He was a lawyer turned congressional representative who eventually worked his way to the office of U.S. Secretary of State. The taxes paid by foreign nations to export American cotton, for example, generated lots of money for the government. 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 . 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 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. 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. In 1830, the federal government collected few taxes and had two primary sources of revenue. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the Supreme Law. succeed. Tariff of 1816 History & Significance | What was the Tariff of 1816? 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. 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! I love a good debate. . . In contrasting the state of Ohio with Kentucky, for the purpose of pointing out the superiority of the former, and of attributing that superiority to the existence of slavery, in the one state, and its absence in the other, I thought I could discern the very spirit of the Missouri question[1] intruded into this debate, for objects best known to the gentleman himself. . . We will not look back to inquire whether our fathers were guiltless in introducing slaves into this country. . If the gentleman provokes the war, he shall have war. 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. . flashcard sets. . . 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. 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. 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. Well, the southern states were infuriated. A state will be restrained by a sincere love of the Union. When they shall become dissatisfied with this distribution, they can alter it. . He must say to his followers [members of the state militia], defend yourselves with your bayonets; and this is warcivil war. . This is the sum of what I understand from him, to be the South Carolina doctrine; and the doctrine which he maintains. 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. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court, are invested with this power. I shrink almost instinctively from a course, however necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings, and sectional jealousies. 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? . This means that South Carolina is essentially its own nation, Georgia is its own nation, and so on. Well, it's important to remember that the nation was still young and much different than what we think of today. That led into a debate on the economy, in which Webster attacked the institution of slavery and Hayne labeled the policy of protectionist tariffs as the consolidation of a strong central government, which he called the greatest of evils. 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? Historians love a good debate. 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. Under the circumstances then existing, I look upon this original and seasonable provision, as a real good attained. An accomplished politician, Hayne was an eloquent orator who enthralled his audiences. . Webster and the North treated it as binding the states together as a single union. Neither side can be said to have 'won' the debate, but Webster's articulation of the Union solidified for many the role of the federal government. 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. Nullification, Webster maintained, was a political absurdity. What followed, the Webster Hayne debate, was one of the most famous exchanges in Senate history. Thousands of these deluded victims of fanaticism were seduced into the enjoyment of freedom in our Northern cities. . 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. . 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. . Record of the Organization and Proceedings of The Massachusetts Lawmakers Investigate Working Condit State (Colonial) Legislatures>Massachusetts State Legislature. Create your account. This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the source of its power. 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. . They switched from a. the tariff of 1828 to national power . 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. Connecticut and other northeastern states were worried about the pace of growth and wanted to slow this down. 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 is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under which we are here assembled. They ordained such a government; they gave it the name of a Constitution, and therein they established a distribution of powers between this, their general government, and their several state governments. The discussion took a wide range, going back to topics that had agitated the country before the Constitution was formed. Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives. 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. The United States' democratic process was evolving and its leaders were putting the newly ratified Constitution into practice. This was the man to fire an aristocracy of fellow citizens ready to arm when their interests were in danger, and upon him, it devolved to advance the cause of South Carolina, break down the tariff, and fascinate the Union with the new rattlesnake theories. Our Core Document Collection allows students to read history in the words of those who made it. The Webster-Hayne Debate between New Hampshire Senator Daniel Webster and South Carolina Senator Robert Young Hayne highlighted the sectional nature of the controversy. A speech by Louisiana Senator Edward Livingston, however, neatly explains how American nationhood encompasses elements of both Webster and Hayne's ideas. But, sir, the gentleman is mistaken. These debates transformed into a national crisis when South Carolina threatened . Debate on the Constitutionality of the Mexican War, Letters and Journals from the Oregon Trail. It is the servant of four-and-twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. Sir, an immense national treasury would be a fund for corruption. . An equally. . 1824 Presidential Election, Candidates & Significance | Who Won the Election of 1824? The Webster-Hayne debates began over one issue but quickly switched to another. 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. . What was going on? . Foote Idea To Limit The Sale Of Public Lands In The West To New Settlers. Excerpts from Ratification Documents of Virginia a Ratifying Conventions>New York Ratifying Convention. 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. In the course of my former remarks, I took occasion to deprecate, as one of the greatest of evils, the consolidation of this government. Hayne launched his confident javelin at the New England States. Francis O. J. Smith to Secretary of State Dan Special Message to the House of Representatives, Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations. . These verses recount the first occurrence of slavery. . Broadside Advertisement for Runaway Slave, Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Free-Soiler, Free & Slave-holding States and Territories. Gloomy and downcast of late, Massachusetts men walked the avenue as though the fife and drum were before them. . . 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. Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 27, 1830. . Speech on Assuming Office of the President. But to remove all doubt it is expressly declared, by the 10th article of the amendment of the Constitution, that the powers not delegated to the states, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.. . . 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. The debate can be seen as a precursor to the debate that became . 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. . A four-speech debate between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina, in January 1830. Nor those other words of delusion and folly,liberty first, and union afterwardsbut everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole Heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heartliberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable! 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. And who are its enemies? . 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. . Nullification, Webster maintained, was a political absurdity. 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. 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. President John Quincy Adams and the Election of 1824. I understand him to insist, that if the exigency of the case, in the opinion of any state government, require it, such state government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government, which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional. One of those was the Webster-Hayne debate, a series of unplanned speeches presented before the Senate between January 19th and 27th of 1830. My life upon it, sir, they would not. 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. . Consolidation, like the tariff, grates upon his ear. . Differences between Northern and Southern ideas of good governance, which eventually led to the American Civil War, were beginning to emerge. 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). It would be equally fatal to the sovereignty and independence of the states. I propose to consider it, and to compare it with the Constitution. The Confederation was, in strictness, a compact; the states, as states, were parties to it. 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.. . 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. Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 25, 1830. . Which of the following statements best represents the desires of the Northern states during the debate of Missouri statehood? All of these ideas, however, are only parts of the main point. 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. Most people of the time supported a small central government and strong state governments, so the federal government was much weaker than you might have expected. 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. [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. Consolidation!that perpetual cry, both of terror and delusionconsolidation! 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.