American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) by Various

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The honorable member complained that I slept on his speech. I must have
slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member sat
down, his friend from Missouri rose, and, with much honeyed commendation
of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had produced were
too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments or other
sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been
quite amiable in me, Sir, to interrupt this excellent good feeling? Must
I not have been absolutely malicious, if I could have thrust myself
forward, to destroy sensations thus pleasing? Was it not much better and
kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow others also the
pleasure of sleeping upon them? But if it be meant, by sleeping upon his
speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it is quite a
mistake. Owing to other engagements, I could not employ even the
interval between the adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the next
morning, in attention to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless, Sir,
the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true. I did sleep on the
gentleman's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his
speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite possible
that in this respect, also, I possess some advantage over the honorable
member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part;
for, in truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well.

But the gentleman inquires why HE was made the object of such a reply.
Why was he singled out? If an attack has been made on the East, he, he
assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman from
Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to
hear it; and because, also, I choose to give an answer to that speech,
which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious
impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of
the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my
purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility
without delay. But, sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member was
only introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had
turned upon him in this debate, from the consciousness that I should
find an overmatch, if I ventured on a contest with his friend from
Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member, _modestiae gratia_, had chosen
thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him compliments, without
intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according
to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my
own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of
regard, whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate,
which may be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from
themselves. But the tone and the manner of the gentleman's question
forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as
nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and
disparagement, something of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which
does not allow me to pass it over without notice. It was put as a
question for me to answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to
answer whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself
in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraordinary
language, and an extraordinary tone, for the discussions of this body.

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than
here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman
seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate, a Senate of
equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of
absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators.
This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for
the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man;
I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since
the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an
answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him, that, holding myself
to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of
his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of his
friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing
whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may
choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the
floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or
compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member
might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my
own. But when put to me as a matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say
to the gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing less likely than
such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of
its tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise,
probably, would have been its general acceptation. But, sir, if it be
imagined by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed
that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his
part, to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be
thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any
laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any, or
all of these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the
honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he
is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to
learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion, I hope on no
occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I
trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the
honorable member may, perhaps, find that in that contest, there will be
blows to take as well as blows to give; that others can state
comparisons as significant, at least, as his own, and that his impunity
may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may
possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.

On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misunderstood. The
gentlemen had harangued against "consolidation." I told him, in reply,
that there was one kind of consolidation to which I was attached, and
that was the consolidation of our Union; that this was precisely that
consolidation to which I feared others were not attached, and that such
consolidation was the very end of the Constitution, the leading object,
as they had informed us themselves, which its framers had kept in view.
I turned to their communication, and read their very words, "the
consolidation of the Union," and expressed my devotion to this sort of
consolidation. I said, in terms, that I wished not in the slightest
degree to augment the powers of this government; that my object was to
preserve, not to enlarge; and that by consolidating the Union I
understood no more than the strengthening of the Union, and perpetuating
it. Having been thus explicit, having thus read from the printed book
the precise words which I adopted, as expressing my own sentiments, it
passes comprehension how any man could understand me as contending for
an extension of the powers of the government, or for consolidation in
that odious sense in which it means an accumulation, in the Federal
Government, of the powers properly belonging to the States.

I repeat, sir, that, in adopting the sentiments of the framers of the
Constitution, I read their language audibly, and word for word; and I
pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I have now done, between
the consolidation of the Union and that other obnoxious consolidation
which I disclaim. And yet the honorable member misunderstood me. The
gentleman had said that he wished for no fixed revenue,--not a shilling.
If by a word he could convert the Capitol into gold, he would not do it.
Why all this fear of revenue? Why, sir, because, as the gentleman told
us, it tends to consolidation. Now this can mean neither more nor less
than that a common revenue is a common interest, and that all common
interests tend to preserve the union of the States. I confess I like
that tendency; if the gentleman dislikes it, he is right in deprecating
a shilling of fixed revenue. So much, sir, for consolidation. * * *

Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge made by
me against South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, has
taken up a crusade against New England. Leaving altogether the subject
of the public lands, in which his success, perhaps, had been neither
distinguished nor satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the topic of
the tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault on the opinions,
politics, and parties of New England, as they have been exhibited in the
last thirty years.

