Would Henry Clay have been a good president?

When? He mounted serious campaigns for the Presidency three times, in 1824, 1832 and 1844. Very different circumstances each time. In 1824, he would have been a flash in the pan. Aside from being more favorably inclined to slavery, he's got basica... read more

With no Texas, and a slave-owning President arguing from the bully pulpit that it’s time to let go of slavery, perhaps there would have been abolition without civil war. Perhaps not. Whether this is a good President is a matter of opinion. read more

Henry Clay failed in his all consuming ambition to become President of the United States. "I would rather be right than President," was his most famous remark, and probably one of the greatest utterances of political sour grapes of all time. read more

Leader of the Whig party and five times an unsuccessful presidential candidate, Henry Clay (1777-1852) played a central role on the stage of national politics for over forty years. He was secretary of state under John Quincy Adams, Speaker of the House of Representatives longer than anyone else in the nineteenth century, and the most influential member of the Senate during its golden age. read more