At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise That Saved the Union
The noted historian of the turbulent decades before the Civil War has written a short yet vivid history of the event that kept the nation together for one last decade, the Compromise of 1850 that inadvertently bought time for the North to grow in population and war-making capacity, thereby making victory for the South unlikely when conflict came. The central figure is, of course, Henry Clay, whose love of the country led him to conceive the compromise and but whose rhetorical talents and extraordinary legislative skills could not get the measure approved. It was Stephen Douglas, then a young Senator from Illinois, who took Clay’s handiwork, broke it apart, and passed each piece of it, thereby capping Clay’s career and adding to Clay’s reputation as “The Great Compromiser.”