the best conservator of the Union. Above all the subordinate combatants, these three names live in supreme splendor. John Quincy Adams had been overwhelmingly defeated by Jackson in 1828, and Henry Clay, his Secretary of State, had left Washington city with him after the inauguration of Jackson, in the spring of 1829; so that neither was in Congress when the great debate began on Foote's resolution, offered December 29, 1829. Both, however, re-entered the public service in 1831 -Adams to remain till his death, February 23, 1848, and Clay (except an interval of seven years, from 1842 to 1849, when he was re-elected for six years) till he died, June, 1852. Foote's innocent resolution, the cause of so much excitement and such grave results, was as follows: "Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire into the expediency of limiting for a certain period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale and are subject to entry at the minimum price. Also, whether the office of Surveyor-general may not be abolished without detriment to the public service."

Mr. Webster had been a most efficient advocate of Adams in the previous Presidential election, and this harmless resolution was made the pretext for a violent assault upon New England and upon himself by the partisans of Calhoun, who was then Vice-President, and of President Jackson, but, as the result proved, not with the General's sympathy. The resolution was introduced without the knowledge of Mr. Webster, and yet he saw no harm in its terms or purpose. But Mr. Benton, who opened the debate, declared it to be an attack upon the West, and said "the West must still look to the solid phalanx of the South for succor." He also denounced the policy of New England towards the West as most illiberal and unjust. Colonel Robert Y. Hayne, one of the Senators from South Carolina, and Mr. Calhoun's confidential friend, followed Mr. Benton in a speech of great bitterness against New England, be

ginning with a complimentary salutation to the Missouri Senator, and adding that "the South would always sympathize with the West." On a previous occasion Colonel Hayne had tried to get into a controversy with Mr. Webster, but the suddenness of this new assault on New England took Mr. Webster wholly by surprise, and he replied with considerable warmth. One passage of this reply, not often quoted, may be published for its prophetic truth. It was spoken on January 18, 1830, and reads strangely in view of the astounding aggregate of the succeeding forty-three years:

"And here, sir, at the epoch of 1794, let us pause and survey the scene. It is now thirty-five years since that scene actually existed. Let us, sir, look back and behold it. Over all that is now Ohio there then stretched one vast wilderness, unbroken except by two small spots of civilized culture-the one at Marietta, the other at Cincinnati. At these little openings, hardly a pin's point upon the map, the arm of the frontiersman had levelled the forest and let in the sun. These little patches of earth, themselves almost shadowed by the overhanging boughs of that wilderness, which had stood and perpetuated itself from century to century, ever since the Creation, were all that had been rendered verdant by the hand of man. In an extent of hundreds and thousands of square miles, no other surface of smiling green attested the presence of civilization. The hunter's path crossed mighty rivers, flowing in solitary grandeur, whose sources lay in remote and unknown regions of wilderness. It struck upon the north on a vast inland sea, over which the wintry tempests raged as on the ocean; all around was bare creation. It was a fresh, untouched, unbounded, magnificent wilderness! And, sir, what is it now? Is it imagination only, or can it possibly be fact, that presents such a change as surprises and astonishes us when we turn our eyes to what Ohio now is? Is it reality or a dream, that, in so short a period as even thirty-five years, there has sprung up on the same sur

face an independent State, with a million of people? A million of inhabitants! An amount of population greater than all the cantons of Switzerland; equal to one third of all the people of the United States when they undertook to accomplish their independence! If, sir, we may judge of measures by their results, what lessons do these facts read us upon the policy of the Government? What inferences do they not authorize upon the general question of kindness or unkindness? What convictions do they enforce as to the wisdom and ability, on the one hand, or the folly and incapacity, on the other, of our general management of Western affairs? For my own part, while I am struck with wonder at the success, I also look with admiration at the wisdom and foresight which originally arranged and prescribed the system for the settlement of the public domain."

The real debate opened January 21, 1830. Mr. Webster had an important case in the Supreme Court, and one of his friends (Senator Chambers, of Maryland) asked to postpone the discussion till Monday, which Colonel Hayne resisted with much vehemence. He saw the Senator from Massachusetts in his seat, and he could not consent to a postponement till he had replied to some of the observations of the gentleman the day before. Putting his hand on his heart, he said, "I have something here which I want to get rid of. The gentleman has discharged his fire in the face of the Senate, and I demand an opportunity of returning the shot."

