Clay, Henry

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Henry Clay

Born April 12, 1777 (Hanover County, Virginia)

Died June 29, 1852 (Washington, D.C.)

Statesman, U.S. senator, congressman

Henry Clay, a Virginian by birth and a Kentuckian by choice, was a fearless fighter for the cause of liberty and for the strength of the Union. A brilliant public speaker, he also inspired the common man in his role as an elected official. Clay was a man of action who successfully moved important legislation through Congress. Key to his success was his skill for compromising and for bringing different groups together for the common good.

Clay served many years in the U.S. House of Representatives, including ten years in an important position of leadership as Speaker of the House. He served in the U.S. Senate briefly from 1806 to 1807, again from 1810 to 1811, and then from 1831 until his death in 1852. Under President John Quincy Adams (1767–1848; served 1825–29), Clay served as secretary of state from 1825 until 1829. In 1824, 1832, and 1844, Clay ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. presidency.

"[I was] rocked in the cradle of the Revolution.... I was born a democrat—was raised and nurtured a Republican."

Young Henry

Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia, near present-day Richmond. His parents were John Clay and Elizabeth Hudson, and his ancestors were some of the earliest Virginia settlers. While not wealthy, John Clay, a Baptist minister, kept his family financially comfortable. When Henry, the seventh of eight children, was four years old, his father died. The following year, Henry's mother married Captain Henry Watkins, a soldier, prosperous farmer, and kind stepfather.

Clay's formal education was limited to about three years in rural Virginia schools, but he was bright and had a talent with the spoken word. When orators, such as Patrick Henry (1736–1799; see box), passed through his community, Clay was intrigued and impressed by their speeches. In time, he learned to successfully imitate their persuasive manner of speaking.

Patrick Henry

Throughout his youth, Henry Clay was influenced by orators of great prominence during America's early years of independence. None were more gifted than Virginia legislator and prominent lawyer Patrick Henry. He was born into a wealthy Virginia family in Hanover County, Virginia. After trying other careers, Henry entered the legal profession. Largely self-taught, he gained acceptance to practice law. His oratory skills carried him forward quickly in his profession. Soon, in December 1763, he won a major court victory over the colonial government. This victory gained him great popularity and launched his political career.

Henry began serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the colonial legislature, just after the Stamp Act of 1765 was imposed by the British. The Stamp Act imposed a tax on all documents and various other items in the colonies, requiring colonists to purchase a stamp for each item. Henry led the charge in condemning what he asserted was an illegal measure exceeding British Parliament's authority over the colonies. Between his orations and the Stamp Act resolutions he drafted, Henry became a leading figure in the move towards independence.

In September 1774, Henry attended the First Continental Congress and captured attention with his speeches against British rule. When he attended the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, he made his famous statement, "Give me liberty or give me death!" From that time forward, Henry chose to serve only in Virginia public offices; however, his influence extended far beyond his state. In early 1776, he attended the Virginia convention that adopted a resolution for independence, a state constitution, and a Declaration of Rights. More than a decade later, this declaration came to serve as a model for the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Henry was elected the first governor of Virginia and served two terms, from 1776 to 1779 and 1784 to 1786.

Henry declined to attend the Constitutional Convention in 1787. As an ardent anti-Federalist, he opposed the creation of a strong federal government in the new U.S. Constitution. Recognizing Henry's broad influence, George Washington, who presided over the Convention, sent Henry a personal copy of the new Constitution with a letter asking his support. However, Henry became a leading spokesman against Virginia ratification of the Constitution in 1788. When Virginia narrowly voted for approval, Henry called for a second Constitutional Convention to change the Constitution, but to no avail. Through the early 1790s, Henry spoke out against the economic policies of Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804; see entry in volume 1). However, by the mid-1790s, Henry saw a need for greater political and economic stability in the nation and began supporting Federalist measures. President Washington offered him positions as secretary of state, attorney general, Supreme Court justice, and foreign diplomat. Henry declined, partly due to poor health.

In March 1799, Henry ran successfully again for the Virginia legislature, but he died before taking office. Henry was the most well known anti-Federalist in the early Republic, greatly distrusting strong central governments. Though he never held public office in the new national government, he was one of the more influential participants in debates over the key issues.

Clay's stepfather used his influence to secure a job for fifteen-year-old Henry as a court clerk. George Wythe (1726–1806), a prominent Virginia lawyer and professor at the College of William and Mary, recognized the intelligence of the sociable and talkative young man. Wythe had a habit of discovering rising leaders of Virginia. He had taught both Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–9; see entry in volume 1), who became the third U.S. president, and John Marshall (1755–1835; see entry in volume 2), who served as a powerful chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Wythe oversaw Clay's education in literature, history, and the law. Clay decided to pursue a legal career and completed his training under Virginia attorney general Robert Brooke.

