Indivisible
Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism
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The story of how Daniel Webster popularized the ideals of American nationalism that helped forge our nation’s identity and inspire Abraham Lincoln to preserve the Union
When the United States was founded in 1776, its citizens didn’t think of themselves as “Americans.” They were New Yorkers or Virginians or Pennsylvanians. It was decades later that the seeds of American nationalism—identifying with one’s own nation and supporting its broader interests—began to take root. But what kind of nationalism should Americans embrace? The state-focused and racist nationalism of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson? Or the belief that the U.S. Constitution made all Americans one nation, indivisible, which Daniel Webster and others espoused?
In Indivisible, historian and law professor Joel Richard Paul tells the fascinating story of how Webster, a young New Hampshire attorney turned politician, rose to national prominence through his powerful oratory and unwavering belief in the United States and captured the national imagination. In his speeches, on the floors of the House and Senate, in court, and as Secretary of State, Webster argued that the Constitution was not a compact made by states but an expression of the will of all Americans. As the greatest orator of his age, Webster saw his speeches and writings published widely, and his stirring rhetoric convinced Americans to see themselves differently, as a nation bound together by a government of laws, not parochial interests. As these ideas took root, they influenced future leaders, among them Abraham Lincoln, who drew on them to hold the nation together during the Civil War.
As he did in Without Precedent and Unlikely Allies, Joel Richard Paul has written in Indivisible both a compelling history and a fascinating account of one of the founders of our national perspective.
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Historian Paul (Without Precedent) examines in this intriguing study the role that 19th-century lawyer, congressman, and orator Daniel Webster played in promoting the idea of American nationalism based on the Constitution. From the 1810s to the 1850s, Paul shows, America's national identity was being formed by leaders including Henry Clay, who advocated for infrastructure subsidies to "knit the country closer together," and Andrew Jackson, whose "insistent defense of slavery and white superiority won him popular support and unprecedented powers." The vast expansion of the U.S. through the annexation of Texas, California, and New Mexico and the literature of James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and others also helped shape the ways Americans thought about themselves. Paul places Webster at the center of competing visions of "what it meant to be American," arguing that his "unequaled eloquence" as a constitutional advocate "was the antidote to Jackson's toxic populism." Though Paul describes Webster's 1830 speech against the theory of nullification, which held that states had the power to nullify federal law, "as the greatest extemporaneous oration ever delivered before Congress," he also explains how Webster's support for the Fugitive Slave Act backfired. Full of fascinating digressions and astute analysis, this is a rewarding look at one of America's most enduring fault lines.
