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Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union
Simon & Schuster
April 2012
On Sale: April 17, 2012
496 pages
ISBN: 1439124604
EAN: 9781439124604
Kindle: B005C7CVDK
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
The Mexican War introduced vast new territories into the
United States, among them California and the present-day
Southwest. When gold was discovered in California in the
great Gold Rush of 1849, the population swelled, and
settlers petitioned for admission to the Union. But the U.S.
Senate was precariously balanced with fifteen free states
and fifteen slave states. Up to then states had been
admitted in pairs, one free and one slave, to preserve that
tenuous balance in the Senate. Would California be free or
slave? So began a paralyzing crisis in American government,
and the longest debate in Senate history. Fergus Bordewich tells the epic story of the Compromise of
1850 with skill and vigor, bringing to life two generations
of senators who dominated the great debate. Luminaries such
as John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay—who tried
unsuccessfully to cobble together a compromise that would
allow for California’s admission and simultaneously put an
end to the nation’s agony over slavery—were nearing the end
of their long careers. Rising stars such as Jefferson Davis,
William Seward, and Stephen Douglas—who ultimately succeeded
where Clay failed—would shape the country’s politics as
slavery gradually fractured the nation. The Compromise saved the Union from collapse, but it did so
at a great cost. The gulf between North and South over
slavery widened with the strengthened Fugitive Slave Law
that was part of the complex Compromise. In America’s Great
Debate Fergus Bordewich takes us back to a time when compromise was imperative, when men swayed one another in Congress with
the power of their ideas and their rhetoric, when partisans
on each side reached across the aisle to preserve the Union
from tragedy.
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