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 . He describes fully that old state of things then existing. Tariff of Abominations of 1828 | What was the Significance of the Tariff of Abominations? 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. 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. . 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. So what was this debate really about? God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. . I did not utter a single word, which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on the slavery of the South. I shrink almost instinctively from a course, however necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings, and sectional jealousies. . And now, Mr. President, let me run the honorable gentlemans doctrine a little into its practical application. The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of 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. South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification 1832 | Crisis, Cause & Issues. . Webster's articulation of the concept of the Union went on to shape American attitudes about the federal government. 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To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. 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. Though the debate began as a standard policy debate, the significance of Daniel Webster's argument reached far beyond a single policy proposal. 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. Judiciary Act of 1801 | Overview, History & Significance, General Ulysses S. Grant Takes Charge: His Strategic Plan for Ending the War. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) | Case, Significance & Summary. 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. . This is the sense in which the Framers of the Constitution use the word consolidation; and in which sense I adopt and cherish it. They switched from a. the tariff of 1828 to national power . 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. Let's start by looking at the United States around 1830. Sir, as to the doctrine that the federal government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its powers, it seems to be utterly subversive of the sovereignty and independence of the states. - Women's Rights Facts & Significance, Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points: Definition, Speech & Summary, Fireside Chats: Definition & Significance, JFK's New Frontier: Definition, Speech & Program. Compare And Contrast The Tension Between North And South. 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. The debate was important because it laid out the arguments in favor of nationalism in the face of growing sectionalism. The scene depicted in the painting is Webster concluding his debate with Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina. 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. It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under which we are here assembled. Rather, the debate eloquently captured the ideas and ideals of Northern and Southern representatives of the time, highlighting and summarizing the major issues of governance of the era. . Hayne was a great orator, filled with fiery passion and eloquent prose. . But still, throughout American history, several debates have captured the nation's attention in a way that would make even Hollywood jealous. Speech on Assuming Office of the President. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court, are invested with this power. The action, the drama, the suspensewho needs the movies? 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.. The debaters were Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina. . Webster was eloquent, he was educated, he was witty, and he was a staunch defender of American liberty. To them, this was a scheme to give the federal government more control over the cost of land by creating a scarcity. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil. . . The people were not satisfied with it, and undertook to establish a better. 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. In whatever is within the proper sphere of the constitutional power of this government, we look upon the states as one. He had allowed himself but a single night from eve to morn to prepare for a critical and crowning occasion. The people had had quite enough of that kind of government, under the Confederacy. . 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. . The debate was on. . 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. [was] fixed, forever, the character of the population in the vast regions Northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. At the foundation of the constitution of these new Northwestern states, . . When the gentleman says the Constitution is a compact between the states, he uses language exactly applicable to the old Confederation. These verses recount the first occurrence of slavery. . And here it will be necessary to go back to the origin of the federal government. 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. Hayne and the South saw it as basically a treaty between sovereign states. Hayne began the debate by speaking out against a proposal by the northern states which suggested that the federal government should stop its surveyance of land west of the Mississippi and shift its focus to selling the land it had already surveyed. 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. . Two leading ideas predominated in this reply, and with respect to either Hayne was not only answered but put to silence. Under that system, the legal actionthe application of law to individuals, belonged exclusively to the states. 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. In our contemplation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country; states, united under the same general government, having interests, common, associated, intermingled. If I had, sir, the powers of a magician, and could, by a wave of my hand, convert this capital into gold for such a purpose, I would not do it. 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. 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." I know that there are some persons in the part of the country from which the honorable member comes, who habitually speak of the Union in terms of indifference, or even of disparagement. . The faction of voters in the North were against slavery and feared it spreading into new territory. On this subject, as in all others, we ask nothing of our Northern brethren but to let us alone; leave us to the undisturbed management of our domestic concerns, and the direction of our own industry, and we will ask no more. As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 88,000 This means that South Carolina is essentially its own nation, Georgia is its own nation, and so on. An equally. MTEL Speech: Notable Debates & Speeches in U.S. History, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858: Summary & Significance, Psychological Research & Experimental Design, All Teacher Certification Test Prep Courses, The Significance of Daniel Webster's Argument, MTEL Speech: Principles of Argument & Debate, MTEL Speech: Understanding Persuasive Communication, MTEL Speech: Public Argument in Democratic Societies. . He accused them of a desire to check the growth of the West in the interests of protection. 