IV. -- THE RISE OF NATIONALITY.
In spite of execrable financial management, of the criminal blunders of political army officers, and of consequent defeats on land, and quite apart from brilliant sea-fights and the New Orleans victory, the war of 1812 was of incalculable benefit to the United States. It marks more particularly the point at which the already established democracy began to shade off into a real nationality.
The Democratic party began its career as a States-rights party.
Possession of national power had so far modified the practical operation of its tenets that it had not hesitated to carry out a national policy, and even wage a desperate war, in flat opposition to the will of one section of the Union, comprising five of its most influential States; and, when the Hartford Convention was suspected of a design to put the New England opposition to the war into a forcible veto, there were many indications that the dominant party was fully prepared to answer by a forcible materialization of the national will. In the North and West, at least, the old States-rights formulas never carried a real vitality beyond the war of 1812. Men still spoke of "sovereign States," and prided themselves on the difference between the "voluntary union of States" and the effete despotisms of Europe; but the ghost of the Hartford Convention had laid very many more dangerous ghosts in the section in which it had appeared.
The theatre of the war, now filled with comfortable farms and populous cities, was then less known than any of our Territories in 1896. There were no roads, and the transportation of provisions for the troops, of guns, ammunition, and stores for the lake navies, was one of the most difficult of the problems which the National Government was called upon to solve. It cannot be said that the solution was successfully reached, for the blunders in transportation were among the most costly, exasperating, and dangerous of the war. But the efforts to reach it provided the impulse which soon after resulted in the settlement of Western New York, the appearance of the germs of such flourishing cities as Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, the opening up of the Southwest Territory, between Tennessee and New Orleans, and the rapid admission of the new States of Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri. But the impulse did not stop here. The inconveniences and dangers arising from the possession of a vast territory with utterly inadequate means of communication had been brought so plainly to public view by the war that the question of communication influenced politics in every direction. In New York it took shape in the construction of the Erie Ca.n.a.l (finished in 1825). In States farther west and south, the loaning of the public credit to enterprises of the nature of the Erie Ca.n.a.l increased until the panic of 1837 introduced "repudiation" into American politics. In national politics, the necessity of a general system of ca.n.a.ls and roads, as a means of military defence, was at first admitted by all, even by Calhoun, was gradually rejected by the stricter constructionists of the Const.i.tution, and finally became a tenet of the National Republican party, headed by John Quincy Adams and Clay (1825-29), and of its greater successor the Whig party, headed by Clay. This idea of Internal Improvements at national expense, though suggested by Gallatin and Clay in 1806-08, only became a political question when the war had forced it upon public attention; and it has not yet entirely disappeared.
The maintenance of such a system required money, and a high tariff of duties on imports was a necessary concomitant to Internal Improvements.
The germ of this system was also a product of the war of 1812. Hamilton had proposed it twenty years before; and the first American tariff act had declared that its object was the encouragement of American manufactures. But the system had never been effectively introduced until the war and the blockade had forced American manufactures into existence. Peace brought compet.i.tion with British manufacturers, and the American manufacturers began to call for protection. The tariff of 1816 contained the principle of Protection, but only carried it into practice far enough to induce the manufacturers to rely on the dominant party for more of it. This expectation, rather than the Federalist opposition to the war, is the explanation of the immediate and rapid decline of the Federal party in New England. Continued effort brought about the tariff of 1824, which was more protective; the tariff of 1828, which was still more protective; and the tariff of 1830, which reduced the protective element to a system.
The two sections, North and South, had been very much alike until the war called the principle of growth into activity. The slave system of labor, which had fallen in the North and had survived and been made still more profitable in the South by Whitney"s invention of the cotton gin in 1793, shut the South off from almost all share in the new life.
