Webster-Hayne Debate, 1830
One of the most momentous debates in Senate history began over a plan to curtail western land sales. Senators from
western states viewed this proposal by a Connecticut senator as a cynical scheme to preserve for northeastern
manufacturing interests a cheap labor supply that might otherwise be lured away by the beckoning opportunities of
plentiful western lands. Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina saw in this developing Northeast-West dispute an
opportunity to build a political alliance between the South and the West. Hayne shared the view of southern planters
that an agricultural system built on slavery could only survive with an unlimited supply of cheap western lands.
Hayne began the debate in this chamber on January 19, 1830. He contended that states, not the federal government,
should control their lands and that states should have the right to set aside certain federal laws if they wished. Daniel
Webster of Massachusetts, the Senate's leading orator, responded by challenging the South's apparent willingness to
subvert the Union for regional economic gain. In doing so, he broadened the debate beyond land, tariffs, and slavery to
a consideration of the very nature of the federal republic.
Maintaining that the North had always been the West's ally, Webster successfully shifted the debate to one of states'
rights versus national power. When Hayne again argued that a state had the right to openly defy an act of Congress,
Webster returned on January 26 and 27 with his classic "Second Reply to Hayne."
The chamber was jammed beyond reasonable capacity as Webster, using his organ-like voice to great effect, thundered
that the nation was not a mere association of sovereign states, but a "popular government, erected by the people; those
who administer it responsible to the people; and itself capable of being amended and modified, just as the people may
choose it should be." Overnight, the Massachusetts senator became a major national figure, respected by his many
friends and enemies alike. The Senate shelved the land sales resolution, and chances of an alliance between the South
and West evaporated.