It is the common pretense. I know that there are some persons in the part of the country from which the honorable member comes, who habitually speak of the Union in terms of indifference, or even of disparagement. Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. To all this, sir, I was disposed most cordially to respond. Sir, I deprecate and deplore this tone of thinking and acting. He rose, the image of conscious mastery, after the dull preliminary business of the day was dispatched, and with a happy figurative allusion to the tossed mariner, as he called for a reading of the resolution from which the debate had so far drifted, lifted his audience at once to his level. Well, the southern states were infuriated. 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! . . Webster pursued his objective through a rhetorical strategy that ignored Benton, the principal opponent of New England sectionalism, and that provoked Hayne into an exposition and defense of what became the South Carolina doctrine of nullification. Hayne, South Carolina's foremost Senator, was the chosen champion; and the cause of his State, both in its right and wrong sides, could have found no abler exponent while [Vice President] Calhoun's official station kept him from the floor. TeachingAmericanHistory.org is a project of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, 401 College Avenue, Ashland, Ohio 44805 PHONE (419) 289-5411 TOLL FREE (877) 289-5411 EMAIL [emailprotected], The Congress Sends Twelve Amendments to the States, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 3rd Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 3rd Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 4th Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 4th Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 6th Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 6th Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 7th Debate Part I, National Disfranchisement of Colored People, William Lloyd Garrison to Thomas Shipley. Webster scoffed at the idea of consolidation, labeling it "that perpetual cry, both of terror and delusion." What Hayne and his supporters actually meant to do, Webster claimed, was to resist those means that might strengthen the bonds of common interest. South Carolinas Declaration of the Causes of Sece Distribution of the Slave Population by State. In our contemplation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country; states, united under the same general government, having interests, common, associated, intermingled. It develops the gentlemans whole political system; and its answer expounds mine. 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. It was a speech delivered before a crowded auditory, and loud were the Southern exultations that he was more than a match for Webster. I propose to consider it, and to compare it with the Constitution. . T he Zionist-evangelical back story goes back several decades, with 90-year-old televangelist Pat Robertson being a prime case study.. One of the more notable "coincidences" or anomalies Winter Watch brings to your attention is the image of Robertson on the cover of Time magazine in 1986 back before the public was red pilled by the Internet -as the pastor posed with a gesture called . Though the debate began as a standard policy debate, the significance of Daniel Webster's argument reached far beyond a single policy proposal. Every scheme or contrivance by which rulers are able to procure the command of money by means unknown to, unseen or unfelt by, the people, destroys this security. It laid the interdict against personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all local constitutions. Ham, one of Noahs sons, saw him uncovered, for which Noah cursed him by making Hams son, Canaan, a slave to Ham's brothers. Van Buren responded to the Panic of 1837 with the idea of the independent treasury, which was a. a system of depositing money in select independent banks . Regional Conflict in America: Debate Over States' Rights. The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. Tariff of Abominations of 1828 | What was the Significance of the Tariff of Abominations? The debate was important because it laid out the arguments in favor of nationalism in the face of growing sectionalism. . First, New England was vindicated. . Webster spoke in favor of the proposed pause of federal surveyance of western land, representing the North's interest in selling the western land, which had already been surveyed. On this subject, as in all others, we ask nothing of our Northern brethren but to let us alone; leave us to the undisturbed management of our domestic concerns, and the direction of our own industry, and we will ask no more. . What a commentary on the wisdom, justice, and humanity, of the Southern slave owner is presented by the example of certain benevolent associations and charitable individuals elsewhere. Webster stood in favor of Connecticut's proposal that the federal government should stop surveying western land and sell the land it had already surveyed to boost it's revenue and strengthen it's authority. I distrust, therefore, sir, the policy of creating a great permanent national treasury, whether to be derived from public lands or from any other source. . Then, in January of 1830, a senator from Connecticut introduced a proposal to the Senate stating that the federal government should stop surveying the lands west of the Mississippi River. 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 faction of voters in the North were against slavery and feared it spreading into new territory. Most are forgettable, to put it charitably. Lincoln-Douglas Debates History & Significance | What Was the Lincoln-Douglas Debate? You see, to the south, the Constitution was essentially a treaty signed between sovereign states. The honorable member himself is not, I trust, and can never be, one of these. . The Destiny of America, Speech at the Dedication o An Address. Strange was it, however, that in heaping reproaches upon the Hartford Convention he did not mark how nearly its leaders had mapped out the same line of opposition to the national Government that his State now proposed to take, both relying upon the arguments of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 179899. I am a Unionist, and in this sense a national Republican. Mr. Hayne having rejoined to Mr. Webster, especially on the constitutional question. An error occurred trying to load this video. Several state governments or courts, some in the north, had espoused the idea of nullification prior to 1828. We resolved to make the best of the situation in which Providence had placed us, and to fulfil the high trust which had developed upon us as the owners of slaves, in the only way in which such a trust could be fulfilled, without spreading misery and ruin throughout the land. Sir, there does not exist, on the face of the whole earth, a population so poor, so wretched, so vile, so loathsome, so utterly destitute of all the comforts, conveniences, and decencies of life, as the unfortunate blacks of Philadelphia, and New York, and Boston. . . One of those was the Webster-Hayne debate, a series of unplanned speeches presented before the Senate between January 19th and 27th of 1830. . Speech on Assuming Office of the President. | 12 In all the efforts that have been made by South Carolina to resist the unconstitutional laws which Congress has extended over them, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserveda firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. . Some of his historical deductions may be questioned; but far above all possible error on the part of her leaders, stood colonial and Revolutionary New England, and the sturdy, intelligent, and thriving people whose loyalty to the Union had never failed, and whose home, should ill befall the nation, would yet prove liberty's last shelter. 