HENRY CLAY: KENTUCKY'S GREATEST STATESMAN

Sponsor: Kentucky Humanities Council and National Endowment for the Humanities CLE Credit: 1.0 Thursday, June 18, 2015 2:35 p.m. - 3:35 p.m. Thoroughbred 1-3 Lexington Convention Center Lexington, Kentucky

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The materials included in this Kentucky Bar Association Continuing Legal Education handbook are intended to provide current and accurate information about the subject matter covered. No representation or warranty is made concerning the application of the legal or other principles discussed by the instructors to any specific fact situation, nor is any prediction made concerning how any particular judge or jury will interpret or apply such principles. The proper interpretation or application of the principles discussed is a matter for the considered judgment of the individual legal practitioner. The faculty and staff of this Kentucky Bar Association CLE program disclaim liability therefore. Attorneys using these materials, or information otherwise conveyed during the program, in dealing with a specific legal matter have a duty to research original and current sources of authority.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS The Presenter .................................................................................................................. i

Biographical Sketch......................................................................................................... 1

The Attorney ................................................................................................................... 3

The Statesman .............................................................................................................. 11

Henry Clay's Ten Most Significant Accomplishments .................................................... 13

THE PRESENTER

George J. McGee Georgetown College 108 Forest Path Georgetown, Kentucky 40324-9078 (859) 372-6670 [email protected]

GEORGE J. MCGEE is a professor of theatre at Georgetown College. He received his B.F.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University and his M.F.A. from Florida Atlantic University. He has worked in theatre, film, radio and television, including the Kennedy Center, The Burt Reynolds Theater, the Palm Beach Children's Theatre, network television, and will appear in the upcoming KET documentary on the Kentucky Humanities Council's "Chatauqua" program. He also worked on the KET "Drama Tool Kit" and appeared in the KET video as Kentucky painter Paul Sawyier. He recently portrayed Henry Clay for the Witnessing History documentary, Henry Clay and the Struggle for the Union. Professor McGee's short film, doc-doc, has been shown in film festivals in Ireland, England and Wales. His play, A Fence for Martin Maher, received the Kentucky Historical Society Commendation Award for Public Education, and was performed in Kentucky, and in Kilkenny, Ireland, as part of the 2010 National Heritage Week.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Dr. Thomas D. Clark Courtesy of Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, Kentucky Reprinted with permission from http://henryclay.org/?page_id=367

On June 29, 1852, Henry Clay asked his son Thomas to come and sit by his bedside. Just before the hour of noon, "The Great Compromiser" drew his last breath. At that point his life became a completed major chapter in the political history of the United States. Henry Clay had lived through and served in some political position for a half a century. No single statement would adequately cover his active public life. Clay claimed to have been cradled in the American Revolution, a claim which had some substantial fact behind it. He was born the seventh son of nine children to Reverend John and Elizabeth Hudson Clay on April 12, 1777. As a three-year-old he had seen the British troops under the notorious raider Banastre Tarleton ransack his family home. As a youth Clay had grown up in a rural slaveholding environment in Hanover County, Virginia, a county which had spawned Patrick Henry and other Virginia political leaders. In his political life Clay was to make some stout claim to having been a mill boy of the Slashes. More importantly his widowed mother had married Captain Henry Watkins who was able to get the adolescent Clay into Peter Tinsley's chancery office as a clerk. Clay entered this public service in a lowly position with only a limited amount of formal education. In Tinsley's office, and then as an amanuensis in Chancellor George Wythe's office the young Clay developed a clear and precise angular style handwriting which remained clear until almost the moment of his death. During more than half a century Henry Clay was to produce literally thousands of handwritten letters, legal briefs, and public documents. Little could that youth of twenty years of age, and a newly licensed attorney to practice his profession in Virginia, have imagined on that November morning, 1797, when he set forth to find clients and fortune in Kentucky, that the expanding West would become so vital a part of his life. In Lexington, Clay presented his Virginia license to the court and was given one to practice in Kentucky. Almost immediately the young Virginian entered into the public and social life of rapidly expanding central Kentucky. Within a decade he established a reputation as a highly successful trial lawyer. He made a successful marriage with Lucretia Hart, the daughter of one of Kentucky's major pioneering land families. Almost by force of environmental and family circumstances, Henry Clay was to become a major land owner, livestock breeder, and farmer. For half a century Ashland was to become not only a family home to the Clays, but also a focal agricultural center in Kentucky, and a national one in politics. Henry Clay began his political career in 1803 when he was elected to the Kentucky General Assembly. In that body his Jeffersonian views were pitted against the conservative federalist one of Humphrey Marshall, a fact which resulted in a somewhat comic opera duel. In 1806 Clay was employed to defend Aaron Burr, a ticklish task which he abandoned when he was appointed to the United States Senate that year at the very young age of twenty-nine years. On January 11, 1808, he was chosen Speaker

