Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2). Benton Thomas Hart
the handsome: a countenance ordinarily thoughtful and serious, but readily lighting up, when accosted, with an expression of kindness, intelligence, cheerfulness, and an inviting amiability. His face was then the reflex of his head and his heart, and ready for the artist who could seize the moment to paint to the life. His manners were easy, cordial, unaffected, affable; and his address so winning, that the fascinated stranger was taken captive at the first salutation. These personal qualities were backed by those of the mind – all solid, brilliant, practical, and utilitarian: and always employed on useful objects, pursued from high motives, and by fair and open means. His judgment was good, and he exercised it in the serious consideration of whatever business he was engaged upon, with an honest desire to do what was right, and a laudable ambition to achieve an honorable fame. He had a copious and ready elocution, flowing at will in a strong and steady current, and rich in the material which constitutes argument. His talents were various, and shone in different walks of life, not often united: eminent as a lawyer, distinguished as a senator: a writer as well as a speaker: and good at the council table. All these advantages were enforced by exemplary morals; and improved by habits of study, moderation, temperance, self-control, and addiction to business. There was nothing holiday, or empty about him – no lying in to be delivered of a speech of phrases. Practical was the turn of his mind: industry an attribute of his nature: labor an inherent impulsion, and a habit: and during his ten years of senatorial service his name was incessantly connected with the business of the Senate. He was ready for all work – speaking, writing, consulting – in the committee-room as well as in the chamber – drawing bills and reports in private, as well as shining in the public debate, and ready for the social intercourse of the evening when the labors of the day were over. A desire to do service to the country, and to earn just fame for himself, by working at useful objects, brought all these high qualities into constant, active, and brilliant requisition. To do good, by fair means, was the labor of his senatorial life; and I can truly say that, in ten years of close association with him I never saw him actuated by a sinister motive, a selfish calculation, or an unbecoming aspiration.
Thus, having within himself so many qualities and requisites for insuring advancement in life, he also had extrinsic advantages, auxiliary to talent, and which contribute to success in a public career. He was well descended, and bore a name dear to the South – the synonym of honor, courage, and patriotism – memorable for that untimely and cruel death of one of its revolutionary wearers, which filled the country with pity for his fate, and horror for his British executioners. The name of Hayne, pronounced any where in the South, and especially in South Carolina, roused a feeling of love and respect, and stood for a passport to honor, until deeds should win distinction. Powerfully and extensively connected by blood and marriage, he had the generous support which family pride and policy extends to a promising scion of the connection. He had fortune, which gave him the advantage of education, and of social position, and left free to cultivate his talents, and to devote them to the public service. Resident in Charleston, still maintaining its colonial reputation for refined society, and high and various talent, he had every advantage of enlightened and elegant association. Twice happily married in congenial families (Pinckney and Alston), his domestic felicity was kept complete, his connections extended, and fortune augmented. To crown all, and to give effect to every gift with which nature and fortune had endowed him, he had that further advantage, which the Grecian Plutarch never fails to enumerate when the case permits it, and which he considered so auxiliary to the advancement of some of the eminent men whose lives he commemorated – the advantage of being born in a State where native talent was cherished, and where the community made it a policy to advance and sustain a promising young man, as the property of the State, and for the good of the State. Such was, and is, South Carolina; and the young Hayne had the full benefit of the generous sentiment. As fast as years permitted, he was advanced in the State government: as soon as age and the federal constitution permitted, he came direct to the Senate, without passing through the House of Representatives; and to such a Senate as the body then was – Rufus King, John Taylor of Caroline, Mr. Macon, John Gaillard, Edward Lloyd of Maryland, James Lloyd of Massachusetts, James Barbour of Virginia, General Jackson, Louis McLane of Delaware, Wm. Pinkney of Maryland, Littleton Waller Tazewell, Webster, Nathan Sandford, of New York, M. Van Buren, King of Alabama, Samuel Smith of Maryland, James Brown, and Henry Johnson of Louisiana; and many others, less known to fame, but honorable to the Senate from personal decorum, business talent, and dignity of character. Hayne arrived among them; and was considered by such men, and among such men, as an accession to the talent and character of the chamber. I know the estimate they put upon him, the consideration they had for him, and the future they pictured for him: for they were men to look around, and consider who were to carry on the government after they were gone. But the proceedings of the Senate soon gave the highest evidence of the degree of consideration in which he was held. In the very second year of his service, he was appointed to a high duty – such as would belong to age and long service, as well as to talent and elevated character. He was made chairman of the select committee – and select it was – which brought in the bill for the grants ($200,000 in money, and 24,000 acres of land), to Lafayette; and as such became the organ of the expositions, as delicate as they were responsible, which reconciled such grants to the words and spirit of our constitution, and adjusted them to the merit and modesty of the receiver: a high function, and which he fulfilled to the satisfaction of the chamber, and the country.
Six years afterwards he had the great debate with Mr. Webster – a contest of many days, sustained to the last without losing its interest – (which bespoke fertility of resource, as well as ability in both speakers), and in which his adversary had the advantage of a more ripened intellect, an established national reputation, ample preparation, the choice of attack, and the goodness of the cause. Mr. Webster came into that field upon choice and deliberation, well feeling the grandeur of the occasion; and profoundly studying his part. He had observed during the summer, the signs in South Carolina, and marked the proceedings of some public meetings unfriendly to the Union; and which he ran back to the incubation of Mr. Calhoun. He became the champion of the constitution and the Union, choosing his time and occasion, hanging his speech upon a disputed motion with which it had nothing to do, and which was immediately lost sight of in the blaze and expansion of a great national discussion: himself armed and equipped for the contest, glittering in the panoply of every species of parliamentary and forensic weapon – solid argument, playful wit, biting sarcasm, classic allusion; and striking at a new doctrine of South Carolina origin, in which Hayne was not implicated: but his friends were – and that made him their defender. The speech was at Mr. Calhoun, then presiding in the Senate, and without right to reply. Hayne became his sword and buckler, and had much use for the latter to cover his friend – hit by incessant blows – cut by many thrusts: but he understood too well the science of defence in wordy as well as military digladiation to confine himself to fending off. He returned, as well as received blows; but all conducted courteously; and stings when inflicted gently extracted on either side by delicate compliments. Each morning he returned re-invigorated to the contest, like Antæus refreshed, not from a fabulous contact with mother earth, but from a real communion with Mr. Calhoun! the actual subject of Mr. Webster's attack: and from the well-stored arsenal of his powerful and subtle mind, he nightly drew auxiliary supplies. Friends relieved the combatants occasionally; but it was only to relieve; and the two principal figures remained prominent to the last. To speak of the issue would be superfluous; but there was much in the arduous struggle to console the younger senator. To cope with Webster, was a distinction: not to be crushed by him, was almost a victory: to rival him in copious and graceful elocution, was to establish an equality at a point which strikes the masses: and Hayne often had the crowded galleries with him. But, equal argument! that was impossible. The cause forbid it, far more than disparity of force; and reversed positions would have reversed the issue.
I have said elsewhere (Vol. I. of this work), that I deem Mr. Hayne to have been entirely sincere in professing nullification at that time only in the sense of the Virginia resolutions of '98-'99, as expounded by their authors: three years afterwards he left his place in the Senate to become Governor of South Carolina, to enforce the nullification ordinance which the General Assembly of the State had passed, and against which President Jackson put forth his impressive proclamation. Up to this point, in writing this notice, the pen had run on with pride and pleasure – pride in portraying a shining American character: pleasure in recalling recollections of an eminent man, whom I esteemed