The North-Carolina standard., 1849-07-25
NUMBER 76S.

inquiry as the birth place of Honor. Some located
f him at Richmond Virginia-some elsewhere. Pub
lie curiosity was on the alert. Our frank huntsmen
of the West lovers of Washington and of holy truth
that daughter of Heaven, sent on earth 10 cement
and hold together civil society among men-say (to
use their parance, and draw my figures from my own
country that they tracked this prowler for human rep
utation and civil dscord to deep and dark recess,
amidst the vast prares of the magnificent valley of
the Mississippi; that they fired the praires, and ran
their line of fire into his retreat until 1t scorched his
very nose, and enveoped him in smoke; and still he
lay sulen, and silent, and concealed And they had
given up the hunt, until he walked forth again upon
the prowl for human reputation and civil diseord, in
the darkness of night, under the mask OF America
nus, and committed an outrage more fagtious than
1.-The first. He will be hunted again. 1t is pro BONO
pubco that such calumniators and Cdttines should
1 be known; ay, and impaled on high-high as Ro-
man American pilory could place them--aS
a warning young men to beware of the fate of
a convicted calumniator- beware of the fate of an
| .americon CataHne !'' a 1s 50 -
wish hartily that could now let Mr.. Benton OFF;
but, as he sometimes says, Sc In order vndieate
the truth of history,'' must send two
shafts at him. Would any man believe, who is only
familiar with Mr. Benton's more recent history that
he raving nullifying secessionist, and an
advocate for armed resistance to laws regularly enact
ed by Congress, In pursuance of the established
parliamentary formula, and backed and sustained by
the decisions of the Supreme Court OF the Union
Strange these accusations may appear to soEnes
will sustain both, and Immediately, by irrefragable
proof - t.:- e+- 'f ~ s'7as
Ard now for his being at one time HuIIiffer and
secessionist. 1t will be reeoected by you that
General Hayne, of South Carolina, in the celebrated
controversy between himself and Mr.. Webster, as
serted boldly and fuly all the extreme doctrines Of
the nufyng school then prevailing in his State. In
this grand strife of arms, Mr. Benton was actually so
closely associated with the South Carolina champion,
that Mr. Webster thought proper take very special
| notice OF their apparent combination against him,
complaining particularly of their mutual quotation
and commendation,'' of their t casting the charac
ters in the drama, assg ming to each his part;
the attack, to another the cry of onse and said
farth -
81 offer myself sir; as match to no man; throw
the challenge OF debate at no mans qteet But then
sir, since the honorable gentleman has put the que
ton in that calls for answer, will give
him an answer and tell him that, holding myself
to be the humblest of the members here, yet know
nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, eth
alone or when aided by the of has friend from
South Carolina, that need deter me from espous
ing whatever opinions may choose to espouse; from
debating whenever may choose to debate or from
speaking whatever may fit to say upon the floor
of the Senate" Mr.. Hayne had cited the Virginia
and Kentucky resolutions of '98 as his leading au-
thorities he had cited Madison's report, Jeersons
protest, written for the Virginia Legislature in 1925,
and mis- letter to MI Giles of the year, in which
language was used going far, very arindeed, beyond
anything stalled in our Southern Address. Y on will
recollect Mr.. Jefersons language but for the bene
fit of others, and to fix the charge of nuhcation and
secession upon present beyond the pos
sibity of denial, will quote it. In the protest, de-
signed to be used in coutrayenon of the tariff and in
erna improvement policy of the federal government,
Mr.. Jeeson, after declaring the laws this subject
''null and vod, proceeds to say that ''though Yir
ginia would consider dissolution of the Union as
among the greatest caamities that could befal them,
yet is not the greatest There is one yet greater
submission to government of unlimited powers. It
is only when the hope of this shall become absolute
y desperate, that further forbearance could not be
indulged." In his letter to Mr.. Giles he. .reasserts
tie doctrine in still stronger language, saying
! s'And what is recourse! You might well rea-
! son and argue with the marble columns encircling
them, &c. Are we to stand to our arms &c. No,
that must be the last resource. We must have pa
tience and long forbearance with brethren, &C..
and separate from companions only when the sole
alternatives left dissolution of our U MON with
them, or submission to government of unlimited
powers. Between these two evils, when we must
make choice, there be no hesitation" Such
were the authorities relied on and expounded by Mr.
Hayne-sach his speech. What did Mr.. Benton
say of that speech and its author : These are his
words
81 resume my speech (said Mr.. b. at the point at
which 1t was suspended when gave way to the na-
tural and audabe impatence of the from South
Carolina who sits my right, Mr.. Hayne, to vim
dicate himself, his State, and the South from what
appeared to me to be most gratuitious aggression
| Well and nobly has he done it. Much as he had
done before to establish his reputation orator,
statesman, patriot, and gallant of the South,
the efforts of these days exceed them all. They will
be in his senatorial career which his country
Will look back upon with pride and eXultaton."
Even Mr.. Calhoun himself, then recognised
throughout the Union the great expounder of the
nufying and secession doctrine, though his person
apresence ought, in good taste to have excused him
fiom the infction, in for his share of commer-
daon from the then champion of southern interests
! (Mr. Benton.) Thus he spoke of him, and of other
illustrious of South Carolina There is one
State in the South the name and praise Of which the
events of this debate would drag from the stones of
the West if they could rise up in this place and
speak. 1t is the of that State upon which the
vlals filled with the accumulated wrath of years. have
been suddenly and unexpectedly emptied before us,
on motion to postpone land debate; that State
whose microscopic offence, in the obscure parish of
Colleton, is to be hung up in equipoise with the
grnazed treason and deep damnation of the Hartford
Convention; that State whose present dislike tariff
which is tearing out her vitals, is to be made the
means of exciting the West against the whole South
that State, whose dislike to the tariff laws is to be
made the Pretext for setting up despotic autho ritv
in the Supreme Court; that State which, in the old
Congress In 1885, voted for the reduction of the price
of the public lands TO about half of the present
minimum; which in 1885, redeemed, after it was lost
and carried, by its single vote, the first measure that
ever was adopted for the protection of Kentucky
that OF the two companies sent to the falls of the Oo
that State which, in the period of the late war; sent
battles of the West in the Capitol, and siay the
Goliahs of the North; that State which at this day
has sent to this chamber the senator Mr. Havpe1
whose liberal and enlightened speech on the subject
of the public lands has been seized upon and made
the pretext for that premeditated assault upon the
whole South which we have seen met with a. proHlp-
ttude, energy, gallantry, and effect that have forced
the assaiaR; ocry out an hundred times that he was
still alive. cuIlld he