This government, sir, is the independent offspring of the popular will. As a pious son of Federalism, Webster went the full length of the required defense. Well, you're not alone. 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. . He tells us, we have heard much, of late, about consolidation; that it is the rallying word for all who are endeavoring to weaken the Union by adding to the power of the states. But consolidation, says the gentleman, was the very object for which the Union was formed; and in support of that opinion, he read a passage from the address of the president of the Convention[3] to Congress (which he assumes to be authority on his side of the question.) . If the government of the United States be the agent of the state governments, then they may control it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it; if it be the agent of the people, then the people alone can control it, restrain it, modify, or reform it. Whose agent is it? 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. 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. . . . . Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been, in any way, attempted. . Hayne quotes from Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, December 26, 1825, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-william-branch-giles/?_sft_document_author=thomas-jefferson. Under the circumstances then existing, I look upon this original and seasonable provision, as a real good attained. . Help please? What idea was espoused with the Webster-Hayne debates? The As sovereign states, each state could individually interpret the Constitution and even leave the Union altogether. New England, the Union, and the Constitution in its integrity, all were triumphantly vindicated. 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. The United States' democratic process was evolving and its leaders were putting the newly ratified Constitution into practice. This is a delicate and sensitive point, in southern feeling; and of late years it has always been touched, and generally with effect, whenever the object has been to unite the whole South against northern men, or northern measures. . . We, sir, who oppose the Carolina doctrine, do not deny that the people may, if they choose, throw off any government, when it becomes oppressive and intolerable, and erect a better in its stead. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Senator Daniel Webster] has gone out of his way to pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. . Francis O. J. Smith to Secretary of State Dan Special Message to the House of Representatives, Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations. Wilmot Proviso of 1846: Overview & Significance | What was the Wilmot Proviso? Webster-Hayne Debate. . 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. Web hardcover $30.00 paperback $17.00 kindle nook book ibook. . 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. . . 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. Webster was eloquent, he was educated, he was witty, and he was a staunch defender of American liberty. . It impressed on the soil itself, while it was yet a wilderness, an incapacity to bear up any other than free men. Webster-Hayne Debate book. But, sir, the gentleman is mistaken. Webster-Hayne Debates, 1830 - Bill of Rights Institute . But, the simple expression of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only into a labored defense of slavery, in the abstract, and on principle, but, also, into a warm accusation against me, as having attacked the system of domestic slavery, now existing in the Southern states. . 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. . . And, therefore, I cannot but feel regret at the expression of such opinions as the gentleman has avowed; because I think their obvious tendency is to weaken the bond of our connection. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. Expert Answers. Noah grew a vineyard, got drunk on wine and lay naked. He speaks as if he were in Congress before 1789. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. Sir, I have had some opportunities of making comparisons between the condition of the free Negroes of the North and the slaves of the South, and the comparison has left not only an indelible impression of the superior advantages of the latter, but has gone far to reconcile me to slavery itself. The other way was through the sale of federally-owned land to private citizens. The people were not satisfied with it, and undertook to establish a better. 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 . 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. He had allowed himself but a single night from eve to morn to prepare for a critical and crowning occasion. 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. It was motivated by a dispute over the continued sale of western lands, an important source of revenue for the federal government. Even more pointedly, his speech reflected a decade of arguments from other Massachusetts conservatives who argued against supposed threats to New England's social order.[2]. For Calhoun, see the Speech on Abolition Petitions and the Speech on the Oregon Bill. The purpose of the Constitution was to permit cooperation between states under a shared political standard, but that meant that any growth in a federal government threatened the sovereignty of the states. [2] We deal in no abstractions. The Constitutional Convention: The Great Compromise, The Webster-Hayne Debate of 1830: Summary & Issues, The History of American Presidential Debates, Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening: Sermons & Biography, Who Was Susan B. Anthony? 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 next day, however, Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster rose with his reply, and the northern states knew they had found their champion. The debates between daniel webster of massachusetts and robert hayne of south carolina gave. Webster's argument that the constitution should stand as a powerful uniting force between the states rather than a treaty between sovereign states held as a key concept in America's ideas about the federal government. Webster argued that the American people had created the Union to promote the good of the whole. 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." See what I mean? We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude, to find boundaries, beyond which public improvements do not benefit us. . .Readers will finish the book with a clear idea of the reason Webster's "Reply" became so influential in its own day. . Ah! Well, it's important to remember that the nation was still young and much different than what we think of today. The discussion took a wide range, going back to topics that had agitated the country before the Constitution was formed. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. They attack nobody, and menace nobody. It is observable enough, that the doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends, leads him to the necessity of maintaining, not only that this general government is the creature of the states, but that it is the creature of each of the states severally; so that each may assert the power, for itself, of determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. . 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. 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. . Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. The militia of the state will be called out to sustain the nullifying act. For the next several days, the men traded speeches which contemporaries of the time described as the greatest orations ever delivered in the Senate. . 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. . . Hayne and the South saw it as basically a treaty between sovereign states. Senator Foote, of Connecticut, submitted a proposition inquiring into the expediency of limiting the sales of public lands to those already in the market. But, sir, we will pass over all this. . . The impression which has gone abroad, of the weakness of the South, as connected with the slave question, exposes us to such constant attacks, has done us so much injury, and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I embrace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gentleman from Massachusetts, to declare that we are ready to meet the question promptly and fearlessly. To them, this was a scheme to give the federal government more control over the cost of land by creating a scarcity. 