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of the House of Representatives, and in January 1810 he was returned to the U.S. Senate. However, in August of that year he was elected once again to the House of Representatives and served as speaker in the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Congresses. Clay's was to be a major voice in the troubled years in American-British relations from 1808-1814. He served as commissioner to the joint American-British peace negotiations in Ghent, Belgium in 1814. Back home after 1815, Henry Clay became involved in nearly every national issue. He opposed the Adams-D'Onis Treaty, and supported the independence of the Latin American republics. The issues, however, which thrust him into the political limelight were the Missouri Compromise, the banking issues, opposition to Andrew Jackson, and promotion of his American System. No doubt the most important of these was the negotiation of the Missouri Compromise which was fundamental in maintaining American unity, providing some kind of workable sectional policy regarding slavery expansion, and some kind of western policy. At heart Henry Clay favored the gradual abolition of slavery as demonstrated in his strong support of the American Colonization Society attempt. There burned deeply in the Clay psyche a yearning to be President of the United States. He made his first gamble for this office in 1824 with only a remote chance of winning. In 1832 he once again attempted to be elected president. He suffered his most disappointing loss for the office in 1844. At the moment Henry Clay lay dying in Washington, he must have looked back upon his career as lawyer, state representative, United States Senator, Congressman, Speaker of the House, a peace commissioner, Secretary of State, on the Missouri Compromise, the compromise tariff bill revision in 1833, his American System, the Texas question, and the Compromise of 1850, his greatest victory. Through the bitter raw political years in American history, Henry Clay prevailed. Even in the face of great family tragedy, he prevailed. Contemporaries branded him with numerous political epithets, but these he survived. Few American politicians could claim so many victories, or engage in so many gambles, and still claim an exalted place in political history. Perhaps Henry Clay's greatest honor was the post mortem one he received when a great majority of American historians honored him as having been one of the greatest United States Senators. The name of Henry Clay was stamped deeply on the American political scene during his lifetime. But perhaps his true greatness has emerged since in the overflowing stream of impressive monographs and biographies of his life and achievements. In his image is reflected that of a young republic undergoing the trials and tribulations of becoming a mature, powerful nation.

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THE ATTORNEY Courtesy of Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, Kentucky Reprinted with permission from http://henryclay.org/?page_id=372

