Hayne, Robert Young, 1791–1839, American statesman, b. Colleton District, S.C. Having served in the South Carolina legislature (1814–18) and as attorney general of South Carolina (1818–22), Hayne was a U.S. Senator (1823–32) and gained attention as a leading Southern spokesman against the tariff. His famous debate with Daniel Webster in Jan., 1830, precipitated by the Foot Resolution, covered all the issues of political and economic difference between the South and the North. Hayne upheld the doctrines of states' rights and nullification, thus provoking Webster's impassioned defense of a nationalistic interpretation of the Constitution. Hayne resigned from the Senate (1832) and was governor of South Carolina (1832–34) at the time the nullification convention met. Henry Clay's compromise tariff satisfied Hayne, and the latter's influence palliated the ensuing high feeling. After serving (1835–37) as mayor of Charleston, Hayne devoted the rest of his life to unsuccessful railroad projects designed to ally the West with the South.
See biography by T. D. Jervey (1909, repr. 1970).
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