It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court, are invested with this power. 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. 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. The scene depicted in the painting is Webster concluding his debate with Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina. to expose them to the temptations inseparable from the direction and control of a fund which might be enlarged or diminished almost at pleasure, without imposing burthens upon the people? we find the most opposite and irreconcilable opinions between the two parties which I have before described. The debates between daniel webster of massachusetts and robert hayne of south carolina gave. Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been, in any way, attempted. Sir, when the gentleman provokes me to such a conflict, I meet him at the threshold. 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. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. Webster believed that the Constitution should be viewed as a binding document between the United States rather than an agreement between sovereign states. He accused them of a desire to check the growth of the West in the interests of protection. 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). 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. Hayne maintained that the states retained the authority to nullify federal law, Webster that federal law expressed the will of the American people and could not be nullified by a minority of the people in a state. Consolidation!that perpetual cry, both of terror and delusionconsolidation! 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. 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. Hayne entered the U.S. Senate in 1823 and soon became prominent as a spokesman for the South and for the . 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. Certainly, sir, I am, and ever have been of that opinion. What started as a debate over the Tariff of Abominations soon morphed into debates over state and federal sovereignty and liberty and disunion. The militia of the state will be called out to sustain the nullifying act. 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. As a pious son of Federalism, Webster went the full length of the required defense. succeed. It was about protectionist tariffs.The speeches between Webster and Hayne themselves were not planned. The debaters were Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina. The gentleman takes alarm at the sound. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the Supreme Law. 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. The arena selected for a first impression was the Senate, where the arch-heretic himself presided and guided the onset with his eye. 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. 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. Foot calling for the temporary suspension of further land surveying until land already on the market was sold (to effectively stop the introduction of new lands onto the market). All rights reserved. . This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the source of its power. . . This government, sir, is the independent offspring of the popular will. Even the revenue system of this country, by which the whole of our pecuniary resources are derived from indirect taxation, from duties upon imports, has done much to weaken the responsibility of our federal rulers to the people, and has made them, in some measure, careless of their rights, and regardless of the high trust committed to their care. Ham, one of Noahs sons, saw him uncovered, for which Noah cursed him by making Hams son, Canaan, a slave to Ham's brothers. 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. It is only by a strict adherence to the limitations imposed by the Constitution on the federal government, that this system works well, and can answer the great ends for which it was instituted. 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. . The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. . The Significance of the Frontier in American Histo South Carolinas Ordinance of Nullification. Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 19, 1830. 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. It was motivated by a dispute over the continued sale of western lands, an important source of revenue for the federal government. . 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). 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. . 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. Nullification, Webster maintained, was a political absurdity. It was a speech delivered before a crowded auditory, and loud were the Southern exultations that he was more than a match for Webster. There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South. 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? foote wanted to stop surveying lands until they could sell the ones already looked at It moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and the same direction. Assuredly not. The Destiny of America, Speech at the Dedication o An Address. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. 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. . 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. The great debate, which culminated in Hayne's encounter with Webster, came about in a somewhat casual way. I did not utter a single word, which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on the slavery of the South. Wilmot Proviso of 1846: Overview & Significance | What was the Wilmot Proviso? Several state governments or courts, some in the north, had espoused the idea of nullification prior to 1828. But his standpoint was purely local and sectional. . We could not send them back to the shores from whence their fathers had been taken; their numbers forbade the thought, even if we did not know that their condition here is infinitely preferable to what it possibly could be among the barren sands and savage tribes of Africa; and it was wholly irreconcilable with all our notions of humanity to tear asunder the tender ties which they had formed among us, to gratify the feelings of a false philanthropy. . Webster's speech aroused the latent spirit of patriotism. . . 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 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. 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. Having thus distinctly stated the points in dispute between the gentleman and myself, I proceed to examine them. Well, let's look at the various parts. Rush-Bagot Treaty Structure & Effects | What was the Rush-Bagot Agreement? Between January and May 1830, twenty-one of the forty-eight senators delivered a staggering sixty-five speeches on the nature of the Union. Democratic Party Platform 1860 (Breckinridge Facti (Southern) Democratic Party Platform Committee. 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. . Nullification, Webster maintained, was a political absurdity. I'm imagining that your answer is probably 'I do.' . 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. Rachel Venter is a recent graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver. 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. President John Quincy Adams and the Election of 1824. It is one from which we are not disposed to shrink, in whatever form or under whatever circumstances it may be pressed upon us. . The states cannot now make war; they cannot contract alliances; they cannot make, each for itself, separate regulations of commerce; they cannot lay imposts; they cannot coin money. Sir, I may be singularperhaps I stand alone here in the opinion, but it is one I have long entertained, that one of the greatest safeguards of liberty is a jealous watchfulness on the part of the people, over the collection and expenditure of the public moneya watchfulness that can only be secured where the money is drawn by taxation directly from the pockets of the people. This will co-operate with the feelings of patriotism to induce a state to avoid any measures calculated to endanger that connection. The Webster-Hayne debate laid out key issues faced by the Senate in the 1820s and 1830s. Webster was eloquent, he was educated, he was witty, and he was a staunch defender of American liberty. 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 . 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 . . . . . Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 27, 1830. . . 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. I will yield to no gentleman here in sincere attachment to the Union,but it is a Union founded on the Constitution, and not such a Union as that gentleman would give us, that is dear to my heart. 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. I deem far otherwise of the Union of the states; and so did the Framers of the Constitution themselves. 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. This would have been the case even if no positive provision to that effect had been inserted in that instrument. . . He describes fully that old state of things then existing. 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. When the gentleman says the Constitution is a compact between the states, he uses language exactly applicable to the old Confederation. Liberty has been to them the greatest of calamities, the heaviest of curses. 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. Let's start by looking at the United States around 1830. Regional Conflict in America: Debate Over States' Rights. Create your account, 15 chapters | . . . . Mr. Webster arose, and, in conclusion, said: A few words, Mr. President, on this constitutional argument, which the honorable gentleman has labored to reconstruct. . . 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. . 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.

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