REPLY TO HAYNE, The The reply delivered by Daniel Webster of Massachusetts in the United States Senate 26-27 Jan. 1830 (to Senator Robert Y. Mayne, of South Carolina) was the culmination of a debate that arose over an unimportant resolution regarding the sale of the public lands, and grew to include sectional political issues. The oration may be divided into two sections. The first replies in detail to charges of political inconsistency which had been brought against New England and against Webster personally, and closes with a glowing eulogy on Massachusetts. The second and more important section opposes the claim of South Carolina to the right of nullification, and leads up to the famous peroration on the Union, closing "Union and Liberty, now and forever, • one and inseparable.' This last pas sage was for many years the best-known piece of American political oratory with the ex ception of Patrick Henry's 'Give me liberty, or give me death." The two impassioned out bursts, closing the two sections of the address, are, however, each but a paragraph in length. The greater in of the Reply, which occupied four hours in the delivery, is taken up with simple and direct reasoning, and while it gives the sense of great moral earnestness on the part of the speaker it contains no obvious ap peal to the feelings of the hearers. Webster,
who according to tradition once said that his whole life had been a preparation for the (Reply to Hayne,) spoke almost extempora neously, and the chief impression which his ad dress produces is that of vast grasp of all the widely different matters on which he touches. There were two sides to the questions under dis cussion, as there always are, but to many of his hearers he seemed to have annihilated the argu ments of his opponent. In a private letter Webster once referred somewhat oddly to the Reply as 'No: 1 among my political efforts,* and to the- Seventh of March Speech as 'prob ably the most important effort of my life.* By an almost unanimous verdict his admirers, many of whom disagreed with the political sentiments of the Seventh of March Speech, have given highest rank to the Reply to Hayne.