The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1367: The Road to Civil War Pt. 10 - The 1830 Webster-Hayne Debate - w/ George Bagby

Episode Date: May 10, 2026

74 MinutesSafe for WorkGeorge Bagby is a content creator and publisher of long-forgotten books. George joins Pete to continue a series detailing the long lead up to America's Civil War.George's Twitter AccountGeorge's Pinned Tweet w/ Links George's YouTube ChannelPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Skip by them, do what you need to do. I appreciate all of you. Head on over to Piquino Show.com. You can get the show early and ad free over there. If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. George Bagby returns, and we are going to continue talking about America's lead-up to its civil war. How are you doing tonight, Mr. Bagby? I'm a bit allergy afflicted, and that's made my

head kind of fuzzy today. But other than that, I'm all right. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we are in the late 1820s and early 1830s, and why don't you lead us away? Yes, indeed. I've got I've got really good material for us tonight. This is a favorite subject of mine. I've been emphasizing this in my history classes for a long time, and it's been very rewarding to do a deep dive onto this. I've been reading the best speeches, just the best rhetoric that has ever been presented in the United States Senate.

it. And we had a whole troop of great statesmen in the Andrew Jackson presidency. It was the peak of our political powers. And these speeches have been republished many times, most recently by Liberty Fund. You can actually find a big, hefty volume from Liberty Fund with the Payne-Webster debate of 1830, because they are among the most important speeches in the context of the sectional struggle and the constitutional question about state sovereignty and such, but they're also among the most eloquent speeches ever delivered in Congress. And we had really extraordinary men in that generation. We have a great book. I don't have it in front of me, unfortunately. Merrill, Merrill Patterson, I think is the name of the author. It's called The Great Triumvirate

Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. Now, ironically, we don't have Calhoun in this debate. He was actually vice president at the time. So he was the man, the speech, were addressed to the president of the Senate. So he stood silent there and was witnessed all of this. Later on he actually participates and debates Webster when he becomes the senator from South Carolina after he resigns the vice presidency. One of the very few examples of resignation from the vice presidency, something we'll get into later. But we have Robert Hayne of South Carolina, Colonel Hayne as he was known. He was a veteran of 1812. And he goes head to head with Daniel Webster. The question of the day, according to Richard Weaver,

who is one of my best teachers on this period, a marvelous essayist, if you have to haven't read Weaver, you're really missing out. Go and pick up his great work, ideas have consequences, or the Southern tradition at Bay. The Southern tradition at Bay, I should be drawing on more often for this series, because it's covering the same subject. The political and cultural tradition of the Annabellum South, and also the post-war South. That's the subject of that particular book. But Ideas Have Consequences is a great work about the modern quandary more generally, kind of a work of philosophy. But Weaver has an essay called Two Orators.

It is a contribution to a book that he never ended up publishing, where he was contrasting the culture of the North and the South. a very valuable bunch of essays that were later collected and edited by some of his students. Weaver says the question of the debate between Hain and Webster was democracy in an American context versus nationalism, which was a new idea on the scene. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the great instigators of the French Revolution, major enlightenment figure, had written an important and very brief little book called The Social Contract back in the mid-1700s, just in the lead up to the French Revolution.

and it was very instrumental in the thought of the Jacobins of the time. Rousseau was a kind of a liberal in several important senses. He gives us a different sort of approach to political problems. So we should zoom out for a moment and consider what he was arguing against. the position that was more or less taken for granted through most of history is that political relations in human communities were natural things. Aristotle in his politics is the great example of this. Aristotle memorably says man is a political animal. Some are very offended by that, that attribution that man is an animal.

It does not mean that man is a brute beast. It means that man is an animated spirit, you know, an incorporate creature with a spiritual component. That's literally what animal means. But he says he's political, that he's social, that he's designed to live. in community with his fellow human beings. That man, wherever you find him, has language. It's not always written, but it is a consistent fact about human beings. That man has marriage, an exclusive relationship for the propagation of the species and

also for his own society. man has religion. This is a natural institution. We do not find any instance of human beings living without religious belief. That man has law. That man has a system of ownership and property. Aristotle is interacting with Plato, who has kind of an idealist bent. You can find an awful lot of value in Plato. I'm not here to dis Plato, but the Republic does go into flights of fancy, at least, if not serious proposals, to do things like abolishing the family, abolishing property and such in the name of justice. So the republic can be read in a very revolutionary and radical way. Aristotle is combating these ideas, insisting that these institutions are natural or organic, even connected essentially with the nature of human beings.

