tor Benton of Missouri voiced in no uncertain
terms the indignation of his State and section. The discussion might
easily have led to nothing more than the laying of the resolution on
the table; and in that event we should never have heard of it. But it
happened that one of the senators from South Carolina, Robert Y.
Hayne, saw in the situation what he took to be a chance to deliver a
telling blow for his own discontented section. On the 19th of January
he got the floor, and at the fag-end of a long day he held his
colleagues' attention for an hour.

The thing that Hayne had in mind to do primarily was to draw the West
to the side of the South, in common opposition to the East. He
therefore vigorously attacked the Foote resolution, agreeing with
Benton that it was an expression of Eastern jealousy and that its
adoption would greatly retard the development of the West. He laid
much stress upon the common interests of the Western and Southern
people and openly invited the one to an alliance with the other. He
deprecated the tendencies of the Federal Government to consolidation
and declared himself "opposed, in any shape, to all unnecessary
extension of the powers or the influence of the Legislature or
Executive of the Union over the States, or the people of the States."
Throughout the speech ran side by side the twin ideas of strict
construction and state rights; in every sentence breathed the protest
of South Carolina against the protective tariff.

Just as the South Carolinian began speaking, a shadow darkened the
doorway of the Senate chamber, and Daniel Webster stepped casually
inside. The Massachusetts member was at the time absorbed in the
preparation of certain cases that were coming up before the Supreme
Court, and he had given little attention either to Foote's resolution
or to the debate upon it. What he now heard, however, quickly drove
Carver's Lessee _vs._ John Jacob Astor quite out of his mind.
Aspersions were being cast upon his beloved New England; the
Constitution was under attack; the Union itself was being called in
question. Webster's decision was instantaneous: Hayne must be
answered--and answered while his arguments were still hot.

"Seeing the true grounds of the Constitution thus attacked," the New
Englander subsequently explained at a public dinner in New York, "I
raised my voice in its favor, I must confess, with no preparation or
previous intention. I can hardly say that I embarked in the con