But Webster was not only the greatest orator America has produced; he was one of the few great orators of the world, and in the history of eloquence deserves to rank with Demosthenes, Cicero, St. Chrysostom, Bossuet, Chatham, and Burke. For thirty years he stood at the head of the bar of the United States and was accounted the most influential and the most talented member of the Senate. Hamilton and Madison laid the foundation of the Constitution; Webster was the leading spirit in building the superstructure. So high a place did he take in the discussion of the principles and the meaning of the Constitution, and so much did the advocates of the Union depend upon his interpretation of it, that he will ever be known as the "Great Defender of the Constitution." When he died men wondered how the nation could survive. This implies leadership, uncommon personality, and remarkable gifts of eloquence. "Rejoice," says Justice Story, "that we have lived in the same age; that we have listened to his eloquence and been instructed by his wisdom."

The great speeches of Webster may be divided into three classes forensic, political, and occasional. Under the first class, in the order of their delivery, we have the "Dartmouth College Case" (1818), "Gibson vs. Ogden" (1829), the "White Murder Case" (1830), and the "Girard Will Case" (1844). His chief political orations are the "Greek Revolution" (1824), the "Reply to Hayne" (1830), the "Constitution not a Compact" (1833), "Speech at Niblo's Garden” (1837), and the "Compromises of the Constitution" (1850). In the class of occasional addresses are the following: the "Plymouth Oration" (1820), "First Bunker Hill Address" (1825), "Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson" (1826), "Progress of the Mechanic Arts" (1828), "Eulogy on Washington (1832), "Second Bunker Hill Address" (1843), and "Laying the Corner Stone of the Capitol" (1851).

REPLY TO HAYNE

This speech was delivered in the United States Senate in reply to Senator Hayne of South Carolina, January 26, 1830. The subject of the discussion was the Foote Resolution on the disposition of the public lands.

I. MATCHES AND OVERMATCHES

The senator from South Carolina had digressed very much from the subject under discussion. He had made an intensely partisan speech, in one part of which he questions Webster as to whether he considered himself a match in debate for the senator from Missouri (Benton).

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 latitude 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. (The resolution which related to the sale of public lands was here read by the secretary of the Senate.)

We have thus heard what the resolution is, which is actually before us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one 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-everything, 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 everything 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 passing glance.

The honorable member complained that I had 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. 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.

But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such a reply. Why was he singled out? If an attack has been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable and to bring him to his just responsibility without delay. But, sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member was only introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had turned upon him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should find an overmatch if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri.

If, sir, the honorable member had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from

themselves. But the tone and manner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not allow me to pass it over without notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone, for the discussions of this body.

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him that, holding myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the floor of the Senate.

own.

Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my But when put to me as a matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the gentleman that he could possibly say nothing more likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise, probably, would have been its

general acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part-to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any or all these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to learn.

Sir, I shall not allow myself on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper; but, if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may perhaps find that, in that contest, there will be blows to take as well as blows to give; that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and that his impunity may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.

II. MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA

Webster defends the action of the North in freeing her own slaves and in urging that slavery be not extended into the territories. He calls attention to the fact that the South was hostile to internal improvements. He then discusses the attitude of New England as opposed to the tariff, and makes reference to Senator Hayne's strictures upon New England.

Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge made by me against South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, has taken up a new crusade against New England. Leaving altogether the subject of the public lands, he sallied forth in a general assault on the opinions, politics, and parties of New England, as they have been exhibited in the last thirty years. No wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished to carry the war, as he expressed it, into the enemy's country. The politics of New England became his theme; and it was in this part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me with such sore discomfiture. Why, sir,