Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/62

58 effect. Truly, sir, is not this a little too hard? May we not crave some mercy, under favor and protection of the gentleman’s own authority? Admitting that a road or a canal must be written down flat usurpation as ever was committed, may we find no mitigation in our respect for his place, and his vote, as one that knows the law?

The tariff which South Carolina had an efficient hand in establishing in 1816, and this asserted power of internal improvement,—advanced by her in the same year, and, as we have now seen, approved and sanctioned by her representatives in 1824,—these two measures are the great grounds on which she is now thought to be justified in breaking up the Union, if she sees fit to break it up.

I may now safely say, I think, that we have had the authority of leading and distinguished gentlemen from South Carolina in support of the doctrine of internal improvement. I repeat, that, up to 1824, I, for one, followed South Carolina; but when that star in its ascension veered off in an unexpected direction, I relied on its light no longer. [Here the Vice President said, Does the Chair understand the gentleman from Massachusetts to say that the person now occupying the chair of the Senate has changed his opinions on the subject of internal improvements?] From nothing ever said to me, sir, have I had reason to know of any change in the opinions of the person filling the chair of the Senate. If such change has taken place, I regret it; I speak generally of the state of South Carolina. Individuals we know there are who hold opinions favorable to the power. An application for its exercise in behalf of a public work in South Carolina itself is now pending, I believe, in the other house, presented by members from that state.

I have thus, sir, perhaps not without some tediousness of detail, shown that, if I am in error on the subject of internal improvements, how and in what company I fell into that error. If I am wrong, it is apparent who misled me.

I go to other remarks of the honorable member—and I have to complain of an entire misapprehension of what I said on the subject of the national debt—though I can hardly perceive how any one could misunderstand me. What I said was, not that I wished to put off the payment of the debt, but, on the contrary, that I had always voted for every measure for its reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman himself. He seems to claim the exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce the public charge; I do not allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am, for paying it; because it is a charge on our finances, and on the industry of the country. But I observed that I thought I perceived a morbid fervor on that subject; an excessive anxiety to pay off the debt; not so much because it is a debt simply, as because, while it lasts, it furnishes one objection to disunion. It is a tie of common interest while it lasts. I did not impute such motive to the honorable member himself; but that there is such a feeling in existence I have not a particle of doubt. The most I said was, that if one effect of the debt was to strengthen our Union, that effect itself was not regretted by me, however much others might regret it. The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing. Others, I must hope, will find less difficulty in understanding me. I distinctly and pointedly cautioned the honorable member not to understand me as expressing an opinion favorable to the continuance of the debt. I repeated this caution, and repeated it more than once—but it was thrown away.