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The Aged Lion: Cassias M. Clay at eighty-four. Taken Novem
ber 75, /% ; by Lexington photographer Isaac C. Jenks. From an
original negative in the collection of /. Winston Coleman, Jr.

LION

WHITE HALI

THE LIFE OF CASSIUS M. CLA Y

David L. Smiley

THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
MADISON, 1962

Published by the University of Wisconsin Press
430 Sterling Court, Madison 6, Wisconsin

Copyright 1962 by the Regents of the
University of Wisconsin

Printed in the United States of America by the
Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, New York

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 62-7215

TO HELEN AND KAY

ieHi 1M.) ^ m ^
6218099

PREFACE

JrOR forty years, when the American people were engaged
in heated disputes over slavery, the Civil War, and the pangs
of Reconstruction, Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky was a dra
matic and controversial participant in the conflict. Even in
his youth the tales of his colorful deeds had become legendary,
and in his eccentric old age the myths grew until they over
shadowed the bizarre personality of the man himself. There
was sufficient factual basis for the fanciful tales. Clay was
widely feared as a fighter who wielded a mighty knife with
which he disembowelled his political opponents and carved
off ears and excavated eyes in gory combat.

The notorious fighting, however, was but a part of the
strange story of Cassius M. Clay. A cousin of the more re
strained Henry Clay, Cassius was a man of paradoxes. No
simple description could convey the complexity of his per
sonality. He was an abolitionist who, almost alone, remained
in the heart of slave territory. He fought under the banner
of humanitarian and liberal reform and expected to win per
sonal rewards for it. He was an industrial promoter in the
land of the plantation, and a pioneer Republican in a Demo
cratic stronghold. He was a rough-and-tumble fighter who

Vll

viii Preface

lived past his fortieth birthday solely because of his brawny
physique and his ready violence; yet he was noted for his
polite conversation, his literary polish, and his admiration for
the arts. He was a diplomat with a bowie knife in his hand,
and a scion of landed aristocracy who championed the cause
of the common man.

Complex and paradoxical though he was, his career re
vealed a singleness of purpose. His objective was to attain
political power and public office, and his every act was cal
culated to accomplish it. In the end he was unsuccessful: his
career is a study in political failure. It is also illustrative of
the extremes to which an ambitious man would go in his ef
forts to gratify his ambitions. And because of the nature of
the fight Clay waged, the story is a chapter in the pervasive
influence of the race problem in the South.

I am under deep obligation to many persons and institutions
for their help in my study of Cassius M. Clay: to the officials
and librarians of the Public Library of Lexington, Kentucky,
the University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, Berea
College, Eastern Kentucky State College at Richmond, West
ern Kentucky State College at Bowling Green, the Kentucky
State Historical Society, Lincoln Memorial University in
Harrogate, Tennessee, Wake Forest College, the University
of North Carolina, Duke University, the Henry E. Hunting-
ton Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Filson
Club, the Philosophical and Historical Society of Ohio in Cin
cinnati, the University of Rochester, the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, the Wisconsin State Historical Society, and
the Library of Congress, all of whom made available their
manuscripts and printed materials.

Furthermore, I appreciate the assistance given me by Colonel
Eldon W. Downs of the United States Air Force, Dr. J. T.
Dorris of Eastern Kentucky State College, Dr. Larry Gara
of Grove City College, Dr. Sam Ross of Sacramento State
College, and by Mr. Charles R. Staples and Mr. J. Winston

Preface ix

Coleman, Jr., both of Lexington, all of whom provided help
ful advice and notes from their files.

My thanks also go to Mr. Warfield Bennett and to Miss
Helen Bennett, both of Richmond, Kentucky, grandchildren
of Cassius M. Clay, who graciously encouraged me in my
study and made available family traditions and portraits;
to Mr. Charles T. Dudley and Mrs. Jane Clay, both of Rich
mond, and to Mrs. Leonora R. Bergman, of Lexington, for
personal reminiscences; and to Mr. Cassius M. Clay, of Paris,
Kentucky, for permitting me access to the valuable Brutus J.
Clay Papers.

In addition, I am deeply indebted to Dr. William B. Hessel-
tine, of the University of Wisconsin, who suggested the sub
ject and whose sympathetic guidance was of inestimable
value. My wife has rendered unusual services as critic and
proofreader. I also wish to thank the Trustees and Administra
tion of Wake Forest College for granting me a leave of
absence.

Portions of this work have appeared in the Journal of Mis
sissippi History, Register of the Kentucky State Historical
Society, Lincoln Herald, Filson Club History Quarterly, Bul
letin of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, and
the Journal of Negro History, and I wish to thank the editors
for permission to use it here.

D. L. S.

Winston-Salem, North Carolina
March, 1961

CONTENTS

Chapter

I The Trials of a Youngest Son 3

II A Congenial Career Begins 26

III Clay Takes His Stand 43

IV Publicist and Bowie Knife Expert 55
V An Emissary from Cousin Henry 65

VI Clay Declares War 80

VII The Eighteenth of August 90

VIII "The Mob Win Not Stop Me" 103

IX To the Halls of Montezuma 112

X Clay Attacks the Whigs 1 3

XI Clay Becomes a Republican 149

XII Reward for an Ambitious Man 168

XIII Clay s Star Fades 186

XIV Swashbuckling Diplomacy 197
XV Indian Summer 215

XVI The Lion of White Hall 230

Notes 249

A Note on the Sources 287

Index 289

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece

The Aged Lion: Cassius M. Clay at Eighty-Four

Following page $8

Cassius M. Clay as a Young Man

Cassius M. Clay, "Champion of Liberty"

Republican Candidates for Nomination in 1860

Mary Jane Clay as a Young Woman

Mary Jane Clay in Russian Court Dress

Facing page 242
White Hall in 1894

LION
OF
WHITE HALL

THE LIFE OF CASSIUS M. CLAY

CHAPTER I

THE TRIALS

OF A YOUNGEST

SON

I OUNG Cassius Clay had told a lie, and his mother threat
ened him with a whipping. Having previously experienced
his mother s punishing hand, the boy chose flight rather than
submission. The house servants, fully sympathetic with Mrs.
Clay s zeal for truth, gladly joined the chase. Cassius soon saw
that they would overtake him, and spying a pile of stones,
he determined to fight his pursuers. There, he said later, "I
took my stand and made things lively." l

In that action, Cassius Marcellus Clay provided a preview
of his career. Many times in the course of his life, his enemies
some moved by a hatred for untruths, some by distaste
at the course he took, and others by the sheer zest of the hunt
closed in upon him. In each case he chose to fight, and each
time he made things lively. Reviewing a life punctuated by
violence, excitement, and romance, Clay recalled that fighting
characterized all of its nine decades. Possessed of a stubborn
spirit and an indomitable will, he would surrender no issue,
however insignificant.

At important crises of his life he resorted to violence: he
fought a mock duel with a hickory cane over his first mar
riage, and prepared private artillery to defend his second; he
fought a colleague in the Kentucky legislature with his fists;
with pistols and bowie knives he disputed political issues with

4 Lion of White Hall

inimical Kentucky neighbors. Later, as United States Min
ister to the Court of the Czars during Lincoln s administra
tion, he won the admiration of Russian noblemen with his
warlike propensities. Nor did he limit his militant spirit to
weighty matters: he issued defiant challenges to personal
combat over such quarrels as the genealogy of a Shorthorn
bull or the origins of Kentucky bluegrass. With pungent
pen, homely weapons, and unassisted brute strength, he de
fended his contentions.

Such active belligerence won widespread attention. Clay s
temper, and his ability to win fights, became legendary.
"Naturally pugnacious," a contemporary said of him, "he
would fight the wind did it blow from the South side when
he wanted it to blow from the North." Clay s fights added to
Kentucky s history a colorful record of physical combat;
and the names of his opponents constituted a roll call of the
most prominent citizens of the Bluegrass State. 2

But Cassius Clay was not content merely to fight indi
viduals, for he was more than a hot-tempered duellist. The
most important conflict of Clay s career, the one that lay at
the root of his other clashes and brought him to the attention
of the American people, was his attack upon slavery. At a
time when the southern creed demanded unswerving devo
tion to the gospel of slavery, Clay was a heretic. When men
of the Old South were opposing the industrialists of a new
age, he criticized their established ways. Basing his attack
upon economic and political arguments rather than humani
tarian considerations, Clay denounced the labor system that
characterized the plantation and its agrarian economy.

Though slave-owners denounced him and fought him, they
could not drive him out of the state. "Having the full courage
of his convictions," an admirer eulogized, "he took his life
in his hands and bearded the pro-slavery lion in his den." In
taking such a stand, Clay renounced his own birthright. He
had inherited a large Bluegrass estate and a proud name, and

The Trials of a Youngest Son 5

he had married into one of Kentucky s first families. He was
therefore closely allied with the state s social and political
leaders, and in the beginning he received their blessing. As
soon as he was old enough to qualify, he served in the state
legislature, and he was on the threshold of a promising career.
Fame, wealth, and a comfortable life all were his if he
would but become a satisfied member of his class and cater
to its prejudices. But he would not. Doggedly, uncompro
misingly, he held to a course that meant political ruin in the
immediate future, but promised he hoped eventual reward.
He refused to surrender merely because his words were un
popular; instead, he repudiated the attitudes his contem
poraries cherished, and they cut him off from their favors.
Clay, however, had larger aspirations. Pursuing a minority
course and flying in the face of his fellows made him a na
tionally known figure. Carefully nurturing his reputation as
a man of courage, a Republican in a Democratic stronghold,
a martyr to the cause of human liberty and free speech, Clay
played his cards for high stakes. His stubborn political revolt
caused him to lose fortune, family, and success. His devotion
to high and noble principles, he complained on lecture trips
to the North, had consigned him to a dreary desert of politi
cal failure. And in 1860, when his political allies finally at
tained control of the Presidency, Clay offered his twenty-
year exile from public office as a reason for being awarded a
responsible post in the new administration.

Cassius M. Clay was not merely an erratic nonconformist,
seeking publicity and reveling in notoriety. Behind his ap
parently mad rebellion against his people, his region, and his
class lay reasons carefully calculated and schemes deliberately
concocted. Basically, Cassius Clay s career was a search for
political office and power. His calculations and his schemes
eventually failed, and he did not live in the White House.
But in the effort to achieve his ambitions he became one of
the most important minor figures of the nineteenth century,

6 Lion of White Hall

and he left a distinctive mark upon the pages of American
history.

Perhaps, in his own fashion, Cassius Clay was carrying out
the ambitious drives that had brought his father to Kentucky
and made him seek wealth and prestige on a frontier which
was developing into a settled community. Cassius owed much
to Green Clay, though the directions in which ambition
pushed the father and the son were different indeed. Green
Clay s successful career was possible because he hewed to the
line of his community s conventions; the son s controversial
search for political power defied the mores of his society.

Green Clay was but one of the hundreds who emigrated
to Kentucky in the eighteenth century, but unlike many an
other pioneer, he was able to wring success from the Dark
and Bloody Ground. Leaving Virginia in 1780 as a poor boy,
Green Clay learned, as many of his fellows did not, that the
secret of success in the wilderness of "Kentake" was land,
well chosen and properly exploited. And the easiest way for
a newcomer to obtain land, he discovered, was to clear it out
for others.

Eager and intelligent, young Green Clay soon mastered
the technique of the compass and chain and became an enter
prising surveyor. With his knowledge of the country and his
untiring zeal, he amassed large blocks of land from his com
missions, which according to the custom of the early days
often amounted to one-half of the property cleared. In the
brief span of fifteen years the boy who had arrived penniless
became one of Kentucky s leading citizens. 3 In 1788, when
Kentucky was still a county of Virginia, he served in the
Richmond convention that considered ratifying the federal
constitution, and he voted with the majority of the Kentucky
delegation against ratification. The next year he represented
Madison County (a new county in the Kentucky territory)
in the Virginia legislature. It is unlikely that he would have

The Trials of a Youngest Son 7

attained such eminence had he remained in the older com
munity. 4

But he demonstrated his abilities in interests other than
political. Years later, Cassius said of his father that "his life
was one rather of business than anything else; and here he
passed all his contemporaries in the West." The son s ap
praisal was not far wrong. In 1792, Green Clay became a
commissioner in a scheme to operate a toll road from the falls
of the Great Kanawha River, in western Virginia, to Lexing
ton, Kentucky; the route lay through his lands, and he con
trolled the Kentucky River ferry which would serve travelers
on the road.

Thus, though Green Clay concentrated upon the ac
cumulation of landed estates, he did not lose sight of the ad
vantages of a diversified economy. He operated a distillery in
Madison County and another across the river in Fayette
County. At Estill Springs he built a resort which became
popular in early Kentucky, and he built and rented taverns
as outlets for the product of his distilleries. By 1795, as a com
mander in the local militia, justice of the peace, enterpriser in
commercial and industrial ventures, and owner of choice
Kentucky lands, Green Clay had become an outstanding
citizen of his state. He set an enviable record for those who
would later bear his name. 5

During his years of active fortune-hunting, however, he
gave no evidence that there would be any heirs to either his
economic interests or his respected position. He devoted his
entire attention to business, and not until he had assured his
success did he marry. His wife, Sally Lewis, daughter of
Kentucky pioneers Thomas Lewis and Elizabeth Payne, was
nearly twenty years younger, and much more polished, than
the rough, practical Clay.

After their wedding, on March 14, 1795, Green took his
nineteen-year-old bride to their new home a rough-hewn
log cabin with a dirt floor on the uplands of Tate s Creek, not

8 Lion of White Hall

far from the Kentucky River. It was a good location, care
fully chosen from the thousands of acres Green Clay com
manded, but it was far from the settlements at Boones-
borough, and even farther from Harrodstown. There, in the
wilderness, the Clays made their home. The family was soon
increased by children at first all daughters. Finally, after
three girls had been born, Sally gave birth to a son, who was
named Sidney Payne. A few years later, in 1 808, another son
was born and was named Brutus Junius. 6

The family had outgrown the log cabin, and Sally had
long been agitating for a more pretentious dwelling. Green
Clay built a handsome brick building to satisfy her and to
crown his successes as an opulent pioneer. He named it White
Hall. There, in the master bedroom, on October 19, 1810,
Sally Clay presented her husband a third son. Continuing his
fondness for classical names, the father named the baby
Cassius Marcellus. 7

From the beginning of his life the youngest son demon
strated a precocious belligerence. Typically, one of his earliest
memories was of a fight won by a stratagem. One day, play
ing with George, a young slave boy on the White Hall
plantation, he injured his playmate. "Mars Cash," complained
the Negro boy, "you would not treat me so if you had not
marster and mistress to back you."

Eagerly, Cassius arose to the implied challenge. "Well,
George," he answered, "I can whip you myself."

"If you won t tell, we ll see," George responded, and the
two boys sought a secluded spot for the encounter. Young
Cassius knew that in size and in strength he was no match
for the gangling Negro, so he quickly worked out a plan:
he would select a favorable field for the battle. He went to
the side of the White Hall lawn where there was a steep
descent. Stone for the house had been removed from the
hillside in horizontal layers, leaving a level bench now cov-

The Trials of a Youngest Son 9

ered with leaves. Cassius took his stand facing downhill, and
George unthinkingly opposed him. Striking George unex
pectedly in the face, Cassius sent him staggering downhill.
Then, advancing to the edge of the shelf, he found himself
taller than his opponent, and he had the advantage of fight
ing downward. He showered blows upon the Negro s un
protected head and soon had the victory. Through years of
conflict, Cassius never forgot the thrill of conquering an ad
versary physically stronger than himself. His career as a
fighter had begun, and self-confidence and the heady thrill
of victory drove him to innumerable combats. 8

There were other fights in Cassius Clay s early years which
gave evidence of his virile belligerence, and there were also
incidents which indicated an undiplomatic streak of stub
bornness within his character. One such event concerned his
father s wine chest. Green Clay gave strict orders that none
of the children was to touch it, and every morning, as an
object lesson in temperance, he would take a drink of bourbon
and then make a face at the boys as though it tasted horrible.
But hardheaded Cassius would not allow any teaching to
take the place of experience; he sampled the contents of the
bottle for himself. Though he afterwards found little fascina
tion in bourbon, he had learned that his father s act was a
sham.

Another memory from his early days suggested even more
clearly his stubborn nature. His father had imported a merino
buck sheep and had tied him to a tree in the yard. Cassius
teased the animal until it lowered its head and prepared for
battle. The youngster would not let even an aroused buck
sheep intimidate him. He lowered his head, in imitation of
the buck, and invited a trial of hardness of heads. His father,
coming on the scene at that dramatic moment, knocked
Cassius out of the sheep s path just in time. Later, jokingly,
Cassius remarked that friends said his father had taken need
less precautions, for his head would have proved too much

10 Lion of White Hall

for the sheep. But, figuratively at least, it was true: the in
cident reflected both his "try-anything-once" trait of fool-
hardiness and his stubborn courage. In years to come, opposi
tion as hardy and as dangerous as a buck sheep faced him,
and without a qualm he lowered his head and charged away.

Life for young Cassius was more than fighting and butting
at sheep. There were embryonic love affairs with barefoot
neighborhood girls. There were hunting and fishing expedi
tions, activities which held a lifelong attraction for Cassius.
There were many hours at lessons, over which Mrs. Clay
presided. Green Clay, whose formal education was limited
but whose worldly wisdom was extensive, taught his sons
valuable lessons in self-reliance. When Cassius was twelve
years old, his father sent him to Cincinnati to pay taxes on
some Ohio lands he owned. In 1823, with few roads and
rough travel, the journey of over a hundred miles was a
dangerous undertaking for one so young. Cassius realized
afterwards that Green Clay intended the trip as part of his
practical education. 9

Cassius father could also finance the best formal schooling
available. After finishing four neighborhood common schools,
Cassius and his brother Brutus enrolled under a private tutor,
Joshua Fry, the most popular teacher in central Kentucky.
The school was held on Fry s farm, on the banks of the
Dix River, where Cassius happily spent leisure hours fishing
and enjoying the out-of-doors. While he was not engaged
in such pleasant activities he studied Latin, rhetoric, and
philosophy the education of the polished young aristocrat
of the day. 10

After several years of Fry s instruction, the Clay brothers
had received as much formal education as was generally ac
quired. Brutus was ready to begin his long and successful
career as a planter, but Cassius wished to continue his studies.
He faced life from the viewpoint of a youngest son who had
to compete with successful elder brothers, both of whom had

The Trials of a Youngest Son 11

political and social aspirations. His numerous fights had set
him apart from the amiable Brutus, but now he proposed to
differentiate himself still further. He went on to seek more
education.

Green Clay gave his encouragement and support. In 1827
Cassius enrolled in the Jesuit College of St. Joseph at Bards-
town, Kentucky. There his only study was French, and he
never learned it well. That was unfortunate, for French was
the diplomatic language of the western world, and when he
later became a member of the foreign service he would regret
that he had not applied himself more energetically to French.
But his stay among the adherents of Roman Catholicism may
have contributed to his tolerance in religious matters. He was,
indeed, tolerant to the point of indifference. Henceforth his
religious philosophy tended to humanistic deism, rather than
orthodox Christianity.

With the distasteful lessons in language and his own rebel
lion against orthodoxy, Cassius did not enjoy his stay with
the fathers, who tried in vain to bridle his belligerent temper.
The high-spirited youth resisted the close supervision and
wrote his brother Brutus that he craved the "pleasure of be
ing unrestrained." That pleasure he would seek throughout
his life, even while serving as a foreign minister. But at St.
Joseph s his rebellious nature manifested itself, as it would
later, in physical combat with his fellows. One of the stu
dents, with a reputation as a bully, was torturing one of the
younger boys, when Cassius (as he recounted many years
later) "sprang upon a bench, and hit him a stinging blow
upon the nose, which caused the blood to fly in all direc
tions." His attack, he reported, cured the fellow of his "evil
ways, and made me quite a hero." n

While he was struggling with the French language and
with his schoolmates, Cassius was, in addition, worried about
his father s health. For some time Green Clay had been suf
fering with a disease diagnosed as cancer of the face. The son

12 Lion of White Hall

wanted to leave school to be with his parents. "Is not mother
most worn out with fatigue," he wondered, "waiting on
father so long?" On April 15, 1828, concerned about affairs
at home, he left St. Joseph s and returned to White Hall to
help his overburdened mother in the sickroom. 12

He found Green Clay, now seventy-one years old, on his
deathbed, growing weaker every day. Throughout his father s
months of ebbing strength, Cassius was the old man s nurse
and constant companion. He helped Green Clay arrange the
family business, and watched while he wrote and revised his
will. An unusual document, the last testament of Green Clay
bequeathed to the youngest son extensive properties, which
determined the immediate course of his career and influenced
all of his life. His inheritance gave Cassius assistance in his
efforts to catch up with his older brothers.

To Cassius, Green Clay left in trust "the tract of land on
which I live containing about 2000 acres." Should Cassius
die without issue, however, the White Hall estate would re
vert to Brutus. The father also entrusted specified slaves to
members of the family; Cassius received a total of seventeen
of his father s Negroes. In addition to the home tract and the
slaves, the youngest son shared in the division of his father s
other holdings. "My lands and land claims below the Ten
nessee River, . . . about 40 or 50,000 acres," according to
the old man s directions, were left in fee to each of the six
children, but for all except the two oldest sons the property
was entrusted. Green Clay also created a contingent fund
to provide for the needs of his children, and out of that fund
provided for "the schooling and support of my son Cassius
until he arrive at full age; then he shall take possession of his
estate." It was the father s intention that none of his chil
dren should ever suffer want.

Green Clay s will assured Cassius of as much schooling as
he desired; moreover, it provided him with a handsome estate.
The settlement also made him a slave-owner, but not for

The Trials of a Youngest Son 13

years did the fact embarrass him. Perhaps that part of the will
most disconcerting to him in future years was the restriction
that his inheritance of the White Hall estate was not in fee
simple but was entailed. He could not profitably dispose of
it if he should desire to emigrate from Kentucky. It may have
been an insignificant clause in his father s will which kept
Cassius Clay in Kentucky and made him a leader in the south
ern antislavery movement.

Furthermore, by establishing him as a shareholder in vast
land claims and in commercial and industrial ventures, Green
Clay determined the direction in which Cassius early career
would lead. Having a responsible position as one of his
father s legal executors, and being himself one of the prop
erty trustees, Cassius was thrown before he was twenty into
the world of business affairs. The experience soon acquainted
him with the delicate alliance between economic and political
forces.

His father s will also affected his future life. As a property-
owner, he would never advocate the destruction of property
rights (in slaves) by any other than legal means. Moreover,
his position as a member of the landed aristocracy of Ken
tucky provided him firm support for political discussion. No
one would ever have grounds to say of him, as men would
say of Hinton R. Helper of North Carolina, that he was a
"poor- white" who was jealous of the more fortunate, or that
he was a "have-not" who desired to have. And forty years
later, when he moved among Russian noblemen as American
Minister, he felt at ease because his life had been spent
among the polite and the well-to-do at home. To this extent
Green Clay s fortune influenced the career of his youngest

son.

Having provided for his family, the father calmly awaited
the end. Stoically he had endured the pains of his disease and
watched as his health slowly faded. At last, on the night of
October 31, 1828, the old man called Cassius to his bedside.

14 Lion of White Hall

"I have just seen death come in that door," he muttered
faintly, gesturing in the direction of the family graveyard.
These were his last words. 13

For nearly eighteen years Cassius had been under the in
fluence and tutelage of his father. Green Clay, wealthy, re
spected, and justly proud of his self-made success, left with
the son practical lessons in the code of the frontier gentleman
and businessman. He had attempted to pass along his ex
perience-bought knowledge by means of terse, homely epi
grams, and more than fifty years later Cassius could still re
member his father s advice.

Green Clay wanted his sons to be self-sufficient and cau
tious in their dealings with other men lessons particularly
applicable to a diplomatic career. "Never tell any one your
business," the father warned; and "Never set your name on
the right-hand side of the writing" (meaning that they should
never sign as security for another s note a piece of advice
Cassius would ruefully remember in years to come). "Gam
bling and toping I warn you against; . . . keep out of the
hands of the doctor and the sheriff." He advised his sons not
to sell on credit: "My property is worth more on the farm,
or in the storeroom," he said, "than in the pockets of spend
thrifts." He cautioned Cassius to be suspicious of strangers
and never to trust anyone but himself. "Although you think
you can speak in confidence to a friend," Green counselled,
"that friend will betray you in all probability at some future
day when he can wound you deepest." To these apothegms
Cassius listened and learned. A simple philosophy emphasiz
ing independence, caution, and self-reliance, based upon a
pessimistic view of human nature, was the creed that the
father bequeathed to his son. 14

Cassius mother also exerted an influence upon the per
sonality of the growing boy, and he was conscious of her part
in his character development. "At all times," he said, summing
up the sources of his nature, "the mother, being both parent

The Trials of a Youngest Son 15

and teacher, mostly forms the character." Sally Clay was a
deeply religious woman, a Calvinistic Baptist who felt the
hand of her God in every incident of her life. She believed
it to be her duty, along with teaching the primer, to convert
her sons to her own deterministic faith. Many years after
Cassius had left her fireside, Sally s letters to him contained
imploring religious appeals. "I have been trying to serve the
Lord upward of forty years, I then believed I could be saved
by the imputed righteousness of Christ, and I rejoiced with
joy unspeakable and full of glory," she wrote in 1849. "I
know you can t understand me except you experience the
same, but the Lord is able to show you what a helpless sinner
you are and the vanity of all earthly things." When Cassius
joined a church, it was a Baptist congregation. But he re
sisted his mother s efforts to make him a deeply religious
person like herself; he preferred the rationalistic deism of his
father. Though Sally Clay s primary concern was for the
souls of her sons, she did not neglect more worldly matters.
She taught the boys to observe the rules of polite etiquette
as she knew them. Under her training Cassius learned the
generous chivalry of the southern gentleman. 15

But that was not all Mrs. Clay transmitted to her youngest
son. She endowed him with a share of her rebellious nature.
Much of Cassius belligerence might be traced to his mother.
Like many another Bible-quoting Puritan, Sally Clay was
dangerous when aroused, and she encouraged her sons to
stand up for their rights. It was she who urged Cassius to
fight when a mob threatened him, and other relatives were
advising surrender. Despite her age, she came loyally to nurse
him when he was wounded in fights with political enemies.
Throughout his career she stood by Cassius, and she would
sanction no dishonorable retreat. Cassius owed much in his
personality to his strong-willed parents. But the most im
portant trait of his character his driving ambition Cassius
gained through observation. Like his father before him, he

16 Lion of White Hall

wanted to become influential, to be respected as a leader
among men. For Green Clay s youngest son, the road to re
spect and influence led through the exciting arena of politics.
Cassius Clay s ambition was to hold high office.

To prepare himself for a career in public life, Cassius con
tinued his formal education. A few months after his father
died, he entered Transylvania University in Lexington, a
flourishing community across the Kentucky River from his
home. From its imposing courthouse to its gracious homes,
including that of the statesman Henry Clay, Lexington was a
pleasant city and a center of Kentucky business, particularly
Bluegrass agriculture. It was the home of a great commerce,
though it was fifteen miles from navigable water, and it pro
vided congenial surroundings for manufacturers and artisans.
Lexington was also fast becoming the most important center
of the Kentucky slave trade, and on Cheapside, near the
courthouse, slave auctions were frequently held.

The cultural center of the city was its college. Transyl
vania University, founded in 1780, was the oldest college
west of the mountains and contributed to Lexington s reputa
tion as the "Athens of the West." 16 The university and the
growing city stimulated the imagination and the intellect of
Cassius Clay.

When he entered the Junior Class in January, 1829, the
college boasted three buildings set upon a flat, grassy campus
on the north edge of the town. Two of the structures were
low and rambling, but the main building was the pride of the
school and of the town. Constructed of red brick, it housed
the library, classrooms, the "philosophical laboratory," and
administrative offices. A third floor contained living quar
ters for students, and there Cassius roomed.

Already accustomed to student life, he fitted easily into
the college routine. Of the sports which were an important
part of the young men s activities, he was particularly fond.

The Trials of a Youngest Son 17

"I had ever been devoted to athletic sports riding on horse
back, boxing, hunting, fishing, gunning, jumping, scuffling,
wrestling, playing base-ball, bandy, football, and all that,"
he recalled later. Many years after his student days at Transyl
vania, he remembered the excitement of a close game of
"bandy" on the campus west of the main building. 17

But there was more to his college memories than sports.
Looking back on his college years, Clay felt that he had been
a success as a student. How assiduous a scholar he was may
be open to question: the librarian s journal shows that, in his
two years at Transylvania, Cassius, though he was entitled
to take out of the university library at least one book a
week, checked out only two volumes, both in his first month
at the school, January, 1 829. Of the studies offered at Transyl
vania, ranging from surveying to rhetoric, from evidences of
Christianity to chemistry "with experiments," the most im
portant to the ambitious youth was oratory, and he spent one
afternoon a week in directed speaking. He also joined a
"philosophical society" and took an active part in its pro
gram. 18

While at Transylvania, too, Cassius heard some of Ken
tucky s noted orators of the day: Henry Clay, the "Gallant
Harry of the West"; Robert J. Breckinridge, a Lexington
Presbyterian minister who advocated gradual emancipation of
slaves; Robert WicklifFe, the "Old Duke," who later became
the most important of Cassius political opponents; and William
T. Barry, Postmaster General in Andrew Jackson s cabinet.
Clay s interest in oratory and public debate indicated his
growing interest in public affairs. 19

At the university he met fellow students who afterwards
became leaders in their communities or who played a part in
his own life. One of his classmates was N. L. Rice, who be
came famous as debater against the Virginian Alexander
Campbell over a theological issue. Others were Montgomery
Blair, who later played a significant role in Missouri s Civil

18 Lion of White Hall

War drama and served in Abraham Lincoln s cabinet; Robert
Wickliffe, Jr., the "Young Duke," against whom Cassius was
to run for office and fight a duel in years to come; and James
B. Clay, a son of Henry Clay.

Among the experiences at Transylvania that influenced
Clay s developing personality, two others stand out. One, with
which he later claimed a close connection, was a fire that de
stroyed the school s main building. According to a story which
Cassius did not divulge for nearly seventy years, the fire was
the fault of a body servant whom he kept at school with him.
About midnight, on Saturday, May 9, 1829, Clay was asleep
in his room while the slave boy polished boots out on the
stairs. To illuminate his work the boy placed a candle upon
the top step. Before he finished, however, he fell asleep and
did not wake until the candle had burned down and set fire
to the stairs. "The flames went like powder," recalled Cassius,
adding that he "ran down with some clothes in my hand in
my night shirt." The two scared boys barely escaped from
the burning building. The imposing structure was soon a
smouldering shell of ashes. Except for a few books, the build
ing and its contents were a total loss. Cassius Clay s sleepy
slave had caused the destruction of a valuable piece of prop
erty, and the experience awed Cassius as few things did. He
kept his secret well through the years. The college, already
weakened by a religious controversy of long standing, never
overcame the effects of the fire. By the time a new building
replaced the old, other colleges many of them denomina
tional had appeared, and Transylvania lost its favored posi
tion. Cassius Clay, through his slave boy, had unwittingly
precipitated a crisis in the affairs of the college. It was not
the last time that he would be involved in changes reaching
far beyond his own life, even into the course of state and
national history. 20

During his stay at Transylvania he encountered, under less
destructive circumstances, another influence that would help

The Trials of a Youngest Son 19

to shape his life. He met Mary Jane Warfield, the girl he was
to marry a few years hence. In 1829 she was a sixteen-year-old
pupil in a Lexington school, with a fair complexion, limpid,
gray-blue eyes, and light-brown hair which flowed down her
back in long silken curls. The impulsive Cassius was immedi
ately attracted to her. She was the second daughter of Dr.
Elisha Warfield, a Lexington physician better known for his
racing stable than for his medical skill. Her mother was Maria
Barr of Lexington. The girl s parents Cassius would learn to
dislike, and with Mary Jane herself he would quarrel seriously,
but all those troubles lay in the future. As a student, filled
with youthful fervor, he saw only her appealing beauty she
was the "impersonation of eternal springtime. " He com
posed poems to her, and before he left Lexington, he bade
her a sentimental and scholarly farewell. To Mary Jane, Cas
sius presented the prize book Washington Irving s Sketch
book he had been awarded at college. Inscribing a few lines
of Byron on the flyleaf, Clay paid the young girl a graceful
compliment. She would not forget so polished a courtship. 21

Bidding farewell to Mary Jane and to Transylvania Uni
versity, Cassius embarked upon an extensive journey, "for the
purpose of observation and improvement," as he explained it.
Carrying letters of introduction to President Andrew Jackson
and to other political notables, he visited Washington and
other eastern cities. He professed a desire to learn, but he was
not interested in historical sites or museums. "I shall attempt
to make it my business whilst here to visit and examine men
rather than their buildings and inanimate curiosities," he said
of his journey. Already the desire to study men of power was
growing within him; he wanted to meet successful politicians
so that he might discover the reasons for their success. 22

With that object in mind he sought out the leading political
figures of New England. He was introduced to aging former
President John Quincy Adams, and to Senator Daniel Web-

20 Lion of White Hall

ster, then basking in the glow of the publicity that followed
his debate with South Carolina s Robert Y. Hayne. In Boston,
Clay became acquainted with many people later connected
with the antislavery movement: the poet John Greenleaf
Whittier, the song- writer Julia Ward Howe, the lawyer John
A. Andrew, who became Civil War governor of Massachu
setts, and the eloquent orator Edward Everett. Contact with
such people and exposure to their ideas made Clay s journey
through the East an experience which added other facets to
his maturing personality. 23

Clay had come North not only to study politicians but to
continue his formal education. In 1831, he enrolled in the
Junior Class at Yale College. His experiences in New Haven
had a lasting influence upon Cassius Clay, and what he learned
there completed his training.

At Yale he met people he never forgot. Elderly Jeremiah
Day, author of mathematics textbooks, was the college presi
dent, and Professor Benjamin Silliman, "of large stature and
of large brain," as Cassius described him, was an innovator
in chemistry and natural science courses in American colleges.
James L. Kingsley was Clay s instructor in the classical lan
guages, and Denison Olmstead was professor of mathematics.

Among his classmates, two in particular remained in his
memory: Allen Taylor Caperton, of Virginia, the class prac
tical joker who became serious enough in later years to win
a seat in the Confederate Senate; and Joseph Longworth, later
known for his philanthropies to the city of Cincinnati. 24

Clay fitted easily into the New England academic com
munity. The Yale class he entered was small; it numbered only
fifty-seven members because in the previous year, as a result
of the notorious Conic Sections Rebellion, many men had
been suspended or expelled. The course of study Cassius fol
lowed at Yale was similar to that at Transylvania. He studied
the traditional Latin and Greek and also philosophy, rhetoric,
and history. He continued his interest in debate and oratory

The Trials of a Youngest Son 21

and joined a Yale literary society. He made a name for him
self as a speaker, and in scholarship he stood high in his class.
In the examinations of September, 1831, only two students
had higher marks than he. 25

But he was not too studious to participate in college pranks.
"I ve . . . been on the point of going to gaol," he confided
to Brutus. To finance the fun was not easy, and he com
plained that New Haven was a hard place to live in, "hard to
get money, hard to keep it, and still harder to do without it."
Many times he repeated the student s prayer: "Preserve me
from anything but a full pocket!"

Clay took part in the often ribald immaturity which ac
companied student life, but he was beginning to get bored
with college. To a young gentleman in his early twenties it
had begun to appear childish, and he longed to begin a man s
activities. He had been at school, he moaned, long enough to
make any man "an artificial if not a natural fool." 26

Despite his increasing distaste for study, Cassius did not
relish the thought of returning to Kentucky as a planter. His
contact with men in high places, and the new ideas he met in
New Haven, made him averse to a life on the plantation. "It
is with dread that I think of plough and hoe," he confessed.
And before he left Yale he had determined upon a political
career which would make his farm merely an interesting
avocation. 27

Not all Cassius new ideas carne from the classroom. A
chance encounter with William Lloyd Garrison, who had re
cently begun the publication of his uncompromisingly emanci
pationist journal, the Liberator, made a lasting impression
upon him. Cassius heard the impassioned editor speak at New
Haven s South Church, and for the first time in his life he
heard a straightforward denunciation of slavery. The year
before Clay came to New England, he had joined a Kentucky
emancipation society, but that action was no measure of his
opinion upon the subject. He regarded slavery as so many

22 Lion of White Hall

other southerners did the "fixed law of Nature"; he thought
little about the institution and when asked about it was apt to
say that nothing could be done about it. But Garrison, fiery
and provocative, suggested a drastic solution: immediate abo
lition of slavery and no union with slaveholders. Though
Cassius would reject Garrison s extreme program, the idea of
doing something to end slave labor became a significant part
of his creed. It was his part in the antislavery crusade that
brought him to the attention of Abraham Lincoln and that
eventually won him an appointment as Minister to Russia. 28

In New Haven Clay also observed the effects of free labor
upon the economy, and it was the conclusion he drew from
his observations that most profoundly influenced his future
action. In New England he was surprised to see an industrious
people reaping prosperity from an unfriendly soil. In the
South, where soil fertility was almost the only criterion for
judging economic standards, these people would have been
among the poorest, but here industrialism enriched the popu
lation. "I . . . saw a people living there luxuriously on a soil
which here would have been deemed the high road to famine
and the almshouse," he reported later, back in Kentucky.
Connecticut, which he had been taught was a land of "wooden
nutmegs and leather pumpkin seed," was in reality a land of
sterility without paupers. Seeking an explanation for the dis
crepancy he saw between New England and his native state,
he concluded that "liberty, religion, and education were the
causes of all these things."

Cassius Clay had fitted the final plank into his life s plat
form. For the South, he wanted economic prosperity; for
himself, political success. He blamed slavery for the economic
and social inferiority which existed in Kentucky and in the
South, and he based his opinion upon his personal observa
tions while a student at Yale. "Nothing but slavery," he main
tained, was the cause of the economic backwardness of the
agricultural South. That motto became the central theme of

The Trials of a Youngest Son 23

his career, and he never went far beyond it; indeed, in years
to come it became a restrictive monomania which stood be
tween him and his objectives. But reiterate it he did. When
ever he had to make a decision, the foundation for his choice
was the antislavery argument he had developed during these
early years. It made him a revolutionary in the 1840*5 and
1850*8, but before his public career was over it would make
him a pathetic anachronism. 29

It was Clay s fidelity to this principle throughout his life
long pursuit of public office that made him unique. Many an
other southern student had made similar remarks about slavery
while on a northern campus and then had forgotten them
when he returned home. Not so Cassius Clay. The more he
pondered the basis for a successful political career, the more
he became convinced that opposition to slavery was the proper
course. He had gone North to study the ways of successful
politicians, and it was his luck to stumble upon the issue which
would dominate political affairs in America for the next gen
eration.

Even in 1832 he recognized its political implications. "The
slave question," he wrote Brutus from New Haven, "is now
assuming an importance in the opinions of the enlightened
and humane, which prejudice and interest cannot long with
stand." The slaves of all the South "must soon be free," he
predicted, or there would be a dissolution of the Union within
fifty years, "however much it may be deprecated and laughed
at now. . . ."

Here was a potent issue; it appeared to be growing in sig
nificance; and the prognostications were that slavery was
doomed. To the young but ambitious Clay that was enough.
For the remainder of his life, perhaps as much from stub
bornness as from principle, he would plod the antislavery
path, using the same reasoning he had employed as a student
at Yale. 30

Clay s first public declaration of his new faith came as an

24 Lion of White Hall

idealistic afterthought to a florid oration. His abilities as a
public speaker had attracted the attention of his classmates,
and on February 22, 1832, the Senior Class chose him to de
liver an address commemorating the centennial of Washing
ton s birth. Eulogizing the Father of his Country, Cassius
concluded with a peroration. He described the day as one of
rejoicing over national liberty, the gift of Washington, and
asked, "Does no painful reflection rush across the unquiet
conscience?" Picturing Washington s admirers bringing gifts
to freedom s altar, he challenged, "Are there none afar off,
cast down and sorrowful, who dare not approach the com
mon altar; who cannot put their hands to their hearts and say
Oh, Washington, what art thou to us? Are we not also free
men? " In that indirect reference Clay mentioned the slaves
in the United States, and upon his masked reference he built
an emancipationist injunction. "Foolish man," he said, "lay
down thy offering, go thy way, become reconciled to thy
brother, and then come and offer thy offering." The subtle
language, drawn from the Bible, hinted at his growing op
position to slavery. In years to come he would make his mean
ing entirely clear, and he would drop the religious phrase
ology. 31

Clay used the Washington s Birthday oration to express
publicly his fear that the Union might some day dissolve. "It
needs not the eye of divination to see that differences of in
terest will naturally arise in this vast extent of territory," he
said. "Washington saw it; we see it." In the political arena,
he pointed out, alluding to the Webster-Hayne debate, "the
glove is already thrown down; the northern and southern
champions stand in sullen defiance." He hoped, Clay added,
that a "blinded people" would not "rest secure in disbelief
and derision, till the birthright left us by our Washington is
lost! till we shall be aroused by the rushing ruins of a once
glorious union. " 32

The oration might well have been Clay s graduation address.

The Trials of a Youngest Son 25

Though he did not graduate for several months, the speech
revealed that his training was complete. Of the many factors
which had gone into his personality the influence of his
parents, his environment, his schooling in Kentucky and in
Connecticut the most significant had been his sojourn among
the industrious New Englanders.

As he left New England and headed homeward, he was no
longer an adolescent scholar but a mature individual starting
forth upon a career. Despite his youthful appearance, he was
an adult. He looked young, innocent almost feminine. His
face was fair and soft, his eyes dark and thoughtful, and his
hair, shaped by a stubborn cowlick on the left side, was long,
black, and silky. Though he displayed none of the fire which
characterized his later life and made him a legendary figure
in Kentucky history and the subject of international gossip
during his stay in Russia, there was in his eyes a bold look of
determination.

In stature he had completed his growth; he was well over
six feet tall; but his shoulders were not so broad as they would
become in another decade. Endowed with a magnificent
physique, an aggressive and courageous personality, and a
driving ambition, Cassius M. Clay, combining character and
training, would make an exciting bid for political power in
his native state. His efforts there, as an antislavery politician
and a pioneer in the movement that culminated in the estab
lishment of the national Republican Party of the 1850*5, were
to bring him a country- wide reputation as the Lion of White
Hall. It was the part he played in Kentucky politics that de
termined the course of his subsequent career.

CHAPTER II

A CONGENIAL CAREER
BEGINS

WHEN Cassius Clay returned home from study at Yale
College, he brought with him more than the newly embossed
diploma in his baggage. In his opinions he was not the same
person who had left Kentucky in 183 1. Having lived for over
a year in busy New England, he had come to admire its
prosperous economy. He had pondered the problem of Ken
tucky s inferiority in the external trappings of prosperity:
railroads, factories, and schools. In the future, as he surveyed
his home state with the analytical eye of a political theorist,
he would not forget the energetic Yankees who outwitted
miserly Nature by mechanical devices. The vivid memory of
New England s industry continued to influence the course of
the career he was about to begin.

As Cassius had altered his opinions while he had been away,
so the state to which he returned had also changed. The
momentous issue of nullification had appeared in the interim,
bringing to the surface again the quarrel between industri
alists and agrarians for control of national affairs. South Caro
linians, faced with the dilemma of decreasing soil fertility and
diminishing returns from their cotton and rice fields, blamed
their difficulties upon a convenient scapegoat, the tariff. It
made sense to them: if they could buy British goods at lower
prices, it stood to reason that they would live better. But

26

A Congenial Career Begins 27

Yankee manufacturers preached economic nationalism, urged
Americans to buy at home, and sent their representatives to
Congress with orders to demand higher tariff protection. Gen
tlemen of the South Carolina plantations resisted the Tariff
of 1832 with the nullification argument, ably presented by
their political knight-errant, bushy-browed John C. Calhoun.
The states were the guardians of the Constitution, they
argued; any unconstitutional action of the national Congress
should be nullified by the states until the Constitution was
amended or the proposed law overthrown. President Andrew
Jackson met this theoretical attack upon national power as
he had met the southern Indians: he threatened force, and the
South Carolinians had to accept a compromise. The canker
on the body politic had thus been bandaged, but the sore
remained. Neither side had been satisfied with the settlement;
New Englanders disliked the reduced tariff rates, and southern
spokesmen protested the obvious threat to their interpreta
tion of the Constitution. As Cassius Clay had said in his Wash
ington s Birthday oration, the protagonists "stood in sullen
defiance." The tug-of-war on the national scene between in
dustrialists and agrarians was to be re-enacted in Kentucky,
where Clay would play a significant role in the drama.

In Kentucky the fight involved the American System, the
brainchild of the state s favorite son, Henry Clay. A clever
attempt to synthesize interest groups, the American System
was a scheme to win support of New Englanders and western
farmers by offering public assistance to industry and to food-
producers. To encourage the establishment of home manu
factures in the Ohio valley as well as in the East, Henry Clay
advocated higher and higher tariff measures. He championed
internal improvements at public expense, to enable western
farmers to market their surplus, as well as to aid western
commercial development. For business interests all over the
country, the Gallant Harry favored the National Bank, which
would provide a firm monetary and credit system. His was a

28 Lion of White Hall

plan which anticipated a self -sufficient economy within the
country and bound the sections together with a golden chain
of commerce.

Such was the platform upon which Henry Clay had for
years sought to unite the divergent interests of the nineteenth-
century Federalists, who would soon take the name Whig. Op
position to the scheme appeared in many areas of the South,
particularly among slave-owners. They could discover little
benefit to themselves from the promises of Henry Clay s
system, and they considered any tariff a tax which fell un
equally upon them. Trusting in the soil and in the philosophy
that "Cotton is King," they were not interested in the econ
omy of the mill and the machine. Many planters who objected
to the Whig Party because of its industry-centered Amer
ican System spoke out against it; the elder Robert Wickliffe,
the "Old Duke," Kentucky s most prominent slave-owning
planter, remarked a few years later, "For myself, I am op
posed to Mr. [Henry] Clay, because I consider him a dan
gerous politician to the whole of the American States, and
especially to the Southern and planting States." Cassius M.
Clay, born to the class represented by Wickliffe but fresh
from New England, where he had seen the potentialities of
the American System, was familiar with the essential elements
of both conflicting attitudes toward economic prosperity. 1

Because he returned to Kentucky and began his political
career at the time when party alignments were shifting, Cas
sius was forced to choose between the agricultural economy
of the planter-aristocracy to which he had been born and the
vision of industrial prosperity which he had brought from
New England. To be successful as a politician, he would have
either to follow the dominant slaveholding minority which
opposed the Henry Clay program or to espouse the cause
of Kentucky s embryonic proletariat, which had as yet no
political consciousness. Neat compromises were impossible: the
immoderate invective of William Lloyd Garrison and the

A Congenial Career Begins 29

bloody slave-insurrection in Virginia made that clear. At the
beginning of his career, Cassius Clay was not fully aware
of the disagreements between the planter and the white
artisans, and he attempted to serve the interests of the labor
ers while remaining a member of the planter class, as southern
politicians had done before.

But Cassius political experiences were proof that the party
of Henry Clay faced a fundamental conflict in the South.
Henry himself maintained his position in Kentucky only
because of his astute abilities as a compromiser; Cassius, when
he took an extreme stand in support of the same views Henry
advocated, ran afoul of local prejudices. But Cassius remained
stubbornly loyal to the conclusions of his New Haven years.
He advocated a southern industrialism and became a spokes
man for southern non-slave labor. Throughout his career he
consistently defended the economic principles of the Amer
ican System. When he entered Kentucky politics, these views
were still acceptable, but as time passed and sectional loyalties
fermented, the economic principles of Henry Clay became
more unpopular, and Cassius was persecuted for failing to up
hold the glories of agrarianism. Men who in 1835 were in
volved with him in commercial ventures were, ten years later,
castigating him as a traitor to his state.

The view which he would not relinquish, and which be
came the theme of his entire career, was an interpretation of
the idea of his kinsman Henry Clay to suit the southern situa
tion. As the American System envisioned a balanced national
economy, so Cassius sought to increase Kentucky s prosperity
by broadening its economic base. He wanted to apply Henry s
program of public aid to commerce and industry in his state
in order to encourage a diversified, balanced economy. A
border state, Kentucky enjoyed the distinguishing features
of the planting South and the manufacturing North; rich
farmland and a plantation economy existed beside a moun
tainous, mineral-rich area potentially analogous to industrial

30 Lion of White Hall

New England. Cassius wanted to encourage his fellow Ken-
tuckians to capitalize upon their favorable situation and erect
a manufacturing economy in the southern mountains, or
"American Switzerland," as he called them. To meet the needs
of the industrial workers whom he hoped to entice to the
state, farmers, he urged, should emulate their counterparts
north of the Ohio by growing food-grains and meat rather
than slave-produced staple crops.

Such a course would increase the state s income, he prom
ised, and would enrich the free white mechanics the "middle
class," as he termed them. Moreover, he contended that farm
ers would also prosper by the addition of a home market for
foodstuffs, which was lacking under the predominant plan
tation system. Cassius Clay s plan paralleled the American
System on the state level and had a similar purpose to unite
the sections and to elevate a party to power. It was, there
fore, a Kentucky System that he proposed in his bid for po
litical office. But the great enemy to the success of the scheme
was the planting class, proponent of an agrarian economy,
which was also the proslavery party. Because they sought to
obstruct his plan, Cassius would condemn the planters as op
ponents of progress and as aristocratic oligarchs heedless of
the majority interest. 2

Many years were to elapse, however, before Cassius Clay
would complete the details of the Kentucky System. When he
did, it was the tragedy of his life that his belligerent person
ality and the prejudices of his fellow southerners deprived him
of his reward.

The early years of his career Cassius spent in an effort to
establish himself in his community and in the sight of its po
litical leaders as an available candidate for responsible office.
His first step in that direction was to get a background in law.
After a summer s vacation from study, he entered Transyl
vania University for the second time. He was happy to return

A Congenial Career Begins 31

to the pleasant community of Lexington and to escape the
loneliness of White Hall. His mother had remarried while he
was away and had moved to Frankfort; all of the children
had established separate family homes, and the big house was
bare and quiet. For a time he busied himself reading law, and
concluded a six months course, but did not take out a license
to practice. His purpose in studying law was not to become
a lawyer, he explained, but "to prepare myself for political
life, which was congenial to my taste." 3

And in addition to its law school Lexington held other at
tractions for Cassius. Mary Jane Warfield, now two years older
and in the full bloom of youth, was more charming than ever,
and there were competitors for her favors. She preferred the
dark-haired, dashing Clay, however, and he was certain of his
love for her. Though members of his family warned him
away from the Warfields, Cassius impetuously overrode their
objections and determined to win her hand. In asking Mary
Jane s father for permission to marry her, however, Cassius
made his first mistake. He soon discovered that his troubles
were just beginning. Dr. Elisha Warfield was a small, shy
man, who allowed his domineering wife to run his household
while he contented himself with running his race horses. Be
cause Green Clay had been undisputed master at White Hall,
Cassius did not understand the situation in the Warfield fam
ily. Instead of presenting his request to the matriarch, the
unsuspecting youth aroused a miniature tempest by dealing
with the father. After he had smoothed that difficulty, Cassius
imagined that all was ready for the wedding. Mary Jane
shared his assurance and set February 26, 1833, as the date for
the ceremony.

But the arrangement of the marriage was not to be that
easy. Mary Jane s mother, still irritated by the whole affair,
showed Cassius a letter she had received from Dr. John P.
Declary, a Louisville physician and one of Mary Jane s re
jected suitors. Declary told Mrs. Warfield that her daughter

32 Lion of White Hall

should not marry a Clay, and in particular she should avoid
the young, unsettled Cassius. When Clay saw Declary s
charges he felt compelled to vindicate himself in the eyes of
his bride-to-be. With his best man, James S. Rollins, as his
second, Cassius journeyed to Louisville to obtain a public
apology. 4

Armed with a stout stick and the derogatory letter, Cassius
and Rollins invaded Declary s hotel and invited that gentle
man outside. With his stick under his left arm, Cassius showed
the doctor the passages in the letter to which he objected and
offered him the opportunity to explain them. "What do you
have to say?" Clay asked him. Though the doctor was ten
years older than Clay, the two men were about the same size.
When the doctor made ready to fight, Clay wrestled with
him in the street, and then brought his stick into play. Re
peatedly he belabored the unarmed man each time he strug
gled up from the ground. When passers-by ran forward to
intervene, aghast at the beating Clay was giving the doctor,
Rollins held them off with a gun. When the doctor no longer
tried to rise, Clay told him where he was staying, and, obedi
ent to the code, returned to his room to await the challenge.
Within a few hours it arrived; Declary would meet Clay
across the river in Indiana the next day, Sunday, February 25,
the eve of Clay s wedding.

Early the next morning Clay and Rollins crossed the Ohio
in rented carriages, and Clay practiced firing his pistol at a
tree while awaiting his adversary. But by the time Declary
and his party arrived, a host of curiosity-seekers had gathered
upon the scene to witness the anticipated blood-letting. The
contestants decided to postpone their fight and meet later
back in Kentucky. Through a series of comic misunderstand
ings, for which each side blamed the other, the duel never
occurred. As night fell, Cassius was more , concerned about
getting back to his wedding than he was in salving his
wounded pride. After waiting all night for an attack, Clay

A Congenial Career Begins 33

and Rollins caught the morning stage to Lexington and con
sidered the challenge off. 5

Late Monday night, February 26, Clay arrived, mud-
spattered and travel-weary, at The Meadows, Mary Jane s
home near Lexington. His bride-to-be had waited there all
day, not knowing whether he was alive or not. In her life
with him she would endure many other days and nights of
loneliness in the same uncertainty. But now she donned gown
and veil and took her vows. At The Meadows, in the candle
lit main parlor, Cassius M. Clay and Mary Jane Warfield were
married by the Reverend B. O. Peers, an Episcopal minister,
president of Transylvania University. 6

But the happy conclusion of Clay s courtship did not end
the threat to his marriage. In a series of public letters, Declary
belittled Clay s courage, charging that he had fled from the
Louisville challenge. At first Clay tried to ignore Declary s
insults. "For a man to leave a newly-married wife to return
to fight her rejected suitor," Clay remarked, "was too absurd
for even the fool-code." But the taunts of his friends soon got
under his skin, and he determined to "give Declary a full
test of his manhood." Taking a long pleasure trip to Cincin
nati and St. Louis, Clay returned to Louisville. Arming him
self, he went to Declary s hotel, the Old Inn, and sat in the
lobby awaiting the arrival of the doctor. When Declary saw
Clay he turned pale and walked away. Cassius remained in the
city for several days, but since his enemy made no contact
with him, he returned to Lexington. The next day he heard
that John P. Declary had gone into his room, locked the door,
and with a razor slit his wrist arteries and bled to death.
He was, a Louisville editor commented, killed by a duel that
he never fought. Not all of Cassius Clay s enemies would be
vanquished so easily. 7

Having provided White Hall with a suitable mistress, and
having completed his legal training, in 1834 Cassius announced

34 Lion of White Hall

his candidacy for the lower house of the state legislature. In
listing the contenders for the office, a Whig editor declared
that Clay was "of the true -faith" But despite the recommenda
tion, Cassius had to withdraw from the race. His opponents
pointed out that the state constitution required that a legislator
must have passed his twenty-fifth birthday before the open
ing of the session, and Clay would not be that old. "Upon a
more critical examination of the constitution," explained the
twenty-three-year-old Clay, somewhat embarrassed, "I am
convinced that I am not of lawful age." Claiming that his
private affairs required his attention, the impatient politician
announced that he would wait a year before offering himself
as a candidate. 8

The year was a busy one for Cassius, who used it to en
hance his availability as a Henry Clay Whig of the American
System. In addition to his own affairs, which took him all
over the state, he participated in public-development enter
prises. It was a year in which internal improvements boomed,
and Kentucky was no exception. When a company organized
to construct a turnpike road from Lexington to Richmond,
Kentucky, seat of Clay s home county, he took an active
part in its plans. If he could influence the road survey, its
route would traverse much of his land, and would cross the
Kentucky River at his ferry. Cassius served as secretary to the
road company sitting with men who later denounced his
course and he was also a commissioner in the Richmond
branch of the Northern Bank of Kentucky. 9

Clay s youthful devotion to business principles revealed his
understanding of the Kentucky political scene. In the 1 8 30*8,
the basic issue that divided parties was the place of govern
ment in the affairs of men, particularly economic affairs. Gen
erally, the groups which were coalescing under the name
Whig argued that government should use its financial and
legal power to improve business conditions by construction

A Congenial Career Begins 35

of roads and canals, by assistance to railroads and river traffic,
and by establishment of a banking system and a sound cur
rency. "We indulge the hope," a Whig editor remarked, "that
the time is not distant when our state will be enabled to vie
with any other in the Union in those great works of enter-
prize, which must redound so much to the wealth, prosperity,
and comfort of her citizens."

The Democrats, on the other hand, favored frugal govern
ment with low taxes and restricted powers. They opposed
public assistance to internal improvements, calling it uncon
stitutional. President Andrew Jackson had brought the matter
to a head by vetoing the Maysville road bill, a project in
which the national government was to take stock in a com
pany organized to construct a road from Maysville, Ken
tucky, on the Ohio River, to Lexington. "If it be the wish of
the people that the construction of roads and canals should be
conducted by the Federal Government," Jackson said, "it is
not only highly expedient, but indispensably necessary, that
a previous amendment of the Constitution ... be made."
Jackson s veto message provided Kentucky s Henry Clay with
the issue he needed to arouse resistance to the President and
to his party. But in the meantime, Kentucky businessmen, hav
ing failed to receive assistance from the national government,
looked to Frankfort for aid. In the state, accordingly, it was
the Whigs who represented business and commercial interests,
and these Cassius joined.

But in the mid- 1830 $ another factor complicated the Ken
tucky political alignment. President Jackson s militant action
against South Carolina in the nullification controversy, as well
as his efforts to win support of New England workers, had
aroused resentment and derision among southern landowners.
That group made first use of the name Whig as a motto for
their opposition to "King Andrew the First." Cassius was not
a "Cotton Whig," as they came to be called, but he had been

36 Lion of White Hall

nurtured to respect the landholding aristocracy. When he be
gan his career, therefore, his business as well as his family
connections made him acceptable to Whig leaders. 10

His acceptability soon brought its rewards. In the summer
of 1835 as soon as he reached the requisite age, he loved to
point out he was elected to the Kentucky legislature as rep
resentative from Madison County. As a member of the Gen
eral Assembly, Cassius continued his support of the American
System. Already active in public works, he established him
self as a proponent of government assistance to internal im
provements. He worked to obtain a state subsidy to finance a
railroad from Louisville to Charleston, South Carolina, which
would cross his county. He sponsored a petition from the
president and officials of the Lexington and Richmond Turn
pike Road Company, of which he was an officer and a stock
holder, and he utilized every opportunity to express his ap
proval of protective tariffs. 11

Clay also expressed his distaste for Negro slavery as a labor
system but refused to agitate for its abolition. For some years
there had been in Kentucky a strong current of opinion, espe
cially among those who favored gradual emancipation, for
amendments to the slave clauses in the state constitution. Such
a course required a constitutional convention. In debate upon
a bill to authorize one, Cassius Clay protested that it was not
the proper time to discuss the slavery issue. "Is this a time,
when a horde of fanatical incendiaries is springing up in the
North, threatening to spread fire and blood through our once
secure and happy homes," he asked, "to deliberately dispose
of a question which involves the political rights of master and
slave?" A convention, he said, might provide for an emanci
pation program which, on the surface at least, appeared wise.
There had been, he confessed to his colleagues, a time when
he favored gradual emancipation, and he still saw advantages
in free labor. Having compared slave and free communities,
he said, "I am candid in saying that the free states have largely

A Congenial Career Begins 37

the advantage." As he spoke, a vision of New England re
turned to him. "I cannot, as a statesman, shut my eyes to the
industry, ingenuity, numbers, and wealth which are display
ing themselves in adjoining states." But, he continued, the
"spirit of dictation and interference ... in the North" pre
cluded any chance for improvement. "I almost give way to
the belief that slavery must continue to exist till, like some
ineradicable disease, it disappears with the body that gave it
being." Clay was not yet ready to advocate a cure, but his
simile was clear: slavery was a grim plague which would de
stroy the society that harbored it. Like other Kentucky gen
tlemen, however, he maintained a passive attitude toward it.
Although he opposed calling a constitutional convention, a
device he would advocate a few years hence, his unfavorable
description of slave labor and his admiration for an industrial
economy foreshadowed the conflict which lay ahead for
him. 12

After the assembly had adjourned and Clay had returned
home, he took an increasingly active part in Whig affairs. On
April 19, 1836, he attended a party convention in Lexington
and served on the resolutions committee, and in the summer,
at the Young Men s Whig Convention in Louisville, he be
came a member of the influential committee of correspond
ence. Despite his advancement in the state party, in his home
county his campaign for re-election was swallowed up by
the Van Buren sweep of that year. On August 5, he told his
brother, "The election is over, I am beaten," and blamed his
advocacy of internal improvements. John F. Busby, an ad
versary of public assistance to roads and canals, replaced Cas-
sius at Frankfort. Many years later, Clay explained his de
feat in the homely language of the tobacco-grower, saying
that his friends decided to "top me, and let me spread." 13

Ousted from the assembly, Cassius retired and again turned
his attention to private affairs. In the face of personal tragedy
his first two sons died in infancy Cassius worked at the

38 Lion of White Hall

routine business connected with his father s estate, and in
vested in new commercial ventures. He formed a partnership
with George Weddle, of Madison County, in a sawmill on
the Kentucky River and established a gristmill near that
stream. He also continued to operate the river ferry which
his father had begun. While he did not invest in heavy in
dustry, still he had economic interests other than hemp or
tobacco, the customary produce of Kentucky plantations. He
specialized in beef cattle, which he drove to the Cincinnati
market, and he became a nationally recognized authority on
the breeding of Shorthorn cattle. He also offered purebred
Southdown sheep and Spanish hogs on a national market.
Thus, even before the panic of 1837, Cassius Clay had en
larged the scope of his financial operations beyond the planta
tion. When his political views looked beyond the confines of
a narrowly specialized agrarian economy, they merely re
flected the realities of his own sources of income. 14

It was out of his personal economic situation that Cassius
Clay s political philosophy emerged. His experience was not
at all unique, but it led him into an unpopular position, and
there his stubborn courage kept him. In the spring of 1837,
he entered the legislative race, again as a Henry Clay Whig,
and this time won easily, finishing first in a four-man race
for the two Madison County seats. But during the session Clay
began to manifest those differences which would soon set
him apart from his neighbors.

