The Battle of Principles / A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict

by Newell Dwight Hillis

The Northern statesman, Daniel Webster, was probably the greatest political genius our country has produced. He was born in New Hampshire, in 1782, and was seven years old when his father gave him a copy of the newly-adopted Constitution, which he soon committed to memory. His father belonged to the farmer class, who read by night and brooded upon his reading by day. In an era of privation for the colonists, by stern denial he put his son through Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College. While still a young man, Daniel Webster leaped into fame by a single argument before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and became the competitor of jurists like Rufus Choate. His orations on "Bunker Hill Monument," the "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," the "Death of Adams and Jefferson," are among the really sublime passages in the history of eloquence. In the Girard College case Webster established the point that Christianity is a part of the common law of the land. Criminal lawyers quote Webster's argument in the great Knapp murder trial, that the voice of conscience is the voice of God, as the world's best statement of the moral imperative, and the automatic judgment seat God has set up in the city of man's soul.

Even from the physical view-point he deserved his epithet, "the godlike Daniel." Not so tall as Calhoun or Clay, he was more solidly built than either of the Southern orators. His head was so large and beautiful, that Crawford, the sculptor, thought Webster his ideal model for a statue of Jupiter. His skin was a deep bronze and copper hue, but when excited his face became luminous, and translucent as a lamp of alabaster. His opponents say that Webster had the finest vocal instrument of his generation, and that he was a master of all possible effects through speech. His voice was mellow and sweet, with an extraordinary range, extending from the ringing clarion tenor note, to the bass of a deep-toned organ. The historian tells us "Webster had the faculty of magnifying a word into such prodigious volume that it was dropped from his lips as a great boulder might drop into the sea, and it jarred the Senate Chamber like a clap of thunder." The Kentucky lawyer, Thomas Marshall, said when Webster came to his peroration in his reply to Hayne, that he "listened as to one inspired." He finally thought he saw a halo around the orator's head, like the one seen in the old masters' depictions of saints.

Webster's opponent was John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina. Calhoun was the first Southern statesman to mark out the lines of battle and indicate the methods of attack and defense for the supporters of slavery. Graduating with high honours at Yale, in the class of 1802, Calhoun studied law for three years at Litchfield, Connecticut, and then decided to enter politics. In the lecture halls and class rooms, he stood at the very forefront, as orator and logician. One day, in Yale College, Calhoun delivered a speech on an apparently absurd proposition, which he defended with great acuteness. When he had finished, President Dwight said, "Calhoun, that is a brilliant piece of logic, and if I ever want any one to prove that shad grow upon apple trees, I shall appoint you."

Upon the lines of broad patriotism, with reference to the interests of the country as a whole, Calhoun supported the war with England in 1812. From city to city the young lawyer journeyed, travelling all the way from Charleston and Savannah to Boston and Portland, urging the right and the duty of the Republic to resist England's claim to the right of search of American vessels. Calhoun was widely read in history, he was full of intense patriotism, his arguments were clear, he had unity, order and movement in his thinking, he had the art of putting things, and was a perfect master of his audience. At thirty years of age Calhoun was as popular in Boston as he was later in Savannah and Charleston. In 1824, he was elected Vice-President,—the only man on the ticket to be chosen by popular vote. From that hour until his death he remained a member of the triumvirate that controlled the destinies of the Republic, sharing honours with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.

In the South Calhoun was all but idolized. He was tall and slender of person, refined and elegant in manners, carrying with him great personal charm. He was a puritan in his morals, maintained a spotless reputation, and escaped all criticism with reference to private life that was visited upon his competitors. Many a Northern man who went to Congress hating the very name of Calhoun, the arch-secessionist, was compelled to confess that he had to steel his heart against the charm of Calhoun's speech and personality. The simplicity of his character, the clearness of his thinking, the sincerity and moral earnestness of his nature, all united to lend him the influence that he exerted over men like Oliver Dyer, Webster's friend, who said of Calhoun, "He was by all odds the most fascinating man in private intercourse that I have ever met."

