what this Constitution _is_." "Then,"
answered Mr. Webster, "by the blessing of heaven they shall learn, this
day, before the sun goes down, what I understand it to be." With these
words on his lips he entered the senate chamber, and when he replied to
Hayne he stated what the Union and the government had come to be at that
moment. He defined the character of the Union as it existed in 1830, and
that definition so magnificently stated, and with such grand eloquence,
went home to the hearts of the people, and put into noble words the
sentiment which they felt but had not expressed. This was the significance
of the reply to Hayne. It mattered not what men thought of the Constitution
in 1789. The government which was then established might have degenerated
into a confederation little stronger than its predecessor. But the
Constitution did its work better, and converted a confederacy into a
nation. Mr. Webster set forth the national conception of the Union. He
expressed what many men were vaguely thinking and believing, and the
principles which he made clear and definite went on broadening and
deepening until, thirty years afterwards, they had a force sufficient to
sustain the North and enable her to triumph in the terrible struggle which
resulted in the preservation of national life. When Mr. Webster showed that
practical nullification was revolution, he had answered completely the
South Carolinian doctrine, for revolution is not susceptible of
constitutional argument. But in the state of public opinion at that time it
was necessary to discuss nullification on constitutional grounds also, and
Mr. Webster did this as eloquently and ably as the nature of the case
admitted. Whatever the historical defects of his position, he put weapons
into the hands of every friend of the Union, and gave reasons and arguments
to the doubting and timid. Yet after all is said, the meaning of Mr.
Webster's speech in our history and its significance to us are, that it set
forth with every attribute of eloquence the nature of the Union as it had
developed under the Constitution. He took the vague popular conception and
gave it life and form and character. He said, as he alone could say, the
people of the United States are a nation, they are the masters of an
empire, their union is indivisible, and the words which then rang out in
the senate chamber have come down through long years of political conflict
and of civil war, until at last they are par