Rousseau goes in a very different direction. Rousseau is emphasizing the changeable nature of those institutions, property, marriage, religion, language and such. And Rousseau posits that man is properly understood as an individual. This is a very interesting idea. It's obviously very influential. We talk about this all the time these days. Aristotle is emphasizing man in man gets his identity in relation to his natural institutions, which he posits from experience. as organic qualities of humanity. So man understands who he is in relation to other people and in relation to these natural institutions.

Man is a farmer in relation to his property or a businessman in relation to his craft. He is a father, a husband, a friend of a guy. comrade, a fellow citizen. All of these are the natural elements of identity. Rousseau imagines that these are things

that we create according to our own desires, and that we could do without them. He proposes a revolutionary kind of approach to those natural institutions, framing them as oppressive, framing them as

the product of nurture rather than nature and has a very radical approach to them. Because he sees man as essentially an independent agent who can make or join these institutions at will, he posits what he calls the state of nature, which other thinkers like ha and John Stuart Mill later developed. Well, Hobbs actually predates Rousseau, but they are part of the same school, you might say, of revolutionary liberalism. Rousseau says that the ideal form of society is the nation state in which people of the same language group anyway will form a democratic society and proclaim by popular acclamation or a popular vote, the general will. So Rousseau says norms and institutions themselves are created by the social contract,

which is an event which predates all known history, even according to Rousseau, where everyone got together and acclaimed social norms. So these things are radically changeable, according to Rousseau. The social contract creates the general will, and this is the will of the people at large. The minority in this national action or general will, is outside the bounds of what is permissible. So Rousseau says that when the general will is proclaimed

by the body of individuals who are all acting according to what they think is best, that should bind all the minorities totally. because the mass, the majority in this mass, determines ultimately what is true, what is just, that these things do not have some transcendent reality. And so the minority will be forced to be free. And this is a very important element in what Weaver calls the nationalist ideology. And we'll see this come up here in the debate between Hain and Webster. In life, you've around 29,000 days.

And those days can be full of what ifs. Like, what if it doesn't work? But what if it does? What if you really went after it? Because life is measured in those moments. So go after everyone. Talk to AIB today. And let's see how we can turn your what ifs into what's next.

Next, AIB, for the life you're after. Allied Irish Bank's PLC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Notice a change in your hearing? Well then, get a hearing check from Specksavers. Oh, not sure where to start. Well, we're very flexible. Book one online, on the phone, on your lunch break on Saturdays, on the same day if you're lucky.

Oh, you only miss the odd word. But what if the odd words you're missing are nice ones like love you or important ones like, Doc? Oh, too expensive is it? Hmm. All right, we like you. We'll do it for nothing. For free hearing checks, should have gone to Specsavers. In life, you've around 29,000 days, and those days can be full of what-ifs. Like, what if it doesn't work?

But what if it does? What if you really went after it? Because life is measured in those moments. So go after everyone. Talk to AIB today, and let's see how we can turn your what-ifs into what's-stice. next. AIB for the life you're after. Allad Irish Bank's PLC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. So in 1830, a Connecticut congressman named Foote, the senator from Connecticut, is proposing to the Senate a pause in the sale of western lands in the territories around the Mississippi Valley.

So he proposes this pause and this gives rise to a debate. The matter at hand is more technical, not so important in our matter this evening, but the issue on the table is whether or not to sell Western lands to investors and farmers to pay off the national debt or to hold the land. and actually pause land sales in order to better organize the territories. This would create what the proponents called greater bonds of union. And they skirted the issue of the national debt. They said they were in favor of paying off the national debt,

but they didn't want to sell the lands in the West in order to accomplish this. So there is a rivalry between the West, which wants to see the territories sold off to investors. They want to see this vast land settled and their own states populated. And the East, which has a division of opinion, it's mostly in the North, against selling off the Western lands. and better organizing the territories. They're more interested in planning the destiny of these Western territories than they are selling off the land to anyone that might want to buy them. So that is connected to other issues in the Jackson administration, the first Jackson administration. Retiring the national debt and also the question of the Bank of the United States.

