Henry Clay: The Great Compromiser
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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)(
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) (
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