Another obligatory blog
This obligation is in reference to Sen. Kennedy's death, lengthy obsequies and even lengthier media coverage. As a child of New Hampshire, I was raised on a steady diet of Daniel Webster, a diet even steadier than that which has nourished any Massachusetts child these 47 years.
This brief biography will do well enough. It has one item in common with the Webster mythology of my childhood: scarcely a word said against the man. This is in sharp contrast with the public career of Edward Kennedy, or any politician during the last 40 years or so. Curiously, it is also in sharp contrast with public careers in Webster's own lifetime. The hindsight of history sees Webster as a seminal figure in creating the idea of federal union. It sees him as one of the three great public figures of his time (together with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun) whose genius for compromise bought the nation two generations of peace and growth before its inevitable plunge into the furnace of civil war. That history also sees Webster as his peers did: a colossally egotistical, self-obsessed and fanatically ambitious man held in awe by many in Congress, bought by many interest groups, but with limited and situational respect from peers and voters . His final compromise, that of 1850, bought the nation another ten years of peace, but cost him the respect of all but a handful of his fellow Whigs and of New England abolitionists.
Like Jefferson, and so many others of the early National era, he spent his life deeply in debt, debt that he tried to ameliorate by being one of the most avaricious politicians of his time. He made no secret of his fondness for a bribe. The balance, which the era of the 24/7 news cycle seems to forget, is that the assets outweighed the liabilities.
Naturally, they didn't teach this to New Hampshire grade schoolers. I had to reach college to discover Webster's inner rogue. I think that's a damned shame: we'd do better to teach children to measure public people by their achievements, not their wardrobe or sex lives.
This brief biography will do well enough. It has one item in common with the Webster mythology of my childhood: scarcely a word said against the man. This is in sharp contrast with the public career of Edward Kennedy, or any politician during the last 40 years or so. Curiously, it is also in sharp contrast with public careers in Webster's own lifetime. The hindsight of history sees Webster as a seminal figure in creating the idea of federal union. It sees him as one of the three great public figures of his time (together with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun) whose genius for compromise bought the nation two generations of peace and growth before its inevitable plunge into the furnace of civil war. That history also sees Webster as his peers did: a colossally egotistical, self-obsessed and fanatically ambitious man held in awe by many in Congress, bought by many interest groups, but with limited and situational respect from peers and voters . His final compromise, that of 1850, bought the nation another ten years of peace, but cost him the respect of all but a handful of his fellow Whigs and of New England abolitionists.
Like Jefferson, and so many others of the early National era, he spent his life deeply in debt, debt that he tried to ameliorate by being one of the most avaricious politicians of his time. He made no secret of his fondness for a bribe. The balance, which the era of the 24/7 news cycle seems to forget, is that the assets outweighed the liabilities.
Naturally, they didn't teach this to New Hampshire grade schoolers. I had to reach college to discover Webster's inner rogue. I think that's a damned shame: we'd do better to teach children to measure public people by their achievements, not their wardrobe or sex lives.
posted by Uncle | 00:51
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