"I would rather be right than
President," answered Henry Clay, when someone told him that his stand
against slavery would cost him the election.
Clay was five times a candidate for U.S. President, once coming within 5,000 votes.
The
son of a Baptist minister, Henry Clay studied law under George Wythe,
served in Congress over 40 years, and was elected Speaker of the House 6
times.
Henry Clay stated in 1841:
"Patriotism,
which, catching its inspiration from the immortal God...animates and
prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death
itself-that is public virtue, that is the noblest, the sublimest of all
public virtues."
Clay
was part of the "Great Triumvirate," with Daniel Webster and John
Calhoun which led Congress during the early to mid-1800's.
He
helped negotiate the treaty that ended the War of 1812 and was key to
John Quincy Adams being the 6th President instead of Andrew Jackson.
In
1824, Clay supported the Greeks who wished to be free from the Muslim
Ottoman Empire, and he supported South Americans wanting freedom from
Spain.
Abraham Lincoln described Henry Clay in a eulogy, July 6, 1852:
"When Greece rose against the Turks and struck for liberty, his name was mingled with the battle-cry of freedom.
When South America threw off the thraldom of Spain, his speeches were read at the head of her armies by Bolivar.
His
name has been, and will continue to be, hallowed in two hemisphere...
Clay was without an equal...He exorcised the demon which possessed the
body politic...
Mr. Clay's efforts in behalf of the South
Americans, and afterwards, in behalf of the Greeks, in the times of
their respective struggles for civil liberty are among the finest on
record."
In
1832, when an Asiatic Cholera epidemic ravaged New York, Henry Clay
recommended a Day of: "Public humiliation, prayer and fasting to be
observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity."
Henry
Clay was second cousin's of abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, and in
1816, helped establish the American Colonization Society to aid free
American blacks in founding Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa.
Clay addressed the Kentucky Colonization Society in Frankfort, 1829:
"Eighteen
hundred years have rolled away since the Son of God, our blessed
Redeemer, offered Himself on Mount Calvary for the salvation of our
species...
When we shall, as soon we must, be translated from
this into another form of existence, is the hope presumptuous that we
shall behold the common Father of the whites and blacks, the great Ruler
of the Universe, cast his all-seeing eye upon civilized and regenerated
Africa, its cultivated fields, its coasts studded with numerous cities,
adorned with towering temples dedicated to the pure religion of His
Redeeming Son?"
Known
as "The Great Compromiser," Clay opposed the Mexican-American War, and
struggled to maintain the Union between the North and the South by
proposing "The Compromise of 1850."
Henry Clay told the Senate, February 5, 1850:
"I
hope it will not be out of place to do here, what again and again I
have done in my private chamber, to implore of Him who holds the
destinies of nations and individuals in His hands, to bestow upon our
country His blessing, to calm the violence and rage of party, to still
passion, to allow reason once more to resume its empire.
And
may I not ask of Him too, sir, to bestow on his humble servant...the
blessing of his smiles, and of strength and ability to perform the work
which now lies before him?...
I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me...that
if
the direct event of the dissolution of this Union is to happen, I shall
not survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle."
Nine year before the Civil War began, Henry Clay died from tuberculosis on JUNE 29, 1852.
He was the first American to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
The
State of Kentucky placed a statue of Henry Clay in the U.S. Capitol's
Statuary Hall. Fifteen counties across America are named after him.
In 1957, a Senate Committee headed by John F. Kennedy named him one of the 5 best Senators ever.
Rep. John C. Breckinridge recalled Henry Clay as having said:
"The
vanity of the world, and its insufficiency to satisfy the soul of man,
has been long a settled conviction of my mind. Man's inability to secure
by his own merits the approbation of God, I feel to be true...
I trust in the atonement of the Saviour of mercy, as the ground of my acceptance and of my hope of salvation."
Warning America, Henry Clay addressed the Senate, July 22, 1850, stating:
"If
there be a war...I will not assert what party would prevail...for you
know, sir, what all history teaches...that few wars...have ever
terminated in the accomplishment of the objects for which they were
commenced...
Think alone of our God, our country, our
consciences, and our glorious Union; that Union without which we shall
be torn into hostile fragments, and sooner or later become the victims
of military despotism, or foreign domination..."
Get the book, America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations
Clay continued:
"What
will be the judgment of mankind...who are looking upon the progress of
this scheme of self-government as being that which holds out the highest
hopes...of ameliorating the condition of mankind...
Will not all the monarchs of the old world pronounce our glorious republic a disgraceful failure?
When
you come into the bosom of your family...to converse with the partner
of your fortunes...and...she asks you, 'Is there any danger of civil
war? Is there any danger of the torch being applied to any portion of
the country?'...
What response, Mr. President, can you make to
that wife of your choice, and those children with whom you have been
blessed by God? Will you go home and leave all in disorder and
confusion... Sir, we shall stand condemned by all human judgment...
It
is possible that, for the chastisement of our sins and transgressions,
the rod of Providence may be still applied to us, may be still suspended
over us...
I pray to Almighty God that it may not lead to the most unhappy and disastrous consequences to our beloved country"
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