Henry Clay, The Great Compromiser, Missouri Compromise, The compromiso of 1850

1. Arnaldo Perez
History of United States
Prof. Miguel Gonzalez

2. Personal
Facts
NAME: Henry Clay
OCCUPATION: U.S.
Representative, lawyer
BIRTH DATE: April 12, 1777
DEATH DATE: June 29, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH: Hanover
County, Virginia
PLACE OF DEATH: Washington,
D.C.
FULL NAME: Henry Clay Sr.
"The Great Compromiser” and
"The Great Pacifier"

3. Early Years
Clay was raised with modest wealth, the seventh of nine
children born to Reverend John and Elizabeth Hudson
Clay.
His link to American history came at an early age. He was
3 years old when he watched the British troops ransack his
family home.
After a minimal formal education, In 1797 moved to
Kentucky at the age of 20 and settled in Lexington. Clay
read law and gained admission to the bar in both Virginia
and Kentucky in 1797. With great success, he got aided
by his sharp wit and nimble mind.
He became a leading real estate and business lawyer in
Frankfort, Kentucky and soon embarked on a career in
politics.

4. Marriage
Lucretia Hart, the daughter
of a wealthy Lexington
businessman, in 1799. The
two remained married for
more than 50 years, having
11 children together.

5. Political Start
Clay was elected to the Kentucky House of
Representatives in 1803 and served to 1806.
Next, he served as Senator from Kentucky, from
1806 to 1807, and then returned to the State
House of Representatives, from 1807 to 1809.
In 1810 Clay returned to the Senate and served
until 1811.
Democratic-Republican
National Republican
Whig

6. Jobs at Goverment
United States Senator from Kentucky
9th United States Secretary of State
8th, 10th and 13th Speaker of the United States House of
Representatives
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 3rd
district
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 2nd
district
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 5th
district

7. Controversy in the
Constitution
In 1806, after a stint in
the Kentucky
legislature, he was
elected to fill the
unexpired term of a
U.S. senator who had
resigned. Clay took the
seat, although he was
four months younger
than the constitutional
age requirement of 30.

8. Treaty of
Ghent
1812-1814

9. Young Statesman
On other fronts, Clay took
head-on some of the
biggest issues of the day.
He pushed for
independence for several
Latin American republics,
advocated for a national
bank and, perhaps most
significantly, argued
strongly and successfully
for a negotiated
settlement between
slave-owning states and
the rest of the country
over its western policy.

10. The Missouri
Compromise
Was passed in 1820
between the pro-slavery
and anti-slavery factions
in the United States
Congress, involving
primarily the regulation of
slavery in the western
territories. It prohibited
slavery in the former
Louisiana Territory north
of the parallel 36°30′
north except within the
boundaries of the
proposed state of
Missouri.

11. Cont.
Clay earned the sobriquet "Great Compromiser" by
crafting three major legislative compromises over the
course of 30 years. Each time, he pulled the United
States from the brink of civil war. In 1820 and 1821,
he used his role as Speaker of the House to broker
the Missouri Compromise, a series of brilliant
resolutions he introduced to defuse the pitched battle
as to whether Missouri would be admitted to the
Union as a slave state or free state. Although he
owned slaves himself, Clay anguished about slavery,
which he called a "great evil." He believed slavery
would become economically obsolete as a growing
population reduced the cost of legitimate labor. Under
Clay's compromise, Missouri was admitted as a slave
state and Maine as a free state.

12. The United States in 1819 (the light orange and light green areas
were not then part of the United States). The Missouri
Compromise prohibited slavery in the unorganized territory of the
Great Plains (upper dark green) and permitted it in Missouri
(yellow) and the Arkansas Territory (lower blue area).

13. Election of 1824 “Corrupt Bargain”
Clay’s appointment as Secretary of State stirred controversy.
After the votes were counted in the U.S. presidential election
of 1824, no candidate had received a majority of the
Presidential Electoral votes, thereby putting the outcome in
the hands of the House of Representatives. To the surprise
of many, the House elected John Quincy Adams over rival
Andrew Jackson. It was widely believed that Henry Clay, the
Speaker of the House at the time, convinced Congress to
elect Adams, who then made Clay his Secretary of State.

14. Tarrif of 1828
The Tariff of May 19, 1828,
was a protective tariff passed
by the U.S. Congress. It was
the highest tariff in U.S.
peacetime history up to that
point, enacting a 62% tax on
92% of all imported goods.
The goal of the tariff was to
protect northern U.S.
industries by placing a tax on
low-priced imported goods,
which had been driving
northern industries out of
business. Nevertheless, the
South strongly resisted the
Tariff of 1828 for several
reasons.

15. Whig Party
One of the political parties that emerged from the demise
of the Democratic-Republican Party. Members of the
Whig Party believed in a strong federal government, tariff
protection, a strong national bank, and federally
sponsored communication projects. All of this together
was called the "National System," a focus on the
strengthening of the country as a whole through the
federal government, rather than through the state
governments, as was preferred by the newly formed
Democratic Party. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were
important early members of the Whig Party.

16. Presidency
Clay ran for President, but was beaten. Again in 1832, just
as the new party was formed, he ran a second time.
Although he was beaten for the Presidency by Andrew
Jackson, he was the life and soul of his party. It was his
eloquence, the music of his words, that made men Whigs.
On one occasion, Clay spoke on the question of the
Abolition of Slavery. Some one said that this might hurt his
chances of being President. Clay replied: "I had rather be
right than be President.”
Finally, in 1844, he was again the Whig candidate, but he
was defeated for the third time. When the Whig party had a
good chance of electing a President, they nominated
somebody else. When they had a poor chance they
nominated Henry Clay!

17. In 1850, with the question raised of whether California should become part
of the U.S. as either a slave state or a free state, Clay stepped to the
negotiating table once more. The compromise, Drafted by Whig Senator
Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democrat Stephen
Douglas, avoided secession or civil war and reduced sectional conflict for
four years. In addition, the bill covered the settlement of the Texas
boundary line, the fugitive slave law and the abolition of the slave trade in

18. Influence in Abraham
Lincoln
Over the course of his long
career, Clay's skills
became renowned in
Washington, D.C., earning
him the nicknames The
Great Compromiser and
The Great Pacificator. His
influence was so strong
that he came to be
admired by a young
Abraham Lincoln, who
referred to Clay as "my
beau ideal of a statesman."

19. Death
Clay died in 1852. Despite his brilliant
service to the country and three separate
campaigns, he never attained his greatest
ambition–-the presidency. A man of
immense political abilities and
extraordinary charm, Clay won widespread
admiration, even among his adversaries.
John C. Calhoun, whom he had bested in
the Compromise of 1850, once declared, "I
don't like Clay. . . . I wouldn't speak to him,
but, by God! I love him.”

20. “Sir, I would rather be right than
to be President.”
“Of all the properties which
belong to honorable men, not
one is so highly prized as that of
character.”
“The Constitution of the United
States was made not merely for
the generation that then existed,
but for posterity- unlimited,