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Henry Clay: The Essential American
The epic life and times of one of the most important political figures in our history. He was the Great Compromiser, a canny and colorful legislator and leader whose life mirrors the story of America from its founding until the eve of the Civil War. Speaker of the House, senator, secretary of state, five-time presidential candidate, and idol to the young Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay is captured in full at last in this rich and sweeping biography that vividly portrays all the drama of his times.David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler present Clay in his early years as a precocious, witty, and optimistic Virginia boy, raised on a farm, who at the age of twenty transformed himself from bumpkin to attorney—a shrewd and sincere defender of the ordinary man who would be his eventual political base. The authors reveal Clay’s tumultuous career in Washington, one that transformed the capital and the country. Nicknamed “the Western Star,” Clay became the youngest Speaker of the House shortly before the War of 1812 and transformed that position into one of unprecedented power. Then, as a senator, he joined and sometimes fought John Calhoun and Daniel Webster to push through crucial legislation affecting everything from slavery to banking. Commonly regarded as the greatest U.S. senator in history, Clay served under ten presidents and overshadowed most of them, with the notable exception of his archrival Andrew Jackson. Clay ran unsuccessfully for president five times, and his participation in the deadlocked election of 1824 brought about the “Corrupt Bargain” with John Quincy Adams that made Clay secretary of state—and haunted him for the rest of his career. As no other book, Henry Clay humanizes Clay’s marriage to plain, wealthy Lucretia Hart, a union rumored to be mercenary on his part but that lasted fifty-three years and produced eleven children.Featuring an inimitable supporting cast including Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, James Polk, and Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay is beautifully written and replete with fresh anecdotes and insights. But it is Henry Clay who often rises above them all. Horse trader and risk taker, arm twister and joke teller, Clay was the consummate politician who gave ground, made deals, and changed the lives of millions. His life is an astounding tale—and here superbly told.
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First published May 4, 2010
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September 19, 2019
Henry Clay, (1777-1852), is a name many of us somewhat recognize from 19th Century U.S. politics. He was The Great Compromiser; the mastermind behind both The Compromise of 1820 and of 1850, both of which avoided a national calamity.
With Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, Clay was part of the “Great Triumvirate”. This trio of powerhouse politicians, with their spellbinding oratory, was the bridge between the Founding Fathers and the men who brought about the dissolution of the Union and civil war.
And if nothing else, Clay is remembered as the consummate politician – a man who could be vicious on the floor of debate but convivial afterhours – think of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan after pretty much anything. He was also a favorite of Abraham Lincoln’s. All of the above is superficially true, but Henry Clay’s story is deeper than that and told very well here in The Essential American.
Henry Clay was one of, and at times, the most dominant figure in American politics during the first half of the 19th century; his political career running from 1809 until his death in 1852. He was a lion of both the House and the Senate. When he took the floor in Congress, which he did often, it was an event, usually a long event. With his baritone voice he captivated both his peers and the spectators crammed into the Congressional viewing galleries.
Clay was instrumental in leading the country into the War of 1812 against Great Britain. A little more than three years later, he was a member of the delegation in Ghent, Brussels, that negotiated the end of that war – ironically, the treaty left relations between the two countries pretty much the same as they were before the war.
Clay was one of the most powerful Speakers of the House, and in many ways defined its current role in politics. When the Electoral College didn’t suffice, the Constitution put him right in the center of the 1824 Presidential election. As a presidential candidate he was out of the race, but as the leader of the House of Representatives Clay was instrumental in sending John Quincy Adams to the White House – “engineering” the House vote.
Runner-up Andrew Jackson was furious and when Clay was subsequently named Adams’ Secretary of State, Jackson and his followers exploded, claiming a “Corrupt Bargain” had been made. Clay fought this charge, Jackson and “Jackson’s men” for the rest of his life. If you think “dirty” politics or negative campaigns are recent phenomena, this book will quickly dispel that assumption. Clay ran – unsuccessfully – for President three times, each campaign more brutal and ugly than the last.
As for the Compromises of 1820 and 1850, both were attempts to curtail the spread of slavery as the country expanded, while at the same time satisfying both Southern and Northern politicians and thus “preserve” the Union. Clay was intimately involved with both. In 1820 he pushed through the legislation conjured up by Jesse Thomas (Illinois). In 1850, it was Clay’s framework that needed some legislative arm-twisting, which was provided by Stephen Douglas, (Illinois again). Both struggles – and they were - are covered in detail here in this book.
Finally at the end of his career, Clay found himself deeply in debt – millions in current dollars – mostly due to attempts to back one of his sons in one failed business after another. Contemplating financial ruin and the selling of Ashland – Clay’s Kentucky estate – a handful of anonymous friends stepped in and wiped Clay’s financial slate clean. This was done for more than just simple respect for Clay - it was love for the man.
All of this and much more is chronicled in this book, providing not only an in depth biography of its subject but also a narrative of Clay’s times. And although the authors are sympathetic to their subject, i.e. the somewhat inflated title, they don’t gloss over Clay’s shortcomings. For instance, there is no way to defend Clay’s, at best, “ambivalent” stand on slavery, and this book makes no attempt to do so.
The Essential American is not a “quick” read but it is a very engaging one - Much in the same vein as David McCullough’s biography of John Adams. And just like that book, the reader gains an appreciation for the woman behind the subject – in this case Lucretia Clay. A woman not as easily grasped through history because she was not the letter-writer Abigail Adams was.
Robert Remini, the Jacksonian scholar, wrote a Clay biography in 1992 and this book compares favorably with that one. If there are any faults, I noted very little on Clay’s thoughts, feelings, policies and actions towards American Indians and their expulsion from their homes, (a controversial topic and one that Andrew Jackson was right in the middle of.). Clay’s financial ties to the United States Bank – the precursor of the Treasury – are also not covered in detail here. (This may sound mundane, but “the Bank” was a huge issue at the time.) Both Clay and Daniel Webster were on the Bank’s payroll while actively lobbying for it in Congress. So even if their intentions were honorable it’s difficult not to perceive a conflict of interests here. Antebellum U.S. history buffs might note the above gaps; regardless this is still a very, very good biography.
With Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, Clay was part of the “Great Triumvirate”. This trio of powerhouse politicians, with their spellbinding oratory, was the bridge between the Founding Fathers and the men who brought about the dissolution of the Union and civil war.
And if nothing else, Clay is remembered as the consummate politician – a man who could be vicious on the floor of debate but convivial afterhours – think of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan after pretty much anything. He was also a favorite of Abraham Lincoln’s. All of the above is superficially true, but Henry Clay’s story is deeper than that and told very well here in The Essential American.
Henry Clay was one of, and at times, the most dominant figure in American politics during the first half of the 19th century; his political career running from 1809 until his death in 1852. He was a lion of both the House and the Senate. When he took the floor in Congress, which he did often, it was an event, usually a long event. With his baritone voice he captivated both his peers and the spectators crammed into the Congressional viewing galleries.
Clay was instrumental in leading the country into the War of 1812 against Great Britain. A little more than three years later, he was a member of the delegation in Ghent, Brussels, that negotiated the end of that war – ironically, the treaty left relations between the two countries pretty much the same as they were before the war.
Clay was one of the most powerful Speakers of the House, and in many ways defined its current role in politics. When the Electoral College didn’t suffice, the Constitution put him right in the center of the 1824 Presidential election. As a presidential candidate he was out of the race, but as the leader of the House of Representatives Clay was instrumental in sending John Quincy Adams to the White House – “engineering” the House vote.
Runner-up Andrew Jackson was furious and when Clay was subsequently named Adams’ Secretary of State, Jackson and his followers exploded, claiming a “Corrupt Bargain” had been made. Clay fought this charge, Jackson and “Jackson’s men” for the rest of his life. If you think “dirty” politics or negative campaigns are recent phenomena, this book will quickly dispel that assumption. Clay ran – unsuccessfully – for President three times, each campaign more brutal and ugly than the last.
As for the Compromises of 1820 and 1850, both were attempts to curtail the spread of slavery as the country expanded, while at the same time satisfying both Southern and Northern politicians and thus “preserve” the Union. Clay was intimately involved with both. In 1820 he pushed through the legislation conjured up by Jesse Thomas (Illinois). In 1850, it was Clay’s framework that needed some legislative arm-twisting, which was provided by Stephen Douglas, (Illinois again). Both struggles – and they were - are covered in detail here in this book.
Finally at the end of his career, Clay found himself deeply in debt – millions in current dollars – mostly due to attempts to back one of his sons in one failed business after another. Contemplating financial ruin and the selling of Ashland – Clay’s Kentucky estate – a handful of anonymous friends stepped in and wiped Clay’s financial slate clean. This was done for more than just simple respect for Clay - it was love for the man.
All of this and much more is chronicled in this book, providing not only an in depth biography of its subject but also a narrative of Clay’s times. And although the authors are sympathetic to their subject, i.e. the somewhat inflated title, they don’t gloss over Clay’s shortcomings. For instance, there is no way to defend Clay’s, at best, “ambivalent” stand on slavery, and this book makes no attempt to do so.
The Essential American is not a “quick” read but it is a very engaging one - Much in the same vein as David McCullough’s biography of John Adams. And just like that book, the reader gains an appreciation for the woman behind the subject – in this case Lucretia Clay. A woman not as easily grasped through history because she was not the letter-writer Abigail Adams was.
Robert Remini, the Jacksonian scholar, wrote a Clay biography in 1992 and this book compares favorably with that one. If there are any faults, I noted very little on Clay’s thoughts, feelings, policies and actions towards American Indians and their expulsion from their homes, (a controversial topic and one that Andrew Jackson was right in the middle of.). Clay’s financial ties to the United States Bank – the precursor of the Treasury – are also not covered in detail here. (This may sound mundane, but “the Bank” was a huge issue at the time.) Both Clay and Daniel Webster were on the Bank’s payroll while actively lobbying for it in Congress. So even if their intentions were honorable it’s difficult not to perceive a conflict of interests here. Antebellum U.S. history buffs might note the above gaps; regardless this is still a very, very good biography.
December 5, 2025
An Ideologue Of The Center
David and Jeanne Heidler use the phrase "ideologue of the center"to describe Henry Clay in their biography: "Henry Clay, the Essential American". The Heidlers borrow this term from Daniel Walker Howe's study of pre-Civil War America, "What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848" (Oxford History of the United States), and they share much of Walker's sympathy with Clay. The Heidlers adopt the term in the context of discussing Clay's "American System", a nationalistic vision for the development of American commerce and transportation in the 1830s. Recognizing Clay's reputation as the "Great Compromiser" which may seem to exclude strong principles, the Heidlers focus on Clay with his own commitments. The passage, from chapter 8 of their book is worth quoting.
"This strange combination of past and future made [Clay] curiously out of place in this time, the Jacksonian period of the early nineteenth century, that invoked the People as a mystical entity and insisted that the unbuilt road and the silted-up harbor did not hurt commerce. Clay steered a middle course that made him seem a basket of contradictions. The Progressive movement of the late nineteenth century that promoted moral uplift and active government would seem to be his legacy. Yet Clay opposed coerced morality and recoiled from regulating private economic behavior. A moderate on many issues, Clay was doctrinaire on certain matters, such as the inviolability of the Union and the role of economic progress in preserving it. Dubbed the Great Compromiser, he was not naturally prone to compromise, and instead became, [in Howe's term] 'an ideologue of the Center."
The Heidlers, who teach at Colorado State University and at the United States Air Force Academy, have written extensively about the War of 1812 and about Jacksonian America. Their lengthy and detailed biography of Clay, the "Essential American" (1777 -- 1852), consisting of 490 pages of text in addition to footnotes and a detailed bibliography describes a gifted, flawed, and almost overweeningly ambitious individual who, through the thickets of politics, tried to do what he thought right for the United States with a basic consistency throughout a long, controversial career. Although the focus is on politics, the Heidlers pay a great deal of attention to Clay's private life, including his 53-year marriage to the quiet and unassuming Lucretia, whom they describe in the book's dedication as showing a "calm laughter and gentle grace." The book shows a great deal of Clay and his eleven children, only four of whom survived childhood, and of his large family circle. Clay's smiling and extroverted public figure covered a great deal of personal sadness. The Heidler's also offer an extended portrait of Clay as a young man, and of his activities as a lawyer, farmer, breeder of racehorses, and businessman.
Clay had a long public career as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Secretary of State, and Senator. He was an ardent advocate of going to war with Britain in 1812 and also an American commissioner at the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war. He played an important role in the development of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, opposed Andrew Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank of the United States, and helped fashion the Compromise which ended the Nullification Crisis in 1832. In 1850, an ailing Clay returned to the Senate and brokered the frail Compromise of 1850 which deferred the Civil War for ten years.
Clay ran for president three times, in 1824, 1832, and 1844. When the first election went to the House of Representatives for decision, Clay gave his support to John Quincy Adams and became the Secretary of State. He earned the lasting enmity of Andrew Jackson. The allegations of a "Corrupt Bargain" with Adams haunted Clay for the remainder of his career and probably helped deny him the presidency in his subsequent efforts. Clay lost to Jackson in 1832 and then was upset by James K. Polk in 1844. Clay also came close to being nominated for president in 1840 and 1848. In this respect, his career was one of high ambition and continued frustration.
Clay was a mesmerizing speaker who delivered long, extemporaneous speeches that captivated his listeners. But frequently his comments would return to hurt him. Gracious and charming, Clay found allies easily. But he also had an impulsive, acerbic side which made him lasting enemies. A lover of gambling, alcohol, fine food, and the good life, Clay had a wild streak which, together with the claimed "bargain" with Adams, caused many people to distrust him. Clay fought two duels during his public life. The second duel occurred when Clay was Secretary of State. He challenged Virginia Congressman John Randolph who had attacked him on the floor of the House. The Heidlers tell this story dramatically. Randolph fired his pistol into the air while Clay fired to kill. Clay does not come across sympathetically in this incident. A slaveholder at his large Kentucky plantation, Clay favored gradual emancipation and tried to avoid the extremes of abolitionism and secessionism. Clay was the founder of the American Colonization Society which had the goal of emancipating slaves and sending the freed slaves to communities in Africa or the Caribbean. Much of this book shows Clay's personal and political attitudes towards slavery and his efforts to avoid what he perceived as extremes.
