A triple biography of the three great Senators of America's second
era of politics, by Peterson (History/Univ. of Virginia), author of
Adams and Jefferson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, and
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation. In this "life and times," we
are offered succinct portraits of three contrasting personalities -
the staunch New England "Demosthenes," Webster; the populist
warrior, Clay; and the orator par excellence, Calhoun, defender of
southern separation and slavery'. It is one of the great ironies of
American history that these three ambitious men all aspired to the
Presidency and all failed to attain it, at the same time that the
country was run by such lightweights as Harrison, Tyler, Polk, and
Taylor. As Peterson writes, "When the last of this 'second race of
giants' passed away in 1852 nothing was left to challenge the sway
of the Lilliputians. The republic lost its glory - the regalia of
great statesmen." Indeed, this appears to be the main theme of
Peterson's work. The early Republic had been blessed with greatness
in its host of Founding Fathers, and their spirit had laid hands on
the next generation of leaders to touch them, too, with that
special quality. But they, in turn, "had failed. . .and the
institutions had failed to perpetuate or reproduce that greatness
of statesmanship." Yet their tragedy was in presaging that awful
cataclysm - the Civil War, which "was a judgment on each of the
departed statesmen." The Civil War demonstrated the limits of
Clay's compromise; as for Webster, "it demonstrated the fragility
of law and constitutions before moral and social forces he never
truly understood"; for Calhoun, the judgment, to quote Whitman
quoting a soldier, was "the desolated, ruined South. . .that is
Calhoun's real monument." A well-done, compact biography of three
inextricably intertwined leaders. (Kirkus Reviews)
Enormously powerful, intensely ambitious, the very personifications
of their respective regions--Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John
C. Calhoun represented the foremost statemen of their age. In the
decades preceding the Civil War, they dominated American
congressional politics as no other figures have. Now Merrill D.
Peterson, one of our most gifted historians, brilliantly re-creates
the lives and times of these great men in this monumental
collective biography.
Arriving on the national scene at the onset of the War of 1812 and
departing political life during the ordeal of the Union in 1850-52,
Webster, Clay, and Calhoun opened--and closed--a new era in
American politics. In outlook and style, they represented startling
contrasts: Webster, the Federalist and staunch New England defender
of the Union; Clay, the "war hawk" and National Rebublican leader
from the West; Calhoun, the youthful nationalist who became the
foremost spokesman of the South and slavery. They came together in
the Senate for the first time in 1832, united in their opposition
of Andrew Jackson, and thus gave birth to the idea of the "Great
Triumvirate." Entering the history books, this idea survived the
test of time because these men divided so much of American politics
between them for so long.
Peterson brings to life the great events in which the Triumvirate
figured so prominently, including the debates on Clay's American
System, the Missouri Compromise, the Webster-Hayne debate, the Bank
War, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the annexation of Texas, and the
Compromise of 1850. At once a sweeping narrative and a penetrating
study of non-presidential leadership, this book offers an indelible
picture of this conservative era in which statesmen viewed the
preservation of the legacy of free government inherited from the
Founding Fathers as their principal mission. In fascinating detail,
Peterson demonstrates how precisely Webster, Clay, and Calhoun
exemplify three facets of this national mind.
General
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