became a protectionist. This plea appeared again and again in his high-tariff speeches which followed; but he never attempted to deny or shake the broad principles so strongly set forth in his great argument of 1824.
Webster reached the highest point of his power and fame when, in 1830, he gave voice, as no one else could, to the National consciousness of the American people. Before the war of 1812 the Union had been looked upon by many thoughtful and patriotic Americans as an experiment—a promising one, indeed, but of uncertain issue. Whether it would be able to endure the strain of divergent local interests, feelings and aspirations, and whether its component parts would continue in the desire permanently to remain together in one political structure, were still matters of doubt and speculation. The results of the war of 1812 did much to inspire the American heart with a glow of pride in the great common country, with confident anticipations of its high destinies and with an instinctive feeling that the greatness of the country and the splendors of its destinies depended altogether upon the permanency of the Union. The original theory that the Constitution of the United States was a mere compact of partnership between independent and sovereign commonwealths, to be dissolved at will, whatever historical foundation it may have had, yielded to an overruling sentiment of a common nationality.
This sentiment was affronted by the nullification movement in South Carolina, which, under the guise of resistance to the high tariff of 1828, sought to erect a bulwark for slavery through the enforcement of the doctrine that a State by its sovereign action could overrule a Federal law, and might, as a last resort, legally withdraw from the “Federal compact.” Against this assumption Webster rose up in his might like Samson going forth against the Philistines. In his famous “Reply to Hayne” he struck
