To the Editor:
Jonathan Tobin’s unflattering review of Henry Clay (“Neither Right Nor President,” July/August) overlooks the correct picture of Clay as “the Great Pacificator” of the 19th century. Clay was for Kentucky in the House and Senate what Robert Byrd was for West Virginia a century later. He was not starkly different in his thinking from Aaron Burr, whom he defended both in court and with pistols.
The guiding spirit of the Warhawks in the Twelfth Congress, Congressman Clay advocated war with Great Britain. He had good reason. The British Royal Navy interfered with American shipping in order to damage the U.S. economy, while Britain itself instigated frontier American Indians to attack settlers. The British intrusion demanded an American response beyond mere rhetoric.
It was also Clay who negotiated the Treaty of Ghent and commerce treaties with Great Britain after the war. The Tariff of 1816 on British imports meant Clay’s American Plan generated funds to rebuild infrastructure, in continuance of Alexander Hamilton’s pro-manufacturing posture.
Mr. Tobin is wrong: Clay did not ignore the perils of slavery. He returned to the Senate to negotiate the Compromise of 1850 (which included the Fugitive Slave Act) and so prevent the extension of slavery into any new territory. This postponed civil war and bloodshed by delaying secession. As Senator Henry Foote noted, “If Clay had lived, there would have been no Civil War in 1861.” Clay had the wherewithal to strike a precise balance between Northerners and respectable Southerners, and summoned great moral courage to rise above the circumstances of his birth.
ROBERT BRIZELl
New York City
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To the Editor:
I enjoyed Jonathan Tobin’s piece on Henry Clay. I have held his same low opinion of Clay and his famous compromises for as long as I’ve been studying U.S. history. America’s compromises with slavery—starting with the Three-Fifths rule in the Constitution and ending with the Compromise of 1850—only made matters worse. You can compromise on strategies and tactics, but not principle.
ROQUE NUEVO
Querétaro, Mexico
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Jonathan Tobin writes:
Robert Brizel pays Henry Clay no compliment when he compares him to Aaron Burr and Robert Byrd. Burr’s legendary cynicism might have fit in well in a later era of American politics, but amid a generation of principled greats, he was an unfortunate outlier. While I am critical of Henry Clay’s own gamesmanship on slavery, when compared to the slippery Burr, Clay was a paragon of political principle. It should also be stipulated that while Clay fought two duels, it is clear that he had no intention of killing his opponent in either bout, something that can obviously not be said of the man who slew Alexander Hamilton. As for the late Senator Byrd, it is true that his political longevity and love for the Senate bears some resemblance to Clay’s career. But his self-righteous demeanor was very different from Clay’s collegiality. Nor should it be forgotten that Clay entered politics as an advocate of Jeffersonian democracy, while Byrd got his start as a representative of the Ku Klux Klan. Even more to the point, Byrd’s obsession with looting the federal treasury for the sake of West Virginia was the polar opposite of Clay’s nationalist frame of reference.
As for the War of 1812, America had genuine grievances with Britain, but statesmen must judge the benefits and the costs of policy. The United States had nothing to gain and much to lose from the war, especially since Britain was prepared to abandon some of its most obnoxious practices concerning American shipping at the time Clay recklessly rushed the nation into a calamitous war.
Lastly, the notion that Clay could have prevented the Civil War in 1861 had he lived that long is an absurdity. By the time he died, the Kentuckian had already been rendered politically obsolete by the Southern extremists Clay’s compromises had appeased and strengthened. The futility of Clay’s disastrous attempt to create a “precise balance” between North and South was illustrated by his misunderstanding of the impact of the awful Fugitive Slave Act as well as his own personal hypocrisy on the issue. As Roque Nuevo rightly notes, compromise with slavery was not the answer in 1850 or 1860. Had Clay possessed the moral courage and the ability to rise above his circumstances that this perilous situation required, he might have understood that it was slavery itself and not principled opposition to it that was the real threat to the union.
