(April 12, 1777–June 29, 1852), was an American politician. He served as a U.S. Senator and Representative. He was elected Speaker of the House six times, and for nearly forty years was a leading American statesman. Clay was part of the “Great Triumvirate,” with Daniel Webster and John Calhoun which dominated Congress during the early to mid–1800’s. Known as The Great Compromiser, Clay was able to keep the Union between the North and the South together for many years. He was a Presidential Candidate several times but never elected.
In 1839, when he was about to give a speech in which he would declare himself against slavery, one of his friends warned him that this would ruin his chances to become President. To this, Henry Clay gave his reply:
I would rather be right than President.1752
In 1829, speaking to the Kentucky Colonization Society at Frankfort, Henry Clay proclaimed:
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; and more than half of mankind still continue to deny His Divine mission and the truth of His sacred Word. …
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?1753
In a conversation with Representative John C. Breckinridge, Henry Clay declared:
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.1754
Henry Clay stated:
That 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 sublimest of all public virtues.1755
In 1832, New York was gripped by an outbreak of Asiatic cholera. Henry Clay asked for a Joint Resolution of Congress to appoint a Committee to request the President to set a Day of:
Public humiliation, prayer and fasting to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity.1756
In his speech introducing a resolution to the Senate, Henry Clay beseeched:
Think alone of our God, our country, our consciences, and our glorious Union—that Union without which we shall be torn into hostile fragments. … [the bill’s] fate is now committed to the Senate, and to those five or six votes to which I have referred. …
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. …
and I pray to Almighty God that it may not … lead to the most unhappy and disastrous consequences to our beloved country.1757
On January 29, 1850, Henry Clay, in his attempt to avert the coming national crisis, presented The Compromise of 1850. In his speech on the 5th and 6th of February, 1850, Henry Clay expressed:
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, now before his, the blessing of his smiles, and of strength and ability to perform the work which now lies before him?. …
Finally, Mr. President, and in conclusion, I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me, upon earth, 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.1758
Henry Clay confided with Representative Venable:
I am not afraid to die, sir; I have hope, faith, and some confidence; I have an abiding trust in the merits and mediation of our Saviour. The vanity of the world, and its insufficiency to satisfy the soul of man, has been long a settled conviction in 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, and the ground of my acceptance and of my hope of salvation.1759