the opponents of the land sales are in favor of preserving the Bank of the United States. They're very interested in preserving the economic ties and even the dependency of the states on the federal government and its institutions, including the Bank of the United States. So though they like to hedge and say, well, we're actually in favor of paying off the national debt. we believe in preserving American credit and everything. We will pay that off, but we want to use the resources of the federal government to create the protective tariff regime and internal improvements in the West. And we are actually interested in accumulating debts for that end. So that's more or less their position. Webster gets up in front of the Senate.

and makes an interesting speech. This isn't one of the famous ones that later follow, but he says that land organized by the federal government is what he calls a sacred trust and that it should not be considered just movable resources, resources that should be sold off or short-term gains. He makes reference to the Northwest Territory, Now, this is an important ordinance, the Northwest Ordinance, which was actually organized by the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation.

It was one of their major accomplishments. They did not have very many, but it's one of them. Among other things, they organize the states that later become Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and such. and they also limit the territorial spread of slavery in the area. They ban slavery in those territories in the Northwest Ordinance. Webster makes special reference to that at the expense of Kentucky. He says it would have been better if Kentucky had been organized in the Northwest Ordinance and never had legal slavery. So he makes a kind of sectional slight there.

And then he goes on and accuses the South, which are opposed to this long-sided view to give them their point for the organization of the territories, the federal prerogative to organize these territories. and he says the south is the enemy of the west. Actually, the southern preference to sell off those lands hides their antipathy towards the west because the south is the outspoken opponent of the internal improvements. So he attacks the section, he links slavery as a,

degenerate factor in the section, and he appeals for internal improvements, and the connection, obviously, with financing those improvements, an ambitious scheme to develop routes into the West, things like the National Road and the canal at Louisville, Kentucky to bypass the rapids of the Ohio. So this is an interesting speech, and it kind of forms the background information of the sectional conflict in the debate. Hain responds with a very interesting speech. So Hain gets up not because he was a party to this debate before, but specifically

because the South's convictions, the South's stand. on the matter is brought up, and the South has been maligned. So, pain gets up and gives a very interesting speech. He says, the South repudiates the idea that a pecuniary dependence on the federal government is one of the legitimate means of holding the states together. Now, this is a very old idea. This obviously goes back to the Washington administration and the original debate between Jefferson and Hamilton. We remember Hamilton's reports on the credit, the public credit, specifically advocated the pecuniary dependence of the states.

He consolidates the war debts of the states into the national debt. This puts the states in a subservient relation both to the federal government and also to the federal bank, the bank of the United States, because they have been relieved of a tremendous burden. Hain here is saying, well, we have got the ability to pay off the national debt now. This pecuniary interest is not what should hold us together going forward. that's actually a very low stratagem, a subversive stratagem, if you will, a bad foundation for patriotism and liberty, which are his major themes. He goes back to liberty as his theme many times, and he has a different view of it than does Webster. Hain then turns to the question of slavery. He says that slavery is for the South not an abstract concern about justice.

Here we might make reference to Plato versus Aristotle. It doesn't figure here, they're not referencing them. Plato, as you recall in the Republic, is interested in abstract goods that no one has ever seen. This is the subject of the Republic, where Socrates goes on many flights of fancy about the abstractly just society. He goes at some length about how to make men and women equal. He says that in order to make them equal, we must abolish the strict monogamy of marriage, liberalize sexual norms, and also disconnect the raising of families from the family unit and make this a corporate effort. The state should raise all the children.

And this would have the effect of equalizing the differences between men and women, among other things. Just as an example of his abstract approach to what is theoretically just, Aristotle does the exact opposite. He says, well, what do we have in our experience? What is the human experience? And he's making reference to how people have always lived, not to abstract goods no one has ever noticed, no one has ever experienced, no one's ever seen or heard of. So we see they have different approaches to the question. Aristotle, we might say, is making his appeal to experience for the basis of his argument. He's saying what is possible, what is in the record. Plato is making an abstract appeal to an ideal.

