Henry Clay, “The Great Compromiser,” died this week (June 29) in 1852. After Alexander Hamilton, Clay arguably is the greatest American statesman never to become president. But he did serve in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, where he became the only Speaker of the House elected to that position on the first day of his first term in office. He also was John Quincy Adams’ Secretary of State.
He was called “The Great Compromiser” because of his ability to fashion political compromises on many contentious issues, none more so than slavery. Clay helped pass both the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which ensured a political balance in the Senate between senators from slave states and free states, and the Compromise of 1850. This latter compromise temporarily settled the argument between slave states and free states over the status of the lands acquired from Mexico in the Mexican-American War. And while it ultimately failed — the slavery question was so divisive it could only be settled by force — it helped delay the Civil War for another 10 years.
That gave America, or at least the northern half of it, time to put into place Clay’s other significant contribution to his country, the “American System.” Clay — speaking of Alexander Hamilton — was a “Hamiltonian” in the sense that he wanted his country to be energetic, industrious and modern. So Clay supported a series of tariffs — beginning with the Tariff of 1816 — to raise revenue, but also to protect the young American manufacturing sector, which was chiefly in the Northeast, from foreign competition, thereby allowing it to grow and become competitive.
In addition, Clay’s “American System” used the revenues raised by the tariffs to support “internal improvements,” in particular the roads, canals and railroads that would both connect the nation and facilitate quicker and more reliable delivery of commercial goods and services.
As such, after Abraham Lincoln, Clay might be the most important American in terms of ensuring that the North won the Civil War. After all, the 10-year delay in the coming of the Civil War made possible by Clay’s Compromise of 1850 ensured that the man indispensable to winning that war, Lincoln, was president. And his “American System” helped change the North from a mostly agricultural region into an industrial and manufacturing giant in 1860. That made the North far more capable than the South of both producing and transporting goods rapidly and reliably, which in 1860 included producing and transporting soldiers and military equipment.
Speaking of Abraham Lincoln, who greatly admired Clay, the Republican Party he helped found supported many of the policies, including the “American System,” promoted by the Whig Parry that Clay had earlier helped found.
