er personally, and upon the
character and patriotism of Massachusetts. He then made a full exposition
of the doctrine of nullification, giving free expression of the views and
principles entertained by his master and leader, who presided over the
discussion. The debate had now drifted far from the original resolution,
but its real object had been reached at last. The war upon the tariff had
been begun, and the standard of nullification and of resistance to the
Union and to the laws of Congress had been planted boldly in the Senate of
the United States. The debate was adjourned and Mr. Hayne did not conclude
till January 25. The next day Mr. Webster replied in the second speech on
Foote's resolution, which is popularly known as the "Reply to Hayne."

This great speech marks the highest point attained by Mr. Webster as a
public man. He never surpassed it, he never equalled it afterwards. It was
his zenith intellectually, politically, and as an orator. His fame grew and
extended in the years which followed, he won ample distinction in other
fields, he made many other splendid speeches, but he never went beyond the
reply which he made to the Senator from South Carolina on January 26, 1830.

The doctrine of nullification, which was the main point both with Hayne and
Webster, was no new thing. The word was borrowed from the Kentucky
resolutions of 1799, and the principle was contained in the more cautious
phrases of the contemporary Virginia resolutions and of the Hartford
Convention in 1814. The South Carolinian reproduction in 1830 was fuller
and more elaborate than its predecessors and supported by more acute
reasoning, but the principle was unchanged. Mr. Webster's argument was
simple but overwhelming. He admitted fully the right of revolution. He
accepted the proposition that no one was bound to obey an unconstitutional
law; but the essential question was who was to say whether a law was
unconstitutional or not. Each State has that authority, was the reply of
the nullifiers, and if the decision is against the validity of the law it
cannot be executed within the limits of the dissenting State. The vigorous
sarcasm with which Mr. Webster depicted practical nullification, and showed
that it was nothing more or less than revolution when actually carried out,
was really the conclusive answer to the nullifying doctrine. But Mr.
Calhoun and his school eagerly denied that nullification rested on the
right to revolt against oppres