Hain, in relation to slavery, is making a similar appeal to that of Aristotle. Aristotle, like Hain, says, but we've had slavery since before the first written laws. This has been a universal practice of mankind. Kane says slavery is a practical, not a theoretical problem. He condemns Webster for his slight on the institution of slavery in the South. He says the blame of different sections is not at all productive in the argument. He points out, among other things, and these are very telling points, that the southerners were never a maritime or merchant people.

They did not go abroad to bring slaves to the South. This was actually the function of the North in American history, and before them other countries, the Spanish, the British, that were most instrumental in bringing the slaves to the South. So he said, we don't want to get into whose response. for the institution of slavery. We both have responsibilities here. Both sections have responsibility for this.

We just happen to have all of them now. He says the conditions of the freed blacks in the north are intolerable, utterly miserable. He speaks of his own travels in the north, where he's seen homelessness, exclusion from society. He talks of encampments in northern cities of African Americans who are outside of employment, outside of any ability to support themselves. And he even describes how they maintain their living through begging, through public charities, and through theft.

That this is how they serve. survive in these northern states that are free in an abstract way. And he identifies this a practical problem. These people have not been integrated anywhere in America. And in the states where they have no legal slavery, their position is most deplorable. So this is not an instance, he says, to do. debate what is desirable or what could be done here. But we're not talking, he says, about what to do about slavery. He calls this false philanthropy, something that the northern statesmen talk about to inflate their

own egos and to promote themselves socially, that they will discuss abstractions like the abolition movement or colonization as was most popular then, and up until after the time of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, still the most popular American position on the subject. He says, this is something they do to inflate their own egos. and it's not a profitable point to use against us, use against the South in this case. He points out the cultural slight that Webster made against Kentucky, that Kentucky is culturally corrupted by the institution of slavery.

It's curious to note here in passing, one of the major charges that was made by these Northern writers against slavery, more often was the cultural depravity of the African Americans. And that the proximity, Southern white freedmen had to those people was degrading to their character. that they lived in close proximity to them, therefore they become degraded. Now this has taken on a curious, modern tone in an unlikely fashion. We have characters like Thomas Sol, the economist, who is in many respects a very worthy teacher, and I've learned an awful lot from him. I recommend him, moreover, he is his, His book, Race and Culture, is, I think, especially valuable, but he's prolific.

He's written so much, and he has many wonderful things to say. He has another book, which I am not as fond of, called, what is it, Southern Rednecks and Northern Liberals? Black Rednecks, White Liberals. There we go. black rednecks white liberals, where he says the origin of the, the cultural deficiencies of African Americans in the United States is because of their proximity to depraved southern whites. So he kind of turns that thesis completely on its head and says, oh, it's those terrible

Scotch-Irish people that the African-Americans had to live with for so long. that is the source of all of their cultural problems today. That is part of his thesis in that book. Otherwise, very interesting book, and we can learn things from it, but that's a really ironic thesis that you encounter from Thomas Seoul, the exact opposite, if you will, of what people were talking about the 1830s. But Hayne says this cultural slight against the South, Generally, he says, no one actually believes that.

Who do we have in our history to look to? Again, we see Hain makes his reference to experience, like Aristotle does. Hain says the leadership of the union are predominantly Southerners. Now, he's speaking in the age of Jackson, where this leadership has reached in some ways its summit, its apogee. Hain mentions Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and of course we can extend the list quite a bit. John Tyler, William Henry Harrison,

Zachary Taylor, James Polk, Andrew Jackson himself. These were all southern estates of executives, they were all slave masters and at a large scale. Hain rhetorically asks here, will you say that they were all depraved because of their connection with slavery? Now, what was a rhetorical question to them is all too common a conclusion among our people today,

where the answer from the academy is a resounding, Yes, yes, they were sick people. They were nasty people and so on. They deserve to have their memory blotted out from the face of the earth. Haynes' rhetorical question actually tends the opposite direction because his audience does not believe that. So this is a winning point for him. Hayne goes on and he says,

The great enemy is the consolidation of government at the expense of the states. Again, he goes into the history of the union. He emphasizes the conflict between parties in the union. And of course, by 1830, we're seeing the emergence of the second party system. The national Republicans who kind of turn into the Whig party headed by Henry Clay, the Hamiltonian party that is backing this expansionist vision of the federal government. government, the broad construction, and the economic consolidation. And what Hayne recognizes as the anti-federalist concerns, which he relates himself to here. So we're seeing something very interesting here.

