The Approaching Fury
Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861
PART ONE
STORM WARNINGS
Henry Clay
I was Speaker of the House during the Missouri crisis and was shocked by the violent passions it provoked in the new Hall of Representatives, an elegant, domed, semicircular room modeled after a Greek theater. Day after day, men leaped to their feet and threatened disunion and civil war with reckless abandon. Tallmadge of New York, who precipitated the crisis, and Thomas Cobb of Georgia were the worst. They yelled and shook their fists at one another, ignoring me when I pounded my gavel and called for order.
"If you persist, the Union will be dissolved," Cobb said. "You have kindled a fire which a sea of blood can only extinguish."
"If disunion must take place," Tallmadge cried, "let it be so! If civil war must come, I can only say, let it come!"
What a vexed question! I told John Quincy Adams: "Within five years, I fear, the Union will be divided into three distinct confederacies."
Quite frankly, I sympath ... read full excerpt from The Approaching Fury ebook
