what idea was espoused with the webster hayne debates

. It laid the interdict against personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all local constitutions. . . Most are forgettable, to put it charitably. To all this, sir, I was disposed most cordially to respond. 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By establishing justice, promoting domestic tranquility, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. This is the true reading of the Constitution. The discussion took a wide range, going back to topics that had agitated the country before the Constitution was formed. The theory that the states' may vote against unfair laws. 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? This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to be less rigid, on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected.. For Calhoun, see the Speech on Abolition Petitions and the Speech on the Oregon Bill. 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. Though the debate began as a standard policy debate, the significance of Daniel Webster's argument reached far beyond a single policy proposal. 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. Most assuredly, I need not say I differ with him, altogether and most widely, on that point. We found that we had to deal with a people whose physical, moral, and intellectual habits and character, totally disqualified them from the enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. The heated speeches were unplanned and stemmed from the debate over a resolution by Connecticut Senator Samuel A. . He accused them of a desire to check the growth of the West in the interests of protection. An equally talented orator, Webster rose as the advocate of the North in the debate with his captivating reply to Hayne's initial argument. You see, to the south, the Constitution was essentially a treaty signed between sovereign states. The people had had quite enough of that kind of government, under the Confederacy. Are we in that condition still? 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. Daniel Webster, in a dramatic speech, showed the danger of the states' rights doctrine, which permitted each State to decide for itself which laws were unconstitutional, claiming it would lead to civil war. 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. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. | 12 Webster's speech aroused the latent spirit of patriotism. Besides that, however, the federal government was still figuring out its role in American society. . Webster argued that the American people had created the Union to promote the good of the whole. 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. 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. The Webster Hayne Debate. Chris has a master's degree in history and teaches at the University of Northern Colorado. . 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. Would it be safe to confide such a treasure to the keeping of our national rulers? Regional Conflict in America: Debate Over States' Rights. It impressed on the soil itself, while it was yet a wilderness, an incapacity to bear up any other than free men. Ham, one of Noahs sons, saw him uncovered, for which Noah cursed him by making Hams son, Canaan, a slave to Ham's brothers. It was a great and salutary measure of prevention. 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. 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. Southern states advocated for strong, sovereign state governments, a small federal government, the western expansion of the agricultural economy, and with it, the maintenance of the institution of slavery. . Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 27, 1830. . 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 . A four-speech debate between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina, in January 1830. What followed, the Webster Hayne debate, was one of the most famous exchanges in Senate history. . As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 88,000 Webster replied to his speech the next day and left not a shred of the charge, baseless as it was. As sovereign states, each state could individually interpret the Constitution and even leave the Union altogether. So they could finish selling the lands already surveyed. . The Senate debates between Whig Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Democrat Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina in January 1830 started out as a disagreement over the sale of Western lands and turned into one of the most famous verbal contests in American history. It cannot be doubted, and is not denied, that before the formation of the constitution, each state was an independent sovereignty, possessing all the rights and powers appertaining to independent nations; nor can it be denied that, after the Constitution was formed, they remained equally sovereign and independent, as to all powers, not expressly delegated to the federal government. 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. Are we yet at the mercy of state discretion, and state construction? 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. I propose to consider it, and to compare it with the Constitution. ", What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?. 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. 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. Battle of Fort Sumter in the Civil War | Who Won the Battle of Fort Sumter? Webster's "Second Reply to Hayne" was generally regarded as "the most eloquent speech ever delivered in Congress."[1]. 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? They will also better understand the debate's political context. [was] fixed, forever, the character of the population in the vast regions Northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. . That's what was happening out West. Hayne quotes from the Virginia Resolution (1798), authored by Thomas Jefferson, to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798). Visit the dark and narrow lanes, and obscure recesses, which have been assigned by common consent as the abodes of those outcasts of the worldthe free people of color. Thousands of these deluded victims of fanaticism were seduced into the enjoyment of freedom in our Northern cities. [2] We deal in no abstractions. Well, the southern states were infuriated. To them, the more money the central government made, the stronger it became and the more it took rights away from the states to govern themselves. . Historians love a good debate. 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? He served as a U.S. senator from 1823 to 1832, and was a leading proponent of the states' rights doctrine. 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. Speech on Assuming Office of the President. Several state governments or courts, some in the north, had espoused the idea of nullification prior to 1828. . Consolidation!that perpetual cry, both of terror and delusionconsolidation! 