Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/22

18 advocate in him always spoke loudly in the reasoning of the statesman."

Yes; Daniel Webster was a great lawyer, an able advocate, a magnificent orator. But as a constitutional student he was superficial. The close of his speech known as "Webster's reply to Hayne" is a burst of splendid oratory, and is known and quoted far and wide. Only less eloquent, far more sound, is the little known peroration to Hayne's rejoinder, which should be called "Hayne's reply to Webster." Mr. Webster said: (33)

"While the union lasts we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feud, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured—bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and union afterwards; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"

Grand, glorious—rhetorically; but it is not logic—nor yet history. According to Webster, the perpetuity of the then existing American union was essential to the continued enjoyment of liberty. But the Declaration of Independence, mindful of the rise and fall of nations and the ever recurring changes in