Old Hickory (1939)

Edwin Stanley: Robert Hayne

Quotes 

• Narrator : This question grew more vital as the tariff controversy raged ever higher. In Washington, Robert Hayno of South Carolina met Daniel Webster of Massachusetts in a debate that has become a classic of its time.

  Robert Hayno : [at a political meeting in the United States Capitol building]  And our brethren of the North turn a deaf ear to the complaints of South Carolina. We are acting on a principle we have always held sacred: resistance to unauthorized taxation. We will set up a government of our own before we bow to such a tariff.

  [the congressmen start to bicker] 

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : Order, order!

  Politician : Mr. Hayno, I fought with Washington for the Federal Government. You're talking treason!

  Daniel Webster : Mr. Speaker...

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : Chair recognizes Mr. Daniel Webster.

  Daniel Webster : I can not regard him as a safe consolate who, in the affairs of his government, should be mainly bent on considering not how the Union may be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed!

  [many congressmen cheer] 

  Daniel Webster : God grant that, in my day at least, the curtain may not rise on such a scene. And when my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feud; or drenched it may be with fraternal blood. But let the last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the courageous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced; its armies and trophies streaming in their original luster; not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured; bearing for its motto no such miserable, interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' - nor those other words of delusion or folly: 'Liberty first and Union afterward'; but everywhere spread all over in the characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind over the whole world, the whole Heavens, that of the sentiment dear to every true American heart, 'Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!'

  [the congressmen cheer verily] 

• Narrator : A Jefferson Day dinner was arranged, the President formally invited. It was a political trap!, planned by those willing to split the Union rather than submit to the tariff of abominations.

  Robert Hayno : We'll soon smoke Old Hickory out.

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : All we need is the President's endorsement and the country's split open like a melon.

  Robert Hayno : It's all arranged: first I deliver the Jefferson Day eulogy emphasizing the fact that all the great leaders who framed the Constitution were believers in state's rights.

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : An out and out endorsement of Carolina's stand.

  Robert Hayno : Calhoun, we've got it.

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : Definitely. For, right there we call on the worthy sucessor of Jefferson, another firm believer in state's rights. What else can Jackson say?

  Robert Hayno : [advancing further into the dinner during Jackson's introduction]  The President of the United States.

  [Everyone claps as Jackson stands up] 

  Andrew Jackson : Gentlemen, our Federal Union must and shall be preserved.

  [takes a drink] 

  Andrew Jackson : Excuse me, please.

  [walks away] 

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : Mr. President...

  Andrew Jackson : [turning around]  Well?

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : [sharply]  What will your friends in South Carolina think?

  Andrew Jackson : I've already prepared a proclamation for my friends in South Carolina. It will be enforced, by arms if necessary.

  Robert Hayno : [dismayed]  Arms? Against your own people?

  Andrew Jackson : [sternly]  Against my own flesh and blood if they try to destroy the Union.

  Vice President John C. Calhoun : [aghast]  Do you mean to say that you're going to force this abominable tariff on the South?

  Andrew Jackson : It's not a question of the tariff, we can modify that. The issue you've brought up is disunion.

  [gallantly] 

  Andrew Jackson : This country is an asylum for the weak and the oppressed, to find refuge and support. And as long as I retain my strength, it shall remain united.

  [infuriated] 

  Andrew Jackson : And if you, sir, continue along the line you're going, by the eternal, I'll try you for treason and hang you as high as Haman!

  Elderly Jackson Supporter : Three cheers for Old Hickory!

  [All the men at the dinner cheer 'Hooray!' three times]