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. Those who would confine the federal government strictly within the limits prescribed by the Constitutionwho would preserve to the states and the people all powers not expressly delegatedwho would make this a federal and not a national Unionand who, administering the government in a spirit of equal justice, would make it a blessing and not a curse. He served as a U.S. senator from 1823 to 1832, and was a leading proponent of the states' rights doctrine. So soon as the cessions were obtained, it became necessary to make provision for the government and disposition of the territory . . 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. They have agreed, that certain specific powers shall be exercised by the federal government; but the moment that government steps beyond the limits of its charter, the right of the states to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them,[7] is as full and complete as it was before the Constitution was formed. Hayne and the South saw it as basically a treaty between sovereign states. . Hayne argued that the sovereign and independent states had created the Union to promote their particular interests. 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. 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? They cherish no deep and fixed regard for it, flowing from a thorough conviction of its absolute and vital necessity to our welfare. This seemed like an Eastern spasm of jealousy at the progress of the West. Webster spoke in favor of the proposed pause of federal surveyance of western land, representing the North's interest in selling the western land, which had already been surveyed. The Webster-Hayne debate was a series of spontaneous speeches presented to the United States Senate by senators Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina. We had no other general government. But his calm, unperturbed manner reassured them in an instant. If the gentleman provokes the war, he shall have war. 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 decide for themselves, and each state for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the general government transcends its power. Our notion of things is entirely different. What idea was espoused with the Webster-Hayne debates? But I take leave of the subject. If this Constitution, sir, be the creature of state Legislatures, it must be admitted that it has obtained a strange control over the volitions of its creators. The main issue of the Webster-Hayne Debate was the nature of the country that had been created by the Constitution. Address to the Slaves of the United States. . This debate exposed the critically different understandings of the nature of the American. During the course of the debates, the senators touched on pressing political issues of the daythe tariff, Western lands, internal improvementsbecause behind these and others were two very different understandings of the origin and nature of the American Union. The Webster-Hayne Debate between New Hampshire Senator Daniel Webster and South Carolina Senator Robert Young Hayne highlighted the sectional nature of the controversy. . Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 27, 1830. . The next day, however, Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster rose with his reply, and the northern states knew they had found their champion. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. Sir, if we are, then vain will be our attempt to maintain the Constitution under which we sit. . . 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. [O]pinions were expressed yesterday on the general subject of the public lands, and on some other subjects, by the gentleman from South Carolina [Senator Robert Hayne], so widely different from my own, that I am not willing to let the occasion pass without some reply. . Prejudice Not Natural: The American Colonization "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Liberty has been to them the greatest of calamities, the heaviest of curses. Then he began his speech, his words flowing on so completely at command that a fellow senator who heard him likened his elocution to the steady flow of molten gold. An accomplished politician, Hayne was an eloquent orator who enthralled his audiences. . Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) | Case, Significance & Summary. It has been said that Hayne was Calhoun's sword and buckler and that he returned to the contest refreshed each morning by nightly communions with the Vice-President, drawing auxiliary supplies from the well-stored arsenal of his powerful and subtle mind. . . But the topic which became the leading feature of the whole debate and gave it an undying interest was that of nullification, in which Hayne and Webster came forth as chief antagonists. [was] fixed, forever, the character of the population in the vast regions Northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. He remained a Southern Unionist through his long public career and a good type of the growing class of statesman devoted to slave interests who loved the Union as it was and doted upon its compromises. A speech by Louisiana Senator Edward Livingston, however, neatly explains how American nationhood encompasses elements of both Webster and Hayne's ideas. The United States, under the Constitution and federal government, was a single, unified nation, not a coalition of sovereign states. He must say to his followers [members of the state militia], defend yourselves with your bayonets; and this is warcivil war. I now proceed to show that it is perfectly safe, and will practically have no effect but to keep the federal government within the limits of the Constitution, and prevent those unwarrantable assumptions of power, which cannot fail to impair the rights of the states, and finally destroy the Union itself. There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South. When they shall become dissatisfied with this distribution, they can alter it. The dominant historical opinion of the famous debate between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Young Hayne of South Carolina which took place in the United States Senate in 1830 has long been that Webster defeated Hayne both as an orator and a statesman. . Rachel Venter is a recent graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver. Nullification, Webster maintained, was a political absurdity. Besides that, however, the federal government was still figuring out its role in American society. Those who are in favor of consolidation; who are constantly stealing power from the states and adding strength to the federal government; who, assuming an unwarrantable jurisdiction over