The detail of this book obscures the flow of the narrative at times. A year-by-year chronology would have been useful. The book rewards reading for its portrayal of Clay and of his age. Important matters such as the 1850 Compromise and the Bank war became clearer to me upon reading this biography. Clay earned by regard in this portrayal through his patriotism, commitment to the entire Union rather than to a section, for his judgment, which was frequently good, and for his moderation. I also came to admire Clay for his persistence in seeking the presidency which forever eluded him. This is an excellent book for understanding Clay and American history.
Robin Friedman
David and Jeanne Heidler use the phrase "ideologue of the center"to describe Henry Clay in their biography: "Henry Clay, the Essential American". The Heidlers borrow this term from Daniel Walker Howe's study of pre-Civil War America, "What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848" (Oxford History of the United States), and they share much of Walker's sympathy with Clay. The Heidlers adopt the term in the context of discussing Clay's "American System", a nationalistic vision for the development of American commerce and transportation in the 1830s. Recognizing Clay's reputation as the "Great Compromiser" which may seem to exclude strong principles, the Heidlers focus on Clay with his own commitments. The passage, from chapter 8 of their book is worth quoting.
"This strange combination of past and future made [Clay] curiously out of place in this time, the Jacksonian period of the early nineteenth century, that invoked the People as a mystical entity and insisted that the unbuilt road and the silted-up harbor did not hurt commerce. Clay steered a middle course that made him seem a basket of contradictions. The Progressive movement of the late nineteenth century that promoted moral uplift and active government would seem to be his legacy. Yet Clay opposed coerced morality and recoiled from regulating private economic behavior. A moderate on many issues, Clay was doctrinaire on certain matters, such as the inviolability of the Union and the role of economic progress in preserving it. Dubbed the Great Compromiser, he was not naturally prone to compromise, and instead became, [in Howe's term] 'an ideologue of the Center."
The Heidlers, who teach at Colorado State University and at the United States Air Force Academy, have written extensively about the War of 1812 and about Jacksonian America. Their lengthy and detailed biography of Clay, the "Essential American" (1777 -- 1852), consisting of 490 pages of text in addition to footnotes and a detailed bibliography describes a gifted, flawed, and almost overweeningly ambitious individual who, through the thickets of politics, tried to do what he thought right for the United States with a basic consistency throughout a long, controversial career. Although the focus is on politics, the Heidlers pay a great deal of attention to Clay's private life, including his 53-year marriage to the quiet and unassuming Lucretia, whom they describe in the book's dedication as showing a "calm laughter and gentle grace." The book shows a great deal of Clay and his eleven children, only four of whom survived childhood, and of his large family circle. Clay's smiling and extroverted public figure covered a great deal of personal sadness. The Heidler's also offer an extended portrait of Clay as a young man, and of his activities as a lawyer, farmer, breeder of racehorses, and businessman.
Clay had a long public career as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Secretary of State, and Senator. He was an ardent advocate of going to war with Britain in 1812 and also an American commissioner at the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war. He played an important role in the development of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, opposed Andrew Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank of the United States, and helped fashion the Compromise which ended the Nullification Crisis in 1832. In 1850, an ailing Clay returned to the Senate and brokered the frail Compromise of 1850 which deferred the Civil War for ten years.
Clay ran for president three times, in 1824, 1832, and 1844. When the first election went to the House of Representatives for decision, Clay gave his support to John Quincy Adams and became the Secretary of State. He earned the lasting enmity of Andrew Jackson. The allegations of a "Corrupt Bargain" with Adams haunted Clay for the remainder of his career and probably helped deny him the presidency in his subsequent efforts. Clay lost to Jackson in 1832 and then was upset by James K. Polk in 1844. Clay also came close to being nominated for president in 1840 and 1848. In this respect, his career was one of high ambition and continued frustration.
Clay was a mesmerizing speaker who delivered long, extemporaneous speeches that captivated his listeners. But frequently his comments would return to hurt him. Gracious and charming, Clay found allies easily. But he also had an impulsive, acerbic side which made him lasting enemies. A lover of gambling, alcohol, fine food, and the good life, Clay had a wild streak which, together with the claimed "bargain" with Adams, caused many people to distrust him. Clay fought two duels during his public life. The second duel occurred when Clay was Secretary of State. He challenged Virginia Congressman John Randolph who had attacked him on the floor of the House. The Heidlers tell this story dramatically. Randolph fired his pistol into the air while Clay fired to kill. Clay does not come across sympathetically in this incident. A slaveholder at his large Kentucky plantation, Clay favored gradual emancipation and tried to avoid the extremes of abolitionism and secessionism. Clay was the founder of the American Colonization Society which had the goal of emancipating slaves and sending the freed slaves to communities in Africa or the Caribbean. Much of this book shows Clay's personal and political attitudes towards slavery and his efforts to avoid what he perceived as extremes.
The detail of this book obscures the flow of the narrative at times. A year-by-year chronology would have been useful. The book rewards reading for its portrayal of Clay and of his age. Important matters such as the 1850 Compromise and the Bank war became clearer to me upon reading this biography. Clay earned by regard in this portrayal through his patriotism, commitment to the entire Union rather than to a section, for his judgment, which was frequently good, and for his moderation. I also came to admire Clay for his persistence in seeking the presidency which forever eluded him. This is an excellent book for understanding Clay and American history.
Robin Friedman
July 4, 2013
I started reading this book because in my high school AP US history class, it seemed that Henry Clay's name popped up daily for a solid six weeks but as a person he was never really talked about other than an old geezer who started the anti-Jackson faction and promoted the American System. What a travesty. Reading the Heidlers' book, I have been amazed at the depth and breadth of Clay's associations and accomplishments, beginning as an anti-Adams Republican in 1800 to the patriotic old man who essentially gave his last measure of devotion to save the country from imminent civil war. It is incredible to me that a person of such magnitude has been left to dust on the shelves of history. In Clay I've discovered a new hero who made public opinion as readily as he would use his vivacious personality to make incredibly vital compromises for the good of the Union and Constitution. An imperfect man to be sure- politically with his acceptance of slavery and colonization attempts, and personally with a fiery temper leading to duels and severed friendships- yet Clay was a man driven by an innate sense of purpose as an active political philosopher who deeply loved country and countrymen. This book is incredibly well researched and written. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in antebellum United States political history, as Clay's life covers nearly the entire antebellum period. The United States needs such an accomplished statesman now. I hope I could only begin to be the invested citizen Henry Clay was.
April 7, 2018
Unless you’re a history nerd like me, you probably don’t know much about Henry Clay. And yet despite never being president, Clay was a larger than life statesman who profoundly influenced America’s course as much as anyone before or since. This book follows Clay from his upbringing in the Virginia countryside, his self made education, his career as a successful lawyer, to finally as one of the most influential Congressman America has ever known.
What stands out about this book in particular is not only Clay’s accomplishments (the Missouri Compromise, averting war with France in 1835, spearheading domestic infrastructure improvements among others) which were many, but his central role in a universe that inhabited so many giants of American history including Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, John Randolph, and most notably Andrew Jackson. His bitter and tempestuous battles with the latter are some of the most interesting passages here and what led Jackson to answer when asked toward the end of his life what his regrets were to reply: “That I didn’t shoot Henry Clay”.
To be sure Clay could be combative, obstinate and without a doubt ambitious. One doesn’t run for president four times without a certain amount of ambition. He was also a slave owner to the day he died, despite publicly disapproving of slavery and being a prominent advocate for repatriating free Blacks to a colony in Africa. Clay suffered from the paternalism of many in his day unwilling to support abolitionism but who also considered slavery abhorrent. As the author writes about Clay’s views on slavery:
"At Ashland, Clay told his critics, one would find slaves in comfort from cradle to grave, which was as physically true as he could manage, and the paternalism soothed a kindhearted man who could boast that his elderly and infirm slaves were cosseted in their last years, not cast off to fend for themselves as were the wage slaves of the North. Yet such paternalism was part of the problem of slavery. The underlying consequences of paternalism were not as appalling or as emotionally evocative as the stories of brutal beatings and fractured families and violated women clutching mulatto children. Rather, the consequences of benevolent paternalism were insidious precisely because of their banality."
Yet Clay was also a powerful speaker, a devoted father and husband who was beloved by most who knew him who suffered the early deaths of all of his daughters and a number of his sons, and fiercely devoted to the preservation of the United States from enemies within and without.
He was far from a perfect man but America would have undoubtedly been a different place today without him. This book is an excellent and comprehensive introduction to Clay and a period critical to shaping American identity.
What stands out about this book in particular is not only Clay’s accomplishments (the Missouri Compromise, averting war with France in 1835, spearheading domestic infrastructure improvements among others) which were many, but his central role in a universe that inhabited so many giants of American history including Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, John Randolph, and most notably Andrew Jackson. His bitter and tempestuous battles with the latter are some of the most interesting passages here and what led Jackson to answer when asked toward the end of his life what his regrets were to reply: “That I didn’t shoot Henry Clay”.
To be sure Clay could be combative, obstinate and without a doubt ambitious. One doesn’t run for president four times without a certain amount of ambition. He was also a slave owner to the day he died, despite publicly disapproving of slavery and being a prominent advocate for repatriating free Blacks to a colony in Africa. Clay suffered from the paternalism of many in his day unwilling to support abolitionism but who also considered slavery abhorrent. As the author writes about Clay’s views on slavery:
"At Ashland, Clay told his critics, one would find slaves in comfort from cradle to grave, which was as physically true as he could manage, and the paternalism soothed a kindhearted man who could boast that his elderly and infirm slaves were cosseted in their last years, not cast off to fend for themselves as were the wage slaves of the North. Yet such paternalism was part of the problem of slavery. The underlying consequences of paternalism were not as appalling or as emotionally evocative as the stories of brutal beatings and fractured families and violated women clutching mulatto children. Rather, the consequences of benevolent paternalism were insidious precisely because of their banality."
Yet Clay was also a powerful speaker, a devoted father and husband who was beloved by most who knew him who suffered the early deaths of all of his daughters and a number of his sons, and fiercely devoted to the preservation of the United States from enemies within and without.
He was far from a perfect man but America would have undoubtedly been a different place today without him. This book is an excellent and comprehensive introduction to Clay and a period critical to shaping American identity.
May 25, 2015
The Essential American is Henry Clay. He is a former Speaker of the House, Senator, Secretary of State and Presidential Candidate. He also started the Whig Party. The Whig Party preceded the Republican Party as the Democratic Party’s main political rival party.
Henry Clay was fortunate to have been mentored by one of the 19th Century’s greatest law professors George Wythe. Wythe trained Clay to be an outstanding lawyer. Clay left Wythe’s tutelage in Virginia and moved to Lexington, Kentucky where he met and married Lucretia Hart and became a lucrative lawyer.
His skill in oratory was incredible. People would flock to see him perform in trials with a mesmerizing baritone voice and a superb wit that captivated any audience. He also had unbelievable skillful people skills. It was said he could leave a complete stranger feel like he was Clay’s best friend. These skills led him into politics where he shined like few others. In 1806 he was appointed to serve the remainder of a Senate vacancy for less than a year. After relinquishing the Senate seat he ran for and won a congressional seat. His reputation was so great that he was immediately voted to be Speaker of the House. As Speaker, he was a loyal democrat and very helpful to President Monroe. In fact, Monroe appointed him to the Treaty of Ghent peace conference which ended the War of 1812. There he met future president John Quincy Adams.
In 1820 Clay brokered the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36/30 degree except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. It also brought the state of Maine into the Union as a free-state counter balance to Missouri.
The 1824 Presidential Elections wound up with no candidate gaining a majority leaving the top two candidates, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, to be voted on by the House of Representatives to determine the next president. Speaker Clay used his influence to get members to elect Adams. Andrew Jackson became livid at Clay and Adams as a result. Quincy Adams then appointed Clay Secretary of State. Jackson viewed this as a deal and called it a “corrupt bargain”. He and his followers vilified Adams and Clay as a result.
The next election Jackson won easily and Clay went back to Congress where the two giants battled with different visions and acrimonious attitudes towards each other. Clay wanted to enact what he called the American System. His plan was to tariff imports to protect American business and use the money to help individual states build roads and canals to help boost business. He also wanted to keep the National Bank as a way to stabilize the currency. Jackson’s views were just the opposite. He opposed tariffs and hated the National bank. He eventually destroyed the Bank. After this act, Clay split with the democrats and formed the Whig Party.
In 1832 Clay challenged Jackson for the presidency as the Whig candidate. He lost due to the unpopularity of the National Bank and Jackson’s war hero status.
In 1833 Clay brokered “The Compromise Tariff of 1833” which gradually lowered tariffs over a decade to satisfy a Southern threat of succession.
In 1850 Clay also authored another Compromise which divided up land won from Mexico in the Mexico American War into Texas, New Mexico, California and Utah. Slavery was firmly established in Texas and firmly rejected in California. The compromise allowed New Mexico and Utah to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery.
In 1844 Clay challenged James K. Polk for the presidency. He lost in a very close race because he was against American expansion westward while Polk and most of the rest of the country were for it.
He became a celebrity however. He traveled to various cities and he was welcomed by thousands of people to hear his wit and wisdom. He surely is one of America’s greatest politicians.
Henry Clay was fortunate to have been mentored by one of the 19th Century’s greatest law professors George Wythe. Wythe trained Clay to be an outstanding lawyer. Clay left Wythe’s tutelage in Virginia and moved to Lexington, Kentucky where he met and married Lucretia Hart and became a lucrative lawyer.
His skill in oratory was incredible. People would flock to see him perform in trials with a mesmerizing baritone voice and a superb wit that captivated any audience. He also had unbelievable skillful people skills. It was said he could leave a complete stranger feel like he was Clay’s best friend. These skills led him into politics where he shined like few others. In 1806 he was appointed to serve the remainder of a Senate vacancy for less than a year. After relinquishing the Senate seat he ran for and won a congressional seat. His reputation was so great that he was immediately voted to be Speaker of the House. As Speaker, he was a loyal democrat and very helpful to President Monroe. In fact, Monroe appointed him to the Treaty of Ghent peace conference which ended the War of 1812. There he met future president John Quincy Adams.
