Note 26 — THE REPLY TO HAYNE

The “Great Debate” in the Senate, between Webster and Hayne, had an unexpected origin. A resolution had been introduced by Senator Samuel Augustus Foot, of Connecticut, merely ordering an inquiry into the expediency of throwing restrictions around future sales of public lands of the United States. Into the discussion of this resolution, which lasted five months, was brought a large number of partisan pleas, tariff arguments, local jealousies, and questions of the right and wrong of slavery, and of the respective powers of the State and national governments. Recriminations and even personalities were not infrequent; and some of the Southern speakers did not refrain, in defence of the new “nullification” doctrine, from criticism of New England Federalism as having been essentially selfish, derisive, and unpatriotic. Senator Robert Young Hayne (1791-1840), of South Carolina, who had been a member of the Senate since 1823, was conspicuous, in this debate, for his advocacy of the idea that a State might suspend Federal laws at its discretion; and his assertions to that effect, combined with sharp criticisms of Massachusetts, led Mr. Webster to make his famous reply. Mr. Hayne was subsequently Governor of South Carolina, at the time of the almost armed collision between that State and President Jackson, in 1832, over the nullification of tariff laws. At one time Governor Hayne actually issued a proclamation of resistance to the authority of the general government; but subsequently Congress modified the objectionable tariff provisions and the State repealed its nullification ordinance, which President Jackson’s firmness had certainly made “null, void, and no law.”