Calhoun was Vice-President and presided over the debates of the Senate. So it fell to Senator Hayne of South Carolina to state Calhoun's ideas. This he did in a very able speech. To him Daniel Webster of Massachusetts replied in the most brilliant speeches ever delivered in Congress. The Constitution, Webster declared, was "the people's constitution, the people's government; made by the people and answerable to the people. The people have declared that this constitution … shall be the supreme law." The Supreme Court of the United States alone could declare a national law to be unconstitutional; no state could do that. He ended this great speech with the memorable words, "Liberty and Union, now and forever,one and inseparable."

In 1832 Congress passed a new tariff act. The South Carolinians decided to· try Calhoun's weapon of nullification. They held a convention, declared the act null and void, and forbade South Carolinians to obey the law. They probably thought that Jackson would not oppose them. But they should have had no doubts on that subject. For Jackson already had proposed his famous toast on Jefferson's birthday, "our federal Union, it must be preserved." He now told the Carolinians that he would enforce the laws, and he set about doing it with all his old-time energy.