At the Edge of the Precipice

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Henry Clay and the Compromise That Saved the Union

In 1850, with Northerners demanding that slavery be outlawed in the vast new territory America had just acquired in the Mexican- American War, Southerners threatened to secede from the Union. Veteran statesman Henry Clay proffered a solution: the Compromise of 1850, which saved the Union from dissolution for the next ten years and gave the North time to build its industrial might so that it could defeat the South once secession was at hand. Historian Robert V. Remini masterfully shows how Clay's recognition of the need for bipartisanship in times of crisis saved the Union, not once, but twice.