Henry Clay

Henry Clay (April 12, 1777 in Hanover County, Virginia – June 29, 1852 in Washington, D.C.) was an American statesman and orator who served in both the House of Representatives and Senate. He also made five failed bids for the presidency, but was nevertheless extremely influential in U.S. politics.

Slavery

Henry Clay was only twenty-two, when, as an opponent of slavery, he vainly urged an emancipation clause for the new constitution of Kentucky. Clay never ceased regretting that its failure put his state, in improvements and progress, behind its free neighbors. In 1820, he congratulated the new South American republics on having abolished slavery. The same year, the threats of the Southern states to destroy the Union caused him to advocate the Missouri Compromise which, while keeping slavery out of the rest of the territory acquired by the Louisiana Purchase north of Missouri's southern boundary, permitted it in that state. Then, greeted with the title The Great Pacificator as a reward for his success, he retired temporarily to private life, with a larger stock of popularity than he had ever had before.

Related Topics:
Emancipation - Constitution - 1820 - South American - Louisiana Purchase - Missouri

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At various times, he helped to strengthen the law for the recovery of fugitive slaves, declining as Secretary of State to aid the United Kingdom in the further suppression of the slave trade, and demanding the return of fugitives from Canada. He was for years the president of the American Colonization Society which deported free black Americans to the Society's private colony, Liberia, on the west coast of Africa.

Related Topics:
Canada - American Colonization Society - Liberia - Africa

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Henry Clay believed that slavery was the "deepest stain upon the character of the country," opposition to which could not be repressed except by "blowing out the moral lights around us" and "eradicating from the human soul the light of reason and the law of liberty."

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Clay generally favored freedom of speech and press as regards the question of slavery. When the slave power became more aggressive, in and after the year 1831, Clay defended the right of petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and opposed John C. Calhoun's bill forbidding the use of the mails to transmit abolition newspapers and documents. He was lukewarm toward recognizing the independence of Texas, lest it should aid the increase of slave territory.

Related Topics:
1831 - District of Columbia - John C. Calhoun's - Texas

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Yet his various concessions and compromises resulted, as he himself declared, in the abolitionists denouncing him as a slaveholder, and the slaveholders as an abolitionist. In 1839, only twelve months after opposing the pro-slavery demands, he prepared an elaborate speech, in order to set himself right with the South, which, before its delivery, received pro-slavery approval. While affirming that he was "no friend of slavery," he held abolition and the abolitionists responsible for the hatred, strife, disruption and carnage that menaced the nation. In response, Calhoun extended to him a most hearty welcome, and assigned him to a place on the bench of the penitents. Being a candidate for the presidency, Clay had to take the insult without wincing. It was in reference to this speech that he made the oft-quoted remark that he "would rather be right than be president." While a candidate for president in 1844, he opposed in the Raleigh letter the annexation of Texas on many grounds except that of its increasing the slave power, thus displeasing both anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions.

Related Topics:
1839 - Candidate for the presidency - Candidate for president - 1844 - Raleigh letter

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