Webster also made blunders in construing the context of the constitution, as well as the clauses specially involved, in contrasting the constitution with the articles of confederation, and in his reading of our constitutional history. These blunders were exhaustively, ably, relentlessly exposed. We who are trained either in forensic or parliamentary debate well know the conquering and demolishing reply. Although, as we have just shown, Calhoun's reply could have been far more effective than it really was, still its success and triumph were so evident that when he closed, John Randolph, who had heard it, wanted a hat obstructing his sight removed, so that, as he said, he might see "Webster die, muscle by muscle." Master the question at issue, and read the two speeches as impartially as you strive to read the discussion of Æschines and Demosthenes, and if you are qualified to judge of debate between intellectual giants you must admit that Webster was driven from every inch of ground chosen by him as his very strongest, and which he confidently believed that he could hold against the world. Yet the union men, who were hosts in the north and numerous even in the south at that time, accepted Webster's speech as the bible of their political faith, and as its reward ennobled him with the pre-eminent title of Expounder of the Constitution. They ignored, or they never learned of, the pulverizing refutation. But the State-rights men and the south generally understood. Webster also understood. He did not make any real rejoinder. And his subsequent utterances are in harmony with the State-rights doctrine to which Calhoun seems to have converted him.[31] I fancy that with that rare humor which was one of his shining gifts, he dubbed himself in his secret meditations, "Expounder because not expounding." Later I shall tell you how Webster builded better than he knew, and that there was, after all, in the speech that which fully justifies the worship it received from the union men.