USA > South Carolina > Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina, vol. II > Part 2
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In 1818, Col. Hayne was elected Speaker on the promo- tion of Mr. Speaker Bennett to the Governor's office. I was not then a member, but, I have no doubt, he performed the duties of the Chair admirably well. I see it is stated in Gen. McDuffie's eulogy, that he had never looked into a book of Parliamentary rules before he was elected Speaker.
He had served four years as a member, and, with his constant opportunity of seeing and observing the course of
answered that he was not, but that the driver was the man. The messenger could hardly believe the fact. He, however, delivered the written message. The General read it, and swore he regarded it as the greatest misfortune of his life. He, however, said to the messenger go home with me, and I will send an answer in the morning. He accordingly wrote that he would be in Columbia on the proper day, and take the oath of office. The day rolled around-few had ever seen Gen'l. Williams-an immense crowd was in attendance. Gen'l. Williams rode on horseback, dismounted, hitched his horse at a rack, which once stood near the wall before the State House. Gen'l. Williams was introduced by a committee of the Senate and House, and stood in front of the Speaker. I saw him then from the gallery, for the first time. He was in a blue broadcloth dress-coat, buff pants and vest. His face was a stern florid one. He was not more than five feet eight in height, of a full habit, inclining to corpulency. His portrait in the College Library, by John S. Cogdell, Esq., is a good likeness, as he stood before me that day. His speech was one which went home to the hearts of every hearer. As soon as he had taken the oath, his commission had been read in the Senate chamber, and he had been proclaimed by the Sheriff of Richland, from the eastern portico of the State House, I, with Capt. John Hen- derson, Col. James Williams, and Capt. Geo. McCreless, three of the members from Newberry, started to walk to our lodgings, at Capt. John Caldwell's. Hen- derson said to Williams, " that is none of your little d-d racoon Governors."
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business, it was hardly necessary for such a prompt and ready man to look into Jefferson's Manual. My experience is very much that of Col. Hayne-" good sense and a firm purpose," with competent general education, to qualify a man for any thing.
He was elected Attorney General on the election of J. S. Richardson to the Bench. It is stated in the preface of 1st N. & McC. that he was elected on the 22d of December ; but there is some mistake in this respect, for he signed all the Acts ratified on the 16th of December ; and his successor, Patrick Noble, signed those ratified on the 18th of December, which was the close of the session : so that he must .have been elected on the 17th or 18th of the month.
He held this office for nearly four years, and discharged its various and complicated duties with signal success and repu- tation. About, or possibly before, his election as Attorney General, his first wife, the daughter of Gov. Pinckney, died ; and, during his Attorney Generalship, he married his second wife, Miss Alston, the daughter of Col. William Alston.
In December, 1822, Col. Hayne, who had been by successive promotions, made Major-General, was elected Senator in Con- gress, beating Judge William Smith by a few votes. This was a great triumph for so young a man to be elected over a veteran in the service of the country. Judge Smith was a Radical, and in favor of Wm. H. Crawford for President. Gen'l. Hayne was an anti-Radical, and opposed to Mr. Craw- ford. These were then Mr. Calhoun's political views.
My purpose is not to follow Gen. Hayne through his success in Congress. He discharged his duties as Senator with his characteristic energy and ability. He was the Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, and so discharged the duties that he was, on the election of General Jackson to the Presidency, favorably spoken of for the office of Secretary of the Navy.
In the Senate he was the leading antagonist to the Tariff, and fairly competed with Webster on that question. In January, 1832, in opposition to a resolution offered by Mr. Clay, Gen. Hayne made an appeal for conciliation, which would have been fortunate if it had been adopted. He said,
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" I call upon gentlemen on all sides of the House to meet us in the true spirit of conciliation and concession. Remove, I earnestly beseech you, from among us this never-failing source of contention. Restore that harmony which has been dis- turbed, that mutual affection and confidence which have been impaired. Dry up at its source this fountain of the waters of bitterness. It is in your power to do. it this day, by doing equal justice to all. And be assured that he to whom this country shall be indebted for this blessing, will be considered the second founder of the Republic. He will be regarded in all aftertimes as the ministering angel, visiting the troubled waters of political dissension, and restoring to the element its healing virtues."
