Reviews for Daniel Webster

The average rating for Daniel Webster based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-01-12 00:00:00 David Liburdi Daniel Webster is one of those characters whose perspective keeps constantly changing generation to generation. He was one of the ones chosen for the bitter calumny he suffered when he cast a vote for the Compromise of 1850 in which one of the bills was a stricter Fugitive Slave Law. For John F. Kennedy when he wrote Profiles In Courage, Webster was one of those selected as a profile because his electoral career came to an end and he knew it. Now he's pilloried for having voted for it. It was for the cause of the union and Webster believed that. But during his days as a Federalist member of the House of Representatives, Webster was brushed with his acceptance of the Hartford Convention when the New England states met to decide whether to stay in the union or not because of the War of 1812 which they did not believe in. The southerners and westerners never let him forget it. Webster was born in 1782 of a New Hampshire Federalist family was elected in 1814 to Congress from there. After the War of 1812 and when his home in Portsmouth burned to the ground he made a calculated decision to move to Boston. It was then and still is the place where the movers and shakers of New England reside and he took his place among them. Webster believed in representing his constituents and their interests. When New England's economy was based on ship building and trade he was for a low tariff for revenue. When New England became a hub for the industrial revolution and it wanted a protective tariff, Webster stood for that. Either way he was a man who saw nothing wrong in looking for the main chance to advance his fortune. New England merchants and industrialist treated him well. He was a great lawyer and constitutional advocate, not even his enemies take that from him. Some of his arguments were legendary. He personally hated slavery, took many a fugitive slave case. Bought some slaves in order to free them. But he liked the union more. He had a strange relationship with Andrew Jackson who when he was president advocated most things Webster did not. But when South Carolina threatened to nullify the protective tariff law that Jackson himself opposed, he cracked down hard and Webster was his strongest supporter in the Senate. Webster's speech of "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable" was one of the great orations of the century. Webster served as Secretary of State for 3 presidents, Harrison, Tyler, and Fillmore. He was not a believer in saber rattling diplomacy. In fact his achievements include the Webster-Ashburton treaty settling the permanent boundary of Maine and Canada and sending our first trade mission to China under Caleb Cushing. He was a firm believer in no entangling alliances. Ambitious he was, he made no secret he wanted the presidency. But as a Federalist, a National Republican, and finally a Whig, Webster could never expand beyond New England for support though he offered his candidacy every year. In 1836 the year Martin Van Buren was elected Webster did receive the electoral votes of Massachusetts and a scattering from other states. It's the closest he ever got. His is a character most complex and Professor Irving Bartlett reaches no real conclusions. Maybe on reading this book you'll decide if he's more the Godlike Daniel or Black Dan.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-01-22 00:00:00 Olivia Martin Irving H. Bartlett's biography of Daniel Webster is solidly traditional, in the sense that it is a history of high politics. Bartlett stresses Webster's extraordinary personal ambition as the prime motivational force in Webster's decisions on foreign policy. Using the political ambition explanation, Bartlett achieves an integrated portrait of Webster's career. Two examples demonstrate this approach. In encouraging American support for Greek independence in 1823, Webster was seeking to gain political capital by fostering the nationalism he had apparently stood in opposition to during the War of 1812. Webster's support for Hungarian nationalism in 1851 is explicable as yet another recourse to foreign policy pronouncement for domestic consumption. This time Webster was recovering from the unpopularity of the support he had given to the Fugitive Slave Law under the aegis of the Compromise of 1850. Bartlett proposes in like manner to explain most of the political actions of Webster as ultimately reducible to a lust for the presidency. In Bartlett's defense it must be mentioned that he gives ample consideration to Webster's conservative ideology, which he portrays as rooted in a veneration for the Founders and the Constitution. Bartlett's Webster is frustrated in his ambition by an inability to graft democratic mannerisms to the republican ideals he cherishes. The ultimate tragedy of Bartlett's Daniel Webster is that he was a man born too late to be president. His account suffers from this reductionism.