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Democracy's Lawyer: Felix Grundy of the Old Southwest
"Felix Grundy was a key player in the Age of Jackson, and Heller's original and engaging book tells the Grundy saga with verve and skill."---Jon Meacham, editor of Newswee
"This is a superb biography, deeply researched and elegantly written. Grundy emerges from these pages as the very embodiment of frontier democracy, in all its energy and contradiction. His story is a fitting place to explore the United States as it took shape and force."---Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863
"Real estate developer, the leading criminal lawyer west of the Alleghenies, a warhawk congressman, and then U.S. senator from Tennessee, the peripatetic Felix Grundy personified Tocqueville's restless American on the make during the first four decades of the nineteenth century. An attorney himself, J. Roderick Heller tells Grundy's story with panache and great authority in this superbly researched and finely crafted biography."---Michael F. Holt, author of the Rise and Fall of the American Whig Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War
"J. Roderick Heller has successfully rescued Felix Grundy from the shadows of history with a superb biography. In doing so he shines an important light on life in the early decades of nineteenth-century America, particularly on what was then the frontier. For anyone interested in American history this book is not to be missed."---Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation
"Felix Grundy of Tennessee was one of the most important makers of the political age of Andrew Jackson. Now J. Roderick Heller has brought Grundy and the age back to life with meticulous scholarship and great discernment. This book will long remain an essential resource for historians and anyone interested in the early history of American democracy."---Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Jefferson to Lincoln
"Grundy cut an expansive path through American politics during the turbulent era of Andrew Jackson. He is captured here by Heller with all the vibrancy, thoroughness and elucidation that a man of his stature and accomplishment deserves."---Robert Merry, author of A Country of Vast James K. Polk, the Mexican War. and the Conquest of the American Continent
A central political figure in the first post-Revolutionary generation, Felix Grundy (1775-1840) epitomized the "American democrat"Who so famously Fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville. Born and reared on the isolated frontier, Grundy rose largely by his own ability to become the old South-west's greatest Criminal lawyer and one of the first radical political reformers in the Aedgling United States. In Democracy's Lauyer; the first comprehensive biography of Grundy since 1940, J. Roderick Heller revcals how Grundy's life typifies the archetypal, Post-founding fathers generation that forged America's culture and institutions.
After his birth in Virginia, Grundy moved west at age five to the region that would become Kentucky, where he lost three brothers in Indian wars. He earned a law degree, joined the legislature. and quickly became Henry Clay's main rival. At age thirty-one. After rising to become chief justice of Kentucky. Grundy moved to Tennessee. where voters soon elected him to Congress. In Washington. Grundy proved so voracious a proponent of the War of 1812 that a popular slogan of the day blamed the war on "Madison. Grundy, and the Devil."
A pivotal U.S. senator during the presidency of Andrew Jackson.Grundy also served as Martin Van Buren's attorney general and developed a close association with his law student and political protege James.L.Polk. Grundy Championed the ideals of the American West, and as Heller demonstrates, his dominating belief---equality in access to power--- motivated many of his political battles. Aristocratic federalism threatened the principles of the Revolution, Grundy asserted, and he opposed fetters on freedom of opportunity, whether from government or entrenched economic elites.
Although widely known as a politician, Grundy achieved even greater fame as a criminal lawyer. Of the purported 185 murder defendants that he represented, only one was hanged. At a time when criminal trials served as popular entertainment, Grundy's mere appearance in a courtroom drew spectators from miles around, and his legal reputation soon spread nationwide. One nineteenth-century Nashvillian declared that Grundy "could stand on a street corner and talk the cobblestones into life."
Shifting seamlessly within the worlds of law, en-trepreneurship, and politics, Felix Grundy exemplified the questing, mobile society of early nineteenth-century America. With Democracy's Lawyer, Heller firmly establishes Grundy as a powerful player and personality in early American law and politics.
