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Wikipedia Summary for Henry Clay
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House Speaker as well as the ninth Secretary of State, also receiving electoral votes for president in the 1824, 1832, and 1844 presidential elections. He helped found both the National Republican Party and the Whig Party. For his role in defusing sectional crises, he earned the appellation of the "Great Compromiser" and was part of the "Great Triumvirate" of Congressmen, alongside fellow Whig Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun.
Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1777, beginning his legal career in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1797. As a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Clay won election to the Kentucky state legislature in 1803 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810. He was chosen as Speaker of the House in early 1811 and, along with President James Madison, led the United States into the War of 1812 against Great Britain. In 1814, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which brought an end to the War of 1812, and then after the war, Clay returned to his position as Speaker of the House and developed the American System, which called for federal infrastructure investments, support for the national bank, and high protective tariff rates. In 1820, he helped bring an end to a sectional crisis over slavery by leading the passage of the Missouri Compromise.
Clay finished with the fourth-most electoral votes in the multi-candidate 1824 presidential election, and he helped John Quincy Adams win the contingent election held to select the president. President Adams appointed Clay to the prestigious position of secretary of state; as a result, critics alleged that the two had agreed to a "corrupt bargain". Despite receiving support from Clay and other National Republicans, Adams was defeated by Democrat Andrew Jackson in the 1828 presidential election. Clay won election to the Senate in 1831 and ran as the National Republican nominee in the 1832 presidential election, but he was defeated decisively by President Jackson. After the 1832 election, Clay helped bring an end to the Nullification Crisis by leading passage of the Tariff of 1833. During Jackson's second term, opponents of the president, including Daniel Webster, William Henry Harrison, and himself, created the Whig Party, and through the years, Clay became a leading congressional Whig.
Clay sought the presidency in the 1840 election but was passed over at the Whig National Convention by William Henry Harrison. When Harrison died and his vice president ascended to office, Clay clashed with Harrison's successor, John Tyler, who broke with Clay and other congressional Whigs after taking office upon Harrison's death in 1841. Clay resigned from the Senate in 1842 and won the 1844 Whig presidential nomination, but was narrowly defeated in the general election by Democrat James K. Polk, who made the annexation of the Republic of Texas his issue. Clay strongly criticized the subsequent Mexican–American War and sought the Whig presidential nomination in 1848, but was defeated by General Zachary Taylor who went on to win the election. After returning to the Senate in 1849, Clay played a key role in passing the Compromise of 1850, which postponed a crisis over the status of slavery in the territories. Clay is generally regarded as one of the most important and influential political figures of his era.
I am not, sir, in favor of cherishing the passion of conquest. I am permitted ... to indulge the hope of seeing, ere long, the new United States, (if you will allow me the expression,) embracing not only the old.
Recognize at all times the paramount right of your Country to your most devoted services, whether she treat you ill or well, and never let selfish views or interests predominate over the duties of patriotism.
Precedents deliberately established by wise men are entitled to great weight. They are evidence of truth, but only evidence...But a solitary precedent...which has never been reexamined, cannot be conclusive.
We have had good and bad Presidents, and it is a consoling reflection that the American Nation possesses such elements of prosperity that the bad Presidents cannot destroy it, and have been able to do no more than slightly to retard the public's advancement.
Honor and good faith and justice are equally due from this country toward the weak as toward the strong.
All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.
Let him who elevates himself above humanity ... say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise.
I have no commiseration for princes. My sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind .
A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation's inheritance. They awe foreign powers, they arouse and animate our own people.
The colors that float from the masthead should be the credentials of our seamen. There is no safety to us, and the gentlemen have shown it, but in the rule that all who sail under the flag (not being enemies) are protected by the flag.
In a scheme of policy which is devised for a nation, we should not limit our views to its operation during a single year, or even for a short term of years. We should look at its operation for a considerable time, and in war as well as in peace.
Their disappearance from the human family would be no great loss to the world.
There is no power like oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears, Cicero by ... swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished; that of the other continues to this day.
Impart additional strength to our happy Union.?Diversified as are the interests of its various parts, how admirably do they harmonize and blend together!?We have only to make a proper use of the bounties spread before us, to render us prosperous and powerful.
Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation.
How often are we forced to charge fortune with partiality towards the unjust!
I always have had, and always shall have, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rights, its usages and observances.
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.
Political parties serve to keep each other in check, one keenly watching the other.
I had rather be right than be President.
An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break their fetters.
Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.
Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.
Statistics are no substitute for judgment.
I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.
I would rather be right than President.
The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.
Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.
If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.