In prison I saw him next, condemned To meet a traitor's doom at morn; He asked if I for him would die : Then in a moment to my view, The stranger darted from disguise; My Saviour stood before my eyes: 3. EXTRACTS FROM MR. HAYNE'S SPEECH, 1830. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, after deliberating a whole night upon his course, comes into this chamber to vindicate New England; and, instead of making up-his issue with the gentleman from Missouri, on the charges which he had preferred, chooses to consider me as the author of those charges; and, losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects me as his adversary, and pours out all the vials of his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop there. He goes on to assail the institutions and policy of the South, and calls in question the principles and conduct of the State which I have the honor to represent. * . If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President (and I say it not in a boastful spirit), that may challenge comparisons with any other, for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the Union, that State is South Carolina. Sir, from the very commencement of the Revolution, up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she has not cheerfully made, no service she has ever hesitated to perform. She has adhered to you in your prosperity; but in your adversity she has clung to you with more than filial affection. No matter what was the condition of her domestic affairs, though deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded with difficulties, the call of the country has been to her as the voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound; every man became at once reconciled to his brethren, and the Sons of Carolina were all seen crowding together to the temple, bringing their gifts to the altar of their common country. What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? Sir, I honor New England for her conduct in that noble struggle. But, great as is the praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal honor is due to the South. They espoused the quarrel of their brethren, with a generous zeal, which did not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to create a commercial rivalship, they might have found in their situation a guarantee that their trade would be for ever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But, tramp ling on all considerations either of interest or of safety, they rushed into the conflict, and, fighting for principle, periled all, in the sacred cause of freedom. Never was there exhibited, in the history of the world, higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance, than by the Whigs of Carolina, during the Revolution. The whole State, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe. The "Plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens. Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of her children! Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived; and South Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumpters and her Marions, proved, by her conduct, that though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible. 4. EXTRACTS FROM MR. WEBSTER'S REPLY TO HAYNE, 1830. Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts;-she needs none. There she is,-be-. There is her his- hold her, and judge for yourselves. tory, the world knows it by heart. least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill,-and there they will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia, -and there they will lie for ever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it,—if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it,-if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraints shall succeed to separate it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its glory, and on the very spot of its origin! 5. LIBERTY AND UNION.-(From the Same.) I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and though our territory has stretched. out wider and wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recesses behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this Government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. 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 severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous Ensign of the Republic, |