That section had a monopoly of the cotton culture, and the present profit of slave labor blinded it to the ultimate consequences of it. The slave was fit for rude agriculture alone; he could not be employed in manufactures, or in any labor which required intelligence; and the slave-owner, while he desired manufactures, did not dare to cultivate the necessary intelligence in his own slaves. The South could therefore find no profit in protection, and yet it could not with dignity admit that its slave system precluded it from the advantages of protection, or base its opposition to protection wholly on economic grounds. Its only recourse was the const.i.tutional ground of the lack of power of Congress to pa.s.s a protective tariff, and this brought up again the question which had evolved the Kentucky resolutions of 1798-9. Calhoun, with pitiless logic, developed them into a scheme of const.i.tutional Nullification. Under his lead,
South Carolina, in 1832, declared through her State Convention that the protective tariff acts were no law, nor binding on the State, its officers or citizens. President Jackson, while he was ready and willing to suppress any such rebellion by force, was not sorry to see his adherents in Congress make use of it to overthrow protection; and a "compromise tariff," to which the protectionists agreed, was pa.s.sed in 1833. It reduced the duties by an annual percentage for ten years. The nullifiers claimed this as a triumph, and formally repealed the ordinance of nullification, as if it had accomplished its object. But, in its real intent, it had failed wretchedly. It had a.s.serted State sovereignty through the State"s proper voice of a convention. When the time fixed for the execution of the ordinance arrived, Jackson"s intention of taking the State"s sovereignty by the throat had become so evident that an unofficial meeting of nullifiers suspended the ordinance until the pa.s.sage of the compromise tariff had made it unnecessary. For the first time, the force of a State and the national force had approached threateningly near collision, and no State ever tried it again. When the tariff of 1842 reintroduced the principle of protection, no one thought of taking the broken weapon of nullification from its resting-place; and secession was finally attempted only as a sectional movement, not as the expression of the will of a State, but as a concerted revolution by a number of States. It seems certain that nationality had attained force enough, even in 1833, to have put State sovereignty forever under its feet; and that but for the cohesive sectional force of slavery and its interests, the development of nationality would have been undisputed for the future.
New conditions were increasing the growth of the North and West, and their separation from the South in national life, even when nullification was in its death struggle. The acquisition of Louisiana in 1803 had been followed in 1807 by Fulton"s invention of the steamboat, the most important factor in carrying immigration into the new territories and opening them up to settlement. But the steamboat could not quite bridge over the gap between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Internal improvements, ca.n.a.ls, and improved roads were not quite the instrument that was needed. It was found at last in the introduction of the railway into the United States in 1830-32. This proved to be an agent which could solve every difficulty except its own.
It could bridge over every gap; it could make profit of its own, and make profitable that which had before been unprofitable. It placed immigrants where the steamboat, ca.n.a.l, and road could at last be of the highest utility to them; it developed the great West with startling rapidity; it increased the sale of government lands so rapidly that in a few years the debt of the United States was paid off, and the surplus became, for the first time, a source of political embarra.s.sment. In a few years further, aided by revolutionary troubles in Europe, immigration became a great stream, which poured into and altered the conditions of every part of the North and West. The stream was altogether nationalizing in its nature. The immigrant came to the United States, not to a particular State. To him, the country was greater than any State; even that of his adoption. Labor conditions excluded the South from this element of progress also. Not only were the railroads of the South hampered in every point by the old difficulty of slave labor; immigration and free labor shunned slave soil as if the plague were there prevalent. Year after year the North and West became more national in their prejudices and modes of thought and action; while the South remained little changed, except by a natural reactionary drift toward a more extreme colonialism. The natural result, in the next period was the development of a quasi nationality in the South itself.
The introduction of the railway had brought its own difficulties, though these were not felt severely until after years. In the continent of Europe, the governments carefully retained their powers of eminent domain when the new system was introduced. The necessary land was loaned to the railways for a term of years, at the expiration of which the railway was to revert to the State; and railway troubles were non-existent, or comparatively tractable. In the United States, as in Great Britain, free right of incorporation was supplemented by what was really a gift of the power of eminent domain. The necessary land became the property of the corporations in fee, and it has been found almost equally difficult to revoke the gift or to introduce a railway control.
