At the Edge of the Precipice:
Robert Remini’s new little book is a delightful departure from the run-of-the-mill accounts of the Great Moments in American History that too often leave the reader with glazed eyes, muttering to himself: “Too much information!” Remini recounts in a mere 155 pages the Compromise of 1850, including its origins, components, proponents, opponents and historical significance, thus covering the subject matter without bogging down the reader in endless detail. The heart of the book is a condensed account of how the sick and elderly Henry Clay of Kentucky, the Great Compromiser, reluctantly came out of political retirement in 1849, returned to a U.S. Senate wracked by sectional tensions, and brokered a complex legislative compromise that forestalled secession for nearly a decade. Convinced that America was teetering on the brink of disunion, Clay proposed several pieces of legislation, all rolled into a single act or omnibus, that he hoped would dissipate secessionist forces gathering steam in the South without provoking a backlash in the North. Parts of Clay’s omnibus, like the admission of California as a free state or the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, were designed to appeal to Northern interests while other parts, like strengthening the fugitive slave laws, appealed to the Southern states. Clay miscalculated, however, in promoting the omnibus as opposed to its constituent parts. Many Senators wanted the privilege of voting for some measures in the package and against others. Presenting them all as a package resulted in uniting all of the opponents of any of the measures. When the Senate finally voted down the omnibus, Clay was devastated, and he left Washington for a lengthy vacation. During Clay’s absence, Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois, recognizing Clay’s error in insisting upon the omnibus, adroitly managed the separate passage by the Senate of the six component bills that made up the omnibus. The House of Representatives fell into line behind the Senate and eventually approved each of the bills. When President Millard Fillmore quickly signed them, the Compromise of 1850 became the law of the land. In a brief epilogue to his text, Remini first delves into counterfactual history. He declares, “Had secession occurred in 1850, the South unquestionably would have made good its independence.” But instead of directly pursuing that tantalizing hypothesis, Remini returns to more factual history and assesses the likely effect of the Compromise of 1850 upon U.S. history. Specifically, Remini argues that the Compromise of 1850 accomplished more than just avoiding disunion in the early 1850s. Remini contends that the compromise, by delaying civil war for roughly a decade, was largely responsible for the South’s failure to secure its independence. His rationale is twofold. First, the compromise gave the North 10 years to strengthen its industrial base, which, in turn, enabled the North to wage and win a protracted war. Second, the delay of secession and war until the 1860s gave the North 10 years to find a political leader capable of saving the Union — namely, Abraham Lincoln. Remini is a prize-winning historian whose prose is clear, crisp and lively. Although his book lacks a bibliography, the lengthy endnotes attest to the author’s thorough scholarship. In researching his book, Remini clearly scoured multiple manuscript and archival resources as well as period newspapers and other secondary sources. The result is a scholarly yet concise treatment of the Compromise of 1850 that can be read on a long plane ride. This reviewer highly recommends At the Edge of the Precipice, especially to readers interested in the politics of the Civil War era. Reviewer: C. Michael Harrington C. Michael Harrington is a member of the Houston Civil War Round Table and Civil War Aficionados. He has written several articles on South Carolina Confederates. A practicing lawyer, he has degrees in economics from Yale and Cambridge and a law degree from Harvard.
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Illustrated, endnotes, index, 200 pp., 2010, Basic Books,