This eloquent appeal was in vain.
On the 26th of October, 1832, an Act was passed to call a Convention of the people of South Carolina, the object of which was to consider the laws levying duties and imposts for the purpose of encouraging domestic manufactures. This was the avowed purpose, but really and truly the purpose was to nullify the then Tariff.
The Convention assembled the 19th of November, 1832, and with Gen. Hamilton, the Governor, at its head, passed the Ordinance of Nullification. Such of the members as believed in its doctrines signed it I was a member of the Convention, and with Judges Huger and Richardson, Gov. Manning, and many others, refused to sign it. Gen. Hayne was a member, and signed it. I do not question his motives. I always believed him as honest as any other man in the country.
In December, 1832, Gen. Hayne was elected Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the State. He entered upon the duties of his office in a most critical moment of time. One false step would have involved the State in the horrors of a domestic civil war: for a large portion of her citizens were in open and avowed hostility to her measures.
The President of the United States, Gen. Jackson, issued a proclamation denouncing the proceeding of the State. It was met by a counter proclamation by Gov. Hayne. In this paper war I do not mean to decide who had the advantage.
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I only say that I am thankful, and so I presume is every other citizen, that it ended in paper pellets instead of iron hail.
On the 11th March, 1833, the Convention reassembled to consider the interposition of Virginia and the Act of Congress then recently passed, "for such a reduction and modification of the duties on foreign imports as will ultimately reduce them to the medium standard." At the commencement Gen'l. Hamilton resigned his place as President, so that his successor as Governor might be placed at the head of the Convention. This was done, and the Convention, on the 15th March, 1833, rescinded the Ordinance of Nullification, and happy had it been for the people had no further action taken place. It was proposed early to nullify the "Force Bill." This was regarded by many as a " Brutum Fulmen," and would have attracted no particular opposition. I was a member of the committee of twenty-one, to whom the revision of the Ordinance of Nullification, the interposition of Virginia and the Force Bill, were referred.
In the course of its deliberations Judge Harper proposed to nullify the Force Bill; Gen. McDuffie sneeringly said, "I should like to see you nullify the army provisions of that bill."
In the course of the proceedings of the Convention, came up the allegiance question. Myself and other members were violently opposed to the proposed oath, declaring that primary and paramount allegiance was due to the State. We thought that the Convention, called for another purpose, had now com- pleted that, and had no right to touch that matter. We were willing to leave the change of the Constitution in that behalf to the regular course pointed out in that instrument. The Convention receded from business and went into caucus on that question, and substituted for the oath before the Conven- tion, the "second section of the ordinance to nullify the Force Bill," 1st Stat. 400. This, as Gov. Miller affirmed on the floor of the Convention, was giving the force of truth to the allegation which had been made, that Disunion was the real meaning of the action of the Convention. He moved to
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strike it out; and if the members of the Union party, who were members of the Convention, had been in their places it would have been struck out, and the years of painful State strife on that subject would have been spared. But they were absent, and the section was retained by a majority of very few votes. Often have I regretted this unfortunate circumstance, although the bill to alter the Fourth Article of the Constitu- tion-making the oath of office to be an oath of allegiance to the State, so long as a citizen thereof, in addition to the former oath, as required by the Constitution of 1790, finally passed 6th December, 1834, after the decision by the Court of Ap- peals, in the State ex relatione McCrady vs. Hunt, 2 Hill, 1- was satisfactory to the entire Union party of South Carolina.
Gov. Hayne was, I think, in September, 1835, elected In- tendant of the City of Charleston, with a salary of $4.000. In December, 1836, the style of the corporation of the city was changed from Intendant and Wardens to Mayor and Alder- men. Whether Gov. Hayne was the Mayor of the city or not, I am not sure, though I think he was. While exercising the chief authority of the city, he contributed much to its pros- perity and welfare.