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. No doubt can exist, that, before the states entered into the compact, they possessed the right to the fullest extent, of determining the limits of their own powersit is incident to all sovereignty. This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference, in political opinion, between the honorable gentleman and myself. 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. I hold it to be a popular government, erected by the people; those who administer it responsible to the people; and itself capable of being amended and modified, just as the people may choose it should be. . flashcard sets. . Mr. Hayne having rejoined to Mr. Webster, especially on the constitutional question. Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support. Create your account, 15 chapters | The Webster-Hayne Debate: Defining Nationhood in the Early American The excited crowd which had packed the Senate chamber, filling every seat on the floor and in the galleries, and all the available standing room, dispersed after the orator's last grand apostrophe had died away in the air, with national pride throbbing at the heart. Webster-Hayne Debate - Federalism in America - CSF Speech on Assuming Office of the President. The Webster Hayne Debate - DEBETE CJK What was going on? 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. 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? How do Webster and Hayne differ in regard to their understandings of the proper relationship among the several states and between the states and the national government? I deem far otherwise of the Union of the states; and so did the Framers of the Constitution themselves. 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. 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. He was a lawyer turned congressional representative who eventually worked his way to the office of U.S. Secretary of State. Webster realized that if the social, political, and economic elite of Massachusetts and the Northeast were to once again lay claim to national leadership, he had to justify New England's previous history of sectionalism within a framework of nationalistic progression. The Union to be preserved, while it suits local and temporary purposes to preserve it; and to be sundered whenever it shall be found to thwart such purposes. Religious Views: Letter to the Editor of the Illin Democratic Party Platform 1860 (Douglas Faction), (Northern) Democratic Party Platform Committee. 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? 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 . Conversation-based seminars for collegial PD, one-day and multi-day seminars, graduate credit seminars (MA degree), online and in-person. All of these contentious topics were touched upon in Webster and Hayne's nine day long debate. Consolidation, like the tariff, grates upon his ear. 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. Having thus distinctly stated the points in dispute between the gentleman and myself, I proceed to examine them. This would have been the case even if no positive provision to that effect had been inserted in that instrument. The Webster-Hayne debate was a series of spontaneous speeches delivered before the Senate in 1830. And what has been the consequence? Webster-Hayne Debate - U-S-History Allow me to say, as a preliminary remark, that I call this the South Carolina doctrine, only because the gentleman himself has so denominated it. The Destiny of America, Speech at the Dedication o An Address. . I said, only, that it was highly wise and useful in legislating for the northwestern country, while it was yet a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves: and added, that I presumed, in the neighboring state of Kentucky, there was no reflecting and intelligent gentleman, who would doubt, that if the same prohibition had been extended, at the same early period, over that commonwealth, her strength and population would, at this day, have been far greater than they are. The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. They will also better understand the debate's political context. . . Connecticut's proposal was an attempt to slow the growth of the nation, control westward expansion, and bolster the federal government's revenue. . . 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. 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. They had burst forth from arguments about a decision by Connecticut Senator Samuel Foote. For all this, there was not the slightest foundation, in anything said or intimated by me. . It has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left with the states themselves, and with which the federal government had nothing to do. The debate continued, in some ways not being fully settled until the completion of the Civil War affirmed the power of the federal government to preserve the Union over the sovereignty of the states to leave it. 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. I feel like its a lifeline. succeed. The measures of the federal government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin. South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification 1832 | Crisis, Cause & Issues. But his standpoint was purely local and sectional. . 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! . . This means that South Carolina is essentially its own nation, Georgia is its own nation, and so on. . The United States, under the Constitution and federal government, was a single, unified nation, not a coalition of sovereign states. It would be equally fatal to the sovereignty and independence of the states. 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. . 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. The arena selected for a first impression was the Senate, where the arch-heretic himself presided and guided the onset with his eye. . . The Webster-Hayne Debate: An Inquiry into the Nature of Union by Stefan What they said I believe; fully and sincerely believe, that the Union of the states is essential to the prosperity and safety of the states. Sir, I deprecate and deplore this tone of thinking and acting. The faction of voters in the North were against slavery and feared it spreading into new territory. . Sir, if we are, then vain will be our attempt to maintain the Constitution under which we sit. 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. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you 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. Most are forgettable, to put it charitably. The Significance of the Frontier in American Histo South Carolinas Ordinance of Nullification. 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. If these opinions be thought doubtful, they are, nevertheless, I trust, neither extraordinary nor disrespectful. . . Correct answers: 2 question: Which of the following is the best definition of a hypothesis? Liberty has been to them the greatest of calamities, the heaviest of curses. . . It develops the gentlemans whole political system; and its answer expounds mine. This episode was used in nineteenth century America as a Biblical justification for slavery. Webster rose the next day in his seat to make his reply. . Between January and May 1830, twenty-one of the forty-eight senators delivered a staggering sixty-five speeches on the nature of the Union. Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural So "The Whole Affair Seems the Work of a Madman", John Brown and the Principle of Nonresistance. I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest of evils, both moral and political. Hayne, Robert Young | South Carolina Encyclopedia The gentleman takes alarm at the sound. They will not destroy it, they will not impair itthey will only save, they will only preserve, they will only strengthen it! . Finally, sir, the honorable gentleman says, that the states will only interfere, by their power, to preserve the Constitution. . 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. 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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. Daniel webster (ma) and sen. Hayne of . 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. . Webster and Hayne on the American Constitution . If slavery, as it now exists in this country, be an evil, we of the present day found it ready made to our hands. Now that was a good debate! 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.