Benton
assures us, however, that he soon discovered his error, for the
Nullifiers were not to be put down by a speech, and soon revealed
themselves in their true character, as "irreconcilable" foes of the
Union. This was Daniel Webster's own word in speaking of that faction
in 1830,--"irreconcilable."
After this transcendent effort,--perhaps the greatest of its kind ever
made by man,--Daniel Webster had nothing to gain in the esteem of the
Northern States. He was indisputably our foremost man, and in
Massachusetts there was no one who could be said to be second to him
in the regard of the people: he was a whole species in himself. In the
subsequent winter of debate with Calhoun upon the same subject, he
added many details to his argument, developed it in many directions,
and accumulated a great body of constitutional reasoning; but so far
as the people were concerned, the reply to Hayne sufficed. In all
those debates we are struck with his colossal, his superfluous
superiority to his opponents; and we wonder how it could have been
that such a man should have thought it worth while to refute such
puerilities.
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