A Kentucky lawyer and legislator

Meanwhile, Clay's parents moved west to Kentucky, and the young lawyer followed in early 1798. Settling in the high-spirited community of Lexington, Clay had all the work he could handle, representing clients in disputes over land claims. Before long, he was known as the best attorney in Kentucky. He debuted on the political scene with a fiery speech attacking the 1798 Alien and Sedition Laws, repressive legislation intended to suppress growing attacks on the administration of President John Adams (1735–1826; served 1797–1801; see entry in volume 1).

In 1799, Clay married Lucretia Hart, a member of a prominent Kentucky family. Just like Wythe a few years earlier, the wealthy and connected of Kentucky viewed Clay as a rising political star. In 1803, he began his public career when elected to the Kentucky legislature, and he quickly gained a reputation as an able lawmaker. During this time, his fame grew when he successfully defended former U.S. vice president Aaron Burr (1756–1836; see entry in volume 1), who was accused of a conspiracy against the U.S. government in the western states.

Clay served in the Kentucky legislature from 1803 to 1809, except for a few months in late 1806 and early 1807. In November 1806, the legislature sent twenty-nine year-old Clay to the U.S. Senate to fill an unexpired term in the Senate. Either no one noticed or everyone overlooked the fact that he was not yet thirty, the required age to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Jeffersonian Republican

Throughout Clay's long and eventful political career, he always maintained that he was a Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican. This group generally supported the power of state government over the central or federal government. More importantly for Clay, the political base of Democratic-Republicans came from farmers. Most rugged, independent westerners, those living in the region west of the Appalachian Mountains and extending to the Mississippi River, including those in Kentucky, were Democratic-Republicans. President Jefferson and James Madison (1751–1836; see entry in volume 2), Jefferson's secretary of state and the fourth president of the United States, were the leaders of the Democratic-Republicans.

After more outstanding service in the state legislature, in January 1810 Clay again returned to the U.S. Senate to fill an unexpired term. At the time, U.S. relations with Britain were severely strained, and war seemed to be on the horizon. For years, Britain had been seizing U.S. ships on the high seas and taking not only cargo but American seamen as well. The practice of capturing seamen and forcing them to work on British ships was called impressment. Americans were outraged. All diplomatic efforts to calm the situation had failed.

Clay's talent for combining words into moving speeches had increased with experience. He gave impassioned speeches in the Senate in favor of strengthening the central government to resist European threats.

Representative Clay

In August 1810, rather than run for the seat he had filled in the Senate, Clay chose to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Elected by a wide majority, he began service in the House in March 1811. Clay joined a group of newly elected Democratic-Republican representatives from the West and South that demanded war with Britain. The group, known as war hawks, pushed the nation toward war, a war that was declared in 1812.

Clay was immediately elected as Speaker of the House, a position he would hold a total of ten years, longer than anyone in the nineteenth century. Clay elevated this position to the second most powerful office in the government. Madison, chief author of the U.S. Constitution, had intended the Speaker of the House to merely facilitate House activities. Instead, Clay managed and controlled the House. He set up and chose members of committees and then decided when to refer bills to committees. He also maneuvered to hold onto the right of the Speaker of the House to participate in debate and to cast a vote.

Diplomat

In 1814, President Madison sent Clay to Ghent, Belgium, as one of the five American commissioners charged with negotiating an end to the War of 1812 (1812–15). The British marched on Washington, D.C., in August 1814 and burned most of the city's public buildings, including the capitol and the President's House. However, only a few days later, Americans successfully resisted British troops at Baltimore, and the British retreated. American troops had also halted a British advance toward New York City. As both countries grew weary of war, Clay and the commissioners were able to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814.

Clay remained in England for a few months to develop a trade treaty in which Britain and the United States agreed to give first preference to each other's products. This idea developed into a foreign policy still used in the twenty-first century and known as the "most favored nation" policy.

American system

Clay returned to the United States in 1815 and resumed his role as Speaker of the House of Representatives. In support of President Madison's programs for strengthening the nation through internal improvements and protections for U.S. industries, Clay developed the "American System."

The American System was based on four points: (1) issuance of protective tariffs, fees on goods brought into the United States so that those imported goods cost more than goods manufactured at home; (2) improvements of internal roads, bridges, and canals connecting manufacturing and shipping industries of the East Coast with western farmland; (3) the recommendation that money received from western land sales be used for schools and internal improvements such as roads; and (4) the reestablishment of a national bank whose charter had expired in 1811. Although Democratic-Republicans had traditionally opposed a national bank and instead supported state banks, most Democratic-Republican leaders had come to the understanding that a national bank was essential for organizing finances, developing businesses, and making internal improvements. Not only was Clay's American System intended as a cornerstone of economic growth but as a means of unifying the nation.

