Speeches of John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster, in the Senate of the United States, on the Enforcing Bill (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Speeches of John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster, in the Senate of the United States, on the Enforcing Bill

Mr. Calhoun rose and addressed the Senate. He knew not which, he said, was most objectionable, the provi sion of the bill, or the temper in which its adoption had been ur ged. If the extraordinary powers with which the bill proposed to clothe the Executive, to the utter prostration of the Gouetita tion, and the rights of the States. Be calculated to impress our minds with alarm, at the rapid progress of despotism in our coun try; the zeal with which every circumstance, calculated to mis represent or exaggerate the conduct of Carolina in the controvera sy, was seized on, with a view to excite hostility against her, but too plainly indicated the deep decay of that brotherly feeling which once existed between these States, and to which we are in debted for our beautiful Federal system. It was not his intention. He said, to advert to all these misrepresentations, but there were some so well calculated to mislead the mind, as to the real char acter of the controversy, and hold up the State in a light so odi ous, that he did not feel himself justified in permitting them to pass unnoticed. Among them, one of the most prominent was the false state ment, that the object of South Carolina was to exempt herself from her Share of the public burthens, while she participated in the advantages of the Government. If the charge were true - if the State were capable of bein actuated by such low and unwor tv motives, mother as he cousi cred her, he would not stand upon this floor to vindicate her conduc't. Among her faults, and faults he would not deny she had, no one had ever yet charged her with that low and most sordid of vices-avarice. Her conduct on all oc casions had been marked with the very opposite quality. From the commencement of the revolution - from its first breaking out at Boston, till this hour, no State had been more profuse of its blood in the cause of the country: nor had any contributed so largely to the common treasury, in proportion to her wealth and population. She had in that proportion contributed more to the exports of the Union, on the exchange of which, with the rest of the world, the.

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