He used every opportunity to serve commercial interests,
particularly along the Kentucky River route to the mineral-
rich mountains. He soon charged that slaveholding agricul
turalists were his chief opponents in that program. Cheap-
money men in the General Assembly, like Robert Wickliffe,
Sr., of Fayette County and William R. Evans of Monroe,
advocated a bill conferring banking privileges upon the pro
posed Charleston and Ohio Railroad. Cassius Clay, committed

A Congenial Career Begins 39

to commercial development within the state but opposed to
cheap money, took issue with them and associated the pro-
slavery party with those who opposed the American System.
"There is a class of politicians who have solemnly declared
themselves at war with the system of American manufac
tures," he announced. "There are men who have avowed them
selves inimical to a system of internal improvements." The
same group of men had succeeded in destroying the "best
bank circulation among any people," and now they desired
to flood the state with new issues of paper money. They also
demanded repeal of the tariff, to import "at a sacrifice, from
foreign and alien merchants, kingly subjects, rather than sus
tain the freemen of our common country." Clay became
even more indignant; it was the same group, he charged, which
kept alive the slave question, "that question which of all others
is most terrible to the hopes of this union." 15

Cassius, stubbornly defiant and determined, was not a man
to back away from a fight, either political or physical. He
engaged in several spats upon the floor of the House, and it
was a brawl with a colleague that illustrated once more his
penchant for adopting a driving attack. James C. Sprigg, rep
resentative from Shelby County, had once made the mistake,
while drunk, of confiding to Clay his dearest secret: when
he had a quarrel with anyone, he had boasted, he would await
no formal preliminaries, but would strike without warning
and thus gain the victory. Clay tucked the bit of information
away in his memory, for that was also his technique, as one
George, slave boy at White Hall, could attest. As it turned
out, Clay made good use of his intelligence concerning
Sprigg s battle plans.

In the House Sprigg and Clay had frequent tiffs, for the
most part over the work of the Banking Committee. On sev
eral occasions, Sprigg made bitter remarks about the alleged
inefficiency of the members of the committee. The other mem-

40 Lion of White Hall

bers of that group appeared to ignore him, but the excitable
Clay regarded his words as personal insults. Finally, after an
unusually heated speech of Sprigg s, Clay rose to respond.

After the House had adjourned for the day, Clay met Sprigg
in the hotel. Sprigg walked up to him, wearing a pleasant
look, but Cassius was aware of his colleague s tactics. When
Sprigg came within reach, Clay suddenly struck him a severe
blow with his huge fist, full in the face, and sent him stagger
ing to the floor. Holding the advantage, Cassius clubbed him
again and again with his bare hands until bystanders rescued
the badly beaten Sprigg from the vicious hammering. Sprigg
later confessed to Clay that his intention had been to strike
without warning, and he could not understand how Clay had
divined his purpose. To Clay, the incident proved that the best
defense was a strong right arm and the determination to use

it. 16

But he was also endowed with a fine voice and a clear mind,
as well as physical strength, and these qualities attracted at
tention to his abilities as a legislator. "Mr. Clay, of Madison,
spoke with much force and wit," an assembly reporter said of
him. "This gentleman possesses a fine flow of words and ideas;
and with proper application he must make a cynosure in the
commonwealth." 1T

But trouble, not success, lay ahead for Cassius Clay, for
in his ambitious plans there was the seed of conflict. In his
own financial program he had moved away from the planta
tion economy, and he stood to lose if industrial expansion
was halted. Yet the dominant element in Kentucky, the very
group which might provide him with the career he craved,
stood hostile, though not united, in regard to that program.
Nevertheless, he would not change his views. His own eco
nomic stake and his deep convictions about the basis of public
welfare, as well as his native determination, held him loyal to
the creed he had adopted. His loyalty would meet severe tests.

A Congenial Career Begins 41

The issue did not come to a head for two years, however,
and in that time Clay experienced both humiliation and honor.
First, he prepared the way for the major political battle of his
early career by moving his legal residence to Lexington. To
find a more central place for his political aspirations, he moved
his family to the seat of Fayette County, rich in tobacco,
hemp, race horses, and bourbon whisky. The county was
also the center of Kentucky s slave-owning plantations, with
over ten thousand Negroes. Fayette offered greater opportu
nity for political prestige, and there was another reason for
the move: Mary Jane was bored with farm life and longed to
live closer to her parents and friends. So, for political and
for personal reasons, Cassius decided to change his head
quarters. In Lexington he purchased Thorn Hill, an elegant
and comfortable residence in the city.

Clay s acquisition of Thorn Hill belied the embarrassing
condition of his personal finances. In the panic of 1837, he
had committed himself heavily in an eifort to pay the obliga
tions of William Rodes, husband of his sister Paulina. Much
of Green Clay s estate was swallowed up in the crisis. Clay
also had troubles of his own; his business partner, George
Weddle, failed in his attempt to manage the sawmill and ferry.
In a day of unlimited copartnership liability, Clay suddenly
found himself besieged by creditors and unable to pay them.
Indeed, he could not settle his debts for twenty-five years.
His indebtedness affected his later actions; his lecture tours
and his journalistic enterprise were, in part, attempts to meet
his obligations.

Though Clay s financial situation was unhappy, his politi
cal career was bright. Until he became a legal resident of
Fayette County he could not seek local office, but he attracted
the attention of state Whig leaders. On December 4, 1839, he
sat as delegate to the Whig national convention at Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, and served as a floor leader for the candidacy of

42 Lion of White Hall

Henry Clay. Despite Clay s efforts on behalf of his kinsman,
the nomination went to the hero of Tippecanoe, William
Henry Harrison. The result, Clay later recalled, was a bitter
disappointment for him. He wept, "overcome with a sense
of injustice" that his candidate had been "betrayed." 18

CHAPTER III

CLAY TAKES HIS
STAND

IN THE 1840 race for a seat in the state legislature from
Fayette County, Clay became an active critic of the slave
system and of its defenders. For that reason the campaign was
the first overt step in his growing rebellion against the preju
dices of his class. But in addition, since his proslavery com
petitors were also Whigs, the election accentuated the divi
sions within the party.

The chief issue upon which the Kentucky Whig Party
split, as illustrated by Cassius Clay s campaign, was whether
the economic interests of the state should emphasize exploita
tion of land or should expand to include mechanical skills.
That question was soon overshadowed by another, more
emotional, dispute between partisans of slave labor and pro
ponents of free white labor. Agrarians rallied to the support
of slavery, prevalent on the plantations, while advocates of
the mill posed as humanitarian liberals interested in freedom
and justice. Within the party the split was between Cotton
Whigs and Conscience Whigs.

The conflict became a political issue when Cassius Clay
announced himself a candidate for the legislature. At that
time Fayette County returned three members, and there were
already three candidates in the field, all Whigs. John Curd
and Clayton Curie were incumbents and were practically

43

44 Lion of White Hall

assured of re-election. The third contender, whom Clay chal
lenged, was Robert Wickliffe, Jr., who was dominated by
his powerful father, the Old Duke. Clay and the younger
Wickliffe had much in common: they were about the same
age; they had been classmates at Transylvania; and they were
both rising career politicians with legislative experience. There
was, however, an important difference between them: Wick
liffe was a native of Fayette County, but Cassius was a new
comer.

To have any chance at all for victory over Wickliffe,
Cassius needed an issue which would make him appear a
better supporter of Fayette County interests than the home
town candidate. He found it in the so-called Negro Law of
1833, a prohibition against further importation of slaves into
the state. The restriction upon the interstate slave trade limited
the growth of the Negro population, thereby acting as a
tariff to benefit the Bluegrass, an area already well supplied
with slaves. Any planter or enterpriser who required more
Negro labor had to procure it within the state; a scarcity
of such labor accordingly enhanced the value of Bluegrass
slave property. "Slavery being unequally diffused," argued
one legislator, "the law is a bonus to Fayette, Clark, and
Bourbon [counties in the Bluegrass], where they own large
numbers of slaves." The import restriction enabled "these
rich counties to sell, to constituents of other areas, slaves which
are now commanding a price, sometimes reaching . . . the
extravagant sum of $1400 each." I

Because of their monopolistic supply situation, Kentuckians
in counties with large slave populations might be expected
to favor the law. But there was another aspect to the problem.
The import restriction was regarded as a means of gradually
ending slavery by reducing the proportion of Negroes in the
total population. "There are thousands upon thousands of
the citizens, and themselves slaveholders, too," commented the
editor of the Frankfort Commonwealth, "who look upon

Clay Takes His Stand 45

slavery as an evil. . . . They have considered that an act
which operates to keep down the increase by excluding
foreign supply [would aid the] numerical growth of the
white race." In the course of twenty or thirty years, the
editor prophesied, the percentage of blacks would be so small
that slavery would scarcely be felt in the state. There may
have been many Kentuckians who wished to restrict the
growth of slavery in that manner, but there were also Ken
tucky slave-owners who had no intention of losing either
their slave property or their dominant political position with
out a struggle. If the Law of 1833 would reduce slavery to
an insignificant position, they demanded an end to the import
restriction even if it meant an end to their monopoly on the
supply. Such a slave-owner was Robert Wickliife the elder,
of Lexington, who spoke for his compliant son. Referring to
the Negro Law as an "abolition tinder-box," the Old Duke
denounced those who sustained the import restriction. "That
Kentucky is to be the first battleground of the abolitionists,
they all agree," he said. It was the antislavery object to drain
the slave population from the state, he declared, and to "shut
out emigrants from slave states, until the price of slave labor
shall rise so high that a poor man cannot command it." The
law was an "implement in the hands of the abolitionists, to
carry out their views in regard to our slave property." For
that reason, Wickliffe urged the repeal of the measure. 2

The double face of the Law of 1833 made it an admirable
issue for Clay to use in his campaign. In a county with nearly
ten thousand slaves, the politician who advocated repeal of
the restriction albeit in order to protect the institution of
slavery would lay himself open to the charge of neglecting
local interests. Discussion of the Negro Law pushed the Wick-
liffes to that position, for the question soon entered the cam
paign. The Lexington paper published a letter from an anony
mous voter, publicly polling the candidates on the law. Clay,
Curd, and Curie promptly endorsed the slave restriction,

46 Lion of White Hall

holding that repeal would flood the country with "refuse and
unsound negroes." 3

Only Robert Wickliffe, Jr., who followed his father s lead
in the matter, refused to commit himself. He argued that
restrictions upon slave importation did not constitute a suita
ble subject for campaign discussion. "This issue is not a test
question dividing the parties, 7 he charged, "but a question
which has hitherto been confined to the halls of legislation." 4
Wickliffe s father, however, was not content with so evasive
a response. The Old Duke was sure that the entire discussion
was a trick of Cassius Clay s. The fight between Whigs, "in
the sight of the enemy," began when the "gentleman, late of
Madison County," entered the race, the old man declared.
To influence the voters in favor of the newcomer, the anti-
slavery forces had raised the Negro question in the county.
The elder Wickliffe said that his enemies were trying to force
his only son to "purchase his election at the price of flying
at his father s throat." Either young Wickliffe had to de
nounce his father s stand against the Negro Law or he had
to appear opposed to county interests. When the call came,
the young man, caught "between the cross fires," could only
say, "I will give no pledge about it, but do my duty when
called on." 5

Young Wickliffe s noncommittal position sharply differ
entiated him from Cassius Clay, who endorsed the law. So
well did the issue meet Clay s needs that he had to deny intro
ducing it. "In 1840, I had no share whatever in bringing the
subject of slavery before the people," he declared later. But
once the question had arisen, he said, his subsequent action
followed logically. It was an irrevocable decision. Because he
wanted to win a local election and needed an issue to set
him apart from his opponent, he took his stand against the
expansion of slavery. 6

Whoever the instigator of the issue may have been, Clay
made effective use of the Negro Law in the campaign. With

Clay Takes His Stand 47

that issue he could appeal not only to the owners of Fayette
County s slaves but also to the artisans and small farmers
who were in competition with slave labor. From the beginning
it had been his devotion to commercial development which
made him deplore the presence of slavery in Kentucky. Now
he declared that slavery impoverished the state s white popu
lation, and before the race was over he had denounced slavery
so devastatingly that slaveholders ostracized him.

In his campaign speeches, Clay s purpose was to appear as
a friend of the county and its interests. To that end he offered
evidence from his previous service in the legislature. "Though
a member from another county," he said, "I voted for every
measure Fayette ever asked. ... I was the friend of her
literary institutions, her banks, her railroads, her turnpikes."
But it was upon the issue of the Negro Law that he spoke
most often. He depicted the evils of slavery, basing his argu
ments upon the injustices of the system, not to the Negro,
but to the white. "Give us free labor, and we will manufacture
much more than now," he implored. "Slaves would not manu
facture if they could; and could not if they would!"

Clay reminded white mechanics that slaves were their rivals:
"Negro slavery degrades the mechanic, ruins the manufac
turer, lays waste and depopulates the country." He quoted
from the Census of 1 840 to show that Kentucky s population
was not growing at the same rate as that of Ohio, her younger
sister. In the previous decade the free state had increased her
population by sixty-two per cent, while Kentucky had grown
by only thirty-three per cent. "If a free white population
be itself an element of strength, or the increase of population
indicates prosperity," he said, "then surely the law of 1833
should stand."

Clay s economic argument against slavery was the weapon
he contributed to the arsenal of abolitionism. Other southern
opponents of slavery, such as James G. Birney and the Grimke
sisters, had directed their appeals to the moral and religious
sensibility of slave-owners, only to see erected a moral defense

48 Lion of White Hall

of the institution. But Clay rejected moral preachments as
the leading weapon against slavery. "It is not a matter of
conscience with me," he said. "I press it not upon the con
sciences of others."

Instead, Clay tried to prove that slavery was harmful to the
skilled artisans who engaged in manufacture. "Every slave
imported," he said, "drives out a free and independent Ken-
tuckian." Unless it was checked, slavery would degrade white
labor. "The day is come, or coming," he warned, "when
every white must work for the wages of the slave his victuals
and clothes emigrate, or die!" Appealing to mechanics for
their votes, he declared that he favored the white man, "bone
of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." The import restriction
indeed, the entire emancipation program served the interests
of the state s embryonic industrial class, Clay claimed, and he
vowed his determination to sustain it. "If we pursue the plan
proposed by R. W. [Robert Wickliffe], repeal this law, and
receive all the surplus vicious slave population which may be
thrown upon us, till the whites are thrown into a minority,"
he admonished, "our strength and influence are gone, our
locks are shorn, the star of our glory will have set for

ever. . . ." 7

In his efforts to divide the voters, Clay became the object
of the undying hatred of the planters. Nearly twenty years
later, an obscure North Carolinian, Hinton Rowan Helper,
would encounter similar malevolence in defending the yeo
man farmer groups against the depredations of Negro compe
tition. But Helper was only enlarging upon the work of
Cassius M. Clay, who had long pointed out the deleterious
effects of slavery upon another forgotten southern group, the
manufacturing artisans. Unlike Helper, Clay was not subject
to the charge that he was a lower-class malcontent; because
of his background, as well as his courage, he was a more
worrisome thorn in the flesh of slaveholding southerners.
Like Helper, however, Clay saw nothing good in slavery.

Clay Takes His Stand 49

In 1840 he made his position clear: "I declare, then, in the
face of all men, that I believe slavery to be an evil an evil
morally, economically, physically, intellectually, socially, re
ligiously, politically ... an unmixed evil." 8

The Wickliff es, in answer, denounced Clay as an abolition
ist. The elder Wickliffe, adept at name-calling, referred to
Cassius as an "orator of inquisitors, the enemy of Lexington,
a secret personal foe, an agitator without spirit, a liar system
atically, and an abolitionist at heart." The Old Duke charged
that Clay intended the overthrow of slavery in Kentucky.
"All that is required to accomplish the emancipation of every
slave in the state," the planter said, "is for the abolitionists
to get up a war between the slave holders and the non-slave
holders." Such, Wickliffe asserted, was Clay s object. 9

With an explosive issue and expert invective-artists in
volved, the race was one of the "most exciting canvasses that
Fayette had witnessed for many years." While the vote was
in progress, Cassius learned that he had a fighting chance to
win. After two days of the three-day voting period had passed,
he was thirty-two votes ahead of Wickliffe for the third
legislative seat. If he held his lead through the final day of
voting, he would win. "Help me if you can," he begged his
brother Brutus. "I think I can defeat him by hard work."
Aided by his brother and other volunteers whom he pressed
into service, Clay won the election. He considered it a personal
victory. "I, a new-comer, triumphed," he boasted at the con
clusion of the count. His success he regarded as another step
toward his ambitious goal. "So far," he said, "I had made a
good start in my chosen career." But before the end of the
session he would revise that opinion. The legislative victory of
1840 was the last election Cassius Clay won. 1

10

When the legislature convened and the controversial slave
import restriction bill came up, Clay s continued campaign
against its repeal made him the target of the proslavery party.

50 Lion of White Hall

In a lengthy speech he marshalled his arguments in favor of
import restrictions. His theme was the evil which slavery
worked upon the state s economic development. He read a
list of machinery shipped out of New England, and then he
rhetorically demanded, "I ask the friends of slave labor how
long shall we wait till we shall be able to supply Europe and
the world with such things of manufacture ? " How long, he
asked, before Holland will send to Kentucky for grist-mills? 7
Kentuckians had waited two centuries for that, he said. "Shall
I, then, be taunted with Yankee feeling because I would dispel
the lethargy which rests upon our loved State ? " As the ad
vocate of a Kentucky System, he depicted the opportunities
for profits in belching smokestacks and droning machines.
Four decades before Henry W. Grady would preach the
gospel of a southern factory economy, Clay had seen the
vision of a New South.

Continuing his arraignment of slavery, he declared that the
servile labor system despoiled the fertility of southern soils:
"Ignorance and carelessness, which are necessarily combined
in the slave, make his the most slovenly and wasteful of all
labor." Moreover, the presence of the slave not only degraded
labor; it also reduced the managerial skills of the owners. No
one in Kentucky should be surprised, he said, that the North
was "radiant with railroads, the channels of her untold com
merce, whilst the South hobbles on at an immeasurable dis
tance behind." 11

As spokesman for the Kentucky System, his own scheme for
attaining his ambitions, Clay sought to represent the state s
non-slaveholding masses against the relatively few slave-own
ers. When the proslavery spokesmen stated that "white labor
ers are slaves," Clay declared that he would oppose them "in
the name of five hundred thousand free-men of Kentucky."
Here was his potential following, and he worked to become
its political leader. But he faced difficulties, chief among them
being the accident of his time. He had arrived too late upon

Clay Takes His Stand 51

the state s political stage. Earlier he might have aroused an
interest in industrial development; he might even have, with
out fear of retaliation, described slavery as an evil. He knew
that his kinsman and model, Henry Clay, had fathered the
American System, as well as numerous compromises with
antislavery politicians. By 1840, however, fear of abolitionists
had driven southern leaders to demand conformity upon the
slave question. There should be no discussion of it: "We
shall play into the hands of northern fanatics by this course,"
they seemed to agree. For Cassius Clay, who sought a career
by following in his cousin Henry s footsteps, it was a dis
astrous development. 12

The assaults of his political opponents were not long in
appearing. Clay s attack upon slavery gave the younger Wick-
liffe the issue he needed for the campaign of 1841. In mid-
April, some months before the race would normally begin,
the Young Duke spoke against Clay, associating him with the
abolitionists. Wickliffe "attacked my course in the legislature
violently," Cassius reported to Brutus. "There is much ex
citement arising, and my friends demand my entire devotion
to the canvass." But the long-suffering Brutus, mainstay of the
family, complained that Cassius ought to attend to his personal
business and meet his pressing financial obligations. "I am only
desirous to run this time for the legislature," Cassius responded.
After 1841, he promised, he would have no temptation to
desert his business. But he regarded the election as all-impor
tant: "It is the crisis of my life and I must meet it or fall." 13

Cassius Clay met his crisis with characteristic ferocity. Less
than a week after Wickliffe had commenced war upon his
legislative record, the two men had made a challenge for a
duel. "The immediate cause of the quarrel arose out of
Clay s difficulty with old Mr. Wickliffe," explained John C.
Breckinridge, prominent Kentucky politician. On the night
of April 24, a heated and bitter debate occurred in Lexington

52 Lion of White Hall

between Clay and Wickliffe, Jr. Clay s father-in-law, War-
field, reported that it was "likely to result in a serious manner."
Wickliffe had reiterated his charges that Clay, in admiring
Yankee prosperity, was therefore an agent of the Yankee
abolitionist movement. In denouncing his opponent, Young
Bob made such insulting personal allegations that Clay
promptly challenged him to settle the matter by physical
combat. "It is generally thought that Mr. Clay was too hasty
in making young Mr. Wickliffe responsible for his father s
conduct," reported a Lexington lady, "though Mr. Clay says
he is acting altogether on the defensive." 14

Protesting his innocence, Cassius left Lexington with his
seconds, a fellow officer in the Kentucky militia, Major
William R. McKee of Garrard County, and veteran Whig
politician Thomas A. Marshall of Frankfort. Together they
journeyed to the Indiana duelling ground where they would
meet the Wickliffe party. Clay s wife, staying with her
parents, was ignorant of the impending fight. "Mary Jane
knows nothing of our fears," her father assured Brutus, "nor
will she if we can prevent her from such disastrous intelli
gence." One of Clay s brothers-in-law remarked that Cassius
was determined to receive satisfaction. "Wickliffe must back
out or there must be a fight." 15

Cassius had sharpened his shooting eye for such an eventu
ality. So skilled had he become, it was reported, that he could
sever a string with a bullet from his pistol three times out of
five shots at ten paces. Yet on May 13, 1841, in the duel with
Wickliffe, the contestants exchanged three shots at ten paces
without effect. Cassius demanded another round, but the
seconds intervened and ended the encounter. Upon hearing
the news, a Lexingtonian commented, "Robert Wickliffe and
C M. Clay s duel was settled without blood. Tho I think there
is bad blood left." No apology was made by either man, and
Clay reported, "We left the ground enemies, as we came." 16
Some days later a friend teased Cassius about his marksman-

Clay Takes His Stand 53

ship. "Why is it," he wanted to know, "that you could cut a
string at ten paces three times out of five, and yet miss Wick-
liffe s big body three successive shots at the same distance?"
"Oh," drawled Clay, "the damned string had no pistol in
its hand." 1T

Cassius missed his mark, and he also failed to win re-election
in the 1841 campaign. As he had predicted, the race was the
crisis of his life. It was his final effort to advance politically
in the Kentucky Whig organization. He did not put aside his
ambitions, but sought the support of artisans and laborers
rather than that of slaveholders. He had won the enmity of
the minority dominant in the state, and he protested that they
fought him with illegal weapons. He claimed that he had won
the election, only to lose it through fraud. "I most solemnly
reiterate," he said, "that I believe that I received a majority
of the legal votes of Fayette County." But, he declared, he had
been swindled by the slave party "every judge of the elec
tion in all the precincts being against us." The "damning
infamy" which had "all at once ruined such seeming pros
perous career," he said, was that he had "turned TRAITOR TO
SLAVERY! "

But he remained loyal to the white non-slaveholders of
Kentucky and called upon them to vindicate him at the polls.
He had sacrificed a promising career, he said, for the "six
hundred thousand -free white laborers of Kentucky!" They
were the people "against whose every vital interest slavery
wages an eternal and implacable war! " It was for their wel
fare that he had repudiated the planter class and risked his
career. "Yes, these are the men, the great majority of the
people of Kentucky," he declared, "whose interests, in 1841,
I swore I would never betray for whom I then fell. . . ."
Clay proposed a political solution; he appealed to the free
whites, who had no vested interest in slavery but were its
victims, and who had the power to reinstate him. "How

54 Lion of White Hall

long, my countrymen," he implored, "seeing you have the
power of the ballot-box, shall these things be? . . . Will you
not at last awake, arise, and be men? Then shall I be deliv
ered from this outlawry, this impending ruin, this insufferable
exile, this living death!" 18

Cassius Clay staked his career upon an audacious gamble
that he would succeed in separating the six hundred thousand
from the few thousand who owned slaves. If the artisans and
manufacturing laborers would vote in their own interest, he
told them, then they would defeat the masters and place him
once again in the profession for which he had prepared him
self. That time had not yet come, however, and the political
exile which confronted him was long and dreary. Before
the laborers would vote for their economic interests, he "would
have to educate them to regard slavery as inimical to them.
He would also have to face the difficult race problem. Many
of the non-slaveholding whites may have agreed with him
that the institution worked to their disadvantage, but the
alternatives appeared distasteful. A strong race sentiment
tended to keep the white population united in support of any
system which would keep the Negroes under control. With
his task clear, the next phase of Clay s activity was the thank
less, unrewarding position of theorist and propagandist for
the Kentucky System.

CHAPTER IF

PUBLICIST AND
BOWIE KNIFE EXPERT

v^/LAY slowly matured into a capable defender of his cause.
He was in no hurry to begin his comeback, and for a full year
he kept out of local politics. As he had promised Brutus, his
first concern was for his business. Complaining that he was
much trammeled by securityship, he forced himself into the
confining routine of his mill enterprises and his farm. But he
did not lose sight of his ambitious objective to win a career
in public life, and during the year of retirement he coldly
calculated his plan of attack. He had recognized that success
depended upon his educating a majority of Kentucky voters
to accept his contention that slavery harmed them. Because
his ideas were distasteful to influential Kentucky slave-own
ers, he faced the problem of finding ways to reach his audi
ence. Free white workers in the South, he charged, were
"barred by despotic intolerance -from receiving any light by
which they can know their rights, and -free themselves -from
the competition of slave labor, which brings ignorance and
beggary to their doors? To bring that light and to organize
political opposition to slavery, Cassius Clay began a publicity
campaign. Working in a slave area where converts counted
most, he had an unusual opportunity to affect the outcome
of the abolition crusade. 1

Clay emerged from his retirement to take part in debate

55

56 Lion of White Hall

over repeal of the Negro Law. Early in 1843 the lower house
of the state legislature repealed the slave-import restriction,
and while the Senate deliberated the measure, Clay broke his
long silence. Through the columns of the Lexington Intel
ligencer he reiterated his argument that there was a direct
relationship between the political power of the slave party
and restraints upon manufacturing in Kentucky. To insure
the continued domination of the proslavery politicians,
"Everything of value would be given up," Clay said; "our
free white laborers are to be driven out; our manufactories,
already too inconsiderable, are to be destroyed; our cities are
to crumble down; our rich fields to grow sterile." Yet, in
defiance of the public interest, the legislators had repealed
the law and threatened the state with an "influx of foreign
degraded slaves." The Negroes who would enter the inter
state slave market were the unwanted cas toffs, he declared:
"House-breakers, poisoners, rogues, perpetrators of rapes and
midnight murders." 2

With vituperative disgust Clay described the Negroes who
would be brought into Kentucky. Behind his vehemence
there was a reason. White men critical of Clay might charge
that he advocated emancipation out of love for the Negro,
and he intended to meet the argument in advance. He always
maintained there was no doubt that Negroes were inferior
to whites, though he did at one time suggest that the Negro
race could be improved. And it was not difficult for Clay to
avow a dislike for the black man; even in his private com
munication he habitually mentioned Negroes with contempt.
"I have studied the Negro character," he wrote a few years
later. "They lack self reliance we can make nothing out
of them. God has made them for the sun and the banana! "
Clay insisted that he fought the slave system, not because he
loved the Negro, but because he wanted to assist the white.
"If we are for emancipation," he explained, "it is that Ken
tucky may be virtuous and prosperous. If we seek liberty

Publicist and Bowie Knife Expert 57

for the blacks, it is ... that the white laborers of the state
may be men and build us all up by their power and energy."
He said he favored an emancipation program "not because
the slave is black or white not because we love the black
man best, for we do not love him as well, . . . but because
it is just" But however much he protested, he was never able
to escape the derogatory taunt that he acted out of love for
the Negro. His enemies circulated the familiar toast, already
trite in the 1840 $, which reportedly originated at a " darky
celebration down South": "Massa Kashus M. Klay de friend
ob de kullud poppylashum: aldough he hab a wite skin he
hab also a berry brack heart: which tides him to the universal
steam ob dis sembly." By such gibes, the slavery party re
duced the effectiveness of Clay s efforts without ever an
swering his arguments. 3

Clay, however, kept his campaign on a level of factual
argumentation. Later in 1843, he published in Horace
Greeley s New York Tribune an antislavery tract which
Greeley extracted and circulated as a pamphlet entitled
"Slavery: The Evil The Remedy." For its prologue, Clay
repeated his reasons for opposing slavery, referring to census
figures to show that slave states were far behind free states
in education and in mechanical progress. But he devoted the
majority of the letter to an examination of emancipation as
a safe remedy for the evil. Writing in a northern journal with
a message designed for southern readers, he repudiated the
"higher law" moral absolutism which motivated the aboli
tionists. Some of the Yankee reformers, represented by the
forthright William Lloyd Garrison, demanded immediate
emancipation, regardless of law or tradition. Theologians of
humanitarianism, they resorted to sanctimonious appeal to a
law higher than man-made statute. Such a program, threaten
ing southern customs, presented an obstacle which Clay had
to overcome if he were to win the ballots of southerners.

He met that hurdle, as he met the others, with characteristic

58 Lion of White Hall

directness. He was a politician, not a moralist; more im
portant, he was in Kentucky, not in the North. A program
which might be politically feasible in a free state would not
necessarily be acceptable in a slave area. Indeed, any anti-
slavery program would be suspect among slave-owners. "You
cannot properly appreciate my position," Clay told the Ohio
abolitionist Salmon P. Chase. "All abolitionists are not like
yourself, moderate, reasonable men. They are, many of them,
incendiaries; with such neither I nor my people can have
any consideration." Therefore he categorically denied the
"higher law" doctrine. "I cannot agree," he said in his mes
sage to the Tribune, "that there is any law superior to that
of the federal Constitution." His would be a moderate course,
entirely legal, with an appeal to the ballot its predominant
feature. A constitutional campaign against slavery, Clay rea
soned, would be the only kind of attack acceptable to south
erners. So long as the constitution of Kentucky sanctioned
slave property, then the law must rule; but as the constitu
tion set forth the means of its amendment, he claimed the
right of advocating its change. In a republic, the majority
had the power to change any law. When he amassed a ma
jority in Kentucky, he would liberate the slaves by legal
means. Because Clay respected the law and tried to change
it, his plan differed basically from that presented by "higher
law" abolitionists, who disregarded man-made law and de
manded emancipation as a humanitarian service to the en
slaved. A constitutional appeal directed to the economic self-
interest in non-slaveholding whites would be more effective
in Kentucky than the emotional immediatist demand. Pri
marily a political theorist, Clay had worked out a plan which
might restore his lost career.

He based his appeal upon statistical evidence against slav
ery, and he tried to prove deleterious effects of slavery upon
the state s welfare. "I should be glad to have occasionally
documents from you should such be printed, showing the

Publicist and Bowie Knife Expert 59

comparative wealth, arts, sciences, numbers, etc., of the slave
and non-slave states," he wrote his friend Chase. "These are
better arguments than invective. The one awakens at least
a hearing. The other shuts the ears as well as the conscience."
In time he would amass a significant body of evidence to
show how slave states lagged behind free states, and he would
infer that slavery was the cause of it. 4

From the beginning, Clay s publicity program made an
impression upon observers in Kentucky and abroad. A Lex
ington lawyer estimated that there were "thousands of Abo."
in Kentucky, and predicted that Clay would win a following
among them. Across the river in Cincinnati, the editors of the
Gazette praised him: "Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, has
denounced slavery in stronger language than any man we
know." Farther away, other people acclaimed Clay. Lewis
Tappan, secretary of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society, assured Clay that his tract was "read with peculiar
interest at the North"; and an amateur poet hailed "Cassius
M. Clay, Emancipator," as

Star of Kentucky, and voice of the Free!
Now we shall hear again
Liberty s awful strain
Rolled to the Southern plain
From the North Sea. 5

The growing admiration for Clay s program frightened the
slaveocracy, who worked to limit his influence. They used
the weapons of fear and intimidation against him and his po
tential following. Although he urged Kentuckians to "face
opposition and be the better for it," not many possessed his
courage. Clay himself did not bow before the threat of
violence. "I knew full well that the least show of the white
feather was not only political but physical death," he said,
and he kept his senses alert to detect signs of attack. He did
not hesitate to speak his mind in public, and everywhere he
went he carried his pistols and bowie knife. Soon after the

60 Lion of White Hall

publication of his Tribune letter, he had an opportunity to
use them.

Since 1841, when he had abandoned local politics as a
candidate, Clay had continued to support Whig principles
and office-seekers. In the summer of 1 843 he took an active
part in the election for representative from Kentucky s Eighth
Congressional District, which included the Bluegrass area.
Cassius and his friends "laboring men mostly," he said
supported the polished Garret Davis of Bourbon County, an
ardent Whig and a close friend of Henry Clay. Cassius ac
tion reopened the unhealed wound between himself and the
Wickliffes, for Robert, Jr., was the Democratic nominee.
Both sides indulged in bitter personal invective, and the mat
ter came to a climax just a few days prior to the election.

Young Wickliffe charged that the Whigs had been guilty
of dishonesty in the recent revision of the congressional dis
tricts. A group of Whigs, Wickliffe declared, had met in
Frankfort to arrange the districts so that Davis would be
brought into the Fayette district. Such a procedure might en
hance Whig chances in the Lexington area. Davis promptly
denied the allegation and called upon his opponent for the
proof. Wickliffe, in turn, cited as his source a man who lived
in Woodford County, but Whigs elicited from the man a
statement that the story was "a lie yes, a damned lie." Cassius
was aware of this denial, and he had the courage to proclaim
his information.

On the morning of August i, Wickliffe spoke in Fayette
County, at the village of Delphton. Davis was not present,
but Cassius was in the audience, armed with a well-honed
bowie knife and prepared to represent the Davis candidacy.
Wickliffe, in the course of his address, repeated the charge
that the Whigs had gerrymandered Davis into the Fayette
district. When he did so, Clay arose and broke in upon his
discourse in what he later termed a "calm and respectful

Publicist and Bowie Knife Expert 61

manner." In his stentorian voice, he interposed: "Mr. Wick-
liife, justice to Mr. Davis compels me to say . . . that it was
a damned lie." But, he continued, "I have no intention to
interrupt you; go on." The speaker proceeded, and there was
no trouble.

At three o clock the same day, Wickliffe had another
speaking engagement in the county. He appeared at Russell s
Cave Springs, a popular meeting place and picnic ground a
few miles north of Lexington, where a creek flowed from a
cavity in the earth. Clay followed Wickliffe to defend the
Whig case. Another member of the audience was Samuel
M. Brown, a New Orleans post-office agent, and a noted
fighter endowed with a quick temper. An ex-Kentuckian, he
had returned to Lexington on vacation, and went to hear the
campaign speeches. Ever afterwards, he regretted that he
had attended. 6

In his afternoon address Wickliffe repeated his indictment
of Whig leaders, ignoring Clay s remonstrance of the morn
ing. When Young Bob came to that part of his speech, Clay
again arose and interrupted the speaker. "Mr. Wickliffe," he
boomed in his powerful voice, "I have listened to you with
great patience, and shall hear you through; I do not wish to
interrupt you; but justice requires that ... I should state
the opposite side of the question." Clay then presented his
evidence, branding the gerrymander accusation a Democratic
fabrication. At that point, Brown, who stood near Clay, en
tered the argument. "Sir," Brown shouted heatedly, "it is not
true." Clay turned to the new disputant, and replied, "You
lie." Brown yelled, "You are a damned liar," and rushed at
Cassius.

Clay held a leaded horsewhip in his hands, and he rained
blows upon the head of his assailant. As he struck Brown,
bystanders seized Clay from behind and separated the com
batants. Quickly, Cassius threw away the ineffective whip
and drew his bowie knife. At the same time someone in the

62 Lion of White Hall

crowd handed Brown a pistol. Clay turned to see Brown
facing him, brandishing a pistol in his hand and shouting,
"Clear the way and let me loll the damned rascal!"

Without hesitating, Cassius charged at his opponent. Brown
held his fire until Clay was almost upon him. At point-blank
range he fired, and then Cassius closed in, hacking and stabbing
Brown s unprotected face and head. He "cut away in good
earnest" until men in the crowd could separate them again.
Brown had lost his right eye; his left ear and a piece of his
skull were "lopped off"; and blood streamed copiously down
his face from a nose "cleft in twain." Senseless, Brown sank
to the earth. 7

When the crowd prevented Cassius from using his knife to
do further damage, he picked up his adversary and carried
him to the edge of the field. He tossed Brown s unconscious
body over a bluff, and it rolled down into the creek. Leaving
Brown for bystanders to fish out, the victor, breathless and
exhausted, went to a nearby farmhouse to inspect his own
wound. There he discovered that Brown s ball had pene
trated his clothing but had lodged in the silver knife-case
which he wore under his coat. Miraculously he had emerged
from the fray with only a red spot over his heart.

After the fight Clay s reputation as a bowie knife expert
spread abroad. Many of his political opponents would take
a lesson from Brown s unfortunate experience and steer clear
of the flashing blade. Clay served notice on the proslavery
party that he would defend his right to differ with them,
and they came to respect his fighting abilities. The way he
handled his knife, a witness marvelled, "was tremendious."
[sic] *

To question the responsibility for Clay s efficient blade-
work, the Fayette County Circuit Court indicted him for may
hem. As his defense attorney he engaged his honored kinsman,
Henry Clay. The courtroom overflowed with admirers of
the Gallant Harry s deft legal tactics. He did not disappoint

Publicist and Bowie Knife Expert 63

his following. His case, one reporter commented, was "elo
quent and scathing." He made no effort to defend Cassius
political views to the jury but sought to prove that his client
had acted upon the defensive and was therefore innocent.
"You are bound, on your oaths, to say, was Clay acting in his
constitutional and legal right?" he demanded of the jury.
"Was he aggressive . . . standing, as he did, without aiders
or abettors, and without popular sympathy; with the fatal
pistol of conspired murderers pointed at his heart, would you
have him meanly and cowardly fly? Or would you have
had him to do just what he did . . . ?" Then, turning to
ward Cassius, with his voice "broken but emphatic," and
raising himself to his full height, the master legalist said,
"And, if he had not, he would not have been worthy of the
name which he bears!" Adroitly playing upon the jury, Henry
Clay, keeping clear his record of not losing a criminal case
in the last forty years of his practice, won acquittal for his
client. 9

His cousin s masterly legal brief, as well as his own com
petent bowie knife surgery, provided Cassius Clay with val
uable publicity. Admirers all over the country expressed sym
pathy for his position among so dangerous a populace. A
Cincinnati editor eulogized Clay as the defender of the rights
of the working masses. "The broad spirit of philanthropy
which is in the man, his fearlessness whenever human rights
need a defender," would, he remarked, melt all opposition.
Resistance to Clay s program was "superficial, skin-deep,"
and did not come from the "thinking man; the mechanic,
farmer, and day laborer. They are with Mr. Clay." The
editor praised him as the most effective of the antislavery
propagandists; Clay was doing more, he said, "in his sphere,
than any of us in the free States, to rid the country" of
slavery. 10

In the first year of his publicity campaign, Clay had em-

64 Lion of White Hall

ployed what means were available to address Kentucky
voters. He utilized the columns of the local Whig paper until
the editor would no longer accept his contributions. Then he
turned to the metropolitan press, expecting that the local
journals would reprint his articles, but that proved to be a
false hope. "My letter to the Tribune has not been repub-
lished in the slave states and I have not been able to force it
into the press by any means," he reported to Chase. "The
press is monopolized by the slave-holders and the people re
ceive no light and are filled with prejudices carefully instilled
into them." He wanted a press of his own but admitted that
it was not immediately possible. "I fear that . . . until you
throw more light among the laboring people in the slave
states, ... a free press could not stand against violence here.
The slavery men are united and can move in mass. . . . But
I think the time not far distant when this can be done, and
then the cause will go on." But before that time came, the
election of 1 844 provided Clay the opportunity to express his
views to a wider audience. 11

CHAPTER V

AN EMISSARY
FROM COUSIN HENRY

1 N 1 844, after years of political effort, Kentucky s Henry
Clay finally received the Whig nomination for the Presi
dency. Famed as the creator of the American System and for
his long career as a statesman, the keen-eyed, sharp-tongued
Clay was a widely admired American. His chief opponent,
the Democratic choice, was the comparatively unknown Ten-
nessean, James K. Polk. Although for years Polk had been
active in state politics and had served in Congress, Whigs al
leged that he was a newcomer to national affairs. Derisively
they chanted, "Who is James K. Polk?" Led by Polk, the
party of Andrew Jackson vociferously demanded westward
expansion and the annexation of the Republic of Texas. On
the ground that annexation was unconstitutional, antislavery
Whigs readily took up the challenge.

To complicate the party division over Texas, however,
there was a third party in the field. The new-born Liberty
Party, headed by ex-Kentuckian James G. Birney, was a
reform party which emphasized immediate emancipation of
slaves. Although the Liberty Party had polled only seven
thousand votes in 1840, northern Whigs in particular New
Yorkers Millard Fillmore, Washington Hunt, and Thurlow
Weed feared that it might encroach still further upon their
party vote. To weaken the Birney following in the North,

65

66 Lion of White Hall

they worked to make the Whig Party acceptable to aboli
tionists. They needed a person who subscribed to the eco
nomic principles of the party and who would at the same
time have an influence upon the antislavery voters. To fill
those requirements, northern Whigs invited Cassius M. Clay
to tour their section on behalf of their candidate.

To all appearances, Cassius was the ideal choice. He was a
proponent of the American System, and in addition he had a
wide antislavery reputation. His emancipation articles, writ
ten for Kentuckians but published in the northern press, had
attracted national acclaim. "Your writings and corresponding
deeds on behalf of the down-trodden have endeared you to
the humane and liberty-loving everywhere," abolitionist
Lewis Tappan of New York City assured Clay. Moreover,
in January, 1 844, Cassius had emancipated his own slaves, an
action which made him more acceptable to Yankee aboli
tionists. Furthermore, Clay s courage in facing threats and
drawn pistols, as well as his southern background, made him
an attraction to curiosity-seekers. That he was a relative and
a close associate of the candidate, Henry Clay, was another
asset. 1

Cassius had also won the confidence of other Liberty Party
organizers, such men as Henry B. Stanton of Boston and
Salmon P. Chase of Cincinnati, by his strong stand against
Texas annexation. On May 13, 1844, at a Lexington public
debate on the Texas treaty, he had answered Thomas F.
Marshall, his old Whig colleague now turned Democrat. Tall
and slim, with twinkling eyes and a heavy black beard, and
about the same age as Clay, Marshall had spoken as an advo
cate for the Democratic platform, which demanded the "re-
annexation" of Texas. After hearing Marshall for three hours,
Cassius Clay arose in rebuttal. Massive and cleanshaven, his
appearance as well as his argument differed from Marshall s.
Unlike the partisan Democrat, Cassius posed as a public-
spirited neutral. He spoke not as a Whig, nor as a representa-

An Emissary -from Cousin Henry 67

rive of Henry Clay, but as a "citizen of Kentucky, and of
the United States, a southerner by birth, association, and feel
ing." From that position he opposed the Texas treaty as "revo
lutionary, mad, and fatal to my country." If the Senate could
unite foreigners to the confederacy today, he said, they could
do the same tomorrow. They could, he added with a wry
grin, "merge our very nationality into the first despotism
which shall be able to insinuate gold enough into their pockets
to outweigh the patriotism in their bosoms." If the Constitu
tion were to be thus lightly set aside, he warned, then Ameri
cans had lost their freedom. "If we are at the whim of a
president and fifty-two senators," he asserted, "then we are
slaves and not free." That was the important issue to Cassius
Clay, and he repeated it again and again. "It is not, with
Texas and a slave-holding Senate, whether we assent to slav
ery," he shouted, "but whether we ourselves shall be slaves!" 2

His efforts were not lost on northern Whigs, who wel
comed his assistance. "We have ... to fear . . . the Aboli
tion vote," Millard Fillmore told Thurlow Weed. "Cassius
M. Clay can do much to aid us." From Niagara, Whig Con
gressman Washington Hunt praised Clay s effectiveness as a
party spokesman. "He has a way of presenting the Texas
question in clear and striking points of light," he said, "and
he can do much good in some of the Abolition counties, such
as Madison." Fillmore jubilantly reported that the Kentuckian
had consented to make a campaign journey in the North.
Clay would speak in Rochester and in Boston, he said, and
then would devote "the rest of his time till election in at
tending meetings as we shall think best ... no time is to be
lost." 3

Cassius decision to participate in the campaign caused an
immediate reaction among the abolitionists, indicating that his
task would not be a simple one. As soon as he announced his
intention to support Henry Clay, Liberty Party men de
clared war upon him. How, they wanted to know, would

68 Lion of White Hall

Cassius justify endorsing a slave-owner? He answered that
he would support Henry Clay despite his slave property. "Mr.
Clay is indeed a slaveholder I wish he were not," Cassius
admitted. "Yet it does not become me, who have so lately
ceased to be a slaveholder myself, to condemn him." Just this
once, and for the last time, he promised, he would vote for
a slave-owner. Soon public opinion would reject such a candi
date. After 1844, he predicted, "no man . . . should be
deemed fit to rule over a Republican, Christian People," who
violated, by holding slaves, the only principles "upon which
either Christianity or Republicanism" met the "test of philo
sophical scrutiny." 4

Despite Cassius excuses, his support of Henry Clay
brought gibes from Liberty Party men. Gerrit Smith, of
Peterboro, New York, a spokesman for the Birney party,
ridiculed Clay s explanation. "We have a class of Abolition
ists who are called the just-this-once-men ," Smith said.
"Next Autumn," he told Clay, "will witness your last sin
against your enslaved brethren." But Smith s sarcasm did not
affect Cassius. The clash merely emphasized the rift between
him and the humanitarian reformers. He made no effort to
hide his opinions; he repeatedly rejected the moral harangues
of religious abolitionists. "I have not at any time assumed to
be better than other men," he said, "and whilst I profess to
be open to the sympathies of our nature, I have never set
myself up as a philanthropist." Clay did not regard emanci
pation as a means of wiping out a sin. He expected it to be
attended by significant economic and social gains and by the
general improvement of the public welfare. He also antici
pated a political career from his interest in it. He was not,
unlike Birney, an abolitionist who used the ballot box to
achieve humanitarian reforms and to whom emancipation was
the chief end sought. 5

Clay and Birney did agree, however, on the urgency of
the Texas issue, and Cassius proposed that the Whig Party

An Emissary pom Cousin Henry 69

take an uncompromising stand against slavery and fight the
election upon the division "Polk, Slavery, and Texas, and
Clay, Union, and Liberty" By doing so, the party might
lose several slave states which were considered certain, but
he anticipated winning enough northern states to compen
sate for them. The time had come, he declared, to stand or
fall on the basic issue. "It is in vain to put off the evil day,"
he said in a communication to the New York Tribune.
"Slavery or liberty is to be determined in some sort this
coming election." Cassius wanted to make a clear division be
tween the parries over slavery, not over Texas alone.

The assertion that slavery was incompatible with the Whig
program was consistent with Cassius Clay s political beliefs.
Slavery, he had proclaimed, was merely the watchword for
a southern economic system that was inimical to industrial
prosperity. In a widely published letter to a New York Whig
audience, he tried to steal the Liberty Party s program by
connecting slavery with debt failure, which was the night
mare of the bankers. "Save us from disgrace and ruin," he
prayed. "Elevate us among nations to that post of honor
which we once held and from which slavery and repudia
tion twin brothers have dragged us down." 6 It was not
slavery in itself that had dragged the nation down, but the
combination of slavery and an economic bugaboo. In the
aftermath of the panic of 1837 some slave states had repudiated
their debts, and Cassius connected an economic practice with
a social institution. He appealed to northern economic inter
ests, whether of Whig or of Liberty Party leanings. Long
before the national Republican Party was organized, he sug
gested that the controversy over slavery might serve to rally
divergent northern groups in support of the New York-New
England industrialists and financiers.

Before he departed on his speaking tour, Cassius had two
duties to perform. The first was his obligation to the state

70 Lion of White Hall

as a militia officer. As a colonel, Clay had been invited to
command the state s summer encampment, but some of the
officers refused to serve under his command. When his friends
arose in his defense, the opposition was squelched, and in the
first week of July, Cassius assumed command of Camp Hart
in Woodford County, near Versailles. 7

The encampment was typical of militia affairs of the time;
it was more holiday than military service. On July 4, there
was an oration to show his magnanimity, Colonel Clay in
vited his recent debate opponent, Thomas F. Marshall and
the firing of a twenty-six-gun salute. Following the patriotic
ritual, the governor of the state, clad in resplendent uniform,
inspected the parade. For the remainder of the encampment
the citizen-soldiers competed in target-firing, played games,
and dined upon roast venison. At the conclusion of the week,
Colonel Clay received the "warmest gratitude" of his com
mand, and, in the sycophantic language of junior officers, his
subordinates praised the "firm and zealous manner in which
he has caused his orders to be obeyed." 8

When the week of camp was over, Cassius called upon the
Whig candidate, Henry Clay, to receive blessings and in
structions before he began his tour. Henry had disagreed
with Cassius interpretation of his own teachings and differed
with him on the Texas annexation. Henry Clay had straddled
the issue so satisfactorily, in fact, that he satisfied many
southerners and would even take Tennessee from Polk. But
despite his differences with the extremist Cassius, Henry Clay
was willing to use him. He had an opportunity to become
President, and he would take whatever steps were necessary
to win. When Cassius showed him the invitations from the
North and explained the mission that New York Whigs had
planned for him, Henry Clay gave his consent. It would not
be long, however, before Henry would disown his outspoken

cousin. 9

His plans to travel through the North forced Cassius to

An Emissary ]rom Cousin Henry 71

put his devotion to politics to a severe test. If he made the
trip, his wife would accompany him, and they would have
to leave their children, now two daughters and a son. Both
parents feared to trust their family to the servants. Only the
year before, Cassius Marcellus, Jr., then four years old, had
died, and Cassius suspected that he had been poisoned. Among
his slaves (those whom he could not emancipate because his
father had entrusted them to him) was a nurse named Emily.
Cassius announced that he had "every reason to believe" that
Emily had poisoned his son with a "deadly poison called
arsenick." 10 To leave his children was, therefore, a difficult
choice. Cassius may have been unrelentingly hostile to his
enemies, but he was a sympathetic parent, solicitous of his
children s welfare. When they were ill he would not leave
home, not even to go to the far side of the White Hall estate
from the big house. He would stay at the bedside of the sick
child, to entertain him and to care for his needs. Clay s al
legiance to the Whig cause triumphed, however, when he
decided to campaign as an emissary from Henry Clay. Leav
ing the children with relatives, Cassius donned his campaign
togs a brass-buttoned blue suit, and he and Mary Jane de
parted for the political hunting grounds across the Ohio. 11

In 1844, political campaigning presented unusual physical
hardships, and the first requirements for a speaker were a
powerful voice and a resilient physique. For that reason,
Cassius Clay was an admirable campaigner. It was the first
extended speaking tour he had made, but his journeys to the
East had prepared him for what he was to encounter. To
Mary Jane, however, the trip was a revelation.

For a part of their journey into Ohio the Clays went by
rail, a method of travel which presented its own torments.
Across country, they resorted to a horse-drawn buggy and
bumped over the Ohio pikes, escorted from town to town by
enthusiastic Whigs. In late August, they reached Jefferson,

72 Lion of White Hall

Ohio, where Cassius had a speaking engagement. There the
procession received a royal welcome of "several Buggies
and a Wagon with flags and a band of Music." Joshua Gid-
dings, an Ohio abolitionist congressman whose home was in
Jefferson, met the Clays and accompanied them into the
town. Mrs. Clay, worn out by the rough travel, asked to be
taken to a hotel room. "I asked for a private room, they
carried me to one," she reported, "but I might as well have
been carried into the Public Dining Room. . . ." The wife
of a celebrity, Mary Jane was learning, had to forego the
luxuries of rest and privacy.

After Cassius had spoken in Jefferson, the party headed
for Paynesville, where they arrived at four o clock after a
hard, all-day jaunt. There Cassius again met the crowds of
inquisitive Ohioans. Wherever they went, people pushed to
see and to touch him. "You see them in flocks peeping in
and whispering," Mary Jane marvelled. She heard one hostess
admonish her son, "Now Johnny, don t get to fighting, re
member we ve got President Clay in the house." With more
than one Clay involved in the campaign, the confusion multi
plied. 12

The fact that both candidate and campaigner bore the
same family name caused Henry Clay many worries. The
very features about Cassius which made him an acceptable
emissary to northern abolitionists harmed Henry s chances
in the South. As Cassius had undertaken the mission of con
verting Birneyites to Clay, he depicted his kinsman as an
emancipationist. "I believe his feelings are with the cause,"
Cassius said in a letter published in the New York Tribune,
and he added that "the great mass of Whigs are, or ought to
be, anti-slavery." For that statement, the candidate repudiated
his emissary. "Mr. C. M. Clay s letter," Henry explained,
"was written without my knowledge, without any consulta
tion with me, and without any authority from me. ... He
has entirely misconceived my feelings."

An Emissary -from Cousin Henry 73

Henry Clay reported in confidence to Joshua Giddings that
he regretted the necessity of disowning his kinsman, but he
feared the loss of four slave states if he did not. His advisers
had warned him that he might not even carry Kentucky.
Meanwhile, Henry cautioned Cassius to restrain his antislavery
ebullience. "As we have the same sirname, and are, moreover,
related, great use is made at the South against me, of what
ever falls from you. There, you are even represented as
being my son: hence the necessity of the greatest circum
spection."

Henry s efforts to quiet Cassius illustrated the Whig di
lemma. "At the North," Henry said, "I am represented as an
ultra-supporter of the institution of slavery, whilst at the
South I am described as an Abolitionist; when I am neither the
one nor the other." As Cassius had pointed out, the sectional
split could no longer be ignored; he wanted to solve the prob
lem by expelling the proslavery members. But Henry Clay,
the master compromiser, expected to win the victory by avoid
ing a showdown statement. Cassius, impetuous and outspoken,
would never comprehend his cousin s political agility. The
compromising candidate now began to express doubts that the
uncompromising Cassius would succeed in his mission. "After
all," he counselled Cassius, "I am afraid you are too sanguine
in supposing that any considerable number of the Liberty
men can be induced to support me." 13 But Cassius was young,
exuberant, and optimistic. He determined to continue his cam
paign, and in September, with Mary Jane at his side, he ener
getically spoke his way through Ohio and Michigan. 14

For a month the Clays campaigned in the Buckeye State
with Governor Tom Corwin and staged rousing rallies remi
niscent of 1840. Corwin, a master of the comic political mono
logue, delighted the audience with his witticism. "And who
have they nominated?" he would demand, in his drawling
voice. "James K. Polk, of Tennessee?" Then, wagging his head
slowly from side to side in mock amazement, he would ask,

74 Lion of White Hall

"After that, who is safe?" But while the governor sought to
create the illusion that Polk was an unknown, Clay chafed at
Corwin s religious fervor. "What struck me as most remark
able . . . was his indulgence in whining, canting, and pray
ing in his speeches, " Cassius recalled a few years later. "I have
been in the furor of revivals, and the wild enthusiasm of the biv-
ouaced camp-meeting, and never did unctious Methodist par
son move me to tears like the inimitable Tom! " Corwin
quoted Scripture to the Ohio audiences until Cassius squirmed
in horror at the blasphemy. But when he complained about
it, the governor responded that "no people were so con
scientious and devout as these . . . Abolitionists. . . ." Be
fore the campaign was over, Cassius would learn that Tom
Corwin was right. 15

While Corwin combined humor with liberal dashes of anti-
slavery homiletics, Cassius Clay offered straight campaign
fare with a humor all his own. His speech at Cleveland was
typical of others in Ohio, where his unvarying theme was the
Texas annexation. Henry Clay, he said, would not accept the
Lone Star Republic unless it came in "without dishonor, with
out war, with the common consent of the Union, and upon
just and fair terms." As those conditions were unlikely, Cas
sius asserted that in effect Henry opposed the expansion. He
pointed out that if the Whigs won, there would be no im
mediate annexation, while if Polk won, Texas would enter
within twelve months, "with dishonor and war and ruin."

To such an interpretation of his views, Henry Clay offered
no protest. But when Cassius appealed for the Birney vote,
Henry feared that his cousin would drive off the southerners.
Ignoring Henry s repudiation, Cassius sought abolition support
by reiterating his claim that Henry approved his emancipation
activities. "I am a practical abolitionist," he told the Cleve-
landers. "The destruction of the whole system of slavery is
what I seek above everything else . . . with this object be
fore me, I earnestly advocate the election of Mr. Clay as an

An Emissary pom Cousin Henry 75

instrument for the accomplishment of that great purpose."
Cassius also alleged that Henry agreed with his opinions "in
substance." Coming from one who was regarded as an emis
sary- from Henry, it was an effective recommendation to those
who had not read the candidate s disavowal of the campaigner.
Moreover, as a southerner, Cassius claimed to know the secret
schemes of slaveholders. They hoped to succeed, he told the
Ohioans, by the indirect aid they would get from northern
abolitionists who diverted Whig votes. Thus, he declared,
antislavery Yankees who voted for Birney would aid slave
owners, the group they anathematized. It was a "most unholy
alliance," Cassius concluded. 16

With his exposition of the Texas issue, and with his per
sonal appeal for the antislavery vote, Cassius Clay and his
wife traveled throughout the Midwest and then entered New
England. To Mary Jane the trip had become an exhausting
series of similar scenes. Always there were escorts to meet
them on the highways, torchlight parades to disturb the night,
banquets and interminable speeches to endure, each an echo
of another. Cassius, handsome and earnest in his dark-blue suit
with its polished buttons gleaming in the lamplight, drew
applause from partisan gatherings when he endorsed Henry
Clay. He was an effective stump speaker and enjoyed the
give-and-take of a political rally. Again and again he drew
laughter as he matched sallies with his hearers. Far from the
raised eyebrow of an incredulous skeptic, he evoked horrified
shudders when he dramatically described hair-breadth escapes
from the many ruffians sent to assassinate him. With humor,
suspense, and thumping prose, Cassius Clay put on a good
show. Some hearers declared that Clay s speeches made a
"decided impression;" others like the Birney men derided
him for the "matter of his discourse," as well as for his "mis
erable pettifogging manner" 17

Such partisan comment, however, was but the common
fruit of a campaign journey. His major effort still lay ahead,

76 Lion of White Hall

in New England and New York. From Niagara, the Clays
took the train to Boston. As the car wheels clicked over the
uneven rails, Cassius, considering the speech he would deliver,
heard in their song a hymn to free labor. To New England,
where he had first seen the vision of an industrial economy
for his native Kentucky, he returned a decade later and re
newed his allegiance to the American System and to its illus
trious founder. Clay s speech in Boston s Tremont Temple
demonstrated anew that his primary interest was the political
defeat of slave-owners, because of their economic views. "Thus
far," he asserted, "the pro-slavery power . . . has triumphed
over the power of liberty and free labor." Southern slave
holders had monopolized the federal government, Cassius
charged, and they had sabotaged the Whig program. "The
system of internal improvements, as carried on by the General
Government, and above all, the Tariff, have all been prostrated
at the feet of the slave power." Now, with the tariff rates
revised downward, "John C. Calhoun and his southern clique"
sought new slave territory "to assist them in overthrowing the
Tariff of Protection, and to reduce us once more to free trade
and perpetual slavery." Again, in his campaign to New Eng
land abolitionists, Clay connected slavery with an economic
principle. Earlier, addressing a New York audience, he had
denounced the twin brothers, slavery and debt-repudiation.
Now, in manufacturing New England, he decried the marriage
of slavery with free trade. In each case he tailored his argu
ment to his hearers; to neither group did he attack slavery by
itself. 18

In Boston, as elsewhere, Clay appealed to the self-interest
of industrialists and of the laborers who depended upon manu
factures for a livelihood. But as antislavery voters began to
recognize, emancipation was not the ultimate object for which
Cassius worked. As his campaign addresses emphasized, his
purpose was to destroy the political domination of a small
group of men "John C. Calhoun and his southern clique"

An Emissary from Cousin Henry 77

who defended slavery, but whom he disliked even more be
cause they were the proponents of free trade, debt-repudiation,
and limited internal improvements. In New England, as in
Kentucky, he propounded an antislavery doctrine based upon
economic considerations, and he was eagerly heard.

