On June 29, 1852, statesman Henry Clay, known as "the Great Compromiser" for his feats of legislative reconciliation between the North and the South, died at the age of seventy-five at the National Hotel in Washington, D.C. In his will, Clay freed the slaves of "Ashland," his Kentucky plantation. Born on a farm in Virginia on April 12, 1777, Clay practiced law in Virginia and Kentucky before embarking on a political career which included tenures as U.S. representative, senator, and secretary of state. Clay was charming, self-confident, and ambitious, but his hot temper led him to fight two duels over matters of honor.
Clay lost two presidential elections as the Whig Party candidate and was frustrated of his party's nomination on several other occasions, yet he remained a guiding force in American political life, exercising leadership of his party in both the House and the Senate. As Speaker of the House of Representatives (1811 to 1814), he advocated United States entry into the War of 1812 with such nationalistic fervor that he earned himself the sobriquet "War Hawk." He also played a role in the negotiation of that war's peace as a member of the commission that drafted the Treaty of Ghent.
Representing the state of Kentucky in the U.S. Congress, Clay eloquently promoted the "American System," his plan for the support of domestic industry and agriculture through improved transportation routes, a protective tariff, and a national bank.
In 1820, Clay negotiated the passage of the first of the three pieces of legislation which were to earn him the title of "Great Pacificator." The Missouri Compromise soothed the anxieties of both Southern and Northern factions by maintaining a balance between the number of states that permitted slavery and those that prohibited slavery.
When his first bid for the presidential nomination proved unsuccessful, Clay gave his support and influence to John Quincy Adams for the election of 1824. When Adams won the election, he appointed Clay as secretary of state. Clay's enemies charged him with having struck a corrupt bargain with Adams, and the bitter accusation of "bargain and sale" haunted Clay for the rest of his political career.
A Jeffersonian Republican, Clay advocated the gradual abolition of slavery. He was an active member of the movement to resettle freed slaves in Liberia, which was led by the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States.
Clay's efforts to balance the rights of free and slave states postponed the outbreak of the Civil War. With South Carolina's Senator John C. Calhoun, Clay drafted another piece of compromise legislation which enabled the passage of the 1833 tariff, thus averting the Nullification Crisis. Clay opposed the annexation of Texas because the state's entry into the Union would have upset the balance of slave and free states. This stance would cost him the presidential election of 1844.
The last compromise bill to which Clay lent his eloquence was the Compromise of 1850. With orators Daniel Webster and Stephen Douglas, Clay argued pleadingly for tolerance among factions and for the preservation of the Union. At the end of his famous speech of February 6, 1850, Clay prayed that he would not live to see the dissolution of his beloved nation. His prayer was granted on this day in 1852.
