Hoffer’s latest book provides a kind of constitutional biography of Daniel Webster, a prominent American politician of the first half of the nineteenth century, famed for his oratory. Hoffer focuses on Webster’s role as a leader of the Supreme Court bar, arguing that Webster’s legal advocacy generated a coherent and influential constitutional jurisprudence. He suggests, in effect, that Webster was often the brains behind Chief Justice John Marshall’s campaign to establish a Federalist interpretation of the Constitution, one that could constrain the movements for radical democracy and states’ rights from the 1810s to the 1830s.
Hoffer identifies three constitutional “conundrums” that the founding generation bequeathed to Webster’s generation: (1) how to draw the line between federal and state authority (federalism), (2) how to keep politics and law separate, and (3) how to protect private rights of property while allowing government adequate authority to achieve its ends. This tripartite framework provides...