A History of the American People

Bank of the United States. It just so happened he was paid the huge retainer of $6,000 a year to
fight the SBUS's cases in Kentucky, and borrowed money from it when necessary-indeed he was
also loaned large sums by J. J. Astor, another prime beneficiary of the American System. But
Clay clearly believed with every fiber of his being that America could and must become a
leading industrial power, and that such expansion would eventually make it the greatest nation
on earth. Just as John Marshall laid down the legal basis for American capitalism, so Clay
supplied its political foundations.
Clay was a passionate man. That, one suspects, is one reason people liked him. Despite all his
poitical skills he could not always keep his temper in check. Tears jumped easily into his eyes.
So did rage. When Humphrey Marshall, cousin and brother-in-law of the Chief Justice, and an
even bigger man than Clay (six feet two) called Clay a liar in the Kentucky legislature, Clay tried
to fight him on the floor of the House but was separated by a giant man with a strong German
accent'Come poys, no fighting here, I vips you both'-and the two antagonists crossed the river
into Ohio to fight a duel, Clay getting a flesh wound in the thigh during a fusillade of shots
(happily pistols were very inaccurate in those days). Clay pursued women relentlessly all his life,
drank and gambled heavily ('I have always paid peculiar homage to the fickle goddess'), and,
above all, danced. He was probably the most accomplished dancer among the politicians of his
generation, with the possible exception of the South American Liberator, Simon Bolivar. Like
Bolivar, when Clay was excited he loved to dance on the table at a banquet, and on one
Kentucky occasion an eyewitness described how he gave a grand Terpsichorean performance ... executing a pas seul from head to foot of the dining table, sixty feet in length ... to the crashing accompaniment of shivered glass and china.' Next morning he paid the bill for the breakages, $120,with a flourish. Dancing indeed was a frontier craze in the America of the 1820s and
1830s-it was about the only entertainment they had-and laid the foundation for the extraordinary
proficiency which enabled the United States, in the late 19th and 20th centuries, to produce more
first-class professional dancers than any other country in the world, including Russia. When Clay
was in Washington he adopted a different accent, watched his grammar (not always
successfully), took delicate pinches of snuff while speaking, played with his gold-rimmed
eyeglasses, and generally did his gentleman act. On the frontier, however, he was rambunctious,
a true Kentuckian, and dancing was part of the performance.
It seemed to Clay ridiculous that Congress should allow the slavery issue, which it was
unwilling to resolve fundamentally by banning it once and for all (as he wished), to obstruct the
admission of Missouri, the first territory to be carved out of the Louisiana Purchase entirely west
of the Mississippi. It was part of his American System to develop the Midwest as quickly as
possible, so that America could continue its relentless drive to the Pacific before anyone else
came along. If Missouri could not make itself viable without slavery, so what? He knew that in
Kentucky, if he and his wife gave up their slaves, they would have to abandon their estate as
uncompetitive and move-just as Edward Coles had had to sell up and move to Illinois, where he
became the state's second governor. It was Clay's view that, in God's good time, slavery would
go anyway, and developing the West using the American System would hasten the day.
Meanwhile, let Missouri be admitted and prosper.
Hence Clay, by furious and skillful activity behind the scenes and on the House floor, ensured
that Maine and Missouri were admitted together, along with a compromise amendment
prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36.30 (March1820). And by even
greater prodigies of skill he resolved the constitutional question provoked by the extremists in
the Missouri convention by what is known as the Second Missouri Compromise, the local