. The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions Add Song of the Spinners from the Lowell Offering. It was motivated by a dispute over the continued sale of western lands, an important source of revenue for the federal government. Webster denied it and, attempting to draw Hayne into a direct confrontation, disparaged slavery and attacked the constitutional scruples of southern nullifiers and their apparent willingness to calculate the Union's value in monetary terms. Webster rose the next day in his seat to make his reply. The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. It is one from which we are not disposed to shrink, in whatever form or under whatever circumstances it may be pressed upon us. Historians love a good debate. The arena selected for a first impression was the Senate, where the arch-heretic himself presided and guided the onset with his eye. The debate itself, a nine-day long unplanned exchange between Senators Robert Y. Hayne and Daniel Webster, directly addressed the methods by which the federal government was generating revenue, namely through protective tariffs and the selling of federal lands in the newly acquired western territories. Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 27, 1830. . I propose to consider it, and to compare it with the Constitution. She has a BA in political science. The Webster-Hayne debate laid out key issues faced by the Senate in the 1820s and 1830s. I understand the gentleman to maintain, that, without revolution, without civil commotion, without rebellion, a remedy for supposed abuse and transgression of the powers of the general government lies in a direct appeal to the interference of the state governments. Sir, it is because South Carolina loves the Union, and would preserve it forever, that she is opposing now, while there is hope, those usurpations of the federal government, which, once established, will, sooner or later, tear this Union into fragments. But it was the honor of a caste; and the struggling bread-winners of society, the great commonalty, he little studied or understood. Webster was eloquent, he was educated, he was witty, and he was a staunch defender of American liberty. Besides that, however, the federal government was still figuring out its role in American society. President Andrew Jackson had just been elected, most of the states got rid of property requirements for voting, and an entire new era of democracy was being born. Speech of Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, January 26 and 27, 1830. sir, this is but the old story. Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been, in any way, attempted. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) | Case, Significance & Summary. The Webster-Hayne debate concluded with Webster's ringing endorsement of "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." In contrast, Hayne espoused the radical states' rights doctrine of nullification, believing that a state could prevent a federal law from being enforced within its borders. succeed. . A speech by Louisiana Senator Edward Livingston, however, neatly explains how American nationhood encompasses elements of both Webster and Hayne's ideas. [2] We deal in no abstractions. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you . 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. But, sir, we will pass over all this. Consolidation, like the tariff, grates upon his ear. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. Drama, suspense, it's all there. Shedding weak tears over sufferings which had existence only in their own sickly imaginations, these friends of humanity set themselves systematically to work to seduce the slaves of the South from their masters. . But the gentleman apprehends that this will make the Union a rope of sand. Sir, I have shown that it is a power indispensably necessary to the preservation of the constitutional rights of the states, and of the people. It is the common pretense. 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. It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under which we are here assembled. At the time of the debate, Webster was serving his term as Senator of Massachusetts. Francis O. J. Smith to Secretary of State Dan Special Message to the House of Representatives, Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations. The debate can be seen as a precursor to the debate that became . . . Webster-Hayne Debate 1830, 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. Ostend Manifesto of 1854 Overview & Purpose | What was the Ostend Manifesto? . I am a Unionist, and in this sense a national Republican. . Tariff of 1816 History & Significance | What was the Tariff of 1816? There was no winner or loser in the Webster-Hayne debate. . I shrink almost instinctively from a course, however necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings, and sectional jealousies. During his first years in Congress, Webster railed against President James Madison 's war policies, invoking a states' rights argument to oppose a conscription bill that went down to defeat.. . . Well, the southern states were infuriated. 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. . He describes fully that old state of things then existing. 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? Webster replied to his speech the next day and left not a shred of the charge, baseless as it was. On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. . Is it the creature of the state legislatures, or the creature of the people? Excerpts from Ratification Documents of Virginia a Ratifying Conventions>New York Ratifying Convention. It is the servant of four-and-twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. Thousands of these deluded victims of fanaticism were seduced into the enjoyment of freedom in our Northern cities. . 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. But still, throughout American history, several debates have captured the nation's attention in a way that would make even Hollywood jealous. Under the circumstances then existing, I look upon this original and seasonable provision, as a real good attained. Most assuredly, I need not say I differ with him, altogether and most widely, on that point. 