Americas Great Debate, Fergus M. Bordewich
Americas Great Debate, Fergus M. Bordewich
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America's Great Debate
Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union

Author: Fergus M. Bordewich

Narrator: Norman Dietz

Unabridged: 17 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/10/2012


Synopsis

The Mexican War introduced vast new territories into the United States, among them California and the present-day Southwest. When gold was discovered in California in the great Gold Rush of 1849, the population swelled, and settlers petitioned for admission to the Union. But the U.S. Senate was precariously balanced with fifteen free states and fifteen slave states. Up to this point, states had been admitted in pairs, one free and one slave, to preserve that tenuous balance in the Senate. Would California be free or slave? So began a paralyzing crisis in American government, and the longest debate in Senate history.

Fergus Bordewich tells the epic story of the Compromise of 1850 with skill and vigor, bringing to life two generations of senators who dominated the great debate. Luminaries such as John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay—who tried unsuccessfully to cobble together a compromise that would allow for California's admission and simultaneously put an end to the nation's agony over slavery—were nearing the end of their long careers. Rising stars such as Jefferson Davis, William Seward, and Stephen Douglas—who ultimately succeeded where Clay failed—would shape the country's politics as slavery gradually fractured the nation.

The Compromise saved the Union from collapse, but it did so at a great cost. The gulf between North and South over slavery widened with the strengthened Fugitive Slave Law that was part of the complex Compromise. In America's Great Debate Fergus Bordewich takes us back to a time when compromise was imperative, when men swayed one another in Congress with the power of their ideas and their rhetoric, and when partisans on each side reached across the aisle to preserve the Union from tragedy.

About Fergus M. Bordewich

Journalist Fergus M. Bordewich has written on American history as well as human rights and other issues for the New York Times, Smithsonian, American Heritage, the Atlantic Monthly, Reader's Digest, and other periodicals. He is the author of Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century; My Mother's Ghost; and Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrew on February 28, 2019

America’s Great Debate would be a timely work in just about any period, but it is a particularly important read in 2019. The book is masterfully written and distills complicated back-and-forths into a coherent whole while creating rich portraits of a number of leaders. Focused laser-like on the Comp......more

Goodreads review by M. on May 10, 2012

This book covers a crucial span in American history, but one which is barely covered in a paragraph in textbooks today. This debate postponed--and probably precipitated--the Civil War a decade later. The readable and credible story unfolds as did the Senate debate: in a long, complex, and uncertain......more

Goodreads review by Fredrick on May 30, 2018

This is an academic work that discusses the problems facing the United States in regards to free state versus slave state prior to the American Civil War and follows the path leading to the Compromise of 1850.......more

Goodreads review by Thomas on October 23, 2012

Has a book ever jumped off a library shelf and into your arms, as if to scream: "Read me now, you fool!" It happened to me Monday, and I am so glad it did. AMERICA'S GREAT DEBATE by Fergus M. Bordewich (a name only his mother could like) is absolutely flat-out terrific. Published a few months ago, i......more