New England has, at times, so argues the gentleman, held opinions as
dangerous as those which he now holds. Suppose this were so; how should
he therefore abuse New England? If he find himself countenanced by acts
of hers, how is it that, while he relies on these acts, he covers, or
seeks to cover, their authors with reproach? But, sir, if in the course
of forty years, there have been undue effervescences of party in New
England, has the same thing happened nowhere else? Party animosity and
party outrage, not in New England, but elsewhere, denounced President
Washington, not only as a Federalist, but as a Tory, a British agent, a
man who in his high office sanctioned corruption. But does the honorable
member suppose, if I had a tender here who should put such an effusion
of wickedness and folly into my hand, that I would stand up and read it
against the South? Parties ran into great heats again in 1799 and 1800.
What was said, sir, or rather what was not said, in those years, against
John Adams, one of the committee that drafted the Declaration of
Independence, and its admitted ablest defender on the floor of Congress?
If the gentleman wishes to increase his stores of party abuse and frothy
violence, if he has a determined proclivity to such pursuits, there are
treasures of that sort south of the Potomac, much to his taste, yet
untouched. I shall not touch them. * * * The gentleman's purveyors have
only catered for him among the productions of one side. I certainly
shall not supply the deficiency by furnishing him samples of the other.
I leave to him, and to them, the whole concern. It is enough for me to
say, that if, in any part of their grateful occupation, if, in all their
researches, they find any thing in the history of Massachusetts, or of
New England, or in the proceedings of any legislative or other public
body, disloyal to the Union, speaking slightingly of its value,
proposing to break it up, or recommending non-intercourse with
neighboring States, on account of difference in political opinion, then,
sir, I give them all up to the honorable gentleman's unrestrained
rebuke; expecting, however, that he will extend his buffetings in like
manner, to all similar proceedings, wherever else found. * * *

Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it is, into New England,
the honorable gentleman all along professes to be acting on the
defensive. He chooses to consider me as having assailed South Carolina,
and insists that he comes forth only as her champion, and in her
defence. Sir, I do not admit that I made any attack whatever on South
Carolina. Nothing like it. The honorable member, in his first speech,
expressed opinions, in regard to revenue and some other topics, which I
heard with both pain and surprise. I told the gentleman I was aware that
such sentiments were entertained out of the Government, but had not
expected to find them advanced in it; that I knew there were persons in
the South who speak of our Union with indifference or doubt, taking
pains to magnify its evils, and to say nothing of its benefits; that the
honorable member himself, I was sure, could never be one of these; and I
regretted the expression of such opinions as he had avowed, because I
thought their obvious tendency was to encourage feelings of disrespect
to the Union, and to impair its strength. This, sir, is the sum and
substance of all I said on the abject. And this constitutes the attack
which called on the chivalry of the gentleman, in his own opinion, to
harry us with such a foray among the party pamphlets and party
proceedings in Massachusetts! If he means that I spoke with
dissatisfaction or disrespect of the ebullitions of individuals in South
Carolina, it is true. But if he means that I assailed the character of
the State, her honor, or patriotism, that I reflected on her history or
her conduct, he has not the slightest grounds for any such assumption. *
* * I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in
regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character
South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the
pride of her great names. I claim them for my countrymen, one and all,
the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the
Marions,--Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State
lines than their talents and patriotism were capable of being
circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation
they served and honored the country, and the whole country; and their
renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name
the gentleman himself bears--does he esteem me less capable of gratitude
for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had
first opened upon the light of Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina?
Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so
bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratification
and delight, rather. I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of the
spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as
I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down. When I shall
be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at
public merit, because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits
of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or
for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated
patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see
an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and
virtue, in any son of the South; and if, moved by local prejudices or
gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair
from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof
of my mouth!

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge in
refreshing remembrances of the past; let me remind you that, in early
times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and
feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that
harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the
Revolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of
Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind
feeling, if it exist, alienation, and distrust, are the growth,
unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds,
the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.

Mr. President, I shall enter upon no encomium of Massachusetts; she
needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is
her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure.
There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there
they will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great
struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State
from New England to Georgia, and there they will lie forever. And, sir,
where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was
nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its
manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall
wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk and tear it, if
folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint
shall succeed in separating it from that Union, by which alone its
existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that
cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm
with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather
round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the
profoundest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its
origin.

There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far the most grave
and important duty which I feel to be devolved upon me by this occasion.
It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles
of the Constitution under which we are here assembled. I might well have
desired that so weighty a task should have fallen into other and abler
hands. I could have wished that it should have been executed by those
whose character and experience give weight and influence to their
opinions, such as cannot possibly belong to mine. But, sir, I have met
the occasion, not sought it; and I shall proceed to state my own
sentiments, without challenging for them any particular regard, with
studied plainness, and as much precision as possible.

