ences of
Nullification. Andrew Jackson, a man in his kind, of indomitable
resolution, intended to arrest the argument at a convenient point by the
sword, and thus save himself the bother of going farther in the chain of
inferences than he pleased. Mr. Webster grappled with the argument and
with the man; and it is curious to watch that spectacle of a meeting
between two such hostile minds. Each is confident of the strength of his
own position; each is eager for a close hug of dialectics. Far from
avoiding the point, they drive directly towards it, clearing their
essential propositions from mutual misconception by the sharpest
analysis and exactest statement. To get their minds near each other, to
think close to the subject, to feel the griding contact of pure
intellect with pure intellect, and, as spiritual beings, to conduct the
war of reason with spiritual weapons,--this is their ambition.
Conventionally courteous to each other, they are really in the deadliest
antagonism; for their contest is the tug and strain of soul with soul,
and each feels that defeat would be worse than death. No nervous
irritation, no hard words, no passionate recriminations, no flinching
from unexpected difficulties, no substitution of declamatory sophisms
for rigorous inferences--but close, calm, ruthless grapple of thought
with thought. To each, at the time, life seems to depend on the
issue--not merely the life which a sword-cut or pistol-bullet can
destroy, but immortal life, the life of immaterial minds and
personalities, thus brought into spiritual feud. They know very well,
that, whatever be the real result, the Webster-men will give the victory
of argument to Webster, the Calhoun-men the victory of argument to
Calhoun; but that consideration does not enter their thoughts as they
prepare to close in that combat which is to determine, not to the world,
but to each other, which is the stronger intellect, and which is in the
right Few ever appreciate great men in this hostile attitude, not of
their passions, but of their minds; and those who do it the least are
their furious partisans. Most people are contented with the argument
that tells, and are apt to be bored with the argument which refutes; but
a true reasoner despises even his success, if he feels that two persons,
himself and his opponent, know that he is in the wrong. And the strain
on the whole being in this contest of intellect with intellect, and the
reluctance with which the mo