The South Carolina Exposition of 1828 appeared to fall still-born from
the press. Neither General Jackson nor any of his nearest friends seem
to have been so much as aware of its existence; certainly they
attached no importance to it. Colonel Benton assures us, that to him
the Hayne debate, so far as it related to constitutional questions,
seemed a mere oratorical display, without adequate cause or object;
and we know that General Jackson, intimately allied with the Hayne
family and strongly attached to Colonel Hayne himself, wished him
success in the debate, and heard with regret that Mr. Webster was
"demolishing" him. Far, indeed, was any one from supposing that a
movement had been set on foot which was to end only with the total
destruction of the "interest" sought to be protected by it. Far was
any one from foreseeing that so poor and slight a thing as the
Exposition was the beginning of forty years of strife. It is evident
from the Banquo passage of Mr. Webster's principal speech, when,
looking at Vice-President Calhoun, he reminded that ambitious man
that, in joining the coalition which made Jackson President, he had
only given Van Buren a push toward the Presidency,--"No son of
_theirs_ succeeding,"--it is evident, we say, from this passage, and
from other covert allusions, that he understood the game of
Nullification from the beginning, so far as its objects were personal.
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