In 1820 Clay brokered the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36/30 degree except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. It also brought the state of Maine into the Union as a free-state counter balance to Missouri.
The 1824 Presidential Elections wound up with no candidate gaining a majority leaving the top two candidates, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, to be voted on by the House of Representatives to determine the next president. Speaker Clay used his influence to get members to elect Adams. Andrew Jackson became livid at Clay and Adams as a result. Quincy Adams then appointed Clay Secretary of State. Jackson viewed this as a deal and called it a “corrupt bargain”. He and his followers vilified Adams and Clay as a result.
The next election Jackson won easily and Clay went back to Congress where the two giants battled with different visions and acrimonious attitudes towards each other. Clay wanted to enact what he called the American System. His plan was to tariff imports to protect American business and use the money to help individual states build roads and canals to help boost business. He also wanted to keep the National Bank as a way to stabilize the currency. Jackson’s views were just the opposite. He opposed tariffs and hated the National bank. He eventually destroyed the Bank. After this act, Clay split with the democrats and formed the Whig Party.
In 1832 Clay challenged Jackson for the presidency as the Whig candidate. He lost due to the unpopularity of the National Bank and Jackson’s war hero status.
In 1833 Clay brokered “The Compromise Tariff of 1833” which gradually lowered tariffs over a decade to satisfy a Southern threat of succession.
In 1850 Clay also authored another Compromise which divided up land won from Mexico in the Mexico American War into Texas, New Mexico, California and Utah. Slavery was firmly established in Texas and firmly rejected in California. The compromise allowed New Mexico and Utah to decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery.
In 1844 Clay challenged James K. Polk for the presidency. He lost in a very close race because he was against American expansion westward while Polk and most of the rest of the country were for it.
He became a celebrity however. He traveled to various cities and he was welcomed by thousands of people to hear his wit and wisdom. He surely is one of America’s greatest politicians.
March 8, 2020
One—if not the most—of the most influential politicians in American history who never became President, though he tried several times, was praised and vilified throughout his life then slowly forgotten in the century and a half after his death. Henry Clay: The Essential American by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler follows the dramatic political rise, the stunning setbacks, and tragic family life of the man who became Andrew Jackson’s great enemy and Abraham Lincoln’s great hero.
The Heidler’s begins moments after Clay’s death and describes the journey of his body to Lexington with the outpouring of honor along the way then turn their attention as to how Clay became so honored. Born in eastern Virginia as a scion of a long-time colonial family and fatherless early in life, Clay was fortunate to have a stepfather and several mentors who gave him opportunities which he took hold off and used to establish himself in the legal profession in Kentucky. Though idealistic early in his political career, especially on the issue of slavery in the state, Clay downplayed it sooner after to gain connections especially through marriage and accumulation of wealth in which slaves were an important facet though he would continue to advocate for his brand for emancipation throughout his life. Clay’s time in the Kentucky legislature foreshadowed the parliamentary advancements he would bring to the House and later the Senate, especially the Committee of the Whole which allowed Clay as Speaker of both the Kentucky and U.S House to join debates. A staunch Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican, Clay’s views and future policies would shift to include several Hamiltonian policies like a National Bank and tariffs but in Republican language. Upon his arrival in Washington in 1811 until his death 41 years later, Clay would be the most influential man in the city even though he never resided in the White House which would be occupied by either his allies or his avowed enemies though he would campaign for the Presidency either actively or with the am to from 1824 to 1848. Three times during his time in Washington, he championed the Union in the 1820 Missouri Compromise, the 1833 Nullification crisis, and the Compromise of 1850 his final political act as slavery threatened to ripe the country apart.
First and foremost this was a political biography which the Heidlers expertly detailed for the reader, however Clay was a family man with a particularly tragic tinge as all of his daughters predeceased their parents with Clay’s namesake dying in the Mexican-American War while another was to spend half his life in an asylum. The issue of slavery is given significant space in various parts of the book as the Heidlers put Clay’s views in context of their time and how he was as a slaveowner, but don’t excuse him for hold human beings as property. Though not stated explicitly this was also a light history of the Whig party primarily because, until slavery tore it apart, Henry Clay embodied the party even when younger members decided to jettison its ideological center for Presidential victory.
Henry Clay: The Essential American details the life of the most important politician of the Antebellum era. The husband-wife historian team of David S. and Jeanne Heidler write a very scholarly yet lively history of the man and his times that gives the reader a view of how important their subject was during his time on the national scene.
The Heidler’s begins moments after Clay’s death and describes the journey of his body to Lexington with the outpouring of honor along the way then turn their attention as to how Clay became so honored. Born in eastern Virginia as a scion of a long-time colonial family and fatherless early in life, Clay was fortunate to have a stepfather and several mentors who gave him opportunities which he took hold off and used to establish himself in the legal profession in Kentucky. Though idealistic early in his political career, especially on the issue of slavery in the state, Clay downplayed it sooner after to gain connections especially through marriage and accumulation of wealth in which slaves were an important facet though he would continue to advocate for his brand for emancipation throughout his life. Clay’s time in the Kentucky legislature foreshadowed the parliamentary advancements he would bring to the House and later the Senate, especially the Committee of the Whole which allowed Clay as Speaker of both the Kentucky and U.S House to join debates. A staunch Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican, Clay’s views and future policies would shift to include several Hamiltonian policies like a National Bank and tariffs but in Republican language. Upon his arrival in Washington in 1811 until his death 41 years later, Clay would be the most influential man in the city even though he never resided in the White House which would be occupied by either his allies or his avowed enemies though he would campaign for the Presidency either actively or with the am to from 1824 to 1848. Three times during his time in Washington, he championed the Union in the 1820 Missouri Compromise, the 1833 Nullification crisis, and the Compromise of 1850 his final political act as slavery threatened to ripe the country apart.
First and foremost this was a political biography which the Heidlers expertly detailed for the reader, however Clay was a family man with a particularly tragic tinge as all of his daughters predeceased their parents with Clay’s namesake dying in the Mexican-American War while another was to spend half his life in an asylum. The issue of slavery is given significant space in various parts of the book as the Heidlers put Clay’s views in context of their time and how he was as a slaveowner, but don’t excuse him for hold human beings as property. Though not stated explicitly this was also a light history of the Whig party primarily because, until slavery tore it apart, Henry Clay embodied the party even when younger members decided to jettison its ideological center for Presidential victory.
Henry Clay: The Essential American details the life of the most important politician of the Antebellum era. The husband-wife historian team of David S. and Jeanne Heidler write a very scholarly yet lively history of the man and his times that gives the reader a view of how important their subject was during his time on the national scene.
November 12, 2019
I’m struggling with this review. If you know who Henry Clay was, then you know that he was one of the most powerful senators ever. You know that he is the only person to be elected Speaker of the House on his first day in Congress. You know that he was the “Great Compromiser” (a term used with admiration, not scorn). You know that he is arguably the most important American politician who was never President.
If you do not know who Henry Clay was, then you do not know how he is one of a handful of politicians to win electoral votes in 3 different presidential elections. You do not know the role he played in ending the War of 1812. You do not know how he averted Civil War on at least 3 separate occasions prior to his death. Nor do you know how Clay was an inspiration for a generation of politicians (including Abe Lincoln).
One of my favorite parts of the book dealt with the 1824 presidential election.
The 1824 election was one of the two Presidential Elections decided by the House. Andrew Jackson believed, that as the winner of the popular vote and a plurality of the Electoral College, that he would be elected President.
Because Clay came in fourth in the number of Electoral votes, he was not one of the candidates considered by the House for president. He was, however, the Speaker of the House. As such (and with the 37 electoral votes he won) he played a crucial role determining the winner.
Most history books focus on Jackson and Adams. It is taken for granite that Clay shifted the tide and helped Adams defeat Jackson. Jackson called Clay’s actions a Corrupt Bargain. Clay's appointed as JQA’s Secretary of State was perceived as an apparent quid pro quo.
Immediately after the 1824 election, Jackson began campaigning for 1828. His supporters did not give JQA a honeymoon period and immediately went on the offensive. By the time the 1828 election came about, American politics had reached a low point. Jackson’s wife died between the '28 election and inauguration---Jackson blamed JQA for the personal vitriol between the two of them for her death.
This is where most history books leave you. 1824-Clay helps JQA win the Presidency. 1828- Jackson beats JQA in one of the most insulting childish presidential campaigns ever.
This book connects the dots. In 1824, a very real case could have been made that Jackson deserved to win. He won a plurality of the popular vote and electoral vote. Clay, however, believed that under no circumstances could Jackson be allowed to win the Presidency. Clay used ever trick and power granted to him as Speaker of the House to Deny Jackson the Presidency. Why?
Most books leave it the idea that Clay didn’t think Jackson would be a good president. What they do not delve into is how the 1824 presidential campaign evolved. Clay and Jackson appealed to the same voting base. They were pitted against each other before the main presidential race began for their political bases were Midwestern states. Prior to the 1824 election, the two had tangled in local politics---and it was nasty. Jackson made personal biting attacks against Clay’s persona and character. By the time the November elections occurred, the two candidates despised each other. There is little surprise that Clay sided with JQA against Jackson. Nor is there surprise Jackson lashed out at Clay. The two had become bitter enemies---before the House’s decision to elect JQA over Jackson. That decision just provided Jackson with fuel to attack the JQA administration for the next four years. This depth is lost in other books.
If you do not know who Henry Clay was, then you do not know how he is one of a handful of politicians to win electoral votes in 3 different presidential elections. You do not know the role he played in ending the War of 1812. You do not know how he averted Civil War on at least 3 separate occasions prior to his death. Nor do you know how Clay was an inspiration for a generation of politicians (including Abe Lincoln).
One of my favorite parts of the book dealt with the 1824 presidential election.
The 1824 election was one of the two Presidential Elections decided by the House. Andrew Jackson believed, that as the winner of the popular vote and a plurality of the Electoral College, that he would be elected President.
Because Clay came in fourth in the number of Electoral votes, he was not one of the candidates considered by the House for president. He was, however, the Speaker of the House. As such (and with the 37 electoral votes he won) he played a crucial role determining the winner.
Most history books focus on Jackson and Adams. It is taken for granite that Clay shifted the tide and helped Adams defeat Jackson. Jackson called Clay’s actions a Corrupt Bargain. Clay's appointed as JQA’s Secretary of State was perceived as an apparent quid pro quo.
Immediately after the 1824 election, Jackson began campaigning for 1828. His supporters did not give JQA a honeymoon period and immediately went on the offensive. By the time the 1828 election came about, American politics had reached a low point. Jackson’s wife died between the '28 election and inauguration---Jackson blamed JQA for the personal vitriol between the two of them for her death.
This is where most history books leave you. 1824-Clay helps JQA win the Presidency. 1828- Jackson beats JQA in one of the most insulting childish presidential campaigns ever.
This book connects the dots. In 1824, a very real case could have been made that Jackson deserved to win. He won a plurality of the popular vote and electoral vote. Clay, however, believed that under no circumstances could Jackson be allowed to win the Presidency. Clay used ever trick and power granted to him as Speaker of the House to Deny Jackson the Presidency. Why?
Most books leave it the idea that Clay didn’t think Jackson would be a good president. What they do not delve into is how the 1824 presidential campaign evolved. Clay and Jackson appealed to the same voting base. They were pitted against each other before the main presidential race began for their political bases were Midwestern states. Prior to the 1824 election, the two had tangled in local politics---and it was nasty. Jackson made personal biting attacks against Clay’s persona and character. By the time the November elections occurred, the two candidates despised each other. There is little surprise that Clay sided with JQA against Jackson. Nor is there surprise Jackson lashed out at Clay. The two had become bitter enemies---before the House’s decision to elect JQA over Jackson. That decision just provided Jackson with fuel to attack the JQA administration for the next four years. This depth is lost in other books.
November 23, 2024
This biography doesn’t rise to the lofty status of Alexander Hamilton or John Adams, but part of the reason is probably the subject. Henry Clay didn’t leave as much of a mark historically, and he’s frankly just not as interesting as a character. He’s famous mostly for never being president despite running four times. There’s plenty of detail about the political machinations of the era, but the authors focus on Clay’s actions, and generally don’t give the reader a feeling for what made him tick. Sure, he was a great orator, and he demonstrated how political power could be wielded as the Speaker of the House, but I didn’t feel that I understood his thinking or political philosophy very well. There was ample discussion about his conflicted view of slavery—he was against it, yet owned slaves and emancipated them near the end of his life. And obviously, he desired to be president…
So overall, perhaps this book is more valuable as an overview of the political history of the first half of the 19th century than as an in-depth portrait of the man.
Here’s a more useful (and positive) review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So overall, perhaps this book is more valuable as an overview of the political history of the first half of the 19th century than as an in-depth portrait of the man.
Here’s a more useful (and positive) review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
May 6, 2016
Extraordinarily well written, moving biography. Interestingly, I now am more impressed with the authors and less impressed I am by Henry Clay. My prior take came from Howe's magisterial history of the first half of 19th Century in the Oxford series on American History. But there's more to the story.
It turns out Clay didn't come from poverty; that the "Missouri Compromise" was not Clay's idea, though he supported and defended it thereafter. And though many of parameters were set by Clay in introducing what started out as seven (!) separate Resolutions, Clay was in Rhode Island when the "Compromise of 1850" passed.
Clay gets credit for being the first powerful Speaker of the House, a power dissipated by Clay's movement first to Secretary of State and then the Senate. Yet, he, along with that approach, was destroyed by Jackson's "Imperial Presidency" the model -- for better and often for worse -- of most Presidents thereafter. Imperial Presidents generate hearsay and innuendo, and Clay was the prime target for the Jacksonian era--which ended at Clay's death.
