Yet after all is said, the meaning of Mr.
Webster's speech in our history and its significance to us are, that it set
forth with every attribute of eloquence the nature of the Union as it had
developed under the Constitution. He took the vague popular conception and
gave it life and form and character. He said, as he alone could say, the
people of the United States are a nation, they are the masters of an
empire, their union is indivisible, and the words which then rang out in
the senate chamber have come down through long years of political conflict
and of civil war, until at last they are part of the political creed of
every one of his fellow-countrymen.
The reply to Hayne cannot, however, be dismissed with a consideration of
its historical and political meaning or of its constitutional significance.
It has a personal and literary importance of hardly less moment. There
comes an occasion, a period perhaps, in the life of every man when he
touches his highest point, when he does his best, or even, under a sudden
inspiration and excitement, something better than his best, and to which he
can never again attain.
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