succeed. 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. 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. The other way was through the sale of federally-owned land to private citizens. Finally, sir, the honorable gentleman says, that the states will only interfere, by their power, to preserve the Constitution. Daniel Webster argued against nullification (the idea that states could disobey federal laws) arguing in favor of a strong federal government which would bind the states together under the Constitution. Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been, in any way, attempted. . This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the source of its 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. Webster replied to his speech the next day and left not a shred of the charge, baseless as it was. | 12 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. . He must say to his followers [members of the state militia], defend yourselves with your bayonets; and this is warcivil war. Chris has a master's degree in history and teaches at the University of Northern Colorado. 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. 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. 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. . Create your account, 15 chapters | 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. Are we yet at the mercy of state discretion, and state construction? He served as a U.S. senator from 1823 to 1832, and was a leading proponent of the states' rights doctrine. Enveloping all of these changes was an ever-growing tension over the economy, as southern states firmly defended slavery and northern states advocated for a more industrial, slave-free market. I must now beg to ask, sir, whence is this supposed right of the states derived?where do they find the power to interfere with the laws of the Union? It laid the interdict against personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all local constitutions. In this moment in American history, the federal government had relatively little power. But I take leave of the subject. He must cut it with his sword. He joined Hayne in using this opportunity to try to detach the West from the East, and restore the old cooperation of the West and the South against New England. It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under which we are here assembled. Even Benton, whose connection with the debate made him at first belittle these grand utterances, soon felt the danger and repudiated the company of the nullifiers. The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. Available in hard copy and for download. The idea of a strong federal government The ability of the people to revolt against an unfair government The theory that the states' may vote against unfair laws The role of the president in commanding the government 2 See answers Advertisement holesstanham Answer: 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. We met it as a practical question of obligation and duty. 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. 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. 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 people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the Supreme Law. 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. . Battle of Fort Sumter in the Civil War | Who Won the Battle of Fort Sumter? As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 88,000 I love a good debate. . . 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? This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine. Judiciary Act of 1801 | Overview, History & Significance, General Ulysses S. Grant Takes Charge: His Strategic Plan for Ending the War. Wilmot Proviso of 1846: Overview & Significance | What was the Wilmot Proviso? Between January and May 1830, twenty-one of the forty-eight senators delivered a staggering sixty-five speeches on the nature of the Union. After his term as a senator, he served as the Governor of South Carolina. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions | Overview, Impact & Significance, Public Speaking for Teachers: Professional Development, AEPA Earth Science (AZ045): Practice & Study Guide, ORELA Early Childhood Education: Practice & Study Guide, Praxis Middle School English Language Arts (5047) Prep, MTLE Physical Education: Practice & Study Guide, ILTS Mathematics (208): Test Practice and Study Guide, MTLE Earth & Space Science: Practice & Study Guide, AEPA Business Education (NT309): Help & Review, Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination (CPCE): Exam Prep & Study Guide, GACE Special Education Adapted Curriculum Test I (083) Prep, GACE Special Education Adapted Curriculum Test II (084) Prep, Create an account to start this course today. But I do not understand the doctrine now contended for to be that which, for the sake of distinctness, we may call the right of revolution. 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. Lincoln-Douglas Debates History & Significance | What Was the Lincoln-Douglas Debate? In many respects, his speech betrays the mentality of Massachusetts conservatives seeking to regain national leadership and advance their particular ideas about the nation. . 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. . 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. 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. The people of the United States cherish a devotion to the Union, so pure, so ardent, that nothing short of intolerable oppression, can ever tempt them to do anything that may possibly endanger it. 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. . . If the federal government, in all or any of its departments, are to prescribe the limits of its own authority; and the states are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine and decide for themselves, when the barriers of the Constitution shall be overleaped, this is practically a government without limitation of powers; the states are at once reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people are entirely at your mercy. . [2] We deal in no abstractions. Webster believed that the Constitution should be viewed as a binding document between the United States rather than an agreement between sovereign states. To them, this was a scheme to give the federal government more control over the cost of land by creating a scarcity. What started as a debate over the Tariff of Abominations soon morphed into debates over state and federal sovereignty and liberty and disunion. 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. I did not utter a single word, which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on the slavery of the South. The gentleman takes alarm at the sound. . . Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 27, 1830. . There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South. It is only regarded as a possible means of good; or on the other hand, as a possible means of evil. I am a Unionist, and in this sense a national Republican. . . 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. Before his term as a U.S. senator, Hayne had served as a state senator, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, South Carolina's Speaker of the House, and Attorney General of South Carolina.
Similes To Describe A Shark,
Mount And Blade: Warband Two Handed Weapons On Horseback,
Sandwich Shops That Went Out Of Business,
Dr Robert Shapiro Urologist,
Articles W