On October 4, 1996, the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, received the Henry Clay Medallion from the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation in Lexington. Justice O'Connor now serves as a National Advisor to the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship. Previous medallion recipients include former Speaker of the House Thomas S. Foley and historian Thomas D. Clark. Justice O'Connor offered the following remarks at a dinner in her honor at the Governor's Mansion in Frankfort, Kentucky. Speech by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor I am so happy to be here to talk with you about Henry Clay, a man who has had an incredible impact upon the history of our nation. In his fifty years of public service, Clay served as a congressman, a diplomat, and a senator – and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Clay himself is said to have remarked, "Sir, I would rather be right than be President." As I look back over his long and distinguished career, I am struck by the observation that Clay did just about everything there is to do in Washington except be president. When I think of Henry Clay, I am reminded of occasional visits to a lake in my youth. We have probably all tried our luck "skipping" flat stones across the surface of a pond or lake. With luck, a stone will skip along the water five or six times, creating rings of concentric circles that ripple out across the water long after the stone itself sinks below the surface. But soon the water surface returns to its original state – no better and no worse for the assault by the stone. Indeed, there is a poem that is relevant. Sometime, when you're feeling important, Sometime, when your ego's in bloom, Sometime, when you take it for granted, You're the best qualified in the room; Sometime when you feel that you're going, Would leave an unfillable hole, Just follow this simple instruction, And see how it humbles your soul. Take a bucket and fill it with water, Put your hand in it up to the wrist. Pull it out, and the hole that's remaining, Is a measure of how you'll be missed. You may splash all you please when you enter, You can stir up the water galore, But stop, and you'll find in a minute, That it looks quite the same as before. 3

The moral in this quaint example Is do just the best that you can, Be proud of yourself, but remember, There is no indispensable man. Henry Clay is a person who defies the message of the poem. He was certainly an indispensable man. His career skipped across the entire surface of American political waters, and we still feel the ripples of his actions today. Following two brief appointed terms in the U.S. Senate, Clay's career in national politics effectively touched down first in the House of Representatives, where he was elected Speaker in 1811 by a two-to-one margin at his first session. Before Clay's tenure, the Speaker's duties were largely ministerial and had little influence over the course of House politics. Clay, however, used his position as Speaker to appoint committee chairs who saw eye-to-eye with him and who would implement his political agenda. Thus, Clay was largely responsible for increasing the responsibilities – and the accompanying – power of the position of Speaker of the House. Nor did the Kentuckian let this influence go to waste. As one of the socalled War Hawks, Clay pressured President James Madison to take a stand against Britain, whose forces had conscripted American seamen and had armed the Indian tribes along the American frontier. Clay's pressure on the President led in large measure to the War of 1812. That conflict, in turn, resoundingly established America's independence from Britain. It also gave Andrew Jackson the chance to make a name for himself. (Jackson, of course, later defeated Clay in Clay's second bid for the presidency.) Not only was Clay instrumental in starting the war, he also played a hand in ending it, serving as one of the five delegates appointed by Madison to negotiate the peace treaty with Britain at Ghent, Belgium. As Speaker of the House, Clay also used his influence to push through Congress the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which postponed for many years the confrontation on the issue of slavery in the territories. In 1825, Clay moved from the legislative to the executive branch of the government to serve as secretary of state under President John Quincy Adams. As secretary, Clay was responsible for drafting the instructions for the American delegates dispatched to Panama for the Pan-American Conference in 1826. These instructions advocated "equality of commercial privileges" between the countries of the Western Hemisphere, disparaged the formation of Latin American monarchies, and encouraged the construction of a canal across the Panama isthmus. Unfortunately, the Pan-American Conference adjourned before the American delegates arrived! Nevertheless, Clay later considered these instructions to be one of his greatest accomplishments while in the president's cabinet.