the states and the people, undertake to regulate the whole industry and capital of the country. . I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to maintain, that it is a right of the state legislatures to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws. . . All of these contentious topics were touched upon in Webster and Hayne's nine day long debate. See Genesis 9:2027. But, sir, the task has been forced upon me, and I proceed right onward to the performance of my duty; be the consequences what they may, the responsibility is with those who have imposed upon me this necessity. Post-Civil War, as the nation rebuilt and reconciled the balance between federal and state government, federal law became the supreme law of the land, just as Webster desired. It would enable Congress and the Executive to exercise a control over states, as well as over great interests in the country, nay, even over corporations and individualsutterly destructive of the purity, and fatal to the duration of our institutions. Mr. Webster arose, and, in conclusion, said: A few words, Mr. President, on this constitutional argument, which the honorable gentleman has labored to reconstruct. Nor shall I stop there. So what was this debate really about? But, sir, the gentleman is mistaken. What was going on? It is the servant of four-and-twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. . . Robert Young Hayne spent more than two decades in elected offices, including mayor of Charleston, member of South Carolina's legislature, attorney general, and then governor of the state. State governments were in control of their own affairs and expected little intervention from the federal government. Debate on the Constitutionality of the Mexican War, Letters and Journals from the Oregon Trail. Sir, when the gentleman provokes me to such a conflict, I meet him at the threshold. Perhaps a quotation from a speech in Parliament in 1803 of Lord Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (17691822) during a debate over the conduct of British officials in India. . Where in these debates do we see a possible argument in defense of Constitutional secession by the states, later claimed by the Southern Confederacy before, during, and after the Civil War? . Webster's description of the U.S. government as "made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people," was later paraphrased by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address in the words "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Hayne's First Speech (January 19, 1830) Webster's First Reply to Hayne (January 20, 1830) Hayne's Second Speech (January 21, 1830) Webster's Second Reply to Hayne (January 26-27, 1830) This page was last edited on 13 June 2021, at . It is worth noting that in the course of the debate, on the very floor of the Senate, both Hayne and Webster raised the specter of civil war 30 years before it commenced. . . 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. Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural So "The Whole Affair Seems the Work of a Madman", John Brown and the Principle of Nonresistance. The Webster-Hayne debate, which again was just one section of this greater discussion in the Senate, is traditionally considered to have begun when South Carolina senator Robert Y. Hayne stood to argue against Connecticut's proposal, accusing the northeastern states of trying to stall development of the West so that southern agricultural interests couldn't expand. . Address to the People of the United States, by the What are the main points of difference between Webster and Hayne, especially on the question of the nature of the Union and the Constitution? He entered the Senate on that memorable day with a slow and stately step and took his seat as though unconscious of the loud buzz of expectant interest with which the crowded auditory greeted his appearance. The Northwest Ordinance. The debate, which took place between January 19th and January 27th, 1830, encapsulated the major issues facing the newly founded United States in the 1820s and 1830s; the balance of power between the federal and state governments, the development of the democratic process, and the growing tension between Northern and Southern states. Historians love a good debate. He must cut it with his sword. . The measures of the federal government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin. For one, Hayne and Webster were arguing for the fate of the West and, in particular, whether the North or South would control western development. . But I do not admit that, under the Constitution, and in conformity with it, there is any mode in which a state government, as a member of the Union, can interfere and stop the progress of the general government, by force of her own laws, under any circumstances whatever. Gloomy and downcast of late, Massachusetts men walked the avenue as though the fife and drum were before them. 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 equal eye, the good of the whole, in whatever is within our power of legislation. The Virginia Resolution asserted that when the federal government undertook the deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of powers not granted to it in the constitution, states had the right and duty to interpose their authority to prevent this evil. Now, have they given away that right, or agreed to limit or restrict it in any respect? The WebsterHayne debate was a debate in the United States between Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina that took place on January 1927, 1830 on the topic of protectionist tariffs. The growing support for nullification was quite obvious during the days of the Jackson Administration, as events such as the Webster-Hayne Debate, Tariff of 1832, Order of Nullification, and Worcester v. Georgia all made the tension grow between the North and the South. . It was motivated by a dispute over the continued sale of western lands, an important source of revenue for the federal government. 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. . There was no clear winner of the debate, but the Union's victory over the Confederacy just a few decades later brought Webster's ideas to fruition. . Sir, I should fear the rebuke of no intelligent gentleman of Kentucky, were I to ask whether, if such an ordinance could have been applied to his own state, while it yet was a wilderness, and before Boone had passed the gap of the Alleghany, he does not suppose it would have contributed to the ultimate greatness of that commonwealth? 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. Enveloping all of these changes was an ever-growing tension over the economy, as southern states firmly defended slavery and northern states advocated for a more industrial, slave-free market. Our Core Document Collection allows students to read history in the words of those who made it. Edited and introduced by Jason W. Stevens. It is one from which we are not disposed to shrink, in whatever form or under whatever circumstances it may be pressed upon us. . Webster scoffed at the idea of consolidation, labeling it "that perpetual cry, both of terror and delusion." What Hayne and his supporters actually meant to do, Webster claimed, was to resist those means that might strengthen the bonds of common interest.