question of expediency, of moral and political right or wrong. In every
case the right was simply stated, and the uniform answer was, such a step
means the overthrow of the present system.

When South Carolina began her resistance to the tariff in 1830, times had
changed, and with them the popular conception of the government established
by the Constitution. It was now a much more serious thing to threaten the
existence of the Federal government than it had been in 1799, or even in
1814. The great fabric which had been gradually built up made an overthrow
of the government look very terrible; it made peaceable secession a
mockery, and a withdrawal from the Union equivalent to civil war. The
boldest hesitated to espouse any principle which was avowedly
revolutionary, and on both sides men wished to have a constitutional
defence for every doctrine which they promulgated. This was the feeling
which led Mr. Calhoun to elaborate and perfect with all the ingenuity of
his acute and logical mind the arguments in favor of nullification as a
constitutional principle. At the same time the theory of nullification,
however much elaborated, had not altered in its essence from the bald and
brief statement of the Kentucky resolutions. The vast change had come on
the other side of the question, in the popular idea of the Constitution. It
was no longer regarded as an experiment from which the contracting parties
had a right to withdraw, but as the charter of a national government. "It
is a critical moment," said Mr. Bell of New Hampshire to Mr. Webster, on
the morning of January 26, "and it is time, it is high time that the
people of this country should know what this Constitution _is_." "Then,"
answered Mr. Webster, "by the blessing of heaven they shall learn, this
day, before the sun goes down, what I understand it to be." With these
words on his lips he entered the senate chamber, and when he replied to
Hayne he stated what the Union and the government had come to be at that
moment. He defined the character of the Union as it existed in 1830, and