Henry Clay : statesman for the Union /
Robert V. Remini
- New York : W.W. Norton, 1991
- xxviii, 818 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
The mill boy of the slashes Kentucky: the dark and bloody ground The Burr conspiracy The duel Emergence of a Republican ideologue Mr. Speaker The diplomat "I am sick of Europe" The ambitious politicians The party disrupter The great compromiser Retirement from politics The American system The presidential election of 1824 The "corrupt bargain" Secretary of State The discouraging world of diplomacy Abominations A vision of the future Enforced retirement Presidential nominee "Scenes of tergiversation, hypocricy, degeneracy and corruption" A crushing defeat Return to triumph The great triumvirate The emergence of the Whig party Tragedy and defeat The panic of 1837 The war of the titans The triumphal tour "Deceived betrayed & beaten" "And Tyler, too" The dictator "Like the soul's quitting the body" Texas "The old coon is dead" "This most unnecessary and horrible war with Mexico" The sage of Ashland Return to the Senate The compromise of 1850 "My political life is over"
Among nineteenth-century Americans, few commanded the reverence and respect accorded to Henry Clay of Kentucky. As orator and as Speaker of the House for longer than any man in the century, he wielded great power, a compelling presence in Congress who helped preserve the Union in the antebellum period. Remini portrays both the statesman and the private man, a man whose family life was painfully torn and who burned with ambition for the office he could not reach, the presidency.