'Heirs of the Founders' profiles the 'second generation' of great American leaders

Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun were born during the American Revolution and inherited both the glories and flaws of the United States Constitution. They would spend more than four decades in public life wrestling with the ambiguities of that document: trying to pinpoint the line between federal and states rights, as well as to settle the crucible of slavery, which the Founding Fathers had kicked down the road.

These three were political rock stars: at various times congressmen, senators, presidential candidates, vice presidents, and cabinet members.