Clay was an honorable man in a time that demanded at least more tactical planning and guile. Probably the most qualified American not to become President, Clay was tripped every time by the fatal combination of being out-hustled by Democrats, and running a fragile coalition that at least (over Clay's objection) twice ran two or more regional candidates, splitting the vote, ensuring defeat. Though Clay founded and led the American Whig party, he became viewed as a Presidential albatross; a bad luck token. When Clay gave way, the first Whig president ruled for a month before dying; his vice presidential running mate wasn't properly vetted and turned out to be a closet Democrat.
The Whigs elected only a single other President, yet another imperfectly vetted cypher; President Taylor was at best half a Whig, and proved it neatly by dying before the end of his term. After seeking the presidency, and failing to be nominated or elected, five times, Clay had to be the worst campaigner -- with the worst luck -- in American politics. He died before a different alternative to Democrats was born--the Republicans, whose second presidential candidate won. That man began his political career as a Whig who worshiped Henry Clay: his name was Abraham Lincoln.
"[On his return from Europe, negotiating the peace treaty ending the 1812 war between Britain and America] there were the obligatory celebrations to be held. . .A multitude of tributes toasted the nation, Clay, Gallatin, and the country's military heroes. Clay's turn came. He rose from his seat, lifted his glass, and shouted, "The eighth of January 1815 [the date of Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans]. The crowd erupted into lusty cheers. . . .
Clay's toast that evening would be lost in a wetter of events and numerous milestones that awaited both him and Andrew Jackson. Clay had returned from Belgium brimming with ambition after ending the war, and Jackson, also brimming with ambition, had ended the war with a stunning triumph. On September 3, 1815, Henry Clay lifted his glass to the Hero of New Orleans, and no doubt meant it, for the last time."
"Clay and Adams had underestimated Jackson as a candidate, but they had missed the measure of him as an enemy by miles."
"Clay labored under the mistaken belief that telling the truth about Jackson would suffice. . . .Jacksonians [the founders of today's Democratic Party] were better organized, controlled more newspapers, and had a keener understanding of what worked and what failed in rough-and-tumble campaigns."
"The advent of Jackson's presidency did mark an acute change. Jackson claimed he was cleansing corruption, but some of the rogues he rewarded hardly provided convincing proof of regard for honest government.. . . New York Democrat senator William Marcy famously remarked, 'To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy,' and gave the colloquial label "Spoils System" to what Jacksonians preferred to gussy up as 'rotation in office.'"
"A moderate on many issues, Clay was doctrinaire on certain matters, such as the indivisibility of the Union and the role of economic progress in preserving it. Dubbed the Great Compromiser, he was not naturally prone to compromise, and instead became, as one perceptive historian has said, 'an ideologue of the Center.'"
"[In 1833, John Randolph of Virginia -- one of Clay's most consistent and bitterest political foes -- was re-elected to the House, representing Virginia.]. He was dying.
Friends on at least one occasion did bring Randolph to the Senate gallery, which in those days was situated on the Senate floor just behind the members' desks. Randolph looked ghastly and could only walk while grasping the arms of companions. He had resolved to leave Washington for England to restore his health, but he wanted to visit the Senate again to 'hear that voice once again.' He was talking about Henry Clay. . .
When Clay finished speaking, he walked . . . Into the gallery and stood next to Randolph's chair. He quietly asked about Randolph's health, and Randolph squeaked that he was 'a dying man.' . . . Clay sat beside him and they spoke in low tones until Randolph mentioned that he was tired and wanted to go. Clay took his hand. They did not need to say farewell to know it was good-bye.
Andrew Jackson's plan to coerce South Carolina [over tariff nullification] had appalled John Randolph because he saw it as infringing on states rights. 'There is only one man, and one man only, who can save the Union--that man is Henry Clay,' John Randolph said. [As he traveled north, Randolph] talked of his famous duel with Clay, repeating that he never would have done anything to cause [Henry's wife] Lucretia or her children pain. On the other hand, Randolph sadly noted that nobody would have cared if Clay had killed him. . . '[w]hen the sod of Virginia rests on my bosom, there is not one in this wide world, not one individual, to pay this tribute upon mine.'
John Randolph died in Philadelphia on May 24, 1833. There were no heirs. His physical deformity [including sterility] would have ruled them out of the question even if he every had found someone to marry him. His principal legacy consisted of a handful of colorful quotations, an eccentric allegiance to antique Republicanism [what was to become the Whig, then the Republican parties], a reputation for mad dissipation and relentless self-destruction, and a vacated plantation.. . . In a way, a less obvious but no less important legacy was Henry Clay, the only man John Randolph believed could save the Union. Because Randolph had held his pistol skyward that April afternoon seven years earlier, the Western Star still lived. Lucretia Clay and her children had not suffered. The Union was safe.
That was something worth remembering, something noble and good to cherish, as Randolph heard 'that voice' one last time."
"[Clay] never understood how Jackson's veto message [of the Second Bank of America] resonated with the common voter and how successful Jackson had been in tying [his opponents] to special interests and painting them with the brush of corruption."
"Milk wagon horses could never be retired and remain modes of conveyance. Even with their wagons unhitched, they would stubbornly follow their customary routes, pausing at each stop along the way, unable to break habits so deeply ingrained that they had become unconsciously natural. By the 1840s, Henry Clay was such an animal, retired from public life but persistently drawn to it. The quadrennial presidential contest was a scheduled stop along the route of his existence, and he would react accordingly, even if the Whig Party unhitched its wagon from him."
"The young Whigs were not going to let Clay ruin the party any longer. They were going to do that themselves."
It turns out Clay didn't come from poverty; that the "Missouri Compromise" was not Clay's idea, though he supported and defended it thereafter. And though many of parameters were set by Clay in introducing what started out as seven (!) separate Resolutions, Clay was in Rhode Island when the "Compromise of 1850" passed.
Clay gets credit for being the first powerful Speaker of the House, a power dissipated by Clay's movement first to Secretary of State and then the Senate. Yet, he, along with that approach, was destroyed by Jackson's "Imperial Presidency" the model -- for better and often for worse -- of most Presidents thereafter. Imperial Presidents generate hearsay and innuendo, and Clay was the prime target for the Jacksonian era--which ended at Clay's death.
Clay was an honorable man in a time that demanded at least more tactical planning and guile. Probably the most qualified American not to become President, Clay was tripped every time by the fatal combination of being out-hustled by Democrats, and running a fragile coalition that at least (over Clay's objection) twice ran two or more regional candidates, splitting the vote, ensuring defeat. Though Clay founded and led the American Whig party, he became viewed as a Presidential albatross; a bad luck token. When Clay gave way, the first Whig president ruled for a month before dying; his vice presidential running mate wasn't properly vetted and turned out to be a closet Democrat.
The Whigs elected only a single other President, yet another imperfectly vetted cypher; President Taylor was at best half a Whig, and proved it neatly by dying before the end of his term. After seeking the presidency, and failing to be nominated or elected, five times, Clay had to be the worst campaigner -- with the worst luck -- in American politics. He died before a different alternative to Democrats was born--the Republicans, whose second presidential candidate won. That man began his political career as a Whig who worshiped Henry Clay: his name was Abraham Lincoln.
"[On his return from Europe, negotiating the peace treaty ending the 1812 war between Britain and America] there were the obligatory celebrations to be held. . .A multitude of tributes toasted the nation, Clay, Gallatin, and the country's military heroes. Clay's turn came. He rose from his seat, lifted his glass, and shouted, "The eighth of January 1815 [the date of Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans]. The crowd erupted into lusty cheers. . . .
Clay's toast that evening would be lost in a wetter of events and numerous milestones that awaited both him and Andrew Jackson. Clay had returned from Belgium brimming with ambition after ending the war, and Jackson, also brimming with ambition, had ended the war with a stunning triumph. On September 3, 1815, Henry Clay lifted his glass to the Hero of New Orleans, and no doubt meant it, for the last time."
"Clay and Adams had underestimated Jackson as a candidate, but they had missed the measure of him as an enemy by miles."
"Clay labored under the mistaken belief that telling the truth about Jackson would suffice. . . .Jacksonians [the founders of today's Democratic Party] were better organized, controlled more newspapers, and had a keener understanding of what worked and what failed in rough-and-tumble campaigns."
"The advent of Jackson's presidency did mark an acute change. Jackson claimed he was cleansing corruption, but some of the rogues he rewarded hardly provided convincing proof of regard for honest government.. . . New York Democrat senator William Marcy famously remarked, 'To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy,' and gave the colloquial label "Spoils System" to what Jacksonians preferred to gussy up as 'rotation in office.'"
"A moderate on many issues, Clay was doctrinaire on certain matters, such as the indivisibility of the Union and the role of economic progress in preserving it. Dubbed the Great Compromiser, he was not naturally prone to compromise, and instead became, as one perceptive historian has said, 'an ideologue of the Center.'"
"[In 1833, John Randolph of Virginia -- one of Clay's most consistent and bitterest political foes -- was re-elected to the House, representing Virginia.]. He was dying.
Friends on at least one occasion did bring Randolph to the Senate gallery, which in those days was situated on the Senate floor just behind the members' desks. Randolph looked ghastly and could only walk while grasping the arms of companions. He had resolved to leave Washington for England to restore his health, but he wanted to visit the Senate again to 'hear that voice once again.' He was talking about Henry Clay. . .
When Clay finished speaking, he walked . . . Into the gallery and stood next to Randolph's chair. He quietly asked about Randolph's health, and Randolph squeaked that he was 'a dying man.' . . . Clay sat beside him and they spoke in low tones until Randolph mentioned that he was tired and wanted to go. Clay took his hand. They did not need to say farewell to know it was good-bye.
Andrew Jackson's plan to coerce South Carolina [over tariff nullification] had appalled John Randolph because he saw it as infringing on states rights. 'There is only one man, and one man only, who can save the Union--that man is Henry Clay,' John Randolph said. [As he traveled north, Randolph] talked of his famous duel with Clay, repeating that he never would have done anything to cause [Henry's wife] Lucretia or her children pain. On the other hand, Randolph sadly noted that nobody would have cared if Clay had killed him. . . '[w]hen the sod of Virginia rests on my bosom, there is not one in this wide world, not one individual, to pay this tribute upon mine.'
John Randolph died in Philadelphia on May 24, 1833. There were no heirs. His physical deformity [including sterility] would have ruled them out of the question even if he every had found someone to marry him. His principal legacy consisted of a handful of colorful quotations, an eccentric allegiance to antique Republicanism [what was to become the Whig, then the Republican parties], a reputation for mad dissipation and relentless self-destruction, and a vacated plantation.. . . In a way, a less obvious but no less important legacy was Henry Clay, the only man John Randolph believed could save the Union. Because Randolph had held his pistol skyward that April afternoon seven years earlier, the Western Star still lived. Lucretia Clay and her children had not suffered. The Union was safe.
That was something worth remembering, something noble and good to cherish, as Randolph heard 'that voice' one last time."
"[Clay] never understood how Jackson's veto message [of the Second Bank of America] resonated with the common voter and how successful Jackson had been in tying [his opponents] to special interests and painting them with the brush of corruption."
"Milk wagon horses could never be retired and remain modes of conveyance. Even with their wagons unhitched, they would stubbornly follow their customary routes, pausing at each stop along the way, unable to break habits so deeply ingrained that they had become unconsciously natural. By the 1840s, Henry Clay was such an animal, retired from public life but persistently drawn to it. The quadrennial presidential contest was a scheduled stop along the route of his existence, and he would react accordingly, even if the Whig Party unhitched its wagon from him."
"The young Whigs were not going to let Clay ruin the party any longer. They were going to do that themselves."
September 10, 2010
There is no better indicator that American politics is more about personalities, less about issues or philosophies, than the formation of our two-party system in the first half of the nineteenth century.
In Andrew Jackson's presidential runs, and Martin Van Buren's machinations to construct a cohesive national organization based on the Old Hickory cult of personality, we find the beginnings of the Democratic party. It was a Democratic party very different from today's, one that appealed to the working man in a way quite similar to the Republicans' current cooptation of the Tea Party movement.
The Jacksonian Democrats were ostensibly opposed to big government. Jackson's fiery antagonism to a national bank, though, was rooted more in his hatred of its leader, Nicholas Biddle, and others of that ilk, than in sound fiscal policy. Indeed, Jackson's economic strategy (or lack of one) led the country into a depression, thus causing a rise in the fortunes of the Whig party, a party whose leader, by virtue of personality and political philosophy, was Henry Clay.
But Clay, the master politician, never made it to the White House, and not for lack of trying. How such a forceful figure could be eclipsed in history by less capable--Harrison, Tyler and Taylor--and less colorful--Adams and Polk--leaders is a mystery that should make for a good story.
Spectators packed into the chambers of the House of Representatives and the Senate when Clay spoke, but his contributions to the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 were probably less important than his nickname, 'The Great Compromiser,' would indicate. Clay never achieved his primary political goal--an 'American System' with a strong central government investing in strong infrastructure--and was on the losing side of expansion and the Mexican-American War.
Despite his opposition, his most beloved son and namesake was sacrificed in that conflict. Known as the most congenial of men, he had troubled relations with his remaining sons, one of whom died in an insane asylum.
A gambler, a dandy, and a ladies' man, Clay married a plain and introverted woman. He was apparently devoted to her, in word and deed--eleven children, seven of whom died before he did--but spent long periods away from her and his 'refuge'--a palatial estate called Ashland.
A seemingly vibrant possessor of striking stature and booming volubility, he was the victim of almost constant illness. The Heidlers hypothesize that he died as a result of tuberculosis, a disease about which you would not want to be frank in the 1800s, when it was known as consumption.
Clay viewed slavery as a moral evil and helped to found, and became a president of, the American Colonization Society, which saw a repatriation of African-Americans to Africa as the solution to slavery. Yet he bought and owned slaves.
With all those intriguing contradictions, the Henry Clay that the Heidlers present is one to whom I could never get very close. His flowery language and stentorian voice failed to reach me across the years.
This is partly due to the Heidlers' skill as historians. Meticulous and even-handed, they make sure to present all sides of controversial events, which can bog down narrative, and to dispel exaggeration and myth, which can drain out drama. It's a slog getting through 'The Essential American's' 500 pages.
