Then Webster, noticing Hayne’s eulogium of South Carolina, instead of attacking her, puts himself on the higher plane of a common national pride and patriotism. “I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen one and all. The Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions,--Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears, does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened on the light of Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina?” Then Webster refers to the great harmony of principle and feeling formerly existing between the two States. “Shoulder to shoulder they went through the revolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington and felt his own great arm lean on them for support.” It was one of those great efforts delivered on the spur of the moment, which, though not written out, had been thought and studied beforehand. The bitter invective, the grand patriotic words for our National Union, which make the heart beat and quicken the blood, came from the genius of the orator. Dr. Francis Lieber, a most competent judge, wrote: “To test Webster’s oratory, which has been very attractive to me, I read a portion of my favorite speeches of Demosthenes and then read, always aloud, parts of Webster’s; then returned to the Athenian, and Webster stood the test.”[3] The question of the supremacy of the government of the Union over that of the States was familiar to Webster; he had taken part in the argument of the cases before the Supreme Court involving that issue, and well knew the decisions of Marshall, its great chief. There is no such thing “as extemporaneous acquisition,” as Webster himself said of his speech. Its views and arguments have been adopted by our jurists, and by Bancroft, Hildreth, Fiske, and all of our old Northern historians. Webster was probably a more diligent student than Mr. Lodge gives him credit for; his habit being to rise in the early morn and work then. The writer of this has heard him say that he had read through all the volumes of _Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates_. [3] Lodge’s _Webster_, p. 187. In giving Webster’s argument on the question of nullification, we will use his speech in reply to Hayne, and his subsequent speech in answer to Calhoun, delivered three years later, in 1833.