in its constitutionally specified sphere of action, sovereign and
primary, the States secondary and subordinate. He thus made possible a
world-wide victory for free institutions, by which, to-day, democracy
and self-government are making thrones totter and tyrants tremble, and
giving us the assurance that no government is so stable as a government
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
free and equal. Webster made logical use of "government of the people,
by the people, and for the people." The soldiers of Gettysburg
exhibited their willingness to defend such a government, to live for
free institutions, and if necessary to die for them.

Now that long time has passed, Southerners and Northerners alike concede
that Calhoun made three mistakes. He fought against progress and
civilization that has destroyed slavery on moral grounds. He also failed
to see that slavery was the worst possible system of production, for if
the South produced under slavery 4,000,000 bales of cotton in 1861, now
that the coloured man is free she produces 15,000,000 bales of cotton
per year. His theory of the right of the minority as a sovereign right
of secession has broken down at the bar of civilization. If South
Carolina or any State has the right to withdraw, whenever the majority
of other States outvote it, it means that the minority always has a
right to disobey the majority, which means not simply the withdrawal of
the one State from the many States, but later, the withdrawal of a few
counties from a majority of the counties in that State, giving an
endless series of confusions. If any single doctrine is established
among civilized nations to-day it is this one, under democratic
institutions--the right of the majority to rule.

Three years later Webster once more marked out the basis of the North's
position for all time in a debate with Calhoun himself. Without the