The Green Vol. XI.
No. 3.
BOSTON.
March, 1899.
ROBERT Y. HAYNE. By Walter L. M1ller, of the South Carol1na Bar. THERE seems to be an increasing ten dency at present to go back and study afresh the lives of the great men who figured prominently in what I may term the formulative period of our country's history. This is the explanation of the articles which we see on Webster, Calhoun, Clay, and others. In singling out the distinguished Carolinian whose name appears at the head of this article, I feel, therefore, that I need make no apology. His reputation and character were such as to command for him a high place on the list of the nation's leading men. Robert Y. Hayne was born on the 10th day of November, 1791. He was reared in the country, near Charleston, and this seems to have been an advantage to him in some respects, for it tended to a more healthy development, both in mind and body, than would have likely been the case had he been brought up in a city. A writer, in speaking of his early life, says : " The greater portion of his juvenile days were spent amidst the charms of rural scenery, to which his mind was always peculiarly susceptible. Here he was habituated to those manly sports and invigorating exer cises to which he attached the utmost im portance in training up his sons, believing that he was himself in no small degree in debted to them for some of those striking traits of character by which he was distin guished in after-life." There is a lesson here for people of our day. The cities, with their many advantages, are fast draw ing away from the country people who
would be wiser to remain where they are. The country, after all, is the best place in which to bring up a boy. City and town life are demoralizing, and present many temptations to a life of idleness, dissipation, and extravagance. The strong men of the nation have generally been country-bred boys. Young Hayne's educational advan tages were limited, and he was denied the privilege of a college training. While at school, however, he seems to have taken a course in the classics. In doing this he acted with more wisdom than characterizes many of our young men who go to college, and, though having the opportunity of study ing the classics, actually leave them off. As a school-boy he does not appear to have distinguished himself above his fellows so far as intellectual activity was concerned, but he already began to give evidence of that high moral purpose which in after-life so prominently characterized him. "It was in this interval that he informed one of his school-fellows that he had formed and laid down for the government of his conduct certain rules, drawn principally from ethical writers, which he considered it his duty to observe through life. In the same conver sation, the different systems of moral philos ophy having been brought into discussion, he expressed his very decided opinion that any system of morals not founded upon Christianity must be radically defective both in its requisitions and its sanctions. Indeed, there is abundant evidence, from his conver sations and writings, that from a very early period of his life a sense of the obligations 97