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. Since as Vice President and President of the Senate, Calhoun could not take place in the debate, Hayne represented the pro-nullification point-of-view. . Create your account. . . It is not the creature of state Legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the people brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on state sovereignties. Hayne argued that the sovereign and independent states had created the Union to promote their particular interests. It was about protectionist tariffs.The speeches between Webster and Hayne themselves were not planned. I supposed, that on this point, no two gentlemen in the Senate could entertain different opinions. Sir, I deprecate and deplore this tone of thinking and acting. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. Several state governments or courts, some in the north, had espoused the idea of nullification prior to 1828. Our Core Document Collection allows students to read history in the words of those who made it. 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. Assuredly not. . The people had had quite enough of that kind of government, under the Confederacy. 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. 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The 1830 WebsterHayne debate centered around the South Carolina nullification crisis of the late 1820s, but historians have largely ignored the sectional interests underpinning Webster's argument on behalf of Unionism and a transcendent nationalism. 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! Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives. . The taxes paid by foreign nations to export American cotton, for example, generated lots of money for the government. . Ham, one of Noahs sons, saw him uncovered, for which Noah cursed him by making Hams son, Canaan, a slave to Ham's brothers. More specifically, some of the issues facing Congress during this period included: Robert Y. Hayne served as Senator of South Carolina from 1823 to 1832. [Its leader] would have a knot before him, which he could not untie. - Women's Rights Facts & Significance, Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points: Definition, Speech & Summary, Fireside Chats: Definition & Significance, JFK's New Frontier: Definition, Speech & Program. . 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. I have but one word more to add. 136 lessons The object of the Framers of the Constitution, as disclosed in that address, was not the consolidation of the government, but the consolidation of the Union. It was not to draw power from the states, in order to transfer it to a great national government, but, in the language of the Constitution itself, to form a more perfect union; and by what means? . Sir, the opinion which the honorable gentleman maintains, is a notion, founded in a total misapprehension, in my judgment, of the origin of this government, and of the foundation on which it stands. It was a speech delivered before a crowded auditory, and loud were the Southern exultations that he was more than a match for Webster. MTEL Speech: Public Discourse & Debate in the U.S. . . Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Declaration of Sent Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, Protest in Illinois Legislature on Slavery. For Calhoun, see the Speech on Abolition Petitions and the Speech on the Oregon Bill. . They undertook to form a general government, which should stand on a new basisnot a confederacy, not a league, not a compact between states, but a Constitution; a popular government, founded in popular election, directly responsible to the people themselves, and divided into branches, with prescribed limits of power, and prescribed duties. . 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. We met it as a practical question of obligation and duty. Correct answers: 2 question: Which of the following is the best definition of a hypothesis? . . . An equally. I admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy, above the Constitution, and in defiance of the Constitution, which may be resorted to, when a revolution is to be justified. 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. . 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. The following states came from the territory north and west of the Ohio river: Ohio (1803), Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818), Michigan (1837), Wisconsin (1848) and Minnesota (1858). . Chris has a master's degree in history and teaches at the University of Northern Colorado. 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. [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? . 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. His ideas about federalism and his interpretation of the Constitution as a document uniting the states under one supreme law were highly influential in the eyes of his contemporaries and would influence the rebuilding of the nation after the Civil War. In 1830, the federal government collected few taxes and had two primary sources of revenue. This will co-operate with the feelings of patriotism to induce a state to avoid any measures calculated to endanger that connection. 1824 Presidential Election, Candidates & Significance | Who Won the Election of 1824? Hayne's few but zealous partizans shielded him still, and South Carolina spoke with pride of him. Sir, when arraigned before the bar of public opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand up with conscious rectitude, plead not guilty, and put ourselves upon God and our country. lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. . . Benton was rising in renown as the advocate not only of Western settlers but of a new theory that the public lands should be given away instead of sold to them. Judiciary Act of 1801 | Overview, History & Significance, General Ulysses S. Grant Takes Charge: His Strategic Plan for Ending the War. The gentleman insists that the states have no right to decide whether the constitution has been violated by acts of Congress or not,but that the federal government is the exclusive judge of the extent of its own powers; and that in case of a violation of the constitution, however deliberate, palpable and dangerous, a state has no constitutional redress, except where the matter can be brought before the Supreme Court, whose decision must be final and conclusive on the subject. . copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. The measures of the federal government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin.