Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/13

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HAYNE ON THE FOOTE RESOLUTION^ (1830) Bom in 1791, died in 1840; United States Senator from South Caro- lina in 1823-32; Governor of South Carolina in 1832-34. Sir, let me tell the gentleman that the South repudiates the idea that a pecuniary dependence on the federal government is one of the legiti- mate means of holding the States together. A monied interest in the government is essentially a base interest: and just so far as it operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it, to the government — just so far as it oper- ates in creating sympathies and interests that would not otherwise exist — is it opposed to all 1 Hayne was the first man to put forth conspicuously the doctrine of Nullification, by which was meant the right of a State to arrest the operation of a law of Congress, provided the State in conven- tion Ghould decide that the law was imconstitutional. The speech from which passages are here given was delivered in the Senate on January 21, 1830, and is the one to which Webster made his famous reply on January 26. Webster had already made a speech on the Foote resolution, so that Hayne' s speech was a reply to Webster, as Webster's second speech was a reply to Hayne. Abridged. The following is the text of the resolution: "Resolved, that the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale and are now subject 3