Henry Clay

Henry Clay was born in Hannover County, Virginia in 1777. He received very little formal education as a youth, but managed to read law under George Wythe and eventually gain admission to both the Virginia and Kentucky bar in 1797 at the age of twenty-two. After gaining admission to the bar, Clay gradually worked to become a well-respected real estate and business lawyer in Frankfort Kentucky.

Clay’s political career began only five years after he gained admission to the bar. He was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1803 and served until 1806. In 1806 he was elected to fill the unexpired term of a U.S. senator who had resigned. Clay took the position despite the fact that he was four months younger than the constitutionally required age of thirty.3 He served as Senator from Kentucky until the term expired in 1807, and then returned to the State House of Representatives where he served as Speaker of the House from 1807 to 1809. In 1810 he returned to the Senate where he served until 1811.2 Clay served as a U.S. Representative from 1811 to 1825. He was elected to serve as Speaker of the House on his first day in office and held the Speaker position for a majority of the years that he spent in the House of Representatives.3 While he was in the House of Representatives, Clay became a leader of an anti-British group of congressman known as the War Hawks.2 The War Hawks were a group of young congressman who wanted to agitate the public into supporting a war with Great Britain in order to remedy what the War Hawks perceived to be Great Britain’s poor treatment of the United States. Clay’s role as a leader of the War Hawks ultimately contributed to the commencement of the War of 1812.3 Two years after the War of 1812 began, Clay served on the Peace Commission which negotiated the Treaty of Ghent with Great Britain in 1814.1 In 1825 after a failed presidential campaign, Clay was appointed Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams.3 He served in that position for four years before being elected to the U.S. Senate where he served from 1831 to 1842 and again from 1849 to 1852.3 Clay earned the moniker “The Great Compromiser” during this period due to his role in crafting three major legislative compromises.3 The Missouri Compromise came about as a result of the tension between whether or not Missouri would be admitted to the union as a slave state or a free state.3 The tension almost brought about a civil war, but Clay worked to broker a compromise where Missouri would be admitted as a slave state but Maine would be admitted as a free state.3 In 1833 South Carolina passed an ordinance that nullified a federally instituted protective tariff.3 President Jackson threatened to use military troops against South Carolina if they did not enforce the tariff.3 Once again the country was on the brink of a civil war but Clay stepped in and facilitated a compromise where South Carolina would collect the tariff in exchange for the tariffs automatic repeal in seven years.3 In 1850 Clay was once again called upon to resolve an issue involving slavery.3 The Compromise of 1850 was authored by Clay and was designed to settle how slavery would be dealt with in the territory that was ceded to the United States after the conclusion of the Mexican-American War.3 The Compromise of 1850 was Clay’s third legislative act that likely averted a civil war.3

Clay died in 1852 at age seventy-five.3 His dedication to the maintenance of the union was summed up later by Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi who suggested that, “Had there been one such man in the Congress in the United States as Henry Clay in 1860-’61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war.” Clay was admired by those who agreed with him and respected by those who disagreed with him. John C. Calhoun, whom Clay had bested in the Compromise of 1850, once declared, "I don't like Clay. . . . I wouldn't speak to him, but, by God! I love him."