In 1836, was originated by Dr. Drake and E. S. Thomas, of Cincinnati, the project of the great Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Rail-road. The Act incorporating the Company to build the same, was passed by South Carolina on 21st De- cember, 1836. No project ever met with such unanimous approbation. Nullifiers and Union men, in South Carolina, vied with each other in the support of it. The Convention of Delegates from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Car- olina, Virginia, and South Carolina, at Knoxville, in July '36, exceeded any body which I ever saw for numbers and respect- ability. Gov. Hayne was the president of that body, and certainly gave direction, energy, and wisdom to most of its plans. When the Company was organized in '36-'37, he was elected president, and for a while this great work was magnificently projected and carried out. The great commercial revulsion of May, 1837, like the worm which cut down Jonah's gourd, in like manner cut down the pros-
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pects of this mighty enterprize. Still, the President was not one to succumb while anything could be done. The Ham- burgh Rail-road was purchased ; it was embanked from end to end. The road from Branchville to Columbia was laid out and let to contractors. I well recollect the great proces- sion-in the Spring of 1838 -- from Columbia to Col. Chappell's land, just east of and beyond Columbia, where the president, Gov. Hayne, threw out the first spade-full of earth.
Through all difficulties he pressed the work until Septem- ber, 1839. Then he met the board for the last time at Ash- ville, North Carolina ; and in a few days Robert Y. Hayne ceased to be numbered among the sons of earth. He left his second wife and several children surviving him.
Few greater or better men have ever lived. He was a statesman of great wisdom; a patriot of undoubted honesty and purity of purpose.
He was a lawyer in every respect worthy of imitation. By the force of his own genius and efforts, he stood, in a few years, at the head of the Charleston Bar; then, as always, re- markable for a constellation of eminent lawyers.
In all the relations of private and domestic life he was a model of excellence. Life was a short period of probation to him. Forty-eight years, lacking a few months, were all which he was permitted to illustrate. But they accomplished more than three score and ten would with most men. He was, we are to believe, ripe for the harvest, and was therefore gathered to his fathers.
We append the following notices as illustrative of the talents and public life of Gov. Robert Y. Hayne. They were addressed to his brother, Colonel Arthur P. Hayne, (a distin- guished soldier of the war of 1812, and the friend and com- panion in arms of Andrew Jackson,) shortly after the death of Governor Hayne, by his cotemporaries. The first was written by a distinguished statesman and orator; the second by a learned and eminent jurist; and the third by an able theologian of exalted piety :
" When I commenced life here, General Hayne was in the Senate of the United States, and shortly after his return to
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our State, I went into that body, which limited the pleasure of my personal intercourse with him to a very short period.
I had, therefore, but little opportunity of observing those minute and striking particulars in his conduct and character, which would be most interesting in the detail, and which, in the aggregate, composed the shining and useful life, the premature termination of which has occasioned a general mourning. Perhaps, too, there was something in his charac- ter which naturally exempted his career from the occurrence of frequent striking incidents, and tended rather to produce an important general result, than conspicuous insulated events ; for his nature was made up of the higher, graver, and more sedate qualities and virtues-wisdom, fortitude, pru- dence, perseverance, industry-cardinal qualities-in short, those upon the exercise of which, the well-being of society depends; upon which mankind repose with an instinctive feeling of safety, while they bring a willing tribute of respect and admiration. It is the peculiar and distinctive property of one thus endowed, to be, in every circumstance of life, equal to the occasion-meeting every emergency with a power which could not be overtasked, and with a discretion which would not over-act. This was my own estimate of your brother ; and when I went into, shortly after he had left, the Senate, I found the members of that body entertained the same senti- ments in regard to him. He had left upon their minds a feeling of profound respect, and many of its wisest and best members regarded him with love and admiration. Judge White especially, often spoke of him with enthusiasm, and declared that he had known no man more fit for the Presidency of the United States-a sentiment in which very many concurred.
