The Papers of Henry Clay


Book Description

Henry Clay's career spanned a half century of a great formative period in American history. This compilation of ten volumes includes Clay's letters, letters to Clay, his speeches, and other documents identified as his personal composition.







The Papers of Henry Clay


Book Description

This third volume in the ten-volume series covers the career of Henry Clay from the Second Session of the Sixteenth Congress, where he engineered the second Missouri Compromise, to the presidential election of 1824, when he found himself eliminated as a candidate. Upon his return from Congress in 1821, Clay practiced law and interested himself in Transylvania University, among other things. Elected again to the House of Representatives and to the Speakership in the Eighteenth Congress, Clay resumed his leadership in national affairs; his concerns at this period were principally with the Monroe Doctrine, the Spanish and Greek revolutions, and internal improvements and the tariff. A continuing thread in the volume is the presidential campaign of 1824. Clay's correspondence illustrates the changes in political techniques brought about by the emergence of the Jacksonian type of campaign. Sectionalism, already revealed as a danger to the Union, continued as an important issue. Clay's optimistic anticipation of his election of course proved incorrect, and the volume ends with Clay in the powerful but uncomfortable position of being able, by throwing his support to one of three candidates before the House of Representatives, to choose the next President of the United States. Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.




Henry Clay the Lawyer


Book Description

Though he was best known as a politician, Henry Clay (1777-1852) maintained an active legal practice for more than fifty years. He was a leading contributor both to the early development of the U.S. legal system and to the interaction between law and politics in pre-Civil War America. During the years of Clay's practice, modern American law was taking shape, building on the English experience but working out the new rules and precedents that a changing and growing society required. Clay specialized in property law, a natural choice at a time of entangled land claims, ill-defined boundaries, and inadequate state and federal procedures. He argued many precedent-setting cases, some of them before the U.S. Supreme Court. Maurice Baxter contends that Clay's extensive legal work in this area greatly influenced his political stances on various land policy issues. During Clay's lifetime, property law also included questions pertaining to slavery. With Daniel Webster, he handled a very significant constitutional case concerning the interstate slave trade. Baxter provides an overview of the federal and state court systems of Clay's time. After addressing Clay's early legal career, he focuses on Clay's interest in banking issues, land-related economic matters, and the slave trade. The portrait of Clay that emerges from this inquiry shows a skilled lawyer who was deeply involved with the central legal and economic issues of his day.




Letter to the Hon. Henry Clay


Book Description

Excerpt from Letter to the Hon. Henry Clay: On the Annexation of Texas to the United States I trust, that you will excuse the liberty which I take in thus publicly addressing you. If you could look into my heart, I am sure you would not condemn me. You would discover the motives of this act, in my respect for your eminent powers, and in my confidence that you are disposed to use them for the honor and happiness of your country. Were you less distinguished, or less worthy of distinction, I should not trouble you with this letter. I write you, because I am persuaded, that your great influ ence, if exerted in promoting just views on the subject of this communication, would accomplish a good, to which, perhaps, no other man in the country is equal. I am bound in frankness, to add another reason for addressing you. I h0pe that your name, prefixed to this letter, may secure to it an access to some, perhaps to many, who would turn away, were its thoughts presented in a more general form. Perhaps by this aid, it may scale the barrier, which now excludes from the South a certain class of the writings of the North. I am sure your hospitality would welcome me to Kentucky; and your well known generosity, I believe, will consent that I should use your name, to gain a hearing in that and the neighboring states. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.