And it's probably partly due to the very nature of people who become successful politicians. Beneath warm and outgoing exteriors, who they really are is often distant, cold, opaque. Who really knows a man or a woman who wants to be so many things to so many people?
In Andrew Jackson's presidential runs, and Martin Van Buren's machinations to construct a cohesive national organization based on the Old Hickory cult of personality, we find the beginnings of the Democratic party. It was a Democratic party very different from today's, one that appealed to the working man in a way quite similar to the Republicans' current cooptation of the Tea Party movement.
The Jacksonian Democrats were ostensibly opposed to big government. Jackson's fiery antagonism to a national bank, though, was rooted more in his hatred of its leader, Nicholas Biddle, and others of that ilk, than in sound fiscal policy. Indeed, Jackson's economic strategy (or lack of one) led the country into a depression, thus causing a rise in the fortunes of the Whig party, a party whose leader, by virtue of personality and political philosophy, was Henry Clay.
But Clay, the master politician, never made it to the White House, and not for lack of trying. How such a forceful figure could be eclipsed in history by less capable--Harrison, Tyler and Taylor--and less colorful--Adams and Polk--leaders is a mystery that should make for a good story.
Spectators packed into the chambers of the House of Representatives and the Senate when Clay spoke, but his contributions to the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 were probably less important than his nickname, 'The Great Compromiser,' would indicate. Clay never achieved his primary political goal--an 'American System' with a strong central government investing in strong infrastructure--and was on the losing side of expansion and the Mexican-American War.
Despite his opposition, his most beloved son and namesake was sacrificed in that conflict. Known as the most congenial of men, he had troubled relations with his remaining sons, one of whom died in an insane asylum.
A gambler, a dandy, and a ladies' man, Clay married a plain and introverted woman. He was apparently devoted to her, in word and deed--eleven children, seven of whom died before he did--but spent long periods away from her and his 'refuge'--a palatial estate called Ashland.
A seemingly vibrant possessor of striking stature and booming volubility, he was the victim of almost constant illness. The Heidlers hypothesize that he died as a result of tuberculosis, a disease about which you would not want to be frank in the 1800s, when it was known as consumption.
Clay viewed slavery as a moral evil and helped to found, and became a president of, the American Colonization Society, which saw a repatriation of African-Americans to Africa as the solution to slavery. Yet he bought and owned slaves.
With all those intriguing contradictions, the Henry Clay that the Heidlers present is one to whom I could never get very close. His flowery language and stentorian voice failed to reach me across the years.
This is partly due to the Heidlers' skill as historians. Meticulous and even-handed, they make sure to present all sides of controversial events, which can bog down narrative, and to dispel exaggeration and myth, which can drain out drama. It's a slog getting through 'The Essential American's' 500 pages.
And it's probably partly due to the very nature of people who become successful politicians. Beneath warm and outgoing exteriors, who they really are is often distant, cold, opaque. Who really knows a man or a woman who wants to be so many things to so many people?
August 5, 2015
Henry Clay was involved in politics from the time of President John Adams (#2) until President Millard Fillmore (#13). He served in the Senate (even before he was legally old enough), the House of Representatives (most of the time as Speaker), and as Secretary of State to John Quincy Adams (despite holding differing political views). He cast such a long shadow of influence over the nation that Abraham Lincoln later cited him as one of his greatest influences and heroes. He was the heart and soul of the Whig party and renowned for his speaking prowess - frequently packing the galleries with people eager for the chance to hear him speak. And yet he ran unsuccessfully for president 4 times, being undermined by those in his own party who thought him unelectable. He was "an otherwise good and decent man" with "a fundamental flaw" (pg 448) - he was a slave owner (which troubled abolitionists) who favored gradual emancipation (which troubled Southerners).
This lengthy biography (almost 500 pages) on a little-remembered but highly influential politician is surprisingly readable. The focus is almost completely on his political career, and details on his personal and family life are few and usually only included as they bear upon his career. With that emphasis comes a sometimes uncomfortable unveiling of the ugliness of politics, and this heavy focus on politics was the only negative for me; I generally prefer biographies with a more personal note. But for Henry Clay, politics was personal and it was his life. And the Heidlers have done an excellent job of pulling together massive amounts of information and sorting out the myths and legends. While the book may not have broad appeal, it will certainly appeal to those seeking to understand the early history of the US and into the Jacksonian era as the country plunged toward Civil War.
This lengthy biography (almost 500 pages) on a little-remembered but highly influential politician is surprisingly readable. The focus is almost completely on his political career, and details on his personal and family life are few and usually only included as they bear upon his career. With that emphasis comes a sometimes uncomfortable unveiling of the ugliness of politics, and this heavy focus on politics was the only negative for me; I generally prefer biographies with a more personal note. But for Henry Clay, politics was personal and it was his life. And the Heidlers have done an excellent job of pulling together massive amounts of information and sorting out the myths and legends. While the book may not have broad appeal, it will certainly appeal to those seeking to understand the early history of the US and into the Jacksonian era as the country plunged toward Civil War.
May 13, 2013
A very sympathetic, yet also even-handed portrait of a great American statesman. I say great in the fact that the man was such a major force in pre-Civil War America and on several occasions did great service for the country. One example: the 1814 Treaty of Ghent. Clay, along with John Quincy Adams and Albert Gallatin, were able to successfully negotiate a formal conclusion to the War of 1812. Clay possessed a deep sense of service the country. We really have no idea today how difficult it was for him to go between Washington and Lexington, KY all of the years that he did - and often through poor weather and when he was in ill health.
Despite all of his wonderful accomplishments, he will forever be marred by the stain of being a slaveholder and never coming out in favor of outright emancipation. That is profoundly disappointing, and I come away from the book with the sense that many Northerners back then were disappointed with his hypocritical stance. He tried to straddle both sides of the issue but in the end he was not comfortable with either abolitionists or radical pro-slavery Southerners. A definite moral failing. It's not one you want to dwell on, yet it is a huge blotch on his record.
He also seemed to meddle way too much into his children's lives - really to the point of smothering them. Also, his behavior at the end of his life is quite peculiar. Even though he knows he is dying, he insists on making a final trip to Washington - leaving his wife and family behind in Kentucky. That is bizarre. And, given that, once he arrived in Washington, he made only one appearance in the Senate and then spent the remainder of the time in his room, the decision seems even more short-sighted (and perhaps selfish).
The Heidlers do a good job of showcasing Clay's great strengths while not shying away from his weaknesses. I think they are especially astute when discussing Clay's unsatisfactory handling of the slavery issue. I do wish they had commented some on the huge changes that were occurring in the country at the time with the media (newspapers), transportation (railroads), and communication (telegraph).
Despite all of his wonderful accomplishments, he will forever be marred by the stain of being a slaveholder and never coming out in favor of outright emancipation. That is profoundly disappointing, and I come away from the book with the sense that many Northerners back then were disappointed with his hypocritical stance. He tried to straddle both sides of the issue but in the end he was not comfortable with either abolitionists or radical pro-slavery Southerners. A definite moral failing. It's not one you want to dwell on, yet it is a huge blotch on his record.
He also seemed to meddle way too much into his children's lives - really to the point of smothering them. Also, his behavior at the end of his life is quite peculiar. Even though he knows he is dying, he insists on making a final trip to Washington - leaving his wife and family behind in Kentucky. That is bizarre. And, given that, once he arrived in Washington, he made only one appearance in the Senate and then spent the remainder of the time in his room, the decision seems even more short-sighted (and perhaps selfish).
The Heidlers do a good job of showcasing Clay's great strengths while not shying away from his weaknesses. I think they are especially astute when discussing Clay's unsatisfactory handling of the slavery issue. I do wish they had commented some on the huge changes that were occurring in the country at the time with the media (newspapers), transportation (railroads), and communication (telegraph).
February 18, 2017
The Heidler (Mr & Mrs) biography is the third biography of Henry Clay I've read over the past 25 years, and was my favorite. The book goes into great details re Clay's personal life - one is deeply saddened reading of his loss of 6 daughters and a son who died in war. One also picks up an appreciation for the closeness of Clay's marriage relationship with his wife Lucretia, and gets a sense of the sacrifices made as for many years his wife stayed behind in Kentucky while he spent half the year in Washington, when travel was of course a very different matter than it is now. The book also debunks a few key assumptions on Clay which I'd seen before, eg the incorrect allegation that he deliberately toyed with Tyler's 1841 attempts to pass legislation as if motivated purely to assert power and show who lead the Whig party, and in addition the incorrect storyline that Clay and Van Buren agreed in advance of the 1844 election to avoid the topic of the Texas annexation issue. The book also adds more detail on the frustrating background of the 1824, 1840, 1844, and 1848 presidential campaigns. It also throws new light onto the Corrupt Bargain allegations from Clay's support of John Quincy Adams in 1824, eg pointing out that Andrew Jackson essentially asked (without success) for James Buchanan to stretch the truth during the 1827-28 campaign! This book confirms what I've always thought, that Jackson was a successful politican with a pragmatic and manipulative machine, while Clay was a great statesman before, during and after Jackson's political career. I enjoyed the balance of coverage of Clay's personal life, the political machinations, and a glimpse of the day-to-day aspects of 1800-1860 daily life. I would definitely recommend this book to other readers.
November 3, 2010
As much a history of the country as a biography of the man, this book traces the forces at work in the period from the end of the revolutionary era to the years just preceding the Civil War. The politics were heady, nasty, personal; the persona were concerned with both regional and national agendas. With no precedents available for many decisions, the government in many cases had to define constitutional issues. Meantime, Clay struggles to preserve the Union, searches for compromises (and sometimes succeeds). Other actors, including Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, Taylor and Tyler, are painted in distinctive colors, and they pour off the pages as living men.
Clay loves, spoils, and nags at both his colleagues and his own family; to his great grief, most of the girl children are gone before they are mature adults. The loss of one daughter, the mother of 8 children in 12 years, is particularly hard for him, as well as a lesson for modern women in the changes that have occurred in expectations over the ensuing years. The boy children range from the brilliant to the insane. His wife apparently holds it all together, a love match and a competent mate.
This was an engaging read.
Clay loves, spoils, and nags at both his colleagues and his own family; to his great grief, most of the girl children are gone before they are mature adults. The loss of one daughter, the mother of 8 children in 12 years, is particularly hard for him, as well as a lesson for modern women in the changes that have occurred in expectations over the ensuing years. The boy children range from the brilliant to the insane. His wife apparently holds it all together, a love match and a competent mate.
This was an engaging read.
September 18, 2019
Excellent biography of one of America's most influential and important public servants of the 1800s. Widely respected, revered, and loved, Henry Clay's impact on America's socio-economic and political development during the first half of the nineteenth century cannot be overestimated. Amazingly detailed and appropriately critical and balanced, this is not hagiography. Clay's shortcomings are explored as thoroughly as his strengths and attributes are. The research and analysis present in this book serve as an example of the level of objectivity and excellence to which the art and science of biography and history can rise. The well organized and lucid writing style of the author also make the people who populate this fascinating era come alive, resulting in first class narrative history. If you are looking for a great, definitive biography of Henry Clay--perhaps the most amiable and charismatic member of the Great Triumvirate--then this is the book you should read.
June 5, 2017
This was an excellent, detailed, engrossing biography of a statesman of whom I knew nothing. I recall, from school days, hearing of the Clay-Webster-Calhoun triumvirate in the 19th century Congress. But I'm pretty shaky on US history between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. So when I had a chance to purchase this book cheaply on Kindle, I jumped at it and read it slowly over a month.
The book is long and detailed, but still fascinating. Without writing fiction, the author manages to communicate the very human emotions in Clay's life and actions. Clay rose from the Virginia "slashes" north of Richmond to study law in Richmond. As a young adult, Clay crossed the Cumberland Gap to the "far west", to Lexington, Kentucky. In the early 1800s, Kentucky was the growing frontier, and Clay hoped to make his mark in this new west. Yes, make his mark he did. While practicing law and working in Lexington, Clay was appointed as a temporary replacement for a Kentucky senator. Shortly afterwards, he successfully ran for Congress. His quick wit and strong social skills allowed him to become a leader in Washington, while supported, even worshiped, by the voters back home in wild Kentucky.
Clay's political life had a mixture of good luck (early) and bad luck (later). He was a perennial candidate for president. He violently opposed Andrew Jackson and fell victim to a "fake news" campaign run by Jackson's team.
Amidst the political soap opera of Washington, Clay still raised a family of eleven and created a palatial estate just south of Lexington. The author cites numerous sources to bring the reader into the drama of Washington life and the travails of Kentucky frontier life. (In that day it took more than two weeks to travel from Lexington to Washington.) Two of Clay's daughters died in infancy, two more daughters died as young girls and two more died in childbirth. A son was killed in the Mexican-American War. As each child died, I grieved with Clay. The author, Heidler, does an excellent job of using numerous letters and other resources to paint Clay's grief in the loss of children, his friendship with his wife and with numerous politicians, his ambition and (at times) his arrogance.
As an aside, I found Heidler's description of Andrew Jackson fascinating. From Clay's perspective, Jackson lied and bullied his way into power, angered most of DC and still controlled our country years after his two terms in the Oval Office. For the last half of Clay's life, politics consisted of the Jacksonians and the anti-Jacksonians. Clay bitterly feuded with every friend who supported Jackson. He could not comprehend how anyone could support such a narcissistic, selfish man! (Jackson even effected Texas history -- in 1836 the anti-Jacksonians, Crockett, Bowie and others, refused to work with the Jacksonian, Sam Houston, in opposing to Santa Ana's army.)
If you like American history, take your time reading through this wonderful work of non-fiction.
The book is long and detailed, but still fascinating. Without writing fiction, the author manages to communicate the very human emotions in Clay's life and actions. Clay rose from the Virginia "slashes" north of Richmond to study law in Richmond. As a young adult, Clay crossed the Cumberland Gap to the "far west", to Lexington, Kentucky. In the early 1800s, Kentucky was the growing frontier, and Clay hoped to make his mark in this new west. Yes, make his mark he did. While practicing law and working in Lexington, Clay was appointed as a temporary replacement for a Kentucky senator. Shortly afterwards, he successfully ran for Congress. His quick wit and strong social skills allowed him to become a leader in Washington, while supported, even worshiped, by the voters back home in wild Kentucky.
Clay's political life had a mixture of good luck (early) and bad luck (later). He was a perennial candidate for president. He violently opposed Andrew Jackson and fell victim to a "fake news" campaign run by Jackson's team.
Amidst the political soap opera of Washington, Clay still raised a family of eleven and created a palatial estate just south of Lexington. The author cites numerous sources to bring the reader into the drama of Washington life and the travails of Kentucky frontier life. (In that day it took more than two weeks to travel from Lexington to Washington.) Two of Clay's daughters died in infancy, two more daughters died as young girls and two more died in childbirth. A son was killed in the Mexican-American War. As each child died, I grieved with Clay. The author, Heidler, does an excellent job of using numerous letters and other resources to paint Clay's grief in the loss of children, his friendship with his wife and with numerous politicians, his ambition and (at times) his arrogance.
As an aside, I found Heidler's description of Andrew Jackson fascinating. From Clay's perspective, Jackson lied and bullied his way into power, angered most of DC and still controlled our country years after his two terms in the Oval Office. For the last half of Clay's life, politics consisted of the Jacksonians and the anti-Jacksonians. Clay bitterly feuded with every friend who supported Jackson. He could not comprehend how anyone could support such a narcissistic, selfish man! (Jackson even effected Texas history -- in 1836 the anti-Jacksonians, Crockett, Bowie and others, refused to work with the Jacksonian, Sam Houston, in opposing to Santa Ana's army.)
If you like American history, take your time reading through this wonderful work of non-fiction.
September 29, 2019
Henry Clay is a singularly unfashionable figure for our times. A professional politician, he was a firm believer in compromise and celebrated as the greatest practitioner of it. Though he hungered for the presidency, he repeatedly reiterated his belief in legislative supremacy and opposed Andrew Jackson’s concentration of power in the executive. And when faced with the growing moral divide over slavery, he attempted to straddle the issue in a manner that would invite derision from both sides of the issue. Yet as David and Jeanne Heidler show, his death in June 1852 triggered nationwide mourning, a tribute to his long career and testimony to the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries.
How he came to earn such passionate devotion is only partly covered in this biography, however, which focuses primarily upon Clay’s political career. This in itself more than justifies the hundreds of pages the authors devote to it, spanning as it does over half a century, from the early days of Kentucky’s statehood to the last major effort at political compromise before the Civil War. Much of this career was focused on becoming president, yet the Heidlers argue that he never really came close to the office, leaving instead an unfulfilled ambition that has given his distinguished career an aura of failure despite his many achievements.
The Heidlers lay our Clay’s career in admiring prose that conveys with clarity many of the issues and battles of his day. Yet is their book really necessary? There are no new arguments about Clay’s career within its pages, merely a lengthy narrative that does little to improve upon Robert Remini’s Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, the yardstick by which Clay biographies must be judged. In most respects the Heidlers’ effort is much inferior, particularly in its coverage of the nonpolitical aspects of Clay’s life and in the frequent use of ahistorical (and ungrammatical) labels that are more reflective of modern-day partisanship than the politics of Clay’s time. Such issues mean that this is merely the latest Clay biography rather than the best, and that readers seeking to understand Clay’s life would be better served picking up Remini’s superior work instead.
How he came to earn such passionate devotion is only partly covered in this biography, however, which focuses primarily upon Clay’s political career. This in itself more than justifies the hundreds of pages the authors devote to it, spanning as it does over half a century, from the early days of Kentucky’s statehood to the last major effort at political compromise before the Civil War. Much of this career was focused on becoming president, yet the Heidlers argue that he never really came close to the office, leaving instead an unfulfilled ambition that has given his distinguished career an aura of failure despite his many achievements.
The Heidlers lay our Clay’s career in admiring prose that conveys with clarity many of the issues and battles of his day. Yet is their book really necessary? There are no new arguments about Clay’s career within its pages, merely a lengthy narrative that does little to improve upon Robert Remini’s Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, the yardstick by which Clay biographies must be judged. In most respects the Heidlers’ effort is much inferior, particularly in its coverage of the nonpolitical aspects of Clay’s life and in the frequent use of ahistorical (and ungrammatical) labels that are more reflective of modern-day partisanship than the politics of Clay’s time. Such issues mean that this is merely the latest Clay biography rather than the best, and that readers seeking to understand Clay’s life would be better served picking up Remini’s superior work instead.
January 15, 2013
The subtitle of this book describes Clay as "the essential American." How was this so? Certainly his parliamentary skills and skill in achieving compromise was considered an essential quality in a country preparing to tear itself apart over slavery. What was essentially American about Clay in my reading of this biography was his ability to think of the country as a whole--whether in terms of internal improvements or in terms of the problem of slavery. Although representing the upper south, he sought to frame a legislative vision that brought the sections together into an American system.
There seems to be a tremendous sadness that hangs over this life. It was one punctuated by the loss of most of his children who pre-deceased him, including Henry, Jr. in the Mexican wars. It included his continually frustrated presidential ambitions, his frustrated hopes for the Whig party. He was deeply troubled by slavery although he owned slaves (all of whom he emancipated by the time of his death).
Yet people turned out in droves to hear his eloquence in life and to mark his passing in a procession that wound its way across the country from Washington to his resting place near Lexington. When hugely indebted to lenders from efforts to help his sons, anonymous friends liquidated his debts.
He was a man of the world, who could drink and gamble and carouse with the best of them. He was a self-made man in many ways, leaving Virginia for the Kentucky frontier, establish a law practice and building an estate with farms, livestock and racehorses at Ashland. Yet later in life, after Henry, Jr's death and the loss of a presidential election, he turned to his wife's faith and was baptized, recognizing the consolations she found in God.
In Clay, it seems to me, we see the human story in a single life--great dreams and visions coupled with tragedy and the futility of a fallen world where our noblest dreams and our basest ambitions often clash.
There seems to be a tremendous sadness that hangs over this life. It was one punctuated by the loss of most of his children who pre-deceased him, including Henry, Jr. in the Mexican wars. It included his continually frustrated presidential ambitions, his frustrated hopes for the Whig party. He was deeply troubled by slavery although he owned slaves (all of whom he emancipated by the time of his death).
Yet people turned out in droves to hear his eloquence in life and to mark his passing in a procession that wound its way across the country from Washington to his resting place near Lexington. When hugely indebted to lenders from efforts to help his sons, anonymous friends liquidated his debts.
He was a man of the world, who could drink and gamble and carouse with the best of them. He was a self-made man in many ways, leaving Virginia for the Kentucky frontier, establish a law practice and building an estate with farms, livestock and racehorses at Ashland. Yet later in life, after Henry, Jr's death and the loss of a presidential election, he turned to his wife's faith and was baptized, recognizing the consolations she found in God.
In Clay, it seems to me, we see the human story in a single life--great dreams and visions coupled with tragedy and the futility of a fallen world where our noblest dreams and our basest ambitions often clash.
July 6, 2019
This book is uncomfortably long and incredibly boring; it is a seemingly never-ending litany of minor political maneuverings and squabbling undertaken by Henry Clay. It's sorta like if someone took all the partisan politics you see in newspapers for about 25 years and gave about 600 pages of synopses. Maybe some people like that, but I personally am not a big fan of the reality television show that is politics, and I certainly am not interested in the details of political fights from 150 years ago.
There is a reason almost all details of political maneuvering is ephemeral - it generally has the barest amount of true substance, and is instead mainly used as a nucleation site around which power-seeking individuals can build a coalition. This goes double for all the politicking within the Whig party that is covered in detail in this book. There are no essential truths here, it's just a bunch of people trying to create the image required to put themselves in power. Even if you want to do that for yourself (and you shouldn't want that, because it is not a noble goal), you would likely do better to learn about public choice theory and other actual studies of politics.
It is quite possible that this book is actually good for what it is, but that does not excuse the fact that it is actively unpleasant to think that anyone would want to write a book about Henry Clay and his political allies or his enemies. They all seemed like a bunch of awful people.
1.5 of 5 stars
There is a reason almost all details of political maneuvering is ephemeral - it generally has the barest amount of true substance, and is instead mainly used as a nucleation site around which power-seeking individuals can build a coalition. This goes double for all the politicking within the Whig party that is covered in detail in this book. There are no essential truths here, it's just a bunch of people trying to create the image required to put themselves in power. Even if you want to do that for yourself (and you shouldn't want that, because it is not a noble goal), you would likely do better to learn about public choice theory and other actual studies of politics.
It is quite possible that this book is actually good for what it is, but that does not excuse the fact that it is actively unpleasant to think that anyone would want to write a book about Henry Clay and his political allies or his enemies. They all seemed like a bunch of awful people.
1.5 of 5 stars
December 3, 2014
Henry Clay is one of those figures in our nation's history whose name, mentioned to one's adult companions, will probably spark, at most, vague memories from high school years, with little specific recollection of his role or accomplishments. A man whose political career spanned almost 50 years, beginning with appointment to Kentucky's state assembly and a brief interim Senate stint during the Jefferson administration, all the way to a central role in crafting the Compromise of 1850, Clay's life has often been reduced to a summary of his repeated failed bids for the presidency and his inability to stop the tide of Andrew Jackson. While many of these episodes are worth understanding in greater detail, his story deserves a better and more complete retelling, and his biographers, David Heidler and Jeanne Heidler, have produced one.
Clay was the son of small Virginia planters, born in 1776 along with the Union he devoted his career to preserving. He was born into a slave-holding family, a circumstance that would complicate the rest of his life both politically and morally, since the small stake he had in slavery at the outset did not diminish his expansion of the practice as an adult, nor his continued drive for gradual emancipation. This contrast in belief and practice as a carryover from the early days of slavery, when many of its practitioners believed it to be an evil that would some day be eradicated. Henry spent his formative years after his father died, and his mother remarried, clerking for George Wythe (earlier mentor in the law to Jefferson, among many others) in Richmond, and eventually made hi sway to Kentucky where his mother and siblings had already gone. A naturally intelligent man, with ready wit and tons of charm, Clay found himself rising quickly in the world, and established himself as a lawyer in Lexington, KY in the 1790's. He involved himself immediately in politics, agitating for Jeffersonian principles against the hated Federalists. He defended Aaron Burr against charges of treason (he later regretted doing so when it seemed probable that Burr was indeed guilty), but he also joined the state legislator and worked hard in favor of the commercial interest of his adopted Lexington. It was here that he began to see the benefits of banking and credit, the promotion of which would drive his future career.
After the election of Jefferson in 1800, politics quieted down quite a bit- the Republicans were firmly in control, and Henry Clay, whose time in DC began with a brief Senatorial appointment in 1806, really joined the legislature in earnest in 1812, when as a brand new member of the House of Representatives was elected Speaker of the House on the first day of the session, an unprecedented and unequaled achievement. As has been his practice as speaker of the Kentucky state house, Clay often formed the chamber into a Committee of the Whole so that he could participate in debate, which would not normally be the case for a speaker under regular procedures. Clay's renown as an orator, already strong, only grew as his freshman House class of War Hawks pushed for war against Great Britain in 1812. While Britain was engaged in provocative behavior toward American shipping during its conflicts with Napoleon, the War Hawks were naive in their expectations that America, with no standing army and no navy to speak of, could take Canada from their powerful former parent. The war was fought to a draw, and Clay was one of three ministers sent to Ghent, Belgium to negotiate the cessation of hostilities. Though it came too late to affect the treaty, the Battle of New Orleans ended the war on a decidedly positive note for Americans, ignoring that the peace ended with the status quo ante bellum unchanged (though with Napoleon in exile on Elba by then, most of the casus belli had evaporated). Ironically, then, the war Clay agitated to start ended up being the launchpad for his most implacable, hated, and successful political enemy, Andrew Jackson.
Clay's career in the House continued through the Monroe administration (1817-1825), which named his fellow Ghent negotiator (and bickering partner) John Quincy Adams to the post of Secretary of State, a post which Clay thought was his due. It was during this time period that he helped rally the house around the Missouri Compromise, his first brush with conflagration potential of the slavery question. As a supporter of gradual emancipation, a representative of the upper South, and a slave-holder, he was uniquely positioned to take a moderate position on the issue, a role he would play repeatedly. He would be thwarted for the Presidency in 1824 when he came in fourth in the electoral college vote, leaving him out of the running for the post but firmly in control of the House vote between JQA, Jackson, and the ailing William Crawford. Having decided to support JQA based on principle, he proceeded to delay the decision, which cost him dearly when the vote finally occurred. Once Clay threw his support to Adams, Adams then fatefully offered Clay the post of Secretary of State, a seeming-quid pro quo that had no basis in evidence, but was used as a cudgel by Jackson's supporters to denounce the "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay. Though the evidence we have shows it was not true, this appearance of impropriety dogged Clay throughout his career.
Jackson's supporters hampered the Adams administration ruthlessly, and though Adams and Claydid get their Tariff of 1828 passed (called "the Tariff of Abominations" by Jackson's crew), the Jacksonians rallied to secure the presidency for their man in 1828. This touched off the Nullification Crisis, in which South Carolina began to float the idea that states could nullify federal legislation they deemed unconsitutional. Jackson's reponse was typically (though somewhat appropriately) bellicose, and Clay, in the Senate again by 1832, brokered another compromise to adjust the legislation and avoid armed conflict.
Jackson and Clay clashed over Clay's program to promote "the American System," in which infrastructure projects would be funded by the government through tariffs, which would also protect American manufacturing interests. Jackson opposed all of this, and also came to the conclusion that he needed to kill the Bank of the United States, which had been re-established in 1816 (after the first charter expired in 1811) in the aftermath of the War of 1812, where the lack of available financing almost cost the US the war. Jackson was initially uncommitted about the bank, but through interactions with the insufferable Nicolas Biddle, the bank's director, became determined to veto its recharter in a fit of personal pique. It was this struggle that caused Clay to rally the anti-Jackson forces, claiming executive overreach, into a coalition called the Whig Party, after the original foes of unchecked royal power in Britain in the 17th century. Clay's Whigs were never able to elevate their man and his system to the Presidency, despite attempts in 1832 and 1844, though they did elect generals with few political convictions in 1840 and 1848, both of which were problematic for the party.
