Henry Clay and the American System (review)

262CIVIL WAR HISTORY Henry Clay and the American System. By Maurice G. Baxter. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995. Pp. 261. $34.95.) Baxter's book is an examination ofHenry Clay's role in promoting the American System. The study has value because of the care with which Baxter uncovers, step by step, Clay's leadership in championing a vital program for national economic development. It was because of his expansion of earlier plans for economic self-sufficiency first proposed by Secretary oftheTreasury Alexander Hamilton in the 1 790s that Clay became one of the most famous antebellum American politicians. Baxter dismisses economic theories almost entirely. This undoubtedly is because Clay himself relied upon practical methods rather than theories of political economy. Even as a young legislator in Kentucky's House of Representatives , Clay already was endorsing a diversified economy. Strong financial institutions and good transportation were only two of his early proposals. When Clay arrived in Congress in early 1807, he naturally found a much more effective forum for advocating such projects as an Ohio River canal. Beginning his reign as Speaker of the House in 1 8 1 1 , he defended the stronger Hamiltonian program against agrarian Jeffersonian proposals. Significant here is his stand in favor of a higher protective tariff, backing the home-market arguments of Tench Coxe, Mathew Carey, and Hezekiah Niles. In his advocacy of the American System, Clay stretched the Constitution by exaggerating powers to establish post roads, to provide for the common defense , and to regulate foreign and interstate commerce. This prevalent loose construction would vastly expand for a much different purpose—redistribution of the wealth—a century later in the New Deal of the 1930s. Some Virginians, including John Tyler and Philip Barbour, responded with Adam Smith's argument for international trade. Daniel Webster refuted many of Clay's ideas with his belief that all that was needed was to let free enterprise work. As the leading opponent of loose-constructionism, John C. Calhoun, in his famous Fort Hill address of 1831, introduced the doctrine of interposition. In reply to these critics, Clay stated that to save the American System, he would "defy the South, the President, and the devil" (75). His stubborn tactic here ran counter to the usual skills of "the Great Compromiser." Heated debate in the antebellum decades would soon become a leading factor in causing sectional emotions and Civil War. The tariff of 1833 could only delay the coming crises. Even the Northeast, which would have benefited most from the American System, opposed many of Clay's ideas. President Jackson's successful bank war against Clay and Webster is one of the best known impasses brought about by the American System. In this conflict, the Senate even endorsed Clay's resolution to censure Jackson for exceeding his constitutional powers. By 1841 the Whigs under Clay's leadership had lost their best opportunity to mobilize fully the American System. However, the Republican platform of 1 860, enacted during the Civil War, was a BOOK REVIEWS263 reaffirmation and expansion of Clay's economic hopes. The nation was firmly committed to a more sophisticated American System for the rest of the nineteenth century. What, then, is the value of Baxter's study? His goal is very specific—to examine Clay's leadership role in the passage and operation of the American System. At times the author's writing tends to become lackluster. Direct references to Clay's personality in a golden age of American politics would seem to be desirable, although outside the sphere ofBaxter's defined objective. Another weakness may be that Baxter's emphasis upon active governmental intervention can easily be misunderstood. The purpose of the American System was not to enlarge intentionally the role of national government for its own sake. Rather, the aim was to indirectly promote economic balance to strengthen the private sector. After all, the years of the American System probably more nearly approximated laissez-faire than any other era in our history. Arlan Gilbert Hillsdale College Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822-1885. By Bernard E. Powers, Jr. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994. Pp. xi, 266. $36.00.) There is no want...