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. . . The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts while he exonerates me personally from the charge, intimates that there is a party in the country who are looking to disunion. To them, this was a scheme to give the federal government more control over the cost of land by creating a scarcity. . They tell us, in the letter submitting the Constitution to the consideration of the country, that, in all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true Americanthe consolidation of our Unionin which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety; perhaps our national existence. . 1824 Presidential Election, Candidates & Significance | Who Won the Election of 1824? So soon as the cessions were obtained, it became necessary to make provision for the government and disposition of the territory . 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. But until they shall alter it, it must stand as their will, and is equally binding on the general government and on the states. . . 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 Webster-Hayne Debate between New Hampshire Senator Daniel Webster and South Carolina Senator Robert Young Hayne highlighted the sectional nature of the controversy. . These irreconcilable views of national supremacy and state sovereignty framed the constitutional struggle that led to Civil War thirty years later. If the gentleman provokes the war, he shall have war. 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. Record of the Organization and Proceedings of The Massachusetts Lawmakers Investigate Working Condit State (Colonial) Legislatures>Massachusetts State Legislature. I have but one word more to add. 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. Gloomy and downcast of late, Massachusetts men walked the avenue as though the fife and drum were before them. . . I'm imagining that your answer is probably 'I do.' Sir, I cordially respond to that appeal. . The Northwest Ordinance. 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. .Readers will finish the book with a clear idea of the reason Webster's "Reply" became so influential in its own day. But it was the honor of a caste; and the struggling bread-winners of society, the great commonalty, he little studied or understood. Rachel Venter is a recent graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver. . . Do they mean, or can they mean, anything more than that the Union of the states will be strengthened, by whatever continues or furnishes inducements to the people of the states to hold together? Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) | Case, Significance & Summary. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Senator Daniel Webster] has gone out of his way to pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. . They will not destroy it, they will not impair itthey will only save, they will only preserve, they will only strengthen it! . South Carolinas Declaration of the Causes of Secession (1860), Jefferson Daviss Inaugural Address (1861), Documents in Detail: The Webster-Hayne Debates, Remarks in Congress on the Tariff of Abominations, Check out our collection of primary source readers. By the time it ended nine days later, the focus had shifted to the vastly more cosmic concerns of slavery and the nature of the federal Union. Some of Webster's personal friends had felt nervous over what appeared to them too hasty a period for preparation. An error occurred trying to load this video. . Inflamed and mortified at this repulse, Hayne soon returned to the assault, primed with a two-day speech, which at great length vaunted the patriotism of South Carolina and bitterly attacked New England, dwelling particularly upon her conduct during the late war. . Sir, I deprecate and deplore this tone of thinking and acting. 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. In the course of my former remarks, I took occasion to deprecate, as one of the greatest of evils, the consolidation of this government. . The Commercial Greatness of the United States, Special Message to Congress (Tyler Doctrine), Estranged Labour and The Communist Manifesto, State of the Union Address Part II (1848). 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. . 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. . I say, the right of a state to annul a law of Congress, cannot be maintained, but on the ground of the unalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is to say, upon the ground of revolution. Sir, I am one of those who believe that the very life of our system is the independence of the states, and that there is no evil more to be deprecated than the consolidation of this government. Thirty years before the Civil War broke out, disunion appeared to be on the horizon with the Nullification Crisis. Southern ships and Southern sailors were not the instruments of bringing slaves to the shores of America, nor did our merchants reap the profits of that accursed traffic.. . I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery, in all future times, northwest of the Ohio,[6] as a measure of great wisdom and foresight; and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and permanent consequences. . The Webster-Hayne debate was a series of spontaneous speeches delivered before the Senate in 1830. foote wanted to stop surveying lands until they could sell the ones already looked at Hayne argued that the sovereign and independent states had created the Union to promote their particular interests. Rush-Bagot Treaty Structure & Effects | What was the Rush-Bagot Agreement? . 136 lessons 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, 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. My life upon it, sir, they would not. If I could, by a mere act of my will, put at the disposal of the federal government any amount of treasure which I might think proper to name, I should limit the amount to the means necessary for the legitimate purposes of the government. He was a lawyer turned congressional representative who eventually worked his way to the office of U.S. Secretary of State. . Hayne launched his confident javelin at the New England States. 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. . . . Webster rose the next day in his seat to make his reply. The idea that a state could nullify a federal law, associated with South Carolina, especially after the publication of John C. Calhouns South Carolina Exposition and Protest (1828) in response to the tariff passed in that year. The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. The people of the United States cherish a devotion to the Union, so pure, so ardent, that nothing short of intolerable oppression, can ever tempt them to do anything that may possibly endanger it.

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