Henry ClayThe Great Peacemaker
On April 12, 1777, Henry Clay, the son of a poor Baptist clergyman, was born in Virginia in the country known as the “Slashes of Hanover.” His earliestrecollections were of the death of his father when he was four years old and of Tarleton’s troops passing his home and carrying off slaves, provisions, and even his mother’s clothing.
In boyhood Henry Clay worked hard to aid his widowed mother. He turned his hand to such work as came up—plowing the fields around his home, and, like many another country boy, going to the grist mill with his bag of corn to be ground into meal. In later years he received, in memory of his boyhood struggles, the nickname of “the Millboy of the Slashes.”
He studied reading, writing, and arithmetic in an “old field school,” worked a while as clerk in a store, and then studied law. In those days there were no law schools in the country, and Clay, like other aspiring young men, gained the necessary training from a few books, a little instruction in a law office, and practice in the courts.
At twenty the new-fledged lawyer, went west to make his home in the Blue Grass region of Kentucky which had been but a few years a state. This adopted state was his home thenceforth and all his interests were identified with it. He worked with indomitable energy. In order to train and modulate his defective voice he went out in the barnyard and argued his cases before the pigs and cows. He used to say that the brutes of the farm were the best audiences he ever had.
Clay secured a good practice, married well and livedhappily at Ashland, a farm just outside Lexington, which he bought about the time of his marriage. Remembering his own struggles and the kindness extended him during those years, he was always interested in ambitious young men and ready to help them with money, advice, and influence.
At the age of twenty-nine, Clay was appointed to represent Kentucky in the United States Senate for an unexpired term. He early formulated his “American system” declaring himself in favor of internal improvements, building up home industries, and distributing surplus money from the sale of public lands among the states, according to population. In 1811 he was in favor of war with Great Britain; as Speaker of the House, “The War Hawk,” as he was called, did much to bring it about. He was one of the men sent in 1814 to make terms of peace with England, and it was largely through his labors that favorable terms were secured.
Clay admired General Jackson’s military ability but he censured the invasion of Spanish territory in Florida and the two men became bitter and relentless enemies.
In 1820 began the career for which he is famous—that of the “Great Pacificator,” trying to avert conflict between the north and the south, the free and the slave states. It was largely through his influence that the contest was so long postponed. Clay was not the author of the Missouri Compromise—as the bill was calledwhich provided that Missouri should be admitted to statehood without restriction as to slavery—but it was through his influence that it was passed. Although he struggled to adjust differences and keep the peace, he stood fearlessly by what he thought was right.
On one occasion Clay consulted a friend about the stand he was preparing to take on a public question. The friend suggested that the course he planned might injure his political prospects. His reply was, “I did not send for you to ask what might be the effects of the proposed movement on my prospects, but whether it is right. I would rather be right than be president.”
His life-long ambition was to become president, and he was several times a candidate and once seemed on the eve of victory only to be defeated. The Great Peacemaker was too moderate for either side. The north accused him of favoring slavery, the south of making war against established institutions. He was not, however, in favor of freeing slaves, except gradually, and then of colonizing them. His own slaves were well-treated and loved him dearly.
Clay was one of what is called the Great Triumvirate, composed of the three foremost leaders in Congress; Webster and Calhoun were the other two. The three were in many ways rivals for power and popularity, but they united in opposing Jackson—who, securein the favor of the people, held his own against all three.
In 1833 Clay, the “Great Compromiser,” carried his second great compromise act, securing the passage of a tariff bill which caused South Carolina to withdraw her Nullification Act.
“There is one man and only one man who can save the Union,” said John Randolph of Roanoke just before his death. “That man is Henry Clay. I know he has the power—I believe he will be found to have the patriotism and firmness equal to the occasion.” His patriotism and firmness were indeed equal to his power.
In 1850 the friction between the slave and free states became so great that war seemed inevitable. In order to maintain peace, Clay, then an old and feeble man of seventy-three, gave up private for public life and returned to the senate. For the last time the Great Triumvirate met in Congress. Clay was so feeble that he had to be helped up and down the steps of the Capitol, but with unquenched energy and fire, he appealed to the people’s patriotism and urged them to uphold the Union. Through his influence, the compromise measures of 1850 were adopted and peace was again restored for a time.
He could well say near the close of his life, “If any one desires to know the leading and paramount objectof my public life, the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key.”
The great leader grew gradually weaker and passed away, June 29, 1852. His body was carried back to Kentucky and laid to rest in the state he so loved.
“I am a Whig,” he said once: “I am so because I believe the principles of the Whig party are best adapted to promote the prosperity of the country. I seek to change no man’s allegiance to his party, be it what it may. A life of great length and experience has satisfied me that all parties aim at the common good of the country. The great body of the Democrats, as well as the Whigs, are so from a conviction that their policy is patriotic. I take the hand of one as cordially as that of another, for all are Americans. I place country far above all parties. Look aside from that and parties are no longer worthy of being cherished.”
“I know no south, no north, no east, no west,” he said, at another time. It was such sentiments as these that made him Lincoln’s ideal of a statesman. The conflict he had striven to avert was postponed—but it came. His children and grandchildren fought, some on one side some on the other. Two of his grandchildren who were brothers fought on opposite sides and both fell in battle. Such was the War between the States.