"This is a superb biography, deeply researched and elegantly written. Grundy emerges from these pages as the very embodiment of frontier democracy, in all its energy and contradiction. His story is a fitting place to explore the United States as it took shape and force."---Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863
"Real estate developer, the leading criminal lawyer west of the Alleghenies, a warhawk congressman, and then U.S. senator from Tennessee, the peripatetic Felix Grundy personified Tocqueville's restless American on the make during the first four decades of the nineteenth century. An attorney himself, J. Roderick Heller tells Grundy's story with panache and great authority in this superbly researched and finely crafted biography."---Michael F. Holt, author of the Rise and Fall of the American Whig Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War
"J. Roderick Heller has successfully rescued Felix Grundy from the shadows of history with a superb biography. In doing so he shines an important light on life in the early decades of nineteenth-century America, particularly on what was then the frontier. For anyone interested in American history this book is not to be missed."---Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation
"Felix Grundy of Tennessee was one of the most important makers of the political age of Andrew Jackson. Now J. Roderick Heller has brought Grundy and the age back to life with meticulous scholarship and great discernment. This book will long remain an essential resource for historians and anyone interested in the early history of American democracy."---Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Jefferson to Lincoln
"Grundy cut an expansive path through American politics during the turbulent era of Andrew Jackson. He is captured here by Heller with all the vibrancy, thoroughness and elucidation that a man of his stature and accomplishment deserves."---Robert Merry, author of A Country of Vast James K. Polk, the Mexican War. and the Conquest of the American Continent
A central political figure in the first post-Revolutionary generation, Felix Grundy (1775-1840) epitomized the "American democrat"Who so famously Fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville. Born and reared on the isolated frontier, Grundy rose largely by his own ability to become the old South-west's greatest Criminal lawyer and one of the first radical political reformers in the Aedgling United States. In Democracy's Lauyer; the first comprehensive biography of Grundy since 1940, J. Roderick Heller revcals how Grundy's life typifies the archetypal, Post-founding fathers generation that forged America's culture and institutions.
After his birth in Virginia, Grundy moved west at age five to the region that would become Kentucky, where he lost three brothers in Indian wars. He earned a law degree, joined the legislature. and quickly became Henry Clay's main rival. At age thirty-one. After rising to become chief justice of Kentucky. Grundy moved to Tennessee. where voters soon elected him to Congress. In Washington. Grundy proved so voracious a proponent of the War of 1812 that a popular slogan of the day blamed the war on "Madison. Grundy, and the Devil."
A pivotal U.S. senator during the presidency of Andrew Jackson.Grundy also served as Martin Van Buren's attorney general and developed a close association with his law student and political protege James.L.Polk. Grundy Championed the ideals of the American West, and as Heller demonstrates, his dominating belief---equality in access to power--- motivated many of his political battles. Aristocratic federalism threatened the principles of the Revolution, Grundy asserted, and he opposed fetters on freedom of opportunity, whether from government or entrenched economic elites.
Although widely known as a politician, Grundy achieved even greater fame as a criminal lawyer. Of the purported 185 murder defendants that he represented, only one was hanged. At a time when criminal trials served as popular entertainment, Grundy's mere appearance in a courtroom drew spectators from miles around, and his legal reputation soon spread nationwide. One nineteenth-century Nashvillian declared that Grundy "could stand on a street corner and talk the cobblestones into life."
Shifting seamlessly within the worlds of law, en-trepreneurship, and politics, Felix Grundy exemplified the questing, mobile society of early nineteenth-century America. With Democracy's Lawyer, Heller firmly establishes Grundy as a powerful player and personality in early American law and politics.
357 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 17, 2022
The capital murder defense super lawyer of the age. This guy developed real estate. Owned the biggest residence in Nashville. A player in Tennessee and KY. A player in state and state politics. A peer of Andrew Jackson and James Polk.
July 14, 2021
Great biography of of a post revolutionary politician who came to power through his own merit.
September 19, 2010
Well written and researched, Heller's book is the first comprehensive biography of Felix Grundy since 1940. Grundy was instrumental in shaping democracy in Kentucky and Tennessee, and was also an important figure in national politics. Serving in the senate with leaders such as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, Grundy consistently took the reformer's stance, fighting for states' rights and egalitarian access to land and banking capital. Advisor and confidante to Andrew Jackson, Grundy was also mentor to James K. Polk.
Heller's book is significant for the view it provides of early American history, a time when leaders struggled to balance states' rights with the idea of a cohesive union.
Heller's book is significant for the view it provides of early American history, a time when leaders struggled to balance states' rights with the idea of a cohesive union.
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July 27, 2011My full review is forthcoming in the Journal of East Tennessee History. In short, an excellent bio of an oft-forgotten, but important, Tennessean. Some of the chapter organization was a bit awkward, but that was my only real complaint.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews