The Great Compromiser

“I’d rather be right than President.” – Henry Clay

To understand the magnitude of today’s quote, you have to understand Henry Clay’s lifelong ambition to become President of the United States.

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky in 1810 at the age of 34, Clay became the youngest person – and the first freshman – to be elected Speaker. He was subsequentially re-elected Speaker five times, serving a cumulative 10 years and 196 days, the second longest tenure in congressional history. Beginning in 1818, Clay introduced and vigorously supported an economic plan known as the “American System”, which included protective tariffs and infrastructure investments.

In 1824, Clay ran for president for the first time but finished fourth. Since no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes, the election was decided by the House of Representatives. Clay threw his support to John Quincy Adams, enabling him to defeat Gen. Andrew Jackson, which infuriated the general. Adams then appointed Clay as Secretary of State, a move his critics labeled the “Corrupt Bargain” in a mean-spirited attempt to tarnish Clay’s reputation.

Clay ran for the presidency a second time in 1832 but was soundly defeated by his nemesis, President Jackson. He spent most of the next 20 years serving in the U.S. Senate, forming what became known as “The Great Triumvirate” with Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. In 1840, Clay was passed over for the Whig Party’s nomination, losing out to a ticket of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler. However, when Harrison died shortly after taking office and Tyler was expelled from the party, the Whigs enthusiastically offered Clay their nomination in 1844. Unfortunately, the “Great Compromiser” as he was called because of his ability to forge legislative alliances for the good of the country, narrowly lost the general election to James K. Polk.

Four years later, Clay tried one last time to ascend to the presidency, but the Whigs turned to Gen. Zachary Taylor instead. Embittered by the loss, as well as by the death of his son Henry Clay Jr. in the Mexican-American War, Clay returned to the U.S. Senate where he helped craft the Compromise of 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between the free and slave states, thereby postponing the Civil War by a decade.

Henry Clay died of tuberculosis on June 29, 1852 ,and was the first person to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. His headstone reads, "I know no North—no South—no East—no West". Meanwhile, the famous hymnwriter Fanny Crosby eulogized Clay with the following stanza…

Sleep on, oh, statesman, sleep
Within thy hallowed tomb,
Where pearly streamlets glide,
And summer roses bloom

In 1956, more than 100 years after Clay’s death, Sen. John F. Kennedy was appointed to chair a committee to select the five greatest senators in American history. Kennedy and his fellow committee members sent a survey to more than 150 historians and political scientists, while also seeking recommendations from current senators, prominent former senators and other public figures including the two living former presidents, Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman.

Three senators were almost universally named – Clay, Webster, and Calhoun – the Great Triumvirate, who were widely regarded as the gold standard of effective and consequential senators. Robert Taft of Ohio, a conservative, and Robert LaFollette Sr. of Wisconsin, a progressive, eventually rounded out the five honorees.

Today, Henry Clay, a man who put principle above party and country before his own personal political ambitions, is one of the "famous five" senators honored with their portraits in the Senate Reception Room.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President