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

By H. W. Brands

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War comes “a historical spellbinder” (The Christian Science Monitor) about a trio of political giants in nineteenth-century America—and their battle to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780385542548

Reviews for Heirs of the Founders

[doondeck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very readable story about a neglected period in American history.

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

5727. Heirs of the Founders The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants, by H.W. Brands (read 28 Dec 2020) This is the 8th book by Brands I have read, and as always he has turned out a very readable book with not a boring page therein. I have read biographies of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster and I cannot say there was too much new in the book but it was good to read this well-put-together book which does not rely on secondary sources and often quotes the actual words of the senators (reminding me again of the impressive power of Webster's oratory). Really a good book to read.

[dhmontgomery-265379 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great, must-read history of an overlooked period in American history: the decades leading up the Civil War, as both America's size and its sectional tensions grew steadily. Brands focuses his story on the three giants of the time, who died within a short time of each other: Daniel Webster, the eloquent Massachusetts orator; John Calhoun, the fiery South Carolina slaveholder; and Henry Clay, the Kentucky moderate. (Other giants of the era, half a generation older, also play prominent roles: Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.) Clay plays the largest role, as indeed he did at the time, as a three-time presidential candidate and the dominant intellectual figure in the Whig Party. Calhoun serves as an antagonist, increasingly championing secession and moving sentiment in the South from a reluctant to a full-throated defense of slavery.

Though the issues are different than the ones we deal with today, and the political system quite different, the more general questions that Clay, Webster and Calhoun wrestled with — when to hold firm and when to compromise, and how to balance particular interests against the common good — remain with us today. Many of the quotes from the speeches that Brands quotes at length in this book remain almost as relevant in the 21st Century as they were in the 19th.

My criticisms as only quibbles: Brands sometimes isn't very clear about dates, leaving the reader struggling to position the debates he's describing in time. Large parts of the book are simply extended quotations, with moderate context, from one observer or another of the events in question — rather than a more rigorous narrative that cuts back and forth between different perspectives (though he does this, too, for some sections). But I still highly recommend this to anyone interested in American history, especially those whose knowledge of events in between the Early Republic and the Civil War is somewhat spotty. I probably know more than most Americans about that period but I still learned a lot (perhaps most notably about Webster's great address in the Webster-Hayne debate, which had long-since ceased to be a staple of public education by the time I was in school).

Excellent and essential.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book. He writes about Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun, three American leaders who are less well known than they should be.