Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr.was an American lawyer and planter, politician, and skilled orator who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives. He served three non-consecutive terms as Speaker of the House of Representatives and served as Secretary of State under President John Quincy Adams from 1825 to 1829. Clay ran for the presidency in 1824, 1832 and 1844, while also seeking the Whig Party nomination in 1840 and 1848. However, he was unsuccessful...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 April 1777
CityHanover County, VA
CountryUnited States of America
All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.
I have no commiseration for princes. My sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind ….
How often are we forced to charge fortune with partiality towards the unjust!
I'd rather be right than President.
All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises.
Impart additional strength to our happy Union.?Diversified as are the interests of its various parts, how admirably do they harmonize and blend together!?We have only to make a proper use of the bounties spread before us, to render us prosperous and powerful.
Precedents deliberately established by wise men are entitled to great weight. They are evidence of truth, but only evidence...But a solitary precedent...which has never been reexamined, cannot be conclusive.
We have had good and bad Presidents, and it is a consoling reflection that the American Nation possesses such elements of prosperity that the bad Presidents cannot destroy it, and have been able to do no more than slightly to retard the public's advancement.
Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.
All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.
The great advantage of our system of government over all others, is, that we have a written constitution, defining its limits, and prescribing its authorities; and that, however, for a time, faction may convulse the nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its functionaries, the season of reflection will recur, when calmly retracing their deeds, all aberrations from fundamental principle will be corrected.
In all cases where incidental powers are acted upon, the principal and incidental ought to be congenial with each other, and partake of a common nature. The incidental power ought to be strictly subordinate and limited to the end proposed to be obtained by the specified power. In other words, under the name of accomplishing one object which is specified, the power implied ought not to be made to embrace other objects, which are not specified in the constitution.
I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.
Statistics are no substitute for judgment.