Many of Clay's plans for the American System became reality. Congress passed three protective tariffs of 1816, 1824, and 1828, and passed measures to use money received from settlers purchasing western land for the nation's road building projects, the creation of schools, and the establishment of the Second National Bank in 1816. In order for a legislator to see so many of his proposals passed, he had to be a compromiser, one who could bring warring factions together for a common good. Clay's mastery of that skill led Americans to call him the "Great Compromiser." A key piece of legislation illustrating his legislative skills was the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Missouri Compromise

Like former President Jefferson and President Madison, Clay deplored slavery but had no solution to the problem. And like Jefferson and Madison, he owned slaves but wanted to see them gradually freed. Nevertheless, early in his career, he stopped promoting the end of slavery in Kentucky when he realized it was an unpopular and seemingly impossible cause.

When Missouri applied for statehood as a slave state in 1818, the bitter controversy that erupted between slave and non-slave states threatened the Union. By 1820, Clay worked out a compromise. Missouri entered statehood as a slave-state, Maine was admitted as a free state, while all territory north of Missouri would be carved into non-slave states.

Secretary of state runs for the presidency

After years of public service, Clay experienced financial problems. In 1821, he retired for a few years to "Ashland," the home he had built in 1811 near Lexington, and successfully rebuilt his finances by returning to his legal practice. In 1823, he self-confidently returned to the position of Speaker of the House. A year later, he mounted his first presidential campaign. The three other candidates were U.S. senator Andrew Jackson (1767–1845; see entry in volume 1) of Tennessee, military hero of the Battle of New Orleans; Secretary of State John Quincy Adams; and Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford (1772–1834). No candidate received a majority, so under law, the House of Representatives was required to choose the next president from the top two vote-getters. Of the four candidates, Clay had received the fewest number of votes, but the powerful Speaker of the House gave his support to Adams.

President Adams selected Clay as his secretary of state. Jackson supporters claimed Clay had thrown his support over to Adams in exchange for the Cabinet post, a scheme referred to as the "corrupt bargain." But Clay countered that he was merely backing the candidate whose views were closest to his. Clay relished the appointment since the secretary of state post had often led to the presidency, a job he very much wanted. As secretary of state from 1825 to 1829, he actually accomplished little primarily due to opponents in Congress who followed the leadership of Jackson. Jackson believed that Clay, as Speaker of the House during the 1824 presidential election, used his influence to block Jackson's presidency. Jackson and Clay became and remained strong enemies.

Clay ran for the presidency again in 1832 and 1844, but he was defeated in both attempts. However, in 1831, when the general public did not yet elect senators, the Kentucky legislature elected Clay to the U.S. Senate. He remained in the Senate until his death.

Great Compromiser

Clay's political career as the Great Compromiser is noted for not only the Missouri Compromise of 1820 but also for the Compromise Tariff of 1833 and the Compromise of 1850. Like the Missouri Compromise, the other two compromises were aimed at reducing sectionalism (severe differences) among the states and holding the Union together.

Compromise Tariff of 1833

With the Compromise Tariff of 1833, Clay again avoided a serious break in the Union. A predominately agricultural state, South Carolina, imported most of its manufactured goods from European countries. South Carolinians hated the series of protective tariffs that hindered trade by increasing the cost of imported goods. In response to the protective tariff passed in 1828, Vice President John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), a South Carolinian, asserted that a state did not have to abide by a law if the state believed that the law passed by the U.S. Congress was unconstitutional.

Congress passed yet another protective tariff in 1832. Outraged, the South Carolina legislature passed the Ordinance of Nullification, which declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 "null and void." President Jackson threatened to send U.S. troops into South Carolina to force compliance with the law. Clay stepped in and negotiated a compromise tariff that lessened the burden of import fees. South Carolina withdrew the Nullification declaration, and Clay's compromising skills had once again averted a rift in the Union.

Compromise of 1850

A series of proposals related to slavery was collectively called the Compromise of 1850. These proposals staved off the Civil War (1861–65) for a decade. By 1850, the Northern free-states were locked in bitter controversy with Southern slave states. Clay worked out a brilliant set of compromises. In the South, Clay persuaded Texas to give up its claims on New Mexico for the sum of $10 million, an amount that Texas needed for debt repayments. Second, the Fugitive Slave Law, which returned runaway slaves to their owners, was strengthened. For the North, Clay introduced proposals to ban slavery in California as it entered the Union, to ban slavery in Washington, D.C., and to not mention slavery when the territories of New Mexico and Utah were created.

Clay combined all the measures into one bill, but the bill was defeated at the end of July 1850. However, shortly thereafter, each bill was reintroduced individually and passed.

Laying in state

Although he was disappointed at never serving as president, Clay remained a passionate lawmaker until the end. He died from tuberculosis in Washington, D.C., in 1852. His body was placed in the Capitol's rotunda, so that mourners could pay their respects; it marked the first time a person was "laid in state" in such a manner in the Capitol Building.