Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1894 — Webster’s Reply to Hayne. [ARTICLE]

Webster’s Reply to Hayne.

Robert O. Winthrop, la Scribner. I have said that Webster was called on to make his speech at short notice. A single night was. if 1 remember right, all that he had for immediate preparation for the first day’s effort, and one other night for that of the second day. He could have made but few notes, and the brief which had been published—a very short one—may have been all that be committed to writing. Before going to the Senate chamber on the morning of the first day he told Mr. Everett that as to the defense of the Constitution he had no mis.giyjngs, that he -was/ always ready for that; and that his only anxiety was in regard to the persona? and sectional parts of Colonel Hayne’s attack. As he entered the Senate chamber, John M. Clayton, the Senator from Delaware, said to him: “Webster, are you primed and loaded?” “Seven fingers," was his only reply, with a gesture as if pointing to a gun-barrel. He spoke under great excitement, and with almost an air of inspiration. Of his emotions he said himself, hot long afterwards, “I felt as if everything I had ever seen, or read, or heard was' floating before me in one great panorama, and 1 had little else to do than to reach up and cull a thunderbolt and hurl it at him.”