If Mr. Lodge, and those who agree with him, and there are some at the North who do, be right, and Hayne got the better of Webster in that celebrated contest, the nullification doctrines and acts of South Carolina were constitutionally sound and legal; and if South Carolina were right in her nullification, the secession of the South, thirty years afterwards, was also right. We do not concede that nullification and secession have been barred because the course of events has been such that independent sovereign States have grown into a nation; nor do we admit that the Union and its indissolubility depend only on the result of an appeal to arms. We claim with Webster that nullification and secession were entirely indefensible constitutionally, and also in the light of history at the time of the foundation of our Constitution, and ever since. There can be no doubt of the effect of Webster’s speeches at the time of their delivery; they aroused the national pride of the people, and the whole country, except portions of the South, responded. It was in this nullification controversy that Webster won the title of the Great Expounder of the Constitution; he was then at his prime, physically and mentally. Always carefully dressed, when he made his speeches, in the blue coat with brass buttons, buff waistcoat, and white cravat of the Whigs of Fox’s time; his large frame, his massive head with dark, straight hair, and deep set and, in debate, luminous black eyes; his superb swarthy complexion brightened with brilliant color that is even in women so handsome; his grand and rich voice; his emphatic delivery;--all served to make him the most impressive of orators. It was often said by his contemporaries at the bar that unless Webster wholly believed in the justice of the cause he was maintaining he could not argue well. He was not like some of the greatest advocates, whose ability and ingenuity are only fully brought forth when they have to contend with the difficulties of a weak and almost desperate case. Hayne, his antagonist, was an able, eloquent, and accomplished orator. His speech did not create that enthusiasm at the South that Webster’s did at the North; but his own State pertinaciously adhered to its doctrine of nullification and saw no defeat to its champion.