We see the triumph in thought of the old Republicans. of John Taylor of Caroline, of John Randolph of Roanoke. Randolph is actually a witness to this. He's actually still in Congress at this time and has an interesting role to play. He's right at the end of his career, but we'll visit him again later in our discussion or later in our series. Haynes says this controversy about the consolidation of federal power was there. from the very start. He says it points now, the point now in the dispute between the senator of

Massachusetts and myself have divided the great parties from the beginning. This says from the start, from the Washington administration, and even before with the debates about the ratification of the Constitution. This has been our quandary. How many powers did the states reserve to themselves? What are they? Who has the prerogative? What are the extent of the implied powers, if indeed there are any, in the federal government? It goes back to the debate between Hamilton and Jefferson and Washington's administration. Hain then goes to recent history, and he says, sectional concerns are not unknown to the very members of this body in 1830.

And daringly, he calls out Webster. He points out that Webster opposed the Second Bank of the United States in the Madison administration, and he did that for sectional reasons. He points out that Webster opposed the original protective tariff regime, that limited regime, again during the Madison administration, again for sectional reasons because of the merchant class in Massachusetts that he represented. He then points to Webster's own change of position on both subjects. Now Webster is an advocate of the second bank and wants to preserve it. Now Webster is an advocate of the protective tariff regime, the American system, because he has a different constituency. He has the manufacturers of New England.

So he points this out. Then he goes into the Federalist Party in New England, saying they had sectional interests in 1812. and indeed became a sectional party for their advocacy for their own region. He points out the legacy of the Hartford Convention, which he says is an American event. Now, he doesn't have high opinions of it. He's actually very antagonistic towards it. But he points out, hey, your section had these ideas too. This is part of our collective heritage.

These questions about what powers the states preserved is something New England was talking about in our own living memory. This is not something novel. Now, what both of them are thinking about, what Webster and Hain are both thinking about and not clearly stating at this stage, is Calhoun's South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828, where he is attacking the sectional protective tariff regime of 1828,

the protective tariff from the Adams administration. Haynes says, in our history, the worst enemies of the union were promoters of consens, of consolidation. And what the Congress is terming the Carolina doctrine proposed by Calhoun anonymously, no one knows at this stage the author of the South Carolina exposition in protest, but it happens to be the president of the Senate and the sitting vice president of the Jackson administration, John C. Calhoun. he had written it anonymously.

Hayne says what you malign as a sectional doctrine, the Carolina doctrine, so called, is something New England espoused only a few years ago in the Hartford Convention and the sectional controversy during the War of 1812. Hain says it actually did not originate there. What we first see is the 1798 Virginia and Kentucky resolutions during the John Adams administration, very early, where Thomas Jefferson was pitching this idea of state interposition or nullification of controversial federal law on the grounds that the states have authority to determine. these touchy points of the Constitution and the broad interpretation of federal power, because the states are party to the contract.

They actually created it. Now, this is the key point in the whole matter. Who has the authority to decide on those questions? And Haynes says, well, we have a tradition here. His reference is the history, the political history of the United States. Payne says, and in conclusion of this particular speech, he says, sir, and he is addressing Calhoun, the president of the Senate, where all the speakers address their arguments in this format. 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 little difference in my estimation whether Congress or the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter. The Carolina doctrine, so-called, is merely the doctrine of 1798, that the states are parties to the contract, therefore the states can determine the limit of the federal government's powers and stop legislation or block Supreme Court decisions on the nature of the matter because they are actual sovereign parties to this compact. Again, they would emphasize the confederative nature of the union, that the states are actually.

equal parties. Now, Webster responds in one of the most famous speeches in the whole of American statesmanship, what's called his second reply to Hain, the common name for this speech. He begins with a long discourse saying that Hain has gone very far afield. He says, that we're quite far from the nature of the debate, like the origins of the debate about the federal land and its sale. He says he compares himself to a mariner who is lost at sea and is trying to get his bearings. He then states, I go for the Constitution as it is and the union as it is. So making a normative sort of overture, he's not claiming to be saying anything radical. He's presenting what he believes the union to be. He says the North has no disposition to violate

the compact of the Constitution. So he even cedes the point that this is an agreement between parties, interested parties. He then turns to rebuttal of some of Haynes' points. What's most interesting here is Haynes' resource of the Hartford Convention, which obviously greatly concerns Massachusetts. That's where the creators of that event originated. That's where they were most popular. The Essex, Honto, and the rest of the rest of the event.

