Heirs of the Founders : : the Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants

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Call Number: 973.5 Br, Adult Book / Nonfiction / History / United States / General / Brands, H. W.
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	973.5 Br	4-week checkout	Reshelving
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / History / United States / General / Brands, H. W.	4-week checkout	Due 05-05-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / History / United States / General / Brands, H. W.	4-week checkout	Due 04-29-2024

Prologue: January 1850 -- The spirit of '76 -- To build a nation -- The people's government -- Next to our liberty -- Temptations of empire -- The fatal compromise.
"From ... bestselling historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how, in nineteenth-century America, a new set of political giants battled to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and to decide the future of our democracy. In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky; as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina's John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery. Together these heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Adams took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency and set themselves the task of finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Their rise was marked by dramatic duels, fierce debates, scandal and political betrayal. Yet each in his own way sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its refusal to specify where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation, and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery. They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the Union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the Union as a free state, "the immortal trio" had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But, by that point, they had never been further apart. Thrillingly and authoritatively, H. W Brands narrates an epic American rivalry and the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy."--Dust jacket.

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The Coming Storm submitted by m steve on August 28, 2022, 1:13pm This is a solid history of the big hitters in the US Senate prior to the war. The biographies of Webster, Calhoun and Clay reveal some new detail and incite as to what made them effective or otherwise.