Daniel Webster and the Oratory of Civil Religion.(Book review)
Historian, The, March, 2007 by Harold, Stanley
Daniel Webster and the Oratory of Civil Religion. By Craig R. Smith. (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 2005. Pp. 300. $47.50.)
For generations after Daniel Webster's death in 1852, American schoolchildren memorized portions of his speeches. As the author of this book establishes in his "oratorical biography," the children's labors reflect Webster's great contribution to a "civil religion" that encouraged American nationalism (1). Especially during the decades following the Civil War, Webster's 1830 endorsement of "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable," seemed prophetic (117).
Webster, along with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, formed a great triumvirate that shaped American politics from the War of 1812 to the...
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