Henry Clay

Henry Clay (April 12, 1777 in Hanover County, Virginia – June 29, 1852 in Washington, D.C.) was a leading American statesman and orator who served in both the House of Representatives and Senate. He was the founder and leader of the Whig Party, the leading advocate of programs for modernizing the economy (such as canals, railroads and banks).

Although his multiple attempts at the presidency failed, he to a large extent defined the issues of the Second Party System. He was known as the Great Compromiser because of his success in brokering compromises on the slavery issue, especially in 1820 and 1850. In 1957 a Senate committee chaired by John F. Kennedy, named Clay as one of the five greatest Senators in American history.

Early years

Clay was the son of a Baptist minister who died when Clay was only four years old. Clay received little schooling but had a brilliant mind and read extensively on his own, being raised by his stepfather who saw much potential in the young Clay. In 1792, his stepfather secured Clay a position as a clerk in the Virginia high court of chancery. Under the supervision of the College of William and Mary's law chair George Wythe and Robert Brooke (both attorneys general of Virginia), Clay was licensed to practice law in 1797 at the young age of twenty.

In 1799 Clay moved to Lexington, Kentucky to practice law and eventually married Lucretia Hart, the daughter of a wealthy Lexington land speculator and merchant. During their marriage they suffered through several tragedies including the confinement of their oldest son, Theodore, to a mental institution. Henry, their youngest son, was killed during the Mexican War (1848-1849). All six of their daughters died at a very young age.

Clay was elected to the Kentucky Legislature for the first time in 1803 at the young age of twenty six. Two years later, in 1805, Clay began a teaching career at the prestigious Transylvania University in Lexington as a professor of law. He quickly gained a revered reputation in Kentucky as a brilliant teacher, orator, and statesman, leaving Transylvania in 1807 to continue his political career in Frankfort and Washington.

Early political career

In 1799, at the age of twenty-two, he was elected as a Democratic-Republican to a constitutional convention in Kentucky and then in 1803 at twenty-six was elected to Kentucky's state legislature. The legislature admired Clay's abilities and in 1806 at the age of twenty-nine, despite being under the 30-year minimum age required by the United States Constitution—he was chosen to fill a vacant unexpired term (1806–1807) in the United States Senate.

After his Senate term expired, he again served in the Kentucky House of Representatives (1808–1809), and was chosen Speaker of the House. There he achieved distinction by defeating an intense and widespread anti-British reform campaign, which sought to exclude the common law from the Kentucky code. A year later, he was elected to another unexpired term in the United States Senate, serving 1810–1811.

National leader

In 1811, at the age of thirty-four, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and because he had become known as an exceptional leader was chosen Speaker of the House on the first day of the session. During the fourteen years following his first election, he was re-elected five times to the House and to the speakership.

As the Congressional leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, he took charge of the agenda, especially as a "War Hawk," supporting the War of 1812 with the British Empire. Later, as one of the peace commissioners, helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, and signed it on December 24, 1814.

Clay's speakership shaped the history of Congress. Evidence from committee assignment and roll call records shows that Clay's leadership strategy was highly complex and that it advanced Clay's public policy goals as well as his political ambition. et al. 2000

The American System

After the war Clay and John C. Calhoun helped to pass the Tariff of 1816 as part of the national economic plan Clay called "The American System" rooted in the Hamilton's American School. It was designed to give the newly created factories in the United States (due to the war) a chance, when after the war the British were overwhelming the ports with goods from their factories. The plan also called for a national bank and government support for internal improvements to infrastructure.

The American System was supported by both the North and the South at first. Only later with the Tariff of 1828 did the South break away from their support leading to the Nullification Crisis.

The Missouri Compromise and 1820s

In 1820 a dispute erupted over the extension of slavery in Missouri Territory. Clay helped settle this dispute by gaining Congressional approval for a plan that was called the "Missouri Compromise." It brought in Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state (thus maintaining the balance in the Senate, which had been 11 free and 11 slave states), and except for Missouri it forbade slavery north of 36-30 (the northern boundary of Arkansas).