of them. Webster's response to the Hartford Convention is rather fascinating, and it is, in my opinion, one of the weakest parts of his entire response. He says first, the Hartford Convention was without influence or precedent, kind of glossing the significance of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, even glossing the nature of the constitutional conventions and debates. He just kind of ignores the point. Again, he says, the South studies the Hartford Convention. They are very interested in it, kind of linking them to the alleged treason of the Hartford Conventioners.

He says, the North has not ever been interested in it. They've written it off as an anomaly because there's nothing comparable to this at all. And those that took part in this had no political futures. We repudiated them. So he's kind of disavowing this, but also not recognizing the significance of that in the American political experience. And thirdly, Webster says, I've never studied the Hartford Convention. I've never read the journal of the convention.

I'm really in no position to talk about it. That's a very weak response to Haynes' important point. Webster then turns to the question of internal improvements. You remember this is the main issue in controversy. What will the protective terrorists be used for? Not only will the protective tariffs foster domestic industry, but those internal improvements are meant to be built to further amplify the economic power of the industry, building connections for exports to make American industry more competitive in global trade.

And also domestic trade. Really, domestic trade is the number one priority. But ultimately, the goal. is to make the United States industrial exporting power. But he says, the localism of these sections averse to internal improvements is narrow-minded. He says, very importantly, in our contemplation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country. His vision of the union minimizes local and regional differences and says those that are against this kind of development are in fact bigoted. They do not have this broad and inclusive view of the union and its member communities.

He says consolidation, not enlargement of power is his concern. He faults Hain for identifying consolidation as a danger. Consolidation, centralization of power in the federal government. He says, how could this be a danger when all these things they are doing are for the general good? Let's remember Rousseau's contention about the general will, that a political community, it is not the or organization of various interests of geographical regions, but it's best understood, according to Rousseau, as a union of individuals. And this is a connection here. Webster then turns to the doctrine of nullification or interposition. What Hayne has referenced in relation to the Kentucky and

Virginia resolutions in connection to the South Carolina exposition and protest, which actually proposes nullification. He says that interposition would mean state authority would divide the union into its constituent states, that the assertion of state sovereignty, in fact, would mean a fundamental division of the union at a state level. Now, this is a very important point, and it certainly does not deserve scoffing. Where do the state powers end? If the states will determine federal laws, given their own prerogatives, their own interests,

Webster says this will divide our policy among the constituent states, and who knows where that division will end. This has an anarchic implication to it. Now, in my reading, this is Abraham Lincoln's most compelling argument later. In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he says, secession is the essence of anarchy. In my view, this is the most compelling. point that Lincoln makes in that crisis of the union, that if a minority were always to take

exception from centers of authority and divide the political community based on their exception, then there is no place where that division would end. Now, Hain and the other southern statesmen would point out the states are political communities. And this is ultimately where Hain rests his argument. And this is a very interesting point. In Hain's view, the states in America are pre-year. preliminaries to nationality. They are the origins of American nations, which will be established.

And in Haynes' view, it's important to note, not only Hayne, but also more important lights like John C. Calhoun, they were unionists. They believed in the union of these various states, though under a more strictly limited general government. A government, as the Kentucky Resolution sets out, founded for specific defined purposes. And not for the special advocacy of any one region or any one state or any one faction. any one political faction, over the interests of others. So the state interest then becomes the key to limiting the powers of the federal government. That is a balancing act.

And in our political experience, we might look at that and say that was perhaps overly optimistic. It is still a fascinating American idea. the idea of limited federal government and state prerogatives, the balance of what we call federalism. Obviously, we know how it all turns out, but this is the matter at hand at the time. Webster then goes on to say, and this is one of the most important lines in his speech, It is, sir, the people's constitution, the people's government made for the people and answerable to the people. Webster emphasizes the political authority of the individual in the general government. This goes back to Hamilton's interpretation, the broad powers.

