This Week's Suggested Book
from the Ashbrook Center
(Monday, November 03, 1997)
 | | Daniel Webster:
The Man and His Time
by Robert Remini |
W. W. Norton & Co.
850 pages, January 1997
Hardcover, 39.95
ISBN: 0393045528
A percentage of the proceeds from your purchase of this book from Amazon.com will benefit the
Ashbrook Center.
In almost every respect, Daniel Webster was larger than life. A major player in American politics in the era between the war of 1812 and the beginning of the Civil War, he was involved with every signigicant issue confronting the new nation. Webster had no equal as an orator, then or since. Whether in the Senate, before the Supreme Court, or on the political stump, he was a golden-tounged spellbinder, often holding audienced in thrall for hours. In his lifelong defense of the Constitution and as a constand upholder of the Union, Webster won love and respect. He was often referred to as "the Godlike Daniel," and many people felt he was a natural to become president, none more so than Webster himself. But he was also referred to as "Black Dan" because of his questionable dealings with men of wealth and power, his political conniving, his habitual non-payment of debts, and perhaps even his somewhat roving eye. Webster was an intellectual colossus, a statesman of
the first rank, and a man of towering and, finally, unfulfilled ambition.
In this monumental new biography, Robert V. Remini gives us a full life of Webster from his birth, early schooling, and rapid rise as a lawyer and politician in New Hampshire to his equally successful career in Massachusetts where he moved in 1816. Remini treats both the man and his time as they tangle in issues such as westward expansion, growth of democracy, market revolution, slavery and abolitionism, the National Bank, and tariff issues. Webster's famous speeches are fully discussed as are his relations with the other two of the "great triumvirate," Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Throughout, Remini pays close attention to Webster's personal life--perhaps more than Webster would have liked--his relationships with family and friends, and his murky financial dealings with men of wealth and influence.
This is biography at its best, taking advantage of the great mass of documents made available to The Webster Papers Project at Dartmouth College as well as never-used documents in the Capitol tracing the history of Congress. It is written by a man who has made the early nineteenth century his own through his previous books and articles.
- Table of Contents
Genealogy of the Webster Family
Chronology of Webster's Life, 1782-1852
Abbreviations and Short Titles Used in the Notes
1. The Godloke Daniel and the Black Dan
2. Dartmouth
3. "School Keeping" and the Law
4. Portsmouth
5. Congress
6. The Supreme Court
7. The Dartmouth College Case
8. Nationalism and Conservatism
9. The Plymouth Oration
10. An Expanding Reputation
11. The Steamboat Case
12. "The Demosthenes of America"
13. The Bunker Hill Oration
14. The "Godlike Daniel"
15. Election to the Senate
16. "Poor Grace Has Gone to Heaven"
17. Marriage
18. The Webster-Hayne Debate
19. Presidential Politics
20. Marshfield
21. The Bank War
22. Nullification
23. On the Presidential Trail
24. The Great Triumvirate
25. The Whig Party
26. The Presidential Nomination
27. A Humiliating Defeat
28. The Charles River Bridge Case
29. Panic!
30. Europe
31. Secretary of State
32. "I Will Stay Where I Am"
33. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty
34. Formulating Foreign Policy
35. "The Return of the Prodigal Son"
36. Charges of Official Misconduct
37. A Tour of the South
38. A Double Tragedy
39. "I am Old, and Poor, and Proud"
40. The Seventh of March Speech
41. "Union, Union, Union, Now and Forever"
42. Exploring New Channels for Commerce
43. "A Disappointed, Heart-Stricken Man"
44. "That Voice, Alas! We Shall Hear No More Forever"
Biographical Essay
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