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In 1831, Clay moved back to the Congress as a senator. It is here that the repercussions of Clay's actions are most evident, as he more than once helped to avert confrontations that might have precipitated the Civil War at a time when the Union was not strong enough to withstand the secession of the Southern states. The first confrontation arose in 1833, in response to the Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832. The tariffs protected the manufacturing industries of the northern and western states by assessing taxes on imported products; the tariff-inflated prices of the imported goods made it easier for the American manufacturers to compete in the marketplace, since their products were inexpensive when compared to the imported goods. However, the tariffs sparked the countries that exported goods to the United States to impose tariffs of their own on American exports. Thus, the tariffs that aided the infant manufacturing industries, at the same time harmed the established exporters of tobacco and cotton in the South. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina argued that the tariffs were unconstitutional and that individual states had the power to "nullify," or ignore, unconstitutional federal laws. President Andrew Jackson vigorously disagreed and threatened that he would not tolerate state nullification and would suppress it, by force if necessary. Into this tense situation stepped Henry Clay. Although he believed in the need for a strong protective tariff, Clay introduced the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which gradually decreased the tariff rate. His mediation mollified both Jackson and Calhoun and averted the need for Jackson to resort to force. Nearly twenty years later, Clay helped avert the crisis over the admission of California into the Union. California sought admission as a free state – or a state without slavery – which would have upset the delicate balance of power in Congress between free states and slave states. The Southern states vehemently opposed California's admission, while the Northern states argued that California should have the right to enter the Union as a free state if it so desired. Once again, Clay emerged as the agent of compromise. He introduced and promoted an omnibus bill that covered the admission of California, the settlement of Texas's boundary fine, the fugitive slave law, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and the recognition of the principle of popular sovereignty in territory acquired from Mexico. Although Clay's omnibus bill ultimately failed, Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed – and Congress enacted – five separate bills that accomplished the same goals. Even Douglas acknowledged that his separate bills would be "collectively Mr[.] Clay's compromise." Thus, the Compromise of 1850 came to be. The accomplishments I have mentioned are the ones that earned Clay the titles for which he is most well-known – as a "War Hawk" in his youth and as "The Great Compromiser" in his middle and later years. But a closer look at Clay's career reveals that he played a part in influencing another branch of the American government particularly important to me, the Supreme Court.

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In one respect, I should not have been surprised. Clay was, after all, a lawyer. Before his admission to the Virginia bar, Clay studied law under George Wythe, who had also trained John Marshall. Having the same teacher as one of the greatest United States chief justices could not have hurt Clay's chances at making his mark there. And Clay used his training to his advantage. He practiced briefly with Robert Brooke, a former Virginia governor, before heading through the Cumberland Gap to hang out his shingle in Lexington, Kentucky. While in Kentucky, Clay twice represented his friend Aaron Burr before a grand jury. In 1806, Attorney General Joseph Daveiss sought a subpoena to compel Burr to appear before a grand jury. Daveiss claimed that Burr had attempted to instigate war against the Spanish by organizing an attack against Mexico and the Floridas. Upon learning of Daveiss' actions, Burr immediately called upon Clay to represent him. Although the judge had already denied Daveiss's request for a subpoena, Clay strode into the courtroom and persuaded the judge to impanel a grand jury and then to dismiss the jury when Daveiss could not provide evidence to substantiate his claims. When Daveiss asked the judge for a second subpoena, Burr once again turned to Clay. By this time, however, Clay had been elected by the Kentucky legislature to serve out an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate. Clay expressed doubts about whether representing Burr might create a conflict of interest. Clay only agreed to represent Burr after Burr had written a letter assuring Clay that he was innocent of the charges. This time, the grand jury heard evidence but refused to indict Burr. Clay did not confine his practice to the Bluegrass State. He appeared before the Supreme Court no fewer than four times prior to becoming Speaker of the House in 1811. His years in Washington as a representative, as secretary of state, and finally as a senator were marked by numerous appearances before the High Court. He often argued with – and against – Daniel Webster, another prominent Washington lawyer and politician. The two of them came to be known as "the Ajax and the Achilles of the Bar." Some of the cases Clay argued continue to be cited as precedent today. In Osborn v. United States, 34 U.S. 573 (1824) 1, Clay argued on behalf of the Bank of the United States, which was a nationwide bank chartered by Congress. Clay challenged the constitutionality of an Ohio tax levied upon the bank and sought an injunction to force the state's auditor to return the improperly seized taxes. The Supreme Court agreed with Clay and ordered the auditor to return the taxes. In doing so, the Court found that the Eleventh Amendment – which bars lawsuits against the states – did not apply to the state auditor. Osborn is still relevant today: It has been cited twenty-six times since I took the bench in 1981, and was cited just

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Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 22 U.S. 738 (1824).