Hamilton says the authority of the federal government comes from the people at large, the mass. And Hamilton also justifies his broad interpretation at the expense of state authority on the element of the Constitution. The Constitution says, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, etc. This was identified, you remember, by Patrick Henry, as a sticking point. Patrick Henry said, why did they not say, sir, the states? We the states. The states actually ratify this compact. Nowhere in the union did a popular vote ratify.

ratify the Constitution, a technical point, perhaps. But the state authorities convened the constitutional conventions through an indirect means they ratify the Constitution. It does not go to the general vote. But here Webster makes the same appeal that Hamilton did, that this is a popular government based on the authority of individual citizens, not the states. This is why Webster says the state authority must not be the final appeal. It must be the popular authority. This is also Abraham Lincoln's position. And Lincoln actually rephrases Webster's appeal in his second reply to Hayne. in the Gettysburg Address.

And this is the most famous formulation of it. The Gettysburg Address, which is government of the people by the people for the people. That's Lincoln's line. But it is adapted from this speech. And that is a nationalist formulation at the expense of state authorities and their own particular heritages and identity. So Webster says there is no middle ground on this issue. Of course, that's precisely what Calhoun and Thomas Jefferson before him were trying to establish a middle ground of state interposition to take that interpretive power of federal powers

away from the federal government itself, and to put it with another interested party in the contract, that of the state governments, which will obviously be more accountable to the people of their localities. He says there's no middle ground between submission and treason. Let's return again to the point that Rousseau made, that the general will determines what is true, politically true. And the minority must be, in Rousseau's words, forced to be free. Webster is making the same frame here, saying that you either submit to the federal power or you will be condemned as a traitor.

Now, we have genius responses to this, especially in John C. Calhoun, who takes this very seriously and tries to plausibly map out that middle ground that Webster is condemning here, the ground of state interposition or nullification. Again, designed not to divide the union, but to preserve it. Hane emphasizes the advocates of consolidation are the true, enemies of the union. Webster says interposition is incompatible with any administration of government and will certainly mean revolution. Curiously, he does not deny a right to revolution. He could only do so by reputing the Declaration of Independence, which he does not do. He actually

pays some lip service to the right of revolution in the abstract. But he is much more interested in preserving the union, according to his own formulation. So he says, this, sir, is General Washington's consolidation. That's a very important point because, as we remember, Washington did back Hamilton. He says, this is the true constitutional consolidation. I wish to see no new powers drawn to the general government, but I confess, I rejoice in whatever tends to strengthen the bond that unites us and encourages the hope that the union will be perpetual. And this is one of Webster's great contributions in this speech. he pitches the union as a perpetual bond.

This is extremely important later on for Lincoln, who assumes the same, and then goes to really extraordinary links to try to justify it historically. Links that do not hold water at all, in my opinion. Lincoln claims that the union is older than the Constitution in his speeches later. Webster does not go that far because Webster, I think, is far more grounded in history and also more reasonable. Webster says the enemies of the union calculate the value of the union and magnify the evils of the union and magnify the evils of the union, which he condemns. Webster then ends with his peroration, and this is a fascinating aspect. This is the most memorable part of his speech, and I will quote it at length here,

because it deserves to resound in our memories. This is Daniel Webster's single greatest contribution to American letters. This is at the end of his reply. He says, When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union, on states, dissevered, discordant, belligerent, on land rent with civil feuds, or drenched in fraternal blood,

let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the glorious ensign of the Republic, bearing the motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, liberty first and union afterwards. But everywhere in every wind under heaven, that other sentiment dear to every American heart, liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. That final line, liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.

the perpetual national union. Webster's great vision of what binds us together ultimately, that we are all the same, that anyone that contends for regional characteristics, distinctiveness, political sovereignty, those are the enemies. It's quite remarkable. This is said in 1830. and at a pivotal point of sectional conflict, and the union survived it. And the southerners, who are increasingly of a Jeffersonian or old Republican frame in their thought of the union,

believed it could survive when they have seen the really beautiful statement of American nationalism. I think Webster is the best example of this. They've seen what they would be called if they said no. They'd be called traitors. Webster has made that very clear. Hain has appealed to history and experience. He is in this instance comparable to Aristotle, assuming the natural characteristics of these political communities. Webster has made his appeal to abstract ideals, to union, even to empire. Curiously, he never uses the word empire, but Hayne often does, and always condemns it. Being at the expense of those local political communities,

Hain explains his position, saying, Sir, there have existed in every age two distinct orders of men, the lovers of freedom and the devoted advocates of power. Webster, a Weaver in his essay on these speeches, he says, Webster was walking a fence, endeavoring on the one hand to accept certain facts and on the other to put forward propositions which could but doubtfully be reconciled with the historical facts. And we see that is the weakest part of Webster's argument.