Democracy took a new and extreme line of development under its alliance with nationality. As the dominant party, about 1827-8, became divided into two parties, the new parties felt the democratic influence as neither of their predecessors had felt it. Nominations, which had been made by cliques of legislators or Congressmen, began to be made by popular delegate conventions about 1825. Before 1835, national, State, and local conventions had been united into parties of the modern type.
With them came the pseudo-democratic idea of "rotation in office,"
introduced into national politics by President Jackson, in 1829, and adopted by succeeding administrations. There were also some attempts to do away with the electoral system, and to make the federal judiciary elective, or to impose on it some other term of office than good behavior; but these had neither success nor encouragement.
The financial errors of the war of 1812 had fairly compelled the re-establishment of the Bank of the United States in 1816, with a charter for twenty years, and the control of the deposits of national revenue. Soon after Jackson"s inauguration, the managers of the new democratic party came into collision with the bank on the appointment of a subordinate agent. It very soon became evident that the bank could not exist in the new political atmosphere. It was driven into politics; a new charter was vetoed in 1832; and after one of the bitterest struggles of our history, the bank ceased to exist as a government inst.i.tution in 1836. The reason for its fall, however disguised by attendant circ.u.mstances, was really its lack of harmony with the national-democratic environment which had overtaken it. Benton"s speech presents a review of this bank struggle and of accompanying political controversies.
The anti-slavery agitation, which began in 1830, was as evidently a product of the new phase of democracy, but will fall more naturally under the next period.
Webster"s reply to Hayne has been taken as the best ill.u.s.tration of that thoroughly national feeling which was impossible before the war of 1812, and increasingly more common after it. It has been necessary to preface it with Hayne"s speech, in order to have a clear understanding of parts of Webster"s; but it has not been possible to omit Calhoun"s speech, as a defence of his scheme of nullification, and as an exemplification of the reaction toward colonialism with which the South met the national development. It has not seemed necessary to include other examples of the orations called forth by the temporary political issues of the time.
ROBERT Y. HAYNE,
---OF SOUTH CAROLINA. (BORN 1791, DIED 1840.)
ON MR. FOOT"S RESOLUTION IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, JAN. 21, 1830
MR. SPEAKER:
Mr. Hayne said, when he took occasion, two days ago, to throw out some ideas with respect to the policy of the government in relation to the public lands, nothing certainly could have been further from his thoughts than that he should have been compelled again to throw himself upon the indulgence of the Senate. Little did I expect, said Mr. H., to be called upon to meet such an argument as was yesterday urged by the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts (Mr. Webster). Sir, I question no man"s opinions; I impeach no man"s motives; I charged no party, or State, or section of country with hostility to any other, but ventured, as I thought, in a becoming spirit, to put forth my own sentiments in relation to a great national question of public policy. Such was my course. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Benton), it is true, had charged upon the Eastern States an early and continued hostility toward the West, and referred to a number of historical facts and doc.u.ments in support of that charge. Now, sir, how have these different arguments been met? The honorable gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts, after deliberating a whole night upon his course, comes into this chamber to vindicate New England; and instead of making up his issue with the gentleman from Missouri, on the charges which he had preferred, chooses to consider me as the author of those charges, and losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects me as his adversary, and pours out all the vials of his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop there.