The elections of 1840 and 1844 were tremendously consequential for American history. Had the Whig convention met in late 1840, when it was clear that Jackson's successor, Martin van Buren, would be sunk b the sinking economy (in part, a legacy of Jackson's actions against banks and banknotes, but also the reversal of a speculative bubble), Clay would easily have won the nomination and the presidency. However, since the nomination took place earlier, General William Henry Harrison was nominated instead. His willingness to accept the Whig view of legislative supremacy was never tested, however, as he died a month after his inauguration, and a former Democrat who had turned against Jackson, John Tyler, destroyed the Whig program with his veto pen and his desire to annex Texas, which the party opposed. He spent the next four years obstructing Whig principles and laying the groundwork for the election of 1844.
1844 seemed sure to be Clay's year, and likely would have been, absent massive electoral fraud in New York, stealing away that state's electoral vote and swinging the election to Jackson protege James Polk. The election itself contained missteps by Clay and demagoguery by Jackson's forces, making it closer than it perhaps should have been, and opening the door to the NY shenanigans (concentrated among the Irish immigrant population and their illegal voting activities). At this point, Clay was nearing 70, and having left the Senate in 1842 avowed he would retire to Ashland, his Kentucky estate, to leave politics. He did not abandon his quest for the presidency however, and continued to be active in his opposition to Polk's expansionism, which found it's greatest expression in the Mexican War. Whigs seized upon Zachary Taylor, a general hero of that war, as their candidate in 1848, acing Clay out once again. Clay was returned to the Senate in 1849, and Taylor died in office while battles raged over the extension of slavery to the newly-won territories from Mexico. Clay once again worked to establish a compromise that would mend sectional fences between North and South, which were replacing party lines as the key demarcation of policy differences (the Wilmot Proviso that sought to exclude slavery from the new territory was proposed by a Pennsylvania Democrat, despite his party's greater comfort with slavery). The Compromise of 1850 was cobbled together by Clay in an omnibus bill, which was defeated on the floor but passed piecemeal after Clay left Washington. It was his last great contribution to the union, though it wold ultimately not be enough, and he died just two years later.
The book covers Clay's life and family in great detail, bringing forth the tragedy of seeing 7 of his 11 children die before he did, including all 6 of his daughters, and a number of his daughters-in-law and grandchildren. He also saw his oldest son, Theodore, go insane and require commitment in a mental hospital before the age of 40. His greatest hope among his children, Henry Jr., died in battle in the very war that Clay so vehemently opposed.
Most of the discussion Clay's slaves is saved for a chapter near the end, where the issue is dealt with at length. It seemed a little jarring to have this issue glossed over for most of the book, but the authors provide a good balance of assessing the moral strengths and failures of Clay against the standards of his time, not ours, and are critical where it was deserved (despite his early disavowal of slavery as an institution, Clay began acquiring slaves "from scratch" in his early career, putting his actions at odds with his purported views on the subject) without engaging in moralistic preening.
Overall, the picture that emerges of Henry Clay is a very full and complex one, and there is enough supporting context for the major events in his life and times that one can use his biography as a proxy for the history of American politics in the first half of the 19th century. Though he never did achieve his ultimate goal of the presidency, his association with the principle of legislative superiority over the executive makes that somehow fitting, and the impact of his life on American politics over 5 decades makes the book's subtitle, "The Essential American," a title that the subject fully merited.
Clay was the son of small Virginia planters, born in 1776 along with the Union he devoted his career to preserving. He was born into a slave-holding family, a circumstance that would complicate the rest of his life both politically and morally, since the small stake he had in slavery at the outset did not diminish his expansion of the practice as an adult, nor his continued drive for gradual emancipation. This contrast in belief and practice as a carryover from the early days of slavery, when many of its practitioners believed it to be an evil that would some day be eradicated. Henry spent his formative years after his father died, and his mother remarried, clerking for George Wythe (earlier mentor in the law to Jefferson, among many others) in Richmond, and eventually made hi sway to Kentucky where his mother and siblings had already gone. A naturally intelligent man, with ready wit and tons of charm, Clay found himself rising quickly in the world, and established himself as a lawyer in Lexington, KY in the 1790's. He involved himself immediately in politics, agitating for Jeffersonian principles against the hated Federalists. He defended Aaron Burr against charges of treason (he later regretted doing so when it seemed probable that Burr was indeed guilty), but he also joined the state legislator and worked hard in favor of the commercial interest of his adopted Lexington. It was here that he began to see the benefits of banking and credit, the promotion of which would drive his future career.
After the election of Jefferson in 1800, politics quieted down quite a bit- the Republicans were firmly in control, and Henry Clay, whose time in DC began with a brief Senatorial appointment in 1806, really joined the legislature in earnest in 1812, when as a brand new member of the House of Representatives was elected Speaker of the House on the first day of the session, an unprecedented and unequaled achievement. As has been his practice as speaker of the Kentucky state house, Clay often formed the chamber into a Committee of the Whole so that he could participate in debate, which would not normally be the case for a speaker under regular procedures. Clay's renown as an orator, already strong, only grew as his freshman House class of War Hawks pushed for war against Great Britain in 1812. While Britain was engaged in provocative behavior toward American shipping during its conflicts with Napoleon, the War Hawks were naive in their expectations that America, with no standing army and no navy to speak of, could take Canada from their powerful former parent. The war was fought to a draw, and Clay was one of three ministers sent to Ghent, Belgium to negotiate the cessation of hostilities. Though it came too late to affect the treaty, the Battle of New Orleans ended the war on a decidedly positive note for Americans, ignoring that the peace ended with the status quo ante bellum unchanged (though with Napoleon in exile on Elba by then, most of the casus belli had evaporated). Ironically, then, the war Clay agitated to start ended up being the launchpad for his most implacable, hated, and successful political enemy, Andrew Jackson.
Clay's career in the House continued through the Monroe administration (1817-1825), which named his fellow Ghent negotiator (and bickering partner) John Quincy Adams to the post of Secretary of State, a post which Clay thought was his due. It was during this time period that he helped rally the house around the Missouri Compromise, his first brush with conflagration potential of the slavery question. As a supporter of gradual emancipation, a representative of the upper South, and a slave-holder, he was uniquely positioned to take a moderate position on the issue, a role he would play repeatedly. He would be thwarted for the Presidency in 1824 when he came in fourth in the electoral college vote, leaving him out of the running for the post but firmly in control of the House vote between JQA, Jackson, and the ailing William Crawford. Having decided to support JQA based on principle, he proceeded to delay the decision, which cost him dearly when the vote finally occurred. Once Clay threw his support to Adams, Adams then fatefully offered Clay the post of Secretary of State, a seeming-quid pro quo that had no basis in evidence, but was used as a cudgel by Jackson's supporters to denounce the "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay. Though the evidence we have shows it was not true, this appearance of impropriety dogged Clay throughout his career.
Jackson's supporters hampered the Adams administration ruthlessly, and though Adams and Claydid get their Tariff of 1828 passed (called "the Tariff of Abominations" by Jackson's crew), the Jacksonians rallied to secure the presidency for their man in 1828. This touched off the Nullification Crisis, in which South Carolina began to float the idea that states could nullify federal legislation they deemed unconsitutional. Jackson's reponse was typically (though somewhat appropriately) bellicose, and Clay, in the Senate again by 1832, brokered another compromise to adjust the legislation and avoid armed conflict.
Jackson and Clay clashed over Clay's program to promote "the American System," in which infrastructure projects would be funded by the government through tariffs, which would also protect American manufacturing interests. Jackson opposed all of this, and also came to the conclusion that he needed to kill the Bank of the United States, which had been re-established in 1816 (after the first charter expired in 1811) in the aftermath of the War of 1812, where the lack of available financing almost cost the US the war. Jackson was initially uncommitted about the bank, but through interactions with the insufferable Nicolas Biddle, the bank's director, became determined to veto its recharter in a fit of personal pique. It was this struggle that caused Clay to rally the anti-Jackson forces, claiming executive overreach, into a coalition called the Whig Party, after the original foes of unchecked royal power in Britain in the 17th century. Clay's Whigs were never able to elevate their man and his system to the Presidency, despite attempts in 1832 and 1844, though they did elect generals with few political convictions in 1840 and 1848, both of which were problematic for the party.
The elections of 1840 and 1844 were tremendously consequential for American history. Had the Whig convention met in late 1840, when it was clear that Jackson's successor, Martin van Buren, would be sunk b the sinking economy (in part, a legacy of Jackson's actions against banks and banknotes, but also the reversal of a speculative bubble), Clay would easily have won the nomination and the presidency. However, since the nomination took place earlier, General William Henry Harrison was nominated instead. His willingness to accept the Whig view of legislative supremacy was never tested, however, as he died a month after his inauguration, and a former Democrat who had turned against Jackson, John Tyler, destroyed the Whig program with his veto pen and his desire to annex Texas, which the party opposed. He spent the next four years obstructing Whig principles and laying the groundwork for the election of 1844.
1844 seemed sure to be Clay's year, and likely would have been, absent massive electoral fraud in New York, stealing away that state's electoral vote and swinging the election to Jackson protege James Polk. The election itself contained missteps by Clay and demagoguery by Jackson's forces, making it closer than it perhaps should have been, and opening the door to the NY shenanigans (concentrated among the Irish immigrant population and their illegal voting activities). At this point, Clay was nearing 70, and having left the Senate in 1842 avowed he would retire to Ashland, his Kentucky estate, to leave politics. He did not abandon his quest for the presidency however, and continued to be active in his opposition to Polk's expansionism, which found it's greatest expression in the Mexican War. Whigs seized upon Zachary Taylor, a general hero of that war, as their candidate in 1848, acing Clay out once again. Clay was returned to the Senate in 1849, and Taylor died in office while battles raged over the extension of slavery to the newly-won territories from Mexico. Clay once again worked to establish a compromise that would mend sectional fences between North and South, which were replacing party lines as the key demarcation of policy differences (the Wilmot Proviso that sought to exclude slavery from the new territory was proposed by a Pennsylvania Democrat, despite his party's greater comfort with slavery). The Compromise of 1850 was cobbled together by Clay in an omnibus bill, which was defeated on the floor but passed piecemeal after Clay left Washington. It was his last great contribution to the union, though it wold ultimately not be enough, and he died just two years later.
The book covers Clay's life and family in great detail, bringing forth the tragedy of seeing 7 of his 11 children die before he did, including all 6 of his daughters, and a number of his daughters-in-law and grandchildren. He also saw his oldest son, Theodore, go insane and require commitment in a mental hospital before the age of 40. His greatest hope among his children, Henry Jr., died in battle in the very war that Clay so vehemently opposed.
Most of the discussion Clay's slaves is saved for a chapter near the end, where the issue is dealt with at length. It seemed a little jarring to have this issue glossed over for most of the book, but the authors provide a good balance of assessing the moral strengths and failures of Clay against the standards of his time, not ours, and are critical where it was deserved (despite his early disavowal of slavery as an institution, Clay began acquiring slaves "from scratch" in his early career, putting his actions at odds with his purported views on the subject) without engaging in moralistic preening.
Overall, the picture that emerges of Henry Clay is a very full and complex one, and there is enough supporting context for the major events in his life and times that one can use his biography as a proxy for the history of American politics in the first half of the 19th century. Though he never did achieve his ultimate goal of the presidency, his association with the principle of legislative superiority over the executive makes that somehow fitting, and the impact of his life on American politics over 5 decades makes the book's subtitle, "The Essential American," a title that the subject fully merited.
March 20, 2018
In high school, my AP US History classmates and I spent more than enough time pitying Henry Clay, the man who kept running for president year after year after year...without avail. It became a running joke amongst my friends and me as we worked our way through the textbook--"there's Henry Clay again...trying to be President!" While we pitied him, it was also kind of funny to our sixteen year old minds that this guy wouldn’t stop trying.
When I ran across Henry Clay: The Essential American, then, I was curious. Who was this man who wouldn't give up? Once I started reading, I quickly grew to understand how famous Henry Clay was during his lifetime, and how his big, fiercely patriotic, and often times stubborn personality influenced both American thought and legislation throughout his nearly fifty years in politics (e.g. he was the influential leader of the War Hawks during the War of 1812 and was at the signing of the Treaty of Ghent to end that war; he was a fiery, passionate Speaker of the House of Representatives who wasn't afraid to make his own rules for the Speakership; he was an influential opponent of the Jackson and Van Buren administrations, never letting either president forget his presence in the Senate; he was a key founder of the Whig Party; he was fiercely dedicated presidential candidate on multiple occasions, though he never won; and later in life, he greatly influenced the Compromise of 1850. He influenced and inspired many a politician, including Abraham Lincoln). I felt a touch of shame towards my younger self for viewing him as an overly eager stock character. Determined is a better word to describe his political aspirations.
Overall, I enjoyed Henry Clay. Heidler and Heidler present a sweepingly positive view of Clay with little remorse for Jacksonian Democrats and Jackson himself (I'm interested to read their biography of Jackson to see what redeeming qualities, if any, they can find in him). Yet, the primary sources do undeniably show Clay as a mostly kind and level headed man in his personal life and relentlessly stubborn and sometimes prone to temper in his political life only because he deeply believed in his country and what he saw was best for his country. Often, I felt like I was reading less a biography of one man, and more a history of the United States from ca. 1800 to 1852. Yet, Clay's life was so entrenched in shaping the country that I imagine it'd be difficult for any biographer to do justice to his life without going into detail about what was happening around him. At times, I wished for more information about Clay's private life at Ashland. I wanted more details about his relationship with Lucretia and what day-to-day life at Ashland looked like in making it such a retreat for him. Yet, that would have made an already quite lengthy book much longer. Heidler and Heidler sometimes resort to cliché literary techniques, particularly in regards to foreshadowing (phrases such as "Nobody could have imagined what would happen next" right before a section break were frequent, which I found irritating). Yet, the prose flows well and the writing isn't otherwise clunky.