In national terms the old Republican Party caucus had ceased to function by 1820. Clay ran for president in 1824 and came in fourth place. He threw his strength to John Quincy Adams, who won and appointed Clay as Secretary of State. Clay then built a national network of supporters, called National Republicans. Andrew Jackson lost in 1824 but combined with Martin Van Buren to form a coalition that defeated Adams in 1828. That new coalition became a full-fledged party that (by 1834) called itself Democrats. By 1832 Clay merged the National Republicans with other factions to form the Whig party. In domestic policy Clay promoted the American System with a high tariff to encourage manufacturing, and an extensive program of internal improvements (such as roads and canals) to build up the domestic market. After a long fight he did get a high tariff in 1828 but did not get the spending for internal improvements. In 1822 Monroe vetoed a bill to build the Cumberland Road (crossing the Allegheny mountains). In foreign policy, Clay was the leading American supporter of the independence movements and revolutions in Latin America after 1817. In 1821-26 the US recognized all the new countries. When in 1826 the US was invited to attend the Panama Conference of new nations, opposition emerged, and the US delegation never arrived. Clay supported the Greek independence revolutionaries in 1824 who wished to separate from the Ottoman Empire, an early move into European affairs.

The Nullification Crisis

After the passage of the Tariff Act of 1828, which raised tariffs considerably in an attempt to protect the fledgling factories built under previous tariff legislation, South Carolina attempted to nullify (declare unconstitutional) U.S. tariff laws. They threatened to secede from the Union if the United States government tried to enforce the tariff laws. President Andrew Jackson threatened in return to go to South Carolina and hang any man who refused to obey the law.

The crisis worsened until 1833 when Clay, again a U.S. Senator re-elected by Kentucky in 1831, helped to broker a deal to lower the tariff gradually. This measure helped to preserve the supremacy of the Federal government over the states and would be only one precursor to the developing conflict between the northern and southern United States over economics and slavery.

Birth of Whig party 1828-34

The ad-hoc coalition that supported John Quincy Adams fell apart after 1828 and the main opposition to Jackson was the National Republican party created and run by Clay. It shared the conservative, nationalistic outlook as the Adamsites, and wanted to use national resources to build a strong economy. Their platform was Clay's "American System" of nationally financed internal improvements and a protective tariff, which would promote faster economic development. More important, by binding together the diverse interests of the different regions they would promote national unity and harmony. The National Republicans saw the Union as a corporate, organic whole. Hence the rank and file, like Abraham Lincoln idealized Clay for his a comprehensive perspective on the national interest. Conversely, they disdained party politicians for pandering to local interests at the expense of the national interest. p 20 The Whig party emerged 1832-34 as a coalition of National Republicans, along with Anti-Masons, disaffected Jacksonians, and people whose last political activity was with the Federalists a decade before.

Candidate for president

As the Whig party emerged in 1832-34 he immediately became its dominant leader centering its program around the "American System", a program designed to unify all portions of the country through the economic policies of Alexander Hamilton in his Report on Manufactures. The Democratic Party, which emerged from the old Democratic-Republican Party at the same time as the National Republican Party, opposed the American System of the Whig Party in each successive election until the emergence of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln in the late 1850s.

Clay ran for president five times but was never able to win.

In 1824 Clay ran together with John Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson, and William H. Crawford, all as Democratic-Republican candidates. There was no clear majority in the Electoral College. The House of Representatives had to choose from the top three candidates. Clay came in fourth place and gave his support to Adams because they shared the same political vision. Clay then served as Adams' Secretary of State, leading to charges of corruption from Jacksonians; Clay denied this and no evidence has been found to support this claim to date.

In 1832 Clay was unanimously nominated for the presidency by the National Republicans; Jackson, by the Democrats. The main issue was the policy of continuing the Second Bank of the United States. He lost by a wide margin to the highly popular Jackson (55% to 37%).

In 1840, Clay was a candidate for the Whig nomination, but he was defeated in the party convention by supporters of war hero William Henry Harrison.

In 1844, he was nominated by the Whigs against James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate. Clay lost due in part to national sentiment for Polk's program "54º40' or Fight" campaign which was to settle the northern boundary of the United States with Canada then under the control of the British Empire. Clay also opposed admitting Texas as a state because he felt it would reawaken the Slavery issue and provoke Mexico to declare war. Polk took the opposite view and public sentiment was with him, especially in the Southern United States. Nevertheless, the election was close; New York's 36 electoral votes proved the difference, and went to Polk by a slim 5,000 vote margin. Liberty Party candidate James G. Birney won a little over 15,000 votes in New York and may have taken votes from Clay.
- Clay's warnings came true as annexation led to the Mexican War (1846-1848) while the North and South came to heads over the extending slavery into Texas and beyond during Polk's Presidency.

