. Thirty years before the Civil War broke out, disunion appeared to be on the horizon with the Nullification Crisis. a. an explanation of natural events that is well supported by scientific evidence b. a set of rules for ethical conduct during an experiment c. a statement that describes how natural events happen d. a possible answer to a scientific question On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. . The answer is Daniel Webster, one of the greatest orators in US Senate history, a successful attorney and Senator from Massachusetts and a complex and enigmatic man. Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been, in any way, attempted. The Webster-Hayne Debate - 1830 - YouTube Though Webster made an impassioned argument, the political, social, and economic traditions of New England informed his ideas about the threatened nation. This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the source of its power. . Francis O. J. Smith to Secretary of State Dan Special Message to the House of Representatives, Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations. If the federal government, in all or any of its departments, are to prescribe the limits of its own authority; and the states are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine and decide for themselves, when the barriers of the Constitution shall be overleaped, this is practically a government without limitation of powers; the states are at once reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people are entirely at your mercy. For the next several days, the men traded speeches which contemporaries of the time described as the greatest orations ever delivered in the Senate. The Webster-Hayne Debate | Overview, Issues & Significance - Study Hayne quotes from the Virginia Resolution (1798), authored by Thomas Jefferson, to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798). 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 obscuredbearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, what is all this worth? Finding our lot cast among a people, whom God had manifestly committed to our care, we did not sit down to speculate on abstract questions of theoretical liberty. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you Can any man believe, sir, that, if twenty-three millions per annum was now levied by direct taxation, or by an apportionment of the same among the states, instead of being raised by an indirect tax, of the severe effect of which few are aware, that the waste and extravagance, the unauthorized imposition of duties, and appropriations of money for unconstitutional objects, would have been tolerated for a single year? There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far the most grave and important duty, which I feel to be devolved on me, by this occasion. Far, indeed, in my wishes, very far distant be the day, when our associated and fraternal stripes shall be severed asunder, and when that happy constellation under which we have risen to so much renown, shall be broken up, and be seen sinking, star after star, into obscurity and night! On January 19, 1830, Hayne attacked the Foot Resolution and labeled the Northeasterners as selfish and unprincipled for their support of protectionism and conservative land policies. The Webster-Hayne debate laid out key issues faced by the Senate in the 1820s and 1830s. Prejudice Not Natural: The American Colonization "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? All of these contentious topics were touched upon in Webster and Hayne's nine day long debate. He joined Hayne in using this opportunity to try to detach the West from the East, and restore the old cooperation of the West and the South against New England. Understand the 1830 debate's significance through an overview of issues of the Constitution, the Union, and state sovereignty. The arena selected for a first impression was the Senate, where the arch-heretic himself presided and guided the onset with his eye. Sir, all our difficulties on this subject have arisen from interference from abroad, which has disturbed, and may again disturb, our domestic tranquility, just so far as to bring down punishment upon the heads of the unfortunate victims of a fanatical and mistaken humanity. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster's "Second Reply" to South Carolina Senator Robert Y. Hayne has long been thought of as a great oratorical celebration of American Nationalism in a period of sectional conflict. At the time of the debate, Webster was serving his term as Senator of Massachusetts. When the honorable member rose, in his first speech, I paid him the respect of attentive listening; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must say even astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my intention than to commence any personal warfare: 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. . An undefinable dread now went abroad that men were planning against the peace of the nation, that the Union was in danger; and citizens looked more closely after its safety and welfare. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Senator Daniel Webster] has gone out of his way to pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. Webster and Hayne on the American Constitution It was motivated by a dispute over the continued sale of western lands, an important source of revenue for the federal government. His speech was indeed a powerful one of its eloquence and personality. Webster also tried to assert the importance of New England in the face of . He was a lawyer turned congressional representative who eventually worked his way to the office of U.S. Secretary of State. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. She has a BA in political science. . . The United States, under the Constitution and federal government, was a single, unified nation, not a coalition of sovereign states. I maintain that, from the day of the cession of the territories by the states to Congress, no portion of the country has acted, either with more liberality or more intelligence, on the subject of the Western lands in the new states, than New England. South Carolinas Declaration of the Causes of Sece Distribution of the Slave Population by State.
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