This past week I finally finished Robert Remini's almost 800 page biography of Henry Clay, long time Senator from Kentucky, Secretary of State under JQ Adams, and three time unsuccessful presidential candidate. This makes the third of Remini's biographies of major American political leaders of the first half of the 19th century that I have read, the others being his three volume biography of Andrew Jackson and a one volume biography of Daniel Webster. Remini is a distinguished professor and scholar who I have seen many times on CSpan. At the same time I have to say that I always seem to find his biographies somewhat disappointing.
There is no question that they are exhaustively researched, comprehensive and then some, and the writing is certainly accessible. I think it is more that to me they tend to be long detailed accounts of the subject's live with only limited amounts of analysis and explanation. I may be mistaken in that, but it sure feels that way. The Clay biography is an example. One of the reasons I read it was that I wanted to get some understanding of Whig principles. After all the Whigs were one of the two major political parties in the 1830's and 40's and elected two presidents in that time frame.
Yet after all that reading I still don't have a real good sense of what was at the heart of the Whig party. As for Clay for most of the book all that I really took away was that he was charming and a mesmerizing speaker, but not much of a real sense of why he is an important person in American history. I finally got that sense at the end of the book when Remini discusses Clay's role as the driving force behind the Compromise of 1850. Clay had previously played similar roles in the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise tariff of 1833.
As a rule compromisers are not usually people that I admire and that would especially be true of situations where the compromise helped the continuation of slavery which was the case in both 1820 and 1850. However, in Remini's portrayal of Clay's role, it is possible to see Clay as a positive force. Clay comes across as someone who was committed to the Union at a time when many on both sides were not. This made Clay's role important as he was articulating a value system that was certainly not the norm.
Remini repeats the oft made claim that the Compromise of 1850 was key to the ultimate Union victory in the Civil War as it gave the north ten more years to strengthen itself and to find Abraham Lincoln as its war leader. He also speculates that had Clay been elected president in 1844 that the Civil War might well have been avoided. Unlike Polk the ultimate winner, Clay was opposed to war with Mexico making it at least possible that the nation could have avoided war and the huge acquisition of territory that helped put the issue of slavery on the front burner. Given Clay's skills at compromise, the author also thinks it possible that he would have helped find a way to peaceful solution on the slavery issue.
Clay himself was an outspoken opponent of slavery while at the same time owning slaves. Although opposed to slavery, Clay clearly held racist views about the inferiority of blacks which would make a multi-racial society untenable. Like many of his time, Clay supported the colonization of freed slaves back to Africa. Also like many of his time, Clay had no solution except for the vague hope that the white population would increase to the point that it flood the country with such much free labor that there would be no economic basis for slavery,an idea that seems far fetched at best.
All of this reminds me of something I wrote last month about a form of presentism - evaluating the past by modern standards. To us today the very idea of slavery is so horrifying that a system based on it seems almost unimaginable. But the truth is that from before the nation's founding through its first 90 or so years, it not only existed, but it was built upon the pillars of racial prejudice and economic interest. No wonder that Clay opposed it, but had no solution - to come right down to it, no one had a peaceful solution. Only when we understand this, can we begin to understand the depth of the challenge taken on by those who not only opposed slavery, but tried to do something about it.
And only then can we properly appreciate the complexity, difficulty and indeed heroic nature of what they did whether they be John Quincy Adams, William Lloyd Garrison or most important of all, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln not only had to get himself into a position where he could do something about slavery, but then try to lead those who remained in the union - many of whom would ultimately have to overcome their economic self interest and/or their racial prejudices. I started out reading about Henry Clay to understand more about Whip principles, I came away with a greater understanding of the U. S. before the Civil War - not an attractive place to visit (even in the mind) if one believes in the values of the American Revolution
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