The debate reached a climax in Webster's powerful _Second Reply_, on
the 26th and 27th of January. Everything was favorable for a
magnificent effort: the hearing was brilliant, the theme was vital,
the speaker was in the prime of his matchless powers. On the desk
before the New Englander as he arose were only five small letter-paper
pages of notes. He spoke with such immediate preparation merely as the
labors of a single evening made possible. But it may be doubted
whether any forensic effort in our history was ever more thoroughly
prepared for, because Webster _lived_ his speech before he spoke it.
The origins of the Federal Union, the theories and applications of the
Constitution, the history and bearings of nullification--these were
matters with which years of study, observation, professional activity,
and association with men had made him absolutely familiar. If any
living American could answer Hayne and his fellow partizans, Webster
was the man to do it.

Forty-eight in the total of seventy-three pages of print filled by
this speech are taken up with a defense of New England against the
Southern charges of sectionalism and disloyalty. Few utterances of the
time are more familiar than the sentences bringing this part of the
oration to a close: "Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium of
Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for
yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart....
There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and
there they will remain forever." If this had been all, the speech
would have been only a spirited defense of the good name of a section
and would hardly have gained immortality. It was the Union, however,
that most needed defense; and for that service the orator reserved his
grandest efforts.