When, towards the close of General Hamilton's administra- tion, the progress of the South Carolina controversy with the General Government seemed to lead to a dangerous collision all those in the State who were actively engaged in it, with , one accord, turned their eyes to General Hayne as the leader in the approaching crisis. There was no division of senti- ment, no balancing between him and others. His superior, indeed, his perfect fitness for the occasion, left us no choice,
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and compelled him to resign a situation suited to his taste, adapted to his habits, for which he had peculiar talents, and in which he was, in the midst of circumstances, promis- ing the highest gratifications to the loftiest ambition, for one full of difficulties and dangers, of labors and uncertainties; but which necessity involved, at least, a temporary sacrifice of a wide field of national glory for a circumscribed sphere of State duty. His long and exclusive occupation in public affairs, to the entire neglect of his private, had made it incon- venient for him to encounter the increased expenses which our peculiar condition exacted from the Governor. All the difficulties and peculiarities of his position, were fully present to his mind, and were the subject of a free and confidential conversation between him and several of his friends. The interview was protracted until a late hour of the night, and concluded by this declaration from General Hayne, “ Gentle- men, you think my services are needed by the State ?- she shall have them : I acquiesce from a sense of duty. You must give me a liberal support, and we will do the best we can."
At this conversation I remember Judge Harper and Gov- ernor Hamilton were present.
All the State knows with what assiduity, firmness, wisdom and success, he passed through the most critical and eventful executive term that our history presents.
There was a remarkable instance of that entire readiness for each emergency, as it occurred, in the manner in which he met the proclamation of General Jackson against South Caro- lina.
That document, which spread terror with its progress through the Union, arrived in the morning in Columbia, where the Legislature was then in session; and was, at ten o'clock, laid before the Committee of Federal Relations. While that Committee had it under consideration, the chair- man stepped into the Executive Chamber and inquired of the Governor whether he would undertake a prompt and official reply to the proclamation. The Governor said, 'I will undertake it if the Legislature so desire.'
At the meeting of the House the committee reported the
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proclamation with a set of resolutions, amongst which was one requesting the Governor to issue his counter-proclama- tion. Two days afterwards, in as little time as was necessary for the mere penmanship, was issued a document, whose elegance of composition, elaborate and conclusive argument, just and clear constitutional exposition, confuted all the show of argument in the President's proclamation, tearing away all the subtle disguises of its labored sophistry, and rousing by its tone of proud defiance, devoted patriotism and spirited rebuke, all the highest feelings of the country. No perform- ance could have been more perfect for the occasion, and I doubt whether such a document has ever been thrown off in the same space of time.
His inaugural address to the Legislature upon being elected Governor, was the most successful display of eloquence I have ever heard. It inspired the hearers with irrepressible enthusiasm, which burst forth in involuntary plaudits. I was agitated and subdued under its influence; many wept from excitement, and all of all parties, were borne away entranced by the magic powers of the speaker. I never read the address, which was afterwards published, for I was unwilling to confuse the images which the speaking of it had left upon my mind.
In lamenting his death, in common with the whole country, I also mourn it, as the extinguishment of hopes which I have cherished of his future and much more extended usefulness in the highest sphere of our country; for I indulged myself in looking forward to a period when the country, wearied out with the contest of heated parties waging a war of wild and selfish expedients for power, would call for some citizen of wisdom and virtue, to preside over it; and I firmly believed, as I ardently desired, that call would be directed to General Hayne.
I understood from General Hayne, that he was collecting materials for the history of the South Carolina contest, which at some future time, he intended to digest and publish ; and I inferred from what he said, that the outlines had been written. Whatever he did upon this subject, would be very interesting,
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and the documents collected by him would be of great value and interest."
" In the fall of 1809 or 1810, I had first the pleasure of form- ing the acquaintance of the late most deeply and deservedly lamented Hon. Robert Y. Hayne. He was then a very young man, a student of law in the office of the Hon. Langdon Cheves. We were members of a debating society that met every week in Queen street, in the school-room of Michael O'Donovan, a well-educated and respectable Irish gentleman. In that society he took a leading part, and seldom failed to speak on every question chosen for discussion. He was gen- erally well prepared. His views were so well arranged and to the point, as to have much weight in the appointed debate ; and if any unexpected question was started in it, which claimed a prompt consideration, he seemed as ready to meet it as if it had formed the subject of inquiry. In truth, he, at that early day, and in these preparatory exercises, gave evi- dence of the ability and eloquence for which he was after- wards distinguished.