When Webster and Clay came into collision, it was over a subject apparently far removed from the bondage of slaves. If slavery was the spark that fired the magazine for the great explosion in 1861, the tariff furnished the powder. The South produced raw material, and imported all her tools, comforts and conveniences, while the North had free labour, and her educated working classes were good purchasers, and lent generous support to manufacturers. Exporting its raw cotton to England, the South sent its leaders to Congress to ask for free trade with foreign countries, or in any event, a lower tariff. The Northern manufacturers sent their leaders to Congress to ask for protection against foreign woollens, cottons, and all English tools and French silks, and luxuries. Therefore the interests of the North antagonized the interests of the South. In the South the anti-slavery sentiment had disappeared because of Whitney's cotton gin. As Beecher wittily put it in his Manchester speech: "Slaves that before had been worth three to four hundred dollars began to be worth six hundred. That knocked away one-third of adherence to the moral law. Then they became worth seven hundred dollars, and half the law went; then eight or nine hundred dollars, and there was no such thing as moral law; then one thousand or twelve hundred dollars, and slavery became one of the beatitudes."

The Southern leaders, therefore, wanted free trade with England; the North urged protection, in the interest of the whole country, rather than a group of States. The South believed that Northern politics was selfish; the North believed that the Southern leaders were building up English manufacturers, and weakening their own country! The people became one great debating club, and the dispute waxed more bitter day by day. Every new event seemed to widen the breach. The war of the Revolution made for unity between North and South, just as the hammer welds together two pieces of red hot iron. The soldiers of the Revolution had marched under the same flag, supported the same Declaration of Independence, and fought for the same Constitution. Slavery in the North had died through inanition, and during the eighteenth century in the South also slavery seemed in process of extinction. But now, in 1830, slavery had become a great source of immeasurable wealth to the South, just as manufacturing had built up the prosperity of the North.

The tariff discussion came to a climax in 1828, through the passing of a customs act, known as the Tariff of Abominations. Sparks falling on ice carry no peril, but sparks falling on the dry prairie cause conflagrations. The news of the passing of the protective tariff created intense excitement in South Carolina. Public meetings were called in all the towns in the land, and protests were made against the execution of the new law. Legislators in the State capital, orators on the platform, editors through their columns, urged nullification. There were two reasons for this growing hostility to protection on the part of the citizens of Calhoun's State; first the belief that as England was the largest purchaser of cotton, it was to South Carolina's best interest to have English goods brought in free; second the conviction that the tariff was a strictly sectional movement in the interest of the manufacturing North, as opposed to the South with her raw cotton and slave labour.

As a candidate for the vice-presidency in 1828 on the same ticket as General Jackson, Calhoun took no definite step until after the election, when he published a paper showing the evil which the protective tariff was doing the Southern states, and asserting the right to interpose a veto. In January, 1830, having broken with Jackson and abandoned all hope of later obtaining the presidency by his aid, Calhoun decided to test the theory of nullification upon the national theatre. Accordingly, under his direction, Senator Hayne inserted in his speech on the Foote Resolution on the public lands the defense of what was to be known later as the South Carolina Doctrine,—that, if a State considered a law of Congress unconstitutional (as South Carolina asserted the recent tariff act to be) the State had the right to nullify the law, and, if obedience was sought to be enforced, the right to secede from the Union.

His position has been stated by no one so clearly as by himself, for he spent the next three years perfecting and elaborating his argument. As the basis of his structure he employed a distinction between "a nation" and "a union." England was a nation—the United States was a union. Russia, Austria and Turkey were nations—this republic a union of sovereign states. Prussia was presided over by a king and was a nation—the United States was a republic and the citizens ruled themselves. Calhoun distinguished also between sovereignty and government; sovereignty is a birthright, a natural and inalienable right vouchsafed by God; government is an artificial right established by law. Sovereignty is an inexpungable and inherent privilege; government is a secondary and artificial privilege. When any sovereign State is injured, it has not only the right but the duty to withdraw from the compact that has been broken. The popular notion is that this idea of Secession was originated by Calhoun and was a South Carolina heresy; as a matter of fact, it was first presented in Congress by Josiah Quincy, and should be called "A Massachusetts heresy."