We will not look back to inquire whether our fathers were guiltless in introducing slaves into this country. 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. They significantly declare, that it is time to calculate the value of the Union; and their aim seems to be to enumerate, and to magnify all the evils, real and imaginary, which the government under the Union produces. . I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery, in all future times, northwest of the Ohio,[6] as a measure of great wisdom and foresight; and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and permanent consequences. 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. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. This government, sir, is the independent offspring of the popular will. Compare And Contrast The Tension Between North And South. This will co-operate with the feelings of patriotism to induce a state to avoid any measures calculated to endanger that connection. 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 Union to be preserved, while it suits local and temporary purposes to preserve it; and to be sundered whenever it shall be found to thwart such purposes. Well, the southern states were infuriated. 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. . Sir, I am one of those who believe that the very life of our system is the independence of the states, and that there is no evil more to be deprecated than the consolidation of this government. . What idea was espoused with the Webster-Hayne debates? Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 19, 1830. This debate exposed the critically different understandings of the nature of the American. . . . Regional Conflict in America: Debate Over States' Rights. 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. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil. 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. 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. 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. For Calhoun, see the Speech on Abolition Petitions and the Speech on the Oregon Bill. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. . . Though Webster made an impassioned argument, the political, social, and economic traditions of New England informed his ideas about the threatened nation. They will also better understand the debate's political context. Well, let's look at the various parts. It is only regarded as a possible means of good; or on the other hand, as a possible means of evil. We had no other general government. 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. 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. 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. 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. I deem far otherwise of the Union of the states; and so did the Framers of the Constitution themselves. Sir, when the gentleman provokes me to such a conflict, I meet him at the threshold. Record of the Organization and Proceedings of The Massachusetts Lawmakers Investigate Working Condit State (Colonial) Legislatures>Massachusetts State Legislature. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. This episode was used in nineteenth century America as a Biblical justification for slavery. . God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. Hayne, South Carolina's foremost Senator, was the chosen champion; and the cause of his State, both in its right and wrong sides, could have found no abler exponent while [Vice President] Calhoun's official station kept him from the floor. 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. Rachel Venter is a recent graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver. 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. 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. Hayne entered the U.S. Senate in 1823 and soon became prominent as a spokesman for the South and for the . If slavery, as it now exists in this country, be an evil, we of the present day found it ready made to our hands. . Go to these cities now, and ask the question. . . 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? 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. . There was an end to all apprehension. This was the tenor of Webster's speech, and nobly did the country respond to it. To them, this was a scheme to give the federal government more control over the cost of land by creating a scarcity. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. . States' rights (South) vs. nationalism (North). State governments were in control of their own affairs and expected little intervention from the federal government. Judiciary Act of 1801 | Overview, History & Significance, General Ulysses S. Grant Takes Charge: His Strategic Plan for Ending the War. . . 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. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) | Case, Significance & Summary. 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. What was going on? Read reviews from world's largest community for readers. 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. . . 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. The debates between daniel webster of massachusetts and robert hayne of south carolina gave. 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. 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. 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. 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. There was no winner or loser in the Webster-Hayne debate. I shrink almost instinctively from a course, however necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings, and sectional jealousies. New England, the Union, and the Constitution in its integrity, all were triumphantly vindicated. In a time when the country was undergoing some drastic changes, this debate managed to encapsulate the essence of the growing tensions dividing the nation. Webster's articulation of the concept of the Union went on to shape American attitudes about the federal government. These debates transformed into a national crisis when South Carolina threatened . They had burst forth from arguments about a decision by Connecticut Senator Samuel Foote. 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. 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. Congress could only recommendtheir acts were not of binding force, till the states had adopted and sanctioned them. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts while he exonerates me personally from the charge, intimates that there is a party in the country who are looking to disunion. She has worked as a university writing consultant for over three years. It is the common pretense. An error occurred trying to load this video. . 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 . . 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. 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. Who doesn't? Address to the Slaves of the United States. 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. There was no clear winner of the debate, but the Union's victory over the Confederacy just a few decades later brought Webster's ideas to fruition. . It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under which we are here assembled. The United States, under the Constitution and federal government, was a single, unified nation, not a coalition of sovereign states.