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Daniel Webster for Young Americans; Comprising the Greatest Speeches of "the Defender of the Constitution"
Daniel Webster for Young Americans Comprising the Greatest Speeches of the Defender of the Constitution Author:Webster General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1906 Original Publisher: Little, Brown, and company Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com wh... more »ere you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE REPLY TO HAYNE FROM THE SECOND SPEECH ON FOOT'S RESOLUTION, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JAN. 26 AND 27, 1830! Mr. President, -- When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements havedriven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution before the Senate. [The Secretary read the resolution, as follows: -- " 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 1 The " Great Debate " in the Senate, between Webster and Hayne, had an unexpected origin. A resolution had been introduced by Senator Samuel Augustus Foot, of Connecticut, merely ordering an inquiry into the expediency of throwing restrictions around future sales of public lands of the United States. Into the discussion of this resolution, which lasted five months, was brought a large number of partisan pleas, tariff arguments, local jealousies, and questions of the right and wrong of slavery, and of the respective powers of the State and national governments. Recriminations and even personalities were not infrequent; and some of the Southern speakers d...« less