Daniel Webster.
354. Jackson as an Administrator.—Jackson’s administrations form a turning point in our history and are important from almost every point of view. Only their leading features can be treated here, but it may be well to say that whenever he could,—as in the matter of internal improvements,—Jackson played the part of a strict constructionist. When it was agreeable to him, he favored state sovereignty, as when he refused to support Chief Justice Marshall and the Supreme Court in their decisions against Georgia, which state continued to act toward the Cherokees as badly as it had done toward the Creeks. Georgia officials treated Marshall with contempt, and Jackson is reported to have said, “John Marshall has made his law, now let him enforce it.” Such a divorce between the executive and the judiciary, if long continued, would mean anarchy; but it must be remembered that Jackson, an old backwoodsman, would of course sympathize with the white men of Georgia.[[154]] But he would tolerate no violation of national laws which he thought it right to defend, and he considered the voice of the people sufficient authority for some very loose constructions of the Constitution.
THE DEBATE OVER THE NATURE OF THE CONSTITUTION.
Thomas H. Benton.
Robert Y. Hayne.
355. The Webster-Hayne Debate.—Probably the most striking event of Jackson’s first administration is the great debate of 1830 between Webster[[155]] and Hayne. It grew out of some resolutions of Senator Foote of Connecticut with regard to the rapid sales of public lands. The cheapness of land drew population westward, and this raised the price of labor in the older states; hence the interest of New England seemed to lie in opposing the policy of granting portions of the public domain to newcomers on very easy terms. The resolutions were hotly opposed by Senator Thomas H. Benton[[156]] of Missouri, a leading supporter of Jackson. Benton and all Westerners naturally thought the prevailing policy wise because it brought men and money to the new commonwealths. Senator Robert Y. Hayne[[157]] of South Carolina came to the help of the Western men, since to most Southerners New England was now obnoxious on account of the Tariff of Abominations (§ [340]), and since the West, being comparatively unsettled, might, they thought, possibly be won to slavery’s side. Webster replied to Hayne, and the latter returned to the attack, but on a different line. He discussed the nature of the general government and gave warning that if the South were not relieved of tariff burdens, the remedy of a state veto would have to be resorted to. In other words, he advanced Calhoun’s doctrine of nullification, which, as we have seen, was an extension of the principles enunciated by Virginia and Kentucky in 1798, and by the Hartford Convention in 1814 (§§ [279] and [315]). Webster replied in his most famous speech, and as an orator certainly got the better of his opponent, although Hayne’s defense of his own position was masterly. Even Calhoun himself, who, as he was serving his second term as Vice President, could not join in the debate, would hardly have presented his own views more clearly. Whether Webster eclipsed Hayne as a political reasoner, is a point on which the North and the South have never been in perfect agreement. Webster denied Hayne’s postulate that the Union rested on a compact, and affirmed that the Constitution had established a general government with powers sufficient to enforce its rights even against the component states.
