"Speech of Daniel Webster, in Reply to Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina."
- Creator(s):
- Webster, Daniel.
- Title:
- "Speech of Daniel Webster, in Reply to Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina."
- Description:
- The provisions of the Whig Party’s American System highlighted tensions between those who believed in states’ rights and those who believed in the new nationalism. An 1830 bill introduced by Democratic Senator Robert Y. Haynes to restrict sales of western lands led to his memorable debate with Whig leader Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. Hayne argued that the Union was a compact between independent states, who could choose to withdraw. Webster protested that the people of the U.S. had established the Constitution and that its laws bind the states in a perpetual union. He memorably asserted that only the collective nation could protect personal freedoms. Abraham Lincoln would later draw on this speech in his first inaugural address, delivered after seven southern states had left the Union.
- Source:
- Photograph by Vincent Dilio. Courtesy of David M. Rubenstein.
- Citation:
- Webster, Daniel. "Speech of Daniel Webster, in Reply to Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina". Washington, D.C.: Gales & Seaton, 1830.