Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union

The Webster-Hayne Debate consists of speeches delivered in the United States Senate in January of 1830. The debates between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina gave fateful utterance to the differing understandings of the nature of the American Union that had come to predominate in the North and the South, respectively, by 1830. To Webster the Union was the indivisible expression of one nation of people. To Hayne the Union was the voluntary compact among sovereign states. Each man spoke more or less for his section, and their classic expositions of their respective views framed the political conflicts that culminated at last in the secession of the Southern states and war between advocates of Union and champions of Confederacy. The key speakers and viewpoints are included in The Webster-Hayne Debate. These speeches represent every major perspective on ‘the nature of the Union’ in the early nineteenth century.