Heirs of the Founders 

In the early days of the nineteenth century, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina’s John Calhoun defended the South and slavery. Together this second generation of American founders took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency, and tasked themselves with finishing the work the Founders had left undone. H.W. Brands brings to life the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy.