Any biography of Henry Clay's 46 year political career quickly becomes entangled with his monumental, though youthful, political leadership of the War Hawks in urging the Madison Administration to arm the United States for war with Great Britain. He continued to advise in the war's progress and ended by being one of the five distinguished Americans to treat for peace with a difficult team of mediocre British envoys. There has been no detailed treatment of his major role in this early American war until this present work.
Any biography of Henry Clay's 46 year political career quickly becomes entangled with his monumental, though youthful, political leadership of the War Hawks in urging the Madison Administration to arm the United States for war with Great Britain. He continued to advise in the war's progress and ended by being one of the five distinguished Americans to treat for peace with a difficult team of mediocre British envoys. There has been no detailed treatment of his major role in this early American war until this present work.
This is a complete account of the war of 1812 in American history, with due attention to naval battles as well as land battles. It begins with the background of the war in interesting detail and covers the war itself for the majority of the book. Besides military events the book tells about people and events of domestic matters, particularly in relation to the war. Military actions are clearly given. The book introduces Andrew Jackson and other commanders on land and sea and the Cherokees and other Indians. Details of victories and defeats and the taking of Washington are covered.
He was the Great Compromiser, a canny and colorful legislator whose life mirrors the story of America from its founding until the eve of the Civil War. Speaker of the House, senator, secretary of state, five-time presidential candidate, and idol to the young Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay is captured in full at last in this rich and sweeping biography. David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler present Clay in his early years as a precocious, witty, and optimistic Virginia farm boy who at the age of twenty transformed himself into an attorney. The authors reveal Clay’s tumultuous career in Washington, including his participation in the deadlocked election of 1824 that haunted him for the rest of his career, and shine new light on Clay’s marriage to plain, wealthy Lucretia Hart, a union that lasted fifty-three years and produced eleven children. Featuring an inimitable supporting cast including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay is beautifully written and replete with fresh anecdotes and insights. Horse trader and risk taker, arm twister and joke teller, Henry Clay was the consummate politician who gave ground, made deals, and changed the lives of millions.
Though he was best known as a politician, Henry Clay (1777-1852) maintained an active legal practice for more than fifty years. He was a leading contributor both to the early development of the U.S. legal system and to the interaction between law and politics in pre-Civil War America. During the years of Clay's practice, modern American law was taking shape, building on the English experience but working out the new rules and precedents that a changing and growing society required. Clay specialized in property law, a natural choice at a time of entangled land claims, ill-defined boundaries, and inadequate state and federal procedures. He argued many precedent-setting cases, some of them before the U.S. Supreme Court. Maurice Baxter contends that Clay's extensive legal work in this area greatly influenced his political stances on various land policy issues. During Clay's lifetime, property law also included questions pertaining to slavery. With Daniel Webster, he handled a very significant constitutional case concerning the interstate slave trade. Baxter provides an overview of the federal and state court systems of Clay's time. After addressing Clay's early legal career, he focuses on Clay's interest in banking issues, land-related economic matters, and the slave trade. The portrait of Clay that emerges from this inquiry shows a skilled lawyer who was deeply involved with the central legal and economic issues of his day.
In the years immediately preceding the War of 1812, England was dominated by a faction that pledged itself not only to defeat Napoleon but also to maintain British commercial supremacy. The two main points of contention between England and America—impressment and the restrictions imposed by the Orders in Council—were direct results of these commitments. America finally had no alternative but to oppose with force British maritime policy. In addition to tracing the gradual drift to war in America, Professor Horsman shows that the Indian problem and American expansionist designs against Canada played small part in bringing about the struggle. He examines the efforts made by America to avoid conflict through means of economic coercion, efforts the failure of which confronted the nation with two alternatives: war or submission to England. This volume offers the first analysis of the causes of the war from both the British and American points of view, showing clearly that, contrary to the popular misconception, the war’s basic causes are to be found not in America but in Europe.
In this engaging nonfiction title, readers will learn about the War of 1812, the causes of it, and how it affected American citizens. Through detailed images, stunning facts, and easy to read text, readers are introduced to ideas and events that took place during this time, including embargoes, the Treaty of Paris, the War Hawks, and the Treaty of Ghent. Readers will have the opportunity to further enhance their understanding of the content through an accessible table of contents and glossary.
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.
Many readers may know that the events of the War of 1812 inspired Francis Scott Key to write a poem that later became the national anthem. However, they may not be familiar with the reasons behind the war, its outcomes, and its legacy. Enhanced by excerpts from primary sources and images, this book will discuss the circumstances that led to the war, the people who fought it, the deciding battles, the aftermath, and how it has shaped the nation we know today.