After filling his schedule in New England and addressing
enthusiastic audiences, he moved down into New York, where
the Thurlow Weed group, worried over the abolition vote,
eagerly anticipated his presence among them. The state Whig
leaders carefully planned his itinerary, hoping that he would
convert Liberty Party adherents to Henry Clay. "I hope you
will . . . give him such advice as you think useful touching
his future movements," Congressman Washington Hunt told
Weed, as they planned Cassius campaign in New York. 19

Despite the careful planning, however, Clay s mission was
a failure. The group he had gone North to convert was not
impressed by his arguments, and when he addressed them he
evoked violent opposition. Although he tailored his arguments
to fit the economic interests of northern financiers and indus
trialists, he refused to amend his antislavery reasoning to ap
pease "higher law" abolitionists. He told them that slavery
existed by local law, and that as long as the law existed, so
might the condition. For such doctrines he made enemies
among abolitionists who denied that law could sanction
the evil of slavery. As they perceived his disavowal of their
basic tenets, many of them became even more dissatisfied
with the Whig Party. Cassius had been invited into New York
to win them to Henry Clay, but because he did not speak
from the motivation of religious zeal, Liberty Party advocates
and Conscience Whigs began to criticize him and his candi
date.

Although Lewis Tappan had previously admired Cassius,
he now began to carp at him for endorsing the Whig candi
date. "Henry Clay is a slaveholder a duellist a gambler
a profane swearer," Tappan piously declared. "How can a

78 Lion of White Hall

Christian justify himself in voting for such a man?" Another
Birney supporter rejected Clay s efforts to win over the
abolitionists. "He was brought into the State doubtless for the
express purpose of bringing us all over to the Whigs ; but I
presume he has done us but very little, if any damage. ... I
find that some of the Liberty men already consider him as a
mere emissary of Henry."

The editor of a religious reform journal, the Anti-Slavery
Bugle, gave his reason for rejecting Cassius: "C. M. Clay re
gards law as paramount to the rights of man. C. M. Clay said,
That is property which the law makes property. A more
pro-slavery doctrine than this never fell from the lips of man.
It virtually exalts legislative enactment above the government
of God."

His refusal to temper his expressions to fit the prejudices
of northern abolitionists made Cassius of little service as an
emissary from his cousin Henry. Before the campaign had
concluded, it was evident that the choice of Cassius M. Clay
as representative of the candidate had been a mistake. But he
was courageously consistent; he declared his opinion without
regard for the consequences. Though he was ambitious, he
refused to state a position in the North which he could not
also support in Kentucky. In the existing state of national
politics, then, he was a failure. 20

Despite the criticisms of Liberty Party advocates, Cassius
continued his efforts. As election day neared, he and Mary
Jane turned homeward after three months of constant travel.
The Clays were crossing the mountains to Wheeling while
the voters were casting their ballots, and they did not learn
the final result until they reached the foot of the mountain.
There they saw a newly erected hickory pole, from which
hung a skinned coon. By that mute symbol they knew that
the Whigs, nicknamed Coons, had lost the election. New
York, where Cassius had worked the hardest, gave its vote,

An Emissary -from Cousin Henry 79

by a narrow margin, to Polk. Clay s efforts in the state had
not persuaded enough Birney supporters to vote for Henry
Clay to enable the Kentuckian to carry the state. 21

Though his candidate had lost, Cassius considered that the
fight had only begun. He had become convinced that the
sectional division over slavery would create a new political
alignment. The Whig Party of the North, he said, in losing
the moral issue of Texas on the slavery question, had lost
everything. The South was solid in sacrificing all other issues
to slavery, while the North wasted its votes on petty matters.
Because the proslavery South had united, the free-labor party
of the North must also unite, he declared. "Thus, and only
thus, can the unholy and disastrous alliance between slavery,
utter despotism, and so-called Democracy, be broken up."
For if there was "anything worth preserving in republicanism,"
it would only be maintained, he grimly warned, by an "eternal
and uncompromising war against the criminal usurpations of
the slave power." The time had come, he announced, when
the "friends of liberty" and the "craven slaves of despotism"
must separate. To direct the new alignment of parties over
the slavery issue, Cassius Clay prepared to renew his efforts
as political propagandist in Kentucky. 22

CHAPTER VI

CLAY DECLARES WAR

C/ASSIUS Clay s failure, and the subsequent defeat of the
Whig Party, did not discourage him. Instead, the results of
the election convinced him that the Whig organization was
not an effective agent for unifying opposition to slavery;
therefore, a new party should be formed. He advocated politi
cal union of the antislavery Whigs with the minority Liberty
Party. "I look forward to the time not distant when the
Whigs and Liberty Party will occupy the same ground, he
told Liberty organizer Salmon P. Chase. "The Whigs number
nearly one half of the nation, the Liberty men hold the balance
of power." Such an organization, Clay contended, could win
a national election without the assistance of southern voters.
Ten years before the emergence of the national Republican
Party, Clay saw the combination of forces which it later
represented.

To help in bringing about the projected coalition, Clay
planned a newspaper to advocate emancipation in Kentucky
by political action. In January, 1 845, soon after his return to
Kentucky, he issued an "Address to the People of Kentucky,"
outlining his intentions. As usual, he introduced his program
with a description of the economic effects which slavery had
upon white labor by reducing the population and thus re
ducing the market for manufactured articles and food. Then

80

Clay Declares War 81

he prescribed a political remedy. "Let candidates be started
in all the counties in -favor of a convention" he urged, "and
run again and again till victory shall perch on the standard of
the free" Still, he professed to be a moderate. "Whether
emancipation be remote or immediate" he said, "regard must
be had to the rights of owners, the habits of the old, and the
general good -feeling of the people" The emancipation he ad
vocated would come gradually, after a long preparatory period
in which he anticipated that most of the slaves would be sent
out of the state. "To those who cry out forever, What shall
be done with the free slaves? it will occur that upon this
plan, no more will be left among us than we shall absolutely
need." Clay recommended his scheme as one to satisfy all
objections that might appear from the non-slaveholders. 1

If Kentuckians would hear him, he would, he claimed, win
their votes. His analysis of the state convinced him that he
pursued a course which the majority should accept. "A space
of three counties deep, lying along the Ohio River, contains
a decided majority of the people of the state," he said. Because
of their proximity to free states, their slaves might easily es
cape. "Soon, very soon, will they find themselves bearing all
the evils of slavery, without any . . . remuneration." How
long, Clay wanted to know, would they "tamely submit to
this intolerable grievance?" He asserted that if slavery did
not fall of its own weight, "they will vote it down, for they
will have the power, and it will be to their interest to do so." 2

The goal which he sought was constitutional emancipation
of slaves, and he rejected any other solution. "I am opposed
to depriving slave owners of their property by other than
constitutional and legal means. I have no sympathy with those
who would liberate slaves by any other means; and I have
no connection with such people," he said. "I must, as a citizen,
resist their efforts by force, if necessary." But he did not
abandon his war upon slavery. "I am the avowed and uncom
promising enemy of slavery, and shall never cease to use all

82 Lion of White Hall

constitutional, and honorable, and just means, to cause its
extinction in Kentucky, and its reduction to its constitutional
limits in the United States." 3

Cassius announced that the time had come to establish an
antislavery newspaper in Kentucky. There was a "large and
respectable party, if not a majority of the people," he claimed,
who desired to discuss emancipation and needed an outlet. "A
press," he explained, "is only necessary to give concentrated
effort and final success by free conference of opinion and
untrammeled discussion." His paper, after the fashion of the
day, would become the voice of a political effort.

Clay assured his fellow citizens that he would restrain his
new publicity outlet. "Our press," he said, "will appeal tem
perately but firmly to the interests and the reason, not to the
passions, of our people." Although he promised calm discussion,
his temperament would lead him to heated invective. But from
the beginning he expected the paper to lead a political organi
zation. "We propose to act as a State party, not to unite with
any party . . . ," he said, "expecting aid and encouragement
from the lovers of liberty of all parties." And he proclaimed
that no outsider would direct his efforts. "The times call for
language plain, bold, and true our cause is good our press
shall be independent or cease to exist." 4

Determined to maintain his freedom, and having little faith
in local law-enforcement, Cassius prepared his printing office.
He leased a sturdy brick building on Mill Street in Lexington
and called upon the adjutant of his militia regiment, Colonel
Thomas Lewinski, to assist him in fortifying it. Lewinski, one
of Clay s staunch supporters, was a Polish immigrant and a
student of architecture and military engineering. Together,
Lewinski and Clay lined the outside doors and window shut
ters with sheet iron to prevent burning. At the center of his
defenses, Clay placed two brass four-pounder cannon upon a
table facing the door and loaded them with shot and nails.

Clay Declares War 83

The entrance itself, protected by folding doors, was controlled
by a chain which allowed only a small opening. Clay could
fire his cannon through it, but attackers would have only a
small target. Clay also stocked his fortress with firearms and
with iron pikes modeled after Mexican Army lances. A platoon
of loyal supporters completed the defenses. But should his
office be successfully invaded, Clay had prepared an escape
route through the roof. There a keg of powder and a match
would provide final destruction of the office. One of his critics
remarked that Clay acted "as though he were in an enemy
country." Within a few months, Clay would agree that he

was. 5

His bristling defenses indicated that he anticipated trouble,
and his editorial policy did nothing to avoid it. On June 3,
1845, The True American appeared, bearing a declaration of
war upon slavery. He proclaimed that the issue was not
whether "600,000" Kentuckians should "postpone their true
prosperity" to the interests of thirty-one thousand slave
holders, but whether the majority would surrender its liber
ties to a "despotic and irresponsible minority." Clay suggested,
in his party slogan, that his objective was twofold: constitu
tional emancipation to bring about "true prosperity," and a
defense of the liberties of the whites. Cassius also made ex
tremely violent statements about his opponents. For "Old
Bob" Wickliffe, the man he used to symbolize the slave party,
he spared no harsh epithet. "Old Man," Clay snarled, "re
member Russell s Cave and if you still thirst for bloodshed
and violence, the same blade that repelled the assaults of
assassins sons, once more in self defence, is ready to drink
of the blood of the hireling hordes of sycophants and outlaws
of the assassin-sire of assassins." 6

In girding for battle with slaveholders, Clay received en
couragement from northern abolitionists who regarded his
journalistic enterprise with delight and wished him well. "In
a slave region a champion has arisen to battle against slavery,"

84 Lion of White Hall

exulted the Cincinnati Gazette. At last, a "native of the soil,
born and bred a slaveholder, disdaining to escape by flight, and
brave enough to grasp the evil, and ... to crush it in his own
home, has flung his banner to the breeze. . . ." With less
fervor, but with as much interest, Horace Greeley of the
New York Tribune rejoiced to see that Clay exerted a "strong
influence" in Kentucky. Busybody Lewis Tappan worried
about Clay s defiant attitude. "He is bold and rather bellig
erent," Tappan said. "Whether he will be suffered to proceed
or not is doubtful." But he concluded that if Clay could
maintain his press, a "great victory" would be won. "Success
will aid the Anti-S. cause in this country immensely," he told
Clay. "May the God of the Oppressed sustain you. . . ." 7

Among Clay s neighbors, however, there were some who
denied that Cassius had any connection with the Deity. Lex
ington s Observer and Reporter, taking a neutral position,
noted only that Clay s first issue had "relieved the somewhat
monotonous and dull tone" of the local press by the "pungency
of its assaults, and the severity with which it denounces." An
other Kentucky commentator, more alarmed at The True
American, declared that it was "thoroughly abolitionist," and,
moreover, "insurrectionary in its character." Indeed, Clay
had intended the first issue to be explosive. "Many complain
of the rashness of my first number," he reported to Chase.
"It was my deliberate judgment, not passion only. It was a
necessary measure to call up individuals who were spreading
the poison of mob violence, and make an issue at once. I have
weathered the crisis I hope." Some of Clay s fellow citizens,
however, were not convinced. "You are meaner than the
autocrats of hell," they informed him, in a note written in
blood. "The hemp is ready for your neck. Your life cannot
be spared. Plenty thirst for your blood." Such advice would
only inspire the defiant Cassius to more violent expletive and
convince him that he was persecuted for defending constitu
tional rights. 8

Clay Declares War 85

While admirers praised and critics threatened, Editor Clay
busied himself with the burdensome trivia of newspaper oper
ation. Although he had hired Frankfort journalist Thomas B.
Stevenson to edit the paper, Stevenson subsequently refused
to help him, and Clay was left with the full responsibility
himself. His ambitious journalistic program made it a time-
consuming project. The True American was a full-sized news
paper of four pages, each eight columns wide and nearly a
yard long. Scissors and paste pot occupied prominent positions
at Clay s ponderous roll-top desk, for much of the paper was
given over to editorial copy from fellow journalists. Approxi
mately two columns on the back page contained advertising
of the usual ante bellum wares: patent medicines, machinery,
books, business houses, and the like. But despite the copious
copying and the advertising, editing the paper was a full-time
job which Clay soon came to detest. He did not like to be
bound by a weekly deadline; he was a man of action as well
as of words, and he preferred excitement and activity to the
dreary, humdrum task at the desk.

Clay s task was not complicated, however, by a search for
fresh material. To those who had read his essays since 1841,
the editorial columns of The True American offered little
that was new; he simply repeated what he had already said on
numerous occasions. The paper was primarily an instrument
for antislavery agitation and for the formation of a new politi
cal party to act against slave-owners. Once more Clay docu
mented the pernicious effects of slavery by comparing the
free with the slave states, and always the free states won. "If
a single State only illustrated this contrast," he said, "there
might still be room for argument. But here are twenty-six
States covering a continent . . . and yet thirteen times has
this struggle for ascendency between liberty and slavery taken
place . . . and thirteen times has liberty borne off the palm."
The reason for that situation, he argued, was as "shallow and
transparent" as the result. There were three millions of slaves

86 Lion of White Hall

in the South who performed, he alleged, about one-half of the
effective work of the same number of whites in the North,
because they lacked the "stimulus of self-interest."

Clay also reiterated his condemnation of slavery for its
obstruction to industrial development. He pointed out that
all the necessities and luxuries consumed in the South had to
be imported, and remarked that of course double freights had
to be paid by her. Manufacturers could not thrive in a slave
area, however, because the slave population did not consume
enough to make it profitable. "Lawyers, merchants, mechanics,
laborers, who are your consumers, Robert Wickliffe s 200
slaves?" he asked. "How many clients do you find, how many
goods do you sell, how many hats, coats, saddles, and trunks
do you make for these 200 slaves?" Would Wickliffe, Clay
wanted to know, purchase as much for his Negroes as two
hundred free white laborers would buy for themselves? "We
stand for the whites; Mr. Wickliffe for the slaves," he added. 9

He attempted to drive a wedge between slaveholders and
non-slaveholders, for only by breaking the solid front of the
whites could he effect a revolution at the polls. He urged non-
slaveholders to exercise their ballots to defeat the system which
harmed them. "Yes, thank God, we can yet vote! . . . Let
us but speak the word, and slavery shall die!" Constantly he
encouraged his readers to act, regardless of the costs. "You
will be assaulted and shut in on all sides, traduced in your
character, injured in your persons, in your business, and in
your families," he warned, from his own experience. "Never
fear, brave hearts," he counselled, "oat meal can be had at
twenty cents per bushel, they can t starve us yet. ..." Clay
would discover, however, that few Kentuckians cared to dine
on oatmeal or shared his zeal for martyrdom. 10

It was to the laboring class that he made his most earnest
appeal. Non-slaveholders, who shared none of the benefits of
slavery, paid its cost, he said, in reduced wages. "Thus every
laborer in Kentucky is injured by the one hundred and eighty

Clay Declares War 87

thousand slaves," he concluded, "as if the same number of
Irishmen, Dutchmen, or Englishmen should come in here and
agree to work as the convicts or the slaves do, without wages."
For that reason he urged workinginen to vote against slavery:
"Shall we any longer support it, by our countenance, or our
votes?" Always, whenever he considered the solution for the
evil, Clay came back to the ballot box; he looked to political
action to bring about a change. 11

While he devoted much of his editorial effort to a con
tinuing defense of the Kentucky System and to a political
solution to the encroachments of slavery, he also lightened
the pages of his journal with lusty humor. Solemnly he com
pared divorce statistics in slave and free states and discovered
that divorce was more prevalent in slave states. He concluded
that broken homes resulted like all other human ills from
slavery. "Put away your slaves," Cassius exhorted southern
matrons. "Make your own beds, sweep your own rooms, and
wash your own clothes; throw away corsets, and nature will
form your bustles. then you will have full chests . . . and
no divorces." Clay caricatured the idle, overstuffed, slave-
pampered women as "forked radishes." In another issue he
lampooned a "silly girl" who heard that a small waist was
becoming. She wrapped herself with "silk cord and canvas,
till a man would sooner put his arms around a lamp-post, than
one of these unpliant, mummy-wrapt sticks." 12

But along with spicy dashes of humor, the vinegar of a
bitter hatred also flavored the repast which Clay offered his
readers. Repeatedly he challenged the slave party. "We hurl
back indignant defiance against the cowardly outlaws," he
exclaimed. "We can die, but cannot be enslaved." Over and
over again, in heavily italicized phrases which emphasized his
fervor, he pronounced the doom of slavery. "The slavehold
ers and their sycophants will find," he rasped, "that the free
white laborers of this land, composing four-fifths of the popu-

gg Lion o-f White Hall

lation, . . . are not slaves. Slavery is doomed it must die!
the first act o-f violence in its cause, will hasten its fate!" 13

Slave-owners returned Clay s hatred, with an antagonism
that stemmed from a source deeper than annoyance at a few
intemperate sentences. Slowly, The True American was begin
ning to make its influence felt in Kentucky. For that reason,
rather than because of Clay s outspoken venom, they feared
Clay and his paper. Two months after the paper first ap
peared, the subscription list had grown from three hundred
to seven hundred in Kentucky, and from seventeen hundred
to twenty-seven hundred in other states. Clay generously
estimated that twenty persons in the state perused each copy,
making fourteen thousand readers in Kentucky. The record
of the paper s growth convinced the editor that, as he later
said, "the principles and tone of my press were taking a power
ful hold upon the minds and affections of the people." Per
haps, had he not been so effective, he would have been un
harmed. 14

The journal proved, however, to be a spark that ignited
fires in other parts of the state. A Methodist weekly in George
town, Kentucky, the Christian Intelligencer, proclaimed its
adherence to Clay s program. In Louisville, where there was
a strong commercial community, Clay s friends planned to
begin another emancipation newspaper. In the same city, a
candidate for the legislature announced his approval of con
stitutional emancipation and offered himself as a representa
tive of the Emancipation Party. In the Green River section
"the most pro-slavery part of the state" a Democratic paper
copied some of Clay s articles describing the competition
which slavery offered the white laborers and "seemed ready
to wage a common war." Observing all these signs, Cassius
declared that his dream of an independent emancipation
party was nearing reality.

On the basis of the apparent strength of emancipation senti
ment, he appealed for the support of other politicians who

Clay Declares War 89

would gamble upon future victories. "Where is the man
. . . ," he asked, "who will sacrifice present power, to the
contingency of hereafter rising with the swelling tide of
freedom?" Cassius Clay had already decided upon such a
sacrifice, and he eagerly waited for the "swelling tide" to
develop. 15

Even without the assistance of other politicians, however,
Cassius proclaimed that the Emancipation Party had at last
been established. In mid- July he exulted, "The seeds of an
independent party is [sic] planted a party of slow but sure
growth, but of certain success and lasting power." For the
first time in the state s history, he boasted, a political party had
organized "for the overthrow of slavery in a legal way."
Candidates were in the field, newspaper circulation was grow
ing, and plans were made for a state convention of the "friends
of emancipation" to be held July 4, 1846. "And the great
mass of laborers, who are not habitual readers of newspapers,"
Cassius exclaimed, "began to hear, to consider, and to learn
their rights, and were preparing to maintain them." 16 But
Clay s hopes for immediate success proved premature. In
August, only a month after he had gloried in his triumph, he
experienced the full force of the slave-owners wrath.

CHAPTER VII

THE EIGHTEENTH
OF AUGUST

IN JULY, 1845, when he considered himself near success,
Cassius Clay fell ill. An epidemic of typhoid fever hit Lexing
ton, and he contracted the disease. Although he should have
delegated his editorial duties to his assistants during his ex
tended illness, he attempted to direct the press from his bed.
In doing so he precipitated the most serious crisis of his
career: he approved an article and penned an editorial which
aroused the slave-owners to action against him.

The pretext which they employed to attack the paper was
the publication of a bit of impassioned prose hardly more
inflammatory than much he had already written. The article,
voluntarily submitted by a correspondent a slaveholder,
Cassius insisted was entitled "What is to become of the
slaves in the United States?" and suggested radical changes
in the treatment of f reedmen. Its author contended that slavery
did not pay a profit and would eventually disappear. Negroes
would then become eligible for citizenship. The columnist
urged political equality for Negroes already free, to prepare
the way for eventual liberation of all slaves. The essay con
tained phrases which easily lent themselves to misunderstand
ings, and an alert editor would have rejected it, particularly
for publication in a slave state. 1

Unfortunately, however, Cassius was wracked by his illness

90

The Eighteenth of August 91

and did not observe the danger signs. Indeed, he later pro
tested that he had not even read the article prior to its publi
cation. But in his first issue he had committed himself to pub
lish divergent opinions in his paper. He had no other reason
to accept the article, for it contributed nothing to his pur
poses. He had long advocated a plan which would obviate the
problem of the freed Negro, at least in Kentucky. Further
more, he had frequently demonstrated that he had no love
for Negroes, slave or free, and cared nothing about granting
them equality. The article was, therefore, out of tune with his
own program and prejudices, and Clay erred in accepting it
for publication.

Not only did he print it, however, but he accompanied it
with an editorial which contained a dangerously ambiguous
paragraph. His hatred for the aristocratic slaveholders he re
iterated in words which seemed to invoke armed revolution.
"But remember, you who dwell in marble palaces, that there
are strong arms and fiery hearts and iron pikes in the streets,
and panes of glass only between them and the silver plate on
the board, and the smooth-skinned woman on the ottoman,"
Clay exclaimed. "When you have mocked at virtue, denied
the agency of God in the affairs of men, and made rapine
your honied faith, tremble! for the day of retribution is at
hand, and the masses will be avenged." Coming from a man
known to have iron pikes in his fortress, the editorial aroused
community leaders to action. They seized upon the resulting
public excitement to take measures against Clay s paper. 2

On Thursday afternoon, August 14, two days after the
article appeared, several influential citizens called a meeting to
plan their action, before the excitement should abate. Clay,
bedridden in his North Limestone Street home, heard of the
session shortly before it convened. Despite the remonstrances
of his family, he arose, dressed, and rode to the courthouse
in his buggy. When he entered the hall, pale and trembling,

92 Lion of White Hall

he found more than twenty proslavery leaders plotting against
his journal. Too weak to sit up, Cassius reclined on one of
the benches and heard one after another of the men denounce
The True American as insurrectionary and as an intolerable
public nuisance. Occasionally he arose and attempted to re
spond, but he was refused a hearing. When he saw that his
continued entreaties were to no avail, he left the hall and re
turned to his bed. 3

When he got home he prepared an account of the whole
affair to be issued the next day as a True American extra.
Then he made plans for the defense of his printing office,
warned his cohort of trusted friends of the threatening crisis,
wrote his will, and sent a camp bed to the office. Grimly he
determined to resist whatever action the citizens meeting
should propose. 4

He had just completed these tasks when a delegation from
the "respectable citizens of the City of Lexington" arrived
with a message. Declaring that The True American was "dan
gerous to the safety of our homes and families," the commu
nity spokesmen requested Cassius to discontinue its publication.
"Your own safety, as well as the repose and peace of the com
munity," the group warned him, "are involved in your an
swer." They branded Clay a rebel and a man dangerous to
the public welfare. Clay s opponents did not have to answer
his arguments when they could arouse fear among non-slave
holders by quoting his own words. And fear was on their side
f ear of the consequences of emancipation. Many non-slave-
holding citizens were sincerely convinced of the necessity of
maintaining slavery as the simplest solution to the race prob
lem.

The request that he cease his journalistic activities in
furiated Clay, and he delivered a fiery response. He pointed
out that he was helpless from the fever and charged that the
attack upon him was therefore dishonorable. The citizens
meeting was an extralegal affair to which he could give no

The Eighteenth of August 93

recognition. "I deny their power and 1 defy their action," he
answered. Though he was weakened by illness, his spirit was
undaunted. "Your advice with regard to my personal safety is
worthy of the source whence it emanated, and meets the same
contempt from me which the purposes of your mission excite, 7
he snarled from his bed. "Go tell your secret conclave of
cowardly assassins that C. M. Clay knows his rights and how
to defend them." 5

While Cassius defiantly answered his enemies, relatives
urged him to surrender to the determined community leaders.
His mother, however, although she understood his "quick
and hasty temper," and had feared he would fall into trouble,
insisted that he follow his own conscience. "Cassius, don t
give up anything you think it your duty to defend," she
said. "If you prefer death to dishonor, so do I." Her son and
his wife, equally determined, resolutely faced the crisis.

Clay kept his press in operation throughout the weekend,
publishing a series of handbills which explained his side of the
argument. He also sought to allay the hostility which the
slave-owners were building up against him. He dictated all
of the statements to an amanuensis while his hands and his head
were continually bathed in cold water to reduce his raging
fever. The day following the committee meeting at the court
house, Clay published an extra issue of The True American.
He said that the committee leaders were politically opposed
to him and attacked his paper for that reason rather than for
what he had printed. They had referred to him as a revolu
tionary who plotted a slave insurrection. In a state where
there were six whites to one slave that fear was, he said, ridicu
lous. His appeal, he repeated, had been to the state s six hun
dred thousand free whites, rather than to slaves. He called
upon non-slaveholders to consider his fight their own struggle
for freedom. He asked them where they would stand when the
"battle for liberty and slavery" would begin. "If you stand by

94 Lion of White Hall

me like men," he said, "our country shall yet be free." He
still professed to defend the rights of the majority and was
determined to fight for his freedom. Once more, however, he
had provided his enemies with more evidence that he contem
plated armed rebellion. 6

On Saturday, August 1 6, in an effort to dispel the charge
that he was a revolutionary, he published another manifesto
outlining his plan of emancipation. His enemies, he said, in
sisted upon calling him an " abolitionist, a name full of un
known and strange terrors and crimes, to the mass of our
people. . . ." Again Cassius declared that he had no connec
tion with the abolitionist movement, and he repeated his de
sire for gradual and legal emancipation. He explained that he
favored the election of a convention to amend the state con
stitution, with the proposition that every female slave born
after a stipulated date (such as 1860, or 1900) should become
free at the age of twenty-one. Because the common law pro
vided that the status of the mother determined that of the
offspring, eventually all slaves would become free. Such a
gradual scheme would allow years to adjust to liberation. Clay
repeated his prediction that, as the effective date approached,
many owners would sell their slaves out of the state to avoid
the loss.

Cassius also repudiated the article which had been the
source of the current unrest. He asserted what he had always
maintained: that he opposed giving political equality to freed
slaves until they could exercise it with discretion. Having
removed the basis for the agitation against him, he made his
first conciliatory offer. "I am willing to take warning from
friends or enemies for the future conduct of my paper," he
said, "and while I am ready to restrict myself in the latitude
of discussion of the question, I never will voluntarily abandon
a right or yield a principle." There was a hint of his fiery
temper in the declaration, but he was a more chastened man
than he had been the day before. 7

The Eighteenth of August 95

And with the passage of another day, Cassius retreated still
further from his original defiant position. On Sunday he cir
culated another broadside addressed "To the People." He re
minded his fellow citizens that he had been ill for thirty-three
days, with his brain "almost incessantly" affected by the
fever. Because of his illness, he lamented, he was unable to
"pull a trigger or wield a pen," and in that helpless condition
he was attacked. His foes had misrepresented his publications
in order to arouse public opinion against him, he protested,
and they had incorrectly associated him with northern aboli
tionists. "I utterly deny that I have any political association
with them," he said.

Sober consideration of his own weakness led Cassius to
surrender yet another of his defenses. Sunday evening he
ordered the removal of the muskets and "other deadly
weapons" from his fortress-office and decided not to defend
the building. Had he continued his original determination to
fight the public action, he would have given a good account
of himself from within the office, but in his weakened condition
he would eventually have been taken. The effects of a linger
ing case of typhoid fever saved him from becoming a second
Lovejoy. 8

As darkness fell over the community on the eve of the
mass meeting which had been scheduled for Monday, August
1 8, many people fancied that they detected signs of insub
ordination among the slaves. During the night, patrols of armed
men kept watch in the hushed, dark streets. Five blocks out on
Limestone Street, in his home, lay the crusader whose impetu
ous activities had caused the excitement. By the flickering
yellow lamplight which played upon his wan face, Cassius
dictated his final message before the Monday meeting. In a
handbill to be given to the citizens who attended the meeting,
he finally surrendered everything but his right to publish a
newspaper. He admitted that the editorial was more inflam
matory than he had intended, but he begged to be excused

96 Lion of White Hall

because of his illness. He promised that in the future he would
admit no article to his paper for which the public could not
hold him accountable. "This, you perceive, will very much
narrow the ground," he said, "for my plan of emancipation
... is of the most gradual character."

In addition, he made another conciliatory statement. Until
he had recovered sufficiently to supervise the press, no further
comment on the slavery question would appear. He would
continue to issue the paper but would temporarily cease his
agitation for an emancipation party. In conclusion, he an
nounced that his office and his dwelling were defended only
by the laws of the land, adding, "And of those laws the citi
zens are the sole guardians." From his original defiant deter
mination to defend his rights, Cassius Clay had backed down
until he had surrendered not only his office and his home, but
also his activities for political publicity. 9

Clay s last-minute promises did not stay the proslavery lead
ers. At eleven o clock in the morning, on Monday, August
1 8, a gathering of citizens convened at the Fayette County
courthouse. Because the courtroom was too small, the meeting
was held on the lawn behind the building. There, Lexington s
citizen-body, more than two thousand strong, heard orator
Thomas F. Marshall arraign Clay as a dangerous insurrection
ary. Marshall, a nephew of the great chief justice of the
Supreme Court, John Marshall, privately educated among
his Virginia relatives, was an able lawyer. The indictment he
brought against Cassius Clay was a polished legal brief. It was
an appeal to a judge and a jury, in this case, the assembled
convocation. 10

In his prosecution Marshall enumerated Clay s heretical
opinions. Cassius had advocated the "Abolition of Slavery in
the District of Columbia . . .the exclusion of the three-fifths
of the slave population in the apportionment of representation
by a change in the constitution ... the exclusion of Texas

The Eighteenth of August 97

from the Union . . . the enlisting of the whole force of the
non slave-holders in Kentucky against slave property, . . .
thus forcing a change in the constitution of the State." These,
Marshall charged, "were among the means and instruments
relied upon by him for effecting the entire abolition of slavery
in America." Clay s work among the non-slaveholders, how
ever ineffectual and however legal, was condemned as a crime
for which slaveholders demanded retribution. "That this
infatuated man believed that the non-slaveholders of Kentucky
would feel and act as a party against the tenure of slavery,
and that through them he expected to change the constitution
of Kentucky, and finally overthrow the institution," Marshall
exclaimed, "is evident from one of his letters to the Tribune."
Clay s crime lay not in uttering an unguarded sentiment or
in appearing to contemplate force. To Kentucky slave-owners,
it was enough that he sought to construct a law-abiding politi
cal organization in opposition to their interests.

Having thus condemned Clay for his political activities
against slavery, Marshall came to the topic of the day. The
mass meeting had been called, he told the assembled audience,
to discuss measures for the suppression of the paper. As that
was palpably an unconstitutional action, Marshall s task was
to render it acceptable. The long hours spent perusing the
casuistry of legal terminology now paid dividends. Marshall
admitted that freedom of the press and freedom of discussion
were basic human liberties. But, he insisted, Clay had used that
freedom to plot domestic violence and had, therefore, forfeited
his liberties. Clay had begun publication with the anticipation
of employing force to gain his ends. He had fortified his print
ing office as though he were in an enemy country and had
stocked it with "mines of gunpower, stands of muskets and
pieces of cannon." Either Clay was a madman, the orator
reasoned, or he planned a civil war in which he expected non-
slaveholders and slaves to join him, to fight for abolition.
Sensible people, Marshall assured the Lexingtonians, would

98 Lion of White Hall

not allow such an incendiary threat to remain among them.
"An Abolition paper in a slave state," Marshall declared, "is
a nuisance of the most formidable character ... a blazing
brand in the hand of an incendiary or madman, which may
scatter ruin, conflagration, revolution, crime unnameable, over
everything dear in domestic life." Who should say, he con
tinued, that the "safety of a single individual is more impor
tant in the eye of the law than that of a whole people?"
Adroitly Marshall argued his case against Clay, using the age-
old controversy of freedom versus order. Marshall s argument
implied that there could be no discussion of slavery in a slave
state. Cassius Clay had sought to exercise a power which slave
owners regarded as non-existent.

Thomas F. Marshall branded Cassius M. Clay a trespasser
in Lexington, an invader who intended to destroy the founda
tions of society. The committee of citizens had courteously
requested Clay to cease his journalistic efforts, he said, and
the editor had arrogantly refused. Now, Marshall shouted, the
sovereign people would remove him by force. He concluded
his brief with suggestions for enacting that verdict. He asked
the citizens to ship The True American presses and apparatus
beyond the state line. Should there be any resistance to
their action, they should force the fortress-office "at all
hazards, and destroy the nuisance." As their agents to perform
the task, Marshall recommended the appointment of sixty
men to take possession of Clay s property and to supervise
its shipment. 11

Without a single dissenting vote, the convocation adopted
Marshall s resolutions. Chairman Waller Bullock called off
the names of the Committee of Sixty and appointed George
W. Johnson as its chairman. In accordance with its instruc
tions, the committee proceeded to the Mill Street office of
The True American. As he had promised, Cassius Clay made
no attempt to defend his property. Earlier in the day, he had
surrendered the key after receiving a court injunction upon

Cassins M. Clay

as a young man.

Courtesy of

Warfield S. Bennett.

C as skis M. Clay,
"Champion of Liberty."
From a print
by Currier.

Republican candidates for nomination in 1860

From Harper s Weekly. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

Alary Jane Clay

as a y 02172 g woman.

From a -portrait by Healy.

Courtesy of

Miss Helen S. Bennett.

Mary Jane Clay

in Russia?! Court Dre,

Courtesy of

Miss Helen S. Benneti

The Eighteenth of August 99

his property. James Logue, mayor of Lexington, was waiting
at the door to serve notice that the committee acted in opposi
tion to law, but that the city authorities could offer no forcible
resistance. 12

Inside the shuttered building, the committee set about its
task. James B. Clay, son of Henry Clay, served as committee
secretary and kept the records of their operation. They sent
the desk, containing the private papers of the editor, to his
home. Then they summoned master printers to direct the
packaging of all type, presses, and other articles belonging
to the paper. With great care, guided by professional advisers,
the committeemen crated the expensive fixtures. Before the
day had ended, their work was complete. They delivered the
boxes to the railway station for delivery to a commission firm
in Cincinnati.

Lexington citizens boasted of their self-control in dealing
with an antislavery organ. A Lexington editor recalled pre
vious occasions in other communities in which similar action
had been taken. His city alone, he said, had exhibited the
rare spectacle of a body of citizens, aroused over an incendiary
press, yet so well controlled as to "accomplish their purpose
without the slightest damage to property or the effusion of
a drop of blood." 13

While the citizens of Lexington boasted of their moderation,
Cassius Clay had attained martyrdom in the eyes of the
northern abolitionists. A Cincinnati writer sang a hymn of
praise to Clay: "He braved a tyrant power with a courage
great as the occasion," and if he had temporarily fallen it
would only be to rise again, "as giants rise when refreshed by
sleep." Another Ohioan rejoiced that Clay had "grappled the
monster in his den sacrificed his property, and offered his
life in the defence of a cause he knew to be just." An abolition
editor called the incident an attempted murder. "If Clay dies,"
he said, "he will be the victim of slave-holding mobocrats."
And an antislavery orator declared that Clay was the agent

100 Lion of White Hall

of the Almighty against slavery. He said that Cassius had re
ceived his authority "from the framer of the highest constitu
tion and laws known to man, by the commands of the living
and eternal God. . . ." 14

Other northern antislavery spokesmen received Clay s "sac
rifice" with more caution. The Anti-Slavery Bugle, organ of
religious abolitionists, criticized Clay s principles while ap
proving his stand. "It is pretty well understood that we do not
regard Cassius M. Clay as an abolitionist occupying the true
position," its editor remarked, "but as one who opposes the
institution of slavery in a manner and by means of which we
utterly disprove;" but he went on to commend Clay "as an
honest foe to that accursed system." William Lloyd Garrison,
self-appointed defender of the faith, also condemned Clay s
program while exulting over his courage. Cassius had gained
nothing by remaining aloof from immediatism, Garrison
claimed. Cassius Clay was a southerner, and not an outsider;
he was no fanatic, but a "talented, high-minded, independent"
person; he had explicitly rejected violent or immediate eman
cipation and had repeatedly denied any association with
abolitionists. Yet none of those facts had saved him from the
violence of the slave-owners. "What has he gained by refusing
to occupy the ground of northern abolitionists?" Garrison
demanded, and answered, "Nothing. What has he not lost?"
But the Liberator s fiery editor rejoiced because Clay s ex
perience would make "thousands of converts to the anti-
slavery movement," and would "confound the enemies of
freedom." In New York, Lewis Tappan sternly denounced
Clay s efforts to maintain a middle ground. "If a man gives
up, or does not embrace immediatism I think his anti-slavery
essays will do little good," Tappan concluded. 1

I 15

While the debate over his actions continued, Cassius re
cuperated from his illness. Soon after the excitement of the
eighteenth of August, he left Lexington and went to Estill

The Eighteenth of August 101

Springs to "rusticate and cool off," as one observer commented.
His sickness had proved to be his salvation. Had he been in
health he might have felt obliged to defend his office against
determined proslavery hostility. But thanks to the disease, he
maintained his reputation as a fighter without pitting his
strength against an overwhelming force. In addition to giving
him an excuse for evading a fight, the illness provided him with
an effective argument. He would declare that his enemies had
craftily awaited his indisposition to attack him. "I believe now,
as ever," he said in 1848, "that had I not fallen sick, I would
never have been mobbed." 16

Though Clay had gained another argument to use against
his foes, the success of the proslavery party in enlisting mass
approval of its action indicated that he had suffered a major
defeat. The program he advocated was legal, gradual, and
constitutional; the end he sought was economic prosperity
for the white man, rather than liberty or equality for the
Negro. But though he preached a peaceful plan, his enemies
were able to distort it by referring to his warlike language
and his fortified office.

The real reason for the suppression of The True American,
however, lay deeper than Cassius Clay s belligerent tempera
ment. His efforts to institute an emancipation party in a slave
state angered and frightened the dominant slaveholders. Lanky
Tom MarshaU had listed Clay s political efforts as "crimes"
against the community, and though he ridiculed him, he be
trayed the deep fear which obsessed his compatriots. An
emancipation newspaper in a slave state was a nuisance, he
declared, implying that however it operated it would not be
tolerated. Clay s political ambitions had clashed with the deep-
seated fears of the predominant slave aristocracy, who trem
bled at the thought of his possible success. Many others sup
ported the suppression of Clay because of their fear of his
success fear of still another kind. The specter of the freed
Negro, perhaps competing for white men s jobs, moving in

102 Lion of White Hall

great numbers into the towns, was an obstacle Cassius never
overcame. For such reasons, the citizens of Lexington would
not allow his press to remain among them.

Although Clay s plans had suffered a setback, he was not
discouraged. As soon as he regained his strength he renewed
his efforts for a political victory over his opponents. Although
they had discredited his newspaper and perverted his program,
Cassius Clay was not ready to surrender.

CHAPTER VIII

"THE MOB
WILL NOT STOPME"

A FTER overcoming the effects of his lingering illness, Clay
immediately planned the revival of The True American. In
the face of determined opposition he revealed the courage and
the perseverance which characterized his career. He had sus
tained a defeat, but he was undismayed. "The mob will not
stop me," he told his New England subscription agent.
"Somewhere, I will go on soon" He admitted that slavehold
ers had expelled his press, but, he added defiantly, "there are
not men enough in Kentucky to drive us out of the state."
Boldly and unhesitatingly Cassius renewed his war upon the
slave party. 1

His first effort was to seek legal redress for his loss. On
September 18, exactly one month after the suppression, the
Committee of Sixty faced trial for their part in depriving
Clay of his property. After hearing a full review of the cir
cumstances, the jury rendered a verdict of not guilty to the
charge of committing a riot. When he failed to win his case,
Clay contented himself with embarrassing the committee
members by refusing to call for his press at Cincinnati. They
had to continue paying rental and storage fees much longer
than they had expected, for if they did not, and the goods
were seized, Cassius could charge them with theft. 2

On October 8, about a week after the trial closed, Cassius

103

104 Lion of White Hall

resumed his campaign against slave-owners by reviving The
True American. Though the paper bore a Lexington date
line, it was printed in Cincinnati. As the months passed, weekly
editions of the resurrected paper appeared regularly, but it
became increasingly evident that the suppression had been a
defeat for Cassius Clay. No longer did he boast of a growing
emancipation party. Instead, he watched as the slaveholders
organized opposition to him. All over Kentucky, they held
public meetings for the purpose of censuring him. The editor
of the Observer and Reporter declared that there were more
such meetings than he had room to describe, and he exulted
that "all approve, while not a murmur of discontent is
heard." 3

The self-appointed spokesmen for Kentucky public opinion
had united upon the same charge against Clay and his press.
Invariably they denounced him as an irresponsible firebrand
who endangered the community. The common argument was
clearly expressed in the Observer and Reporter. "To put such
a lever as the Press into the hands of such a mail as C. M.
Clay, heedless, reckless, impetuous, ultra, and revolutionary,"
the editor said, "is almost like putting a torch into the hands
of an incendiary." None of Clay s detractors answered his
arguments and declarations, but all of them used his own
belligerence against him. 4

That same trait impelled Cassius to maintain his position at
all costs. Valiantly he forced himself to remain at his desk
and continue his paper. More and more he felt the burden of
the weekly deadline, and he longed to relinquish the confining
duties of the editor s chair. "The conducting of a newspaper
is neither suited to our early habits, our tastes, nor our neces
sities," he lamented. Nevertheless, he doggedly continued his
efforts to inform non-slaveholders of their rights. No longer
was he certain that it would be a simple matter to build an
emancipation party. His ambition was too strong, however, to
allow him to give up because the task was difficult. 5

"The Mob Will Not Stop Me" 105

After re-establishing the paper, Clay s first concern was
for its subscription list. Because he aimed his editorial matter
at non-slaveholders in a slave state, he had to reach large
numbers of them in order to effect his program. To expand
his circulation among the group he wanted to influence, Clay
offered his paper to them at one-half the regular rate. He
explained that he had established The True American to in
form them of the oppressive nature of slavery, but the slave
holders "arose in arms" and suppressed it. "Because they saw
well enough," he said, "that, if you once learned your rights,
Slavery, as you had the power, being about five freemen to
one tyrant, would be destroyed!" The reduction in the sub
scription rate, he generously admitted, would not profit him,
except that if he succeeded he would "partake in the common
welfare and happiness of the people." 6

To further his cause, Cassius added a new element to his
antislavery arguments. He discovered that his repudiation of
the religious basis of the antislavery crusade had estranged
possible followers. After the suppression of his paper, he
spoke more of moral commands and religious conviction than
he had done before. In December, 1845, he published a
brochure To all the Followers of Christ in the American
Union, asking their support in his struggle for freedom. The
columns of The True American also reflected a new moralistic
approach to the slave issue. He still did not appeal to the
religious sensibilities of slave-owners, but he attempted to
bestir the consciences of non-slaveholders to vote against the
evil. He also continued to repudiate the organized religion he
saw around him. "The church ... is slimy and -false" he
said; "there s no soul in it with few honorable exceptions." He
especially attacked the religious defense of slavery. "We de
spise your slaveholding religion," he told his fellow citizens.
Not one of the seven churches near his home, "which con
tinually annoy us with their everlasting bell-ringing," had
stood by him in the recent excitement. "As we stood for the

106 Lion of White Hall

rights of man, the liberties of our country, and the purity of
Christianity, they were silent." To attract the moralists whom
he had previously neglected, Cassius attempted to distinguish
between a "slave-holding religion," and "pure Christianity,"
which was, by his definition, at war with slavery. "We oppose
slavery, not because it obstructs us in the race for life," he said,
explaining the new addition to his repertory of antislavery
arguments, "for it does not, seeing we had the vantage ground
by birth; but because it is at war with nature and the laws
of nature s God." 7

Along with the addition of a moralistic dart to his quiver
of arguments, Cassius did not lose sight of his interest in the
Kentucky System. Within a month of the paper s reappear
ance he had repeated the description of its operation, painting
its advantages in idealistic phrases. Under his plan of emanci
pation, as he had said before, he anticipated that most of the
blacks would be sold out of the state, "and thus relieve our
people from their imaginary difficulties, of a large free popu
lation." All the slaves sold would provide capital, he promised,
"ready to be invested in manufactures," which would entice
white laborers and also "men of capital" into the state. "Thus
would the towns begin to grow once more; . . . and home
markets be secured for the productions of the soil. . . ."
Laborers would find work and would then consume the prod
ucts of the towns and of the farms. "There would be no more
fears of insurrection, civil war, and unknown disaster," he
promised. Prosperity, peace, progress these were the delight
ful vistas which Cassius Clay s energetic imagination depicted
in support of his plan to introduce a balanced economy into
the state.

Although he hurled moral and economic denunciations at
slavery, it was through the ballot that he sought reform. "7
can vote nail all such maxims to the masthead . . . ," he
ordered. "You are in the majority. Assert what is right, and
do it, and the day is yours." Nor did he cease his efforts to

"The Mob Will Not Stop Me" 107

encourage office-seekers to represent emancipation. "We ask
the five hundred thousand white non-slaveholders to make
these tools of slaveholders [the state officials] . . . meet the
doom of traitors! " Clay demanded. "Let us see if ive can t find
some other men than they, to represent FREEMEN." He asked
what kept Kentucky from such a revolution, and responded,
"Nothing but the want of unity and energy. Give us these,"
he implored, "and let the voters of mountain and lowland
speak out for freedom. . . ." 8

Clay appealed for support in all sections of the state, but he
was beginning to suspect that he would receive a more sym
pathetic hearing among the mountaineers in potentially indus
trial areas than among the inhabitants of the lowlands. He
charged that the tobacco interests of the state were his fiercest
enemies, and that they led the fight against him. But his right
to discuss emancipation was, he declared, "most ably sus
tained by the mountains where few slaves exist." After the
defeat in the Bluegrass, as he recalled many years later, "I
turned my eyes toward the mountains eastward, where few
slaves were held." He rejoiced to consider the support of
hill folk. "It proves," he boasted, "that the true issue begins
to be understood, and that we, the non-slave-holders of this
State, are destined to overthrow slavery." He pointed out that
there would always be a border country between slave and
free sections, "and no state, except Louisiana, is without its
mountains and its mountain men." And in no such area, he
continued, "can slavery find long a resting place." The spirit
of freedom which permeated the air along the border, and
which filled the smoky breezes of the hills, affected both master
and man, Clay said, and would sweep away the institution. 9

Cassius Clay had recognized a fundamental fact about the
diversified ante bellum South; in the southern mountains lived
men who owned land but who did not own slaves. Among
Clay s contemporaries it was widely believed that southern

108 Lion of White Hall

landowners were also slave-owners, but there was one great
geographic area in which the generality did not hold. Moun
taineers, confronted with a topography unsuited for the cul
ture of uninterrupted hundreds or thousands of acres of land,
generally did not command the income of the plantation. In
that area slavery did not pay. Hill folk had little in common
with the men who dominated the lowlands and who often
decided policies for the people in the mountains as well.

Ever since the planting of the American colonies there had
been an internal conflict between the gentry of the Tidewater
the narrow strip of fertile coastline extending back to the
fall line of the rivers and the equally proud residents of the
back-country hills. Their interests conflicted; and in most
colonies, and later in the states, the political machinery oper
ated for the benefit of the coastal gentry rather than for the
hill folk. In Kentucky, the geography was reversed, but the
struggle was similar. The hills were in the east, on the slope
of the Appalachian range, and the lowland plain was in the
west, but there was an internal battle between men of the two
sections. The Inland Tidewater formed by the Ohio and Ken
tucky River valleys, with its rich soil, favorable climate, and
slave-owning gentry who managed the hemp and tobacco
farms, resembled the coastal plains. But in the mountains there
were less prosperous men who consistently voted against the
agrarian interests of the Inland Tidewater. To those men,
who were landowners and therefore voters, Cassius Clay
would make an increasingly vigorous appeal. His efforts to
win political favor by representing southern industrial inter
ests were, he felt, more widely appreciated in the mountains.
There the plantation-type, slave-worked agriculture did not
predominate, and there minerals and water power made manu
facturing feasible.

Clay recognized the difference of interest between the two
sections and sought to win the support of the mountain men.
"Now I ... propose to educate a class to make capitalists

"The Mob Will Not Stop Me" 109

of the manufacturers of American Switzerland . . . resting
on nine States," he later explained, after many years of politi
cal effort. The mountains of the South were, he said, the
"greatest mineral district in the <world" By educating moun
taineers, "we shall retain of course our greater share of the un
counted mineral wealth for all time, otherwise foreigners will
own it, and we will be their slaves." Much of Clay s activity
after 1845 was directed toward instructing and guiding po
tentially industrial hill folk. 10

Along with the political and economic matter in the re
established newspaper appeared the recurrent strain of Clay s
humor. In his wit, Clay made use of the new moral argument
which he had adopted. "There are many men professing the
Christian religion, who also profess to believe Slavery a Divine
institution," he began, in his bitter sarcasm. But, he said, he
had never heard a prayer offered for the holy bonds of slavery.
"// it is of God" he suggested slyly, "Christians pray for it!"
He suggested a litany for the slave religion. "Oh thou omni
potent and benevolent God, who has made all men of one
flesh, thou father of all nations," he prayed, "we do most
devoutly beseech thee to defend and strengthen thy institution,
American Slavery!" n

But no amount of earnest argument or biting satire could
aid his cause in Kentucky. After August 18, he gradually lost
the following he had built up. Clay s reputation grew in the
North, however, where he appeared as a martyr to the cause
of freedom. He did not wait long to profit by the publicity.
In January, 1846, when he journeyed northward to deliver a
series of lectures, he discovered that his notoriety had swelled
his audiences. In Philadelphia s Musical Fund Hall, before
the Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Church, he
spoke on the topic, "Labor, the basis of the rights of property,
cannot be the subject of property." His audience suggested
the new departure into the realm of religious exhortation, but

110 Lion of White Hall

his subject indicated that he repeated time-worn arguments.
Later in the same month he addressed an audience described
as "the largest and most respectable concourse ever assembled
under one roof in the city of New York," at Broadway Taber
nacle. There he delivered an antislavery message to the "sym
pathizing thousands" who flocked to see the living martyr. In
the opinion of contemporary critics, the speech he made there
was his finest. Although it was a repetition of his economic
and political ideas, he had polished it by long familiarity until
it glittered with memorable phrases. 12

In the climax of the Tabernacle address, Cassius achieved his
most successful oratorical effect. As he concluded his tirade,
he had completely awed his audience. He had to shout to force
his voice to the edges of the crowd, but that extra strain did
not diminish its trenchant, thrilling tone. The peroration fell
upon the hushed multitude and inspired them with its patriotic
fervor. After interminably expounding his antislavery argu
ments and painting himself as the suffering servant of the slave,
he launched his colorful conclusion. "Come then, thou ETER
NAL! . . ." he prayed, "inspire my heart give me undying
courage to pursue the promptings of my spirit; and whether
I shall be called, in the shade of life, to look upon sweet, and
kind, and lovely faces as now or, shut in by sorrow and
night, horrid visages shall gloom upon me in my dying hour
OH! MY COUNTRY! MAYEST THOU YET BE FREE!" 13

Those melodramatic phrases so impressed his hearers, and
his tales of suffering for enslaved humanity so affected them,
that many who heard him remembered the magnetic effect
after a half-century had passed. Nearly sixty years later, when
a journalist penned Clay s obituary, he quoted those lines as
the high point of Clay s oratorical career. Many of his lis
teners, in an era of forensic effusion, considered it the most
effective speech they had heard. 14

Clay could attract admiring audiences in the North, but
he could not effect a political revolution in Kentucky. That,

"The Mob Will Not Stop Me" 111

more than an avid northern following, was his ambition. In
his own state, however, his efforts continued to bring fewer
returns. Even in defeat he consoled himself that he had regis
tered a victory. His newspaper continued publication, and
a successor to it, the Louisville Examiner, was published in
side the state. Four years later the Emancipation Party made
a respectable showing in the constituent elections. Clay s
clash with the proslavery party, though ending in defeat for
his own plans, was not without its recompense.

But its effects lingered. As a result of Clay s immoderate
essay of August 12, the slave party took advantage of the
public excitement to unify opposition to him. The state
legislature passed a law which severely restricted the discus
sion of slavery. Any person found guilty of "delivering to or
disseminating directly or indirectly amongst the slaves any
newspaper" or other document which might be construed as
an attempt to produce insubordination, would be guilty of
high misdemeanor. Moreover, any person who would "bring
into contempt the lawful authority of the owners of slaves"
would become subject to a fine of not less than five hundred
dollars. The proslavery party would define just when a paper
was insurrectionary, inasmuch as any newspaper published in
Kentucky could be considered as "indirectly" disseminating
its paragraphs among the slaves. The new law, said the editor
of the Observer and Reporter, was entirely the result of Cas-
sius Clay s "rash movement" in establishing among a dense
slave population an outspoken antislavery journal. Clay s
task, which before the suppression had not been a simple
one, now became even more difficult. 15

To reinstate himself in the eyes of those to whom he ap
pealed, Cassius Clay needed to perform some noteworthy
deed. In the Mexican War he discovered a golden opportunity
to win friends in Kentucky. He did not hesitate to make use
of it.

CHAPTER IX

TO THE
HALLS OF MONTEZUMA

IT WAS an event far from Cassius Clay s editorial desk
that offered the Kentuckian an opportunity to regain the con
fidence of his neighbors. Just across the muddy Rio Grande
from the Mexican town of Matamoras, a detachment of
United States troops under the command of General Zachary
Taylor faced defending Mexican forces. The Yankees stood
on disputed ground, and the Latins considered their presence
an invasion. Suddenly, on April 25, 1846, after weeks of de
fiant indecision, Mexican cavalrymen sloshed across the river
and engaged a party of United States dragoons in a skirmish
which resulted in Yankee casualties. General Taylor im
mediately informed his commander-in-chief of the engage
ment. President James K. Polk, who had already decided
upon war with Mexico over other matters, and who was at
work on a war message when Taylor s information arrived,
now had a provocative incident to report to the Congress.
"After reiterated menaces," Polk told the lawmakers, "Mexico
has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded
our territory and shed American blood upon the American
soil." Polk demanded war with Mexico. Congress complied
and approved a volunteer army and a war fund. 1

Although many Americans agreed with Folk s indictment
of the Mexicans, Cassius Clay joined the group which criti-

112

To the Halls of Montezuma 113

cized the President s war message. As an extreme Whig and
an antislavery spokesman, he opposed the war as an instru
ment of slave expansion, and as an American aggression. He
charged that the war was the work of thieves. The motive of
the war, he said, was plain enough: "It is plunder." The
perpetrators of the war were eager to cross the Rio Grande
to "glut their avarice, and flush the spirit of rapine." Clay
regarded Folk s war message with a skepticism born of po
litical convictions. "We doubt whether there has been any
invasion of the territory we claim," he said, "and we feel
confident that hostilities have not been commenced by the
Mexicans." Repudiating the administration s version of the
beginning of the war, Cassius placed the entire blame upon
Polk and the Democrats. "We have not the least shadow of
title to the land west of the Nueces," he declared. "We sol
emnly protest against the damning usurpation of James K.
Polk in making war without the consent of Congress. . . .
We demand of Congress, as a citizen of a republic ... to
cause the President to withdraw his forces from the soil of a
friendly sister republic, and punish him for . . . making war
without constitutional rights!" 2

Although he opposed the war, in mid- June Clay offered
himself as a volunteer soldier. His contemporaries expressed
amazement at what they called an inconsistency. Clay, "with
his foot in stirrup and his harness girded about him," as one
of them described him, "pauses a moment ... to heap male
dictions upon the originators of that war, beneath whose
standards he has volunteered to fight." But Cassius had a ready
explanation: he claimed that despite his political views, he
owed a citizen s allegiance to his government. "Resistance
to it would be rebellion," he explained; "if general, anarchy
. . . would be the result." The war, "so unjustly and wick
edly begun," should be pursued with vigor. But his participa
tion in the war did not signify a surrender of his political
views, he promised. "Not a hair s breadth of sentiment, of

114 Lion of White Hall

opinion, or of opposition, shall we yield. . . ." Although he
volunteered for the fighting, he did not relinquish his place
among the opposition. 3

Cassius proclaimed that his enlistment violated no tenet of
his faith, but Yankee abolitionists continued to scoff at his
action. The Ohio American Anti-Slavery Society, in its an
nual convention, denounced Clay for perpetuating slavery by
taking part in the war. A religious antislavery journal
mourned that he had departed the "true battlefield for the
false one." The Anti-Slavery Bugle explained Cassius fall
from grace as an incomplete conversion. "He never professed
to be baptized into oneness of feeling with the slave," the
editor charged. Clay merely urged gradual liberation, "and
that primarily on the ground that it would advance the in
terests of Kentucky, and benefit the Anglo-Saxon race."
While Clay s influential neighbors continually associated him
with the abolitionists, the Ohio antislavery editor rejected the
inference. 4

Though Yankee abolitionists belabored Cassius for enter
ing the war which he had criticized, their censure did not
deter him. In the war he had seen a chance to reinstate him
self in the eyes of his neighbors and to overcome the ill effects
of his editorial error of August 12, 1845. His participation
would prove, he said, that an "honest avowal of an eternal
war against slavery, did not of necessity deprive one of the
confidence of the people of our noble State, however much
the slaveholders might denounce him." In going to war, he
said, "I wished to prove to the people of the South that I
warred not upon them but upon Slavery, that a man might
hate slavery and denounce tyrants without being an enemy
of his country." "He believed," an apologist explained, "that
[by enlisting] he would be enabled, on his return, to discuss
the question of emancipation freely. . . ." To counteract op
position to his political program, Cassius had decided to
volunteer. 5

To the Halls of Montezuma 115

Clay packed his military equipment and prepared to march
to the Halls of Montezuma to prove his patriotism, and for
other reasons, too. He possessed an adventuresome spirit, and
he yearned to escape what he called the "dray-horse duties
of Editor." Moreover, he had an established career as a
citizen-soldier, with a commission as colonel of state troops,
and he loved the life of the militiaman. "It was his boyhood
ambition to figure as a soldier," one of his close friends re
marked. "He looked upon the tented field, and its pomp
and panoply, as a goodly and a glorious thing." Leaving his
business affairs with his brother Brutus, and the newspaper
with his associate, John G Vaughan, Cassius eagerly pre
pared for war. 6

As a colonel in the state militia and commander of its an
nual encampments, Cassius expected that he would receive
an invitation to command one of the Kentucky volunteer
regiments. He soon learned, however, that he would receive
no commission for the war, and he believed that he had been
rejected because of his political views. One of the influential
slave-owners, he complained, had told the governor that if
Clay were "elected to any command, and goes to Mexico, he
will triumph over us, in spite of all we can do" The com
plaisant governor then refused to make use of Clay s talents.
Undaunted by the snub, Cassius announced that he would
"fall into the ranks, as a private, with my blanket and can

teen." 7

He enlisted in the "Old Infantry" company, a Lexington
militia unit older than the state of Kentucky. Years before,
as he had advanced in the militia, he had been its command
ing officer. Now the company, under the command of Cap
tain James S. Jackson, voted to volunteer for one year as a
unit and decided to mount itself to join the Kentucky Volun
teer Cavalry Regiment. Though Clay "fell in" as a private
soldier, he had his own plans for winning military promo
tion. He brought with him several thousand dollars and let it

Lion of White Hall

be known that if he were its leader he would handsomely
outfit the entire company. Cassius induced Captain Jackson
to resign his office and to throw the captaincy open to elec
tion by the soldiers. They unanimously chose Clay as their
leader. Cassius attributed the honor to his popularity and to
his military ability he called it later the "greatest honor ever
given an American citizen." But his money also had some ob
vious effects. With their new, colorful regalia, Captain Clay
reported that his men belonged to the "brag com.[pany] in
camp." Again he boasted that he had foiled his enemies; their
attempt to discredit him had failed. 8

After a week of drill on Clay s lawn, the "Old Infantry
Cavalry," as they incongruously styled themselves, prepared
to leave their home station. At noon on Thursday, June 4,
Cassius formed his men, mounted on fine Kentucky horses,
with two other cavalry troops from the vicinity. Patriotic
Lexington citizens planned a public ceremony at their leave-
taking. The ladies of the Female Bible Society contributed to
the spiritual welfare of the expedition by presenting a copy
of the Holy Book to each departing trooper. A shower of
rain mercifully spared the volunteers a lengthy sermon from a
local minister, who contented himself with a prayer.