He goes on to a.s.sail the inst.i.tutions and policy of the South, and calls in question the principles and conduct of the State which I have the honor to represent. When I find a gentleman of mature age and experience, of acknowledged talents and profound sagacity, pursuing a course like this, declining the contest offered from the West, and making war upon the unoffending South, I must believe, I am bound to believe, he has some object in view which he has not ventured to disclose. Mr. President, why is this? Has the gentleman discovered in former controversies with the gentleman from Missouri, that he is overmatched by that senator? And does he hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary? Has the gentleman"s distempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of "new alliances to be formed," at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the murdered coalition come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to "sear the eyeb.a.l.l.s" of the gentleman, and will not down at his bidding? Are dark visions of broken hopes, and honors lost forever, still floating before his heated imagination? Sir, if it be his object to thrust me between the gentleman from Missouri and himself, in order to rescue the East from the contest it has provoked with the West, he shall not be gratified. Sir, I will not be dragged into the defence of my friend from Missouri. The South shall not be forced into a conflict not its own. The gentleman from Missouri is able to fight his own battles. The gallant West needs no aid from the South to repel any attack which may be made upon them from any quarter. Let the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts controvert the facts and arguments of the gentleman from Missouri, if he can--and if he win the victory, let him wear the honors; I shall not deprive him of his laurels. * * *
Sir, any one acquainted with the history of parties in this country will recognize in the points now in dispute between the Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts and myself the very grounds which have, from the beginning, divided the two great parties in this country, and which (call these parties by what names you will, and amalgamate them as you may) will divide them forever. The true distinction between those parties is laid down in a celebrated manifesto issued by the convention of the Federalists of Ma.s.sachusetts, a.s.sembled in Boston, in February, 1824, on the occasion of organizing a party opposition to the reelection of Governor Eustis. The gentleman will recognize this as "the canonical book of political scripture"; and it instructs us that, when the American colonies redeemed themselves from British bondage, and became so many independent nations, they proposed to form a NATIONAL UNION (not a Federal Union, sir, but a NATIONAL UNION).
Those who were in favor of a union of the States in this form became known by the name of Federalists; those who wanted no union of the States, or disliked the proposed form of union, became known by the name of Anti-Federalists. By means which need not be enumerated, the Anti-Federalists became (after the expiration of twelve years) our national rulers, and for a period of sixteen years, until the close of Mr. Madison"s administration in 1817, continued to exercise the exclusive direction of our public affairs. Here, sir, is the true history of the origin, rise, and progress of the party of National Republicans, who date back to the very origin of the Government, and who then, as now, chose to consider the Const.i.tution as having created not a Federal, but a National, Union; who regarded "consolidation" as no evil, and who doubtless consider it "a consummation to be wished" to build up a great "central government," "one and indivisible." Sir, there have existed, in every age and every country, two distinct orders of men--the lovers of freedom and the devoted advocates of power.
The same great leading principles, modified only by the peculiarities of manners, habits, and inst.i.tutions, divided parties in the ancient republics, animated the Whigs and Tories of Great Britain, distinguished in our own times the Liberals and Ultras of France, and may be traced even in the b.l.o.o.d.y struggles of unhappy Spain. Sir, when the gallant Riego, who devoted himself and all that he possessed to the liberties of his country, was dragged to the scaffold, followed by the tears and lamentations of every lover of freedom throughout the world, he perished amid the deafening cries of "Long live the absolute king!" The people whom I represent, Mr. President, are the descendants of those who brought with them to this country, as the most precious of their possessions, "an ardent love of liberty"; and while that shall be preserved, they will always be found manfully struggling against the consolidation of the Government AS THE WORST OF EVILS. * * *
Who, then, Mr. President, are the true friends of the Union? Those who would confine the Federal Government strictly within the limits prescribed by the Const.i.tution; who would preserve to the States and the people all powers not expressly delegated; who would make this a Federal and not a National Union, and who, administering the Government in a spirit of equal justice, would make it a blessing, and not a curse. And who are its enemies? Those who are in favor of consolidation; who are constantly stealing power from the States, and adding strength to the Federal Government; who, a.s.suming an unwarrantable jurisdiction over the States and the people, undertake to regulate the whole industry and capital of the country. But, sir, of all descriptions of men, I consider those as the worst enemies of the Union, who sacrifice the equal rights which belong to every member of the confederacy to combinations of interested majorities for personal or political objects. But the gentleman apprehends no evil from the dependence of the States on the Federal Government; he can see no danger of corruption from the influence of money or patronage. Sir, I know that it is supposed to be a wise saying that "patronage is a source of weakness"; and in support of that maxim it has been said that "every ten appointments make a hundred enemies." But I am rather inclined to think, with the eloquent and sagacious orator now reposing on his laurels on the banks of the Roanoke, that "the power of conferring favors creates a crowd of dependents"; he gave a forcible ill.u.s.tration of the truth of the remark, when he told us of the effect of holding up the savory morsel to the eager eyes of the hungry hounds gathered around his door. It mattered not whether the gift was bestowed on "Towzer" or "Sweetlips," "Tray,"
"Blanche," or "Sweetheart"; while held in suspense, they were all governed by a nod, and when the morsel was bestowed, the expectation of the favors of to-morrow kept up the subjection of to-day.
The Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, in denouncing what he is pleased to call the Carolina doctrine, has attempted to throw ridicule upon the idea that a State has any const.i.tutional remedy by the exercise of its sovereign authority, against "a gross, palpable, and deliberate violation of the Const.i.tution." He calls it "an idle" or "a ridiculous notion," or something to that effect, and added, that it would make the Union a "mere rope of sand." Now, sir, as the gentleman has not condescended to enter into any examination of the question, and has been satisfied with throwing the weight of his authority into the scale, I do not deem it necessary to do more than to throw into the opposite scale the authority on which South Carolina relies; and there, for the present, I am perfectly willing to leave the controversy. The South Carolina doctrine, that is to say, the doctrine contained in an exposition reported by a committee of the Legislature in December, 1828, and published by their authority, is the good old Republican doctrine of "98--the doctrine of the celebrated "Virginia Resolutions" of that year, and of "Madison"s Report" of "99. It will be recollected that the Legislature of Virginia, in December, "98, took into consideration the alien and sedition laws, then considered by all Republicans as a gross violation of the Const.i.tution of the United States, and on that day pa.s.sed, among others, the following resolution:
"The General a.s.sembly 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 const.i.tuting that compact, as no further 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 who are the parties there-to 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."
In addition to the above resolution, the General a.s.sembly of Virginia "appealed to the other States, in the confidence that they would concur with that commonwealth, that the acts aforesaid (the alien and sedition laws) are unconst.i.tutional, and that the necessary and proper measures would be taken by each for cooperating with Virginia in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." * * *
But, sir, our authorities do not stop here. The State of Kentucky responded to Virginia, and on the 10th of November, 1798, adopted those celebrated resolutions, well known to have been penned by the author of the Declaration of American Independence. In those resolutions, the Legislature of Kentucky declare, "that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the power delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Const.i.tution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress." * * *
Sir, at that day the whole country was divided on this very question. It formed the line of demarcation between the federal and republican parties; and the great political revolution which then took place turned upon the very questions involved in these resolutions. That question was decided by the people, and by that decision the Const.i.tution was, in the emphatic language of Mr. Jefferson, "saved at its last gasp." I should suppose, sir, it would require more self-respect than any gentleman here would be willing to a.s.sume, to treat lightly doctrines derived from such high sources. Resting on authority like this, I will ask, gentlemen, whether South Carolina has not manifested a high regard for the Union, when, under a tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien and sedition laws, she has. .h.i.therto gone no further than to pet.i.tion, remonstrate, and to solemnly protest against a series of measures which she believes to be wholly unconst.i.tutional and utterly destructive of her interests. Sir, South Carolina has not gone one step further than Mr. Jefferson himself was disposed to go, in relation to the present subject of our present complaints--not a step further than the statesmen from New England were disposed to go under similar circ.u.mstances; no further than the Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts himself once considered as within "the limits of a const.i.tutional opposition." The doctrine that it is the right of a State to judge of the violations of the Const.i.tution on the part of the Federal Government, and to protect her citizens from the operations of unconst.i.tutional laws, was held by the enlightened citizens of Boston, who a.s.sembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of January, 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, that "they looked only to the State Legislature, which was competent to devise relief against the unconst.i.tutional acts of the General Government. That your power (say they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the organization of the confederacy." * * *
Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South Carolina doctrine is the Republican doctrine of "98,--that it was promulgated by the fathers of the faith,--that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst of times,--that it const.i.tuted the very pivot on which the political revolution of that day turned,--that it embraces the very principles, the triumph of which, at that time, saved the Const.i.tution at its last gasp, and which New England statesmen were not unwilling to adopt when they believed themselves to be the victims of unconst.i.tutional legislation. Sir, as to the doctrine that the Federal Government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its power, it seems to me to be utterly subversive of the sovereignty and independence of the States. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court are invested with this power. If the Federal Government, in all, or any, of its departments, is 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 Const.i.tution 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. I have but one word more to add. In all the efforts that have been made by South Carolina to resist the unconst.i.tutional laws which Congress has extended over them, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserved--a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. The measures of the Federal Government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin.
But even this evil, great as it is, is not the chief ground of our complaints. It is the principle involved in the contest--a principle which, subst.i.tuting the discretion of Congress for the limitations of the Const.i.tution, brings the States and the people to the feet of the Federal Government, and leaves them nothing they can call their own.
Sir, if the measures of the Federal Government were less oppressive, we should still strive against this usurpation. The South is acting on a principle she has always held sacred--resistance to unauthorized taxation. These, sir, are the principles which induced the immortal Hampden to resist the payment of a tax of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined his fortune? No! but the payment of half of twenty shillings, on the principle on which it was demanded, would have made him a slave. Sir, if acting on these high motives--if animated by that ardent love of liberty which has always been the most prominent trait in the Southern character, we would be hurried beyond the bounds of a cold and calculating prudence; who is there, with one n.o.ble and generous sentiment in his bosom, who would not be disposed, in the language of Burke, to exclaim, "You must pardon something to the spirit of liberty?"
DANIEL WEBSTER,
--OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS. (BORN 1782, DIED 1852.)
IN REPLY TO HAYNE, IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, JANUARY 26, 1830.
MR. PRESIDENT:
When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his lat.i.tude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float further on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution before the Senate.
(The Secretary read the resolution, as follows:)
"Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and report the quant.i.ty of public land remaining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price. And, also, whether the office of Surveyor-General, and some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands."
We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is which is actually before us for consideration; and it will readily occur to everyone, that it is almost the only subject about which something has not been said in the speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has been entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present--every thing, general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party politics--seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable member"s attention, save only the resolution before the Senate. He has spoken of every thing but the public lands; they have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a pa.s.sing glance.
When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to discharge it. That shot, sir, which he thus kindly informed us was coming, that we might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall by it and die with decency, has now been received. Under all advantages, and with expectation awakened by the tone which preceded it, it has been discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to say no more of its effect, than that, if n.o.body is found, after all, either killed or wounded, it is not the first time in the history of human affairs, that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto.
The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was something rankling here, which he wished to relieve. (Mr. Hayne rose, and disclaimed having used the word rankling.) It would not, Mr.
President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around him, upon the question whether he did in fact make use of that word. But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, he had yet something here, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing here, sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness of having been in the wrong. There is nothing, either originating here, or now received here by the gentleman"s shot. Nothing originating here, for I had not the slightest feeling of unkindness toward the honorable member. Some pa.s.sages, it is true, had occurred since our acquaintance in this body, which I could have wished might have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy and forgotten them. I paid the honorable member the attention of listening with respect to his first speech; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must even say astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my intention than to commence any personal warfare. Through the whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and carefully, every thing which I thought possible to be construed into disrespect. And, Sir, while there is thus nothing originating here which I have wished at any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must repeat, also, that nothing has been received here which rankles, or in any way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of violating the rules of civilized war; I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped in that which would have caused rankling if they had reached their destination, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to gather up those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they were aimed.
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.