Congressional Giants. J. Michael Martinez

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СКАЧАТЬ with Mexico, and his prophecy came to pass. Clay’s own son died in the war, adding to the heartache of a personal life where many of his children did not live to old age.⁴⁵

      Late in 1847, Clay delivered a speech arguing against the war with Mexico and harshly criticizing President Polk. In his scathing indictment of the administration, Clay warned that acquiring land from Mexico would upset the balance between free states and slave states, which he thought unwise and potentially calamitous. Observers understood that Clay was now running for president in 1848. He was seventy years old and in ill health, apparently suffering from tuberculosis, a common nineteenth-century ailment. Yet, the Whigs had performed well in the midterm elections, and Clay thought he might have one more presidential campaign left in him. To clear up any ambiguity, he even offered a public statement that he would run for president. At the time, candidates were expected to be circumspect in their presidential ambitions; consequently, Clay’s frank admission of his political intent struck many voters, even Clay supporters, as unseemly.⁴⁶

      He had been in this position before. Once again, Henry Clay, his party’s most renowned and accomplished statesman, returned to the U.S. Senate, but he was denied the Whig presidential nomination. General Zachary Taylor, a general officer fresh off his victories in the Mexican War, won the nomination on the fourth ballot during the 1848 Whig National Convention. Having tried and failed to win the presidency so many times, Clay was bitter and disheartened by the loss. General Taylor went on to capture the presidency in the fall election, but he did so without Clay’s help. The grand old Kentucky gentleman did not stump for the Whig ticket that year.⁴⁷

      Clay again flirted with retirement, but he had one last issue to confront from his perch inside the Congress. Worried that slavery might tear the Union apart, he agreed to lead the U.S. Senate toward one final compromise. He initially remained on the sidelines while Taylor formed a cabinet and pursued a “nonaction” policy that allowed new territories to enter the Union without engaging in an extensive debate on slavery. Disgusted, Clay eventually sought middle ground to soothe tensions between northern and southern congressional representatives, but a suitable plan proved elusive. After President Taylor’s sudden death in 1850, however, the calculus changed. Clay began revamping a compromise measure to handle the lands ceded by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which formally ended the war in 1848.⁴⁸

      Even before Taylor died, Clay had introduced a series of resolutions into the Senate to address the slavery question and reconcile northern and southern interests. He had hoped to debate the resolutions separately, but southerners urged him to compile the resolutions into one package. Collectively, the series became known as the Compromise of 1850. As chairman of a Committee of Thirteen, Clay proposed an omnibus bill admitting California to the Union as a free state; organizing Utah and New Mexico without resolving the slavery question in those territories; prohibiting the slave trade (but not slave ownership) in the District of Columbia; establishing boundaries for Texas and paying the state’s $10 million debt; enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act; and offering a declaration that Congress could not interfere with the interstate slave trade.⁴⁹

      Like any compromise, the bill held something for everyone, but it also risked alienating hardliners on both sides of the slavery question. South Carolina’s venerable statesman, John C. Calhoun, although too ill to speak at length, offered a blistering critique of the compromise, which another senator read aloud in his stead. In the meantime, antislavery men such as New York’s William H. Seward found the call for vigorous enforcement of the odious Fugitive Slave Act too outrageous to support. Daniel Webster, New England’s champion antislavery man, to the surprise of many, offered his support for the plan, upsetting many of his constituents and supporters in the North.⁵⁰

      The president opposed the compromise after Clay offered the bill, but Taylor died in July 1850, and his successor, Millard Fillmore, agreed to support the measure. Passage appeared more promising with Fillmore’s support, but the bill failed on July 31. Clay redoubled his efforts to enact the measure by agreeing to separate the components for a vote on each part. With his advanced age, declining health, and physical exhaustion from overwork hampering his effectiveness, Clay left the task of redrafting the legislation and securing passage to Stephen A. Douglas, a freshman senator from Illinois. After Douglas deftly maneuvered to have the individual bills enacted, the compromise was put into place and, once again, the Union was preserved. The compromise would not last indefinitely, but it succeeded in keeping the peace for more than a decade, an impressive achievement.⁵¹

      The Compromise of 1850 was Henry Clay’s swan song. He had already announced his intention to resign from the Senate in September 1852. Before that could happen, the old lion, seventy-five years old, died of tuberculosis in Washington, DC, on June 29, 1852. He was the first public man to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda. Afterward, his body was returned to Lexington, Kentucky, for burial. His gravestone reads “I know no North—no South—no East—no West.” He left behind a distinguished legislative legacy that made him one of the most influential people ever to serve in the U.S. Congress.⁵²

      Daniel Webster

      “Godlike Daniel,” as he was called by some of his most ardent supporters, was a reference to his legendary oratorical skills. He possessed a dazzling ability to speak for hours, often without notes or a printed text. Complete paragraphs flew from his mouth—no stammering, no mangled syntax or misplaced modifiers anywhere—spoken in exactly the right sonorous tone and inflection to render his words eloquent and memorable. He stood ramrod straight, projecting a confident image of an erudite statesman, unencumbered by self-doubt or worry. For many New Englanders, Daniel Webster was the beau ideal of a nineteenth-century politician, a personification of New England virtue in the flesh.⁵³

      He was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, on January 18, 1782, the second youngest of eight children born to farmer Ebenezer Webster and his wife. As a boy, he suffered from poor health, which frequently excused him from the drudgery of farm work. Young Dan used his time wisely, immersing himself in books. At age fourteen, he briefly attended the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, before enrolling in Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. While at Dartmouth, Webster’s oratorical gifts became apparent, and he delivered speeches arguing in favor of Federalist Party’s platform of a strong central government.

      He graduated from Dartmouth in 1801, and studied law under the tutelage of a Salisbury attorney. He later taught school before moving to Boston to work as a lawyer. Although Webster never loved the law, he viewed it as a means of making a comfortable living and eventually pursuing a political career. In 1808, he married a young woman, Grace Fletcher, who bore him four children before her death in 1828.⁵⁴

      

      His political career began as a loyal Federalist criticizing Thomas Jefferson’s administration. Incensed at British impressment of American sailors, Jefferson lacked the military might to send American troops to fight against the empire, although public sentiment favored such action. The president struck back in the only way he thought possible, by initiating an embargo against Great Britain and France. The hope was that the economic hardships would provide incentives for the warring European nations to leave American ships in peace. Yet, the embargo hurt domestic producers as much or more than it hurt the English and the French. New England was hit especially hard. As a loyal man of his region, young Webster penned an anonymous pamphlet railing against the administration’s ill-conceived policies.

      Not surprisingly, Webster also argued against the War of 1812, which he viewed as a misguided enterprise initiated by Jefferson’s successor, James Madison. A few intrepid Federalists hinted at the possibility of secession from the Union, but Webster drew the line there. He believed that for all its imperfections, the Union must be preserved. He preferred to rail against inept presidents in the hopes that they would alter their policies. He would not threaten to destroy the nation because he did not get his way.⁵⁵

      As a delegate СКАЧАТЬ