The ceremonies over, orders rang out, and the mounted
men moved off through the rain, headed for Louisville, where
they would join the regiment. Captain Clay proudly rode
at the head of his column on the way to new adventures. 9

If Cassius considered the dangers which lay ahead, his dark
eyes gave no evidence of it. He left the worrying for Mary
Jane, who had ample cause for concern. She took responsibil
ity for their three children, and while her husband was in
Mexico she would bear him another son. In addition to her
family cares, she assisted in the management of the White
Hall estate and Cassius other enterprises. And as if that were
not burden enough, she had reason to worry about her mar-

To the Halls of Montezuma 117

riage. Although for years there would be no open break be
tween Cassius and Mary Jane, an estrangement was building
up. Years later, when Cassius described the steps which led
to his broken home, he recalled that in 1845 he had thrown
away his wedding ring following a quarrel. Nevertheless
Mary Jane loyally accompanied Cassius to Louisville, where
she stayed until the regiment left the state. 10

In Louisville the men of the regiment lived in tents on the
bank of the Ohio River. There, on June 9, they were mus
tered into government service and received a clothing allow
ance, partial pay, and their arms and ammunition. During the
days of preparation they encountered the mismanagement
with which the army met its war crisis. Friends from Lexing
ton who witnessed the muster returned home to criticize the
"unpardonable neglect" which had resulted in a complete
lack of the "absolute necessities" for men and horses. Many
times in the coming year the men would echo in more
colorful language that criticism. 11

For the entire month of June the men of the cavalry regi
ment remained in Louisville, awaiting orders and transporta
tion. Public ceremonies improved their morale. They paraded
through the streets and received the praise of the uncritical
spectators. Captain Clay added to the unit pride by present
ing his company flag as the regimental colors. The "Old In
fantry" flag represented gallant action in the War of 1812,
he pointed out, and was a fitting emblem for the regiment.
Colonel Humphrey Marshall accepted the flag with the
promise that the honored talisman would be well protected.
Marshall, a West Point graduate who had resigned from the
regular army, had, in 1836, organized a volunteer company
which marched to the Texas frontier to aid in the revolution
against Mexico. That expedition had prepared him for the
task ahead. As the commander of a volunteer unit he would
have difficulty with fellow officers who attempted to use his
regiment to further their own ambitions. Long before the

118 Lion of White Hall

year of enlistment had expired, Marshall, like the men he
commanded, would have had enough of the war and its petty
politics. 12

Although in a few months the soldiers would long for
their home state, in the beginning they eagerly anticipated
battle. But there were some among them who regretted their
enlistment from the first. On the night before the regiment
embarked for the battle zone, several reluctant troopers de
serted and took refuge in a house of ill fame on the lower
end of the river town. Colonel Marshall ordered Captain Clay
to take a squad of men and arrest the deserters. When the
Madame refused to unlock the door, Cassius ordered his men
to force an entrance. To resist them, the deserters fired sev
eral volleys from the windows, hitting one man in the face.
The shots did not stop Clay s men, however, and they broke
into the house. In the melee which followed, the house and
its furnishings were badly damaged, but Captain Clay trium
phantly returned to camp with the deserters. 13

Finally, with all the volunteers in the fold, the long wait
ended. Early in July, the troopers struck their tents, rolled
their blankets, and then, after a forty-eight-hour wait at
the landing, boarded steamboats bound for Memphis. Cassius
had bidden Mary Jane farewell a few days earlier, and she
had returned to Lexington. Along with the thousand men of
the regiment, he began the long trip to the combat zone. It
was a journey which the Kentuckians would long remember,
for they endured countless hardships in the three months
which followed their departure from Louisville. On the
river, a violent storm endangered the boats and frightened
the men. And every day, despite all precautions, a few
soldiers managed to fall overboard. On July 7, the men ar
rived in Memphis, where they unloaded and set out on the
long march overland to San Antonio. In the hot months
of the year they traveled through the humid Arkansas swamps
and traversed the stifling bake-oven which was the Texas
plain. 14

To the Halls of Montezuma 119

Though the Kentucky soldiers blamed the army for their
suffering, their own weakness added to their pains. Unac
customed to the rough life of the trooper, they were unpre
pared for the physical requirements of war. But the army
made no effort to ease their path. The men complained that
the route they took was the worst possible way to south
Texas, and they were particularly aggrieved since in the midst
of their trek they were rerouted to Port Lavacca on the
Gulf, where they could easily have been sent by "water. It
was a "remarkably fatiguing trip of 8 or 900 miles, through
a burning sun at an inclement season of the year," one soldier
reported. On some days they went without water altogether;
at other times they rejoiced to drink what they scooped
from a brackish hole.

The volunteers also complained of the quartermaster s
"negligence or oversight," which necessitated long, hungry
marches for supplies. They had ordered rations and forage
to be delivered to them along the march, but their requisitions
were lost in the confusion of army administration. And they
grumbled about their clothing. The resplendent outfits which
had brightened the Louisville parade proved unsuitable for
the wilderness. One soldier lamented that the men had been
"absolutely turned naked in a wild country" When their
complaints became a political issue back home, the army an
swered that the regiment had received its clothing allowance
in Louisville, and if the men were without clothing within
two months they had only themselves to blame. A Lexing
ton private admitted that the reason the men had no uni
forms was that they had "traded all ... superfluous cloth
ing long since for whiskey, potatoes, and the other neces
saries of life. . . . My unmentionables," the fellow joked,
"give evident symptoms of an intention to desert me in my
extremity" 15

The Kentuckians also blamed the army for the alarming
number of their men who fell ill. At every stop along the
route they left stragglers who could not keep up the pace

120 Lion of White Hall

of fifteen miles a day. After they had arrived at Port Lavacca,
the surgeon listed 160 new patients on one day. "We are
sick" a soldier diagnosed, "of an order -from a General who
don t know what he is about?* Long before the regiment saw
any action, it had lost one-half of its effective strength from
the punishing overland march. Its personnel confessed that
with the alleged blunders and the needless suffering, they
had endured enough of army life. When their year of en
listment expired, although the war had not been settled, the
Kentuckians packed their duffel and returned home. 16

The road to war was filled with tribulations for the re
cruits, but Captain Cassius Clay enjoyed the excursion. When
the regiment crossed into Texas he received permission to
leave its line of march and go on a buffalo hunt. Taking a
friend from another company, he went into the Comanche
country west of Austin. For nearly a month the two men
roamed the plains, away from the outfit. In that wild country,
the hunt was a struggle for survival. For several days they
found no water, and the food was not always plentiful. They
had a close call with some unfriendly Indians but escaped be
cause of the speed of their fine mounts. Again, they lost their
way and were given up for lost by the regimental officials,
but at last they located their unit. For years afterwards Clay
loved to recount, with added gusto, the tales of his buffalo
hunt. In 1885, when he wrote his memoirs, he devoted nearly
an entire chapter to a description of the exciting side trip. 17

Upon his return to the regiment he participated in another
off-the-record incident. Thomas F. Marshall, the lawyer who
had delivered the oration at the suppression of The True
American the year before, was also a company commander
in the Kentucky cavalry regiment, and he and Cassius had
quarreled along the way. One night, as they sat around the
officers campfire, Cassius entertained the group with a poem
from his school days. But his memory was faulty, and he for-

To the Halls of Montezwna 121

got one line. It ran, When Greece her knees in suppliance
bent . . . ," but he could not remember it, and repeated,
"When Greece her knees, when Greece her knees. . . ."
Captain Tom Marshall, with a humorous twinkle, asked him,
"What do you want to grease her knees for, Captain?" The
other officers set up a whoop at the ribald pun. Cassius, who
had not forgotten Marshall s part in the attack upon his
journalistic enterprise, considered his pride wounded and
challenged the quipster to a duel. The next morning, as the
regiment took up its march, the two men rode off with their
seconds. In a secluded spot they fired but missed. Although
Cassius constantly practiced his marksmanship, he had a poor
record as a duellist. Fortunately for him, so did his op
ponents. 18

When the cavalry regiment reached the war zone, Cassius
continued his search for adventure. Regarding the war as an
opportunity to build up a reputation of which he could make
political capital, he volunteered for dangerous missions. He
dashed off to the headquarters of several generals, begging
an assignment which would provide glory as well as excite
ment. In the day when the efficient officer was the one who
provided his men with action, Cassius became a popular cap
tain. He hounded General John E. Wool for a job, and Wool,
who had commanded the long march from Memphis, agreed
to detach Clay s troop for an expedition to Chihuahua. When
Cassius returned to camp with the prized order, however, he
had to turn it down because his men were still too weak
from their long journey. 19

Clay rejected the special mission for another reason, too.
He discovered that his efforts to see action had angered his
regimental commander, Colonel Humphrey Marshall. When
Marshall, who jealously guarded his unit, received the order
detaching Clay s troop, he raged at the attempt to dismantle
his command. He charged another volunteer colonel, Archi-

122 Lion of White Hall

bald Yell of Arkansas, with attempting to use elements of
the Kentucky regiment to promote his own ambitions. To
jealous American officers concerned with their own advance
ment, the least important enemy in the war was the Mexican
Army. 20

Although his politicking produced internal conflict within
the officer corps, Cassius was finding that it had the effect he
desired. Gradually he won the confidence of his comrades.
"I find that this gentleman, who had gained an unenviable
notoriety by his mad and selfish course on the slavery ques
tion," one of the Kentucky soldiers reported, "is acquiring,
by his strict discharge of duty, more standing as an officer
than probably any other individual in the regiment." Clay s
effort to use the war as proof of his patriotism was bringing
results. 21

He missed no opportunity for action and pushed himself
into as many assignments as he could. In mid-December a
Mexican traitor reported an armed band a few miles away.
When orders were issued for the Kentucky cavalry to dis
patch an investigating patrol, Captain Clay implored his
colonel to give him the mission. Before the detail could leave,
however, a messenger brought news of a hot fire-fight be
tween the regiment s supply train and enemy marauders some
fifty miles away. Additional men strengthened the original
detail, and they galloped to the rescue, with the yelling Cas
sius in the lead. One of the troopers who made that wild ride
declared that he would never forget it. They left the camp
at dark, he recalled, and by daylight had covered the entire
distance generously estimated at fifty-eight miles "through
the thickest chaparral." When they reached the train, saddle-
weary and thicket-whipped, they were disappointed to learn
that their speedy dash had been in vain. The fight had ceased
hours before. But by such action, and by his exuberant love
of the trooper s life, Cassius became the regiment s best-liked
officer. The men recognized that if they wanted to enjoy

To the Halls of Montezuma 123

hard riding and exciting missions, they would have to follow
Captain Clay. With such a reputation, Clay took pan in an
expedition which proved disastrous. 22

On January 19, 1847, Cassius and thirty picked men left
camp with Major John P. Gaines in command. Their an
nounced purpose was to hunt fodder, but in reality it was
to probe enemy strength on the Saltillo front, commanded
by General William J. Worth. For three days they rode
southward over the plains beyond Saltillo but found no
enemy. On the afternoon of the third day, they arrived at the
hacienda of Encarnacion, about forty-five miles south of
Buena Vista. There they met another United States scouting
patrol, commanded by Major Solon Borland, a medical doc
tor from Arkansas. The Arkansawyers told the newcomers
of a band of enemy soldiers reported to be in Salado, some
distance further south. Together the two parties rode toward
that city, but darkness and the approach of a storm forced
them back to the hacienda for shelter.

Encarnacion, similar to many another Mexican hacienda,
was a large stucco building with a flat roof, surrounded by a
wall. The cavalrymen corralled their horses in the courtyard
and settled down for the night. Ever afterwards, Cassius in
sisted that he had protested the bivouac in the hacienda, but
that he had been outranked. He also contended that the two
majors had vetoed his suggestion that a picket-guard watch
the main roads leading to the farmhouse. They posted only
night watches on the roof of the house, and with that inade
quate precaution, went to sleep. During the night one of the
sentinels gave the alarm, but the sleepy men explained the
noise as someone drawing water from the courtyard well. 23

When the morning mists lifted, however, the men discov
ered that their fortress was entirely surrounded by Mexican
cavalrymen. The trap had sprung upon seventy-two Arkansas
and Kentucky troopers. Despite the obvious disparity of the
forces, they prepared to resist, determining to make En-

124 Lion of White Hall

carnacion a second Alamo. Barricading themselves behind the
walls of the house and planning to make every shot count,
they watched as the enemy closed in upon them. But as they
aimed their opening shots, they saw a white flag approaching
with a deputation to receive their surrender. After several
hours of indecision, the outnumbered force decided that re
sistance would be futile. At n A.M., January 23, 1847, they
surrendered themselves as prisoners of war. Although they
estimated that they were outnumbered forty to one, many
of the stalwart men wept as they stacked their unused weap
ons in the hacienda courtyard and walked out to surrender. 24

Captain Cassius Clay, who had sought glory in the war to
further his political career, became a captive. Before any
major action had developed, the war had ended for him. With
his penchant for enthusiastic volunteering, he missed the big
action and became one of the few American officers who
fell into enemy hands. A month later the men of his regiment
played a decisive role in the victory at Buena Vista, but he
was on the way into Mexico under guard.

Despite Clay s apparent failure to win renown as a sol
dier, he received widespread acclaim for his conduct as a
prisoner. The day after their surrender, one of the captives
escaped, and in the excitement Cassius quick action saved the
lives of the other prisoners. Among the Arkansas troops there
was a guide named Dan Drake Henrie, who had been cap
tured by Mexican officials in a prewar foray across the Rio
Grande. He had escaped then, but at the Encarnacion sur
render he had been recognized, and he feared that he would
be shot. Under the guise of checking the line of marchers,
Henrie dashed away before the guards could draw their
carbines. Though in the Encarnacion fiasco seventy men were
lost to the American fighting force, the message Henrie de
livered to the American commanders at Saltillo was sufficient
recompense. When Henrie informed General Taylor of the

To the Halls of Montezuma 125

advancing Mexican Army, the general took personal com
mand at Saltillo and prepared the battle orders for what de
veloped into the Buena Vista engagement. 25

Henrie s escape was a boon to the Yankee cause, but it re
sulted in a tense moment for the remaining captives. The sur
prised guards supposed that all the prisoners would bolt when
Henrie did, and the Mexican commander ordered his men to
lance the captives. As the Mexicans, levelling their sharp
spears, charged upon the defenseless troopers, Cassius Clay s
long experience with danger saved them. Quickly he or-
dered the prisoners to lie down and to make no show of
resistance. Then heroically and with typical melodrama
he bared his breast to the onrushing lancers. "Don t kill the
men: they are innocent," he shouted. "I only am responsible."
His orders to the men, who instantly obeyed, and his own
unusual action stopped the impending execution and allowed
him time to explain. In broken Spanish and in English, Clay
said that Henrie had escaped for his own reasons and that
the men had known nothing of his plans. After some minutes
of debate, the officers of the guard were convinced that no
mass break was intended, and Cassius as well as the others
was spared. Although his enemies circulated derogatory ver
sions of the incident, Clay s act brought him much favora
ble comment. "Who but C. M. Clay, with a loaded pistol to
his heart, and in the hands of an enraged enemy, would have
shown such magnanimous self-devotion?" his fellow prisoners
asked. "If any man ever was entitled to be called the soldier s
friend, he is." 26

After surviving that near-disaster, the prisoners resumed
their long march southward, the men on foot and the officers
mounted. Cassius shared his mount with the footsore men,
walking so they might rest occasionally. He also supplied
money to those who needed it and "resorted to every sacri
fice" to make the men comfortable. The group remained for
some weeks in San Luis Potosi before going on south.

126 Lion of White Hall

Throughout the journey they suffered from lack of water
and received little food. They were convinced that they ate
dog or mule meat, since they saw no commissary stores any
where. As they passed the widely separated ranches, how
ever, the women ("in all countries the most charitable," Cas-
sius gallantly declared) would run out and offer them eggs,
dishes of beans, and the native tortillas. But in the towns the
irate populace would gather to mob them, and they often
encountered showers of stones. Their guards were kept busy
preventing even worse treatment. 27

When the weary prisoners finally arrived at the City of the
Montezumas, they found an insurrection in progress. They
were kept outside the city until the end of the day so that
the guards would not themselves become prisoners of the
wrong side. After dark they were smuggled into the city
and taken to a state penitentiary for safekeeping. The prison
ers considered it an insult to be incarcerated among the
"common felons," but they remained there for the months
they stayed in the city. They complained also that they
should have been immediately exchanged. Many Mexican
soldiers and officers had been taken at Buena Vista, so that
there was sufficient basis for an exchange agreement. No
Mexican official would take the responsibility for negotiating
a protocol, however, and the men remained in the capital of
the enemy country. After they were given their paroles, they
spent much time sight-seeing in the beautiful city.

Despite that courtesy, the men still fumed about their
prison conditions. They had no beds and slept on the floor
with only their horse blankets for warmth. They received
no clothing the Mexican quartermasters emulating their
United States counterparts and food in such small quan
tities that they had to purchase additional rations. The Mexi
can government paid them only fifty cents a day, but they
borrowed from a New Englandef who had settled in the

To the Halls of Montezwna 127

city. "Living in this city is higher than in any place in the
world," Cassius reported, "and in consequence we are some
what troubled to get the means of support." The embattled
Mexican government, split by an internal revolution and
invaded by the United States forces, did the best it could to
provide for the prisoners, but the Yankees did not consider
their arrangements satisfactory. 28

While the men protested their treatment, Cassius con
tinued to denounce the war effort. As he had promised at the
beginning, his participation in the war would not blind him
to its blunders or to its injustice. From his prison cell he
fulminated against the politicians who managed the war. "Can
any man tell me why all this expenditure of blood and
money?" he demanded. "Have we not land enough? Do we
want eight millions of revolutionary Indians and half breeds
to increase the difficulties of the elective franchise . . . ?"
He blamed the Democrats for the tragedy of the war and
urged that the Whigs oust them at the next election. "I hope
they will everywhere be defeated," he said. "They have car
ried their party feelings into the military appointments and
attempted to disgrace eminent men who were risking all for
their country ... is not such conduct sufficient to disgust
all men?" Cassius looked to the day when he would again take
the stump against his political foes. 29

Penning political diatribes against his opponents, sight
seeing, and recovering from an attack of food-poisoning,
Cassius spent his days in the Mexican prison. Although there
were constant rumors that they would be exchanged, the
men remained in Mexico City for eight months. As the main
American offensive under General Winfield Scott ap
proached the city from the east, however, the prisoners were
removed to Toluca, a pleasant provincial town and the capital
of the state of Mexico. During the move to Toluca, some of
the officers, including Major Borland, escaped to the United
States lines. Cassius righteously refused to accompany them,

128 Lion of White Hall

proclaiming himself still bound by his parole and concerned
for the welfare of his men. At Toluca, the prisoners lived in
a monastery which served them as an asylum from the vindic
tive citizens. Guards were placed around the building, not
to keep the men in, for they were on parole in the city, but
to keep the Tolucans out. 30

In spite of the dangers of moving about among the aroused
citizens, Cassius determined to "enter society as far as I was
able." He was especially attracted to a young Tolucan
senorita, eighteen years old, named Lolu, and he braved all
obstacles to visit her and her pet parakeet, Leta. He knew
that if he were identified as an enemy soldier, he would be
instantly killed by the Tolucans. Attiring himself in a colorful
serape and a wide-brimmed sombrero, Cassius disguised him
self as a Mexican and thus passed through the crowded
streets. Lolu, he boasted years later, enjoyed his company
and his conversation. When he was much older he described
his acquaintance with Lolu as one of the "real joys fading
into the dead past," which left "rose-tinted memories of the
days that are gone. ..." He had been promoted, Cassius
claimed, from prisoner to conqueror. 31

At length the interlude, which Cassius considered a lux
urious respite after his "exhausting use of the nervous powers"
of the prewar years, came to an end. After months of ne
gotiations, the prisoners were released in late September and
sent to Tampico for exchange. Two Mexican generals were
offered for the three American captains. When he arrived
among the United States troops, Clay learned that the men
of his regiment had arrived in New Orleans in early June
and had been home for some months. He learned also that the
unit had participated in the battle of Buena Vista and had
suffered casualties of nearly twenty per cent while taking a
major role in the engagement. 32

Cassius was delayed in leaving Mexico, so that he did not
rejoin his family until December 6. Mary Jane, with their

To the Halls of Montezuma 129

four children, met him at the home of his mother in Frank
fort. Back in Kentucky, Cassius discovered that his prison
experiences had alleviated much of the angry opposition to
him. On October 25, before he returned, the Whigs of Estill
County met and endorsed Major John P. Gaines for gov
ernor and named Captain Cassius M. Clay as their choice for
lieutenant-governor. Previously, Major Gaines had been
elected to Congress from Kentucky s Tenth District, but the
effort to elevate Cassius made no further progress. Clay re
ceived numerous complimentary dinners and was invited to
deliver addresses about Mexico and the war. For a brief period
many of those who had participated in the attack of the
eighteenth of August joined in eulogizing him. With the
commendatory resolutions ringing in his ears, and with an
ornate gift sword gracing his mantelpiece, Cassius prepared
to profit by the good will which his war record provided.
With the national election of 1848 and the state constituent
election of the following year coming up, there was the
chance that, as a heroic soldier home from the wars, Cassius
Clay might succeed in his ambitious undertakings. 331

CHAPTER X

CLAY ATTACKS THE
WHIGS

V^ASSIUS M. Clay was as displeased with Kentucky po
litical parties after his return from Mexico as he had been
earlier. Now thirty-eight, with his handsome face beginning
to show the engravings of an unquiet life, he still pursued the
dream of political power. But the old parties offered him no
better opportunity in 1848 than they had two years before,
and he continued his efforts to create a new organization in
which he would gain his ends. He deplored the increasing
proslavery pressure which drew Whigs and Democrats to
gether, and he declared that there was a need for a new op
position party. To dramatize the similarity of the two estab
lished groups, he planned to defeat the Whigs and thus re
duce the proponents of slavery to one party. "It was a part
of my policy to destroy the old parties," he recalled later,
"to build up a new one of universal liberty." To accomplish
his purpose, Cassius Clay waged war upon the party of his
youth. 1

His first step was to discredit the state s Whig leaders.
Chief among them was the Great Compromiser, Henry Clay,
who for years had reigned supreme in Kentucky politics.
Even before the war Cassius had challenged Henry s lead,
and for three years he had nursed a grudge against his kins
man. In the spring of 1848, for political purposes, he resur-

130

Clay Attacks the Whigs 131

rected his anger. He declared that on August 14, 1845, just
before the suppression of The True American, Henry had
hurriedly departed Lexington, "leaving your friends and fam
ily to murder me, for vindicating those principles which you
had taught me, in your speeches at least" For that treachery,
he asserted, Henry no longer merited high office. "I would
never silently see a man elevated to the Presidency of the
States," Cassius announced, "who winked at the overthrow of
the . . . press." But he was not content with a denial of
Henry s political suitability. With characteristic spite he pro
claimed himself the personal foe of the Gallant Harry. "I
ceased to be your friend," Cassius told him, "and became,
by the necessity of my nature, your enemy. . . ." His bel
ligerent personality allowed him no middle ground between
friendship and a hateful enmity. His remarks, one commenta
tor said, were so "bitter and ill-tempered, as to be repulsive
to ... right-minded men of all parties." 2

Cassius was not alone in his repudiation of Senator Clay.
Many Whigs had come to the conclusion that their aging
leader despite his persuasive charm had too many enemies
to win a national election. "I am tired of being beaten," a
Whig explained. "I am in favor of Mr. Clay, . . . [but] if
we persist in his nomination, defeat is certain." Even state
Whig leader John J. Crittenden agreed that Henry would be
a liability to the party. "I prefer Mr. Clay to all men," he
was careful to say; but added, "My . . . involuntary convic
tion ... is that he cannot be elected." Desperate for the
spoils of political victory, men like Crittenden were willing
to turn to a glittering military hero, General Zachary Taylor,
who, though a newcomer to politics, was triply recommended
as a slave-owner, a professional soldier, and a planter. Care
fully scrutinizing the political straws, Cassius Clay discerned
the strong inclination among Kentuckians to jettison the
master of Ashland in the hope that Taylor might unify their
divergent interests. With all this in mind, Clay staked his

132 Lion of White Hall

claim to a seat among Kentucky s rebellious Taylor Whigs.
He intended to do his share to win Kentucky support for
Taylor, not only to back a winner, but also to embarrass the
state s Whig leadership. For if Henry Clay failed in his own
state, he stood little chance at the national party convention.

The Whig meeting at Frankfort was, therefore, significant.
The party members gathered on Washington s Birthday, but
so deep was the rift between the supporters of Henry Clay
and those of Taylor that they met in two separate groups.
The Taylor forces were more numerous, and Cassius joined
those men like his old regimental commander, Humphrey
Marshall, who demanded that the state s entire vote be given
to the general. Taylor s strength was so great that the Clay
Whigs would not permit a vote for fear their candidate
might lose. Finally a compromise healed the breach: one of
the senatorial delegates to the national party convention
would be committed to Henry Clay, the other to Taylor. 3

Having successfully forced the Clay Whigs to recognize
Taylor s strength, the dissident wing of the party met and
pledged itself to secure the general s nomination. Cassius Clay
publicized the action of his colleagues thereby making him
self appear to be the ringleader of the Taylor movement.
When the state convention adjourned, Cassius wrote an open
letter to a New York pro-Taylor paper, declaring that Henry
Clay s own state party had repudiated him. In the name of the
entire Kentucky Whig Party, Cassius brashly announced that
the state "cherishes the long service of Henry Clay, but also
believes that Mr. Clay cannot be elected." He added that
further attempts to nominate Clay would be futile. With that
interpretation Henry Clay s friends violently disagreed. "The
Clay-Whig press roared as a herd of wild beasts," Cassius
chortled many years later, thoroughly pleased at the memory
of the commotion he had caused. But the outcry was to no
avail: at the Baltimore convention General Taylor won the
nomination, and as the years passed, Cassius Clay came to

Clay Attacks the Whigs 133

consider that he was entitled to the credit for Taylor s suc

cess. 4

Cassius had chosen the winning contender in the race, but
he took little part in the election because of his personal quar
rel with the Whig Party, whose members had joined the
Democrats to attack his press. In addition, he was becoming
more sympathetic with the Liberty platform. "I am pleased
at the result of the Van Buren movement," he confided to his
friend Salmon P. Chase. "I hope by another presidential year
that toe will come together." The Taylor candidacy, he said,
was effecting that result: "Taylor will be elected, which will
drive more of the democracy into antislavery formation, also
many Whigs." Clay thanked Chase for suggesting him as a
possible candidate in the northern movements, but for the
present he would "stand for old Zack." And at home, he
expressed confidence in the future. "The cause in Kentucky
is steadily advancing," he said, "and my hopes are high for
the life-time war." 5

At this juncture the Kentucky General Assembly provided
Cassius with the basis for a renewed battle for constitutional
emancipation. When the legislature repealed the Negro Law
of 1833 and opened the way for an unlimited increase in the
slave population, many Kentuckians became alarmed. "Many
I think regard the crisis as at the door," Kentucky Congress
man Richard French told his Georgia friend Howell Cobb.
The Reverend Robert J. Breckinridge, a Lexington minister
long connected with the emancipation movement, declared
that the legislative action had frightened "perhaps the bulk
of the state," who favored no increase in the slave population.
Cassius Clay rejoiced at the widespread criticism of the re
peal. "The last legislature put its leaden heel upon us while
we slept," he asserted. "Thank God! the touch of that heel
has broken our slumber." So concerted was the protest that
the assembly reluctantly voted to call a constitutional con-

134 Lion of White Hall

vention for October, 1849, to settle the question of slavery
in Kentucky. That summer, when voters chose delegates, and
when discussion of emancipation was widely acceptable,
critics of slavery had their most auspicious opportunity. 6

At the same time, however, the situation threatened to
break out in violence, for any discussion of slavery and
emancipation in the South was fraught with danger. Cassius
had long worried about his friend Breckinridge, who had no
basic training in personal combat and who lived in constant
danger or so Cassius thought. One evening he went to see
Breckinridge to warn him of the hazardous times ahead. The
reverend gentleman, Cassius announced, should be prepared
to meet an attack should one develop. He had designed a
weapon, he continued, especially to meet the needs of a man
unused to personal combat, and he had ordered it manufac
tured in Cincinnati. Then he drew from his carpetbag the
weapon a knife with a blade seven inches long, and two
inches wide at the hilt. This knife was unusual in more than
mere appearance. It was intended to be worn strapped under
the left arm, hanging upside down, with the knife held in its
scabbard by a spring device. When the good doctor grabbed
the handle, the spring released the knife at "belly level" an
attack no assailant would expect. Then, Cassius demonstrated,
all Breckinridge had to do was "point the instrument at his
[opponent s] navel and thrust vigorously!"

Years later, when the gentle Breckinridge showed the
ferocious blade to his youngest son, he confessed that he al
ways felt a little uneasy when he wore it. "Every time I
gestured heavenward," he said, "that infernal knife thumped
against my ribs!" 7

Cassius planned a more thorough battle than one fought
with the cold steel of vicious knives, however. Before the
legislature issued its call for a constitutional convention, he
had moved to organize Kentucky emancipationists. He had

Clay Attacks the Whigs 135

called a meeting of the "friends of emancipation" to be held
in Frankfort to protest the repeal of the Negro Law. When
the General Assembly acted, therefore, his plans were already
made. He merely enlarged his invitation to include all who
wanted the new constitution to provide for gradual emancipa
tion. Clay confidently expected the Frankfort meeting to pro
duce the emancipation party of his dreams.

On Christmas Day, 1848, he wrote out his aspirations for
the new party. He desired a fully developed organization,
with a treasurer and committees of finance and correspond
ence, and he envisioned a districting of the state, with orators
allotted to each county. The next step was to encourage
county meetings to name delegates to the state emancipation
convention. Such gatherings met in about one-fourth of the
state s counties. On April 2, 1849, the "friends of gradual
emancipation" in Clay s home county convened at the Meth
odist Church in Richmond, where they elected state dele
gates and planned an independent party. 8

The repeal of the Negro Law of 1833 and the subsequent
call for a constitutional convention brought many respected
Kentuckians into the field as gradual emancipationists. In
the Fayette County meeting, for example, Henry Clay pre
sided, and Robert J. Breckinridge presented the resolutions.
Breckinridge proposed a program as ambitious as that of
Cassius Clay. "Whatever we go for, will be called emancipa
tion, and resisted as such," he asserted, "while, if we go for
all we desire, our opponents, in order to defeat us, will be apt
to concede to the popular wishes . . . and may come up,
even to our second ground." As time went by, it became evi
dent that Breckinridge s analysis was sound. 9

Both the impetuous Clay and the more moderate Breckin
ridge planned comprehensive programs to present to the state
convention. They soon discovered, however, that most of the
delegates were too moderate to accept their views. The con
vention of the Friends of Emancipation assembled in Frank-

136 Lion of White Hall

fort at ii A.M. on April 25, 1849, with the conservatives in
the majority. From all parts of the state had come about fifty
delegates, characterized by "much respectability and much
talent." Most of them were Whigs, nearly three-fourths were
slaveholders, and about one in seven was a minister. Cassius
Clay, who had voluntarily abdicated from the slave-owning
class, and who was not primarily motivated by humanitarian
ideals, led the extremists. Though in the beginning he at
tempted to make friends by reconciling his views with those
of the majority, it was not easy for him to do. 10

As the leader of the humanitarian reformers, Robert J.
Breckinridge delivered the introductory address. Involun
tary hereditary slavery, he said, was detrimental to the pros
perity of the commonwealth, inconsistent with free govern
ment, injurious to a pure state of morals, and contrary to
natural law. But he recommended that the delegates approve
no plan to end the evil without compensation, and he sug
gested that they confine themselves solely to unborn Negroes.
When Breckinridge finished, Cassius Clay followed him upon
the stand and spoke without unduly shocking his hearers. 11

In his eagerness to have the emancipationists present an
undivided front, he accepted the mild report of the resolu
tions committee that the new constitution should merely
recognize that the citizens "had power to enforce and perfect
a system of gradual prospective emancipation of slaves." Since
Cassius had assumed that right for years, he said that the
statement was too weak, but he agreed to support it to keep
the peace. "My judgment tells me," he explained, "I must
yield to the maturer and better judgment of the majority."
In his effort to win friends, he temporarily sacrificed his am
bitious program. 12

He concurred in the committee report but he opposed an
attempt to weaken the resolution still further. Judge Samuel
S. Nicholas, one of the older slaveholding emancipationists,
proposed alternative resolutions which denied all Clay s past

Clay Attacks the Whigs 137

efforts and would have tied his hands for years. Nicholas
suggested that the new constitution allow elections "on some
future day," to decide whether a scheme for gradual eman
cipation should become a part of the new code. Until that
time, "to prevent the injurious effects of a constant, or even
too frequent agitation of the question," the judge recom
mended that the emancipationists should not discuss the issue
at all. Nicholas suggested that they not even advocate their
views as a feature of the new constitution, for he feared that
they might lose everything by gambling on the elections. The
proslavery party "I mean perpetualists" he said, was all-
powerful. "They are bonded with both parties and the wealth
of the state." 13

But Cassius would not agree to such a denial of his course.
Even before Nicholas had finished, he was on his feet de
manding the floor. When he received permission to speak, he
ripped off his polite mask of congeniality. "I know," he be
gan, "that ... I am characterized as impulsive, hot-headed,
reckless, and passionate." Yet he had, he said, made an effort
to agree with the moderates. "We fanatics are willing to take
your compromise," he told them. "We think it too moderate,
and I have been reproached by some because I have yielded."
But he would accept no further emasculation of the state
ment. "We who have, it is feared, compromised too much al
ready, are asked to come yet lower down!"

Clay implored his colleagues not to prohibit discussion of
the emancipation issue. "What if it be true that the politicians
and the money power be against us?" he demanded. "Will
our silence bring them to us?" He begged the emancipation
ists to join him in forming a new party because the perpetual
ists had "bonded" with the others. "Have not the old parties
forgotten their allegiance to the right in all things," he asked
them, "to fasten upon the country this curse of Slavery?"
Already, he said, a new movement was underway. "The party
in favor of freedom is growing everywhere. It has broken

138 Lion of White Hall

through party restraints at the North. It will do so here." He
considered the issue too pressing to postpone. "For myself,
I am for agitating this question," Cassius, after a decade of
such activity, declared. "We must convince the people the
real people of its importance before it can be done. . . .
We must seek them out at the crossroads and places of pub
lic resort in their neighborhoods. We want men on the stump.
We want to get at the ear of the people." Under the influence
of Clay s impassioned oratory, the delegates rejected Nicholas
proposals and opened the way for discussion of emancipation
in the forthcoming constitutional elections. 14

Cassius Clay took his own advice and carried the campaign
directly to the voters. Packing his clothing and a brace of
pistols in his carpetbag, and traveling in a light buggy, he
spoke widely in favor of emancipation candidates. He con
tinued to base his arguments upon the economic competition
to free laborers and not upon the injustice of slavery to the
Negro. "Ninety thousand of the 1 17,000 voters in the present
election are dependent upon their own labor for subsistence,"
he would repeat. To those people he gave warning that slaves
were beginning to compete with skilled laborers for jobs. If
printing offices were "overrun with Black Rats, as are several
of the mechanic shops in the interior towns," he declared,
"we should not see the great body of the newspapers of the
State in opposition to Emancipation." He reminded his hear
ers that in 1837, when the carpenters and painters of Louis
ville asked for a ten-hour day, slaves were employed in their
place. "Ultimately," he concluded grimly, "slavery triumphed
over freemen." 15

With that message Cassius Clay spoke at numerous gath
erings over the state, but his main interest was in the Madison
County campaign. There the proslavery party nominated
Squire Turner, William Chenault, and James Dejarnatt for
seats in the constitutional convention, and the emancipa-

Clay Attacks the Whigs 139

tionists chose Major Thompson Burnam. The candidates
agreed to appear together and to apportion the time equally.
Cassius, who often spoke for Burnam, disliked Squire Turner,
the leading perpetualist candidate, and the two men had sev
eral quarrels. In mid- June their dispute erupted into violence,
and bloodshed discolored the electoral process. 16

On June 15, after several days of rest at White Hall, Clay
started out on a week s speaking tour through the southern
section of Madison County. He arrived at Foxtown, a village
on the Lexington-Richmond turnpike about a mile from his
home, just before another round of speeches was to begin.
Turner took the platform first, and as he spoke Cassius in
terrupted him twice to "make an explanation." Some ominous
noises in the audience aroused Clay s ever-ready suspicions,
and he took his bowie knife from the carpetbag and put it
under his belt. He did not provide himself with his pistols,
however, an oversight he would soon regret.

When Turner finished speaking, Clay took the stand to
introduce Curtis F. Burnam, who was to speak on behalf of
his father. Cassius used the opportunity to belabor Turner for
taking twice as much time as had been agreed upon. Ve
hemently he declared that Major Burnam s candidacy should
receive an equal amount of time. But before Cassius could
leave the platform, an unfortunate misunderstanding plunged
the gathering into a confused melee.

There was a young lawyer present who had an entirely
extraneous argument with Cassius Clay. Richard Runyon had
been a member of the state legislature against which Clay
had brought the charge of burning state school bonds. Earlier,
Runyon had told Clay that the contention was not true and
that he wanted a chance to tell his version. When Clay intro
duced young Burnam and berated Turner at Foxtown, Run
yon had been in the rear of the crowd and had not heard
Clay s argument. From Clay s vehemence, however, Runyon
imagined that Cassius was repeating his charge about the

140 Lion of White Hall

school bonds. Running to the platform, the lawyer asked
Clay if he had mentioned the bonds, intending to answer
him if he had. Cassius, already bristling at the supposed slight
by Turner, suspected that Runyon introduced the irrelevant
matter to pick a fight with him, and he had no intentions of
backing down. Those bonds, he truculently responded, had
been burnt. Runyon yelled that it was not true. "Yes, sir,"
Clay rasped, "you voted for the bill to burn [them] . . . ask
your master here, whose tool you are," he went on, pointing
to Turner, "if I state not the truth."

When Cassius made that accusation, Cyrus Turner, eldest
son of the candidate, stepped out of the crowd. Like every
body else, he had not understood the cryptic argument about
the school bonds, but he had heard Clay insult his father.
"You are a damned liar," Cyrus told Cassius, and struck him
in the face. Cassius then drew the bowie knife from beneath
his traveling robe, but Cyrus grabbed his arm so that he
could not use it. Clay s knife was wrested from him by an
unknown third party, and he slugged Cyrus Turner with
his fist, knocking him back into the crowd.

With Clay the victor in the first round, and everyone
confused about the origins of the fight, the tensions of the
campaign suddenly exploded into a free-for-all fight. Nearly
twenty relatives of Turner were present, and some of them
began to attack Clay. His friends joined the affray on his
side. One of the Turners had a heavy stick with which he
pounded Cassius upon the head and back. Someone plunged
a knife into his right side, and the blade went deep into his
chest. At the same time, another Turner held a six-barrelled
revolver at Clay s head and pulled the trigger three times
before a Clay partisan threw him under the speakers plat
form. Fortunately for Cassius, though the caps burst, the
powder did not ignite.

Thrashing and striking blindly at his antagonists, Cassius
espied his knife in someone s hand. He grabbed the blade in

Clay Attacks the Whigs 141

his hand and twisted it until he had retrieved it. In the process
he cut three of his fingers to the bone. Blinded by the blows,
short of breath because of the chest wound, and nearly over
come with pain, Cassius retreated. As soon as he had recov
ered his sight, he saw Cyrus Turner, whose blow had started
the fight. Knif e in hand, Cassius ran at him. Turner fell trying
to escape, and as he lay upon the ground Cassius struck
him a mighty blow in the abdomen and cut out his intestines.
Then the crowd closed in and stopped the violence. Clay,
who thought himself mortally wounded, dramatically shouted
that he had fallen in defense of popular liberties.

He and Turner were carried to a nearby house and put to
bed to await the arrival of physicians, while outside another
dozen combatants bandaged cuts and nursed bruises. Though
the campaign had suddenly erupted into war, the violence
had arisen out of a misunderstanding rather than a genuine
issue.

As he ky in the Foxtown bed, exhausted and in intense
pain, Cassius could hear Cyrus Turner groaning in an adjoin
ing bedroom. The first examination of the two men indicated
that Clay would die of his chest wound but that Turner
would live. The outcome was exactly the opposite; aften ten
hours of agony, Turner died. Though Cassius suffered
greatly, and all of his family expected him to succumb, he
eventually recovered. He carried the marks of the conflict to
his grave, and his chest pain never left him, but he gradually
regained his strength. Five weeks after the encounter he re
ported that he was slowly improving. His deeply religious
mother, who nursed him, marvelled at his recovery. "When
I think how often your life according to human apearance
[sic] was almost taken," she told him, "I wonder for what
purpose it is sustained." 17

Cassius might well have asked the same question, for the
"fatal rencontre" at Foxtown had an adverse effect upon the

142 Lion of White Hall

emancipationist cause in Kentucky and upon the Whigs who
were associated with it. The fight not only put Clay out of
the campaign, but it also aroused much opposition to emanci
pationists in general. Cyrus Turner became a martyr, Cassius
Clay was confirmed as a "damned nigger agitator," and "re
spectable" emancipationists would not be associated with so
distasteful an affair. The result was the complete defeat of
the gradual emancipationists. In Madison County, Squire
Turner and William Chenault were chosen as delegates to
the convention, while Burnam, the emancipationist, received
only 688 votes out of a total of over 3,700. But Madison
voters were not alone in rejecting the antislavery platform.
Not a single emancipation candidate won a seat in the con
stitutional convention. When the new constitution was writ
ten, therefore, the perpetualists were in command.

Breckinridge had been right. The emancipationists de
manded only the admission that the citizens had a right to
decide the matter of slavery, and when they lost, they lost
even that mild request. Cassius charged that the new con
stitution was an "infamous" document because it held that
the right of the slaveholder to his "slave and the increase"
was higher than any human or divine law. As the slave party
detested northern abolitionists for their "higher law" doc
trines, Cassius ridiculed the Kentucky Constitution of 1850
as supreme irony. 18

The overwhelming defeat in 1849 brought changes to the
emancipation forces in Kentucky; it was also a shock to the
Whig Party in the state. The moderates, many of whom were
Whigs, withdrew altogether and were willing to accept the
Democratic perpetualist program as the will of the majority.
Even Robert J. Breckinridge regarded the elections as final.
"Having proved myself faithful to my convictions," he ex
plained, "I shall now prove myself faithful to the Common
wealth." But Cassius Clay had long concluded that loyalty
to Kentucky s best interests demanded liberation of her

Clay Attacks the Whigs 143

slaves, and he determined to persist in his efforts. "Others fell
by the wayside," he recalled later. "I went on to the end."
Though cursed and threatened, he made plans for another
campaign. 19

As Clay once more undertook to prepare campaign strat
egy, he took as his objective the destruction of the Kentucky
Whigs. "My attack was mostly on the Whig Party bent on
its ruin;" he said later, "for, in our State it comprised a large
majority of the slave-holders." The Kentucky Emancipa
tionists, he announced, would offer candidates for the state
elections of 1851. While he did not anticipate victory, he
expected the diversion to defeat the Whigs and at the same
time to reveal the antislavery strength in the state. "I think
I shall get from 5 to 10 thousand votes, which will be a very
good nucleus for future action," he told William H. Seward.

Cassius brother-in-law, J. Speed Smith, who had served
as state senator from Madison County, feared that the cam
paign would cost Clay s life. "Cassius has determined to have
an emancipation candidate for Gov. and also one for Lieut.-
Gov.," he told Brutus. "I candidly believe, should Cassius be
a candidate for either station, the probability to be great that
he would be killed before the election." Smith added that
other Kentucky politicians concurred in that opinion. "There
is more . . . hatred felt towards him than he is aware of."
Cassius was but an "emancipationist upon high principles,"
said Smith, who knew him well, "but he is called and classed
and believed to be an abolitionist" 20

There was, however, a growing basis for the charge that
Clay had allied with northern abolitionists. More and more
he proclaimed that that struggle was national, and he exhorted
northerners to political action. "I am canvassing the State,"
he explained to some Free-Soilers in Maine, "with a view of
organizing an Anti-Slavery party in Kentucky." He declared
that the evil required a national remedy. "Of course it cannot
be an issue between North and South," he assured them, "but

144 Lion of White Hall

between the slaveholding aristocracy of the South, and the
large shipping merchants and cotton dealers of the North,
on the one hand, and the great non-slaveholding masses of
the whole Union on the other."

Clay contended that the struggle involved competing in
terests, not conflicting sections. He urged a political union of
the antislavery forces of both sections. "We must arouse our
selves at once, or we are lost. Such men as Webster and Dick-
enson 21 in the North are traitors to freedom; they must be
put down," he decreed. "In the South, the masters must learn
that Slave States are not made up only of masters and slaves
but that another class, the great white laboring masses,
must begin to be estimated in political calculations." He
claimed that a national antislavery party would soon appear.
"I think I see the elements of a truly national liberty party
brewing," he confided to William H. Seward. "The True
Democracy must be the name, since the Whigs have become
the guardians of slavery." 22

While he recognized the national aspects of the conflict,
Clay was more interested in the local problem, and he pre
pared anew to organize a party of "true progress" in Ken
tucky. Although he called a convention to nominate candi
dates for the Emancipation ticket, it never met. Before the
convention date, Cassius announced himself as the party s
gubernatorial candidate. He invited Dr. George D. Blakey
of Logan County to run as candidate for lieutenant-governor,
and the ticket was complete. In the 1849 elections Blakey
had been an Emancipation candidate and had come within
one hundred votes of victory in his county. As the Clay-
Blakey combination met the approval of the minuscule party,
there was no need for a convention. 23

The Kentucky Emancipationists met a mixed reception
when they announced their candidates. The Democrats, tak
ing the attitude that Cassius was still a Whig, were over
joyed at the prospect of a split in the opposition ranks. "Seeds

Clay Attacks the Whigs 145

of dissolution of the Whig party now ripen into harvest,"
one Democrat declared. But while Democrats encouraged
the new development, Whigs ridiculed Clay s candidacy. "He
is so perfectly harmless," a Whig editor remarked, "that his
pretentious can only be made respectable by violent opposi
tion. . . . We do not intend to make a grizzly out of a
bug bear." In their efforts to discredit Clay, Whig leaders
also enlisted the aid of the moderate emancipationists who
had served in the Frankfort convention of 1849. Several of
them complied, and published repudiations of Clay s party.
"We think all will oppose this ill-advised and indiscreet move
ment of a few hot-headed fanatics," one of them said. "We
deeply regret to see Col. Clay thus ranging himself alongside
of the vilest Disunionists of the North." 24

Undaunted by the partisan comment, Clay made plans for
an active campaign. His first concern was for a party press.
In Louisville, John C. Vaughan continued to publish the
Examiner, which Clay adopted as his party journal. But he
wanted a paper in central Kentucky. He paid six hundred
dollars to D. L. Elder, an itinerant printer, to publish a sheet
in Lexington, backing the Emancipation ticket. After print
ing three issues of The Progress of the Age, however, Elder
became frightened and fled. Unfortunately, he failed to re
fund Clay s money before he left the state. Despite Elder s
duplicity, Clay continued his efforts to establish an Emanci
pation press in the Bluegrass. He offered one thousand dollars
to anyone who would issue such a paper for three years, but
he found no takers. He did locate another antislavery paper
in Kentucky, however. In Newport, a Kentucky suburb of
Cincinnati, William S. Bailey, a poor machinist, was publish
ing the News, which supported Clay and Blakey. 25

With newspapers in Louisville and in Newport along the
Ohio River, the Emancipation candidates had to be content.
To reach the voters, they planned a strenuous speaking cam
paign. Clay s bold and tireless travel in the canvass of 1851

146 Lion of White Hall

became a part of the Clay legend. He appeared in about
eighty of Kentucky s one hundred counties, and Blakey
spoke in the others. It was widely circulated that at such
engagements Clay would place a Bible and a bowie knife be
fore him as guarantors of his right to speak, urging any who
would not respect the one to beware the other. On June 2 he
began his tour at Paint Lick Meeting House in Garrard
County, and he spoke nearly every day until August i . Many
times he was threatened, and sometimes, with characteristic
obstinacy, he spoke to completely empty rooms, but he kept
every appointment without trouble. 26

In his campaign speeches Cassius said little that was new.
He repeated his contention that the two older parties had
narrowed down to a single platform and no longer offered
a choice of principle; therefore, he suggested the Emancipation
Party as the party of opposition. He reiterated his time-worn
argument that the majority of Kentuckians had no economic
interest in slavery. He claimed that seven out of eight whites
" the people, in the language of the politicians . . . have
no interest in the ownership of these slaves. . . ." He repeated
his rejection of the religious approach. "I am not here as a
moralist," he told his hearers, "but as a politician;" he chose
to regard slavery, he said, "merely as a matter of dollars and
cents." He concluded with his familiar statistics purporting to
show the monetary cost of slavery to the state. "I think I have
made out my case," he proclaimed, "that slavery wars upon the
interests of the non-slaveholders of the State, the great major
ity of the people, and therefore ought to be overthrown!" Yet
he maintained his respect for legal processes. "I hold that . . .
the law is omnipotent," he said, and appealed for votes to bring
about emancipation. Cassius made a determined effort to con
vince non-slaveholders that gradual emancipation would im
prove their economic position. But they refused to heed his
arguments, and for fear, apathy, or prejudice, would not vote
against the slave-owners. 27

Clay Attacks the Whigs 147

When the campaign was over and the returns were in, how
ever, Clay was pleased to learn that he had been successful in
his war upon the Whigs. In an election which counted more
than 100,000 votes, the Democratic candidate, Lazarus W.
Powell, won with a slim margin of 850 votes. Clay received
only 3,621 ballots, but in such a close election the Emancipa
tionists held the balance and threw the victory to the Demo
crats. More significant than the few who voted for the Eman
cipation candidates were the thousands who did not vote at
all. Clay claimed that they registered a silent vote of dissatis
faction with the old parties, for, as the defeated Whigs them
selves quickly pointed out, the winners had made no real gain
in the election. In 1848, Powell had received 57,397 votes, but
had lost; in 1851, because so many from both parties did not
vote, he won with only 54,613, a decrease of nearly 3,000.
The causes of the Democratic victory, one Whig explained,
were the "indifference of the Whigs, some disaffection in re
gards to the candidate, and the diversion made by Cassius M.
Clay, whose vote would have made the Whigs win."

But Clay took full credit for the Whig defeat. Although he
received but three per cent of the total vote, it had been im
portant in the result. Years later he boasted that in the 1851
campaign he had destroyed the Whig organization. "Thus,
and forever, fell the Whig Party in Kentucky," he said. Under
that name it would not win another election in the state. 28

The election also brought about a change in Clay s tactics.
He was now convinced that victory would not come through
home action alone. After 1851, therefore, he no longer partici
pated in Kentucky politics as a candidate, but he maintained
an active, though small, antislavery party in the state. He had
come to regard the problem as national rather than sectional.
"I regard the liberation of my own state as the main object
of my life," he told his friend Chase. "At the same time I
feel that aid of public sentiment in the North is necessary to
success here, and would make any personal sacrifice to for-

148 Lion of White Hall

ward the great cause of liberty to all, North and South, for
it is at last one cause." 29

Northern compromisers were as inimical to his ambitions
as were the southern aristocrats. The growing antislavery
political movement in the free states became, accordingly,
more important to Clay, and in the decade of the iSjo s he
became increasingly involved in it. Perhaps, in a national
organization dedicated to the defeat of the slave power, he
would attain his goals.

CHAPTER XI

CLAY BECOMES A
REPUBLICAN

IHE election of 1851, which marked the defeat of the Ken
tucky Whig Party, was a turning point for Cassius Clay.
After years of constant agitation he was still far from his
goal, and he abandoned further serious efforts to win power
through state action. A new political development in the
North offered him the possibility of victory over slaveholders
on the national scene. In 1 848 the Free-Soil Party had shown
surprising strength by winning the balance of power in twelve
states and enabling Taylor to win. Taking as its motto "Free
Soil, Free Speech, and Free Men," the party platform declared
that the western territories ought to be free. Its vote in 1 848
convinced Clay that there was vitality in the Free-Soil pro
gram. After 1851, he participated in the northern movement,
seeking to become the leader of an uncompromising national
antislavery party.

Clay wasted no time in beginning his career as a northern
Free-Soiler. In September, 1851, less than a month after the
gubernatorial election, he met with leading northern anti-
slavery politicians in a national convention at Cleveland. "I
differ with your friends in many subordinate matters," he
told Ohio abolitionist Joshua R. Giddings, "but I am willing
to merge with them in the great question." The disappointing
results in Kentucky and the growth of Free-Soil sentiment

149

150 Lion of White Hall

helped Clay to overcome his scruples, and he took his first
step toward a political alliance with northerners. He moved
cautiously into political abolitionism, trying to placate his
Ohio friend Salmon P. Chase and his New York political ally
William H. Seward. "You lead me into unknown seas," he
joked to Chase. "Who shall pilot me out once more?" But
Clay resisted any effort to make him bear the burden of a
hopeless campaign. "Some have talked of nominating me vice
president at Cleveland . . . ," he told Chase. "I think as I
have been in the post of danger for long years, I should be
allowed to wait the tide of success, or hold the first place in
a forlorn hope. 5 " *

He was not overly disappointed, therefore, when a nomi
nating convention of the Free-Soil Party named Senator John
P. Hale of New Hampshire presidential candidate for 1852,
and decided upon George W. Julian of Indiana for vice-
president. Clay spoke in Kentucky on behalf of the Free-Soil
candidates, and he escorted Julian on a tour through the Ohio
River section of the state. Although they visited only border
areas where they expected support, the response was poor. At
one place the local rowdies, "low-bred tools," Cassius called
them, soiled the courtroom with excrement, and the cam
paigners were overpowered by the odor. Julian, who had not
lost his sense of humor, surveyed the smelly scene with dis
gust and said, "Well, we should not complain of the Slave-
Power; for this is the strongest argument they could have
presented! . . . The remarkable thing was that they did not
mob us."

Nor did Kentuckians cast their votes for Free-Soilers. The
party polled only 266 votes in the state. Clay s party had
ceased to exist as an effective organization, but he was un
dismayed. He expected his reward from another source, and
he renewed his efforts to attract a northern following. "The
cause of emancipation advances only with agitation," he coun
selled. "Let that cease, and despotism is complete." 2

Clay Becomes a Republican 151

To arouse northern voters to the evils of the slave system
was Clay s first task, but after the exciting debates of 1850 it
was difficult to maintain interest in the antislavery crusade.
Many northern citizens despised the erratic, inflammatory
abolitionist agitators, and preferred to consider the matter
settled. The problem Clay, in common with other Free-Soilers,
faced was keeping open the discussion of slavery. To attract
audiences, party leaders resorted to the unusual: escaped slave
Frederick Douglass, an intelligent and forceful speaker; and
reformed slave-owner, Cassius M. Clay, a popular lecturer.
That northerners could be aroused to the evils of slavery was
indicated by the spectacular success of Harriet Beecher Stowe s
celebrated novel, Uncle Tom s Cabin. "Agitation then ought
not to cease," Clay advised. " Uncle Torn proves that there
is vitality in it!" He commended Mrs. Stowe s accuracy, and
added, "For one case of Legreeism/ I ll show you a dozen of
infinitely exceeding horror!" Clay, who proclaimed himself
an expert on things southern, found that the sadistic, rather
than the statistic, influenced his hearers. 3

Unusual speakers to attract the curious, and sentimental
novels to affect the imaginative, helped awaken interest in the
threat of slavery, but an even greater service came from
Stephen A. Douglas, a young, ambitious senator from Illinois.
The "Little Giant" dreamed of a transcontinental railway
whose eastern terminal would be his home town, Chicago
and for this reason, among others, he was concerned about
western territorial organization.

The route west from Lake Michigan ran through a vast
unorganized area still subject to Indian raids. To make his
plan feasible, Douglas needed a territorial government for that
section of the Louisiana Purchase, and needed also the pro
tection of the United States Army. The canny senator realized
that his southern colleagues, who had railway schemes of their
own, would resist an agreement to aid a competitive route un
less they received some concession. Douglas suggested, there-

152 Lion of White Hall

fore, that the Compromise of 1850, which had permitted New
Mexico and Utah to decide for themselves whether they should
become free or slave territories, had in fact repealed the Mis
souri Compromise of 1820. The Kansas and Nebraska terri
tories, although they were in that part of the Louisiana Pur
chase closed to slavery by the 1820 agreement, ought to have
the same right to choose for themselves. The Illinois senator
thus appealed to the popular sovereignty sentiments of west
erners as well as to the proslavery prejudices of southerners.