"Then it was "-to use the words of a distinguished Southern member of Congress who witnessed the scene—" that Webster seemed to grow taller and larger. Folding his arms in his own majestic manner he said, 'Let the discussion proceed; I am ready-I am ready now to receive the gentleman's fire.' Colonel Hayne's speech, able as it was, has been made memorable by Webster's immortal reply. He was violent and personal, self-confident and arrogant, and was openly encouraged by Vice-President Calhoun, who sent him notes and sugges

tions repeatedly while he was speaking. All the Jackson' leaders stood by applauding him-Benton, Grundy, Woodbury, Duff Green, of the Washington Telegraph (Jackson's organ), and many more. The Senate adjourned over till Monday, January 25, 1830, when he resumed in a tone still more belligerent and offensive. He left nothing unsaid against Mr. Webster. A fine person, fluent elocution, and a melodious voice gave point to his invective. He laid great stress upon Mr. Webster's change of position on the tariff. Speaking of his free-trade speech in the House in 1824, he said, "On that, the proudest day of his life, like a mighty giant, he bore away on his shoulders the pillars of the temple of error and delusion, escaping himself unhurt, and leaving his adversaries overwhelmed in its ruins. Then it was that he erected to free-trade a beautiful and enduring monument, and inscribed the marble with his name.”

Tuesday, January 26, 1830-the next day—Mr. Webster rose to reply. So much has been written of this historic effort that little more need be written of it. Never shall I forget its impression upon my youthful mind, nor its lasting effect upon parties. Webster must have felt as Cineas felt after his mission to Rome, when asked by his master, Pyrrhus, how the Roman Senate appeared, when he said, “Like an assembly of kings." He made little preparation. He needed little, for he was full of his subject. On the evening before, while reclining on his sofa, he said, in answer to a friend, who heard him laughing, "I have been thinking of what Colonel Hayne said about Banquo's ghost, and I will get up and make a note of it." One more authority (his friend Charles W. March) says his brief did not occupy half a sheet of paper. Hayne accused him of sleeping on his (Hayne's) first speech before he replied to it. "Yes," said Webster, "I did sleep on the gentleman's speech, and I slept well; and I slept equally well on the speech to which I am now replying." On the morning of the 26th he said to Senator Samuel Bell, of New Hampshire.

"You know, Mr. Bell, my constitutional opinions. There are among my friends in this Senate some who may not concur with them." Bell urged him to speak out boldly, adding, "It is a critical moment; and it is time, high time, that the people should know what this Constitution is." "Then," said Webster, "by the blessing of Heaven, they shall learn, this day, before the sun goes down, what I think it is."

The morning of that day will always be remembered by those who live to talk of it. As early as nine o'clock crowds poured to the Capitol; at twelve the Senate Chamber, galleries, floor, and lobbies, were suffocatingly filled; the very stairways were dark with people. The hotels were overflowing. The House was deserted. The giant Dixon H. Lewis, then a member from Alabama, the largest man of his day, got jammed in behind the chair of the Vice-President, where he could hardly see or hear; but, resolved not to miss the scene, he broke one of the panes of glass, and so contrived to listen to the great effort.

Webster was a few days over forty-eight when he replied to Hayne, who was not quite forty. He surveyed the scene before and around him with the calmness of approaching victory, and seemed to feel that " Alexander fights when he has kings for his competitors." His spirits rose with the occasion, while his adversaries must have felt, with Mr. Iredell, the colleague of Colonel Hayne from South Carolina, after the latter had spoken, "Hayne has started the lion; but wait till we hear his roar or feel his claws."

Time had not thinned or bleached his hair; it was dark as a raven's wing. "It was such a countenance," said a spectator, "as Salvator Rosa delighted to paint."

His dress was a

He was an orator without being an actor. picture: a blue coat and buff vest-the Revolutionary colorswith a white cravat, suiting his broad brows, caverned eyes, and olive complexion. His first deep, mellow tones were almost dramatic, as he uttered that sentence as familiar to Ameri