[1] As Senator and Governor, he was a leading figure in the Nullification Crisis and, along with John C. Calhoun and James Hamilton Jr., a vocal proponent of the doctrines of states' rights, compact theory, and nullification; his 1830 debate in the Senate with Daniel Webster is considered a defining episode in the constitutional crisis which precipitated the American Civil War.

Hayne received a private education suitable for his class, then studied law in the office of Langdon Cheves in Charleston.

The book reprinted a signed advertisement Hayne placed in a newspaper that sought help capturing an escaped man.

Hayne's advertisement suggested that the fugitive may be heading to a neighboring county where the enslaved man's wife and children live.

[8] Hayne actively promoted South Carolina's industrial development, including the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company, which in 1835 expanded westward toward the Appalachian Mountains under Hayne's plan to link Charleston's port to Memphis, Tennessee, and the Mississippi River.

Governor Thomas Bennett, unsupportive of the city-appointed court handling the trial, asked Hayne for his legal opinion.

Hayne advised Bennett that the "Magna Charta and Habeas Corpus and indeed all the provisions of our Constitution in favour of Liberty, are intended for freemen only" and that the Governor of South Carolina could not examine "judicial errors.

Martin Van Buren, a contemporary of Hayne's in the Senate, commented on how Hayne's demeanor there evolved from one of self-confident outspokenness at first to one of outward modesty more in line with the senatorial culture of respect for seniority: He entered at once into the debates and without the slightest embarrassment spoke fluently, intelligibly, sometimes forcibly but often without the slightest effect.

Hayne resigned from the Senate to accept election by the legislature as Governor of South Carolina in 1832, serving one term into 1834.

He was succeeded in the senate by John C. Calhoun, who resigned his post as Vice President of the United States to take the seat.

After the war, the family's finances were dire, and Sharpe moved to Tennessee, then Dallas, Texas, where he became a Presbyterian minister.

Hayne's descendants sold the Ladson Street house in 1863, but it still exists today, albeit moved and renovated in 1890.

In 1828, in response to the changing economic landscape in Massachusetts (there was a shift from farming towards mass production in factories), Daniel Webster backed a bill to increase tariffs on imported goods, a measure that southern politicians opposed.

Hayne spoke in opposition to the bill, Webster responded, and the ensuing series of back-and-forth Senate speeches became known as the Webster-Hayne debate.