When Mr. Cheves went to Congress in, I believe, the fall of 1810, Mr. Hayne remained in the office of Mr. A. B. Nor- throp, until his death in, I think, 1812, when he was soon after called to the Bar. My impression is, that he was exam- ined for admission before he was of age, and that he was admitted by the unanimous vote of the whole Bench, with the understanding-perhaps with the special order-that his commission should be delivered to him on the day that he reached twenty-one years of age.
A considerable time-certainly several months-had elapsed between the death of Mr. Northrop and the call to the Bar of Mr. Hayne; time enough surely to have permitted a large portion of the business which had been created by Mr. Cheves, and left to Mr. Northrop, to pass into the hands of the professional gentlemen then in full practice. But he had no sooner appeared in Court, and given public proof of his remarkable talents, than the majority and most valuable of the clients of Messrs. Cheves and Northrop attached them- selves to him, and remained with him as long as he remained
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in the profession. It was indeed surprising to see how soon he took his place among the leaders at the Bar, and the ability and courtesy with which he maintained his position. His manner of examining witnesses was entitled to the high- est praise. He had the happy faculty of conciliating the good-will of the person under examination-even though pre- judiced against his client-accommodated his questions with his character and capacity-and put them to him with ex- quisite tact and discretion. No attempt was ever made to browbeat, bully, or intimidate. Every inquiry was clear and explicit, and seldom or never admitted of an equivocating answer. It was not to be misunderstood, and was put with the utmost urbanity. The witness might see its aim and object; but whatever his predispositions may have been, he could not easily avoid a substantive reply, so that the accom- plished advocate very seldom failed to draw from him, ho re- luctantly soever, all thht he knew that could benefit the cause of the advocate's client. He well knew, too, when and where to stop in an examination, and never harrassed and worried a witness by endless repetitions, after he had obtained all that was necessary in his case.
No advocate that I have known excelled, I may fairly say none equalled, Mr. Hayne in the fullness, precision and clear- ness of the statement of his cases to the Court. Indeed, I have always considered this as his most distinguished character- istic. The most experienced lawyers at the Bar, when counsel with him, usually pressed on him this part of their common duty. He studied the facts and circumstances with much care. His powerful memory enabled him to retail them accurately; his admirably good sense weighed with great sagacity their respective weight and importance, and his ready, and copious, and earnest eloquence presented them with the utmost effect. Nothing was overlooked or omitted that affected the merits of the matter in hand; or that could aid or influence the Court in forming its judgment. To the views of his antagonists he was courteous and just. Often have I listened to his strictures on the statements and argu- ments of his opponents, and heard him put them more fully
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and strongly than these opponents had themselves done, and then showed that the conclusions from them to which they desired to bring the Court could not be sustained. Indeed, his statement of a case generally was so admirably managed, made with so much earnestness and sincerity, with so strict a regard to truth, and so thorough a conviction of its justice, that it was in reality, and in addition to its conveying a full and clear view of the facts, a very able argument, and almost necessarily and involuntarily led the Court to take a favorable view of it, and to listen attentively to anything that might afterwards be urged in its support.
In arguing a point of law it was not Mr. Hayne's usage to fill his brief with an array of analogous cases, or to make a parade of legal learning. He carefully collected, and never failed to procure, the leading authorities directly applicable to the matter at issue. He enforced them with great discrimina- tion and effect. In reply, he was scarcely less distinguished than he was in his original statements. He suffered no opposing authority to pass without examination and com- ment. He was exceedingly felicitous in detecting the differ- ence in fact or circumstances between the cases quoted against him, and the one before the Court; and he seldom failed to in- validate, or at least to diminish, their authority. He followed his antagonist from argument to argument, leaving none un- noticed and, in his best manner, unanswered, with so much ingenuity and candor of manner, and so much clearness and force, as would sometimes, I fear, make the worse appear the better reason, and modify or influence the previously formed opinion of the Court.
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