Facts about Henry Clay

Henry Clay's Lexington farm and mansion, Ashland, is now a museum and is open to the public.

Henry Clay (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was a leading American statesman and orator who represented Kentucky in both the House of Representatives and Senate.

In 1957 a Senate committee led by John F. Kennedy and charged with honoring its most distinguished past members named Henry Clay the greatest member of Congress in the country's history.

Henry Clay was arguably the most influential congressional leader in American history.

Henry Clay's presidential bids were lost by wide margins, representing in his earlier presidential bids a failure to form a national coalition and a lack of political organization that could match the Jacksonian Democrats.

Henry Clay was born on April 12, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia, the seventh of nine children of the Reverend John Clay and Elizabeth Hudson Clay.