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last term by Justice David Souter in a dissent. (See Seminole Tribe. 2) Nor is Osborn the only case argued by Clay to be cited in recent times. Clay also argued on behalf of a Kentucky creditor who sought to collect a debt from a person who declared bankruptcy under New York law. In that case, Ogden v. Saunders, 25 U.S. 213 (1827), the Court concluded that the New York bankruptcy law was constitutional, so that the debtor was no longer liable to the Kentucky creditor. The case has been cited eightysix times since it was decided, three times since I came on the bench. Other cases Clay argued are just as important for what they did not decide. For example, in Groves v. Slaughter, 40 U.S. 449 (1841), a Mississippi resident bought slaves from a trader but refused to pay him. The resident claimed that Mississippi's constitution prohibited 'all slave trading after May 1, 1833,' and that he had purchased the slaves after that date. The Mississippi constitution, he concluded, rendered the trader's claim unenforceable. Clay disagreed with the resident, claiming that the state constitutional provision at issue lacked the force of law until the Mississippi legislature enacted implementing legislation. The Supreme Court agreed with Clay. What I find most interesting about this case is what the Court did not decide. The Court did not hold that slaves were property that could be transported and traded in any state or territory without regard to an individual state's constitutional provisions. In fact, this is what the Court would decide sixteen years later in the infamous Dred Scott 3 decision, a decision that is thought to have hastened the Civil War. By not reaching this issue in Groves, the Court provided the nation with a reprieve from the consequences of its unhappy decision in Dred Scott. Clay's advocacy before the Court also launched a new chapter in the Court's decision-making process in Green v. Biddle, 21 U.S. 1 (1823). When Green, a Kentucky landowner, sued to remove Biddle, a trespasser, from his land, Biddle invoked two Kentucky laws that would have required Green to pay Biddle for certain improvements he had made to the land. Green responded that the state laws were unconstitutional. Green noted that under an interstate compact between Kentucky and Virginia, the Bluegrass State had promised to follow Virginia land law. Virginia land law did not give trespassers like Biddle the right to compensation for improvements; Green claimed that the Kentucky laws invoked by Biddle conflicted with Virginia law and were therefore unconstitutional. Biddle's attorneys did not appear to argue his case, and the Supreme Court found in Green's favor. Henry Clay, as amicus curiae – which is Latin for "friend of the Court" – asked the Supreme Court to rehear the case so that Biddle could have his day in court. The Supreme Court granted Clay's request. On Biddle's behalf, Clay argued that Virginia could not dictate which laws Kentucky 2

Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996).

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Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).

