Henry Clay Letters

Biography of Henry Clay

Statesman, Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, founder of the Whig party and a five time Presidential candidate.

Henry Clay was born on April 12, 1777 in Hanover County, Virginia. His family, which grew to include sixteen children, would move to Versailles, Kentucky to run a tavern, leaving the young Clay in the care of a boy’s club. When he was sixteen, he was hired as a secretary by the lawyer George Wythe, who went on to teach him law at the College of William and Mary. Clay was admitted to the bar in 1797 and began practicing in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1799, he married Lucretia Hart, starting a family of six daughters and five sons.

In 1811, Clay was elected to the House of Representatives and was immediately voted Speaker of the House and changed that position from one of rule enforcement and mediation to one of power. He appointed members of the War Hawk faction to all committees, thus giving him control of the House and facilitating the War of 1812. Praised for his skills as an orator, Clay was highly influential and supported such policies as the American System, which featured tariffs and improvements to infrastructure, and the Missouri Compromise. He ran for President several times. Though successful in none of them, he was influential in John Quincy Adams' 1824 election, and the President immediately appointed him Secretary of State. Clay created the Whig Party in 1836 and as a Senator continued to influence policy, handling the Nullification Crisis in 1833 and helping to work out the Compromise of 1850. Clay was still a Kentucky Senator when he died in Washington, DC, June 29, 1852 at the age of 75.