I learned a lot while reading Henry Clay, both about the man himself and American history as a whole. Henry Clay is an outstanding figure in early-to mid-nineteenth century American politics, and his life story is worth the read.
When I ran across Henry Clay: The Essential American, then, I was curious. Who was this man who wouldn't give up? Once I started reading, I quickly grew to understand how famous Henry Clay was during his lifetime, and how his big, fiercely patriotic, and often times stubborn personality influenced both American thought and legislation throughout his nearly fifty years in politics (e.g. he was the influential leader of the War Hawks during the War of 1812 and was at the signing of the Treaty of Ghent to end that war; he was a fiery, passionate Speaker of the House of Representatives who wasn't afraid to make his own rules for the Speakership; he was an influential opponent of the Jackson and Van Buren administrations, never letting either president forget his presence in the Senate; he was a key founder of the Whig Party; he was fiercely dedicated presidential candidate on multiple occasions, though he never won; and later in life, he greatly influenced the Compromise of 1850. He influenced and inspired many a politician, including Abraham Lincoln). I felt a touch of shame towards my younger self for viewing him as an overly eager stock character. Determined is a better word to describe his political aspirations.
Overall, I enjoyed Henry Clay. Heidler and Heidler present a sweepingly positive view of Clay with little remorse for Jacksonian Democrats and Jackson himself (I'm interested to read their biography of Jackson to see what redeeming qualities, if any, they can find in him). Yet, the primary sources do undeniably show Clay as a mostly kind and level headed man in his personal life and relentlessly stubborn and sometimes prone to temper in his political life only because he deeply believed in his country and what he saw was best for his country. Often, I felt like I was reading less a biography of one man, and more a history of the United States from ca. 1800 to 1852. Yet, Clay's life was so entrenched in shaping the country that I imagine it'd be difficult for any biographer to do justice to his life without going into detail about what was happening around him. At times, I wished for more information about Clay's private life at Ashland. I wanted more details about his relationship with Lucretia and what day-to-day life at Ashland looked like in making it such a retreat for him. Yet, that would have made an already quite lengthy book much longer. Heidler and Heidler sometimes resort to cliché literary techniques, particularly in regards to foreshadowing (phrases such as "Nobody could have imagined what would happen next" right before a section break were frequent, which I found irritating). Yet, the prose flows well and the writing isn't otherwise clunky.
I learned a lot while reading Henry Clay, both about the man himself and American history as a whole. Henry Clay is an outstanding figure in early-to mid-nineteenth century American politics, and his life story is worth the read.
September 24, 2018
Henry Clay was a master orator and parliamentarian.
Known as the Great Compromiser, Clay was a national hero who kept the country intact when contrary forces were trying to tear it apart.
Clay was a hero to many, including Abraham Lincoln, who utilized Clay's speeches to write the Gettysburgh Address. Despite Clay's shortcomings in three failed presidential bids, his will lives on in modern times through various senatorial procedures still practiced in the 21st century.
Husband and wife, the Heidlers, who collaborated as authors, trace Clay's life from birth to death with so much clarity and depth.
While other biographies can bog a reader down in discussing, pages long, certain events and other characters, the Heidlers only focus on Clay. If and when other characters make appearances, it's up to the reader to learn about them on their own. No page is wasted giving lengthy discussions on the war of 1812, or a mini-bio on John Quincey Adams.
The attention is focused on Clay and the minute details of his life. By the end, it makes the reader feel like they are apart of the family, shedding a tear or two when Clay gasps his last breath.
Known as the Great Compromiser, Clay was a national hero who kept the country intact when contrary forces were trying to tear it apart.
Clay was a hero to many, including Abraham Lincoln, who utilized Clay's speeches to write the Gettysburgh Address. Despite Clay's shortcomings in three failed presidential bids, his will lives on in modern times through various senatorial procedures still practiced in the 21st century.
Husband and wife, the Heidlers, who collaborated as authors, trace Clay's life from birth to death with so much clarity and depth.
While other biographies can bog a reader down in discussing, pages long, certain events and other characters, the Heidlers only focus on Clay. If and when other characters make appearances, it's up to the reader to learn about them on their own. No page is wasted giving lengthy discussions on the war of 1812, or a mini-bio on John Quincey Adams.
The attention is focused on Clay and the minute details of his life. By the end, it makes the reader feel like they are apart of the family, shedding a tear or two when Clay gasps his last breath.
May 15, 2021
An excellently written biography over one of the country's most complicated men. Heidler does a great job of painting a picture not only of Clay, but of the entire political era that Clay came to embody. He shows Clay not as a compromiser, but an idealogue who's ideas shaped a political party and charted the course of a nation. Clay's American System would one day, after his death, come to fruition, though his ideals of legislative supremacy over the executive would remain in the dust. Additionally, Clay's hypocrisy and mediating stance on slavery, the urge to make moral arguments against racism but refuse action to solve it, would also become an enduring status in America.
Heidler's details about Clay's extended family can become tedious, but overall he presents a thorough biography of a busy, crucial life in very readable prose. I would readily recommend this book as not only a fantastic look into the 2nd Political Era of the U.S. as a whole, but as just a genuinely enjoyable biography and read in its own merit.
Heidler's details about Clay's extended family can become tedious, but overall he presents a thorough biography of a busy, crucial life in very readable prose. I would readily recommend this book as not only a fantastic look into the 2nd Political Era of the U.S. as a whole, but as just a genuinely enjoyable biography and read in its own merit.
June 4, 2019
Stinks to give a book this long and one I spent several month with such a low review. But it could have been shorter. I felt it repeated itself too much and fell in love with Clay’s voice without more of the substance of his ideas and the contrast with his rivals.
November 4, 2010
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
As we all know, for every famed politician who eventually enters the history books, there were a dozen politicians around them who didn't, hardworking and greatly respected people in their time but who simply never rose to the level where they were recorded in history's great lists; so to put it in contemporary terms, for example, for every Ronald Reagan, there are a dozen Tip O'Neills, people destined to be forgotten by the public at large just a generation or two after their deaths. And when it comes to the first half of the 1800s, one such person would definitely be Henry Clay -- five-time Presidential also-ran, leader of Congress for almost half a century, scourge of Andrew Jackson, and champion of a whole series of failed projects (including the Bank of the United States, and the idea of compromise between the North and South over the issue of slavery). And it's noble, don't get me wrong, for scholars David and Jeanne Heidler to put together their recent 600-page biography of the man, explaining how he's gotten the short end of the stick over the years by being painted as the dowdy, elitist 'foe' of the populist, fascinating Jackson; but this overlong and overly dry tome also points out the problem of devoting this many pages to a man who ultimately never really did anything truly great, with the text eventually blurring at a certain point into a seemingly endless repetition of, "Then he unsuccessfully ran for President, then he debated tariff legislation, then one of his kids died; then he unsuccessfully ran for President, then he debated tariff legislation, then one of his kids died..." Although he's an interesting figure and I'm glad now that I know more about him, this particular volume delves way too much into the mind-numbing minutia of his day-to-day life, a book perfect for the Heidlers' fellow scholars but maybe not the best choice for a general audience member.
Out of 10: 7.3
As we all know, for every famed politician who eventually enters the history books, there were a dozen politicians around them who didn't, hardworking and greatly respected people in their time but who simply never rose to the level where they were recorded in history's great lists; so to put it in contemporary terms, for example, for every Ronald Reagan, there are a dozen Tip O'Neills, people destined to be forgotten by the public at large just a generation or two after their deaths. And when it comes to the first half of the 1800s, one such person would definitely be Henry Clay -- five-time Presidential also-ran, leader of Congress for almost half a century, scourge of Andrew Jackson, and champion of a whole series of failed projects (including the Bank of the United States, and the idea of compromise between the North and South over the issue of slavery). And it's noble, don't get me wrong, for scholars David and Jeanne Heidler to put together their recent 600-page biography of the man, explaining how he's gotten the short end of the stick over the years by being painted as the dowdy, elitist 'foe' of the populist, fascinating Jackson; but this overlong and overly dry tome also points out the problem of devoting this many pages to a man who ultimately never really did anything truly great, with the text eventually blurring at a certain point into a seemingly endless repetition of, "Then he unsuccessfully ran for President, then he debated tariff legislation, then one of his kids died; then he unsuccessfully ran for President, then he debated tariff legislation, then one of his kids died..." Although he's an interesting figure and I'm glad now that I know more about him, this particular volume delves way too much into the mind-numbing minutia of his day-to-day life, a book perfect for the Heidlers' fellow scholars but maybe not the best choice for a general audience member.
Out of 10: 7.3
November 26, 2015
Henry Clay was one of the central figures in American history; his political career spanned the first half of the 19th Century, a tumultous period in the early Republic. He would be a key player in the events of the period: a War Hawk in the run-up to the War of 1812 (he was first elected Speaker at 34); a negotiator in the Ghent conference that ended the war; the Missouri Compromise of 1820; the Bank of the U.S. crisis in the 1830's; the Mexican War; the last Compromise of 1850. He worked with, and fought with, some of the most vivid characters in American history -- Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas. And as a Speaker, and later, one of the Republic's most powerful Senators, he would help craft the compromises that would postpone the Civil War. Indeed, the reader gets the sense that, by 1850, he must have known that this would be a desperate and ultimately futile effort, the "firebell in the night" that Clay, Jefferson and others had sensed was coming.
It's a thoroughly-researched work, and for all its length is a smooth read that loses nothing of the political, personal and family drama that a long and full life would see. The prose is interesting, the story clearly told, and the emotions of the day fully understood. Given Henry Clay's centrality to U.S. political history, it's important -- and the result is an important, and readable, history of his life, his times, and the country he helped frame, for better or for worse.
Highest recommendation.
It's a thoroughly-researched work, and for all its length is a smooth read that loses nothing of the political, personal and family drama that a long and full life would see. The prose is interesting, the story clearly told, and the emotions of the day fully understood. Given Henry Clay's centrality to U.S. political history, it's important -- and the result is an important, and readable, history of his life, his times, and the country he helped frame, for better or for worse.
Highest recommendation.
October 29, 2010
This book started off pretty well, but then got bogged down in Henry Clay's politics. This would be a good book if all the reader wanted to know was about Clay's political views. However, I like biographies that explore the person's relationships with other people, the person's quirks, and the person's failings that all contribute that person's humanity. For example, I liked the chapter that dealt with Clay's defense of Aaron Burr. Clay thought Burr was an ok guy until after the trial was over and Clay went to the East Coast to start his work as a Senator . . . and then found out what a scoundrel Burr really was. Clay was mortified and never forgave Burr for misrepresenting certain things during the trial. That was really interesting. But pages upon pages of Clay's work on this committee or that committee or how he tried to get bills passed in the Senate got a little much for me. I think that some of that should be included, but there needs to be more of a balance between the work the person does, and the personal information that makes me want to care about why that person does what he does. In the case of Henry Clay, who was adored, worshipped, etc., by many politicians and younger aspiring politicians of his time, I'd like to know what besides the politics made him so adored. I wasn't really finding that out with this book. I got to chapter 4 and then returned the book to the library.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2012
I was drawn to this book out of curiosity. All the Abraham Lincoln books I've read mention prominently his admiration for Henry Clay and I wanted to find out why.
It was a very thorough biography - perhaps more thorough than necessary. I found it overwrought in its writing style. The authors could have eliminated about 100 pages had they not elaborated on topics and incidents that had no bearing on the man's political career. I also felt that in their desire to paint an objective portrait of the man, they waffled on certain issues; like slavery, for instance. Without a doubt, Clay was a complex individual, but the authors' criticisms and even their defenses seemed tepid at best.
I gave it three stars and would have given it four had they been more forceful in their positions. But I still recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn more about the man who "would rather be right than be president."
It was a very thorough biography - perhaps more thorough than necessary. I found it overwrought in its writing style. The authors could have eliminated about 100 pages had they not elaborated on topics and incidents that had no bearing on the man's political career. I also felt that in their desire to paint an objective portrait of the man, they waffled on certain issues; like slavery, for instance. Without a doubt, Clay was a complex individual, but the authors' criticisms and even their defenses seemed tepid at best.
I gave it three stars and would have given it four had they been more forceful in their positions. But I still recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn more about the man who "would rather be right than be president."
July 5, 2021
Very detailed and informative book about the life of one of America's greatest statesmen, Henry Clay. The book goes into the details of Clay's life, from his early years, through his time spent in both the House of Representatives as well as the Senate. It deals with his personal life, his relationships with both family and friends, and also focuses strongly on his political life and his interactions with other great political figures of his time, such as Webster, Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, Tyler, and Taylor, among others. While I found the book very informative, and very interesting, I would have given it a slightly higher rating but for the fact that I think it got a bit too detailed at times, to the point of getting bogged down. Details are good and necessary, but can get to be too much. So I found it a bit slow moving at times. All that said, if you are interested in American History, it is a worthwhile read.
November 28, 2015
Henry Clay is a name that pops up quite a bit in your American History classes. but with only the big events of his era typically being covered, this biography does a great job in explaining the twisted threads that tied the events together.
Clay had to have a big ego to achieve all that he did; however, seeing his interaction with the other big egos of the day shows the impact that these incredible men had on the early years of our country. I really enjoyed reading about some of our presidents and other leaders who have since been relegated to the second or third tier of importance in history classes.
Great book for the layman who enjoys history to gain a better understanding of early American history and how it relates to today from arguments about free trade to executive overreach. It reminds you that there really is nothing new under the sun.
Clay had to have a big ego to achieve all that he did; however, seeing his interaction with the other big egos of the day shows the impact that these incredible men had on the early years of our country. I really enjoyed reading about some of our presidents and other leaders who have since been relegated to the second or third tier of importance in history classes.
Great book for the layman who enjoys history to gain a better understanding of early American history and how it relates to today from arguments about free trade to executive overreach. It reminds you that there really is nothing new under the sun.
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