The debate was now fairly started, and the word quickly went round that a battle of the giants was impending.  Each foeman was worthy of the other’s steel.  Hayne was representative of all that was proudest and best in the South Carolina of his day.  “Nature had lavished on him,” says Benton, “all the gifts which lead to eminence in public, and to happiness in private, life.”  He was tall, well-proportioned, graceful; his features were clean-cut and expressive of both intelligence and amiability; his manner was cordial and unaffected; his mind was vigorous and his industry unremitting.  Furthermore, he was an able lawyer, a fluent orator, a persuasive debater, an adroit parliamentarian.  Upon entering the Senate at the early age of thirty-two, he had won prompt recognition by a powerful speech in opposition to the tariff of 1824; and by 1828, when he was reelected, he was known as the South’s ablest and boldest spokesman in the upper chamber.

Webster was an equally fitting representative of rugged New England.  Born nine years earlier than Hayne, he struggled up from a boyhood of physical frailty and poverty to an honored place at the Boston bar, and in 1812, at the age of thirty, was elected to Congress.  To the Senate he brought, in 1827, qualities that gave him at once a preeminent position.  His massive head, beetling brow, flashing eye, and stately carriage attracted instant attention wherever he went.  His physical impressiveness was matched by lofty traits of character and by extraordinary powers of intellect; and by 1830 he had acquired a reputation for forensic ability and legal acumen which were second to none.

When, therefore, on the 21st of January, Hayne rose to deliver his First Reply, and Webster five days later took the floor to begin his Second Reply—­probably the greatest effort in the history of American legislative oratory—­the little chamber then used by the Senate, but nowadays given over to the Supreme Court, presented a spectacle fairly to be described as historic.  Every senator who could possibly be present answered at roll call.  Here were Webster’s more notable fellow New Englanders—­John Holmes of Maine, Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, Horatio Seymour of Vermont.  There were Mahlon Dickerson and Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, and John M. Clayton of Delaware.  Here, John Tyler of Virginia, John Forsyth of Georgia, William R. King of Alabama; there, Hugh L. White and Felix Grundy of Tennessee, and Thomas H. Benton of Missouri.  From the President’s chair Hayne’s distinguished fellow South Carolinian, Calhoun, looked down upon the assemblage with emotions which he vainly strove to conceal.