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enacted and that the Kentucky laws were therefore constitutional. In a split decision the Court reaffirmed its original decision and again struck down the Kentucky laws. Even though he did not prevail in Green v. Biddle, Clay was the very first person to appear as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court. Such "friends of the Court" appear in most of the cases our Court hears today, although they no longer ask the Court to rehear cases. The "friends" who appear today usually file briefs calling our attention to points of law, policy considerations, or other points of view that the parties themselves have not discussed. These amicus briefs invaluably aid our decision-making process and often influence either the result or the reasoning of our opinions. As a result of his appearance in Green, Clay was largely responsible for inaugurating an institution that has since shaped much of this Court's jurisprudence. Yet, Henry Clay's contributions to the Supreme Court ripple far beyond his skills as an advocate. As a senator, Clay had a great influence in selecting the Court's personnel. In 1836, Clay fought strenuously to have the Senate reject President Jackson's nomination of Roger Taney for the position of chief justice. Taney and Clay had clashed a few years earlier. In 1833, Jackson had ordered his Secretary of the Treasury, Wilham Duane, to withdraw the government deposits from the Bank of the United States in the hope that the bank would collapse without the government monies. When Duane refused to follow Jackson's orders, the president fired him and appointed Taney to the position. Taney carried out Jackson's wishes without question. Clay, a strong advocate of the bank, was so incensed by Jackson's – and Taney's actions – that he persuaded the Senate to enter into its official journal a censure of Jackson. Clay's ire over this incident carried over into Taney's confirmation hearings but did not prevent the nominee's confirmation. Two decades later Taney would pen the Dred Scott decision. Despite his failure to keep Taney from the Court, Clay's influence over the confirmation process was very strong. After Clay lost the Whig Party presidential nomination to William Henry Harrison in 1840, he was relieved to see Harrison prevail over Martin Van Buren and the Whigs gain control of the White House. The victory was short-lived, however, once Vice-President John Tyler ascended to the presidency following Harrison's death. Tyler's repeated vetoes of congressional attempts to charter a national bank effectively alienated him from the Whigs. So disgusted was Clay by Tyler's actions that he resigned from the Senate in 1842. Clay's absence, however, did not prevent the Senate from blocking Tyler's efforts to fill four out of the five Supreme Court vacancies that arose during his presidency. Clay also came close to serving as an associate justice. On August 25, 1828, while President Adams was in the midst of a bitter presidential campaign against Andrew Jackson, Justice Robert Trimble died. In an effort to fill the position while he still had the authority to do so, Adams first offered it to Charles Hammond, an Ohio lawyer. When Hammond declined, Adams turned to Clay. Clay also declined and urged Adams to nominate his long-time friend and fellow Kentuckian John J. Crittenden for

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the position. In the ensuing months, Crittenden became a pawn in the political battle between Jackson and Adams; the Jacksonians in Congress managed to table Crittenden's confirmation until the presidential election. When Jackson won, Crittenden lost all chance of confirmation. It is difficult to say whether Clay declined Adams's offer because he feared his nomination might reach the same fate as Crittenden's or whether he felt he had other ambitions to pursue. In either case, Henry Clay never became Justice Clay. But that is not to say that Clay's personality, or his name, did not have a profound impact on presidents, members of this Court, or their ancestors. Abraham Lincoln was one of Clay's greatest admirers. The young Lincoln campaigned for Clay during Clay's second bid for the presidency in 1832. Lincoln's respect for Clay lasted long after Clay's death in 1852. During the summer of 1858, when Lincoln campaigned against and debated with Stephen Douglas in a race for the Senate, Lincoln described Clay as his "beau-ideal of a statesman." Justice John Marshall Harlan also deeply respected Clay. Justice Harlan served on the Court nearly forty years, from 1877 until his death in 1911. The Kentuckian is best known for his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson4, where he stated that "our Constitution is color-blind." Justice Harlan's father was one of Clay's best friends, and Justice Harlan named one of his sons after Clay. Even my own family tree is not immune from Clay's powerful influence. My grandfather was born in Vermont in 1844. His name? Henry Clay Day. Given all of these accomplishments and accolades, Clay's career truly did dance across the waters of American history, and the impacts he made in the institutions he touched were many and profound. Their ripples are still felt today. During his last term as a senator, just two years before his death in 1852, Clay said: "The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity-unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity." Henry Clay did not act solely for his generation. Without Henry Clay there might not have been any amicus appearances in the United States, nor a Compromise Tariff, nor a Compromise of 1850; the Civil War might have started earlier and the outcome of that war might have been different. Henry Clay acted for posterity's sake. And for that, I am grateful. Reprinted from The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 4, No. 4, Autumn, 1996

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163 U.S. 537 (1896).