In 1848, Zachary Taylor, a Mexican War hero, won the Whig nomination, again depriving Clay of the nomination.

Henry Clay's presidential bids were lost by wide margins, representing in his earlier presidential bids a failure to form a national coalition and a lack of political organization that could match the Jacksonian Democrats. And although the Whigs had become as adept at political organizing as the Democrats by the time of Clay's final presidential bid, Clay himself failed to connect to the people, partly due to his unpopular views on slavery and the American System in the South. When Clay was warned not to take a stance against slavery or be so strong for the American System, he was quoted as saying in return, "I'd rather be right than be President!"

The Compromise of 1850

After losing the Whig Party nomination to President Taylor in 1848, Clay decided to retire to his Ashland estate in Kentucky. Retired for under a year, he was again in 1849 elected to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky. While there another dispute broke out between the Northern and Southern states over slavery extension, as Clay had predicted it would. Always the "Great Compromiser," he helped work out what historians have called the "Compromise of 1850."

This plan undid the Missouri Compromise and allowed slavery into the New Mexico and Utah territories while forbidding it in the new state of California. This compromise helped to delay the Civil War for an additional eleven years.

Clay in Court

According to former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor:

"Some of the cases Clay argued continue to be cited as precedent today. In Osborn v. United States U.S. 573 (1824), Clay argued on behalf of the Bank of the United States, which was a nationwide bank chartered by Congress. Clay challenged the constitutionality of an Ohio tax levied upon the bank and sought an injunction to force the state's auditor to return the improperly seized taxes. The Supreme Court agreed with Clay and ordered the auditor to return the taxes. In doing so, the Court found that the Eleventh Amendment - which bars lawsuits against the states - did not apply to the state auditor. Osborn is still relevant today: It has been cited twenty six times since I took the bench in 1981, and was cited just last term by Justice David Souter in a dissent. Seminole Tribe. Nor is Osborn the only case argued by Clay to be cited in recent times. Clay also argued on behalf of a Kentucky creditor who sought to collect a debt from a person who declared bankruptcy under New York law. In that case, Ogden v. Saunders U.S. 213 (1827), the Court concluded that the New York bankruptcy law was constitutional, so that the debtor was no longer liable to the Kentucky creditor. The case has been cited 86 times since it was decided, three times since I came on the bench." ^*

Other cases of note include: Groves v. Slaughter and Green v. Biddle.

Personality

According to Carl Schurz, Clay succeeded for the following reasons:

"Clay's quick intelligence and sympathy, and his irreproachable conduct in youth, explain his precocious prominence in public affairs. In his persuasiveness as an orator and his charming personality lay the secret of his power. He early trained himself in the art of speech-making, in the forest, the field and even the barn, with horse and ox for audience. By contemporaries his voice was declared to be the finest musical instrument that they ever heard. His eloquence was in turn majestic, fierce, playful, insinuating; his gesticulation natural, vivid, large, powerful."

"In public he was of magnificent bearing, possessing the true oratorical temperament, the nervous exaltation that makes the orator feel and appear a superior being, transfusing his thought, passion and will into the mind and heart of the listener; but his imagination frequently ran away with his understanding, while his imperious temper and ardent combativeness hurried him and his party into disadvantageous positions. The ease, too, with which he outshone men of vastly greater learning lured him from the task of intense and arduous study. His speeches were characterized by skill of statement, ingenious grouping of facts, fervent diction, and ardent patriotism; sometimes by biting sarcasm, but also by superficial research, half-knowledge and an unwillingness to reason a proposition to its logical results."

"In private, his never-failing courtesy, his agreeable manners and a noble and generous heart for all who needed protection against the powerful or the lawless, endeared him to hosts of friends. His popularity was as great and as inexhaustible among his neighbors as among his fellow-citizens generally. He pronounced upon himself a just judgment when he wrote: 'If any one desires to know the leading and paramount object of my public life, the preservation of this Union will furnish him the key.'"

