A History of the American People

have experienced no difficulty in becoming president every time he chose to run. As it was,
having arrived in Kentucky in 1797 at the age of twenty-an excellent time to invest one's youth
in this burgeoning territory-he promptly married into its leading establishment family. Within a
few years he was the outstanding member of its state legislature, the highest-paid criminal
lawyer in the state, a director of its main bank, professor of law and politics at Transylvania
University, and the owner of a handsome property, Ashland, his home and solace for the rest of
his life. He even served two brief terms in the United States Senate, but it was not until he was
elected to the House in 1810 that his national career began.
Clay was probably the most innovative politician in American history, to be ranked with
Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison as a political creator. A year after getting to the
House he was elected its Speaker. Hitherto, the House had followed the English tradition,
whereby the Speaker presided impartially and represented the collective consensus. Clay
transformed this essentially non-political post into one of leadership, drilling and controlling a
partisan majority and, in the process, making himself the most powerful politician in the country
after the President. This made him a key figure in promoting the War of 1812 and also in
negotiating the Treaty of Ghent; and, somehow or other, he escaped any blame for the war's
disasters and returned from Ghent in triumph. This led him to think he ought to be secretary of
state to the new President, Monroe. When the job went to John Quincy Adams instead, Clay
organized and led in the House a systematic loyal opposition'-another political innovation. Clay was both principled and unprincipled. That was why other public men found it so difficult to make up their minds about him. (The ladies had no difficulty; they loved him.) His colleagues in the House and later in the Senate saw him as dictatorial and sometimes resented the way he used his authority to promote his views and ambitions. They saw the advantages of the strong leadership he provided. When he was in charge, the House functioned efficiently and fairly. Whenever he chose to stand, he was always voted into the speakership by large majorities. Later, in the Senate, the bulk of his colleagues always looked to him to take the lead. He was extraordinarily gifted in making what was in many ways a flawed system of government to work. He knew more about its nuts and bolts than any of his predecessors. Moreover, he had charm. Men who knew him only by repute were overwhelmed when they came across him face to face. A friend said to Thomas Glascock of Georgia:General, may I introduce you to Henry Clay?'
No, sir, I am his adversary and choose not to subject myself to his fascination.' Calhoun, who became a mortal opponent in rhetorical duels of great savagery, admitted through clenched teeth: I don't like Clay. He is a bad man, an imposter, a creator of wicked schemes. I wouldn't speak to
him but, by God, I love him!'
Like many politicians, Clay tended to confuse his personal advancement with the national
interest. But once in Washington he quickly developed, and thereafter extended throughout his
life, a body of public doctrine which made him one of the pillars of the new republic. He
believed that the liberty and sovereign independence of the hemisphere should be the prime
object of American foreign policy. The United States should secure its economic independence
from Europe by enlarging its own manufacturing sector. For this reason he got Congress in 1816
to enact the first American protective tariff and pressed for what he termed the `American
System' (of state intervention), under which state and federal governments would build roads,
canals, and harbors to hasten industrialization, speed westward expansion, and bind the Union
together." There was, to be sure, a large element of self-interest in this. Clay's estate grew hemp,
a Kentucky staple, and needed both protection from European hemp imports and good roads to
take it east cheaply. Equally he was one of those in Congress who helped to create the Second