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THE STATESMAN Courtesy of Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, Kentucky Reprinted with permission from http://henryclay.org/page_id=371

From the birth of the American Republic in 1789, deep differences between two of its regions, North and South, coupled with westward expansion, nearly plunged the nation into civil war on three separate occasions before guns actually opened up upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Each time, one man – one statesman – forged a compromise. That man – that statesman – was Henry Clay of Kentucky. Early in his life, Henry Clay came to Kentucky and was elected to Congress. A "War Hawk," Clay evolved into a diplomat, negotiating the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812. Clay was soon thereafter elected to the United States House of Representatives. With the petitioned statehood of Missouri in 1820, the nation faced its first crisis over whether to admit a state from the Louisiana Purchase as a free state or slave state. Speaker of the House Henry Clay defused the crisis, deemed by former president Thomas Jefferson as a "firebell in the night," by crafting the Missouri Compromise. A second time, sectional strife flared up as the post-War of 1812 Tariff brought cries of "nullification" and even "secession" from South Carolina in the early 1830s. After months of rising threats of civil war, Senator Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1833, averting disunion and bloodshed. Then, nearly twenty years later, the admission of California as a slave or free state was at stake. At no time in its history had the American Republic been brought so close to civil war, facing a situation seemingly beyond compromise. For a third time, Senator Henry Clay skillfully fashioned a compromise – the Compromise of 1850 – staving off a bloody civil war for more than a decade. Henry Clay was, indeed, the "Great Compromiser," the "Great Pacificator." Abraham Lincoln regarded Henry Clay as the greatest statesman the nation had ever produced, calling him "my beau ideal of a statesman." Without question, Henry Clay's ideals of statesmanship and compromise continue to be relevant and necessary in today's increasingly turbulent and divided world.

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HENRY CLAY'S 10 MOST SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS Courtesy of Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, Kentucky Reprinted with permission from http://henryclay.org/?page_id=3

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Henry Clay was "The Great Compromiser." As a statesman for the Union, his skills of negotiation and compromise proved invaluable in helping to hold the country together for the first half of the 19th century. His compromises quelled regionalism and balanced states' rights and national interests. As a result, the Civil War was averted until it could not be avoided and the nation could survive it.

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Henry Clay actively encouraged United States participation in the War of 1812. However, he later served as a member of the treaty delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, playing an important role in helping to end the war and protect American interests. As a result, the United States emerged as a nation of importance and influence in the world.

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Henry Clay changed the role of Speaker of the House and made it the powerful position it is today. Henry Clay held that office longer than anyone in the history of the House of Representatives, other than Sam Rayburn.

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Henry Clay's support of the emerging South American republics played a significant role in helping a number of them survive the process of becoming independent nations. He became as popular a figure in parts of South America as Simon Bolivar.

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Henry Clay argued many times before the U.S. Supreme Court. In so doing, he introduced the concept of the Amicus Brief to Supreme Court jurisprudence. Henry Clay's cases continue to be cited on a regular basis today. On a visit to Ashland in 1996, Sandra Day O'Connor noted two cases which had been cited twenty-eight times since her joining the bench in 1981. O'Connor also noted one of the cases had been cited eighty-six times overall.

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As an attorney, Henry Clay was one of the most successful of his era. He won far more cases than he lost, becoming prominent enough to represent the likes of Aaron Burr and Cassius Clay.

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As a farmer, Henry Clay became one of the most respected breeders and scientific farmers in the country. He introduced Hereford Cattle to the United States and became one of the most successful providers of mules to the South.

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As a horseman and lover of racing, Henry Clay played a major role in Lexington, Kentucky becoming "The Horse Capital of the World." His prominence as a political figure combined with his love of attending races, made it socially "in vogue" to attend. His success as a breeder drew the attention and admiration of the best horsemen in the country at that time. The blood of his horses still runs in the best Thoroughbreds today. He owned the first syndicated Thoroughbred stallion in America.

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9.

Henry Clay influenced a great many future political leaders with his ideology and style. Abraham Lincoln said of Clay that he was "my beau ideal of a statesman" and adopted much of his political ideology himself.

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Henry Clay gave his country nearly half a century of service as a Representative, Senator and Secretary of State. In so doing, Henry Clay became one of the most important political figures of his era. In fact, Henry Clay continues to be one of the most influential of Americans. In the 1950s, Clay was named by a panel of historians and Senate leaders as one of the five greatest senators of all time.

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