Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/24

20 war, for a redress of those injuries which it did not become freemen to endure. Sir, the whole south, animated as by a common impulse, cordially united in declaring and promoting that war. South Carolina sent to your councils, as the advocates and supporters of that war, the noblest of her sons. How they fulfilled that trust let a grateful country tell. Not a measure was adopted, not a battle fought, not a victory won, which contributed, in any degree, to the success of that war, to which southern councils and southern valor did not largely contribute. Sir, since South Carolina is assailed, I must be suffered to speak it to her praise, that at the very moment when, in one quarter, we heard it solemnly proclaimed, “that it did not become a religious and moral people to rejoice at the victories of our army or our navy,” her legislature unanimously

“Resolved, That we will cordially support the government in the vigorous prosecution of the war, until a peace can be obtained on honorable terms, and we will cheerfully submit to every privation that may be required of us, by our government, for the accomplishment of this object.”

South Carolina redeemed that pledge. She threw open her treasury to the government. She put at the absolute disposal of the officers of the United States all that she possessed—her men, her money, and her arms. She appropriated half a million of dollars, on her own account, in defence of her maritime frontier, ordered a brigade of state troops to be raised, and when left to protect herself by her own means, never suffered the enemy to touch her soil, without being instantly driven off or captured.

Such, sir, was the conduct of the south—such the conduct of my own state in that dark hour “which tried men’s souls.”

When I look back and contemplate the spectacle exhibited at that time in another quarter of the Union—when I think of the conduct of certain portions of New England, and remember the part which was acted on that memorable occasion by the political associates of the gentleman from Massachusetts—nay, when I follow that gentleman into the councils of the nation, and listen to his voice during the darkest period of the war, I am indeed astonished that he should venture to touch upon the topics which he has introduced into this debate. South Carolina reproached by Massachusetts! And from whom does the accusation come? Not from the democracy of New England; for they have been in times past, as they are now, the friends and allies of the south. No, sir, the accusation comes from that party whose acts, during the most trying and eventful period of our national history, were of such a character, that their own legislature, but a few years ago, actually blotted them out from their records, as a stain upon the honor of the country. But how can they ever be blotted out from the recollection of any one who had a heart to feel, a mind to comprehend, and a memory to retain, the events of that day! Sir, I shall not attempt to write the history of the party in New England to which I have alluded—the war party in peace, and the peace party in war. That task I shall leave to some future biographer of Nathan Dane, and I doubt not it will be found quite easy to prove that the peace party of Massachusetts were the only defenders of their country during their war, and actually achieved all our victories by land and sea. In the mean time, sir, and until that history shall be written, I propose, with the feeble and glimmering lights which I possess, to review the conduct of this party, in connection with the war, and the events which immediately preceded it.

It will be recollected, sir, that our great causes of quarrel with Great Britain were her depredations on northern commerce, and the