Three Speeches That Saved the Union: Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and the Crisis of 1850 by Hoffer, Peter Charles
Three Speeches That Saved the Union: Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and the Crisis of 1850 by Hoffer, Peter Charles

Three Speeches That Saved the Union: Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and the Crisis of 1850

How three skilled orators navigated a polarized political landscape For the generation of politicians who inherited the...
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Author: Peter Charles Hoffer
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
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Three Speeches That Saved the Union: Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and the Crisis of 1850 by Hoffer, Peter Charles

Three Speeches That Saved the Union: Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and the Crisis of 1850

$78.05
Three Speeches That Saved the Union: Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and the Crisis of 1850 by Hoffer, Peter Charles

Three Speeches That Saved the Union: Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and the Crisis of 1850

$78.05
Author: Peter Charles Hoffer
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Description

How three skilled orators navigated a polarized political landscape

For the generation of politicians who inherited the Republic and the Union, the opening months of 1850 were a desperate time filled with increasing animosity between free and slave state leaders over issues of the expansion of slavery. Following the end of the Mexican-American War and the subsequent expansion of American territory came a series of fiery debates over how this new territory would be governed, and whether to allow California's admission to the Union as a "free state."

Three Speeches That Saved the Union provides the first ever deep content analysis of the three most eventful speeches delivered in the Us Senate. Historian Peter Charles Hoffer offers a thorough analytical study of the roles of the "great triumvirate" of American political leaders - Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster - played in preserving the American Union. All three were lawyers, and for lawyers especially, words mattered. As is the case today, practicing law meant knowing and using "terms of art" correctly, and knowing which words would sway a jury - or a nation.

Despite their opposing viewpoints, these skilled orators urged for some kind of compromise that would diffuse the possibility of civil war. Providing all three speeches in their entirety, alongside a running commentary framing the political climate and manner in which each of these speeches were delivered, Hoffer demonstrates how intractable the slavery issue had become, how near a civil war was, and how it was prevented - at least for a time. Three Speeches That Saved the Union is an invaluable study of a nation that three speeches pulled from the brink of dissolution.

Author: Peter Charles Hoffer
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 09/09/2025
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.90w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781479838837


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/18/2025 pg. 1

About the Author
Peter Charles Hoffer is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia. He has authored and co-authored more than twenty books, including Clio Among the Muses: Essays on History and the Humanities; The Historians' Paradox: The Study of History in Our Time; and The Clamor of Lawyers: The American Revolution and the Crisis in the Legal Profession.
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