Because it posed the threat of a new expansion of slavery,
the scheme aroused an immediate reaction from the antislavery
forces. The repeal of the "time-honored" Missouri Compro
mise, Clay recalled, aroused an "alarm and indignation in the
Nation which was never before witnessed." It demonstrated,
he said, his oft-repeated contention that "there could be no
compromise between Liberty and Slavery." Clay toured the
Midwest to take advantage of the popular discontent and to
assist in Douglas defeat. He invited those "in favor of Repub
licanism and against the Divine right of Kings" to join him
in opposing the Nebraska bill. "It is not a duty to form a
crusade against the South for moral reformation, so long as
Slavery is confined to its own ground," he said; "but when
it proposes ... to become aggressive, to go into free terri
tories, then I will stigmatize it." Clay had taken another
broad step toward the North; he had adopted the Free-
Soil platform. He still did not like that name, however. "I have
not advised a change of name, though I feel very indifferent
about it," he told Chase. "The name of Republican adopted in
several states is significant." 4

Clay s journey through the Midwest was but the prelude to
an intensive speaking tour which carried him all over the
North. As a professional lecturer, he received fifty dollars a
speech for his anti-Nebraska views. "In my humble way of
nightly lectures, mostly on the despotism of slavery, I trust

Clay Becomes a Republican 153

I am doing good service in the common cause," he explained.
"My audiences are overflowing and enthusiastic. 7 He em
ployed bitter ridicule and sarcastic taunts to arouse his hearers
to action. The system of slavery, he repeated, destroyed not
only the "liberty of the colored, but of the white population;
and not only of the white population of the Slave States, but
also of the Free States." Clay bemoaned the condition of civil
liberties in the South and then sarcastically demanded, "How
much better off are the people of the North? They have not
the right of speech in Congress, nor of petition." Using argu
ments he had stereotyped in the Kentucky hustings, Clay
asserted that northerners were victims, along with southerners,
of an antirepublican despotism. Yankees were "bloodhounds
for the South, on all the territory where their four-footed
bloodhounds dared not venture." The political lesson he taught
was clear. "I can not see how Northern freemen can unite
themselves with the Democracy," he lectured. "The Democ
racy has always had a stronghold in South Carolina, the least
Democratic of all the States*" To further his own ambitions,
and to bring about certain public benefits he confidently an
ticipated, Clay sought to discredit a national party, the Demo
cratic, in order to enhance a sectional party, the Free-Soil-
Republican. 5

While he was trying to arouse northerners to resist the slave
owners, in Kentucky he set them an example by continuing
his belligerence. In the summer of 1855, a Lincoln County
group suppressed Clay s colleague, John G. Fee. Fee, a tiny,
wizened man with straggling whiskers, was a native Ken-
tuckian who had graduated from Cincinnati s Lane Seminary,
where he had imbibed an antislavery religion. Upon his return
to the state he became minister of churches which forbade
membership to slave-owners. Clay invited Fee to Madison
County and provided land upon which the little man estab
lished a "higher law" church and a school which became

154 Lion of White Hall

Berea College. Fee denied the legality of slavery, and on
religious grounds refused to recognize it. Though his preach
ments aroused fierce resentment, Fee was a non-resister. 6

Clay was no pacifist, but boasted that he was a "fighting
Christian." When an audience prevented Fee from speaking
in Lincoln County, Cassius promptly assembled a company of
armed ruffians and traveled to the scene of the dispute. Dra
matically he announced that he would speak there, freely if
possible, "by force" if necessary. He argued that the principle
of free speech was at issue, and he intended to defend it.
Guarded by the private army, Clay finished his address with
out trouble and proclaimed that he had once more established
freedom of speech in Kentucky. Repelled by his show of
force, however, his critics alleged that he had trampled upon
as much freedom as he had rescued. His gang, according to a
report from Lincoln County, was "armed to the teeth" with
firearms and butcher knives, and was as much a mob as those
he opposed. But Cassius seemed unaware that his strong-arm
methods rendered him unpopular, and he used the incident
to prove his contention that resistance brought results. "The
mob party," he said (speaking of the slaveholders), "quailed
before manly resistance." But forceful opposition in slave
states was not enough, he declared. "If the North gives way
on the Kansas conquest, I and our party will be destroyed,"
he predicted; "if they keep up a manly opposition, I think
we will come out victorious." 7

Clay had become a Republican, and he entrusted his am
bitions to the northern party. "I am cheered that I find myself
in sympathy with the great minds and heroic hearts of the
Nation," he said. "All hail, the North! all hail, the Republi
can Party." Proclaiming a new political allegiance, Clay
worked to make the party an antislavery instrument. "Our
only salvation, because the only true repentance," he exhorted,
"is in making the overthrow of slavery our dominant idea."

Clay Becomes a Republican 155

The party must face slavery, he suggested, "not compromis-
ingly, . . . but with a ... fanaticism of will." Clay de
manded that his northern allies stand firm against his per
sonal enemies, as he had done, regardless of the consequences.
"I am for no Union without Liberty," he asserted, "if need
be through dissolution and war." Already he had accepted
the idea that war was inevitable. "We shall not have a peace
ful triumph," he advised party members. And to a friend in
Kansas he said, "You will have to fight again or be subjected.
Mark what I tell you. Unless you are prepared to repel force
from slaveholders, you will never have peace. I have tried
them for twenty years. They have no magnanimity, no re
morse, no mercy!" 8

Clay s implacable opposition to slavery influenced the or
ganization of the new Republican Party. In February, 1856,
in a special convention at Pittsburgh, the national party was
born. Some of the organizers, led by Missouri s Francis P.
Blair, counseled moderation and a spirit of compromise toward
slaveholders. Governor Kinsley S. Bingham of Michigan was
the leader of the irreconcilables. To counter Blair s testimony,
Bingham read a letter from Cassius Clay. After hearing Clay s
words, the delegates adopted a stronger antislavery resolution
than they had planned. George W. Julian, one of the dele
gates, said that the "impassioned and powerful arraignment of
slavery by a Southern man [performed an] excellent service
in guiding and inspiring the great party." Clay s efforts to
enlist the aid of a northern party in his war with slave-owners
was nearing success, and influential Republicans pledged
themselves to him. "I understand Vaughan of the Chi: Tribune
is out for Fremont," he told Chase. "If so, he has violated his
pledge to me, to bring out my name . . . backed by a con
certed movement from Illinois! " But he could still claim that
he had never canvassed support. "With regard to myself, I
have not been a candidate for either office," he said to Chase
after the Republican nominating convention of 1856. "I

156 Lion of White Hall

have never asked a man on earth to go for me; and I don t
know that I ever shall, unless I clearly change my mind." 9

Clay was encouraged at the prospects for the new party,
but his private affairs were not so happy. The prewar decade
marked the nadir of his financial difficulties. In an effort to
raise money he had resorted to drastic measures, such as
speculation in pork and land. Having been unsuccessful with
his own finances, in 1854 he set himself up to manage other
people s money. On November 8, he announced the opening
of the firm of Cassius M. Clay and Company, Bankers, at
Number 59, Third Street, Cincinnati. But on the very day he
opened his business, a severe bank crisis forced the leading
banks of the city to suspend specie payments. Once more
Clay s bad luck had followed him. The depression and the
ensuing scarcity of specie doomed his enterprise, and three
months after its opening the firm dissolved. 10

And his financial troubles continued to mount. A sharp
decline in prices upset his speculative business in pork, and
in 1856 he announced his financial failure. He made an assign
ment of his entire assets, which his assignees offered at a public
sale to settle his accounts. "I am sorry to tell you that I am
broken, and have mortgaged my effects," he sadly informed
a friend. "I am low in spirits, and we are arranging our furni
ture for a sale." On April 15, 1856, he held an auction at
White Hall and watched his prized possessions go under the
hammer. There were large French mirrors; a collection of
fine paintings; several pieces of marble statuary; assorted
musical instruments; and a library of over five hundred vol
umes, including works of history, biography, law, philosophy,
travel, and belles-lettres. Clay s mother and brother bought
much of the property and then allowed him to use it, so the
sale transferred his debt to his family. 11

As his household furnishings indicated, Clay lived luxuri
ously. Accustomed to the life of the southern landed aristoc-

Clay Becomes a Republican 157

racy, he was a bon vivant and a patron of the arts. He enjoyed
a hunting or fishing trip and delighted in good-fellowship and
conviviality. He was well acquainted with many outstanding
literary and artistic personalities of his day men like the
visiting Norwegian musician, Ole Bull, the New England
essayist and lecturer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the noted
educator, Horace Mann. Clay was also interested in Kentucky
artists; he subsidized Joel T. Hart, who became the state s most
famous sculptor.

Along with his outside interests, Clay had a growing family
to care for. He and Mary Jane had added to their family: in
the early 1850*5, two daughters, Laura and Annie, were born.
He was away from home much of the time on lecture tours
and business trips, and he complained that his children did
not really know him. His financial collapse in 1856 placed
severe strains upon his family ties. When a friend offered to
send a photograph of Clay, the despondent man replied, "Mrs.
C. is not much in love with my face no*w, so you had better not
perhaps send the portrait." **

It was with his wife s family, however, that he had the most
serious quarrel. He was angry that none of the Warfields had
come to assist him in his monetary difficulties. "Some friends
deserted me, others stood up nobly," he told Chase. "My
father in law, who is very wealthy, and who has never made
me any advances, meanly left me, as he supposed, to ruin and
the streets! He never came near me on sale day. Nor will I
ever care to see him again!" 13

Clay lived a full life, but it was as political agitator that he
was most widely known. He allowed neither his personal
affairs nor his family problems to keep him out of Republican
Party activities. After 1856, his ambitions for public office
became more obvious and more insistent. In that year he in
directly sought a nomination at the national Republican con
vention. Before party members assembled he advised them

158 Lion of White Hall

that they should choose candidates who would not compro
mise the slavery issue. "Let that candidate," he said, "whether
[Thomas Hart] Benton, [William EL] Seward, or [John P.]
Hale, or any other good citizen, be chosen without regard to
his locality in a Free or Slave State." Clay s activities indi
cated that he considered himself eminently available, but once
more he went unrewarded. In the selection of a vice-presi
dential candidate, in which an unknown from Illinois, Abra
ham Lincoln, showed surprising strength, Clay received a few
complimentary votes, but the nominations went to John C
Fremont and W. L. Dayton. 14

Clay, like his friends Seward and Chase, swallowed his dis
appointment at not being nominated. Although he was not
a candidate, he played an enthusiastic part in the campaign.
In Kentucky his skeleton party put up a slate of electors and
made the motions of conducting a campaign, but Clay was
more interested in keeping alive the belief that he had a Ken
tucky Republican following than in any real anticipation of
victory.

As in 1852, Clay s major effort was in the free states,
where he made numerous appearances. Again he tried to in
sult his hearers into antisouthern action. Commenting upon the
caning of Senator Charles Sumner by a young South Carolina
congressman, Clay alleged that southerners made such attacks
because "they believed the North lacked courage." He said
that when he spoke in Kentucky about the growing anti-
southern sentiment in the North, his neighbors always replied,

"We don t care a d d, we have bought your doughfaces

and can buy them again." His main theme, as it had been
earlier, was to urge northerners to stop "acquiescing in [south
ern] aggressions," and to resist slave expansion. 15

Great crowds gathered to hear Clay s militant antislavery
speeches, and many listeners professed that he had converted
them. "Clay s arguments, based upon personal experiences as
they were," one hearer said, "had a strong effect in strengthen-

Clay Becomes a Republican 159

ing the determination that Slavery s curse shall not be extended
over free soil." And in an Indiana community an old man
staged a convincing bit of political histrionics. Wearing a
Buchanan badge, he attended a Clay rally. After Clay s fiery
speech he tore the button from his hat and loudly recanted
his past sins. Republican leaders missed no chance to drama
tize popular resentment against the extension of slavery into
the territories. The enthusiastic reception encouraged Clay.
"Things look well everywhere; we will imn now!" he exulted
to Chase. "Indiana certain." 16

To Clay, however, the most important feature of the 1856
campaign, as he reviewed it in later years, was his first en
counter with Abraham Lincoln, the man who would mean so
much to him and to the nation in the coining crisis. During
the campaign Clay spoke at an outdoor political rally in Spring
field, Illinois. As he spoke, Lincoln sat under a nearby tree,
whittling thoughtfully on a stick as he listened to the speech.
When Gay finished, Lincoln slowly arose and commended
him.

Since Clay s name had become a household word after the
suppression of The True American, Lincoln had followed his
career through the Lexington newspapers which Mrs. Lincoln
received. This was the first meeting of the two men, but it
was not to be the last. Shortly after the Springfield rally, Clay
met Lincoln on a train as they journeyed to speaking engage
ments. As he remembered it, Clay made use of the opportunity
to "convert" the tall Illinois man to his antislavery opinions.
Lincoln listened to Clay without saying anything himself.
Then, when Clay had finished, Lincoln, perhaps with comic
gravity, replied, "Yes, I always thought, Mr. Clay, that the
man who made the corn should eat the corn." Enthusiastically,
Clay congratulated himself upon a great victory. But as events
were to prove, Lincoln was far too astute a man to follow an
erratic extremist like Clay. 17

160 Lion of White Hall

Clay spoke effectively in many midwestern towns, but he
saved his most polished oratory for an audience in New York
City. Addressing the Young Men s Republican Central Com
mittee in the Tabernacle, he made a determined bid for the
support of that influential group. As a background for his
claim to high office, Clay reviewed his entire war upon
slavery. In his customary garb of dark suit with brass buttons
and with a face serious under his dark hair (now showing
streaks of gray), he was a memorable figure as he reiterated
his familiar contention that slavery prevented southern eco
nomic expansion. Once again he was a spokesman for southern
manufactures, but it was the measure of his failure that he now
preached to New Yorkers.

There were, in the South, ample resources of power and
minerals for an industrial economy. "We, have taken Man, and
subjected him to our will," he told his metropolitan audience;
"you have . . . seized upon the elements upon steam, upon
water-power upon chemistry, upon electricity . . . and
made them your omnipotent slaves." The same results would
be achieved in the South, he said, but for the emphasis upon
the slave-worked agriculture. In western Virginia and in
eastern Kentucky, "coal, and iron, and marble, and other
minerals of unequalled value," were readily available, but re
mained untouched. "There is the Blue Ridge penetrating the
clouds and pouring down perennial streams of water-power,"
Clay asserted; but he declared that it was wasted in a section
"without manufactures sufficient to clothe her half-naked
slaves." If southerners would harness that power, the whole
of southern economy would prosper, he promised. "Without
manufactures and mining there is no commerce, and with the
finest harbors in the world, there is not a ship upon her
stocks, nor a sail unfurled." 18

Yet in the face of such arguments, he continued, southerners
would not forego their preference for cotton. In the South,
whenever he presented his plea for manufactures, he said, his
hearers always "cut short the argument by lustily crying out

Clay Becomes a Republican 161

at the top of their voices: O! cotton is King! On the con
trary," Clay shouted, "I proclaim that grass is fang!" As
evidence, he compared the value of the cotton crop with that
of hay, as given in the census returns, and reported his finding
that hay was of much greater value.

The argument that cotton brought a monetary return be
cause it entered foreign trade Clay also denied. "If you were
to blot out the whole foreign trade in cotton, the country
. . . would be much the gainer, in domestic industry, in home
manufactures, home labor, and a home market for ourselves,"
he asserted. For twenty years he had explained southern tech
nological backwardness in terms of its slave labor system.
Now, as a Republican, he tried to persuade northern voters to
share his enmity toward the defenders of slavery.

Sarcastically he described the poor state of southern in
dustry: "In vain do men go to Nashville, and to Knoxville,
and to Memphis, and Charleston, in their annual farce of
southern commercial conventions to build up Southern com
merce, and to break down the abolition cities Philadelphia,
Boston, and New York. The orator rises upon a northern-
made carpet; clothed cap-a-pie in northern fabrics, and offers
his resolutions written upon northern paper with a northern
pen, and returns to his home on a northern car; and being
killed, is put into a northern shroud, and buried in a northern
coffin, and his funeral preached from a text from a northern
hymn-book, set to northern music. And they resolve and re
solve, and forthwith there s not another ton of shipping built,
or added to the manufactures of the South, and yet these men
are not fools! They never invite such men as I to their con
ventions, because I would tell them that slavery was the cause
of their poverty, and that it is free labor which they
need. . . ." 19

Clay s New York speech brought high praise and won him
several friends who campaigned for him prior to the 1860
convention, but it had little effect upon the current election.

162 Lion of White Hall

Buchanan and the Democrats won the South as well as the
northern states of Illinois, Indiana (despite Clay s confidence
there), and Pennsylvania, which would accordingly become,
in 1860, the prime targets of the Republicans. But though he
lost, Fremont did surprisingly well. He polled 1,300,000 votes
and very nearly united the North and West against the South.
The election revealed party alignments which approached a
division along the Mason-Dixon line and thus foreshadowed
the election of 1860. Kentucky cast her first Democratic elec
toral votes since the "recognition of parties," demonstrating
southern sectional loyalties. Clay s Kentucky Republican Party
registered no gain at all. In a total vote of over 100,000, Re
publican electors received only 300 votes. To Cassius Clay,
the election of 1856 showed clearly that he must look north
ward for the fulfillment of his ambitions. 20

Clay s party did not offer candidates in 1858; and in the
following year, although he made no campaign, Clay received
one vote for governor. That, his opponents chortled, was the
measure of the Kentucky Republican Party. Clay angrily re
sponded that the party might not be numerous enough to
meet the "wide vision * of its critics, "but it is large enough
to stand by all its convictions, and defend its rights, whenever
with speech, the pen, or the sword, it is attacked by despots! " 21

Although his Kentucky following had withered away under
the glare of the sectional controversy, Clay s fierce ambition
would not let him admit defeat. In the years before 1860, he
dropped hints about the "mistake" of having no southern man
on the ticket, and about his own availability. "There was a
great error in having both men North of Mason s and Dixon s
line it gave our enemies the vantage ground just where we
were weakest," he counseled Chase. "I don t say this on my
own account, because I did not desire a nomination, when
success was doubtful." But he anticipated victory in the next
election, as he told Seward: "I think that it will be the grossest

Clay Becomes a Republican 163

mismanagement on our part if we do not carry our candidate
with ease in 60, whoever he may be." For that reason, he
earnestly desired a place on the ticket. "We must have one
candidate of the two, this next canvass, South of the line."

He expected no support from the slave states. "We can
hardly hope for an electoral vote in the South," he said in an
1858 estimate to Seward. "We might get Maryland or Ken
tucky in certain emergencies, 5 he went on, "but in such case
the slavery question the only question outside of the ins
and outs , would be ignored*" Twenty years of fruitless agita
tion had convinced Clay that political victory over slavery was
unlikely in the South. "The battle is to be fought by the free
states: and their views should be kept always foremost."
Hoping for political reward from the North, he continued to
make suggestions about the coming nominations. "Our policy
then seems to be to sustain our old platform rigidly, put up a
representative man in 60, and fight upon our principles un
committed to any compromise" he advised Chase. 22

As the crucial year approached, Clay renewed his efforts to
obtain a nomination. His friends worked to secure him con
tacts and speaking dates and wrote to influential party men
for him. Clay began his campaign in January, 1860, with a
bold speech from the steps of the State Capitol in Frankfort.
Because the building was closed to him, he spoke outside in
darkness and drizzling rain to several hundred patient listen
ers. Though he spoke under unusual handicaps, the speech
was one of his best. For three hours he held his audience
through a complete exposition of all current political issues,
from the recent uproar over John Brown s raid into Virginia
to a list of seventeen charges against the Democratic Party.
It was an able defense of Republican principles delivered in
the heart of a slave state, and it attracted wide interest. Over
two hundred thousand copies of it were distributed as a cam
paign document. 23

A month later, on February 1 5, Clay spoke in Cooper Union

164 Lion of White Hall

and became more obviously a candidate. The secretary of the
New York Young Men s Republican Union organized a series
of meetings which would bring political aspirants before
metropolitan voters. "Confidentially, I say frankly," he told
Cassius, "the whole thing is intended by me as a Clay demon
stration." He gave Clay a favored spot in the program and
offered him an unusual opportunity to win support. When
Clay stood before the crowded New York hall, he spoke with
more candor than usual. The party had no intention of harm
ing slavery in the states, he told the slaveless New Yorkers.
"The North simply intends to take the reins of Government
into their own hands." Republicans opposed slave expansion,
he said, not for any moral sentiment, but for the more practi
cal reason that they "knew they could sell more to Free States
than they could to Slave States."

Clay repeated his contention that the situation required a
firm, unyielding leader who understood southerners, and he
frankly declared that he was the man. He had fought south
erners for twenty years, he boasted. "They can t drive me
out, gentlemen ... it is not safe to put down Cash Clay!"
Northerners, however, were afraid of the South and had sur
rendered too easily. "Put me at the head of the United States,"
he challenged, "and I will whip them." Clay pretended surprise
at the applause which followed. "Why, you seem to be really
in earnest about it," he said. At that, a Clay supporter yelled,
"All in favor of Mr. Clay being the nominee for the next
Presidency, please say Aye, " and the hall resounded with
shouts. But Clay would learn that New Yorkers would have
little voice in the nomination. The next speaker on the Cooper
Institute program was a tall man from Illinois, Abraham
Lincoln. 24

Quite pleased with the reception in New York and his
seemingly bright future, Clay returned to Kentucky, where he
again openly avowed his ambitions. On a Lexington street he

Clay Becomes a Republican 165

met Leslie Combs, an old-time Whig and one of Henry Clay s
chief lieutenants. Pounding Combs on the back, Clay told
him, "You can make me President, if you will." Combs, an
influential Kentucky Unionist, promptly responded that he
was "dead against" the Democrats who currently ruled Ken
tucky with a "rod of iron," but that he was "equally opposed
to abolitionists if you are one." Clay assured Combs that he
had always favored legal means of emancipation, and he offered
to send Combs a copy of the Frankfort speech which ex
plained his position. 25

Encouraged by many tokens of his popularity, Clay made
an effort to secure the support of New York s political manip
ulator, Thurlow Weed. He stated that William H. Seward
was his first choice for the nomination, but if "newcomers"
were to enter the balloting, then he would enter the race
himself. To Weed he wrote:

There is a widespread and increasing belief that in that event I will
be chosen for these reasons:

1. I am a Southern man, and the cry about sectionalism will be
silenced.

2. I am a tariff man: and Pa. must be consulted in that.

3. I am popular with the Germans everywhere, and not offensive
to the Americans [by which he meant citizens of other national ori
gins].

4. I have served the party longer than any other man without con
temporary reward as others have had.

5. There are elements in my history which will arouse popular
enthusiasm and insure without jail success.

6. That I will form a Southern wing to the party which is necessary
to a safe administration of the government, and thus put down all
hopes of disunion.

He could list other attributes, the ambitious Clay went on,
but these, he reasoned, should be sufficient. "I think I am the
second choice of all the c old line candidates 7 friends," he
concluded. 26

Despite Clay s unblushing effort to secure the support of the

1(56 Lion of White Hall

party whip, the delegates at the nominating convention over
looked him. When a combination of minority groups united
to defeat Seward in the Chicago session, they also ruined
Clay s chances for second place. Abraham Lincoln, the vic
torious nominee, was, like Clay, a native Kentuckian with a
Whig background, and the politicians needed a more balanced
ticket. For their vice-presidential candidate, therefore, they
chose a man from New England with a Democratic back
ground. On the first ballot for the vice-presidential nomi
nation, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine received 194 votes and Clay
got 101%. But on the second vote Hamlin won enough of the
favorite-son votes to secure the nomination. As soon as the
outcome was evident, George D. Blakey, Clay s lieutenant on
the floor, arose and moved that the nomination be made
unanimous. As a consolation to Clay, the delegates dutifully
oifered him three cheers. 27

Clay s aspirations were once again frustrated, and his failure
was not solely due to the turn of the political wheel. Because
he had identified himself as the spokesman for southern in
dustry, his appeal was severely localized. In 1856, in his New
York Tabernacle speech, his main theme had been the indus
trialization of the South through the exploitation of mountain
resources and the defeat of slavepower. Again, in 1860, at
the Cooper Institute, the only program he had to offer was
firm leadership to "whip" the southerners. So closely had he
associated himself with the needs of a backward region that
he had little to offer as a national candidate. He had no positive
program for residents of free states other than resistance to
slave expansion. His militant strictures against southerners
made him unacceptable to moderates on either side of the
Ohio River. The weakness of Cassius Clay s program was that
it was regional, not national; even worse, his belligerent ex
hortations urging war made him a liability to the party. Clay
wanted to make the Republican organization what southern

Clay Recomes a Republican 167

fire-eaters termed it: a declaration of war against the South.
Though Clay s defeat disappointed him, he hid his grief. He
congratulated Lincoln upon the nomination, but added that
"the mistake of putting no Southern man on the ticket will
weaken our efforts in the Cause here immensely." Cassius Clay
had no intention of abandoning his hopes; he was too ambitious
to sulk in his tent. "We must with a good grace submit," he
told Lincoln. Clay s strength at Chicago had not been sufficient
to win a nomination; nevertheless, he had polled a respectable
vote. If he participated in a victorious campaign, he might
yet attain high office. 28

CHAPTER XII

REWARD
FOR AN AMBITIOUS MAN

YVELL, you have cleared us all out! " Cassius Clay ex
claimed to Abraham Lincoln after the Chicago Republican
Convention. To hide his disappointment, Clay pretended that
he had not really wanted the nomination. "I did not at all press
my claim now" he said, and he denied any desire for the vice-
presidency. "I may say," he confided to his friend, Ohio s
Senator Salmon P. Chase, "that I was indifferent as to being
the 2nd candidate." And to New York s unhappy Seward,
Clay sang a similar tune: "I cared nothing for the vice Presi
dency, it being a switch off so far as future promotion is
concerned." Despite his disavowals of political aspirations in
1860, Clay made no effort to hide his hope for future pro
motion. "Next time my friends will press me for the first
post with earnest hopes of triumph," he said. Until then, he
needed a place of prominence which would afford him an
opportunity to demonstrate his abilities and win public sup
port. With that objective in mind, Clay would use any pre
text which might influence Republican leaders. 1

From the first, he offered the plea that his long years of
service to the party entitled him to a place of prominence in
it. He was a charter member of the Republican Party, he
pointed out. Indeed he had served the cause long before there
was a party bearing that name, and he often grumbled to party

168

Reward for an Ambitious Man 169

leaders that he had labored longer without reward than any of
them. But once more he offered his services for the campaign.
In accepting his help, Lincoln responded in words which the
overeager Clay interpreted as the promise of a place in the
cabinet: "I shall in the canvass, and especially afterwards, if
the results shall devolve the administration upon me, need the
support of all the talent, popularity, and courage, North and
South, which is in the party. . . ." Office-hungry, Clay saw
in that routine remark the promise that he would not be for
gotten should the party win the election. 2

But before any Republican could receive his share of the
spoils, the party must win in the forthcoming contest. The
problem was simply stated: Republicans must win over to
their cause enough Democrats in key northern states, and must
continue to hold their 1856 gains. Kentucky was not essential
to the victory, so Clay s campaign in his own state was per
functory. There he characterized Lincoln as a local product
a "one-gallows barefoot boy."

Clay did not remain long among his neighbors. After open
ing his speaking tour in Louisville, he spent most of his time
north of the Ohio River. Indiana, one of the few non-slave
states which had resisted the Republican tide four years earlier,
was now a prime target of the party. A local politician in
vited Clay into the southern part of the Hoosier State to as
sure voters of Republican conservatism. "The people in that
portion of the state have been taught by the Democracy that
you and every prominent Republican desires the immediate
abolition of slavery and the elevation of the negro to an im
mediate social and political equality with the whites!" he told
Clay. Clay s task was to counter that allegation, which, to a
man of his marked prejudices against the Negro, required no
subterfuge. It was one of the rare occasions when he was
summoned to defend a conservative position. 3

In Indiana, Clay s rallies included typical campaign trap-

170 Lion of White Hall

pings: cannons, torch-parades, wigwams, split logs. Republican
campaign managers understood full well how to make the
most of an attraction like Cassius Clay. When he appeared,
the "Lincoln and Hamlin" banners shared attention with
others declaring "day, the Champion of Free Speech, Wel
come!" Along with the side-show atmosphere went Clay s
two-hour-long speeches, happily spiced with witty extempo
raneous banter. He was serious, however, when he denied any
sympathy with radical abolitionism, and he whitewashed the
party s position on slavery. Tirelessly he worked to convert
skeptical Democrats into loyal Republicans. His hair now
gray and his pale face beginning to reveal a florid tint, Clay
grew weary long before his one hundred personal appearances
were over. He was glad when his schedule was completed and
he could return to White Hall to recuperate. 4

The Republican victory pleased Clay, and because Indiana
did vote for Lincoln, he expected his labors to bring their
reward. But as weeks passed without word from Springfield,
he became concerned. Perhaps the Lincoln coterie did not
fully appreciate his years of unrequited struggle. "For twenty
years I have been in exile for principle s sake," he reminded
his friend Chase. "Now when those to whose magnanimity I
trusted my all, have come into power, they propose to ignore

me!"

Quietly he prompted his friends to speak up on his behalf,
many of them wrote to Lincoln about Clay s heroic
services. An Illinois voter suggested that Clay should receive
the war secretaryship because of his understanding of the
southern temper, and a Kentucky mountaineer praised Clay s
unending struggle against the proslavery forces. "Thar is no
man that done more and sacrfised more than Mr. Clay for
the Republican Party," he scrawled. "Thar is a grate many of
our Enemies would rejoice if Mr. Clay is passed by and they
will bring everything to bair aggainst him in their power." 5

Reward for an Ambitious Man 111

As the mountaineer suspected, Clay s enemies were akeady
at work to foil his ambitions. Kentucky conservatives, who
had opposed Clay s unconventional career from the first, were
frightened by the prospect of a national administration with
him in a prominent position. On November 16, their spokes
man, the aging Daniel Breck, journeyed to Springfield to con
sult with the President-elect. Breck was an old-line Whig
with whom Cassius had worked in 1840, and he had married
an aunt of Mrs. Lincoln; he was, therefore, a well-chosen
representative of Kentucky moderates.

The old man advised the President-elect that, to save the
Union in the mounting wave of secession-fever, he should
surround himself with conservative men. One or more of his
cabinet, Breck insisted, should be southern non-Republicans.
If Lincoln followed such a course, the Kentuckian assured him,
then his native state would remain in the Union. But, Breck
warned, if the President-elect should choose an "obnoxious"
man, like Cassius M. Clay, Kentuckians would regard it as a
"declaration of war against the state." 6

Patiently, Lincoln heard Breck for two hours before making
a direct response. Then, when the old Judge had finished his
plea for a cosmopolitan cabinet of moderate northerners and
proslavery southerners as the price of union, Lincoln slowly
replied, "Does any man think that I will take to my bosom
an enemy?" Though he thus rejected Breck s request for
putting anti-Republicans in the cabinet, the President-elect
accepted the Kentuckian s estimate of public sentiment con
cerning Cassius M. Clay. Clay s consistent pugnacity had as
sociated him with the radical wing of the party and rendered
him unacceptable as a member of the administration. At a time
when the South was seething with confused fears, Clay was
not the southern man Lincoln wanted for his cabinet. 7

Unaware that his forthright militancy had doomed his as
pirations, Clay continued to issue warlike threats to defeated
southerners as though he were the party s policy-maker. He

172 Lion of White Hall

acted as if, being a southerner himself, he had to be more
rabidly anrisouthern than were northerners, if he would win
their confidence and their patronage. Clay declared that it
was the duty of northerners to coerce the seceding cotton
states back into the Union. "Every man of sense sees that civil
war would be better than eternal war which would be the
result of a divided nation," he thundered. But though he dem
onstrated his devotion to the Union by stern denunciation of
southern political activity, still Clay received no offer from
Lincoln. The vexing silence from Springfield perturbed him,
and his plaints became querulous. 8

Finally, on January 10, 1861, Clay could stand the strain
no longer. Swallowing his pride, he wrote a long letter to
the President-elect, angrily demanding consideration. He re
viewed his extended struggle against slavery and against the
slave party and claimed a cabinet post on the basis of it. "In
the success of the party, which you represent, I did feel that
my long though humble services, did entitle me to a portion
of the controlling interest in the administration of its destiny,"
he informed Lincoln. To refute Daniel Breck s charges, Clay
protested that no other southern Republican would give more
confidence to the administration. He lost his temper when he
censured Lincoln for readily accepting Breck s analysis of
Kentucky sentiment. "If I was fit for the place then I should
have been judged only by my own merits and your individual
feelings, nothing should have been yielded to clamor," he
urged, "nothing to a -false policy . . . which offers the re
wards of triumph as a premium to meanness of spirit, indif
ference to principle, and personal cowardice!" Then, more
calmly, Clay dropped the hint that he would accept a foreign
ministry, though only to England or France. 9

But his frantic efforts were to no avail. Because of Clay s
taint of radical abolitionism, Lincoln had already decided
against appointing him to the cabinet. Moreover, Kentucky

Reward for an Ambitious Man 173

was essential to Lincoln s Union-saving schemes, and he would
take no step which might alienate her people. In the opinions
of those who directed the newly elected party, Clay was too
dangerous. His old friend, Missouri Congressman James S.
Rollins who had been best man in his wedding, and his
representative in the difficulties with Dr. Declary told him
so. "Whatever the fact may be, you are regarded by the world
as one of the extreme men," the Missourian advised Clay. The
moderates distrusted Cassius, he went on, and they were in
control of the patronage. 10

Rollins had given the distraught Clay an idea, and he was
at the point where he would try anything. If, as Rollins said,
the moderates directed the appointments, then he would be
come one of them. Casting about for some means of quickly
winning the confidence of that wing of the party, he recog
nized the possibilities of the compromise agitation then going
on in Washington. Clay was on record as denouncing current
attempts to bring the dissatisfied segments of the Union to
gether by political compromise. But now, in January, 1861,
wracked by the dread of being neglected, he changed his
tune.

Hastily, Clay set out for Washington. His purpose, he an
nounced, was to secure a compromise which would enable
border-state Unionists to resist secession. Although he urged
the Republican Party to adhere to the letter of its Chicago
platform, Clay said that it could, "without in the least stulti
fying itself, . . . grant something to the South by way of
conciliation."

In the unaccustomed role of peacemaker, Clay startled his
party friends, and he gained nothing by his efforts. "For the
sake of our organization, for the sake of our cause, for the
sake of your own future," Salmon P. Chase implored him,
"give no sanction to the scheme ... we want no compro
mises now and no compromises ever." Clay thus found himself
in an unpopular position even among those from whom he ex-

174 Lion of White Hall

pected reward. Lincoln himself quashed the compromise effort
by declaring that he stood adamant upon the territorial issue.
Republican leaders claimed that the election had turned upon
the issue of unyielding resistance to slave expansion, and they
would hear of no compromise with the slavery group. "I found
all here fixed against any movement towards concessions," Clay
plaintively reported to Lincoln. 11

Clay found no more success as appeaser than he had as
agitator; although he carefully informed Lincoln of his con
servative course, his brief excursion into the paths of compro
mise brought him no offers. As a practical politician, Clay
quickly accepted the situation. u The truth is," he confided to
the President-elect, "I fear the more we concede the more
will be demanded. ..." And with that sage advice, he
shelved another unsuccessful effort to obtain office. His re
minders of long, unrewarded service; his militant demonstra
tions of loyalty; his somewhat paradoxical compromise sug
gestions all had failed to win Lincoln s confidence. 12

Inauguration Day arrived; the new administration took
office; still Cassius Clay had no place in it. There were many
appointive positions yet unfilled, however, and the disap
pointed Clay went to work to procure one of the top-ranking
foreign missions. When he did, he offered another reason for
seeking a prominent position: his need for money. For most
of his public career, he had been plagued with debt and finan
cial failure, and he was convinced that to escape from this
burden he needed to secure a remunerative office. Shamelessly
he publicized his personal difficulties to justify his claim to
one of the more lucrative and accordingly, more important
positions.

His New York friend, scholarly William H. Seward, the
new Secretary of State, nominated Clay as Minister to Spain,
and the Kentuckian accepted only when assured of a salary
increase. He did not want the place, explaining with a sneer

Reward for an Ambitious Man 175

that Spain was an "old, effete government." But receiving
the promise of an additional three thousand dollars, Clay ac
cepted. He was glad, however, when Carl Schurz, the German
immigrant revolutionary, was persona non grata to all Eu
ropean governments but that of Spain. Believing himself re
lieved of an inactive position, Clay resigned and accepted the
ministry to Russia. 13

Even while he was beginning to make preparations for his
journey to St. Petersburg, Clay did not cease his efforts to gain
a more important post as minister to England or France or
better yet, a cabinet portfolio. Once more he offered his
indebtedness as justification for the request. Like a child,
Cassius took his troubles to the fatherly man in the White
House. "The Court of St. Petersburg is an expensive one
... so that my family are in doubt whether it will not be
necessary (seven of us!) to separate," he began. "This is the
chief source of my disappointment in not having a place in
the Cabinet." Then he mentioned again his protracted efforts
for the party. "Now, Mr. Lincoln," the frustrated Clay
pleaded, "in consideration of my life-long sacrifices, and my
being again and again put back for the party s sake . . .
would it be too much for me to ask of you to gratify me at
least to some extent by appointing me (in case of a vacancy}
minister to France or England?" But his supplications brought
no reward. Clay was not easily rebuffed, however; amid the
innumerable details of administration, Lincoln would again
and again face an insistent Clay. Before Clay finally accepted
his answer, Lincoln s vaunted patience would grow thin. 14

Clay failed to receive the war portfolio, but he did not sur
render his hopes for a military office. On April 15, 1861, when
he arrived in Washington to receive his instructions, he found
the capital in an uproar over the firing upon Fort Sumter. On
the day of his arrival, the President proclaimed the existence
of an insurrection and called for the state militia to sustain the
national government. Cassius Clay, whose enthusiasm was

176 - Lion of White Hall

notorious, gained favorable publicity by offering his services
to Secretary of War Simon Cameron "either as an officer to
raise a regiment, or as a private in the ranks." Cameron, sur
prised at Clay s ebullient patriotism, said he had never heard
of a foreign minister who volunteered for the ranks. "Then,"
responded the doughty Cassius, "let s make a little history." 15

After spending the day in the War Department acting as
though he were its chief, Clay organized a battalion of nonde
script vigilantes to guard the capital until the state troops
arrived. In the confusion of going to war, rumors abounded
that unnamed Confederate forces would immediately capture
the city. The "Cassius M. Clay Guards" stepped into the
breach and manfully prepared to defend Washington. The
unit included senators, congressmen, and generals, together
with an assortment of clerks and salesmen for the ranks.

As commander, Clay enlivened the atmosphere at his head
quarters in Willard s Hotel with his braggadocio. With three
pistols strapped to his waist, and an elegant sword hanging at
his side, he talked to anyone who would listen about his
Mexican War exploits and his political battles. John Hay,
private secretary to President Lincoln, could hardly suppress
his laughter at the droll picture Clay presented. Hay remarked
that Clay ran up and down the White House steps "like an
admirable vignette to 25-cents worth of yellow-covered
romance." At Willard s, Hay declared, Clay spent his time
talking and drinking coffee: "The grizzled captain talks poli
tics on the raised platform and dreams of border battles and
the hot noons of Monterrey." 16

Despite the comic-opera turn Clay gave to the defense of
Washington, the "Strangler Guards" command gave him op
portunity to consider the advantages of military service. The
Clay Battalion was more a posse than a military force, and it
did more to increase the existing tension than to allay it, but
it gave its captain visions of the opportunities the war would
provide. With his ambitious gaze fixed upon the next election,

Reward -for an Ambitious Man 177

he saw political value in a military command. His friends told
him that he should go into the army, not disappear in Europe.
"This war will make the next President," one of them pre
dicted, "and I hope you will be the Major General of the
Indiana troops." In addition to the Hoosier offer, Clay also
received an invitation to head a New York unit. The idea of
a command appealed to him, but for the present he decided to
keep the political appointment. With his family he boarded a
steamship in Boston, bound for duty in St. Petersburg. After
many years of struggle and months of exasperating uncer
tainty, Cassius M. Clay was at last on his way to a public
office. 17

As his ship wallowed through the cold Atlantic, Clay had
plenty of time to reflect upon his recent actions. The more he
considered the turn of events, the less he relished an extended
stay in distant Russia while a war raged in America. Impetu
ously he changed his mind. He offered to resign his mission if
the President would commission him a general in the regular
army. "I think my talent is military and that I will not fail the
public expectation," he explained, adding that his debts in
fluenced his decision. "I was in debt before I left home," he
confessed to Lincoln, "and that is the reason why I desired a
place in the Regular army . . . that I might know how to rely
upon the means of paying off a distressing debt." 1S

The fever of ambition still raged within him, and he made
arrangements for a publicity agent to "blow the Biographical
Bellows" for him at home. Abroad, however, he did a good
job of publicizing himself. No sooner had he arrived in Eng
land than he found much to deplore. He first complained about
London s crowded hotels. After he had inquired at five of
them, with nine persons in his party and four cabs loaded with
baggage, he lost his temper with the hotel clerks. Benjamin
Moran, secretary of the American legation in the British capi
tal, found him at the Westminster Palace Hotel, "walking

178 Lion of White Hall

up and down the magnificent hall like a chafed lion, and
looked a man to be avoided." Moran, accustomed to the stiff
diplomatic costume, smiled to see a minister in a blue dress
coat with gilt buttons. But Clay s anger interested him even
more. "The incivility of the servants at the hotel disgusted
him, and he was disposed to swear," Moran reported. After
some planning, the secretary found lodging for Clay s family
and left him at two o clock in the morning, "in a humor far
from pious." 19

Not only did Clay s volcanic temper erupt at the London
hotel clerks; he complained even more heatedly about the
attitude of British political leaders. When he talked to Lord
Palmerston, the Prime Minister, and to other influential men,
he was shocked to discover prosouthern sentiments among
them. Clay visited Parliament and watched in righteous wrath
as the cautiously neutral members tabled a pro-Union resolu
tion. Never one to heed the niceties of protocol, in costume
or conduct, Clay undertook to enlighten the British popu
lace. In Kentucky, whenever he was not favorably received
by the men of influence in the state, he carried his case to the
people through the press. Now a diplomat, accredited by the
United States government, Clay employed the same tactic.
Going over the heads of the British leaders, and blithely
ignoring Minister Charles Francis Adams, Clay published a
vigorous statement in the London Times. The war in Amer
ica, he informed the British, was rebellion; the term "seces
sion" concealed treason. Despite Lincoln s insistence that the
purpose of the war was to restore the Union, Clay assured
his readers that it was an antislavery crusade, and that Eng
land s honor required that she support the Union cause.
With typical ferocity, Clay threatened the British as though
they were Kentucky slaveholders. "England, then, is our
natural ally" he concluded. "Will she ignore our aspirations?
If she is wise, she will not" Cassius Clay, who, as a rough-and-
tumble fighter, had become a master of the sharp retort and

Reward for an Ambitious Man 179

the aggressive insinuation, brought the same methods to the
foreign service. As he had gained fame as a bowie knife
emancipationist, now he attained a reputation as a bowie knife
diplomat. 20

Unfortunately, however, Clay was not dealing with pro
vincial Kentuckians who respected the law of the knife, nor
did he enjoy the liberty of a private citizen. Instead of win
ning friends by his hint of violence, Clay merely brought
ridicule upon himself and upon the Union cause. Americans
in London reported that his spirited outburst had amazed
the English, who regarded his conduct as unbecoming to a
diplomat. But Clay s mail swelled with complimentary notes
from antislavery Republicans, loud in their praise. 21

Despite the criticism, Clay was quite pleased with his intro
duction to international affairs. From London the Clay en
tourage moved on to Paris. In the land of Napoleon III,
Cassius was again shocked to discover that a firm Union
policy was lacking and that Confederate agents were making
headway with the French government. Again he wasted no
time with the niceties of diplomatic procedure. On the morn
ing of May 29, the "American citizens in Paris favorable to
the Union" breakfasted together at the Hotel du Louvre. A
host of itinerant Republican ministers gathered to hear Clay s
fiery speech. This time the Minister to France, William L.
Dayton attended the festivities. Also present at the speakers
table were Republican workhorse Alison Burlingame, who
had been rejected at Vienna as too radical for the Austrians
and was now on his way to the Chinese legation; Jacob S.
Haldeman, of Pennsylvania, Cameron s friend who had re
ceived the appointment to Stockholm; and John C. Fremont,
1856 Republican candidate for the Presidency, who was in
France seeking funds for his rich California mining prop
erty. Since Dayton had been the vice-presidential candidate
on the same ticket with Fremont, both Republican standard-

180 Lion of White Hall

bearers of the previous election attended the Paris break
fast.

Before that distinguished group of party leaders and ap
pointees, Clay reiterated his warning to England, and re
minded France by pugnacious threat that her interests lay
with the Union. He appealed to traditional French animosity
toward the English, who might try to "mingle the red crosses
of the Union Jack with the piratical black flag of the Con
federate States of America."

Such outbursts in London and Paris irritated the Adams
family in the London legation. "Those noisy jackasses Clay
and Burlingame," Henry Adams complained to his brother,
"have done more harm here than their weak heads were worth
a thousand times over." Clay continued to gather publicity
some of it unfavorable by his bold, undiplomatic course
of American spread-eagleism. 22

But once in Russia, Clay learned that the manifestoes which
made other ministers tasks more difficult proved to be assets
to his own mission. His instructions were to win the support
and the sympathy of the Russian government, and his "ath
letic Western argument" (as the eccentric railroad promoter,
George Francis Train, called it) helped him to accomplish
that end. Because the English were unpopular in St. Peters
burg, the unrestrained declarations he had made in London
and Paris simplified his official task. Indeed, as Minister to
Russia, Cassius Clay was an indubitable success. He carried
out his instructions more completely than did any of his
diplomatic colleagues in western Europe. The dignified
Prince Gortchacov, Prime Minister of the Czar s government,
assured Minister Clay that Russia s official sympathy was with
the Union. 23

Despite his successes, Cassius was not satisfied to remain
in exile so far from the scene of action. Night after night
in the summer of 1861 he sat at his desk penning ponderous
letters to the Secretary of State by the light of the midnight

Reward for an Ambitious Man 181

sun. He gave Seward, or Cameron, or Lincoln, gratuitous
advice upon the conduct of the war as well as upon a thousand
other irrelevant matters. Meanwhile, he won friends in the
Russian capital by prodigious entertainment. His parties were
the most brilliant spectacles he could arrange, with the best
wines in abundance, exotic foods, and lavish entertainments.
"I was determined to please," was his solution to the problems
of diplomacy. From the generous hospitality of Kentucky
aristocracy it was but a short step to the polite society of
Russian nobility, and Cassius and Mary Jane Clay adjusted
easily. 24

Clay felt at home among the Russian noblemen, who were
as yet serf-owners and, he said, were little different from
American slave-owners. He acted as though he were back
in the Kentucky Bluegrass, and he never went out unarmed.
He had brought bowie knives of every variety with him; the
ferocious blade remained his favorite weapon. He had a pearl-
handled knife with an eighteen-inch blade for formal attire,
but for everyday wear he had an assortment of bone-handled
knives. It was not long before his pugnacity had brought him
challenges to duels from rapier-bearing Russian noblemen.
As he thus had the right to choose the weapons for the fight,
he always selected the bowie knife. This choice upset the
suave swordsmen, and they plotted to trick Cassius into mak
ing the challenge so they would have the choice of weapons.
Then, they promised themselves, Mr. Clay had better be
ware.

Having made their plans, two Russians found the Ameri
can Minister in a cafe, eating dinner. One of them slapped
Clay on the cheek with his glove and then stepped back to
receive the Minister s card and a challenge for a duel. But
Cassius Clay was never one to stand upon a precedent; he
owed his life to his ready defense. He jumped up from his
chair, doubled up his huge right fist, and with the full force
of his strength hit the meddlesome Russian in the nose. Over-

182 Lion of White Hall

whelmed by the unexpected blow, the trouble-seeker went
down, carrying a table with him amid a storm of falling
china. Clay looked around belligerently for further opposi
tion, and seeing none, parted the tails of his frock coat and
sat down to resume his interrupted meal.

He was gathering a reputation for himself in St. Petersburg
for his quick pugnacity, which aroused the admiration of
his Russian hosts. Stories of his bloody fights circulated over
Europe as well as back home in Washington. Such affairs gave
substance to Bayard Taylor s derogatory opinions of Clay.
Taylor, secretary of legation after Clay left Russia, was
jealous of anyone who might prevent him from succeeding
to the position of minister, and he wrote complaints about
Clay to influential Americans who might carry weight with
Lincoln. "Between ourselves," he told Horace Greeley, speak
ing of Clay, "he is much better suited to the meridian of
Kentucky than of St. Petersburg." 25

Minister Clay did, however, win the approval of his Rus
sian acquaintances, and he was adept, too, at the require
ments of court etiquette. On Sunday, July 14, 1861, the new
American Minister was presented to the Czar. Clay dressed
himself in his military regalia, with a sword knocking at his
ankles. He took with him his two secretaries, Green Clay,
his nephew, and William Cassius Goodloe, son of Clay s
friend and business associate, David S. Goodloe. After a short
train ride the party arrived in Peterhoff, where three imperial
carriages met them and took them to the palace. There they
passed through a guard of soldiers in colorful uniform, and
they participated in a review of the troops before the Czar
arrived.

To meet Alexander II, the Americans were escorted
through several large rooms; then they met a man who had
"enough feathers in his hat to make an ostrich," Goodloe re
membered later. Guided by the "feathered individual," Clay

Reward -for an Ambitious Man 183

went into the presence of the Czar, where the Prime Minister,
Prince Gortchacov, introduced him to Alexander. Cassius
presented his credentials and made a "set speech," to which
the Emperor responded by pledging the continued friend
ship of his government.

Alexander II, Czar of All the Russias, cut a handsome
figure. He was dressed in military uniform, Goodloe recalled:
"Blue coat, military buttons, blue trousers, small gold stripes,
calf skin boots." The young secretary described the Emperor
as "stoutly built, and of an exquisite figure. Very handsome,
rather a round face, eyes a beautiful light blue, mustache,
hair shingled, and of a dark auburn color. Speaks American ,
voice pleasant, and looks and walks and is, every inch a
King."

After the meeting with Alexander, the Americans were
led in to lunch. Goodloe was amazed at the splendor of the
meal: "Soup, chicken, chops, strawberries, oranges, peaches,
with six brands of wine." When the lunch was over, the guide
took them to the old palaces of Peter the Great, and they
spent the afternoon going through the museum-like build
ings. Clay, who enjoyed the royal treatment he received, be
came a staunch admirer of Alexander II and of his govern
ment. But his approval of the Emperor led him into one grave
mistake: he modelled his own parries after the lavish scale of
imperial entertainment, and he soon discovered that he could
not maintain that standard. 26

His expenses confirmed Clay s predictions that his salary
was inadequate. As he saw himself fading from the political
scene back home, once more he took up his pen to request a
more prominent position, and he offered the excuse of his
financial difficulties. "It is not possible on trial for us to live
here on 12,000$," he complained to the President. "If my
salary is not raised, I shall be forced to return home." To
emphasize his words, in the fall of 1 86 1, he sent his family

184 Lion of White Hall

home (Mary Jane did not like the damp, frigid climate any
way), and made plans for a more penurious existence. Then,
just as he had completed his arrangements and purchased
house furnishings, he received word that the President had
commissioned him a major general of volunteers. 27

He had repeatedly requested a military commission, but
when he received one, he was dissatisfied to learn that it was
a temporary, not a permanent, appointment. He feared that
the war might soon be over, and he would be forced to re
tire to private life. He kept up his demands for a cabinet post.
"I don t see where I am to take command even if I were now
at home," he grumbled to Lincoln. The "foremost and most
desirable" places were already filled, he pointed out, and he
had a dread of being assigned to a "temporary and inert"
command. 28

Simon Cameron, who had been shifted from the War De
partment, was to be Clay s successor. When Cameron arrived
in St. Petersburg, Clay was pleased to discover that the
Pennsylvanian intended to remain in Russia only long enough
for the storm of War Department mismanagement to blow
over. That intelligence gave Clay a chance to plan a retreat
should he be shunted to an inconspicuous military outpost.
"As you have now too many generals in the field," he pointed
out to the President, "I ask that you will return me to this
court after Mr. Cameron s leaving." Clay did not want to
leave his civilian office without some means of returning to it
if need be. Reluctantly, the President agreed to his request
and committed himself to return Clay to Russia, if he still
wanted the post when Cameron resigned it. 29

Clay now had a double assurance against disappearing from
the public scene. If he received an active command, he would
receive much publicity which would be useful to him; if not,
he had the President s promise to send him back to St. Peters
burg. Although it was a distant post, at least he would not be
out of the political realm altogether.

Reward for an Ambitious Man 185

With a major general s commission and Lincoln s promise
in his pocket, Cassius Clay returned home from his ministry
to Russia. The next few months were extremely important.
As he journeyed across Europe, he was preparing for the
intraparty political struggle which lay ahead.

CHAPTER XIII

CLAY S STAR FADES

WHEN Cassius M. Clay returned from his mission to St.
Petersburg he opened an active campaign for leadership in the
Republican Party. That organization, in 1860 a hodgepodge
of political malcontents, presented no solid front two years
later. One wing of the party, composed largely of ex- Whigs,
was conservative and looked to the party for economic legis
lation friendly to the business community. Another group,
which had entered the Republican fold through the abolition
door, wanted to use the party victory to demolish the "relic
of barbarism," chattel slavery. Although on economic mat
ters they were as conservative as their ex- Whig allies, they
were known as "Radicals" because of their uncompromising
war upon slavery. The antislavery crusade had served the pur
poses of the more practical-minded industrialists, and the
two forces had fused to win the election, but between them
there remained friction. Cassius Clay, as a man who favored
emancipation of slaves because of hardheaded economic con
siderations, was a bridge between the divergent wings of
the party. His choleric temperament, however, gave him a
reputation as a fire-eating extremist. Although not as radical
as some of the abolition Republicans, still he was making de
mands that the war be made an antislavery instrument. To
rise in the party ranks, now dominated by a shrewd Presi-

186

Clay s Star Fades 187

dent, he had to win the support of the disgruntled antislavery
Republicans who criticized Lincoln. Clay was a problem to
the President, but Lincoln foresaw the threat and moved to
meet it. His handling of the explosive Clay was an example
of his finesse as a politician.

A week after he arrived from Europe, Clay voiced his
disapproval of the administration s management of the war.
On August 12, 1862, he opened his campaign for leadership
among the Radicals with a public excoriation of Lincoln for
protecting slave property. That was a "wishy-washy, milk-
and-cider" war policy, he said. "You are going to conquer
the South by taking the sword in one hand and shackles in
the other," he gibed to his Washington audience. "You are
going to conquer the South with one portion of your force,
while the other is detailed to guard rebel property." Such a
policy, Cassius said, was an anomaly. "Better recognize the
Southern confederacy at once, and stop this effusion of
blood," he advised, "than to continue in this present ruinous
policy."

He held a commission as major general of volunteers, Clay
announced, but he would participate in no military action
which did not anticipate the destruction of slavery. In order
to draw Radical support he took an extreme position. "I shall
strike only for liberty, and will never draw the sword for the
protection of rebels slaves," he defiantly declared. He ex
pected no success in the army, he fumed, with a hostile gov
ernment at his back; if he were to carry out his views in the
field, the administration would "shelve" him, as it had re
moved John C. Fremont from command a few months
earlier.

Although Clay ardently criticized Lincoln s war policies,
he avoided an open break with the President. He held the
President to his promise to return him to Russia. "Although
you may not always represent my special views," he told the
President privately, "you have always my confidence and

188 Lion of White Hall

support to carry out your own for you are the Chief of
the Nation not I." Even from the beginning, Clay s revolt
was a weak one. 1

Clay quietly acknowledged the President s power, but he
won the compliments of Radical politicians by his sarcastic
criticism of the administration and its war effort. Hotheaded
Kansas Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy, who would later win a
dubious notoriety by endorsing Salmon P. Chase as the Re
publican nominee in 1864, wildly praised Clay for his out
spoken comments. "This vacillating policy or want of a
fixed policy is demoralizing the nation!" Pomeroy declared.
And in Boston, the abolitionist and orator Wendell Phillips
agreed with Pomeroy s enthusiasm. "It seems to me," Phillips
assured Clay, "you have the power to hasten the adoption of
the needed policy so much as to save thousands of lives, mil
lions of dollars, and untold dangers to Republicanism. . , ." 2

Despite such ebullient commendation from the Radical
fringe of the party, Clay met only apathy from the public.
His campaign, begun with much ardor, was already failing.
The press was unfriendly, and poked fun at him for trying
to assume the President s responsibilities: the New York
Times expressed ironic sympathy that the war did not suit
Clay s tastes, and hoped that he would find a place where his
"very great ability" would prove useful. Clay s demand that
the war be used to destroy slavery drew upon him the op
probrium of citizens who considered the preservation of the
Union sufficient cause for which to fight.

But Clay saw himself as representing a great segment of
public opinion. "If I were to carry out in the field my politi
cal views I might rub across the President," he confided to
the new Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. "Should I not
be allowed to do so, it might array against him a larger party
who would otherwise give him aid and comfort." Conse
quently, he planned to return to Russia, "at some sacrifice,"

Clay s Star Fades 189

he informed his chief, Stanton. His decision indicated that his
political aspirations were not going well. 3

Though Clay exaggerated Radical strength, Lincoln recog
nized that it was a minority and that most northern citizens
favored a more lenient policy. But the President was too
astute a politician to make martyrs of his Radical critics by
persecuting them. Instead of dignifying opposition forces by
replying with an indignant rejoinder, he was accustomed to
draw the fangs out of criticism and to continue to utilize the
critic. Clay s quixotic rebellion Lincoln deflected in the same
manner: he sent the Kentuckian upon a harmless mission
which won him over to the President s camp.

For months the President had wrestled with the dilemma
posed by the demands of the Radical abolitionists in his party,
who wanted him to adopt a firm antislavery policy, on the
one hand; and the threats of the sensitive border-state slave
holders, who might secede if the war became an emancipation
crusade. In the summer of 1862, Lincoln decided to take some
action to appease the abolitionists, and he sought as harmless
a gesture as possible: to proclaim emancipation for all slaves
in rebel states, but to protect the slaves of loyal masters be
hind federal lines. This solution would make emancipation an
official war objective, without frightening the border-state
slave-owners into secession. In July Lincoln brought up the
matter in his cabinet meeting, but when some members ob
jected to it, he agreed to let the matter rest. But when dissi
dent Radical governors planned a protest meeting for Sep
tember 24, at Altoona, Pennsylvania, he saw that he would
have to act soon. Never one to await events, Lincoln planned
to take the initiative in his political war with the Radicals. 4

At the moment, the President also had a critical Cassius
Clay upon his hands. Lincoln surmised privately that Clay
was an egotist, proud of his reputation, but petty and mean if
crossed. Clay possessed a "great deal of conceit and very little
sense," Lincoln confided to his old friend, Orville H. Brown-

190 Lion of White Hall

ing. Wisely, the President played his hand to forestall criti
cism from the governors conference, and at the same time
to nullify Clay s incipient revolt. He played upon Clay s self-
esteem. "I have been thinking of what you said to me," Lin
coln began, as though emancipation by Presidential proclama
tion were Clay s idea. Then he explained his proposition. "But
I fear if such proclamation of emancipation was made Ken
tucky would go against us, and we have now as much as we
can carry."

Cassius promptly arose to the bait. He was pleased to con
sider himself an adviser to the President. "You are mistaken,"
he responded. ". . . Those who intend to stand by slavery
have already joined the rebel army; and those who remain
will stand by the Union at all events." Clay, who had not
been in Kentucky for fifteen months, based his hasty asser
tion upon hearsay evidence, and Lincoln knew it. But in
stead of questioning him, the President dispatched him upon
an errand. "The Kentucky Legislature is now in session," he
reminded Clay. "Go down, and see how they stand, and re
port to me." Lincoln, who had already decided to take action,
reasoned that with a hand in the forthcoming pronounce
ment, Clay would be predisposed to accept it. Moreover, the
expedition would keep him busy. He intended to go to Ken
tucky anyway, and now he would go as the President s
representative. 5

When Cassius reached his home state he was temporarily
diverted into military service. In Cincinnati he learned that
Confederate troops under Kirby Smith had invaded Kentucky
through the Cumberland Gap and were headed toward the
Ohio River. Offering his services to General Lew Wallace,
Clay received command of volunteer infantry and artillery
troops, with instructions to repel the invaders. He was fa
miliar with the terrain along the Kentucky River and he
planned to utilize its steep banks as part of his defense line.
Slowly he marched his raw troops toward the river. Before

Clay s Star Fades 191

he completed his dispositions, however, he was rudely re
lieved of the command by General William Nelson, who had
been an officer in the regular navy. The new commander
impatiently pushed his men across the Kentucky, and on the
Richmond plain in central Madison County they met Smith s
superior forces. There the federal troops, exhausted by forced
marches, sustained one of their worst defeats of the war.
With no reinforcements, Nelson s luckless command was
unable to hold the line of the Kentucky River. 6

While the battle raged, Cassius Clay was in Frankfort, his
brief military service in the Civil War ended. When he was
relieved of his command he returned to his original mission.
He addressed the Kentucky legislature in the State House
and released Lincoln s trial balloon, but he explained it as
though it were his own idea. The federal government, Clay
began, had no power to war upon slavery, or upon any other
form of property, but rebels forfeited their rights to life, lib
erty, and property. "In the loyal slave States," he continued,
"I would not injure the loyal slave-owner . . . but in the
rebel States, I would proclaim liberty to the slaves of dis
loyal masters. . . ." In brief, he summarized, he would "re
call the four millions of black allies whom, in a false mag
nanimity, we have loaned to the enemy." Should the pro
posed emancipation program injure any loyal slaveholders,
he would recommend, Clay said, that they receive compen
sation from the national treasury. As a messenger from the
President, Clay revealed an unaccustomed moderation. If
rebels would lay down their arms and return to their al
legiance, he would propose the repeal of all confiscation acts,
he said, and urge a general amnesty. Lincoln s little trick had
worked. As his spokesman instead of his critic, Clay had
removed himself from among the opponents of the adminis
tration. Moreover, the subsequent proclamation of emancipa
tion would come as no surprise to the Kentucky lawmakers,
who welcomed Clay s conciliatory remarks. 7

192 Lion of White Hall

Clay lost no time in reporting his success to the President.
As Kirby Smith s Confederate Army was approaching Frank
fort, the departing Clay had plenty of company along the
road to Cincinnati. From there, Cassius went on to Wash
ington to tell Lincoln that Kentucky citizens would accept a
proclamation freeing the slaves of rebels. The President said
nothing to Clay about his plans, but a few weeks later, on
September 22, he issued the preliminary Emancipation Procla
mation. Clay, who never saw the connection between the
meeting of disgruntled governors at Altoona and the "hu
manitarian" measure, assumed a share in the President s ac
tion. Indeed, Lincoln s political prestidigitation fooled Clay
completely. Clay regarded the proclamation as "immortal,"
and he later exulted that his "good star stood high in the
heavens; and whilst my enemies sought by unworthy means
my ruin, I seemed by Providence to have been called for the
culminating act of my life s aspirations." But as his ambitions
were political rather than humanitarian, the appearance of
the proclamation signified that Clay s "good star" had faded. 8

Deftly the President had cut the ground from under the
Radical governors, and he had won Clay to his side. No longer
a critic, Cassius now became a supporter of the administra
tion s war aims. On the night of September 24, a procession
of jubilant citizens serenaded antislavery politicians in Wash
ington. From the White House, the parade moved to the
residence of Salmon P. Chase, and then to Clay s hotel.
Honored by the show of tribute, Cassius endorsed Lincoln s
course of action. Six weeks earlier, returning from Russia
with ambitious fire in his eye, he had just as enthusiastically
denounced it. His rebellion had ended. Later, Lincoln car
ried his little joke a step further when he sent the admiring
Clay a portrait of himself holding the Emancipation Procla
mation. By superior political ability Lincoln had won control
of his party. 9

Clay s Star Fades 193

Clay recognized that his chance for leadership among the
Radicals had disappeared, and he resigned his military com
mission to clear the way for his return to Russia. He had
given up all hope of getting a prominent command, and the
Emancipation Proclamation had destroyed his differences
with the administration. Since Cameron had not yet resigned,
however, Clay requested permission to embark upon a speak
ing tour on behalf of the 1862 Republican candidates. The
President, having converted Clay to his side, willingly or
dained him a prophet of Republicanism. 10

But though Lincoln blessed the undertaking, Clay aroused
little attention, and his best efforts had no effect upon the
fall elections. He spent most of his time in New York, in an
effort to arouse opposition to the Democratic candidate for
governor, Horatio Seymour, and to his slogan, "The Union
as it was." Clay s speeches were pitifully hackneyed, and only
partisan audiences appreciated them. He indulged in prolix
recitals of his long experience as an agitator, and he boasted
of the time when he "stood entirely alone in the defense of
these same principles, threatened again and again. . . ." No
longer did Clay attempt to justify his action on economic
grounds, as he had earlier; now he declared that he had op
posed slavery merely because it was a moral evil. "I came to
the conclusion that I was right," he confessed, "and based
upon that eternal basis, I have, from that day to this, con
tended for those principles which I trust I may yet live to see
carried out. . . ." Garrulous autobiography became Clay s
main theme.

