Henry Clay: The Great Compromiser

Henry Clay: The Great Compromiser

Henry Clay is probably the most famous Congressman to have never been elected President. He was known as the Great Compromiser, and was a member of the Congress for 40 years. Clay was a member of the “Great Triumvirate” along with Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. In his time in Washington he ran for president 5 times, but was never successful. He founded the Whig party, and was instrumental in defining the issues of the second party system. He also served as the Secretary of State and Speaker of the House of Representatives. In 1957 he was voted as one of the 5 greatest senators by a committee headed up by John F. Kennedy.(1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clay)

Henry Clay was born to the Reverend John Clay and Elizabeth Hudson Clay on April 12, 1777 in Handover County, VA. Three years later in 1780 his father died leaving his mother to care for Henry and his 8 brothers and sisters alone. She soon married CPT. Henry Watkins who became an affectionate step-father to young Henry Clay. He received his elementary education from a very formal British teacher. He then earned a job as a shop assistant in Richmond shortly after his family moved to Kentucky. He was placed in a boy’s club where he was further educated and raised to manhood. Later he gained employment with the Court of the Chancery under Theodore Wythe, then the Chancellor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. where he proved himself adept at understanding the intricacies of the law. The Chancellor took an active interest in Clay’s future and got him a position with Virginia’s Attorney General Robert Brooke. Young Henry Clay then went on to the College of William and Mary to receive his formal legal education, and entered the Bar in 1797. In search of a lucrative area to open his practice, Clay went to Lexington KY where he opened a very successful law practice. He became known as a powerful courtroom orator, and his reputation grew.

Clay began his political career in 1803 when he was elected to the Kentucky State House of Representatives as a Democratic Republican. (2) (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000482) At the age of 29 Clay got his first taste of action on the national political stage when he was elected to the United States Senate on November 19, 1806 to replace Senator John Adair. He served in the Senate until March 19 1807, when he was still under the constitutionally mandated age of 30. Clay returned to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1808, and was elected Speaker a year later in 1809. Henry Clay was elected again to the Senate to fill the vacancy left when Buckner Thruston resigned on January 14 1810. He Served there until his successful bid for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1812 as a Democratic Republican. On the first day of the session 34 year old clay was selected as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, a feat that has never before or since been accomplished.(1) During the next 14 years he was elected to the House and selected as the Speaker all 5 times he ran. Prior to his speakership the Speaker of the House was a moderator. When Clay took over he made it a position of power almost equal to that of the President of the United States. He appointed members of his War Hawk group to all the influential committees thus giving him control of the house almost by himself. As the leader of the House he furthered the goals of his War Hawk faction by supporting the War of 1812, and later the peace talks and signed The Treaty of Gent on Christmas Eve 1814.

Along with John C. Calhoun, Clay advocated the Tariff of 1816 creating a large tax on imported goods, to improve domestic manufacturing and production. This was the cornerstone piece of legislation of Henry Clay’s “American System” which basically advocated the advancement of American industry, and encouraged people to buy domestic goods instead of those imported from abroad, mostly Great Brittan. Clay proposed that the if the east voted to spend the additional revenue from the tariff of 1816 on roads and canals to the western states then the west would support the tariff.(3)

The 1820’s marks the “Golden Age” of Henry Clay and the “Great Triumvirate”. The first major piece of legislation during this time was the Missouri Compromise. In 1817 Missourians petitioned for statehood as a slave state since most of those in Missouri