Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Henry Clay
Strict codes of conduct marked the relationships of early American politicians, often leading to duels, brawls, and other—sometimes fatal—violence.
Fistfights broke out in Congress in 1850 over whether the territories just won in the Mexican War should be slave or free—and only a last-minute series of compromises prevented catastrophe.
On a raw evening in winter of 1850, a weary-looking, feeble, and desperately ill old man arrived unannounced at the Washington, D.C. residence of Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky had come to seek Webster’s help in his battle to save the Union.
With his usual furious vigor, Andrew Jackson posed a question that continues to trouble us to this day.
The alarm bells are ringing for Social Security again. That’s not exactly news; predictions of the exhaustion of its trust fund have been made before.
The battle over John Tower’s nomination as Secretary of Defense earlier this year goes down as one of those struggles that whirled trivial and profound issues in the blender of journalism and produced a somewhat mystifying concoction.
You Asked for It
When American Heritage suggested last year that I put together the article that became “101 Things Every College Graduate Should Know about American History,” I accepted the assignment eagerly.
The urge to create literature was as strong in the mid-1800s as it is today, but rejections were brutal and the pay was even worse.
How does the writing life in pre-Civil War America compare with that of the 1980s?
And in doing so, the fate of Congress—will it be weak? will it be strong?—is determined
In the fall of 1844 a thirty-five-year-old lawyer from Springfield, Illinois, returned after an absence of nearly fifteen years to Spencer County, Indiana, to campaign in behalf of Presidential candidate Henry Clay.
Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson’s right-hand man, was a master of political intrigue who let nothing block his one unwavering ambition—the Presidency. But sometimes he was too smart for his own good
John Randolph of Roanoke was a second cousin of Edmund Randolph, President Washington’s first Attorney General and second Secretary of State. It would be difficult to say which of the two careers was the more tragic.
Was the old South solidly for slavery and secession? An eminent historian disputes a long-cherished view of that region’s history
At Ghent five Americans—divided and far from home—held firm for a treaty that won their nation new respect, and began a lasting alliance
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