In addition to proclaiming his loyalty to freedom, Clay
denounced the Democrats for urging a return to the Union as
it was. "What was it to me?" he demanded. "The scars upon
my body testify that it made me a slave." He had lost none
of his vindictiveness: "I believe that hanging such men as
Seymour and Van Buren would save many a good Democratic
life," he declared in New York, where those men were candi-

194 Lion of White Hall

dates. But with all his fervor, Clay offered no program be
yond emancipation. Even his oratory had lost its fire. Despite
his efforts for the New York Republican candidates, Seymour
won the election. War-weariness and a general distaste for the
Emancipation Proclamation were responsible for the Demo
cratic victory. The election demonstrated that a greater po
litical wizard than Cassius Clay would be necessary to win in
I864. 11

Clay was no longer the popular champion he had been
earlier. His vigorous declarations did not attract the attention
they once had; he was out of touch with the ground swell
of sentiment which accompanied the war. Clay s inability to
change was his greatest weakness. In 1 845 he had been a na
tional hero in the cause of civil liberty, but he never grew
beyond that position. For twenty years, because of his ex
treme Whig views, he had declared himself an emancipation
ist, and in 1863 he beat the same drum, worn thin with use.
His hunger for prominence made him a pathetic figure; in
the rude helter-skelter of politics, he was a has-been. At this
time a people wrestling with itself in fratricidal strife,
struggling to meet the challenge of forming a "new nation"
based upon a changed coalition of forces, demanded more
of its leaders than trite repetition of out-of-date antislavery
contumely. Though he continued to draw respectable audi
ences, he told them nothing he had not said many times be
fore. The Emancipation Proclamation had left Clay no fur
ther program to offer.

Lincoln s document proved an obstacle to Clay s ambition,
but the key to his failure lay in the limitations of his char
acter. The antislavery phase of his career had become a
monomania, and he closed his eyes to other issues. After
emancipation was effected, the remainder of Clay s public
career was the sad tale of a man whose single purpose in life
had been accomplished. Living in the past, Clay was de-

Clay s Star Fades 195

pendent upon his record for recognition; he sought attention
by claiming that victory over slavery was his success. But
he could go no further. His inability to grow beyond his
obsession with fighting slavery doomed Cassius Clay to failure
as a politician.

After his ineffectual participation in the New York cam
paign, Clay surrendered his aspirations for the Presidency and
accepted the only office open to him. When Cameron re
turned from a tour of duty in St. Petersburg, Clay reminded
Lincoln of his promise to send him there again. Though the
President regretted giving his word, he lived up to it and
recommended Clay for the post. Clay s earlier undiplomatic
antics had aroused serious opposition to his reappointment;
some senators charged that he was unpopular even among the
Russians. The New York Times, no friend of Clay s, had
sarcastic comment about the Russian mission: "We hope
that the Emperor will not get the impression that we con
found his dominions with Siberia, and regard them as penal
colonies for the banishment of uneasy politicians. . . ." Of
Clay, the Times editor declared that "nature had indicated
in the clearest manner, that she did not mean him to be a
diplomatist, and his education has not been of a kind to lessen
the forces of her prohibition."

With such barbed remarks in the press, and with determined
opposition to him in the Senate, Clay feared that he would
not be reappointed. But Lincoln let it be known that he per
sonally desired Clay s confirmation, and the Senate complied.
Though it was clear that the President had influenced the
vote, Clay boasted that it was the "greatest triumph of my
life." For a man known to have had presidential aspirations,
that confession was a tacit admission that he no longer figured
as a contender for high office. 12

After his confirmation by the Senate, Clay prepared to
return to Russia. His wife and family were to remain in

196 Lion of White Hall

Kentucky, and he had a lonely time ahead. With his ambi
tions for political prominence dashed, his only reason for
accepting the mission was to pay off his debts and make plans
for his retirement. Well aware that his salary would be slim,
Clay began to hint at "deals" in which he might earn com
missions and fees to supplement his official remuneration.
Cautiously he broached his plan to Salmon P. Chase. "You
know how hard I have been down in debt," he reminded
the Secretary of the Treasury. "Is there anything, in which
you can serve me ... in your financial arrangements at
home or abroad?" In addition to approaching Chase, Clay
allowed the use of his name to endorse the sale of stock in
the Union Pacific Railroad. Clay may have been out of touch
with the political realities of the day, but he was well aware
of prevalent economic factors. Leaving behind contacts
which might develop into large extraministerial business, Cas-
sius M. Clay returned to St. Petersburg. 13

CHAPTER XIV

SWASHBUCKLING
DIPLOMACY

JN OW fully aware that he had no chance of obtaining the
1864 presidential nomination, Cassius M. Clay returned to
the Russian mission, all that remained of his lofty ambitions.
But he consoled himself that his old enemy, slavery, was on
the way out. "To me the final triumph of my principles was
of more worth than elevation to office," he explained later.
With that salve for his pride, Clay left the American scene.
For more than six years, through the administrations of
Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, and into Ulysses S.
Grant s regime, he remained in Russia.

But his second term was less satisfying to him than the first
had been. Lonely and frustrated, Clay was troubled with
many blunders of indiscretion which marred his social stand
ing. Violent fits of jealousy, bitter tirades against his enemies,
and the dark shadow of scandal beclouded his stay in St.
Petersburg. Clay s swashbuckling nature asserted itself while
he was chief of the legation, and his diplomatic career il
lustrated Russian tolerance of an often tactless, imprudent,
blustering minister. 1

Clay s eccentricities did not immediately appear, and at
the beginning of his second term as Minister Plenipotentiary
and Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of the Czars he care
fully attended his business. In April, 1863, he moved into a

197

198 Lion of White Hall

house on Golanaia Street, "near the Peter monument," he
wrote to Mary Jane, who, despite his entreaties, had remained
in Kentucky. In that house Clay entertained Russian society,
and from it he journeyed in his carriage to the legation and
on sight-seeing trips. The Russian capital was built upon
marshy, uninviting land near the Baltic Sea, but it had been
developed until, when Clay was there, it was the imposing
capital of a sprawling empire. Czar Alexander II was in the
process of liberating the serfs, and Clay, who considered
himself an emancipationist, felt at home as representative to
the Czar s court. 2

The European situation also eased his diplomatic task in
Russia. His primary mission was to maintain friendly rela
tions with the Russian government, and for that purpose the
Polish insurrection then going on served handily. In No
vember, 1860, Polish nationalists revolted against the Russian
force occupying their country, but for some time the affair
aroused little attention. When early efforts to put down the
rebellion failed, however, and the Russians resorted to ter
roristic tactics, there was an immediate response from the
anti-Russian bloc in Europe. For a time there was fear that
England would intervene on behalf of the embattled Poles.
As England s dependence upon raw cotton made many of
her citizens prosouthern in the American crisis, both the
United States and Russia had reason to mistrust the British.
Their mutual antipathy drove the two governments into each
other s arms.

In the diplomatic conflict, Seward s policy of playing off
the Russians against the British became clear. The rulers of
Great Britain, France, and Austria requested the United States
to join them in protesting Russia s handling of the Polish af
fair. In rejecting the offer, Seward used the opportunity to
push Russia and England further apart, and he composed a
note filled with warm avowals of Russian-American amity.
Clay had Seward s note published in Russia, and, as the Secre-

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 199

tary of State had intended, it won Russian approval. Like a
good diplomat, Clay found excuses to prefer in the dispute
that side which benefited his country. "Our interests," he as
sured Seward, "are on the side of Russia against reactionary,
Catholic Poland." 3 Because the Czar pursued a program of
emancipation, Clay described the Russian government as
"tolerant in religion, and progressive in civil administration."
Emancipation, whether by presidential proclamation or by
imperial ukase, was enough to convince him of a govern

ment s merit. 4

Despite the public avowals of Russian-American friend
ship, there was still a threat of English and French interven
tion in Poland. "All Russia is aroused up to the defence of
her territory," Clay reported, "and she will make an 1812 af
fair of it before they get through if France and England
force a fight upon them." In the crisis the Russians prepared
for war. Realizing that their fleet would be bottled up if
hostilities broke out, they sent it to the comparative safety of
American ports, ostensibly upon a good-will tour. As no
other European power made so tangible a show of friendship
during the Civil War, Americans readily interpreted the visit
as evidence of Russian sympathy for the Union cause. Thus,
the existence of two widely separated rebellions, which had
only one factor in common the fear of British intervention
made Clay s diplomatic task simpler. Through no unusual
action of his own, but because a common enemy confronted
the United States and Russia, his ministry to the Court of the
Czars was a success from the beginning. His bold twisting of
the British lion s tail endeared Clay to Anglophobe Russians,
and as a representative of a country sympathetic to Russia
in the Polish rebellion, he could expect to be well received. 5

Clay s diplomatic post was not a difficult one, but in his
own official family he had trouble with his subordinates.
Though it sprang largely from his own jealous attempts to

200 Lion of White Hall

safeguard his ministerial prerogatives, he blamed Seward for
sending "spies" into the legation to "calumniate" him. He
repeatedly charged that Seward was his bitter enemy because
the Kentucky and Virginia delegations at Chicago in 1860
had supported Chase and then Lincoln. "Ever since I refused
to take part for Seward as President in 1860, he has been
my enemy," he reported to Massachusetts Senator Henry
Wilson. Because the sharp-featured Seward was Clay s su
perior, Clay blamed him for all his woes, including his lega
tion problems. 6

In 1863, before he left New York, Clay had asked for the
appointment of Henry Bergh, philanthropist and author, who
was later to become founder and first president of the Amer
ican Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, as secre
tary of the legation. But when Bergh called upon Seward
about the appointment, the Secretary of State received him
brusquely. Once more Clay took his complaint to the man
in the White House. "You see all this is merely a pretext to
insult me, by insulting my friend," Clay argued. "He is in
sulted: and I am to be put in the position of having a Seward
Spy in my house. ... If a Sewardite is forced upon me,"
he went on, "I shall regard it as an unfriendly act on your
part." Lincoln refused to enter the intramural controversy,
but Seward did allow Clay a free hand in the choice of his
assistants.

Still Clay was not satisfied. Bergh got the secretarial post,
but he did not keep it long. Because of Clay s apprehensions
that one of his underlings would become more popular with
the Russians than he, and take away his position, he mistreated
them all. Clay s jealousy erupted, and Bergh soon returned
to the United States. 7

The next secretary, who held the position until 1869, was
young Jeremiah Curtin, a native of Wisconsin and a Harvard
graduate. Although to the uncomplimentary Benjamin Moran
in London he was a "silly looking fellow with his hair parted

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 201

in the middle," Currin possessed a native talent for language
and had taught himself Russian. When the Czar s fleet docked
in New York, he made friends among the crews in order to
practice his pronunciation, and they invited him to Russia.
Before the end of 1864 he was in St. Petersburg, and he ap
plied for a job at the American legation. 8

Clay hired him to fill the vacant position as secretary of
legation, and was immediately pleased with his find. When
he presented Curtin to the Czar, Alexander addressed the
young man in the customary French, but the secretary
amazed him by responding in Russian. Such an unusual oc
currence attracted the Emperor s attention, and Clay later
exulted to Curtin, "You have made a great hit, a great hit!"
For several years Clay and Curtin worked together amicably,
the newcomer s knowledge of Russian proving useful to the
Minister. 9

day made use also of Curtin s understanding of the Rus
sian people. Curtin had not been in St. Petersburg long be
fore Clay brought him a problem precipitated by the
Minister s own undiplomatic blustering. In pressing the claims
of the Russian-American Telegraph Company Clay had been
a bit too strenuous, and he feared that he had insulted the
Russians. A scheme to connect San Francisco and St. Peters
burg with a telegraph line by way of the Aleutian Islands
and Siberia had been originated by a United States commercial
consul in Eastern Asia, Perry McDonough Collins. Collins had
enlisted the aid of Hiram Sibley, president of the Western
Union Telegraph Company, and together the two had or
ganized a new company. In 1862, when Collins went to the
Russian capital to secure a charter for the work, he ran into
trouble. The Russians were willing to charter the company
to operate in their country, but they demanded an unusual
share of the profits or so Collins declared. The following
spring, when Clay arrived, he became Collins representa
tive and heatedly demanded that the Americans be given

202 Lion of White Hall

more control over the enterprise. So excited did he become
that when he talked to Prime Minister Gortchacov he was
stubborn to the point of rudeness, and he came away worried
for fear the Russians might demand his recall. He took his
troubles to Curtin. "You know the Russians much better than
I do," he confessed. "What can be done to conciliate
Gortchacov?"

After much deliberation, Curtin advised Clay to make an
agreement with the Prime Minister to let Seward settle the
matter. Curtin recommended that Clay tell Gortchacov, "Per
sonally, we are good friends, but in this Alaskan affair we
are of different opinions." Curtin s solution worked. Gort
chacov accepted the compromise, the Secretary of State made
satisfactory arrangements, and work began on the communi
cation line. 10

Clay s interest in the company was not entirely that of a
disinterested public servant. While Collins and Sibley were
in St. Petersburg, Clay invited them to dinner every Sunday
and introduced them to polite society. His efforts were not
unrewarded. The promoters gave Clay thirty thousand dol
lars worth of paid-up stock in the company, intrusted to him
several hundred thousand dollars worth of ordinary stock to
distribute as grease for the wheels of Russian influence, and
gave him additional stock to sell on commission. Clay first
sold his own paid-up shares and applied the proceeds to his
debts in the United States. Later, the company failed because
of competition with the Atlantic cable, which was completed
first, and several Russians accused Clay of cheating them
when he would not refund their money. Though the enter
prise created some ill will among unfortunate Russian in
vestors, Clay made money from it. 11

Clay profited from other financial arrangements in Russia;
not only did he receive "presents" for his influence as
minister, but he also used his money to speculate in bonds

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 203

on the United States market. After several years he paid oil
the last of his distressing debts, and his main objective in ac
cepting the ministry was achieved. 12

While Clay made money in Russia, he steadfastly resisted
an attempt to force the Russian government to pay an Ameri
can claim. He wanted to maintain friendly relations with the
official Russians, and he considered that the claim was a
swindle. The Perkins Claim, as it was called, had arisen during
the Crimean War, when the Russians were hard-pressed to
maintain a minor battle-front. Russian military leaders had
procured supplies in the United States, and a Boston mer
chant, Benjamin Perkins, had made a verbal agreement with
the purchasing agent to sell powder and small-arms. But be
fore he had delivered any of the goods the war ended, and
the buyers no longer required them. The Russians peremptor
ily cancelled the agreement. Perkins, arguing that the verbal
agreement was a legal contract, demanded that the Russians
reimburse him for his loss, about fifty thousand dollars. He
brought suit in a New York court, where the matter was
dismissed with a settlement of two hundred dollars.

There the claim rested until 1860, when a certain Joseph
B. Stewart inherited it, and organized a company, capitalized
at eight hundred thousand dollars, to press it. The Perkins
Claim was no longer a small affair. During his first term in
Russia, Clay had received it but had indignantly refused to
press it. (For that independence, he later declared, Seward
used his offers to accept a military commission as the excuse
to recall him.) When he returned to the Russian capital, the
claim came up again.

This time, fearing a censure from Washington, Clay took
the documents to Gortchacov. The Prime Minister became
very angry when he read the claim, turned red, and declared,
"I will go to war before I will pay a single kopeck! " Triumph-

204 Lion of White Hall

antly, Clay returned the papers to Washington, blaming the
graduate of the "corrupt Albany-school of politics" for the
rebuff. 13

Such difficulties, usually connected with the duties of a
minister, were minor worries for Clay, compared to his los
ing caste with the Empress and thus jeopardizing his social
standing among his hosts. From the beginning of his sojourn
in the Russian capital he had been on unusually friendly terms
with the social leaders of St. Petersburg, and especially with
the royal family. In the winter of 1863, he boasted to Mary
Jane of his success with the Czarina, and he said that the
grand master of court ceremonies, Count Orloff Davidoff,
had complained of it to him. "I have a grievance against you,"
Davidoff told Clay. "Indeed," responded the American,
somewhat embarrassed. "Yes, you have superceded me in
the Empress esteem . . . you are quite a favorite with
her. . . ." 14

But an act of misunderstood gallantry put an end to Clay s
favored position with the Empress. On a summer visit to the
Emperor s vacation estate he went for a drive in a borrowed
royal carriage. Meeting one of the princesses just as a sudden
storm blew up, Clay let her have the carriage while he awaited
its return as, he protested, any gentleman would have done.
But gossipers saw the girl in the carriage, and after that the
Empress would not speak to the American. One of the princes
heard his story, and accepted his version of what happened,
but he smiled as if to say, "It s all over with you! " 15

Clay s social life had suffered a distressing blow, but he
continued his efforts to win friends by lavish entertainment,
and he did not restrict himself to male company. "I have al
ways enjoyed the society of intellectual women more than
that of men," he confessed later, and his engagement calendar
in St. Petersburg confirmed his preference. Along with of-

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 205

ficial commands to assist the Emperor at military reviews and
maneuvers, Clay s mail included small perfumed notes in
dainty feminine French. In his early fifties, robust and
healthy, Clay struck a handsome pose in his resplendent major
general s uniform, with a jewel-encrusted sword at his side.
In his colorful costume, with his whitening hair camou
flaged by dye, Clay moved among Russian society like an
overgrown boy. When he saw a lovely woman and he was
easily convinced that Russian women were the world s most
fair he promptly said so. Such unconstrained compliments
won the admiration of the ladies. And Clay invited them to
his home, where he won their praise with his heavily liquored
version of Kentucky punch. He won a widespread reputa
tion as a Don Juan. A friend in London, who had been on
his legation staff, teased him about his social aspirations. "How
are you, my dear General?" he inquired. "Still making your
courtesies to the bonny lasses?" But Bayard Taylor, ex-secre
tary of the legation, in a bad humor because he had not been
promoted to minister when Cameron left St. Petersburg, was
bitter about Clay s romancing. "A man (entre nous} who
made the legation a laughing stock, whose incredible vanity
and astonishing blunders are still the talk of St. Petersburg
. . . will probably be allowed to come back to his ballet girls
(his reason for coming) by our softhearted Abraham Lin
coln," Taylor fumed. "Let the government send a man . . .
with a few moral scruples and I shall gladly give up all my
pretensions and go home." Despite the teasing or the criticism
of his associates, Clay was proud of his attractiveness to the
fair ladies, and he preened himself for their approval 16

But while he was in the Russian capital, Clay was involved
in one escapade which, socially, proved embarrassing the
Chautems affair. Eliza Leonard, a British subject living in St.
Petersburg, had married Jean Chautems, a talented but im
pecunious Swiss chef. Somehow Clay met the family and ad-

206 Lion of White Hall

mired their two daughters, the elder of whom, Leontine, was
about fourteen years old. The parents had the misfortune to
be imprisoned for debt, and Leontine went to Clay and asked
his aid. The British secretary of legation, John S. Lumley, got
Mme Chautems out of prison, but the family had nothing
with which to face the rigors of the approaching winter.
Clay and Lumley contributed enough to set Mme Chautems
up in the boarding-house business, and Clay supervised the
purchase of furniture and the renting of a house for her.
She promised to repay the loan out of her income. Thus far,
Clay s connection with the Chautems family was nothing
more than generous charity. But he used his generosity as an
excuse to continue visiting the family in its new home. Lonely
and bored, he enjoyed the company of anyone who could
speak English. He was particularly attracted to Leontine, and
took her for drives in his carriage to the islands of the Neva.
But he discovered that some of the furniture he had put in
the house was missing and had been sold. Moreover, the
woman never made any payments on her debt to him. His
temper flared; he called the police to turn the woman out of
the house, and he got a court decree to sell the furniture he
had put into it. His action precipitated a blackmail scheme by
Mme Chautems. 17

To his embarrassment, Clay now perceived that his charity
toward the Chautemses admitted of more than one interpreta
tion. In his quest for informal companionship, he had pro
vided the unscrupulous woman the opportunity to trap him.
In a public statement, Mme Chautems declared that Clay had
rented the house to serve as a trysting place, though she did
not recognize it at the time. Since he seemed to be a bene
factor, she went on, she had confidence in him until he took
advantage of his position. He first attempted his immoral de
signs upon Leontine, she charged. When he took her in his
carriage, he had a conversation with her, said her mother,

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 207

which she, "in her innocence and simplicity," did not under
stand.

Failing in that "infamous" purpose with the daughter, Mme
Chautems went on, Clay visited the mother when she was
alone and sick in her bed, and attacked her "most brutally."
Her virtue was saved, she said, only by the unexpected re
turn of her daughter. Clay, "interrupted in his criminal in
tents," the woman concluded, then had them ejected from the
house. She sued him in the Russian courts, but her case was
thrown out because the defendant enjoyed ministerial im
munity. Thereupon, Mme Chautems submitted her petition
directly to the United States Congress. 18

In the United States the Chautems petition did not arouse
much attention. In April, 1867, Seward brought the matter
before the cabinet, announcing that Clay was accused of li
centiousness, seduction, refusal to pay his debts, and "plead
ing his representative character when sued." In Congress, the
petition received the same treatment as did many others; it
was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
and then to the State Department. Seward sent it to Clay with
instructions to answer it fully. 19

In the spring of 1867, Mme Chautems allegations did not
replace the Reconstruction Acts in the newspapers, but in
Kentucky there were ribald reverberations to the petition.
An anonymous pamphlet, purporting to be the work of
"Timothy Bombshell and others," soon had readers chuckling
over Clay s exploits. Entitled A Synopsis of Forty Chapters
Upon Clay, not to be found in any treatise on the Free Soils
of the United-States of America heretofore published, its
perpetrators cleverly set themselves the task of solving the
mystery of the "C. M." in Clay s name. In the beginning of
his career, they said, the letters meant "Crying Mammifer-
ous;" and at other stages in his life they stood for "Clamorous

208 Lion of White Hall

Maniac;" "Callous Malignant;" "Cloddy Muddle;" and
"Colossal Monstrosity." But after the Chautems affair, the
pamphleteers joked, his name would only be "General Cohabit
Misogamy Clay." There were many Kentuckians who joined
in the raucous laugh. 20

While Kentuckians ridiculed, Clay s friends in Russia hur
ried to his aid. The Russians, tolerant of his shortcomings,
offered him the use of government agencies to contest the
Chautems allegation. The secret police supplied him with af
fidavits to show that the woman was a recognized prostitute,
and that her word was worthless. The police also affirmed
that Clay s furniture had been located in the hands of a
merchant who declared that the Chautemses had sold it to
him. Prince Gortchacov told Clay to let his past life be his
answer to the charges, and to pay no further attention to the
scurrility. Sir Andrew Buchanan, the British ambassador who
had handled the Chautems case, certified that Clay was blame
less in the affair. Mme Chautems fled the empire to "escape
her creditors," and the matter in the Russian capital, at least
was soon forgotten. 21

Clay s documents of the Chautems affair, which he spread
before the world in his Memoirs, established his innocence,
but they did not excuse his indiscretion in putting himself in
such a questionable position. If, as his evidence suggested, the
Chautems couple had a "very bad reputation with regard to
their honor and morality," and were trying to "speculate
upon the chastity" of their daughter, Clay should have had
no dealings with them at least, not for the public to see. The
Chautems affair was the most lurid episode in Clay s colorful
career as a diplomat. 22

But in 1866 Clay did more than involve himself in scandal
ous escapades. That year, an unsuccessful attempt had been
made upon the life of the Czar Liberator. The United States
Congress, mourning over the recent assassination of President

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 209

Lincoln, passed resolutions congratulating the Czar upon his
escape, and appointed Captain Gustavus V. Fox, former Assist
ant Secretary of the Navy, to deliver them in person. With
an ironclad monitor, the first such vessel to appear in North
European waters, and two wooden vessels, Fox made his
pilgrimage to the Russian capital. With all the pomp he could
muster, Alexander II received the special American envoys,
and Clay busied himself arranging the details. Secretary
Curtin proved invaluable to the Minister, serving as inter
preter for the group and also as its escort on a tour of inland
Russian cities. 23

Clay was still well pleased with his secretary, but soon his
uncontrollable jealousy appeared. In 1866, Curtin visited
Moscow, and the merchants there planned a banquet in his
honor. Just before the affair was to take place, Clay, worried
about his ministerial popularity, suddenly appeared and had
to be included on the program. Years later, when both Clay
and Curtin wrote their memoirs, each of them recalled that
he had been the chief attraction at the Moscow banquet: Clay
boasted that his anti-English, home-industry speech, in which
he compared Russia to the American South, won the acclaim
of his mercantile hosts; Curtin claimed that his stirring toast
to Moscow delivered in the Russian language aroused more
sentiment. But as yet there was no evidence of hostility be
tween them. In reporting the affair to Washington, Clay
highly commended his secretary. "He is a great acquisition
to this legation," he said, "and deserves well of the country."
Clay even suggested that the United States consulate in Mos
cow be closed, and the salary given to Curtin, who was
"starving." 24

But a few months later, at another Moscow banquet, Clay
angrily accused his secretary of trying to steal the show.
After that, Clay s bitterness toward the young man mounted.
He forgot the compliments he had earlier paid Curtin; he
put out of his mind even the manner in which the young man

210 Lion of White Hall

had entered the legation staff. Clay accused the secretary of
turning the Russians against him in order to seize his posi
tion. He charged that Curtin had assisted the Chautems
woman to spread "calumny" about him, and he peremptorily
ordered the secretary out of the legation.

Taken aback by Clay s sudden venom, Curtin never again
entered the building. Since the Secretary of State kept the
young man on the salary list until 1869, Clay complained
that Curtin represented but another of Seward s efforts to
pillory him. "He smuggled in upon me the Jesuit and drunk
ard Jeremiah Curtin," Clay declared to Senator Henry Wil
son of Massachusetts, "whom he has used as a spy and
calumniator against me ever since he has been here." As
Seward s tool, Clay went on, Curtin was the cause of all his
woes. "He was the aider and abetter of the bawdy-house
keepers, J. and Eliza Chautems, in sending on the libelous
petition to Congress against me. . . ." To Seward, Clay
fumed that "no honorable man would ask me to associate
with an ingrate, a calumniator, and a proven swindler."

Clay had practiced his invective for many years, and with
Curtin his scurrility was at its height. He loaded his diplo
matic reports with harsh words about his secretary of lega
tion, until one of the State Department clerks complained.
"Has a man simply because he happens to be a minister," he
asked the Secretary of State, "a right to put a number at the
top of a sheet, and then fill it with scurrility and obscenity
and require you to preserve it in the archives?" Clay s jealous
hatred for a possible competitor had overcome his self-
control, and he hurled imprecations at Curtin. 25

Clay wrote also to many politicians in the United States,
reiterating his charges against his secretary. "Curtin is the
most abandoned scoundrel I ever met of his age," he declared
to Schuyler Colfax. "It would take a volume to tell you all his
scoundrelism . . . the whole course of the poor devil seemed
to have been inspired by his hope of being charge here." Clay

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 211

denounced Curtin as an "habitual drunkard and also an ac
knowledged hypocrite." But to Seward, Clay s story was
different. Curtin was the "protege of Mr. Sumner, and shows
his hatred of me," he declared. The cause of the dispute, he
told Seward, was a toast at the Moscow banquet which
omitted Seward s name but included Curtin s. After the toast,
Curtin "had his claquers ready who . . . tossed him up
to the disgust of all the gentlemen present." This was, Clay
continued, "but one of a thousand of his pieces of impu
dence." Obviously the secretary was too popular for the
Minister. 26

When Seward called upon Clay to give specific charges
against the secretary, other than jealous hatred, the Minister
presented evidence that Curtin had failed to pay his debts.
The young man responded, as Clay himself had reported, that
living in St. Petersburg was too expensive for his salary, but
that as soon as possible he had repaid his creditors. But he
overlooked one bill for 2 45-., which the obsessed Clay
heralded as proof of Curtin s perfidy. In view of his own ex
tended indebtedness, it revealed a lack of understanding that
Clay pounced upon a small obligation of short duration (and
apparently an honest oversight at that) to besmirch Curtin s
character. For Clay to magnify so petty a debt into a con
tinuous tirade indicated the extent of his jealousy. For him
to hold Curtin guilty of crimes because of his religion sug
gested that Clay was hard-pressed for a cause to attack the
young man. But Clay s impassioned tirade suggested also that
he had other reasons for denouncing his secretary. 27

There was an important business deal which led Clay to
seek the removal of Curtin. He wanted a certain M. D.
Landon as his secretary, because Landon was related to Rob
ert Williams, the "great American railroad man of Moscow."
Having profited from the Russian- American Telegraph Com
pany, Clay now saw an opportunity to make money on Rus
sian railroad construction. Already he was casting about for

212 Lion of White Hall

an American accomplice to raise capital for the scheme.
"The Russian Government are very anxious to complete their
railroad system and will grant very liberal terms," he con
fided to John A. Andrew, Civil War governor of Massa
chusetts. Clay invited Andrew to join him in forming an in
vestment company to lend capital for the railway expansion.
"I have the confidence of operators here as well as of the
government," he said, "and if you think proper to try your
hand in the matter, we can make a large fortune say a few
millions of dollars. . . ." With such a vision before him,
Clay desired to rid himself of Curtin, who had no influential
connections, in favor of the railroader s relative. Even as
minister, Clay was primarily concerned with capital invest
ment and industrial development. 28

The railroad scheme fell through, but a business matter
more important to the public did not. In the spring of 1867,
a treaty was ratified which provided for the purchase of
Russian America by the United States. Clay claimed credit
for the acquisition. When he was attacking the Secretary of
State, he made the accusation that "Seward has also attempted
to appropriate all the honor . . . for the Alaska and other
concessions of the Ra. [Russian] government whereas he
is known here as the enemy of the Foreign Department, and
has no influence whatever and all the favors of Russia are
due only to me." Years after that immodest avowal, Clay was
still trying to prove that his influence had been responsible
for the Alaska purchase. When all his other accomplishments
were forgotten, he told the students at Berea College in 1895,
posterity would remember him as the author of Alaska an
nexation. All he wanted upon his monument, he said, was his
name, and the single word, "ALASKA." 29

Despite his claims, Clay had played only a small part in
the purchase of Alaska. The discussion of it took place in
Washington between Seward and the Russian Minister,

Swashbuckling Diplomacy 213

"Baron" de Stoeckl, and when the treaty was worked out,
Seward obligingly sent Clay a copy. The Minister in St.
Petersburg had had some dealings with the business interests
which desired the territory, and through that connection he
claimed credit for the purchase.

During the i86o s it became evident that fur-trading rights
to Russian America, or Alaska, would soon be open. Because
of declining profits, the Russian-American Fur Company,
which had had a monopoly of the trade, did not desire an
extension of its charter when it expired in 1862. Part of its
rights, however, had been granted to the Hudson s Bay Com
pany (unpopular in Russia), in a sublease which ran until
1867. In California, a group of Americans formed a company
and laid plans to receive those rights. Because of his success
in urging the claims of the telegraph company, Clay worked
with the American company, and he reported optimistic hopes
for getting the charter. On his way back to Russia in 1863,
Clay met Robert J. Walker, Folk s Secretary of the Treasury,
territorial governor of Kansas, and confirmed expansionist,
who was on a special mission in Europe. "I impressed upon
Walker the importance of the ownership of the western coast
of the Pacific," Clay reported to Seward, "in connection with
the vast trade which was springing up with China, Japan, and
the western islands." 30 Actually, Clay s arguments were not
necessary to convince Walker, already in favor of acquiring as
much West Coast territory as possible.

The Russians were contemplating selling Alaska outright,
rather than merely granting a charter for hunting rights. The
Czar s representative in Washington, de Stoeckl, considered
the territory a potential breeder of trouble between the two
countries, and recommended the sale. In 1 866 he received per
mission to offer it to the United States. He bargained with
Seward and succeeded in getting the price raised from five
to seven million dollars, and the deal was made. So anxious was
Seward to close the matter that he kept weary State Depart-

214 Lion of White Hall

ment clerks at work all night ironing out the details. Getting
the treaty ratified by the Senate, and even more important,
getting the House of Representatives to appropriate the nec
essary funds, were problems which would cause the Secretary
much worry and much tactful wire-pulling. While the House
wrangled over the treaty, Clay wrote from St. Petersburg
that the Russians were expressing the hope that the cession
would lead ultimately to the expulsion of England from the
Pacific. But despite his attempts to influence the lawmakers,
Clay had little part in the Alaska deal. 31

After the annexation, the remainder of Clay s term in St.
Petersburg was uneventful, and he prudently managed to
stay out of trouble. His career as a diplomat was over, and
he referred his ministry to the mercies of posterity. "As to my
diplomacy, I leave that to history," he said, "What reason was
there why Russia should stand by us, when other monarchies
desired to destroy us? ... Who shall say then how much
all this is owing to myself?"

In keeping Russia sympathetic to the United States, Clay s
ministry was a success, in spite of his diplomatic blundering.
He was a popular representative, and well liked by many
Russians, but his hot temper and his eccentric social manner
marred his ministry. After Clay returned home, the Russian
Minister, Catacazy, got into difficulties with the State Depart
ment. Someone told the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish,
that "after all, I have a notion you ought to be pretty patient
with Catacazy when we reflect how long St. Petersburg bore
with Cassius Clay." Clay was able to remain in Russia for
more than six years only because the Russians were tolerant
of his manifold aberrations. 32

CHAPTER XT

INDIAN SUMMER

lN 1863, when Cassius M. Clay left the United States with
his high hopes for prominent office unfulfilled he had returned
to Russia and become a Lincoln supporter. "If Uncle Abe
desires it," he confided to Salmon P. Chase in 1863, "I rather
think he deserves another term." Cassius was far from the
center of American political activity, and until his home
coming in 1 869 he played only a commentator s role. In Russia
he had acted as though the career for "which he had been so
ambitious had come to an end. 1

Back in America he soon discovered that the party was
divided by factional disputes, and that there was no politician
of Lincoln s calibre to control its divergent elements. There
was strong opposition within the party to the Radical program
of reconstruction. Behind the dissatisfaction was sufficient
force to create a revolt, and in it he might yet attain the
position which the regular party would not provide. Clay
therefore became a critic of the party leadership. "New men
have come into the control of the Republican Party, who
never had any sympathy with the original Republicans," he
protested, "who, assuming our watchwords, seizing our ships,
overthrowing our commanders, and sailing under false colors,
have since waged a more destructive war against the glorious
principles of republicanism than the rebels themselves."

215

216 Lion of White Hall

The Radicals, Clay charged, had declared war upon the
states: "The rebels attempted the overthrow of states by dis
solution; the radicals have accomplished the same by centrali
zation" Making that charge the basis of his campaign, Clay
re-entered American politics and sought to become the spokes
man for the anti-administration malcontents. For Cassius Clay,
who had spent the summertime of his life in the Baltic cold,
and for whom an extended winter of retirement lay ahead, it
was Indian summer. He prepared to make the most of his
new opportunity. 2

Once more, Clay had seized upon a potentially popular
issue. He was not alone in criticizing the administration of
the defeated South. Though he was among the first to declare
himself a "Liberal Republican," there were others ready to
take such a step. Underlying the military action against the
Confederate States of America was the economic conflict
between the interests of the industrial, mill-owning North
and those of the agrarian, plantation-owning South. After
the enemy had been defeated, and after a system conducive
to business prosperity had been established in the North, the
next phase was the control of southern economy. To accom
plish that purpose, the Radicals first employed coercion by
military occupation, which carried with it the establishment
by force of Negro political equality. That course so aroused
stubborn southerners that a state of near-anarchy resulted,
and in it, investments were endangered. Many moderate
northerners, unconcerned about the Negro, deplored the
Radical policies which engendered strife rather than estab
lishing peace and order. In 1869, there were many influential
men who grumbled at the administration s policy. Cassius
Clay moved to capitalize upon that discontent. 3

Immediately upon his return from Russia, Clay joined the
rebellious Republicans in denouncing the Radical policies.
For years he had been registering his disapproval of a vindic-

Indian Sum?ner 217

tive, coercive treatment of defeated southerners. In 1863, he
had urged the acceptance of a more liberal attitude. "Here is
a great rebellion. We must either destroy all engaged or
forgive them," he told War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton.
"I say our policy is to execute the unrepentant rebels: and
forgive the repentant. It is just it is good policy." And to
his friend Chase he repudiated Senator Charles Sumner s thesis
that the states of the South had committed suicide and had
reverted to territorial status by seceding. "After the rebels
are disarmed, the states and their rights revive, except so far
as individuals may be affected by legal procedure." Holding
such views, it was easy for Clay to find fault with postwar
Radicalism. 4

Clay had also long been a critic of the administration. He
had believed himself persecuted by the Secretary of State,
William H. Seward, and when Hamilton Fish succeeded to
that office, Clay charged that Fish was a dependent tool of
Seward, and that he continued Seward s unprovoked insults.
Clay was therefore arrayed against both the philosophy and
the personnel of the Grant administration. To dramatize his
allegation that party leaders were apostates to "original repub
licanism," he made use of a cause lying ready to hand. That
issue was the Cuban Revolt.

In 1868, patriots on the Spanish-held island had launched
a rebellion for independence in the hope of obtaining assist
ance from the American mainland. With the strain of Recon
struction and the prevalent war-weariness following the four-
year struggle at home, the administration, and in particular
Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, hesitated to become in
volved in a struggle with Spain. But Cassius Clay had no such
restraints, and, to embarrass the administration, he promptly
plunged into the troubled waters of Cuban affairs. It was
fundamentally the same issue he had always preached
emancipation and for the same purpose political office.

218 Lion of White Hall

Without even taking time to visit his family, whom he had
not seen for over six years, Clay planned an active campaign
for Cuban relief. He expressed horror at the official apathy
which met the gory atrocity stories emanating from the tor
tured island. He even charged that the administration favored
the Spanish over the oppressed natives. "When I arrived in
New York, in 1869, Spanish gunboats were fitted out in New
York harbor," he recalled later, "whilst the Cuban masters
and their liberated slaves were spied out, and all their ships
and material confiscated." Decrying such favoritism, Clay
called upon his veteran abolition colleagues to join him in a
protest movement. When he tried to speak in Cooper Institute
on behalf of the rebels, he was rudely received by the New
York "Custom-house dependents," the Grant henchmen, and
could not make himself heard. The behavior of these few
hotheaded urban ruffians played into Clay s hands; he used
that incident as ammunition to fire at the Republican leader
ship. "Thus I, who had never failed to secure, in the slave
States, a hearing was, in the free city of New York, silenced! "
he complained, insinuating that the Radicals were more inimi
cal to liberty than were the southern aristocrats. 5

Clay now considered himself at war with the administration.
The city roughs had helped him to draw the line between
his position and that of the Radicals. Despite the noisy op
position, the Cooper Institute gathering accepted Clay s reso
lutions, and he was elected president of the newly organized
Cuban Charitable Aid Society. It was the first step toward
the creation of an independent political party to oppose Radi
cal Reconstruction. Under the guise of organizing philan
thropic aid for an oppressed people, Clay attempted to form
a standard around which moderates could rally. In the state
ment of purpose which he published in the name of the
society, he declared that he wanted to force the administration
to change its policy toward the Cubans. "Our purpose," he an
nounced, " is to arouse and concentrate the moral support of

Indian Summer 219

the nation in behalf of the recognition by the general gov
ernment of the Belligerency and Independence of Cuba. 7 6

In the Cuban Aid Society, day had distinguished company.
Horace Greeley, another disaffected, crusading Republican,
was a vice-president of the society, and Charles A. Dana,
erudite editor of the New York Sun, was its treasurer. The
movement now had an organization and a press, and Clay
used it to determine the extent of anti-Radical opinion within
the Republican Party. In expressing his disapproval of admin
istration neutrality toward the Cubans, Clay made the issue
a test of allegiance. Any politician who would join in castigat
ing the administration on that question might also serve in
the ranks of a protest party.

Some leading Republicans, like Senator Benjamin F. Wade
of Ohio, concurred in Clay s criticism of the Grant-Fish
foreign policy. "I am astonished at the apparent indifference
of the great Republican Party to the fate of the people of
Cuba," Wade told Clay. "Are they indeed weary in well-doing,
or do they still favor that timorous, halting, hesitating policy,
which added more than half to the blood and treasure in
conquering our own rebellion . . . ?" While Wade sympa
thized with Clay s Cuban Society and agreed to serve as vice-
president for Ohio, other prominent party leaders rejected
the manifesto. Governor John M. Palmer of Illinois, although
he later became an outspoken critic of the Radicals, was at
first cautious and refused to participate in the Cuban affair. 7

Clay s new emancipation program attracted little attention.
The society collected less than two thousand dollars, of which
about half went for relief to the Cuban junta, and the rest to
organizational overhead. Despite its poor showing, it served
its purpose, and Clay was satisfied with its effect. He protested
loudly that the opposition of President Grant and Secretary
Fish had effectively curbed popular demand for Cuban rec
ognition. The Republican Party, which had come into being
to defeat American slavery, Clay said, had deviated from

220 Lion of White Hall

its noble purpose of liberation. The Cuban Aid Society had
proven that criticism of the Grant administration and its
policies was popular. For Clay s political ambitions, the soci
ety was a success.

But Clay could not immediately follow up his initial victory.
He had personal problems which demanded his attention. His
marriage, which had been strained for many years, was on
the verge of dissolution. Mary Jane Clay was among those
Kentuckians who believed the Chautems blackmail story, and
she no longer considered Cassius her husband. "When Seward
calumniated me, she wrote a letter, not trusting me, but
believing the Chautems scandal," he said, "at which I was
indignant and thus closed our correspondence." When he
returned to Kentucky, his wife treated him as a stranger and
moved him into a separate room. The weather turned cold,
and there was no fireplace in his room. He told of enduring
cold "so intense that icicles froze on my beard." Soon after
that indignity, Mary Jane called him in for a discussion of
his financial affairs. In the course of the discussion, he alleged,
she lost her temper and poured out angry words at him. In
furiated, she delivered imprecations, as Cassius reported it,
"upon my devoted head like a deluge." At first, Cassius re
called, he was angry. "After I had married her," he declared,
"my love for her was pure and devoted, and it was she who
made the first breach upon the marriage duties" But when he
saw her fury, he made no response. "The last touch of love
had vanished," he said, and he let her finish the tirade. Then
he politely bade her good-night, and left her. His marriage
was at an end.

On two occasions after the separation Mrs. Clay humbled
herself in an effort to bring about a reconciliation. She sent
him a message that she loved him as much as ever, but Cassius
met it with a tight-lipped silence. When he heard that she
intended to move back into White Hall he abandoned it to

Indian Summer 221

her, leaving it vacant. With her offers rejected, Mrs. Clay
withdrew to Lexington and established a separate residence.
In 1878, after five years of separation, Clay sued his wife for
divorce, and she did not contest the suit. On February 7,
1878, he was legally "restored to all the rights and privileges
of an unmarried man." After the judicial settlement, Mrs.
Clay lived in Lexington until her death, at the age of 86, on
April 29, 1900. Because of Cassius stubborn unforgiving
spirit, both he and Mary Jane were lonely for the last twenty-
five years of their lives. 8

But Clay lost little time bemoaning his broken marriage.
He considered that he had a new chance for high office, and
he enthusiastically entered national politics. To separate him
self from the Radical-dominated Republican Party, he joined
the Democrats; but he did not make an overt change for
several years. In 1870 the Democratic Party was still tainted
with secession and was therefore unpopular. Until it became
acceptable to avow himself a Democrat, Clay helped to organ
ize the amorphous protest-movement by working with inde
pendents. "The Democrats were beaten in the war, and were
powerless in politics," he explained later. "I thought that the
way to help them was to start an independent candidate,
which, if they were wise, they would support with or with
out a convention nomination." Clay accordingly became a
pioneer among the Liberal Republicans. 9

With that as his purpose, and with the ever-present hope of
reward, Clay continued his attacks upon the Grant adminis
tration. "I think you will . . . find out that it is utterly im
possible to keep the Republican Party in power with Grant
and the imbecile sycophant Fish as regent" he told Massa
chusetts Senator Henry Wilson. "I wish you would join
yourself with those who desire a liberal course towards the
South," he urged. "I feel as sure as I live that the policy of
repression will fail. . . ." Clay claimed that his entreaties

222 Lion of White Hall

convinced many of the old-line Republicans that a more mod
erate policy would bring the desired results. Such men as
Sumner, Greeley, Chase, Julian, and Lyman Trumbull, he
said, agreed with him that the Radical program was a mistake,
and hindered the effort to reconcile the South with northern
economy. Clay also asserted that all "careful thinkers" per
ceived that the policy of putting the Saxon race under Negro
rule would fail. 10

After private correspondence with old-school Republicans
had convinced him that he would receive their support, Clay
began denouncing the Grant leadership openly, In the sum
mer of 1871 he advocated Horace Greeley for the presidential
nomination. On July 4, at Lexington, he was back on the
stump in his home town with a bitter attack upon the mili
tary rule of the South and the coercion policy. Clay wanted
southerners to plan their own economic development, and he
said that the Radical scheme of inciting the blacks against
the whites prevented it. "The interests of the blacks and the
old masters are the same," he said, "and if they are just they
would regain their former power not by revolution, but by
education and the development of the unequalled resources of
the South."

Clay appealed for southern support of the Liberal move
ment and held out the promise of restored local control. Re
pressive rule from Washington, illustrated by the Force Bills
of 1871, had taken the place of the aristocratic agricultural
party in hindering the industrial development of the South.
Clay urged a change in the national government. He favored
a candidate who came with the olive branch, rather than the
sword Horace Greeley, rather than Ulysses S. Grant. The
first step in Clay s final drive for power was to break the
Radicals by restoring the southern states to local control. 11

In pursuing that course, Clay became an ardent champion
of states rights. Early in 1872 he published a proclamation
justifying the Liberal Republican Party and his own aspira-

Indian Summer 223

tions for office. "The Constitution was based upon the vital
integrity of the states," he began, "and their unhappy over
throw was not necessary to the suppression of the rebellion
or to the liberation of the slaves, or to any legitimate purpose
for which the war was waged." But in addition to the destruc
tion of the states, the "prescriptive rule of the Grant party,"
Clay charged, had an even more serious consequence: it left
the North and the South still hostile and the subjected states
in anarchy. "It was the disfranchisement of the leading minds
of the South, and the fatal attempt to subject the Saxon race
... to the minority of the African freedmen, which bred
the foulest excrescence of slavery the Ku-Klux clans."

Clay condemned the Radicals for disrupting order in the
South, and he appealed for the support of southern Demo
crats to the Liberal movement, still promising local control.
"If the Democrats are wise and just," he admonished them,
"the blacks, five millions of the South, will vote with the
South; not because they are Democrats or Republicans, but
because they are Southerners."

In the interests of his own aspirations, Clay posed as a
southern patriot. "As a southern man . . . ," he explained,
"I have devoted my life to the overthrow of slavery because
it was unjust to the black, and a cause of weakness to the
white." Now that slavery was dead, he was still sympathetic
to the South. "I resist with the same earnestness . . . the
attempt of the Grant conspirators to subjugate the South," he
declared. "I denounce the attempt to weaken us by a studied
policy of barbarizing us, by the corrupt and irresponsible
rule of men from the North. . . ." Once more Clay spoke
for southern sentiment, and his motive was the same as be
fore. "We want new men, with new sentiments of good will,"
he told the southerners, speaking of Horace Greeley. "We
want men who . . . turn their backs upon rebellion and
secession, and look to the Union only for safety and happi
ness.

Clay carried his support of Greeley into the National Lib-

224 Lion of White Hall

eral Republican Convention. In May, 1872, at Cincinnati, a
confused assemblage of disgruntled politicians, old abolition
ists, and hard-money enthusiasts gathered to name candidates
to oppose Grant and the Radicals. As leader of the Kentucky
delegation, Clay supported Greeley, who received the presi
dential nomination. Clay claimed that he was responsible for
securing Greeley s nomination over Massachusetts scholar and
diplomat, Charles Francis Adams, and in the campaign which
followed, Clay vigorously campaigned against the Republican
ticket. 13

In his campaign speeches he continued to condemn Radical
rule in the South. He was shocked upon his return to Ken
tucky, he said, to see state sovereignty overruled, and troops
patrolling the state which had made more sacrifices for the
Union than any other state. "Why? Because other men had
interests in maintaining the Union. They had pecuniary inter
ests as well as patriotic motives. . . ." Clay denounced the
carpetbaggers, and in effect he abandoned the Republican
Party. Its mission had been accomplished, he insisted, and it
no longer served a useful purpose. "It was no part of the Re
publican program . . . that the blacks should be placed above
the whites."

Clay also grieved over the state-destroying policies of the
Radicals. "Let us save the States; let us save the South;" he
said, "and by saving the States and saving the South, we save
the Union and the liberties of the . . . Constitution." South
ern rebels had gone too far in seceding from the Union, Clay
acknowledged; but the Radicals, "in ignoring all the rights of
the States, and engrossing the whole power of the Govern
ment in the National Administration," had gone to the op
posite extreme. As he had opposed the one mistake, so he
also fought the other. To Negroes Clay gave the advice that
they cease their enmity toward their former masters, and
assured them that they would not be returned to slavery.
"Do you owe an allegiance to the present administration?"

Indian Summer 225

he would ask them. "No; you owe it to those who fought
your battles. You owe no gratitude to Useless S. Grant; he
never voted for you in his life." 14

Clay also called for peace between the sections, which the
Radical program did not provide. Though it was seven years
after the end of the war, he said, "we hear to-day, the same
battle-cry that was begun in 1860." He told an Ohio audi
ence that it was impossible to maintain the republic with
"fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen States of the South in a chronic
state of enmity to the United States." That was the reason,
he explained, that he campaigned for the Liberals. A more
moderate policy might ease southern qualms and allow peace
able northern investments. 15

Despite Clay s efforts, Grant was re-elected. But the Ken-
tuckian did not regret his work with the Liberals. The party
had served its purpose: it had united resistance to Radical
Reconstruction, and it had prepared the way for a Demo
cratic opposition which would eventually end military occu
pation. "Greeley was beaten," Clay said later, "but the Demo
cratic or opposition party was placed upon the road to vic
tory." In the Indian summer of his political career, Clay was
carefully cultivating the crop he hoped to reap: nomination
in

Until then, Clay went into semiretirement at White Hall.
"Fm leading a rather solitary life," he reported in 1 874, "and
am much at home, and devoted all the more on that account
to flowers and fruits." His farm and his garden occupied
much of his time, and he read for many hours every day
Shakespeare and Milton, as well as history and biography.
Visitors to White Hall were impressed by Clay s dynamic
personality and his urbane, enlightened conversation. A little
above medium height, with stocky, powerful limbs, his face
covered with a thick, iron-gray beard and his hair silvery
gray, Clay had lost none of his charm in his retirement. He

226 Lion of White Hall

was lonely in the big house but he lived in simple luxury
among his flowers, his orchards, and his books. He kept a
close watch upon public affairs and maintained a large corre
spondence. 17

In May, 1875, Clay brought his retirement to an end, and
began the final step in his campaign for high office. He
openly joined the Democratic Party at its state convention in
Frankfort, thus completing his break with the Republicans.
An important ex-Republican, he attracted much attention by
his shift, and his reasons were widely circulated as campaign
material. "There is but one great issue between the Republi
cans and the Democrats," he explained, "but that issue is the
most important that ever interested the human race . . .
whether man is capable of self-government." The people of
intelligence and moral worth the propertied classes ought
to rule a country, he said; and in the southern states that was
no longer the case. "When the South . . . laid down her
arms, she should have been restored at once to self-govern
ment," he proclaimed. "The attempt to rule the eleven
States . . . from Washington, was only possible by over
throwing constitutional government and becoming a central
despotism." Grant s tyranny, "directed towards the Southern
people, with whom I am identified," Clay explained, "drove
me into the Democratic Party. . . ."

As a recognized Democrat and an advisor to the party, he
urged the nomination in 1876 of a "straight-out" Democrat
for the presidential candidate, with the second office going to
"a liberal in the South." Clay s ambition to be vice-president
would not let him rest, and some of his acquaintances agreed
that he now had a chance. "If an Eastern man is selected for
the first place," the Kentucky secretary of state told Clay s
nephew, "your Uncle might stand a fair chance for the
second, unless the point would turn on a financial compro
mise and the ticket be Tilden and Pendleton." 18

Having declared war upon the Radical Republicans and

Indian Summer

disclosed his own aspirations, Clay set out to garner publicity
for himself by making speeches. He reiterated his interest in
southern problems, expostulating against Radical despotism
and the anarchy which it produced. He simplified the Demo
cratic platform to the one issue of state control in the South.
To head off the Pendleton movement, he tried to minimize
the financial issue which faced the country. "What we need
is not more currency, but more confidence in State values and
good government," he told his fellow Madison Countians. "I
want to go into the canvass of 1876 upon the true issue the
self-government of the people of these States. . . ." 19

Clay delivered numerous speeches for the Democrats, and
he participated in state elections in such widely diverse areas
as Ohio and Mississippi, to demonstrate his vote-getting appeal.
In Mississippi, where Clay made several appearances, the
voters overthrew Adelbert Ames, of Maine, and the carpet
bag regime, and the Kentuckian claimed credit for the "oasis
in the gloomy desert of Democratic defeats." His success in
the deep South inspired him to proclaim his candidacy. He
wrote bundles of letters to prominent anti-Grant politicians,
begging their support, and pointing to his ability to win votes.
"My name will be presented to the Demo. Natl Convention
next year for vice president," he would say. "North will get
first place, and second naturally goes to South. ... I ask
your favorable consideration." The time had come when Clay
hoped to gather in the harvest for which he had worked. 20

But his elaborate preparations bore bitter fruit. When the
Democratic convention met, his candidacy was not strong
enough to sway the party. Samuel J. Tilden, a "straight-out"
Democrat of New York, won the presidential nomination, as
Clay had anticipated, but for the second place the delegates
chose Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana. As he had done so
many times before, Clay had to swallow his disappointment
and campaign for another candidate. Once more he expected

228 Lion of White Hall

a cabinet appointment as his reward. "I hasten to assure you,"
one of his Kentucky friends told him, "that nothing could
afford me more satisfaction than the opportunity I now have
of recommending your appointment to a position in Mr.
Tilden s cabinet."

But though Clay received support for the coveted position
of Secretary of War, Tilden did not become President. The
Democratic candidate received a popular majority; he did
not, however, get enough uncontested electoral votes to secure
election. In South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, each
party claimed to have carried the states, and each claimed the
nineteen electoral votes which those states cast. In the dispute,
a special electoral commission appointed to determine the
validity of the votes in those three states gave them all to the
Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, making him
President. But an elaborate compromise behind the scenes
prevented another civil war and guaranteed the victory to the
Republicans. 21

Despite the peaceful settlement of the dispute, many ob
servers expected hostilities over the election. "I am not at all
sure that the present complications will end without a fight,"
one of Clay s acquaintances told him. "If the government can
be seized and held by a gang of unprincipled political buc
caneers against a popular majority of over 300,000 . . . there
will be some new and startling questions in American politics
before the four years shall elapse. . . ." There was no con
flict, but Clay was disgusted with the manipulations which
prevented his reward. Tilden was elected in 1876, he cate
gorically reported later. "It was no fault of mine that he was
by Democratic treachery and cowardice, and Republican
fraud and bulldozing, not allowed to take the place to which
the people . . . had assigned him." But regardless of the
arrangements which made it possible, Hayes s election brought
Clay s campaign to an end. 22

Once more Clay s aspirations to high office had come to

Indian Summer 229

failure. Because of his shift in political allegiance, he held the
unique distinction of having made a serious effort for nomi
nation in both major parties, and of having failed in both. In
1860 his southern background and his extremism deterred his
campaign, and in 1876 his long career as a Republican de
tracted from his availability.

Although he did not receive the reward he craved, his effort
nevertheless revealed his political aptitude. He had guessed
right in 1876, just as he had guessed right in the iSjo s, but
circumstances beyond his control worked against him in both
cases. Of all the hard-luck candidates in American politics,
Cassius Clay could take his place alongside his kinsman Henry
Clay, at the forefront. And with the failure of his campaign
among the Democrats, Clay s Indian summer was over, and
winter was at hand.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LION
OF WHITE HALL

W[TH the defeat of the Democratic Party in 1876, Cassius
M. Clay declared his career at an end. The first act of the
new President, Rutherford B. Hayes, was to terminate mili
tary occupation of southern states, and Clay claimed that his
part in the campaign had been a significant factor in that
action. "Here the two great acts in the Political Drama, in
which I have borne a soldier s part, cease," he said a few
years later. "The first was the freedom of the blacks . . . ;
the second was the restoration of the States to their original
sovereignty." Declaring his efforts successful, Clay retired
into lonely leisure at his Madison County estate. But though
he withdrew, he did not escape public notice. He continued
to play the exciting game of politics, in the capacity of elder
statesman, and he indulged in characteristic antics which
aroused attention. It was during his retirement that Cassius
Clay won the sobriquet, "Lion of White Hall." 1

In the years after 1876, Clay, whose entire career had been
colorful, became the subject of much folklore. As he grew
older, a kind of mental illness appeared, which drove him to
wild fears and dark forebodings. His tortured mind finally
broke under the strain and the loneliness, and he mistrusted
even his own family. To forestall his imagined enemies he
turned his mansion into a fortress and diligently guarded it.

230

The Lion of White Hall 231

The final years of Cassius Clay s life, like the stormy career
which had preceded them, brought him no peace. Haunted
by insane fears, lonely to the point of desperation, and child
ishly ^senile, he was a pathetic caricature of his younger self.
Despite all his handicaps, however, Clay still possessed enough
of his earlier spirit to earn the title of "Lion."

White Hall was a fitting lair for such a personality. The
house, remodelled while Clay was in Russia, was now a luxu
rious mansion capable of serving as a fort. Clay had had the
house constructed of specially prepared brick knit together
with mortar of a high lime content, and with no wood ex
posed except in the window frames. Inside the defensive
shell, however, the house lost its forbidding atmosphere. In
the entry hall, so large that "you could turn a wagon load of
hay about in it without touching the walls," (a visitor politely
exaggerated), were niches for statuary. Clay possessed busts
of Henry Clay and Horace Greeley by the Kentucky sculp
tor Joel T. Hart, and he also displayed portrait paintings of
the Russian Czar and Czarina and the Prime Minister, Prince
Gortchakov. To the right of the hall were parlors with walls
twenty feet high and marble pillars supporting the ceiling.
On the left of the hall was an oval library, and back of that
was the dining room. From the entry a graceful staircase
curved upward to the second floor, where there was another
enormous hall, and along it spacious bedrooms, with walls
fifteen feet high, and for each bedroom a large private dress

ing room 2

In addition to the ordinary appointments of the house, Clay
had made some unusual installations. On the roof of one of the
porticoes was a fish pond visible only from the upper stories.
An inside bathtub, for which the servants took water up
stairs, was built into a small room; and in closets on the
second floor were two commodes. Clay furnished the house
richly, with carpets, chandeliers, mirrors, vases, and antique
furniture more than a century old. His library was extensive.

