Southern Literature From 1579-1895 / A comprehensive review, with copious extracts and criticisms / for the use of schools and the general reader

ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE.

1791=1839.

Robert Young Hayne was born in St. Paul’s Parish, Colleton District, South Carolina, and was educated in Charleston. He became a lawyer; he served in the war of 1812, and was in the State Legislature from 1814 to 1818. He was Attorney-General of the United States under President Monroe, and in 1823 was elected to the Senate. His most famous speech is that in the debate with Daniel Webster on the Right of Nullification.

South Carolina passed the ordinance of Nullification in November, 1832, elected Mr. Hayne governor, and when President Jackson issued a martial proclamation against her action, she prepared for war. Mr. Clay’s Tariff Compromise prevented any outbreak.

Mr. Hayne died in Asheville, North Carolina, yet in the prime of life. See his Life by Paul Hamilton Hayne.

WORKS.

Speeches.

Mr. Hayne was one of the leaders in the stirring times in which he lived; the extract following gives an example of his bold, fearless eloquence, and his power in debate.

STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND LIBERTY.

(From the Debate with Webster in the Senate, 1830.)

Sir, there have existed, in every age and in every country, two distinct orders of men—the lovers of freedom and the devoted advocates of power.

The same great leading principles, modified only by the peculiarities of manners, habits, and institutions, divided parties in the ancient republics, animated the Whigs and Tories of Great Britain, distinguished in our own times the Liberals and Ultras of France, and may be traced even in the bloody struggles of unhappy Spain. Sir, when the gallant Riego, who devoted himself and all that he possessed to the liberties of his country, was dragged to the scaffold, followed by the tears and lamentations of every lover of freedom throughout the world, he perished amid the deafening cries of “Long live the absolute King!” The people whom I represent, Mr. President, are the descendants of those who brought with them to this country, as the most precious of their possessions, “an ardent love of liberty”; and while that shall be preserved, they will always be found manfully struggling against the consolidation of the Government as the worst of evils......

The Senator from Massachusetts, in denouncing what he is pleased to call the Carolina doctrine, has attempted to throw ridicule upon the idea that a State has any constitutional remedy, by the exercise of its sovereign authority, against “a gross, palpable, and deliberate violation of the Constitution.” He calls it “an idle” or “a ridiculous notion,” or something to that effect, and added, that it would make the Union a “mere rope of sand.” Now, sir, as the gentleman has not condescended to enter into any examination of the question, and has been satisfied with throwing the weight of his authority into the scale, I do not deem it necessary to do more than to throw into the opposite scale the authority on which South Carolina relies; and there, for the present, I am perfectly willing to leave the controversy........

... The doctrine that it is the right of a State to judge of the violations of the Constitution on the part of the Federal Government, and to protect her citizens from the operations of unconstitutional laws, was held by the enlightened citizens of Boston, who assembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of January, 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, that “they looked only to the State Legislature, which was competent to devise relief against the unconstitutional acts of the General Government. That your power (say they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the organization of the confederacy.”....

University of North Carolina.

Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South Carolina doctrine is the Republican doctrine of ’98,—that it was promulgated by the fathers of the faith,—that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst of times,—that it constituted the very pivot on which the political revolution of that day turned,—that it embraces the very principles, the triumph of which, at that time, saved the Constitution “at its last gasp,” and which New England statesmen were not unwilling to adopt when they believed themselves to be the victims of unconstitutional legislation. Sir, as to the doctrine that the Federal Government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its power, it seems to me to be utterly perversive of the sovereignty and independence of the States. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court are invested with this power. If the Federal Government, in all, or any, of its departments, is to prescribe the limits of its own authority, and the States are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine and decide when the barriers of the Constitution shall be overleaped, this is practically, “a government without limitation of powers.” The States are at once reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people are entirely at your mercy. I have but one word more to add. In all the efforts that have been made by South Carolina to resist the unconstitutional laws which Congress has extended over her, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserved—a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation.... Sir, if, acting on these high motives,—if, animated by that ardent love of liberty, which has always been the most prominent trait in the Southern character, we should be hurried beyond the bounds of a cold and calculating prudence; who is there, with one noble and generous sentiment in his bosom, who would not be disposed, in the language of Burke, to exclaim, “You must pardon something to the spirit of liberty”?

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