Webster was obliged to answer, and he replied with the great speech known in his works as “The Constitution not a compact between sovereign States.”  In a general way the same criticism is applicable to this debate as to that with Hayne, but there were some important differences.  Mr. Calhoun’s argument was superior to that of his follower.  It was dry and hard, but it was a splendid specimen of close and ingenious reasoning, and, as was to be expected, the originator and master surpassed the imitator and pupil.  Mr. Webster’s speech, on the other hand, in respect to eloquence, was decidedly inferior to the masterpiece of 1830.  Mr. Curtis says, “Perhaps there is no speech ever made by Mr. Webster that is so close in its reasoning, so compact, and so powerful.”  To the first two qualities we can readily assent, but that it was equally powerful may be doubted.  So long as Mr. Webster confined himself to defending the Constitution as it actually was and as what it had come to mean in point of fact, he was invincible.  Just in proportion as he left this ground and attempted to argue on historical premises that it was a fundamental law, he weakened his position, for the historical facts were against him.  In the reply to Hayne he touched but slightly on the historical, legal, and theoretical aspects of the case, and he was overwhelming.  In the reply to Calhoun he devoted his strength chiefly to these topics, and, meeting his keen antagonist on the latter’s own chosen ground, he put himself at a disadvantage.  In the actual present and in the steady course of development, the facts were wholly with Mr. Webster.  Whatever the people of the United States understood the Constitution to mean in 1789, there can be no question that a majority in 1833 regarded it as a fundamental law, and not as a compact—­an opinion which has now become universal.  But it was quite another thing to argue that what the Constitution had come to mean was what it meant when it was adopted.  The identity of meaning at these two periods was the proposition which Mr. Webster undertook to maintain, and he upheld it as well and as plausibly as the nature of the case admitted.  His reasoning was close and vigorous; but he could not destroy the theory of the Constitution as held by leaders and people in 1789, or reconcile the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions or the Hartford Convention with the fundamental-law doctrines.  Nevertheless, it would be an error to suppose that because the facts of history were against Mr. Webster in these particulars, this able, ingenious, and elaborate argument was thrown away.  It was a fitting supplement and complement to the reply to Hayne.  It reiterated the national principles, and furnished those whom the statement and demonstration of an existing fact could not satisfy, with an immense magazine of lucid reasoning and plausible and effective arguments.  The reply to Hayne gave magnificent expression to the popular feeling, while that to Calhoun supplied