232 Lion of White Hall

He boasted "most of the first works of all time." With sturdy
walls, spacious living quarters, and luxurious fittings, White
Hall was a magnificent mansion. 3

Among such comforts Cassius Clay lived out the lonely
years of his retirement. Although he had never been an en
thusiastic farmer, he now gave close attention to his garden.
Fruits, vegetables, and grains grew profusely, and Clay loved
to point out to visitors that everything upon his table, except
the pepper, salt, and coffee, was produced on the farm. He
was fond of mutton and was proud of his herd of purebred
Southdown sheep. But though he supplied his table well, he
was not a heavy eater. He attributed his longevity to his
temperance in eating, and he loved to relate that he always
concluded his meals while still hungry. As a result he re
mained lithe and stocky, and his eyes retained their bright
ness. Only his gray hair and his beard revealed his age: as he
poetically described it, "The frost which never melts settles
upon my locks!" But the years did not at first detract from
Clay s personal appeal. His conversation was brilliant and
compelling, and those who met him never forgot his fasci
nating personality. 4

In his retirement the old man maintained an active schedule.
His day began at 8 A.M. with a "morning nip of tansy bitters
... as a simple tonic," followed by breakfast. Then came
the bath. "I bathe more or less every morning in cold water,"
he explained, and he also boasted that he "never used tobacco
in any shape, and spirits only very sparingly." His mornings
Clay devoted to reading under the trees on the lawn if the
weather permitted; or if not, he would move into a glassed
porch. After a light lunch he would nap in the open air upon
an iron lounge without pillows or cushions. "I want the air
to circulate all around me," he said. "I am fleshy enough to
dispense with cushions, and they attract flies. You see I have
no flies around here . . . they are my abomination." 5

The Lion of White Hall 233

But it was loneliness which bothered Clay. "He lives almost
a hermit in this big house . . . ," a visitor reported. Cassius
tried to convince himself that he preferred to Hve alone. "No
baby to break things," he jocularly pointed out; "I will soon
have a sign painted . . . "Let no woman ever enter here! "
Brave attempts at humor, however, did not conceal his desire
for companionship. In the absence of human company, Cassius
surrounded himself with friendly animals. When he read
under a tree, he would hang a bird cage from a branch. "I
sought companionship with the flowers and trees and shrubs.
.... I gathered about me dogs . . . and pigeons and barn-
fowls, and the mute fishes. . . ." He erected a crumb-box
near his window to attract wild birds. "But at night I was
left all the more alone," he sadly mused, "till I often opened
the shutters that the bats should enter . . . and their flutter
ing life life was a pleasure to me." 6

Clay did not submit tamely to the fate which punished him
by abandonment and loneliness. Characteristically, he sought
something to fight. "Was it of God, or of man?" he would
angrily demand of the stars. "If of man, then will I contend
with man I will assert my eternal defense! And, if from
Fate, then will I wage with fortune an eternal war! " But
he had met an enemy which he could not master by brute
force, and he fourfd no solace in his retirement. "I, who had
sacrificed all to men, was by men left to myself alone," he
bitterly complained. 7

In desperation Clay made plans to secure companionship.
He remembered the sympathy and love he had received from
an unnamed Russian woman. "In a distant land . . . was one
spark of eternal life, which . . . spoke to me in words which
I could well understand," he said. He began to dream about
his St. Petersburg mistress. "Day by day that one image
that one voice which for so many years in a strange land I
had listened to as the sweetest music gathered into vivid-

234 Lion of White Hall

ness." To Clay, determined to endure loneliness no longer,
the memory brought hope. In 1 866 a son had been born to
the woman, and Clay made no effort to deny his paternity.
The lonely man sent for his child. Brought to White Hall,
the four-year-old boy was legally adopted by Clay, and his
name changed to Launey Clay, "by permission of his nomi
nal parents." Clay knew there would be criticism and gossip,
but for the sake of companionship he prepared to face it.
"Having made up my mind as to my highest duty," he said,
"I calmly shouldered all the responsibility for my action.
. . ." As he expected, there was much tongue-wagging over
the Russian boy. "You see an early champion of freedom
walking about boastfully with a bastard son, imported like an
Arabian cross-horse, and swearing at his family," one editor
boldly remarked. 8

But it was not only satirical journalists who attacked the
young Launey. Clay, busy with his own affairs, paid little
attention to the housekeeping chores, which he detailed to the
servants, a Negro couple named White. Having assigned
Launey to the care of a nurse, he considered his responsibility
fulfilled. But he was alarmed when the boy became pale and
listless and would drop things from his half -paralyzed hands.
When Clay questioned the nurse, she explained that Launey
ate dirt and was pining away from homesickness. Cassius began
to watch the boy more closely but suspected nothing unusual
until he intercepted a letter from Perry White, a son of the
servant couple, to his mother. Then Clay learned that the
servants had been systematically poisoning Launey with ar
senic. Promptly Clay s face clouded, and his hot temper arose.
He ordered the family to get off the place in fifteen minutes.
They were on the run, guiltily, in less than five. Although
there was no evidence of a plot, Clay immediately suspected
that the treachery of the White family was instigated by his
political opponents.

Though relieved to learn the truth about poor Launey s

The Lion of White Hall 235

illness, Clay had more trouble ahead. Perry White, angered
at the summary dismissal of his parents, publicly vowed to
"kill Cash Clay." But the Lion of White Hall, who could
not fight Fate, knew how to handle rash young men. He
armed himself with a pistol and his sharp bowie knife and
kept his watchdogs alert. When Perry attempted to make
good his threat, he was no match for the old man. On Sunday
morning, September 30, 1877, Clay and his son mounted a
mule to ride into the village. Not far from the mansion Clay
saw the Negro hiding in a pasture. Quickly dismounting, he
drew his pistol and ordered White to make no move while he
questioned his presence upon the estate. Suddenly the young
man ran toward Clay and drew a weapon. At his first move
Cassius fired twice and hit him with both shots. Perry White
fell dead. Leaving the body with the blood caking upon the
gaping wounds, Clay went to Foxtown and surrendered him
self. When his trial came up, the jury acquitted him by defining
the deed as justifiable homicide in self-defense. The Perry-
White affair, which Clay described as further evidence of
a plot against him, became another chapter in the growing
legend of the Lion of White Hall. 9

It was not only in violent self-defense that Cassius Clay
earned his reputation. In politics, although he repeatedly pro
tested that he had retired, he continued to roar. "If I am the
old lion they say I am," he bellowed, "I will show them that
I have not lost my teeth or my claws." In January, 1877, he
served as presiding officer of the Democratic state conven
tion at Louisville, where he tried to attract a following upon
the issue of corruption in the civil service. "In my sincere
conviction the Democratic party is the only party which can
reform the civil administration," he declared, pounding the
table in his best campaign style. But reform a recurrent issue
in postwar American politics got him nowhere. 10

In 1880, although Kentucky Democrats did not choose

236 Lion of White Hall

him as a delegate to the national convention, an honor he
earnestly sought, he would not remain upon the sidelines. He
campaigned in Kentucky for the Democratic nominees Han
cock and English, as much from habit, it seemed, as from
conviction. Many heard the "gray-haired old veteran," and
Cassius reveled in the publicity he received. In his speeches he
indicated that he had not changed his viewpoint in forty
years of stumping the state. "I rejoice that the South is solid,"
he said, but he mourned that the section lagged behind the
industrial North. Southerners should invite men of skill and
capital into their states, he advised, and he urged the manu
facture of cotton textiles. "The nation that makes and manu
factures cotton will be the nation of the world . . . we must
buy as much as possible from home manufactures. . . ." Even
to the end of a long career, Clay remained a loyal advocate of
a southern industry. 11

Clay remained faithful to his Whig principles, but could
not make up his mind which wing of the rejuvenated Whig
Party he liked better. Four years after lauding the determi
nation of the South to remain "solid" as the best guarantee
against its becoming an economic colony of the North, he
returned to the Republican Party, and denounced the South.
"I come back to the Republican party with all the principles
of my life intact," he said in 1884. Clay s difficulty was that
both the "Bourbon" Democrats of the South and the northern
Republicans professed allegiance to the Hamiltonian economic
principles of the prewar Whig Party. Campaigning in New
England for the "Plumed Knight," James G. Elaine, Clay re
nounced his years of "wandering" among the opposition. "I
have been imploring the Democrats for these eighteen years
to become civilized and to abandon their barbarous ideas
. . . ," he said. He explained that he left the party "because I
have not the right of equality in the Democratic party. . . ."

Clay boasted to northern voters that he had "tried to make
the Democratic party better, but it was a hard task. . . ." So

The Lion of White Hall 237

hard, in fact, that he gave it up and returned to the Republi
cans. The Democrats snubbed him, he complained; even
worse, they consistently lost elections. So Clay packed up his
baggage and moved back into his old organization. With an
old man s pride he pointed out that 1884 marked the eighth
canvass in which he had addressed the citizens of the North.
In every election in which he had participated, he said, the
issues had been the same. "I stand here today in conflict with
that enormous and disastrous power that has been our foe
since 1854, then the slave power, now the solid South." In
four years, Clay had completely reversed himself. His insati
able ambition would not let him rest: it had driven him from
playing a leading role in the creation of the solid South to
fighting it from the stump. 12

But in spite of his feverish convolutions and his energetic
campaigning, he was once more on the losing side. Clay s in
tuition failed with age, but he was not too old to find an
excuse for Elaine s defeat. "The Union flag went down in
disaster," he mourned, and he blamed the Radical policy of
coercion against the South. "The attempt to Republicanize
the rebel States by this means proved a dead failure," he said.
Thus Cassius Clay explained his final disappointment, and
with that he prepared for the end of his life. Though he
kept up a sporadic correspondence with political acquaint
ances, he took no more active part in politics. 13

Clay s first activity after concluding the 1884 campaign
was the writing of his autobiography. He was worried for
fear his part in the events of the nineteenth century would
go unnoticed by posterity. He first attempted to hire some
one to write his biography, but when he could not, he labori
ously produced his memoirs in the first person. To justify
the work, he explained, "I desire to stand before the reader,
and receive such consideration among men as my share in
their triumph shall merit." On the tide page he put as a motto

238 Lion of White Hall

the Latin phrase, "Quorum, pars fui" "Of them, I was a
part." To prove his important role in the antislavery crusade
and the war which followed, he carefully examined his scrap-
books of clippings and his letter-files for information. In doing
so he destroyed all non-complimentary or questionable ma
terials. He was determined to present an unblemished even
angelic appearance to posterity. 14

The Memoirs which he published in 1886 maintained that
determination. Clay wrote in ponderous style, with the long
sentences and involved clauses so dear to his era. His point of
view was entirely subjective: he saw himself as the innocent
victim of designing men who took credit for his contributions,
while he was a selfless patriot combatting wicked enemies.
He devoted much space in the volume to refute the numerous
"calumnies" which his own erratic antics caused. It was clear
that Clay intended the autobiography to be the final vindica
tion of his career. 15

Clay presented his career, as he looked back over seventy
years of his life, in the terms he thought most acceptable to
the postwar intellectual climate. In 1885, when he was ex
plaining why he had embarked upon a career of opposition
to slavery fifty years earlier, he was writing for an audience
more apt to appreciate an emotional religious denunciation
of slavery than a logical economic argument against it. Clay
conveniently ignored the reasons which had led him to con
clude that the slave system was inimical to the interests of his
state; he adopted, in his Memoirs, the romanticized story that
he had been "converted" to abolitionism in a New Haven
church by William Lloyd Garrison himself. Such an explana
tion was out of character, for Clay always deeply despised
the religious antislavery movement. He was not, in an ortho
dox sense, religious, and when he portrayed himself as merely
a follower of Garrison, he did not do justice to his own under
standing of the weaknesses of slavery. In depicting the eco
nomic considerations which motivated Clay to attack slavery

The Lion of White Hall 239

the Writings, published in 1848, are more satisfactory than the
Memoirs of 1886.

While Clay s friends congratulated him upon the publica
tion of the Memoirs, he had fewer and fewer regular visitors
as the years passed. People had other interests; White Hall
was isolated, off the main road; and the old man found it in
creasingly difficult to travel. He busied himself by writing
articles for agricultural journals on such subjects as bee-keep
ing and the genealogy of Kentucky bluegrass. He became an
amateur historian and a leading figure in the Kentucky State
Historical Society, which he had helped to found. He read a
paper on "Money" before the Filson Club, a historical asso
ciation in Louisville, and he wrote articles for the newspapers.

In 1890, he addressed the sixteenth annual reunion of the
Ohio State Association of Mexican War Veterans, where he
proclaimed his expansionism: he advocated the political union
of North and South American countries into one nation. He
also wrote petitions to the Kentucky legislature, praying them
to resist the encroachments of the corporation, which he de
clared was more dangerous to republican institutions than
primogeniture. He told the assemblymen that the "Rail-Road
power is too strong for a Republic, and that one or the other
must die!" It was the same vehemence he had demonstrated
against chattel slavery; only the incubus had changed. 16

Despite his earnest efforts to remain in public life, Clay
became more lonely. Launey was away now, and the aging
man found fewer human contacts. The occasional visitor to
White Hall met a sturdy old gentleman with shaggy hair,
and came away with memories of the lovely mirrored recep
tion room, Clay s pet flowers, the oleander, and the taste of
his host s fine wine. But it was apparent that Clay was becom
ing childish and eccentric. So few friends were left to Clay
that he associated with tobacco-growing tenant families who
lived along the nearby Kentucky River. One such person

240 Lion of White Hall

was Dora Richardson, a fifteen-year-old orphan, whom Clay
took into his home as a serving girl. Dora captured the imagi
nation of the eighty-four-year-old general, and after a few
months courtship he married her. When a newspaper reporter
asked to see his child bride, Clay responded that he would
have to clean her up before he would expose her to the public.
There was a tradition that Dora had never worn shoes prior
to her wedding. Whether true or not, the story illustrated
the girl s peasant background. 17

Clay s marriage to a minor aroused the self-appointed pro
tectors of public morals. A band of them, led by the sheriff
of Madison County, called at White Hall to rescue Dora from
what they regarded as an immoral situation. Gallantly Cassius
fought for his bride, as he had for Mary Jane under quite
different circumstances so many years before. He fortified
his "thirty room armed castle" against the invasion. The two
brass cannons which had remained unused in the True Ameri
can office in 1845 now stood upon the White Hall lawn, their
menacing snouts guarding the mansion. The Lion still had
claws, and he bared them to the posse. Testily he told his
unwanted visitors that he had legally married Dora. More
over, he said, as a Kentucky gentleman he had never kept a
woman against her will, and he would not do so now. If the
girl wished to leave, she was free to do so; but if she chose to
stay his dulling eyes flashed with the fire of old as he lit a
match and held it over a cannon then he would protect her.
From a second-story window Dora shouted that she would
not leave White Hall and her aged husband. Hearing that, as
tradition has it, Cassius punctuated his command that the
intruders leave by firing one of the cannons at them. They
promptly decampecl and left the bride and groom to con
tinue their honeymoon in privacy. 18

After a short period of "cleaning up" and instruction in
etiquette, Dora accompanied her husband upon his journeys
about the country. Unmindful of the gossip he had aroused

The Lion of White Hall 241

by his unusual wedding there was a difference of almost
seventy years between their ages Cassius proudly introduced
Dora as the girl he "loved better than any woman he ever
saw." But despite his amorous attentions, the second marriage
was soon a failure. In July, 1897, after nearly three years with
him, Dora moved out of White Hall. A year kter Clay sued
her for divorce on grounds of separation, and he wrote into
his deposition that he had "fully met and discharged all the
covenants of his marriage contract. ..." If Dora was dis
satisfied with her octogenarian husband, Cassius wanted the
court to know that it was not because his manhood was fail
ing. In August, 1898, he received his second divorce and im
mediately began the search for a third wife. 19

Clay did not even wait for his divorce judgment before he
renewed his quest. Time was short, he feared; he would waste
none of it in an ordinary search. In March, 1 898, in a letter
to the press, he publicly proposed matrimony, and he received
more than a thousand offers. "I seek a companion," he con
fessed, "and prefer one over 40 years old, but all ages allowed."
His plea was widely circulated, and he received more replies
than he could answer. It was a ribald, lecherous interest from
sensation-hunters, however, which Clay now aroused, and not
the fame of a bold political philosopher. 20

Clay s advertisement for a companion was to no avail, as
none of the offers resulted in marriage. He hired an eighteen-
year-old boy as his bodyguard and companion and contented
himself with watching Dora from a distance. He gave her a
house in Pinkard, a village in Woodford County, and she
married Riley Brock, who was much nearer her own age.
But Clay paid no attention to "Brock and Company," as he
called Dora s second husband. A railroad ran through Clay s
estate to Pinkard, and the train operators regularly stopped at
White Hall to take aboard the elderly, white-bearded gentle
man. Each time he went, he would take some memento from
the house to give her a piece of silverware, a vase, or a lamp.

242 Lion of White Hall

Despite his generosity, he was unable to entice Dora back to
him, but he never stopped trying. Two weeks before he died
he heard that Dora s second husband had died, and he invited
her to come live with him for the rest of his life, but she re
fused. 21

Cassius tried to win Dora back, for after she left him there
were few people whom he trusted. As he passed his eighty-
fifth birthday, his mind became more and more unstable. He
became obsessed with the idea that someone was trying to kill
him, and he redoubled his guard over the house, which he now
called "Fort General Green Clay," after his father. Many a
well-meaning friend would turn into his gate, a half-mile from
the house, only to see Clay step from the porch with his rifle
and shout, "Go back to town." One such visitor, who had
come all the way from Cincinnati, after seeing the evidence
of Clay s sharp eyes and hearing his booming voice, said,
"Well, I didn t get to see the Lion of White Hall, but I ve
heard him roar." Others coming to call would find the house
shuttered and locked, and no amount of pounding would cause
the old man to open the door.

Such tales, and they were legion, added to the Clay legend
and increased the apprehensions of those whose business took
them to White Hall. One young man, delivering a telegram,
saw Clay under an elm tree near the house. When the boy
approached, the old man whipped out a pistol and grimly
ordered the youth to "Halt! Take your hands out of your
pockets!" But when he learned the boy s business, Clay
pressed two drinks upon him before he would let him leave.
There were other stories of Clay s violence, now made more
fearsome by his uncertain and perhaps insane suspicions. A
widely circulated account, in varying versions, concerned a
certain Biggerstaff, who challenged the Lion to a duel. After
the affair was arranged, however, Clay backed out. "If I go
down there and kill him, it would be just a dead damn rascal,"

White Hall in 1894. Taken November 13, 1894, by
Lexington photographer Isaac C. Jenks. From cm origi
nal negative in the collection of ]. Winston Coleman, Jr.

The Lion of White Hall 243

he airily expained, "but if he kills me, it would be a good man
gone." M

Clay s mental lapses made him suspicious even of his own
household servants. Caretakers and cooks would not long re
main because of his abusive, threatening attitude. Upon one
occasion his son, Brutus, went to investigate his condition and
found that he had driven away his servants a white couple
who had been with him for twenty years and had lived for
three days on salt and eggs. The son quickly arranged for new
servants to care for him, but it was not long before they too
aroused Clay s suspicions. Since the son had located them, he
imagined that his own children were members of a "vendetta"
which plotted to kill him. Fearing poison, he distrusted food
which had been prepared for him. He became more of a
recluse and drove away his relatives when they came to visit
him, summarily ordering even his children off the estate. 2 *

Clay considered that everyone was his enemy, but he did
not intend to go down without a fight. He would not leave
his fort without weapons ready, and he wore a bowie knife
constantly upon his person and concealed another in his bed.
Reflecting that the state owed him protection which it did
not provide, the old man refused to pay his taxes. When H. H.
Collyer, the sheriff, obtained a judgment against Clay for
unpaid property tax, he found it exceedingly difficult to exe
cute. He first sent a deputy to take the document to the Lion
of White Hall. Clay saw the man approaching and without
asking any questions began firing at him. The deputy hid
behind a tree while Cassius repeatedly hit it with his bullets.
When he escaped, the sheriff mobilized a posse. Clay let the
group get close enough to talk to him, but he would not
leave the shelter of his porch. The sheriff shouted that he
was required by law to deliver the judgment for the unpaid
taxes. "I get no protection/ the old man boomed in reply,
"why should I pay taxes?" Without stopping to debate the
matter the sheriff threw the document in Clay s direction,

244 Lion of White Hall

and the posse retreated ingloriously while Clay fired his
cannon at them. High Sheriff Josiah F. Simmons report to
the county judge about the incident leaves no doubt of the
vigor with which Clay defended his fortress:

Dear Judge: I am reportin about the posse like you said I had to.
Judge we went out to White Hall but didn t do no good. It was a
mistake to go out there with only 7 men. Judge, the old General was
awful mad. He got to cussin and shootin and we had to shoot back.
The old General sure did object to being arrested. Don t let nobody
tell you he didn t and we had to shoot. I thought we hit him 2 or
3 times, but don t guess we did. He didn t act like it.

We come out right good, considerin. I m having some misery from
two splinters of wood in my side. Dick Collier was hurt a little when
his shirt-tail and britches was shot off by a piece of horse shoe and
nails that came out of that old cannon. Have you see Jack? He
wrenched his neck and shoulder when his horse throwed him as we
were getting away.

Judge, I think you will have to go to Frankfort and see Gov.
Brown. If he would send Capt. Longmire up here with z light fielders
he could divide his men send some with the cannon around to the
front of the house not too close, and the others around through the
corn field and up around the cabins and spring house to the back
porch. I think this might do it. 24

His eccentric behavior made it possible for the truculent
Clay to live at White Hall in the privacy he craved, but it
also enabled his family, anxious to invalidate the will over
which he had labored for years, to get a court order declaring
him insane.

Finally the day came when the old general could no longer
arise from his bed. In the summer of 1903, when he was
nearly ninety-three, he became ill. His kidneys were diseased,
and he suffered from urinary sepsis because of an enlarged
prostate. His physician, a woman, decided to send to Lexing
ton for other doctors. Two physicians, Tom Bullock and
Waller Bullock, journeyed to White Hall in a buggy. When
they arrived they found the house tightly closed and were

The Lion of White Hall 245

unable to arouse anyone. Aware of the old man s penchant
for firing at intruders, Tom Bullock said, "Hell, let s get out
of here," and they fled. In a few days, however, they received
word that they had not been kept out intentionally, and they
were invited to return. This time they were admitted through
the back door and Cassius, in bed, apologized for the former
rebuff. They diagnosed the disease, saw that his physician was
following the recommended treatment, and left. 25

The news quickly circulated through the Bluegrass that
a old Cash" was dying. At the same time, the papers described
the lingering illness of Pope Leo XIII in the Vatican. Sport
ing Kentuckians placed their bets on the "death Derby," and
it gave Clay a childish satisfaction to know that he had out
lived the pope. Even his illness did not calm his fighting tem
perament. On one of the last days of his life, with the heat of
a July afternoon beating down upon the house, Clay became
irritated at a large fly buzzing around the molding on the
ceiling of the library where he lay. He ordered his servant
boy to bring his rifle. Propping himself up in bed and taking
careful aim, Cassius fired. His eye was as sure as it had ever
been; the fly was splattered over the ceiling. To his death,
Cassius Clay displayed an unyielding resistance and a good

aim. 26

A few days after he had silenced the noisy fly in a char
acteristic blaze of anger, the gaunt frame was still. At 9:30
P.M. on July 22, 1903, Cassius Marcellus Clay died. At last
his long fight was over.

A few hours later, in the early morning hours of July 23,
an electrical storm swept over central Kentucky, and a bolt
of lightning knocked the head off the lofty statue of Henry-
Clay in the Lexington cemetery. Kentuckians, nodding their
heads in awe, declared that "old Cash" had done it. He always
was a fighter, people would say. The legend was now com
plete, and the Lion of White Hall passed into Kentucky folk
lore. 27

REFERENCE MATTER

NOTES

Sources discussed in the Note on Sources are referred to by short
titles in the Notes; all others are given in full at the first citation in
each chapter.

CHAPTER I

1 Clay, Memoirs, I, 21. Clay intended to publish a second volume
containing his writings and speeches, but it never appeared.

2 See The Country Gentleman (Albany, N.Y.), July 16, 1857, July
i, 1858, and comment by editor of the Louisville Bulletin (Ky.),
February 24, 1884.

3 James G. Wilson and John Fiske (eds.), Appletorfs Cyclopaedia
of American Biography (6 vols., New York, 1888), I, 639-40.
To "clear out" land in pioneer Kentucky involved making a
survey, establishing some kind of settlement upon it, and clearing
the patent records. For an example, see the deposition of Samuel
Estill in the litigation, Nelsorfs Heirs vs. EstilPs Heirs, 1810, in
the private collection of Cassius M. Clay, Paris, Ky.

4 See William Chenault, "Early History of Madison County," in
Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, XXX (1932),
129.

5 Clay, Memoirs, I, 39; C. Frank Dunn, "General Green Clay in
Fayette County Records," in Register of the Ky. State Hist. Soc.,
XLIV (1946), 1465 "Certificate Book," ibid., XXI (1923). <$; Bio
graphical Encyclopaedia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living
Men of the Nineteenth Century (Cincinnati, 1878), p. 353; "Ex
cerpts from the Journal of Governor Isaac Shelby," in Register
of the Ky. State Hist. Soc., XXVHI (1930), 19-

6 Clay, The Clay Family, p. 87; day, Memoirs, I, 20; William H.
Perrin (ed.), History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison, and Nicholas
Counties, Kentucky (Chicago, 1882), p. 454. Green and Sally
Clay s children were as follows: Elizabeth Lewis, who married

249

250 Notes to Pages 8-17

J. Speed Smith; Paulina, who married William Rodes; Sally Ann,
whose second husband was Madison C. Johnson; Sidney Payne,
Brutus Junius, and Cassius Marcellus. Another daughter, Sophia,
died in infancy. Clay, The Clay Family, p. 90.

7 Clay, Memoirs, I, 17. Another explanation for the unusual names
was that "there had been too many Johns, Charleses, and Henrys
in the family." Cassius M. Clay, Paris, Ky., in a conversation
with the author, summer, 1951, quoting a family tradition which
stemmed from Green Clay.

8 Clay, Memoirs, I, 29-30.

9 Ibid., 21, 45; 22-23, 31-34.

10 Ibid., 24.

11 Ibid., 35, 362-63; Cassius M. Clay to Brutus J. Clay, February
10, 1828, in Brutus J. Clay Papers.

12 Cassius to Brutus Clay, Feb. 10, 1828; Clay, Memoirs, I, 37.

13 Kentucky Reporter (Lexington), Nov. 19, 1828; Will of Green
Clay is in Will Book D, pp. 461-67, Madison County, Ky. The
will is dated July 18, 1828, and there are codicils dated July 22,
August 14, and September 3, 1828, Biographical Encyclopaedia
of Kentucky, p. 353; Clay, Memoirs, I, 37.

14 Ibid. 39-40; Green Clay to Sidney Payne Clay, September 2,
1818, in Sidney P. Clay Papers, The Filson Club, Louisville, Ky.

15 Clay, Memoirs, I, 23; Sally Clay to Cassius Clay, August 6, 1849,
in the Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University.
Mrs. Clay remarried soon after Green Clay s death, and lived
for nearly forty years thereafter, until her ninetieth year. Clay,
Memoirs, I, 19; G. Glenn Clift, Kentucky Marriages, 1797-1831
(Frankfort, 1939), p. 325, quoting Kentucky Reporter, April 20,
1831.

16 Ulrich B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South (Boston, 1929),
p. 79; Coleman, Slavery Times in Kentucky, pp. 81, 120, 156;
Clay, Memoirs, I, 46.

17 Kentucky Reporter, March 31, 1830; Record Book containing
minutes of the Board of Trustees of Transylvania University,
in Transylvania University Library, pp. 70-71 (October 6, 1828),
and entry for September 15, 1827; Cassius M. Clay letter, March
9, 1898, in The Transyhanian, XV (1907), 452-54; ibid., I
(1829), 360; Alva Woods, Intellectual and Moral Culture, A
Discourse Delivered at His Inauguration as President of Transyl
vania University (Lexington, 1828), p. 23. For a general history
of Transylvania University, see Robert and Johanna Peter, A

Notes to Pages 11-23 251

History of Transylvania University (Louisville, 1899), anc * Alvin
F. Lewis, Higher Education in Kentucky (Washington, 1899).
Also helpful are the Minutes of the Union Philosophical Society,
in Transylvania Library, and Clay, Metnoirs, I, 35, 46-47.

1 8 Librarian s Check-Out Journal, Transylvania University Library,
1818-1834, entries for January 7 and January 28, 1829; The
Transylvanian, I (1829), 360.

19 Clay, Memoirs, I, 46-47, 55.

20 Cassius M. Clay letter, March 9, 1898, previously cited; Argus of
Western America (Frankfort, Ky.), May 13, 1829; Kentucky
Reporter, May 13 and May 20, 1829; The Transylvanian, I
(1829), 200; "Address to the General Assembly of the Common
wealth of Kentucky," in Record Book containing minutes of the
Board of Trustees of Transylvania University, December n,
1829. Although he served on a committee which solicited funds to
restore the losses of the Union Philosophical Society, Clay kept
his secret well. For an account of the university s religious dif
ficulties, see Robert and Johanna Peter, A History of Transylvania
University.

21 Clay, Memoirs, I, 47, 62-64.

22 Cassius M. Clay to Brutus J. Clay, June 19, 1831, March 27, 1831,
both in Brutus J. Clay Papers.

23 Clay, Memoirs, I, 47-48, 52-53.

24 Ibid., 47, 55, 59, 61.

25 The author is grateful to an unnamed researcher in the Yale
University Library for information concerning academic life in
New Haven while Clay was a student there, in a letter to the
author, November 21, 1951. See also Clay, Memoirs, I, 54-55.

26 Clay to Brutus J. Clay, December 4, 1831, in Brutus J. Clay Pa
pers. Clay s hearty appetite received its share of attention in New
Haven, although he found eating habits strange. He reported to
his brother that he ate "oysters and cod fish plenty, but little
more yet. ... I board with a good old sort of woman, who al
ways asks me to take something of everything at the table there
is a certain dish of crackers poked at me after I have finished the
dessert, much to my grief! I can bear much. When after having
asked me to take everything on the table and at last asked me to
have my milk a little warmed I blubbered out!" Ibid.

27 Clay to Brutus J. Clay, June 19, 1831, in Brutus J. Clay Papers.

28 Clay, Memoirs, I, 55-57.

29 Clay, Writings, pp. 174-75.

252 Notes to Pages 23-34

30 Clay to Brutus J. Clay, December 4, 183 1, in Brutus J. Clay Papers.

31 The speech is printed in Clay, Writings, pp. 38-43. Quoted pas
sages are from pp. 40 and 41. See also Clay, Memoirs, I, 57.

32 Clay, Writings, p. 43.

CHAPTER n

1 Speech of Robert Wickliffe, Delivered before a Mass Meeting
of the Democracy of Kentucky, at the White Sulphur Spring, in
the County of Scott, on September 2, 1843 (Lexington, 1843),
p. 15. Earlier, Robert WicklifTe, Sr., had been a Henry Clay
Whig. See Lexington Intelligencer, January 23, 1838.

2 Cassius and Henry Clay were second cousins; their paternal
grandfathers were brothers. See Clay, The Clay Family, for a
family genealogy.

3 Clay, Memoirs, I, 73.

4 Ibid., 71-72. Rollins later moved to Missouri, where he became a
Unionist Congressman during the Civil War. He and Cassius
Clay maintained a close friendship.

5 Clay, Memoirs, I, 71-72; "Jhn P. Declary to the Public," Feb
ruary 25, 1833, and "Cassius M. Clay to the Public," March 8,
1833, both in Observer and Reporter (Lexington, Ky.), March 14,

1833. Declary responded with a rebuttal, dated March 18, which
appeared in the issue of March 28, 1833.

6 Marriage Book Number i, Fayette County Court House, Lex
ington, p. 115; G. Glenn Clift, Kentucky Marriages, 2831-1849
(Frankfort, 1939), p. 23.

7 Clay, Memoirs, I, 72-73.

8 Lexington Intelligencer, April 8, 1834; Observer and Reporter,
April 17, May 29, 1834; "Cassius M. Clay to the Citizens of Madi
son County," May 19, 1834, in Lexington Intelligencer, May 23,

1834. The minimum age requirement for members of the General
Assembly was the subject of much contention in Kentucky. Cassius
interpreted the constitution to mean that if he had attained his
twenty-fourth birthday before the legislature convened he would
meet the age requirement. His critics, however, declared that to
be eligible he must have passed his twenty-fifth birthday prior
to the session.

9 Lexington Intelligencer, March 21, 1834, March 21, and June 9,
1835; Observer and Reporter, June n, 1834, April 8 and 15, 1835.

Notes to Pages 34-39 253

Some of Clay s associates in the Richmond and Lexington Turn
pike Road Company who later denounced him were Robert
Wickliffe, Sr., Waller Bullock, who participated in the expulsion
of Clay s press in 1845, an d Squire Turner, whose son Cyrus was
a victim of Clay s bowie knife in a brawl in 1851. See the Lex
ington Intelligencer, March 21, 1835, for a complete listing of
the road company commissioners.

10 Lexington Intelligencer , March 21, 1834; Observer and Reporter,
June n, 1834. Whigs resented President Andrew Jackson s stric
tures on borrowed capital. "And shall one universal ruin over
take all the noble enterprises of the day," one of them asked,
"just to gratify the ante-diluvian, absurd ideas of an ignorant and
prejudiced old man?" Observer and Reporter, September 28,
1836. For further information on the southern Whig Party, see
Arthur C. Cole, The Whig Party in the South (Washington,
1913); Thomas D. Clark, A History of Kentucky (New York,
1937), pp. 218-22; Samuel M. Wilson, History of Kentucky (2
vols., Chicago and Louisville, 1928), II, 185-90; Ulrich B. Phillips,
"The Southern Whigs, 1834-1854," in Essays in American His
tory Dedicated to Frederick Jackson Turner (New York, 1910),
p. 209; and Charles G. Sellers, Jr., "Who Were the Southern
Whigs?" in American Historical Review, LIX (1954), 335-46.

11 Clay, Memoirs, I, 73; Lexington Intelligencer, August 7, 1835;
Journal of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth
of Kentucky, 1835-1836 (Frankfort, 1836), pp. 4, 25-27, 29-31,
94, 176-77, 236, and 243.

12 Cassius M. Clay, "Speech, in the House of Representatives of Ken
tucky, upon a bill to take the sense of the people of this Common
wealth, as to the propriety of calling a Convention," in Clay,
Writings, pp. 45-46.

13 Clay, Memoirs, I, 73-74.

14 Clay to Brutus J. Clay, August 5, 1836, in Brutus J. Clay Papers;
The Ohio Farmer (Cleveland), April 30, 1859, P- I 435 The Coun
try Gentleman (Albany, N.Y.), May 31, 1860, carries an ad
vertisement of Clay s: "C. M. Clay, Breeder of Pure Short-Horn
Cattle, Southdown sheep, and Essex and Spanish Pigs." In 1860,
Clay lectured upon the five major breeds of cattle and also upon
"Breeding as an Art," at the Yale Agricultural Lectures, which
attracted nation-wide attention among farmers and stock-raisers.
See The Country Gentleman, February 2, 1860, p. 31.

15 Clay to Brutus J. Clay, December 19, 1837, i* 1 Brutus J. Clay Pa-

254 Notes to Pages 39-^-9

pers; Journal of the House . . . 2837^8, pp. 45, 83, 157, and 242;
Robert WicklifTe, An Address to the People of Kentucky on the
subject of the Charleston and Ohio Railroad (Lexington, 1838),
p. 19; Clay, "Speech on the Bill conferring Banking Privileges on
the Charleston, Cincinnati, and Louisville Railroad Company, be
fore the committee of the Whole, in the House of Representatives
of the Commonwealth of Kentucky," in Clay, Writings. Quoted
passages are from pp. 54-55. See also Lexington Intelligencer,
January 12, 1838, for an account of the speech.

1 6 Clay, Memoirs, I, 78; Journal of the House . . . , pp. 68-69, 162;
Lexington Intelligencer, January 9, February 6, 1838. On January
6, 1838, Sprigg objected to the report of the banking committee,
of which Clay was a member. "The gentleman from Shelby made
a forcible speech . . . which often met with applause from all
parts of the House," a correspondent reported. "He gave the
Committee some hard knocks." It may have been those verbal
blows which Cassius returned. See Lexington Intelligencer, Janu
ary 9, 1838.

17 Ibid.

18 The True American (Lexington, Ky.), July 22, 1845, in Clay,
Writings, p. 278.

CHAPTER III

1 Observer and Reporter (Lexington, Ky.), June 24, 1840; Clay,
Memoirs, I, 74; Speech of B. Mills Crenshaw of Barren County,
before the Kentucky Legislature, in Frankfort Commonwealth,
January 26, 1841.

2 Speech of R. Wickliffe on the Negro Law, August w, 1840 (Lex
ington, 1840), pp. 11-13, 21.

3 Observer and Reporter, July 8, n, and 15, 1840.

4 Ibid., July 15, 1840.

5 Speech of R. Wickliffe, p. 5.

6 Clay to Lexington Intelligencer, in Clay, Writings, p. 134.

7 C. M. Clay, A Review of the Late Canvass . . . (Lexington,
1840), pp. 4-6.

8 Ibid., p. 14.

9 Speech of R. Wickliffe, pp. 7 and 14.

Clay, Memoirs, I, 74; Clay, Review of the Late Canvass . . . , p.
4; Speech of R. Wickliffe, pp. 13-14; Speech of R. Wickliffe in
reply to the Rev. R. J. Breckinridge . . . on the 9 th November,

ro

Notes to Pages 49-59 255

1840 (Lexington, 1840), pp. 4 and 45; Clay to Brutus J. Clay,
August 4, 1840, Brutus J. Clay Papers.

11 Clay, Writings, pp. 71-74.

12 Observer and Reporter, July 18, 1840.

13 Clay to Brutus J. Clay, April 19, 1841, Brutus J. Clay Papers.
Cassius wrote an almost identical note the following day, in
dicating his concern over the Wield iffe attack.

14 John C. Breckinridge to Robert J. Breckinridge, May 18, 1841,
and Laeticia Breckinridge to Mrs. R. J. Breckinridge, May u,
1841, both in Breckinridge Family Papers; Elisha Warfield to
Brutus J. Clay, April 27, 1841, Brutus J. Clay Papers.

15 E. Warfield to Brutus J. Clay, April 27, 1841, and J. Speed Smith
to Brutus J. Clay, April 29, 1841, both in Brutus J. Clay Papers;
Redd to Robert J. Breckinridge, May 5, 1841, Breckinridge Family
Papers. Clay later said that the duel occurred because WicklifFe
introduced Mrs. Clay s name into the debate, to which he took
exception as "inadmissable." Clay, Memoirs, I, 80-8 1.

1 6 Western Citizen (Paris, Ky.), May 21, 1841; Agatha Marshall to
Robert J. Breckinridge, May 18, 1841, Breckinridge Family Pa
pers; Clay, Memoirs, I, 81.

17 Z. F. Smith, "Duelling, and some noted duels by Kentuckians,"
in Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, VIII (1910),
77-87. Quoted passage is from pp. 79-80.

1 8 Clay, Writings, pp. 317-18. Clay s oratorical addition was not
always consistent. Sometimes there were 500,000, and sometimes
600,000, non-slaveholders in Kentucky.

CHAPTER IV

1 Clay, Writings, pp. 86-87, 9-

2 "Letters to the Lexington Intelligencer, written during the pen
dency, before the Senate of Kentucky, of a bill from the House
of Representatives, Repealing the Laws of 1833, 1840, and 1794,
Prohibiting the Slave Trade" (1843), ^ Clay, Writings, p. 118.

3 Clay to editor of the New York World, February 19, 1861, photo
stat in possession of the author. The letter was marked "Confi
dential." The True American, February n, 1846. "Toast" copied
from the Trumbull Democrat, in The True American, January
14, 1846.

4 Clay to Salmon P. Chase, December 21, 1842, in Chase Papers,
Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

256 Notes to Pages 59-66

5 Clipping from the New York Tribune, in File Box #2, Cassius M.
Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University.

6 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, August 7, 1843; S. M. Brown to Clay,
October 20, 1843, in Observer and Reporter (Lexington, Ky.),
April 3, 1850. Delphton is now named Doneraii

7 Two accounts of the affair, one by Clay and one by Brown, ap
peared in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, August 7 and August 19,
1843. Because of Brown s hasty charge and his use of the pistol,
Clay always felt that the outsider had been brought in especially
to kill him. Brown, on the other hand, accused Clay of needlessly
maiming him. See Observer and Reporter, April 3, 1850, and
Clay, Memoirs, I, 82-85.

8 The eye-witness report of the fight is worth quoting in full: "You
have heard of the tremendous fight at the Cave. It was not slow.
It was the first Bowie knife fight I ever saw, and the way my
cousin Cash used it was tremendious [sic~\. Blows on the head
hard enough to cleave a man s skull asunder, but Brown must
have a skull of extraordinary thickness. He stood the blows as
well if not better than the most of men would do. Cassius most
gallantly faced and even advanced on his [Brown s] six barrel
revolving pistol, which alone saved his life. He sprang in upon
him and used the knife with such power that Brown was either
paralyzed by the blows, or forgot his revolver. I parted them,
but have declined giving a written statement about it." Thomas
A. Russell to William H. Russell, August 27, 1843, in Special
Collections, University of Kentucky Library.

9 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, October 18, 1843; Clay to S. M. Brown,
October 10, 1843, in Observer and Reporter, April 3, 1850. The
suit was Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Cassius M. Clay, Order
Book 29, p. 300, September 30, 1843, cited in Coleman, Slavery
Times in Kentucky, p. 306; Clay, Memoirs, I, 86-89. Quoted pas
sage is from p. 89.

10 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, March 19, 1844 and November 4, 1843.
n Clay to Salmon P. Chase, January 19, 1844, Chase Papers, Hist.
Soc. of Pa.

CHAPTER V

i Millard Fillmore to Thurlow Weed, and Washington Hunt to
Weed, in Thurlow Weed Memoirs (2 vols., Boston, 1884), II,

Notes to Pages 66-11 257

112-13; Lewis Tappan to Clay, July 6, 1844, Tappan Letter Book
#4, p. 59, Tappan Papers, Library of Congress; Henry B. Stanton
to Chase, February 6, 1844, in Salmon P. Chase Diary and Cor
respondence (Washington, 1903), pp. 462-65; Clay to Brutus J.
Clay, January 6, 1844, Brutus J. Clay Papers. Original copies of
the "free papers" which Clay obtained for his emancipated slaves
are in the collection of J. Winston Coleman, Jr., Lexington, Ky.

2 "Speech against the annexation of Texas to the United States,
delivered at Lexington, Kentucky, on the i3th day of May, 1844,
in reply to Thomas F. Marshall," in Clay, Writings, pp. 97-116.
Quoted passages are from pp. 97, in, 113, and 116. The speech
was first printed in Observer and Reporter (Lexington, Ky.),
June i, 1844.

3 Fillmore and Hunt to Weed, in Thurloio Weed Memoirs, II,
112-13.

4 Clay to W. I. McKinney, mayor of Dayton, Ohio, March 20,
1844, in Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 4, 1844. Clay also offered
other reasons for supporting his cousin: "Were I an Ohioan I
might perhaps go with you, but as a Kentuckian I am for Clay,
a bank, a binding link between the states, a tariff, and the division
of the proceeds of the public lands among the states for the pur
poses of paying state debts and educational needs or for congress
taking them to pay the same debts upon some more speedy plan
and redeeming us in the eyes of the world from the damning
doctrine of ... repudiation."

5 "Emancipation: Its Effect," in Letters of Cassius M. Clay (New
York, 1843); Clay, Writings, p. 60; Cincinnati Daily Gazette,
April 4, 1844; May 9, 1845; Cassius M. Clay and Gerrit Smith:
A Letter of Cassius M. Clay . . . to the Mayor of Dayton,
Ohio, with a Review of It by Gerrit Smith of Peterboro, N.Y.
[Utica, 1844].

6 Clay to Colonel J. J. Speed of Ithaca, N.Y., July 10, 1844, in
Clay, Writings, pp. 158-59.

7 Observer and Reporter, May 22, 25, 29, and July 10, 1844.

8 Ibid., July 10, 1844.

9 Clay, Memoirs, I, 92-93.

10 In 1837, Green Clay, their first child to survive his infancy, was
born; in 1839 came Cassius Marcellus, Jr., the second son to bear
his father s name. The daughters were named after their grand
mothers: Mary Barr and Sarah Lewis. Another daughter, Flora,
died in infancy. See Clay, The Clay family, for Cassius and

258 Notes to Pages 71-78

Mary Jane Clay s children and grandchildren. Other information
cited is in The True American^ June 3, 1845, and Observer and
Reporter, October 18, 1845. The entrusted slaves continued their
malevolence against his family. Two years later, Emily stood trial
for the attempted poisoning of Clay s new-born infant son, but
was acquitted of the charge. Commonwealth of Kentucky vs.
Emily, a slave, Fayette County Circuit Court, File 1103, April 15,
1845. For a full account of the Emily case see Coleman, Slavery
Times in Kentucky, pp. 264-66.

11 Conversation with Miss Helen Bennett of Richmond, Ky., a
granddaughter of Cassius Clay, summer, 1950. See also Clay to
Brutus J. Clay, March 19 and April 3, 1843, Brutus J. Clay Pa
pers, for examples of Clay s paternal concern for his children.

12 Mrs. Mary Jane Clay to Mrs. Llewellyn P. Tarleton, August 28,
1844, written from Cleveland, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The
Filson Club.

13 Henry Clay to editor, Observer and Reporter, September 2,
1844, i* 1 tne i ssue f September 4; Henry Clay to Cassius Clay,
September 18, 1844, in Clay, Memoirs, I, 101-2; Henry Clay to
Joshua Giddings, September 21, 1844, in Giddings- Julian Papers.
In repudiating Cassius statements, Henry set forth his views favor
ing state control of slavery, even in the District of Columbia.

14 Clay, Memoirs, I, 100-101.

15 E. D. Mansfield, Personal Memories (Cincinnati, 1879), p. 223;
Clay to editor, Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, April 8, 1853, in the
paper dated April 9.

16 Speech of Cassius M. Clay at Cleveland, in Cincinnati Daily
Gazette, September 7, 1844.

17 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, September 7, 1844; Theodore Foster to
Birney, September 12, 1844, in D. L. Dumond (ed.), Letters of
James G. Birney (2 vols., New York, 1938), II, 842.

1 8 "Speech, at Tremont Temple, September 19, 1844, after the ad
journment of the great convention on Boston Common," in Clay,
Writings, p. 160. The speech also appeared in the Cincinnati Daily
Gazette, October 3, 1844. Earlier in the day, Clay took part in
the gathering on Boston Common and delivered a "short" speech.
He appeared there with Daniel Webster and Georgia Senator
John M. Berrien.

19 Clay, Memoirs, I, 99-100; Washington Hunt to Weed, in Thurlow
Weed Memoirs, H, 123.

20 Clay, "Address to the People of Kentucky, January, 1845," in

Notes to Pages 78-84 259

Clay, Writings, p. 173; "Appeal to Kentucky and to the World,"
in The True American, October 7, 1845, an< ^ copied into Clay,
Writings, p. 312. Lewis Tappan to James G. Chester, October i,
1844, Tappan Letter Book #4, p. 155, Tappan Papers, Library of
Congress; Theodore Foster to Birney, September 12, 1844, in
Dumond (ed.), Birney Letters, II, 842; Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem,
Ohio), October 31, 1845.

21 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, October 31, 1844; Clay, Memoirs, I,
101-3.

22 Clay to editor, Boston Atlas, in Cincinnati Daily Gazette, January
24, 1845. Clay said that Henry Clay took his defeat with "ill
grace," and at a dinner in Lexington, Henry severely criticized
ex-Governor (then Senator) James T. Morehead and the abo
litionists of New York for his failure. "I could but feel that part
of his censure was against myself," Cassius admitted. See Clay,
Memoirs, I, 103-4.

CHAPTER VI

1 Clay, Writings, p. 181.

2 Ibid., p. 182.

3 Clay to Thomas B. Stevenson, editor of the Frankfort Common
wealth, January 8, 1845, in Observer and Reporter (Lexington,
Ky.), January 15, 1845.

4 Prospectus for The True American, in Observer and Reporter,
February 19, 1845. It was reprinted in Clay, Writings, pp. 211-12.

5 The fortification of The True American office is described in
Clay, Memoirs, I, 107. Further information is in A "Pioneer Eman
cipator (Richmond, Ky., 1881), a pamphlet reprinted from the
Nashville American (Term.). The critic quoted is Thomas ^F.
Marshall, in the oration delivered to the mass meeting which
suppressed Clay s paper, in W. L. Barre (ed.), Speeches and
Writings of Hon. Thomas F. Marshall (Cincinnati, 1858), p. 202.

6 The True American, June 3, 1845, in Clay, Writings, pp. 213 and

7 Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, June 10, 1845; New York
Tribune, quoted in Observer and Reporter, July 16, 1845; Lewis
Tappan to Clay, July 17, 1845, in Tappan Letter Book #4, pp.
359 and 363, Tappan Papers, Library of Congress.

8 Clay to Salmon P. Chase, July 3, 1845, Chase Papers, Historical

260 Notes to Pages 84-89

Society of Pennsylvania; Observer and Reporter, June 7, 1845;
Kentucky Compiler, quoted in the Liberator (Boston), August 29,
1845. The complete anonymous communication, delivered through
the courthouse, was as follows: "You are meaner than the auto
crats of hell. You may think you can awe and curse the people
of Kentucky to your infamous course. You will find when it is
too late for life, the people are no cowards. Eternal hatred is
locked up in the bosoms of braver men, your betters, for you.
The hemp is ready for your neck. Your life cannot be spared.
Plenty thirst for your blood are determined to have it. It is
unknown to you or your friends, if you have any, and in a way
you little dream of. Revengers."

9 Clay, Memoirs, I, 106; The True American, June 10, 1845, ^
Clay, Writings, pp. 224-25.

10 The True American, June 10, July 15, 1845.

11 The True American, June 17 and July i, 1845, in Clay, Writings,
pp. 234 and 255.

12 The True American, June 17 and July 8, 1845, in Clay, Writings,
pp. 238-40 and 266.

13 The True American, June 3 and 24, 1845; the latter material
copied into Clay, Writings, p. 250.

14 Clay, Writings, p. 302; Martin, The Anti-Slavery Movement in
Kentucky Prior to 2850, p. 115. The paper s circulation is the
subject of some debate, as subscription lists do not seem to have
survived. Clay s private report on his circulation is worth repeat
ing: "I commenced with about 300 subs, in Ky. and have now
about 600, a very encouraging increase, in as much as I have no
agent in this State, trusting to the friends of the movement to
come up slow but sure. If by the end of the year we have 1000
in the state we will have done great things and fully come up to
our hopes for one has to make great sacrifices in taking our pa
per, as he is cut off in business forthwith by the slaveocracy who
have the wealth" Clay to Salmon P. Chase, July 3, 1845, Chase
Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa.

15 Clay, Writings, p. 302; The True American, July 15, 1845, ibid.,
p. 274.

16 The True American, July 15, 1845, in Clay, Writings, p. 274.

Notes to Pages 90-99 261

CHAPTER VH

1 The True American, August 12, 1845. Extracts of the article
appeared in many newspapers, including the Liberator (Boston),
September 5, 1845. ^ ts author was Nathaniel Ware. Henry Wil
son to Clay, November 6, 1871, in Cassius M. Clay Collection,
Lincoln Memorial University.

2 The True American, August 12, 1845, reprinted in many other
papers, including the Observer and Reporter (Lexington, Ky.),
August 20, 1845, and the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette,
August 28. Clay s fiery lines were also quoted in Thomas F. Mar
shall s oration on August 18; see W. L. Barre (ed.), Writings and
Speeches of Hon. Thomas F. Marshall (Cincinnati, 1858), pp.
196-210.

3 From the Louisville Journal, in Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Ga
zette, August 21, 1845. See also Clay, Writings, pp. 303-4.

4 Ibid., p. 305.

5 Observer and Reporter, August 20, 1845.

6 Clay, Memoirs, I, 108-9; Clay, Writings, p. 307; The True Amer
ican Extra, August 15, 1845, copy in Lexington Public Library.
It is also published in Clay, Writings, pp. 287-92.

7 Ibid., pp. 292-94.

8 Ibid., pp. 294-98; Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, August 28,
1845. In 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy died from a gunshot wound at
Alton, Illinois, as he directed the defense of his antislavery news
paper, the Observer, against the attack.

9 Clay, Writings, pp. 298-300.

10 The speech is in Barre, Marshall, 196-210. It also appeared in the
Observer and Reporter, August 20, 1845, and was reprinted in
many other papers. For the "official" account of the affair of
August 1 8, see the anonymous pamphlet, History and Record of
the Proceedings of the People of Lexington and its Vicinity in
the Suppression of The True American, etc. (Lexington, 1845).
For Marshall s activity in 1840, see Observer and Reporter, Sep
tember 13, 1845. For a brief sketch of Marshall s life, see Barre,
Marshall, pp. 7-12.

11 Barre, Marshall, pp. 201-7; Observer and Reporter, August 20,
1845.

12 Observer and Reporter, August 20, 1845; Liberty Hall and Cin
cinnati Gazette, August 28, 1845.

262 Notes to Pages 99-104

13 Observer and Reporter, August 20, 1845, in Charleston Courier
(S.C.), August 28, 1845.

14 New York Tribune, August 25 and 26, 1845; Cincinnati Gazette,
October 16, 1845; Liberator, September 19, 1845; Address, "Cassius
M. Clay," by Judge Byron Paine, manuscript in Paine Papers,
Wisconsin Historical Society.

15 Anti-Slavery Bugle (New Lisbon, Ohio), August 29, 1845; Lib
erator, August 29, 1845; Tappan to Gamaliel Bailey, Jr., Septem
ber i, 1845, Tappan Letter Book #4, p. 398, Tappan Papers, Li
brary of Congress.

16 D. M. Craig to Rev. E. Berkley, August 19, 1845, in Filson Club
History Quarterly, XXII (July, 1948), 197-98; Cla 7> Writings,
p. 258 n. For a contemporary view of the suppression of Clay s
paper, see Filson Club History Quarterly, XXIX (October, 1955),
320-23. Accounts of the incident are in Lowell Harrison,
"Cassius Marcellus Clay and The True American; in the same
journal, XXII (January, 1948); Clement Eaton, Freedom of
Thought in the Old South (Durham, 1940); Coleman, Slavery
Times in Kentucky; and William H. Townsend, Lincoln and The
Bluegrass (Lexington, 1955).

CHAPTER VHI

1 The True American, November 4 and December 23, 1845,
in Clay, Writings, pp. 336 and 368; Clay to Mr. Hartshorne,
Sept. 5, 1845, in Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem, Ohio), October 3,
1845.

2 Observer and Reporter (Lexington Ky.), October 4, 8, 1845. After
returning from the Mexican War, Clay renewed his legal action
against the committee and in a change of venue to neighboring
Jessamine County received a judgment of $2500 against the group.
"This gives the press to the defendants, and gives the plaintiff its
value," the Observer and Reporter editor remarked, April 5,
1848.

3 Ibid., September 27, 1845.

4 Ibid,, October n, 1845.

5 The True American, April 8, 1846. As Clay explained it, "I never
intended from the beginning to edit the paper and it is a sore
task to me; I could do much more on the stump and shall be
glad to be relieved at some near future time of the painful duty"

Notes to Pages 104-109 263

Clay to Chase, June 30, 1846, Chase Papers, Historical Society
of Pennsylvania.

6 Broadside, "To the Laborers of Kentucky," copy in Brutus J.
Clay Papers; also printed in The True American, March n, 1846.

7 Clay to Chase, July 3, 1845, Chase Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa.;
Cassius M. Clay s Appeal to all the Followers of Christ in the
American Union (Lexington, December 9, 1845). There is a copy
in the library of the Philosophical and Historical Society of Ohio
in Cincinnati. The True American, March 4, 1846; and May 13,
1846, in Clay, Writings, p. 454; issues for December 23, 1845,
January 6, February 4 and 18, 1846. For other religious pronounce
ments against slavery, see the issues for March 25, April i and
22, and May 13, 1846.

8 The True American, February 4, March n, and April i, 1846;
and March 4, 1846, in Clay, Writings, p. 398.

9 The True American, March 4, n, 1846; Clay s review of the
Autobiography of John G. Fee, dated August 24, 1896, is in Clay
Scrapbook #2, in the private collection of Professor J. T. Dorris,
retired, of Eastern Kentucky State College, Richmond, Ky.

10 Clay to Louis Marshall, November 20, 1895, in Berea College
Library, Berea, Ky.

11 The remainder of the prayer deserves repetition: "Do thou, O
Lord, tighten the chains of our black brethren, and cause slavery
to increase and multiply throughout the world. And whereas
many nations of the earth have loved their neighbors as them
selves, and have done unto others as they would that others should
do unto them, and have broken every bond, and have let the
oppressed go free, do thou, O God, turn their hearts from their
evil ways, and let them seize once more upon the weak and de
fenceless, and subject them to eternal servitude! And O God!
although thou has commanded us not to muzzle the poor ox that
treadeth out the corn, yet let them labor unceasingly without re
ward, and let their own husbands, and wives, and children, be
sold into distant lands without crime, that thy name may be
glorified, and that unbelievers may be confounded, and forced
to confess that indeed thou art a God of justice and mercy! Stop,
stop, O God, the escape from the prison house, by which thou
sands of these accursed 3 men flee into foreign countries, where
nothing but tyranny reigns; and compel them to enjoy the un
equalled blessings of our own free land!

"Whereas our rulers in the Alabama legislature have emancipated

264 Notes to Pages 109-112

a black man, because of some eminent public service, thus bring
ing thy holy name into shame, do thou, O God, change their
hearts, melt them into mercy, and into obedience to thy will,
and cause them speedily to restore the chain to that unfortunate
soul! And O God, thou searcher of all hearts, since many of thine
own professed followers when they come to lie down on the
bed of death, and enter upon that bourne whence no traveller
returns, where every one shall be called to account for the deeds
done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be
evil emancipate their fellow men, failing in the faith, and given
over to hardness of heart, and blindness of perception to the
truth, do thou, O God, be merciful to them, and the poor re
cipients of their deceitful philanthropy, and let the chain enter
in the flesh, and the iron into the soul forever!" The True Amer
ican, March 25, 1846, in day, Writings, pp. 409-10.

12 The True American, November 4, 1845, in Clay, Writings, p.
336; issue for April 8, 1846, ibid., p. 430; "Address, before the
Board of Home Missions of the M. E. Church, at Musical Fund
Hall, Philadelphia, January 14, 1846," in Clay, Writings, pp.
523-35; "Speech in Broadway Tabernacle, New York, January,
1846," in Clay, Writings, pp. 185-201.

13 Ibid., pp. 200-201.

14 In 1894, a correspondent told Clay, "When as a boy I sat in the
Broadway Tabernacle, New York, and heard you thunder on
*The rights of man/ I had no idea that I would ever be honored
with a letter from you. . . . Your name has always been in my
mind a synonym for heroism, patriotism, and eloquence."
T. Dewitt Talmadge to Clay, January 27, 1894, in Cassius M.
day Collection, Lincoln Memorial University. The obituary was
in Louisville Times, July 25, 1903.

15 Observer and Reporter, January 14 and February n, 1846.

CHAPTER IX

i James D. Richardson (ed.), A Compilation of the Messages and
Papers of the Presidents (10 vols., Washington, 1896-99), IV,
442. For the beginning of the war with Mexico, see Justin H.
Smith, The War with Mexico (2 vols., New York, 1919), I, 149-55,
and Robert S. Henry, The Story of the Mexican War (Indianap
olis and New York, 1950), pp. 47-52.

Notes to Pages 113-118 265

2 The True American, May 25, 27, 1846, in Clay, Writings, p. 470.

3 Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem, Ohio), June 26, 1846; The True
American, June 17, 1846.

4 Anti-Slavery Bugle, June 26, July 3, and August 21, 1846; C&ra-
riflw World, in Te 7>#<? American, July 8, 1846. See also Silas
M. Holmes to Birney, March 27, 1847, in D. L. Dumond (ed.),
Letters of James G. Birney (2 vols., New York, 1938), II, 1042.

