has been so obscured by the greatness of the second that it is seldom referred to and but little read.  Yet it is one of the most effective retorts, one of the strongest pieces of destructive criticism, ever uttered in the Senate, although its purpose was simply to repel the charge of hostility to the West on the part of New England.  The accusation was in fact absurd, and but few years had elapsed since Mr. Webster and New England had been assailed by Mr. McDuffie for desiring to build up the West at the expense of the South by the policy of internal improvements.  It was not difficult, therefore, to show the groundlessness of this new attack, but Mr. Webster did it with consummate art and great force, shattering Hayne’s elaborate argument to pieces and treading it under foot.  Mr. Webster only alluded incidentally to the tariff agitation in South Carolina, but the crushing nature of the reply inflamed and mortified Mr. Hayne, who, on the following day, insisted on Mr. Webster’s presence, and spoke for the second time at great length.  He made a bitter attack upon New England, upon Mr. Webster 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