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.

I understand him to maintain this right, as a right existing under the
Constitution, not as a right to overthrow it on the ground of extreme
necessity, such as would justify violent revolution.

I understand him to maintain an authority on the part of the States,
thus to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the exercise of power
by the General Government, of checking it and of compelling it to
conform to their opinion of the extent of its powers.

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.

I understand him to insist, that, if the exigencies 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.

This is the sum of what I understand from him to be the South Carolina
doctrine, and the doctrine which he maintains. I propose to consider it,
and compare it with the Constitution. 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. I do not feel at liberty to say
that South Carolina, as a State, has ever advanced these sentiments. I
hope she has not, and never may. That a great majority of her people are
opposed to the tariff laws, is doubtless true. That a majority, somewhat
less than that just mentioned, conscientiously believe these laws
unconstitutional, may probably also be true. But that any majority holds
to the right of direct State interference at State discretion, the right
of nullifying acts of Congress by acts of State legislation, is more
than I know, and what I shall be slow to believe.

That there are individuals besides the honorable gentleman who do
maintain these opinions, is quite certain. I recollect the recent
expression of a sentiment, which circumstances attending its utterance
and publication justify us in supposing was not unpremeditated. "The
sovereignty of the State,--never to be controlled, construed, or decided
on, but by her own feelings of honorable justice."

[Mr. HAYNE here rose and said, that, for the purpose of being clearly
understood, he would state that his proposition was in the words of the
Virginia resolution as follows:

"That this assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it
views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the
compact to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense
and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther
valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact;
and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of
other powers not granted by the said compact. The States that are
parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound to interpose for
arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their
respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to
them."

Mr. WEBSTER resumed:]

I am quite aware, Mr. President, of the existence of the resolution
which the gentleman read, and has now repeated, and that he relies on it
as his authority. I know the source, too, from which it is understood to
have proceeded. I need not say that I have much respect for the
constitutional opinions of Mr. Madison; they would weigh greatly with me
always. But before the authority of his opinion be vouched for the
gentleman's proposition, it will be proper to consider what is the fair
interpretation of that resolution, to which Mr. Madison is understood to
have given his sanction. As the gentleman construes it, it is an
authority for him. Possibly, he may not have adopted the right
construction. That resolution declares, that, in the case of the
dangerous exercise of powers not granted by the General Government, the
States may interpose to arrest the progress of the evil. But how
interpose, and what does this declaration purport? Does it mean no more
than that there may be extreme cases, in which the people, in any mode
of assembling, may resist usurpation, and relieve themselves from a
tyrannical government? No one will deny this. Such resistance is not
only acknowledged to be just in America, but in England also. Blackstone
admits as much, in the theory, and practice, too, of the English
Constitution. 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. We
all know that civil institutions are established for the public benefit,
and that when they cease to answer the ends of their existence they may
be changed. But I do not understand the doctrine now contended for to be
that, which, for the sake of distinction, we may call the right of
revolution. 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.

[Mr. HAYNE here arose and said: He did not contend for the mere right of
revolution, but for the right of constitutional resistance. What he
maintained was, that in a case of plain, palpable violation of the
Constitution by the General Government, a State may interpose; and that
this interposition is constitutional.

Mr. WEBSTER resumed:]

So, sir, I understood the gentleman, and am happy to find that I did not
misunderstand him. What he contends for is, that it is constitutional to
interrupt the administration of the Constitution itself, in the hands of
those who are chosen and sworn to administer it, by the direct
interference, in form of law, of the States, in virtue of their
sovereign capacity. The inherent right in the people to reform their
government I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is, to
resist unconstitutional laws, without overturning the government. It is
no doctrine of mine that unconstitutional laws bind the people. The
great question is, Whose prerogative is it to decide on the
constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws? On that, the main
debate hinges. The proposition, that, in case of a supposed violation of
the Constitution by Congress, the States have a constitutional right to
interfere and annul the law of Congress is the proposition of the
gentleman. I do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended no more than
to assert the right of revolution for justifiable cause, he would have
said only what all agree to. But I cannot conceive that there can be a
middle course, between submission to the laws, when regularly pronounced
constitutional, on the one hand, and open resistance, which is
revolution or rebellion, on the other. I say, the right of a State to
annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained, but on the ground of the
inalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is to say, upon the
ground of revolution. 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. 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.

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