Henry Clay-Where Are You Know?

“I would rather be right than be President,” so said Henry Clay. Henry Clay was a compromiser. He was known as the “Great Pacificator” or the “Great Compromiser.”

He played a more integral part of our country than anyone other than our Founding Fathers. Yet few today have heard of him. How is this possible?

Born in 1777 in Hanover, VA, Clay moved to Kentucky as a young man and studied law. He entered the state’s House in 1803 and became Speaker of the U.S. House his first year, in 1811

Clay’s greatest political ambition was to be President. He was an official candidate in 1824, 1832, and 1844. Besides being a successful attorney in Kentucky, in roughly 50 years, he was in the state assembly, the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and served as Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams.

It could be argued that Henry Clay saved the Country from going to Civil War on numerous occasions. Those arguments could be substantiated by history.

The first such occasion was the Missouri Compromise. As Speaker of The House during this critical time, he was able to pass the historic legislation. It can not be argued that without this defining moment, the duality of Americana would have been at war.

The last such event in which he was involved was thirty years later in the Compromise of 1850.

In between though years, he created what he called The American System, tariffs and internal improvements that would have made The United States a better and stronger nation.

It could feasibly be argued that if he had been elected President the Civil war might never have happened.

This could have happened because in his last race for the Presidency, in 1844, he lost by roughly 5000 votes. My personal opinion is that the election was stolen from him by James K. Polk working closely with his mentor, former President and Clay foe Andrew Jackson.

The War with Mexico would never have happened under Clay, he didn’t have the lust for expansionism the way Old Hickory and his Protégée, Young Hickory (as Polk was called) did. That war led to the renewed fervor over states rights that finally exploded with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.