he intimates that, after the public debt was paid, sound policy might recommend a cession of them to the States of which they compose a part.

Mr. Webster, in his reply, vindicated the course of the General Government towards new States. The sales made had not, he said, been more than twenty millions of acres, while we had about two hundred and ten millions surveyed and in the market; so that we then had more lands than purchasers.

The present relation of the Government to the settlers on these lands is very different from that which existed when this country was first settled by emigrants from Europe. They derived neither aid nor protection from the governments at home; and the Indian title has been extinguished at the cost of many millions.

The progress of these States has been rapid beyond all example. Ohio, in thirty-five years, has attained a population of more than a million. He adverted to the four sources of the public lands: - First. The cessions of Virginia, and other States, at the recommendation of Congress. Second. The compact with Georgia in 1802. Third. The purchase of Louisiana. Fourth. The purchase of Florida. In all of these acquisitions, the States had an interest which Congress could not surrender without violating the pledged faith of the nation. They were subject to this pledge to the States before they were pledged to pay the public debts. No one can estimate the mischief that would have arisen if they had been thrown into the hands of private speculators.

He examined Mr. Hayne's doctrine that there should be no permanent public revenue, and his fears of consolidation. He deprecated the light value that the disciples of this school set on the Union.

He denied that the sale of the lands tended to intro

duce corruption in the Government, in any of the various uses to which the money was put. He insisted that no no part of the policy pursued by the Government, regarding these lands, retarded their settlement.

He defends the Eastern States from the charge of being responsible for the tariff. The majority of the votes of New England were opposed to the tariff of 1824. It was forced upon New England. The charge, then, of being hostile to Western interests was next considered. He says there are two modes of disposing of the public lands- the Northern, which, by surveys before any grants are made, enables the Government to give a precise description of the lands by a reference to degrees of latitude; and the Southern, by warrants, surveys, entries and location, which has caused so many conflicting titles, and been so fertile of litigation; and he doubts whether any single law of any lawgiver has produced effects of a more distinct and lasting character than the ordinance of 1787, drawn by Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts. It fixed forever the destiny of the population north-west of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. This measure was carried by Northern votes, but they were influenced by none of the selfish motives ascribed to them, as they had been greatly encouraged by New England emigration. In every instance he maintained that New England had been favorable to Western interests; and he showed, by referring to a former debate, that his own policy had been, that the price of the public lands should be "fixed as low as would not prevent their settlement, yet not so low as to prompt speculators to purchase.

It was quite clear that, under the show of discussing the policy of the Legislature as to the public lands, other motives and considerations entered into the debate,

and that views of party or personal ambition dictated much that was said. Each party attempted to conciliate the West, or at least to deprecate its sense of injury, and at the same time to attack or defend the tariff.

Two days later, Mr. Hayne rejoined. He alleged that the charge against Mr. Webster, of hostility to the West, had not been brought by him, but by Mr. Benton, and asked if Mr. Webster, deeming himself overmatched by that Senator, hoped for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary. He asked, too, if "the ghost of the murdered coalition" had come back to alarm the gentleman's imagination, and would not "down at his bidding?" and if "dark visions of broken hopes and honors, lost forever, still floated before his heated imagination?"

He then sarcastically adverted to Nathan Dane, the legislator, greater than Solon or Lycurgus, who was not known to the South until he was known as a member of the Hartford Convention.

He says that Mr. Webster had formerly taken the same ground in favor of the West which he himself now takes. He charges him with a similar inconsistency as to internal improvements, and justifies the South for opposing this interest of the West by their constitutional scruples. He doubts Mr. Webster's professions of a wish to see the public debt discharged. In adverting to the more rapid growth of Ohio than Kentucky, of which Mr. Webster had spoken as the effect of the exclusion of slavery, he defended the South in reference to that institution-urged that they were not responsible for introducing it-denied that it impaired their strength, or their happiness-insisted that the slavest were in a better condition than the free blacks of the Northern States-says they contribute more to the national wealth than the Northern States, which, how

ever, he alleges derive greater profit from the labor of slaves than the Southern States themselves. He denounces the false philanthropy which has meddled with this subject, and appeals to facts in support of this vindication of the slaveholding States. He deprecates every thing that favors the consolidation of the States, as the worst of evils. He taunts Mr. Webster for now supporting the tariff that he had once so ably opposed. He repels the charge of favoring disunion by reference to the course of the South in 1798, as also in the late war, which was "for free trade and sailor's rights," and which he contrasts with the course of Massachusetts, on which he dilates with much severity, both in opposing the war, after affecting to wish it, and in favoring a dissolution of the Union, before the Hartford Convention, as well as in that assembly. He defends the "Carolina doctrine" on the rights of a State when the Federal Constitution is violated, by the authority of the Virginia resolutions of 1799, and also refers to those of Kentucky, and the arguments of Mr. Jefferson-all of which concur in affording a complete justification of the course of South Carolina, both for her maintenance of the Constitution in its purity, and her attachment to the Union.

This long speech, recommended by a pleasing person and a most engaging elocution, in which there was scarcely a word that related to the professed object of discussion but was dictated by a wish to defend the present and past policy of the Southern States, and to advance the political interests of their favorite champion, Mr. Calhoun, was replied to by Mr. Webster in a style equally foreign to the matter under discussion, equally limited to party and personal considerations, but far superior in ability and effect. A more triumphant retort was perhaps never exhibited in a legislative assembly,

and that, too, over an antagonist who had few equals as a public speaker: and this second speech on Foot's resolution will probably be selected by the friends of Mr. Webster as the proudest era in his life, replete as it was with the triumphs of logic and wise statesmanship. ⚫

The next day,' the debate was continued. Mr. Webster began his speech by reading Mr. Foot's resolution, to which Mr. Hayne, in his speech of two days, had not paid even "the cold respect of a passing glance." After much personality that was at once playful and severe, and a somewhat contemptuous reply to the taunts of being overmatched by the Senator from Missouri, which seemed to flow from the proud consciousness of his own powers, he spoke in terms of withering scorn of the pretended coalition, which no man of common information ever believed; and in his reply to that part of Mr. Hayne's speech which alluded to the play of Macbeth, he most felicitously alluded to some recent changes in the politics of the day. "The ghost of Banquo," he said, "like that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. It struck terror into the guilty. Their eye-balls were seared, who had thought to shield themselves by concealing their own hand, and laying the imputation of the crime on a low and hireling agency who had vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own coward consciences, by ejaculating, through white lips and chattering teeth, thou can'st not say I did it.' It was not those who had not shared in the deed of death, who either found that they were, or feared that they should be, pushed from their stools by the ghost of the slain.

"There was," he added, "another point of comparison which might not make the story of Banquo a subject of

'January 20th.