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. . . 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. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. 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. Explore the Webster-Hayne debate. 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. To all this, sir, I was disposed most cordially to respond. . Nullification, Webster maintained, was a political absurdity. The debates between daniel webster of massachusetts and robert hayne of south carolina gave. Assuredly not. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Senator Daniel Webster] has gone out of his way to pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. This was the tenor of Webster's speech, and nobly did the country respond to 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. . 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). 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. 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. Well, you're not alone. 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. If the gentleman provokes the war, he shall have war. In 1830, the federal government collected few taxes and had two primary sources of revenue. It was motivated by a dispute over the continued sale of western lands, an important source of revenue for the federal government. Address to the Slaves of the United States. 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. 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. 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. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. The speech is also known for the line Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable, which would subsequently become the state motto of North Dakota, appearing on the state seal. The taxes paid by foreign nations to export American cotton, for example, generated lots of money for the government. This is the sum of what I understand from him, to be the South Carolina doctrine; and the doctrine which he maintains. 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. 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. 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. . Sir, I deprecate and deplore this tone of thinking and acting. 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. TeachingAmericanHistory.org is a project of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, 401 College Avenue, Ashland, Ohio 44805 PHONE (419) 289-5411 TOLL FREE (877) 289-5411 EMAIL [emailprotected], The Congress Sends Twelve Amendments to the States, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 3rd Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 3rd Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 4th Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 4th Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 6th Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 6th Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 7th Debate Part I, National Disfranchisement of Colored People, William Lloyd Garrison to Thomas Shipley. . 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. The United States, under the Constitution and federal government, was a single, unified nation, not a coalition of sovereign states. . For one, Hayne and Webster were arguing for the fate of the West and, in particular, whether the North or South would control western development. 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. . 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. . Webster and the northern states saw the Constitution as binding the individual states together as a single union. It was a speech delivered before a crowded auditory, and loud were the Southern exultations that he was more than a match for Webster. Besides that, however, the federal government was still figuring out its role in American society. Hayne launched his confident javelin at the New England States. Historians love a good debate. Regional Conflict in America: Debate Over States' Rights. Debate on the Constitutionality of the Mexican War, Letters and Journals from the Oregon Trail. . | 12 The Hayne-Webster Debate was 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. Sheidley, Harlow W. "The Wester-Hayne Debate: Recasting New England's Sectionalism", Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 179899, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WebsterHayne_debate&oldid=1135315190, This page was last edited on 23 January 2023, at 22:54. Francis O. J. Smith to Secretary of State Dan Special Message to the House of Representatives, Special Message to Congress on Mexican Relations. . 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? The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions Add Song of the Spinners from the Lowell Offering. She has a BA in political science. . Correct answers: 2 question: Which of the following is the best definition of a hypothesis? But his standpoint was purely local and sectional. 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. . Our Core Document Collection allows students to read history in the words of those who made it. 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. This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the source of its power. See what I mean? It was of a partizan and censorious character and drew nearly all the chief senators out. Union, of itself, is considered by the disciples of this school as hardly a good. . . Battle of Fort Sumter in the Civil War | Who Won the Battle of Fort Sumter? Between January and May 1830, twenty-one of the forty-eight senators delivered a staggering sixty-five speeches on the nature of the Union. . Speech on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise. . 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. . . In January 1830, a debate on the nature of sovereignty in the American federal union occurred in the United States Senate between Senators Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina. Though Webster made an impassioned argument, the political, social, and economic traditions of New England informed his ideas about the threatened nation. 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 . 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. 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. . Chris has a master's degree in history and teaches at the University of Northern Colorado. Our notion of things is entirely different. They will also better understand the debate's political context. . 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. The Revelation on Celestial Marriage: Trouble Amon Hon. What followed, the Webster Hayne debate, was one of the most famous exchanges in Senate history. Let us look at the historical facts. If an inquiry should ever be instituted in these matters, however, it will be found that the profits of the slave trade were not confined to the South. 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.. 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. He was a lawyer turned congressional representative who eventually worked his way to the office of U.S. Secretary of State. Ostend Manifesto of 1854 Overview & Purpose | What was the Ostend Manifesto? we find the most opposite and irreconcilable opinions between the two parties which I have before described. 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.

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