Last years

Clay continued to serve both the Union he loved and his home state of Kentucky until June 1852 when he died in Washington, D.C. at the age of 75. He was buried in Lexington Cemetery. His headstone reads simply: "I know no North-no South-no East-no West."

Estate

Clay's Lexington home for many years was his farm and mansion, Ashland, named for the many ash trees on the property. He owned as many as 60 slaves at once. Rebuilt and remodeled by his heirs, Ashland is now a museum. The museum includes about 20 acres (81,000 m²) of the original estate grounds and is located on Richmond Road in Lexington. It is open to the public (admission charged). For several years, the mansion was used as a residence for the regent of the University of Kentucky.

Monuments and memorials

Henry Clay monument in Pottsville, Pennsylvania http://www.schuylkillhistory.org/henryclay.html
Clay Street in New Haven, Connecticut was named in his honor.
Mount Clay in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire was named for Clay.
Sixteen Clay counties in the United States are named for him: Clay County, Alabama, Clay County, Florida, Clay County, Georgia, Clay County Illinois, Clay County, Indiana, Clay County, Iowa, Clay County, Kansas, Clay County, Minnesota, Clay County, Mississippi, Clay County, Missouri, Clay County, Nebraska, Clay County, North Carolina, Clay County, South Dakota, Clay County, Tennessee, Clay County, Texas, and Clay County, West Virginia.
Ashland County, Ohio and Ashland County, Wisconsin was named for his estate, as was the city of Ashland, Kentucky.
In New Orleans: Uptown, Henry Clay Avenue, and Downtown twenty foot tall monument at the center of Lafayette Square.
There is a Henry Clay High School located in Lexington Kentucky. http://www.henryclay.fcps.net/index.htm

Trivia

Clay is remembered as "The Great Compromiser" or "The Great Pacificator" for his ability to bring others to agreement.
Clay introduced the mint julep to Washington, DC at the bar of the Willard Hotel, which still serves his recipe of the drink to this day.
Henry Clay is cited in Orison Marden's masterpiece "Pushing to the Front" as a sterling American success story, beginning his career as an orator speaking before a cow and a horse in his family barn.
Father of Congressman //bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000483 James Brown Clay.
A descendant was General Lucius Clay-son of Congressman Alexander Stephens Clay.

References

Secondary sources

Baxter, Maurice G. Henry Clay and the American System (1995)
Baxter, Maurice G. Henry Clay the Lawyer U. Press of Kentucky, 2000.
Brown, Thomas. Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party (1985) ch 5
Eaton, Clement. Henry Clay and the Art of American Politics (1957), short
Gammon, Samuel R. The Presidential Campaign of 1832 (1922)]
Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (1999) the standard history (over 1000 pages)
Knupfer, Peter B. "Compromise and Statesmanship: Henry Clay’s Union." in Knupfer, The Union As It Is: Constitutional Unionism and Sectional Compromise, 1787-1861 (1991), pp. 119-57.
Mayo, Bernard. Henry Clay, Spokesman of the West (1937)
Peterson, Merrill D. The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987)
Poage, George Rawlings. Henry Clay and the Whig Party (1936)
Remini, Robert. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991), a standard biography
Schurz, Carl. Life of Henry Clay: American Statesmen. 2 vol. (1899)
Strahan, Randall; Moscardelli, Vincent G.; Haspel, Moshe; and Wike, Richard S. "The Clay Speakership Revisited" Polity 2000 32(4): 561-593. Issn: 0032-3497
Van Deusen, Glyndon. The Life of Henry Clay (1937), a standard biography
Watson, Harry L. ed. Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America (1998) brief collection of readings
Zarefsky, David. "Henry Clay and the Election of 1844: the Limits of a Rhetoric of Compromise" Rhetoric & Public Affairs 2003 6(1): 79-96. Issn: 1094-8392

Primary sources

Clay, Henry. The Papers of Henry Clay, 1797-1852. Edited by James Hopkins, Mary Hargreaves, Robert Seager II, Melba Porter Hay et al. 11 vols. University Press of Kentucky, 1959-1992.
Clay, Henry. Works of Henry Clay, 7 vols. (1897)
, which was written by Carl Schurz.

External links

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