He's arguing about abstract ideals, about national glory, that he does not see the differences between the regions of America. If it helps Ohio, it's helping Carolina too, he says. Don't be such a bigot. It's helping you, too. Webster has an imperial vision, an imperial vision of the Union, authority over the horizon, continental, expansive, commercial. He's thinking of national glory.

He's thinking of the international reputation of the Union, of the flag. the symbol of what we have all in common as Americans. Hain is local. He is particular. Hayne sees South Carolina as a distinct people, or a nation, if you will. This is a subject that's really very broad in American history. people made reference to their home states.

This was not something particular to the South at this time, when people were not so well-connected and spent their lives closer to home than any of us do now. Those local peculiar distinctive traits were far more important with them. And that's why they would identify themselves by their home states, The historical facts that formed a group of people in one place, the geography, the ethnic makeup, the language, the dialect, the political concerns, the religious distinctiveness, all of those things are the elements of nationality, of identification as a distinct thing. group, a political community. Those are Haynes' emphasises. And Hayne, several times in his speeches, condemns the ambition of empire. Now, the reputation of this debate is an interesting one. Certainly

after the Civil War, it is recognized broadly for its pivotal importance in the sectional conflict. After the Civil War, with the victory of the Union, Webster is hailed as a prophet and one of the most eloquent, it's not the most eloquent advocate of this national vision. And so Webster is amplified. One of the results of this, and this is actually an early result, there is a massive and very beautiful painting, very, very intricate in Fanual Hall, which is the great auditorium of old Boston in Massachusetts. In Fanual Hall, when you ascend the grand staircase and enter into the lecture hall, you see the huge painting on the wall. It takes up the whole width of the auditorium. You should look this up.

I don't remember who painted this piece, but it stands in Fanio Hall in Boston. And it's titled Webster's second reply to Hayne. And we see Webster standing in the old Senate chambers in front of Vice President John C. Calhoun, who sits in the president's chair, the president of the Senate. In the crowd, we see Robert Payne or Robert Hayne. We see James Polk, future president. We see other members of the Senate, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. We see all the grates of the day. Henry Clay is sitting in attendance.

And they're all depicted. They actually, if you look at the painting, you can recognize them there. And this is an incredible event in our history. and it's celebrated, commemorated. But it's also a debate between statesmen. Both sides walk away looking at the achievement of their own champion and saying, we made our point. We made our point exceptionally well.

But a debate is not a war. There is no winner carrying laurels from the, field. Both sides looked at this event and said, we stated our case exceptionally well. We identify the problems with the other fellow's position. And though it's a statement of belief, a statement of position, it does not resolve the issue. So in the north, Webster is celebrated as the victor in the south. Hayne is celebrated. for his exposition of their position. And that is the story of the debate between Webster and Hain taking place during Jackson's first administration.

When we return, we will talk about the nullification crisis where these points that we've gone over in some length here, they emerge in political drama. You would certainly expect them to. Yes. All right, Mr. Bagby. Tell people where they can find your work and where they can find your books. Indeed.

You can find my books at www. Tallmanbooks.com. I'm doing other work concurrently with you, Pete. I'm appearing on American Spirits with the Old Glory Club every Monday night. Last night, unfortunately, I had bad connection problems, so I couldn't participate. But we'll be doing that again this next Monday night. We're talking about the Southwest. We're starting a series on the history of the Southwest. And we're starting with the Spanish settlement in Arizona, California, and Texas. and such. And we'll go up through the Mexican War and the Mexican session of the territory.

It's going to be a very fun series. I've really been enjoying working on it. All righty. Well, I will link up to Tallman Books. And until the next time, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Everything. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.