5 Cassius M. Clay to Cincinnati Herald, June 28, 1846, in Anti-
Slavery Bugle, July 17, 1846; Cassius M. Clay to New York
Tribune, December 10, 1846, in Clay, Writings, pp. 477-78. The
True American, July 8, 1846. For other evidence that Clay re
garded his enlistment as more than a patriotic duty, see his speech,
May 20, 1846, in Clay, Writings, pp. 475-76; Cassius M. Clay to
Christian Reflector, ibid., 483-87; and the Autobiography of John
G. Fee, (Chicago, 1891), p. 127. See also Clay, Memoirs, I, no,
and Clay to Salmon P. Chase, June 30, 1846, in Chase Papers,
Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

6 Clay to Chase, December 27, 1847, Chase Papers, Hist. Soc. of
Pa.; The True American, July 8, 1846; Memorandum of Cassius
Clay s business, May 24, 1846, in Brutus J. Clay Papers. The True
American did not long survive Clay s absence. Its subscription
list declined so that it no longer paid expenses. Clay s lawyer
therefore ordered it stopped. Observer and Reporter (Lexing
ton, Ky.), October 24, 1846; The True American, October 21,
1846 (final issue).

7 The True American, July 8, 1846; Clay, Memoirs, I, 117-18;
"Speech at Lexington, May 20, 1846," in Clay, Writings, p. 476.

8 Observer and Reporter, July 25, 1846; Clay to Brutus J. Clay,
June 22, 1846, Brutus J. Clay Papers; Gay, Memoirs, I, 118. Jack
son became a lieutenant in the company.

9 Observer and Reporter, June 3, 6, 1846.

10 Clay, Memoirs, I, 540; Clay to Brutus J. Clay, June 22, 1846;
Mary Jane Clay to Brutus J. Clay, October 11, 1846, both in
Brutus J. Clay Papers. A son, Brutus Junius, was born to Mary
Jane Clay on February 20, 1847.

11 Observer and Reporter, June 13, November 4, 1846.

12 Ibid., June 27, 1846. Humphrey Marshall (1812-72) graduated
from West Point in the class of 1832 and resigned his commission
the following year. After service in the Mexican War he was
sometime congressman from Kentucky, minister to China, gen
eral in the Confederate Army, and a member of the Confederate

266 Notes to Pages 118-123

Congress. A brief sketch of his life is in James G. Wilson and
John Fiske (eds.), Appleton s Cyclopaedia of American Biography
(6 vols., New York, 1888), IV, 226-27.

13 Louisville Courier, in Observer and Reporter, September 27, 1848;
Clay, Memoirs, I, 119. Although he had successfully completed
his mission, Clay s difficulties with the Madame were only be
ginning. He had entered the house under orders to remove the
deserters, and the woman had resisted his mission, but when the
war was over she sued him for damages to her property. Cassius
promptly branded the suit another attempt by his political enemies
to discredit him. In the litigation, his counsel declared that he
had acted under military orders and that every person involved
in the affair was as guilty as he. Clay s plea did not affect the
jury, however, who held him personally responsible for the
damage and awarded the woman a settlement of $501 against
him. He appealed the matter to Congress and eventually received
a full reimbursement.

14 Observer and Reporter, July 8, 18, 1846; Cassius M. Clay to
Brutus J. Clay, June 22, 1846, in Brutus J. Clay Papers.

15 Observer and Reporter, July 8, 18, October 14, November n,
1846; letter of Lieutenant J. S. Jackson, September 23, ibid., No
vember 7, 1846. Lieutenant Jackson s vehement complaints elicited
a response from the Army Paymaster Department. See ibid.,
November 4, 1846.

1 6 Ibid*, October 14, November 7, 1846.

17 Ibid.; Clay, Memoirs, I, 119-34.

1 8 Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, XXIV (1926),
197; Clay, Memoirs, I, 140-41. Clay declared that at the threat of
a duel with him, Marshall had tried to drown himself but was
fished out. A short time later, Captain Marshall duelled with
Lieutenant James S. Jackson, who had surrendered his commission
in order that Cassius could have a command. Jackson wounded
Marshall and then resigned his commission and returned to Ken
tucky. Marshall remained, at the risk of a court-martial for par
ticipating in a duel. Observer and Reporter, October 31, 1846.

19 Ibid., November 7, 1846; Clay, Memoirs, I, 135.

20 Letter, September 21, in Observer and Reporter, October 14,
1846; ibid., October 31, 1846.

21 Letter, September 26, ibid., November 7, 1846.

22 Ibid., January 16, 20, and February 13, 1847.

23 Clay, Memoirs, I, 142-44; Observer and Reporter, March 13, 24,

otes to Pages 123-121 267

1847. For Clay s defense of the surrender, see his letter to the
New Orleans Picayune, July 15, in Observer and Reporter, Au
gust 21, 1847. See also Clay, Writings, pp. 480-82.
Letter of John P. Gaines, February 10, in Observer and Re
porter, March 24, 1847; Clay, Memoirs, I, 145-47.
Observer and Reporter, March 24, 1847; Clay, Memoirs, I, 146-48.
The exact words Clay uttered at that time have not been pre
served, and there are several versions available. The one used
here is the inscription of a sword presented to Cassius by the
"Citizens of Madison and Fayette Counties, Kentucky," 1848,
which is in the Berea College Library, Berea, Kentucky. Five
of Clay s fellow prisoners issued a public , statement praising
Clay s action, and they quoted him as saying, "Kill the officers
spare the soldiers." And when a Mexican major ran to him and
pointed a cocked pistol at his breast, Cassius "still exclaimed
Kill me kill the officers but spare the men they are inno
cent! "Letter of A. C. Bryan, W. D. Ratcliffe, Charles E.
Mooney, John J. Finch, and Alfred Argabright, to editor, Ob
server and Reporter, October 20, in the issue of October 25,
1847. See also letter of Lieutenant W. J. Heady, one of the
prisoners, from Mexico City, May 12, in Observer and Reporter,
June 19, 1847. But Clay s foes circulated another version by
Captain C. C. Danley of the Arkansas Cavalry, who was also a
prisoner. Danley depicted Clay as shamefully begging for his
life: "For the sake of the great Henry Clay, who opposed the
war, and who opposed the annexation of Texas, and whose re
lation I am spare me! For the sake of the great Whig Party, a
member of which I am, and which opposed the war and the
annexation of Texas, and which has been neutral in this war, but
which will rise against Mexico to a man, if I am killed spare
me!" The political bias in Danley s testimony is clear. His state
ment, dated May 29, is in Observer and Reporter, June 14, 1848.
See also Clay, Memoirs, I, 267-68.

Ibid., 149-51; letter of Bryan et aL in Observer and Reporter,
issue of October 25; Observer and Reporter, October 23, 1847.
Ibid., May 19, 26, 29, June 9, 27, July 8; and letter from a pris
oner, May 24, in issue for July 3, 1847; Cassius M. Clay to Brutus
J. Clay, June 18, 1847, from Mexico City, in Brutus J. Clay
Papers; Clay, Memoirs, I, 152-55.

Cassius M. Clay to Brutus J. Clay, June 18, 1847, in Brutus J.
Clay Papers.

268 Notes to Pages 128-135

30 Clay, Memoirs, I, 155-60.

31 Ibid., 159-63-

32 lbid. 9 159; Observer and Reporter, April 10, 28, June 2, 23, Octo
ber 23, 1847. IEI General Taylor s official report of the battle he
said that the "Kentucky cavalry, under Colonel Marshall, ren
dered good service dismounted, acting as light troops on our
left, and afterwards, with a portion of the Arkansas regiment,
in meeting and dispersing the column of cavalry at Buena Vista."
From Agua Nueva, March 6, in Observer and Reporter, April 28,
1847.

33 Jeptha Dudley to Brutus J. Clay, December 9, 1847, Brutus J.
Clay Papers; Observer and Reporter, August 18, November 27,
1847. For examples of the fetes in Clay s honor, see Louisville
Examiner, December 18, 1847; Observer and Reporter, Decem
ber 22, 25, 1847. See also Clay, Memoirs, I, 164-67, footnotes.

CHAPTER X

1 Clay, Memoirs, I, 169.

2 Clay to Henry Clay, April 13, 1848, in New York Courier and
Enquirer, reprinted in Observer and Reporter (Lexington, Ky.),
April 22, 1848; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 21, 1848.

3 Quotations are from Holman Hamilton, Zachary Taylor: Sol
dier in the White House (Indianapolis and New York, 1941-51),
pp. 52-56 and 67-68. Clay to Louisville Times, April 28, 1848,
in Clay Scrapbook #2, in the collection of Professor J. T. Dorris,
Richmond, Ky.; Clay, Memoirs, I, 168-69, written many years
after the event, exaggerates Clay s part in the Kentucky Taylor
movement.

4 Observer and Reporter, April 22, 1848; Clay, Memoirs, I, 169-70.

5 Clay to Salmon P. Chase, July 14, 1848, in Chase Papers, Historical
Society of Pennsylvania.

6 Richard French to Howell Cobb, September 10, 1848, in U. B.
Phillips (ed.), Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H.
Stephens, and Harwell Cobb (Washington, 1911), p. 126; Robert
J. Breckinridge to Samuel Steel, April 17, 1849, CO P7 m Breckin-
ridge Family Papers; Clay, Memoirs, I, 177 n.

7 William H. Townsend, Lincoln and the Blue grass (Lexington,
1955), p. 163.

8 Clay, Memoirs, I, 175-76; Louisville Examiner, January 13, 1849,

Votes to Pages 135-144- 269

quoting Clay to editor, December 25, 1848, in Clay, Memoirs,
I, 491-92; Observer and Reporter, January 20, March 17, 31,
April 7, 1849.

9 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 7, 1849; Observer and Reporter,
April 1 8, 1849; Breckinridge to Samuel Steel, April 17, 1849,
Breckinridge Family Papers.

10 Observer and Reporter, April 28, 1849; Hambleton Tapp, "Robert
J. Breckinridge and the Year 1849," in Filson Club History
Quarterly, XII (1938), 125-5* especially pp. 134-35-

11 Observer and Reporter, April 28, 1849; Tapp, "Breckinridge," in
Filson Club Hist. Quart., XII, 134.

12 Observer and Reporter, May 5, 1849.

13 Ibid., May 9, 1849.

14 Clay, Memoirs, I, 175-78^

15 Ibid., 177-83; Louisville Examiner, in Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem,
Ohio), May 4, 1849.

16 Observer and Reporter, July n, 1849.

17 Ibid., July 7, n, 1849; Clay, Memoirs, I, 185-87; Clay to Brutus
J. Clay, July 21, 1849, in Brutus J. Clay Papers; Sally Clay Dudley
to Clay, August 6, 1849, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln
Memorial University.

1 8 Clay, Memoirs, I, 187; Observer and Reporter, August 15, 1849;
Coleman, Slavery Times in Kentucky, pp. 316-17.

19 Frankfort Commonwealth, March 11, 1849; Clay, Memoirs, I, 176.

20 Ibid., 212; J. Speed Smith to Brutus J. Clay, February 24, 1851,
in Brutus J. Clay Papers; Clay to William H. Seward, April 24,
1851, in Seward Papers.

21 Clay was referring to Daniel Webster and to Daniel S. Dickin
son, Democrat of New York.

22 Clay to a Committee of Free-Soilers in Maine, May 26, 1851,
in Frank-fort Commonwealth, July 15, 1851; Clay to Seward,
April 24, 1851, in Seward Papers. Clay was ever-confident. "The
newspapers affect to regard my letter to the Maine Free Soilers
as revolutionary, although I have a thousand times stated my
position to be constitutional opposition to slavery," Clay told
Seward. "This cannot be avoided. They have the press, the
money, the education, the intelligence great odds yet I will
not yield." Clay to Seward, August 8, 1851, in Seward Papers.

23 Frankfort Commonwealth, March n, May 27, and July i, 1851;
Clay, Memoirs, I, 212; Clay to Seward, April 24, 1851, in Seward
Papers.

270 Notes to Pages 145-150

24 Kentucky Statesman (Lexington), March i, 1851; Frankfort Com
monwealth, March n, 1851. For other ex-emancipationists who
rejected the Clay-Blakey ticket, see Frankfort Commonwealth,
April i, May 27, and July 22, 1851; for other Whig ridicule, see
the issue of April 15, 1851.

25 John G. Fee to Gerrit Smith, 1851, in Calendar of the Gerrit
Smith Papers in the Syracuse University Library, General Cor
respondence, Vol. Two, 1846-1854 (2 vols., Albany, 1942), #602;
Frankfort Commonwealth, May 6, 1851. Bailey expressed anti-
slavery views similar to those long advocated by Cassius Clay.
After years of agitation, Bailey thus summed up his attitude:
ct Workingmen of Kentucky, think of yourselves! See you not
that the system of slavery enslaves all who labor for an honest
living? You, white men, are the best slave property of the South,
and it is your votes that makes [sic~\ you so." Quoted in Cole-
man, Slavery Times in Kentucky, pp. 320-21.

26 Anti-Slavery Bugle, August 16, 1851. For a list of Clay s speaking
engagements, see Kentucky Statesman, May 28 and July 9, 1851.

27 "Speech of C. M. Clay at Lexington, Ky., Delivered August i,
1851." Pamphlet, n.d. Quoted passages are from pp. 2, 3, and n.
For examples of Blakey s campaign speeches, see clippings in
George D. Blakey Scrapbook in the library of Western Kentucky
State College, Bowling Green, graciously lent to the author by
Mrs. Mary T. Moore, librarian.

28 Frankfort Commonwealth, September 2, September 16, 1851; Clay
to Giddings, September 3, 1851, in Byron R. Long, "Joshua Reed
Giddings, A Champion of Political Freedom," in Ohio Archaeo
logical and Historical Society Publications, XXVII (Columbus,
I 9 I 9)i 33; Clay, Memoirs, I, 213. See also E. Merton Coulter,
"The Downfall of the Whig Party in Kentucky," Register of the
Kentucky State Historical Society, XXIII (1925), 164. The of
ficial returns of the election are in Frankfort Commonwealth,
September 2, 1851.

29 Clay to Chase, August 12, 1851, Chase Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa.

CHAPTER XI

i day to Giddings, September 3, 1851, in Byron R. Long, "Joshua
Reed Giddings, A Champion of Political Freedom," in Ohio
Archaeological and Historical Society Publications, XXVIII (Co-

Notes to Pages 150-154 271

lumbus, 1919), 33; George W. Julian, Political Recollections
(Chicago, 1884), p. 119; Cincinnati Dally Gazette, September 27,
1851; Clay to Seward, August 8, 1851, in Seward Papers. Clay to
Chase, August 12 and August 27, 1851, in Chase Papers, Historical
Society of Pennsylvania; Clay to Seward, February 17, 1849, in
Seward Papers: "In you I hope for the leader of my faith and
the perfecter of my ambition. . . ."

2 Richmond Weekly Messenger (Ky.), May 21, 1852, lists the
Central Committee of the Kentucky Free-Soil Party as follows:
W. P. Moore, Scion Kimball, J. H. Rawlings, C. M. Clay, Henry
Hawkins, H. Doolin, G. C. Smith, Dr. J. Howard, R. Stapp, and
Thomas Coyle. The same paper, June n, 1852, lists the state
party platform; Cassius M. Clay was its author. Cincinnati Dally
Gazette, July i, 1852, quoted a Washington correspondent who
said, "Cassius M. Clay . . . will undoubtedly be the candidate for
the Vice-Presidency." On the Julian tour in Kentucky, see John
G. Fee to Julian, September, 1852, in Giddings-Julian Papers,
for an itinerary; Julian, "Political Recollections, pp. 125-27; and
Clay, Memoirs, I, 500. For the results of the vote, see Frankfort
Commonwealth, November 22, 1852. Cassius M. Clay to Com
mittee planning an Ann-Slavery Convention in Cincinnati, March
25, 1853, in Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 23, 1853.

3 Cassius M. Clay to Cincinnati committee, March 25, 1853, in
Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 23, 1853.

4 Clay, Memoirs, I, 230; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, March 16, 1854;
Speech of Cassius M. Clay before the Young Men s Association
of Chicago, July 4, 1854, a copy in the Cassius M. Clay Collection,
The Filson Club; Clay to Seward, February 6, 1855, in Seward
Papers; Clay to Chase, August i, 1854, in Chase Papers, Hist.
Soc. of Pa.

5 Cassius M. Clay to H. M. Knox, November i, 1854, in Miscel
laneous Personal Collection, Library of Congress; Cincinnati
Daily Gazette, November 10, 1854; Clay to Seward, February 6,
1855, in Seward Papers.

6 Clay, Memoirs, I, 212; Berea College, Kentucky, An Interesting
History (Cincinnati, 1883), pp. 6-12. In 1855, Fee s school became
Berea College. When the minister admitted Negroes along with
whites, Clay withdrew his support of the enterprise. See Auto
biography of John G. Fee (Chicago, 1891), pp. 130-31, 138.

7 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, June 18, July 23, 1855; Observer and
Reporter (Lexington, Ky.), July 18, August 22, 1855; Frankfort

272 Notes to Pages 154-158

Commonwealth, July 27, 1855, Clay to Samuel Evans, August 5,

1855, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; Clay to
Chase, June 4 and July 5, 1855, in Chase Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa.

8 Clay to editor, New York Tribune, 1855; Clay to G. W. Brown,
February 12, 1856, in the Kansas Herald of Freedom; both in the
Cassius M. day Collection, The Filson Club. Clay to editor,
Cincinnati Daily Gazette, July 19, 1855, m tne issue dated July 23.

9 Clay to the Republican Association of Washington, February 8,

1856, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; George W.
Julian, "The First Republican National Convention," in Ameri
can Historical Review, IV (1899), 319-20, Grace N. Taylor,
The Blair Family in the Civil War," in Register of the Kentucky
State Historical Society, XXXVIH (1940), 286; Proceedings of
the first Three Republican Conventions of 1856, 1860, and
2864, Including Proceedings of the Antecedent National Con
vention Held at Pittsburg, in February, 1856, as Reported by
Horace Greeley (Minneapolis, 1893), PP- 9-"- Clay to Chase,
May 10 and June 24, 1856, in Chase Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa.

10 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, November 8, 9, 1854, February 13,
1855; C. C. Huntingdon, "A History of Banking and Currency
in Ohio before the Civil War," in Ohio Archaeological and His
torical Society Publications, XXIV (1915), 453-4; Clay, Memoirs,
!> 537-

1 1 The deed of trust between Clay and his assignees, dated February
20, 1856, is in the Brutus J. Clay Papers; Clay to John R. Johnston,
February, 1856, original in the collection of J. Winston Coleman,
Jr., Lexington, Ky., and kindly lent to the author; Cincinnati
Daily Gazette, March i, May 10, 1856; Observer and Reporter,
April 15, 1856; schedule of property sold at Cassius M. Clay s
sale, in Brutus J. Clay Papers.

12 Clay to John R. Johnston, January n, 1853, in the private col
lection of Foreman M. Lebold, Chicago, and a photostat in
the collection of J. Winston Coleman, Jr., who kindly let the
author copy it. Clay, Memoirs, I, 222-29.

13 /#, 539-40, Clay, The Clay Family; Clay to John R. Johnston,
February, 1856; Clay to Chase, May 10, 1856, in Chase Papers
Hist. Soc. of Pa. r *

14 Clay to New York Tribune, 1855, in Cassius M. Clay Collection
The Filson Club.

15 Proceedings of the First Three Republican Conventions

Notes to Pages 158-165 273

pp. 79-85; Frankfort Commonwealth, July 16, 1856; Cincinnati
Daily Gazette, July 31, and August n, 1856.

1 6 Ibid., August 14, 19, 1856; Clay to Chase, October 9, 1856, from
Elyria, Ohio, in Chase Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa. For other ac
counts of Clay s speeches in the Midwest, see Cincinnati Daily
Gazette, August 12, 13, 15, 21, and September 9, 1856. The issue
of October 2 described Clay s address at the Louisville Court
house. He also spoke at the Tippecanoe Battlefield, in Pittsburgh,
and in Milwaukee; see issues for September 18 and October 4.

17 See the author s "Abraham Lincoln Deals with Cassius M. Clay,"
in Lincoln Herald, 55: No. 4 (Winter, 1953), 15-23.

1 8 Speech of C M. Clay before the Young Men s Republican Cen
tral Union of New York . . . , October 24th, 1856 [New York?
1856?], pp. 5-6.

19 Ibid., p. 10. For other comments on Clay s Tabernacle speech, see
Andrew W. Crandall, The Early History of the Republican
Party, 1854-2856, pp. 70-71, and Ruhl J. Bartlett, John C Fre
mont and the Republican Party, p. 48.

20 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, October 28, December 2, 1856; Frank
fort Commonwealth, December 10, 1856.

21 Clay to Archibald W. Campbell, January 27, 1859, in Calendar
of the Francis H. Pierpont Letters and Papers in West Virginia
Depositories (West Virginia Historical Records Survey, 1940),
Item #14, original in West Virginia University Library. Frank
fort Commonwealth, August 10, 31, 1859; Clay to editor, Rich
mond Messenger (Ky.), December 28, 1859, clipping in scrap-
book, "Political Issues, 1858-60," Vol. V, in the library of the
Philosophical and Historical Society of Ohio, Cincinnati.

22 Clay to Chase, March 6, 1857, April 14, 1859, in Chase Papers,
Hist. Soc. of Pa.; Clay to Seward, April 18, July 10, 1858, in Seward
Papers.

23 Speech of Cassius M. Clay, at Frankfort, Kentucky, from the
Capitol Steps, January w, 1860 (Cincinnati, 1860).

24 Frank W. Ballard to Clay, October 28, 1859, and Cephas Brainerd
to Clay, December 19, 1859, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lin
coln Memorial University; Charles C. Nott to Lincoln, February
9, 1860, in David C. Mearns (ed.), The Lincoln Papers (2 vols.,
New York, 1948), I, 229; New York Times, February 16, 1860.

25 Leslie Combs to John J. Crittenden, March 5, 1860, in John J.
Crittenden Papers, Library of Congress.

274 Notes to Pages 165-110

26 Clay to Weed, March 8, 1860, in Weed Collection, University
of Rochester.

27 Proceedings of the First Three Republican Conventions . . . ,
pp. 160-63; Frankfort Commonwealth, May 21, 1860.

28 Clay to Lincoln, May 21, 1860, in Mearns, Lincoln Papers, I, 246.

CHAPTER XH

1 Cassius M. Clay to Abraham Lincoln, May 21, 1860, in David C.
Mearns (ed.), The Lincoln Papers (2 vols., New York, 1948),
I, 246; Clay to W. Kenneau, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial,
May 23, 1860, in Robert Todd Lincoln Collection; Clay to
Salmon P. Chase, May 26, 1860, in Chase Papers, Library of
Congress; Clay to Seward, May 21, 1860, in Seward Papers.

2 Perhaps the most perplexing problem in the interpretation of
Cassius M. Clay s public career is his testimony that Lincoln
promised him a cabinet post in 1860. Later, bitter at his failure,
Clay repeatedly declared that the candidate had specifically prom
ised him the office of Secretary of War should the party win.
But at the time Clay made his allegations, Lincoln was dead
and unable to refute or to corroborate Clay s statements, and
there is no record of any such promise in Lincoln s files. In his
Memoirs (I, 303) Clay said that Lincoln wrote him a letter,
asking him to participate in the campaign, and promising him
the office. Clay further declared that he deposited that letter in
the Kentucky Historical Society as permanent proof of his argu
ment, but the document has never been located in the archives
of the society.

In his letter of January 10, 1861, to Lincoln, in the Robert Todd
Lincoln Collection, Clay himself accepted the quoted words of
Lincoln as the promise of a cabinet post, indicating that he con
sidered the words as a definite commitment. The obvious in
ference is that Clay was so eager for the position that he read
into the phrase more than the canny Lincoln intended.

3 New York Times, July 13, 1860; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, July
10, n, 1860; John D. Defress to Clay, July 14, 1860, and Abraham
Lincoln to day, July 20, 1860, both in Cassius M. Clay Collec
tion, Lincoln Memorial University.

4 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, July 17, 19, 20, August i, 1860; for
Clay s Indiana schedule see ibid., July 7, 18, 1860.

Notes to Pages 110-115 275

5 George W. Gans, George W. Wake to Lincoln, November 30,
December i, 1860; Curtis Knight to George D. Blakey, Decem
ber 15, 1860, all in Robert Todd Lincoln Collection. See also
James G. Birney to Clay, November 24, 1860, in Cassius M. Clay
Collection, Lincoln Memorial University.

6 John G. Nicolay Memorandum, November 16, 1860, cited in
Baringer, A House Dividing: Lincoln as President-Elect, pp. 52-
53. Nicolay registered Breck as "a Judge Black of Ky."

7 George Robertson to John J. Crittenden, December 16, 1860, in
Life of John J. Crittenden, Edited by his Daughter, Mrs. Chap
man Coleman (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1871), II, 222; Cassius M.
Clay to Lincoln, January 10, 1860, in Robert Todd Lincoln Col
lection; day, Memoirs, I, 215-16, 302-3.

8 Clay to the Republicans of Miami County, Ohio, November 26,

1860, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; Clay to
J. W. Gordon, December 19, 1860, in the New York World,
clipping in Clay Scrapbook #2 in the private collection of
Professor J. T. Dorris of Richmond, Ky., and also reprinted in
Ne<w York Times, January 7, 1861.

9 Clay to Lincoln, January 10, 1861, in Robert Todd Lincoln Col
lection.

10 Rollins to Clay, January 19, 1861, in James M. Wood, Jr., "James
Sidney Rollins: Civil War Congressman from Missouri" (Master s
thesis, Stanford University, 1947), pp. 26-27.

11 New York Times, January 25, 28, February 2, 1861; Speech of
Cassius M. Clay in a Washington, January 26, 1861, copy in Cassius
M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; Chase to Clay, January 23,

1 86 1, in Cassius M. day Collection, Lincoln Memorial Univer
sity; Lincoln to William Kellogg, congressman from Illinois, and
member of the Congressional Committee of Thirty-Three to
consider compromise proposals, December 11, 1860, in John G.
Nicolay and John Hay (eds.), Abraham Lincoln: Complete
Works . . . , (2 vols., New York, 1920), I, 675-78; Clay
to Lincoln, February 6, 1861, in Robert Todd Lincoln Collec
tion.

12 Ibid.

13 William H. Seward to Lincoln, March 11, 1861, in Mearns,
Lincoln Papers, II, 478; New York Times, March 13, 14, 15, 1861;
Cassius M. Clay to Brutus J. Clay, March 13, 1861, in Brutus J.
Clay Papers; telegram, Clay to Montgomery Blair, March 27,
1861, in Mearns, Lincoln Papers, II, 493; Clay, Memoirs, I, 255-57.

276 Notes to Pages 115-182

14 Clay to Lincoln, March 28, 1861, in Mearns, Lincoln Papers, II,

495-

15 New York Times, April 16, 19, 1861.

16 Tyler Dennett (ed.), Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries
and Letters of John Hay (New York, 1939), p. 8; cited in Jay
Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers (Indianapolis and New
York, 1945), p. 77.

17 Ne*w York Times, April 19, 20, 1861; Captain Lewis Towns to
Clay, April 19, 1861, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln
Memorial University; Clay, Memoirs, I, 259-64, recounts several
anecdotes about Clay s ferocious patriotism; J. W. Wright to
Clay, April 20, 1861, and Clarence Eytinge to Clay, April 22,
1 86 1, both in Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial Uni
versity; for a statement by one of the Clay Guards, see Lincoln
Lore, #102 (March 23, 1931); Clay, Memoirs, I, 284.

1 8 Clay to Lincoln, May n, 1861, in Mearns, Lincoln Papers, II,
605.; Clay to Lincoln, March i, 1862, in Robert Todd Lincoln
Collection.

19 Frank W. Ballard to Clay, May n, 1861, in Cassius M. Clay
Collection, Lincoln Memorial University; Sarah Agnes Wallace
and Frances Elma Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin
Moran (2 vols., Chicago, 1948-49), I, 810.

20 Clay to the London Times, May 17, 1861, in New York Times,
June 5, 1861.

21 New York Times, June 3, 21, 22, 1861; Francis Lieber to Clay,
June 5, 1861; Elliot G Cowdin to Clay, June 8, 1861; George W.
Morgan, U.S. Minister to Portugal, to Clay, June n, 1861; George
F. Train to Clay, August 13, 1 86 1, all in Cassius M. Clay Collec
tion, Lincoln Memorial University.

22 New York Times, June n, 13, 14, 18, 1861; Speech of Cassius
M. Clay in Paris, May 29, 1861, copy in Cassius M. Clay Collec
tion, The Filson Club; Worthington C. Ford (ed.), Letters of
Henry Adams, 1858-1891 (Boston, 1930), p. 92; cited in Mona
ghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers, p. 106.

23 Clay to Seward, June 7 and 21, 1861, in Diplomatic Correspond
ence of the United States, 1861-1863 (3 vols., Washington, 1864),
I, 286-89; Prince Gortchacov to Clay, January 8, 1862, in Cassius
M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University; Monaghan,
Diplomat in Carpet Slippers, p. 107.

24 Clay, Memoirs, I, 294-96.

25 This incident is fully described in Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet

Notes to Pages 182-190 277

Slippers, p. 109; Bayard Taylor to Horace Greeley, July 5,
1862, cited in Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, Lincoln
and the Patronage (New York, 1943), pp. 84-85.

26 William Cassius Goodloe to David S. Goodloe, July 19, 1861,
cited in James Rood Robertson, A Kentuckian at the Court of the
Tsars: The Ministry of Cassius Marcellus Clay to Russia, pp.

44-47*

27 Clay to Lincoln, July 25, 1861, in Robert Todd Lincoln Collec
tion; Clay to Chase, November 22, 1861, in Chase Papers, Library
of Congress; William L. Dayton to Clay, February 10, 1862, in
Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University; Clay
to Lincoln, March i, 1862, in Robert Todd Lincoln Collection.

28 Clay to Lincoln, March i, 1862, in Robert Todd Lincoln Col
lection.

29 Norman B. Judd to Clay, March 29, 1862, in Cassius M. Clay
Collection, Lincoln Memorial University; Clay to Lincoln, June
17, 1862, in Robert Todd Lincoln Collection; Lincoln to Clay,
August 12, 1862, in Clay, Memoirs, I, 304.

CHAPTER XIH

1 Speech of Cassius M. Clay in Washington, August 12, 1862, from
the New York Herald, August 15, 1862, clipping in Cassius M.
Clay Collection, The Filson Club; New York Times, August 13,
August 14, 1862; Clay to Lincoln, August 13, 1862, in Robert
Todd Lincoln Collection; Clay, Memoirs, I, 305-9. Much of the
material in this chapter appeared in the author s "Abraham
Lincoln Deals with Cassius M. Clay: Portrait of a Patient Poli
tician," Lincoln Herald, 55: No. 4 (Winter, 1953), i5~ 2 3-

2 S. C. Pomeroy to Clay, August 13, 1862, and Wendell Phillips
to Clay, August 19, 1862, both in Cassius M. Clay Collection,
Lincoln Memorial University; Clay, Memoirs, I, 582-84.

3 New York Times, August 20, 1862; Clay to Stanton, August 13,
1862, in Edwin M. Stanton Papers.

4 Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles (3 vols., Boston and
New York, 1911), I, 70; William B. Hesseltine, Lincoln and the
War Governors (New York, 1948), pp. 249-57.

5 Theodore C. Pease, and James G. Randall (eds.), The Diary of
Orville Hickman Browning (2 vols., Springfield, 1925 and 1933),
I, 594-95, entry for December 12, 1862; Clay, Memoirs, I, 310.

278 Notes to Pages 191-198

6 Clay, Memoirs, I, 310-12; New York Times, August 26, 27, 1862;
Clay to John A. Andrew, March 20, 1863, John A. Andrew Papers,
complains that he was relieved of his command because he "re
fused to return fugitive slaves from my ranks."

7 Speech of Cassius M. Clay as Messenger of the President of the
United States, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, at
Frankfort, in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, August 31, 1862,
clipping in Cassius M, Clay Collection, The Filson Club; New
York Times, September 6, 1862; Clay, Memoirs, I, 312.

8 Ibid. See also marginal notes by Clay in Speech of Cassius M.
Clay before the Law Department of Albany University, Febru
ary 3, 1863, (New York, 1863), PP- J 3 anc ^ 2 4> CO P7 *& Cassius M.
Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University; Clay to George
Bancroft, October 28, 1866, in the Massachusetts Historical So
ciety.

9 New York Times, September 25, 1862; speech of Cassius M. Clay
in Washington, September 24, 1862, clipping in Cassius M. Clay
Collection, The Filson Club; Clay, Memoirs, I, portrait facing p.
304.

10 Clay to Lincoln, September 29 and October 21, 1862, Robert Todd
Lincoln Collection; also in Clay, Memoirs, I, 315; New York
Times, October 15, 1862.

n Ibid., October 7, 8, 10, 11, 31, 1862; speech of Cassius M. Clay at
Brooklyn, October 7, 1862, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,
clipping in the Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club.

12 day, Memoirs, I, 318-19; Clay to Lincoln, February 26, 1862,
(two letters) in Robert Todd Lincoln Collection; New York
Times, March 2, 9, 11, 12, 1863; Clay to William G. Smethers,
March 15, 1863, in Huntington Library, San Marino, California;
Clay to his wife, March 16, 1863, in Cassius M. Clay Collection,
The Filson Club; Clay to John A. Andrew, Andrew Papers.

13 Clay to Chase, March 23, 1863, in Chase Papers, Library of
Congress. Clay to Samuel Hallett and Co., April 8, 1863, in Robert
Todd Lincoln Collection. The letter was a printed form.

CHAPTER XIV

1 Clay, Memoirs, I, 324.

2 Cassius M. Clay to Mary Jane Clay, April 30, 1863, in Cassius
M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; Clay, Memoirs, I, 354-56.

Notes to Pages 199-204 279

3 James R. Robertson, A Kentuckian at the Court of the Tsars,
pp. 145-48. See also Clay to Salmon P. Chase, September 6, 1863,
in the Chase Papers, Library of Congress.

4 Clay to Robert J. Walker, August 15, 1863, in Robert J. Walker
Papers, Library of Congress.

5 Clay to Mary Jane Clay, July 1863, in Cassius M. Clay Collection,
The Filson Club; Frank A. Colder, "The Russian Fleet and the
Civil War," in American Historical Review, XX (1915), 802-3;
Robertson, Kentuckian at Court of the Tsars, pp. 148-67.

6 Clay to Henry Wilson, September 27, 1868, in Henry Wilson
Papers; Clay, Memoirs, I, 246-48, 408-10, 465, 478. Clay to Brutus
J. Clay, October 9, 1863, Clay Family Papers, Library of Con
gress. Clay s memory was faulty as to his position in 1860, when
he still maintained an alliance with the New Yorker. After the
nominating convention he wrote Seward, "You were my first
choice and I so wrote to Chase s confidential friend, W. D. Gal
lagher . . . ; but it was difficult to get our delegation to vote
for you . . . because Chase was in continual communication
. . . with our friends. Yet he was my second choice. . . ."
Clay to Seward, May 21, 1860, in Seward Papers.

7 Clay to Lincoln, April 2, 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Collection.
Lincoln marked upon the envelope his summary of its contents:
"Bitterly complaining of Mr. Seward s treatment of him, and
especially with reference to money matters and the Secretary
of Legation." See Clay to Seward, October 31, 1863, and October
17 and 22, 1864, cited in Joseph Schafer (ed.), Memoirs of
Jeremiah Curtin ("Wisconsin Biography Series," Volume II
[Madison, 1940]), p. 10; and Clay to Seward, March 30, 1863, in
Seward Papers.

8 Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, pp. 31-78; Sarah Agnes Wallace and
Frances Elma Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran
(2 vols., Chicago, 1948-49), II, 1332.

9 Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, pp. 79-82.

10 Ibid*, pp. 175-76; Clay to Seward, May 19, 1863, in Diplomatic
Correspondence of the United States, 1861-1863 (3 vols., Wash
ington, 1864), n, 791; Clay to Seward, June 17, 1863, ibid.,
795-96.

11 Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, pp. 176-77; E. D. Morgan to Hamil
ton Fish, November 28, 1871, in Hamilton Fish Papers.

12 Clay, Memoirs, I, 420, 538.

13 Ibid., 363-406, 409.

280 Notes to Pages 204-211

14 Clay to Mary Jane Clay, December 26, 1863, in Cassius M. Clay
CoUection, The Filson Club; Count Orloff Davidoff to Clay,
January 3, 1864 O.S., in Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln
Memorial University.

15 Clay, Memoirs, I, 435-37.

16 Ibid., 346, 418-19; Count Adlerberg to Clay, July 28, August 9,

1864, Mme. Olga Barstchoff and Princess Nadine Galitzin to Clay,

1865, an< ^ B. Estvan to Clay, December 13, 1867, in Cassius M.
Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University; Letter of Bayard
Taylor, cited in Woldman, Lincoln and the Russians, p. 122.

17 Clay, Memoirs, I, 467.

1 8 Statement of Eliza Chautems, April 19, 1866, ibid., 463-65.

19 Schuyler Coif ax to Clay, May 18, 1867, ibid., 471; Theodore C.
Pease, and James G. Randall (eds.), The Diary of Orville Hick-
man Bro wning (2 vols., Springfield, 1925 and 1933) II, 141, entry
for April 2, 1867.

20 Timothy Bombshell and others, A Synopsis of Forty Chapters
Upon Clay, not to be found in any treatise on the Free Soils
of the United-States of America heretofore published (n.d., n.p.),
pp. 2, 5, 8, 10-11.

21 See the documents in Clay, Memoirs, I, 467-77.

22 Ibid., 474.

23 Robertson, Kentuckian at Court of the Tsars, pp. 193-97; Memoirs
of Jeremiah Curtin, pp. 103-28; Clay, Memoirs, I, 409-12.

24 Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, pp. 93-98; Clay, Memoirs, I, 414-
16; Clay to Seward, February 6, 1866, cited in Memoirs of Jere
miah Curtin, pp. 15 and 99; Clay to Seward, April 23, 1866, in
Seward Papers.

25 Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, p. 175; Clay to Henry Wilson, in
Henry Wilson Papers; Clay to Seward, legation dispatch, January
30, 1868, cited in Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, p. 17; J. C. B. Davis
to Hamilton Fish, August 2, 1869, in Hamilton Fish Papers.

26 Clay to Schuyler Colfax, September 30, 1868, in Cassius M. Clay
Collection, The Filson Club; Clay to Elihu B. Washburne, Octo
ber 28, 1868, in Washburne Papers; Clay to Seward, April 26,
1867, in Seward Papers. See also Clay to Samuel Bowles, February
n, 1869, in Filson Club History Quarterly, XII, 3 (July, 1938),
167-69; Clay to Washburne, July n, 1869, in Washburne Pa
pers; and Clay to Washburne, July 21, 1869, in Massachusetts
Historical Society.

27 Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, Editor s Introduction, pp. 16-23;

Notes to Pages 211-217 281

Clay to Seward, January 16, 1869, copy in Washburne Papers.

28 George Pomutz, American consul in St. Petersburg, to James
R. Doolittle, November 6, 1867, cited in Memoirs of Jeremiah
Curtin, p. 23; M. D. Landon to Clay, January i, and January 16,
1868, both in Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial
University; Clay to John A. Andrew, February 18, 1867, in
Andrew Papers.

29 Clay to Wilson, September 27, 1868, in Henry Wilson Papers;
Oration of Cassius Marcellus Clay before the Students and His
torical Class of Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, October 26,
1895 (Richmond, Ky., 1895), pp. 7-10. Clay did not get his wish
about the monument; it bears only his name.

30 Robertson, Kentuckian at Court of the Tsars, pp. 227-29; V. J.
Farrar, The Annexation of Russian America to the United States
(Washington, 1937), pp. 1-14.

31 Robertson, Kentuckian at Court of the Tsars, pp. 229-36; Wold-
man, Lincoln and the Russians, pp. 279-83; James M. Callahan,
The Alaska Purchase (West Virginia University Studies in Amer
ican History, Series I, Nos. 2 and 3 [Morgantown, 1908]), p. 21.

32 Clay to Samuel Bowles, February n, 1869, in Filson Club History
Quarterly, XII, 167-69; Timothy O. Howe to Hamilton Fish,
December 15, 1871, in Hamilton Fish Papers.

CHAPTER XV

1 Clay to Chase, September 6, 1863, in Chase Papers, Library of
Congress. Much of the material in this chapter appeared in the
author s "Cassius M. Clay and the Cuban Charitable Aid Society,"
Bulletin of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, XII,
No. 3 (July, 1954), 218-26.

2 Statement of Cassius M. Clay, October 18, 1880, in the Buffalo
Courier (N.Y.), explaining his abandonment of the administra
tion Republicans, clipping in Clay Scrapbook #2, p. 87, in the
private collection of Professor J. T. Dorris, Richmond, Kentucky.

3 See William B. Hesseltine, "Economic Factors in the Abandon
ment of Reconstruction," Mississippi Valley Historical Review,
XXII (1935), 191-210, for an interpretation of moderate opinion
in the North.

4 Clay to Stanton, February 24, 1863, Edwin M. Stanton Papers;
Clay to Chase, September 6, 1863, in Chase Papers, Library of

282 Notes to Pages 217-227

Congress; see also Clay to Brutus J. Clay, October 9, 1863, in
Clay Family Papers, Library of Congress.

5 Clay, Memoirs, I, 458-59.

6 Ibid., 459.

7 Wade to Clay, February 3, 1870, in Cassius M. Clay Collection,
Lincoln Memorial University; Clay to Palmer, April i, 1870, in
Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club.

8 Clay, Memoirs, I, 541, 542, 549; Order Book #58, Fayette County
Circuit Court, p. 87, Cassius M. Clay vs. Mary Jane Clay, Fayette
Circuit Court, File 1732, February 7, 1878.

9 Clay, Memoirs, I, 501.

10 Clay to Henry Wilson, March 17, 1871, in Henry Wilson Pa
pers; Clay, Memoirs, I, 501-2.

11 Clay s speech at Lexington, Kentucky, July 4, 1871, ibid., 502, 503.

12 Clay to Missouri Liberal Republican Convention, January 20,
1872, copy in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club.

13 Clay, Memoirs, I, 504-7.

14 Speech of Cassius M. Clay in Covington, Kentucky, April 30,
1872, clipping in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club;
Clay to New York Central Committee, Liberal Republican Party,
May 22, 1872, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club;
Ethan Allen to Clay, May 18, 1872, Cassius M. Clay Collection,
Lincoln Memorial University; Manifesto of Cassius M. Clay,
Chairman Provisional Executive Committee of Kentucky, June
18, 1872, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; Clay,
Memoirs, I, 508-9.

15 Speech of Cassius M. Clay at Cincinnati, July 7, 1872, from Cin
cinnati Commercial, clipping in the Cassius M. Clay Collection,
The Filson Club.

1 6 Clay, Memoirs, I, 507. "To this day many Democrats all over
the Union regard the Greeley movement as a mistake; when
every man of reflection sees that such was the only road out of
the pit of impotency and despair, where the Lost Cause had
sunk them." ibid., 510.

17 Interview with Cassius M. Clay, by a reporter of the Cincinnati
Commercial, in Kentucky Register (Richmond), July 30, 1875.

18 Kentucky Register, July 30, 1875; F. W. Johnston to Cassius M.
Clay, Jr., October 9, 1875, in Brutus J. Clay Papers.

19 Kentucky Register, August 13, 1875, September 24, October 8,
1875. Quoted passage is from speech of August 6, in the issue
for August 13, 1875.

20 Clay, Memoirs, I, 510-16; Kentucky Register, October 8, 1875;

Notes to Pages 221-234 283

October 29, November 5, 1875; Memphis Appeal, October 23, in
Kentucky Register, October 29; Greenville Times (Miss.), in
Kentucky Register, November 26, 1875; W. A. Percy to Clay,
November 17, 1875, from Greenville (Miss.) in Cassius M. Clay
Collection, Lincoln Memorial University; Clay to Warmouth,
October 10, 1875, in Warmouth Papers, Folder #76, in Southern
History Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
C. A. Dana to Clay, September 2, 1875; George W. Julian to
Clay, September 6, 1875; Wendell Phillips to Clay, October 17,
1875; all in Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial Uni
versity.

21 J. P. Knott to Clay, November 17, 1876, in Cassius M. Clay
Collection, Lincoln Memorial University. C. Vann Woodward,
Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End
of Reconstruction (Boston, 1951), describes the extent of the
compromise which settled the electoral crisis, of which Cassius
Clay was only dimly aware. See Clay, Memoirs, I, 518.

22 J. P. Knott to Clay, November 17, 1876, in Cassius M. Clay Col
lection, Lincoln Memorial University; day, Memoirs, I, 507.

CHAPTER XVI

1 Clay, Memoirs, I, 518.

2 Interview with Clay by reporter of the Cincinnati Commercial
in Kentucky Register (Richmond), July 30, 1875; Louisville
Courier- Journal, October 4, 1891; Clay, Memoirs, I, 19.

3 Thomas D. Clark, The Kentucky (New York and Toronto, 1942),
p. 293; Clay, Memoirs, I, 550; conversation with Miss Helen
Bennett of Richmond, Kentucky, a granddaughter of Clay,
summer, 1950.

4 Louisville Courier- Journal, October 4, 1891; Speech of Cassius
M. Clay, at Frankfort, Ky., from the Capitol Steps, January 10,
1860 (Cincinnati, 1860), p. 20.

5 Archibald W. Campbell, Cassius Marcellus Clay: A Visit to his
home in Kentucky. His peculiar habits and remarkable career
the Peaceful Ending of a Stormy Life (New York, 1888).

6 Ibid., p. 5; Clay to his daughter Mary, April 28, 1878, in Cassius
M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; Clay, Memoirs, I, 554.

7 Ibid., 554-55-

8 Ibid., 543, 555; Cincinnati Enquirer, March 29, 1879, cited in
Clark, The Kentucky, p. 292.

284 Notes to Pages 235-238

9 Clay, Memoirs, I, 555-70; John R. Johnston to Clay, October 23,
1877, Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University.
There are additional newspaper articles of the White affair in
Clay Scrapbook #2, p. 7, in the private collection of Professor
J. T. Dorris, Richmond, Kentucky.

10 Clay Scrapbook #2, p. 213, clipping dated January 20, 1877;
Clay to Judge R. H. Stanton, December 28, 1877, in Clay Scrap-
book #2, p. 189.

n Clippings in Clay Scrapbook #2, for 1880, pp. 69, 73, 77, 65, 77,
71; Kentucky Register, April 16, 23, May 14, August 13, 1880.
Quoted passage is from Clay to editor, Louisville Courier-Journal,
December 1880, in Clay Scrapbook #2, p. 175.

12 Clay to editor, Philadelphia Telegraph, December 14, 1884, in
Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club; speech of Clay at
Louisville, August 25, 1884, in Clay Scrapbook #2, p. 217; speech
of Clay at Jacksonville, 111., from Jacksonville Daily Journal,
October 17, 1884, in Clay Scrapbook #2, p. 229; Clay speech at
Lockport, N.Y., from Lockport Journal, October 31, 1884, in
Clay Scrapbook #2, p. 233. See also Clay speeches in Louisville
Bulletin (Ky.), February 24, 1884, Rochester Post-Express, Octo
ber 25, 1884, and Plattsburg Morning Telegraph (N.Y.), October
29, 1884. Clay denounced the Solid South in post-election com
ments. "The Solid South holds now sixteen States in armed
subjection by suppressing the Republican ballots. In my opinion
Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina are as much Republican
as Vermont, but they will be probably counted for the Democratic
candidate for President. The Republican party in great magna
nimity have looked upon these rebel aggressions, by which not
only the eleven original seceding States have been united in the
Solid South but five Union States also by murder added to the
confederates. Now these methods are sought to be unblushingly
introduced into the other, the northern half of the Union, to
sink our Republic into a confirmed despotism, where the voice
of the people shall be heard no more. . . ." Clay to editor,
Albany Morning Express (N.Y.), November 8, 1884.

13 day to editor, Albany Sun (N.Y.), November 16, 1884, in
Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club.

14 Clay, Memoirs, I, v, 518-19. All the letters in the Cassius M. Clay
Collection at Lincoln Memorial University bear the inscription,
in a shaky hand, "Passed. C. 1884." For Clay s difficulty in locating
a publisher, see C. A. Dana to Clay, June 9, 1884, in Cassius M.
Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University.

Notes to Pages 238-243 285

15 An adulatory review of the Memoirs, by A. C. Quisenberry,
appeared in the Lexington Transcript, August 12, 1886. A clipping
of it is in the R. T. Durrett MSS, The Filson Club.

1 6 Clay s scrapbooks contained numerous articles on agricultural
matters; see, for example, the article of April, 1880, on "Seeds,"
in Clay Scrapbook #2; Allen T. Rice, editor of North American
Review, February i, 1886, receipts for article on "Race and the
Solid South," in the February issue. There is a MS lecture on
"Labor and Capital," 1886, in Cassius M. Clay Collection, The
Filson Club. The paper on "Money," read March 4, 1890, to The
Filson Club, and an essay for the New York Independent, April
25, 1889, are both in Brutus J. Clay Papers. Clay s speech before
the Ohio Mexican War Veterans, May 8, 1890, is in Cassius M.
Clay Collection, The Filson Club, and Clay s petition of Novem
ber 13, 1890, to the Kentucky legislature is in the Brutus J. Clay
Papers. George W. Curtis to Clay, January 21, 1891, in Cassius
M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University, indicates that
Clay advocated the socialization of the railroads and their opera
tion by the civil service, like the post offices.

17 Mrs. Leonora Bergman to author, summer, 1951; Marriage Book
Number 24, Madison County, Kentucky, p. 7, Marriage Bond,
C. M. Clay and Dora Richardson, November 9, 1894; Clark, The
Kentucky, p. 293. Launey drifted West and died in a midwestern
state in the early i92o s.

1 8 Clark, The Kentucky, pp. 293-94.

19 Ibid., p. 293; Clay to President William G. Frost of Berea Col
lege, September 19, 1896, in Berea College Library, Berea, Ky.;
C. M. Clay vs. Dora Clay, Madison County Circuit Court, File
321, Bundle 643, filed August 17, 1898.

20 Clay to the press, March 1898, in New York Journal, March 21;
printed in Clark, The Kentucky, p. 295.

21 Lexington Herald, September n, 1950, tells of the young body
guard, hired in the spring of 1898. The article also illustrates
the extent of the Clay legend. Even the snakes on the White
Hall estate were of folklorish monstrosity. One, said the body
guard, was so big it broke down a fence by slithering over it.
Clark, The Kentucky, p. 294; conversation with Mr. Charles R.
Staples of Lexington, Ky., summer, 1950. Richmond Climax (Ky.),
July 8, 1903. Dora died in 1914 at the age of 35. She had been mar
ried five times. Lexington Herald, February 14, 1914.

22 Conversation with Mr. Charles T. Dudley of Richmond, Ky.,
July 18, 1950; with Mrs. Jane Clay of Richmond, summer, 1950;

286 Notes to Pages 245-245

and with Warfield C. Bennett, a grandson of Cassius Clay, also
of Richmond.

23 H. C. Howard to Cassius M. Clay, Jr., a nephew of the old
general, April 14, 1899; Brutus J. Clay, a son of General Clay, to
Cassius M. Clay, Jr., August 21, 1899; and Clay to Cassius M.
Clay, Jr., October i, 1899, all in Brutus J. Clay Papers; Lexington
Morning Her aid j April 6, 1901.

24 Mr. Charles T. Dudley to author, summer, 1950; Lexington
Morning Herald, April 6, 1901; Mary B. Clay vs. C. M. Clay,
Madison County Circuit Court, Box 352, Bundle 736, filed April
11, 1901, has the notation, "Executed upon Cassius M. Clay by
leaving a true copy of subpoena in residence of Cassius M. Clay
he being barred up in his residence and refusing admittance or
to come out and be notified of my business with him." Madison
National Bank vs. C. M. Clay, Madison County Circuit Court,
Box 353, Bundle 707, filed November 22, 1901, has a similar note:
"Executed November 22, 1901, by having a true copy hereof
delivered at the residence and at the feet of Cassius M. Clay,
he refusing to permit officers to his house by threatening to kill
any person entering his house without his permission." H. H. Col-
Iyer, Sheriff, vs. C. M. Clay, Madison County Circuit Court, File
256, Bundle 713, filed February 26, 1902. John F. Wagers, Sheriff,
vs. C. M. Clay, James Bennett, Mrs. James Bennett, Mrs. Annie
Crenshaiu [Clay s daughters and son-in-law], Madison County
Circuit Court, Box 362, Bundle 724, filed January 13, 1903. Clay
received an annuity of $360 from each of his four daughters.
On one occasion his grandson Warfield Bennett went out to
White Hall to deliver a check for his mother s payment. Clay
refused it because he would have to endorse it. "Long ago I decided
I would no longer sign my name to anything," he told the boy.

High Sheriff Josiah Simmons letter is quoted by William H.
Townsend to the Lincoln Group in Washington, D.C., in Wash
ington Evening Star, November 17, 1954.

25 Deposition of W. O, Bullock, M.D., October 10, 1951, in the
private collection of J. Winston Coleman, Jr., Lexington, Ky.

26 Richmond Climax, July 22, 1903; Clark, The Kentucky, pp. 272-
73-

27 Richmond Climax, July 29, 1903; Louisville Times, July 25, 1903;
Clark, The Kentucky, p. 273; J. Winston Coleman, Jr., Last Days,
Death, and Funeral of Henry Clay, p. 30, n. 56.

A NOTE
ON THE SOURCES

Materials for a study of the career of Cassius M. Clay appear through
out the papers and memoirs of nearly all the leading Republicans and
antislavery politicians of his time. He readily collected friends and
enemies, he was involved in many conflicts of both local and na
tional character, and he traveled and spoke widely over the coun
try. All this contributed to the record of his life. Clay saved his cor
respondence and maintained scrapbooks, but much of this valuable
source material was scattered or destroyed. Important collections of
his papers, however, may be found in the Brutus J. Clay Papers, in
the private collection of Cassius M. Clay of Paris, Kentucky; in the
Cassius M. Clay Collection, The Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky;
and in the Cassius M. Clay Collection, Lincoln Memorial University,
Harrogate, Tennessee.

Other Clay letters are in the Breckinridge Family Papers, the Salmon
P. Chase Papers, the Hamilton Fish Papers, the Giddings- Julian Pa
pers, the Robert Todd Lincoln Collection, the Edwin M. Stanton
Papers, the Elihu B. Washburne Papers, and the Henry Wilson Pa
pers, all in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. In
addition, there are Clay manuscripts in the John A. Andrew Papers in
the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Salmon P. Chase Papers in
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and in the William A. Seward
Papers and the Thurlow Weed Collection in the University of
Rochester Library. All of these collections contain personal letters
which provide insight into the private purposes and ambitions of the
man Clay.

As a newspaper editor, orator, and pamphleteer, Clay frequently
expressed the political and economic program he advocated for his
state, the South, and the nation. Among his printed writings, the
most valuable are The Life of Cassius Marcellus Clay: Memoirs, Writ-

287

288 A Note on the Sources

ings, and Speeches (Cincinnati, 1886), The Writings of Cassius Mar-
cellus Clay, edited by Horace Greeley (New York, 1848), and the
pamphlets containing his important public addresses. Much of his
antislavery opinion appeared in the columns of The True American,
a newspaper he edited in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1845 and 1846.
Other newspapers in Lexington, Frankfort, and Cincinnati, as well
as the national press, carried articles and speeches by and about Clay.

Memoirs, diaries, and printed correspondence of many of his con
temporaries contain revealing views of Cassius Clay. Valuable among
these are the works of John G. Fee, Thomas F. Marshall, John Bige-
low, Salmon P. Chase, John J. Crittenden, James G. Birney, George
W. Julian, Jane Grey Swisshelm, E. D. Mansfield, Abraham Lincoln,
Orville H. Browning, Jeremiah Curtin, William H. Seward, John Hay,
Benjamin Moran, Thurlow Weed, and Gideon Welles.

Beyond these primary sources, many monographs and special studies
offer important information on Clay s career. William E. Baringer,
A House Dividing: Lincoln as President-Elect (Springfield, 1945),
records Clay s frantic efforts to get into Lincoln s cabinet. Ruhl J.
Bartlett, John C. Fremont and the Republican Party (The Ohio State
University Studies . . . No. 13, Columbus, 1930), mentions Clay s
services in the campaign of 1856. Mary Rogers Clay, in The Clay
Family (Louisville, 1899), gives a genealogy of Cassius Clay s family.
J. Winston Coleman, Jr., in Slavery Times in Kentucky (Chapel Hill,
1940), and in a pamphlet, Last Days, Death, and Funeral of Henry Clay
(Lexington, 1951), tells of Clay s antislavery activities. In the latter
work, Mr. Coleman records the electrical storm over Lexington at
the time of Clay s death. A fair appraisal of Clay s influence upon the
embryonic Republican party is in Andrew W. Crandall, The Early
History of the Republican Party (Boston, 1930). Jean M. Howard s
unpublished M.A. thesis at the University of Kentucky, "The Ante-
Bellum Career of Cassius Marcellus Clay" (1947), is a partial study
of the origins of Clay s career, based largely upon his Memoirs. Asa
Earl Martin, in The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky Prior to
1850 (Louisville, 1918), provides a useful survey of the work in which
Clay was influential. James Rood Robertson s A Kentuckian at the
Court of the Tsars: The Ministry of Cassius M. Clay to Russia (Berea
College, Ky., 1935) is an interesting account of Clay s diplomatic
efforts, based upon State Department archives. Albert A. Woldman
gives a more general account of American-Russian relations during
the Civil War in Lincoln and the Russians (Cleveland and New
York, 1952).

INDEX

Adams, Charles Francis, 179-80

Adams, Henry, 180

Adams, John Quincy, 19

"Address to the People of Ken
tucky," 80-82

Alaska purchase, 212-14

Alexander II, Czar of Russia: receives
Clay, 182-83; liberation of serfs,
198; and Fox expedition, 209

Altoona Conference, 189, 192

American System, 27-29, 51

Ames, Adelbert, 227

Andrew, John A., 20, 212

Anti-Slavery Bugle, 78, 100, 114

Bailey, William S., 145

Barry, William T., 17

Benton, Thomas Hart, 158

Berea College, 154, 212

Bergh, Henry, 200

Bingham, Kinsley S., 155

Birney, James G., 47; in campaign of
1844, 65-79

Blaine, James G., 236

Blair, Francis P., 155

Blair, Montgomery, 17

Blakey, George D.: Emancipation
candidate in 1851, 144-46; at 1860
Republican convention, 166

Borland, Solon, 123, 127

Breck, Daniel, 171

Breckinridge, John C., 51

Breckinridge, Robert J.: orator, 17;
and bowie knife, 133-34; and
Friends of Emancipation meeting,
136, 142

Broadway Tabernacle, New York:
Clay s address, no; in 1856, 160,
166

Brock, Riley, 241

Brown, John, 163

Brown, Samuel M., 61-62

Browning, Orville H., 189-90

Buchanan, Sir Andrew, 208

Buchanan, James, 162

Bull, Ole, 157

Bullock, Tom, 244-45

Bullock, Waller (chairman of citi
zens committee), 98

Bullock, Waller (physician), 244-45

Burlingame, Anson, 179

Burnham, Curtis F., 139

Burnham, Thompson, 139, 142

Busby, John F., 37

Calhoun, John C., 27, 76

Cameron, Simon: Secretary of War,
176; Minister to Russia, 184; re
turns to U.S., 195; mentioned, 193

Camp Hart, Ky., 70

Campbell, Alexander, 17

Caperton, Allen T., 20

Catacazy, C., 214

Charleston and Ohio Railroad, 36, 38

Chase, Salmon P.: and 1860 cam
paign, 1 68; compromise efforts in
1 86 1, 173; Secretary of Treasury,
196; mentioned, 58, 64, 66, 80, 84,

i33 147-48, i5> X 5 2 J 55 i57 I<5 3

188, 192, 215

Chautems, Eliza and Jean, 205-8, 210
Chenault, William, 138, 142

289

290

Index

Christian Intelligencer, 88
Cincinnati Gazette, 83-84
Clay, Brutus (son of Cassius), 243
Clay, Brutus J. (brother of Cassius) ;
birth, 8; education, 10-11; men
tioned, 23, 115

Clay, Cassius M.: character, 3-6, 157,
194-95; birth, 8; belligerence, 8-9,
11, 243-44; education: preparatory,
10; collegiate, 11-12, 16, 20-25;
law, 31; in father s illness, 12-14;
in Transylvania fire, 18; journey
to the East, 19-20; observes New
England economy, 22, 26, 37; anti-
slavery career begins, 21-24; Yale
oration, 24; Kentucky System, 27-
30, 50, 236; duel with Declary,
31-33; wedding to Mary Jane
Warfield, 33; enters politics, 33-
34; economic interests, 34, 38, 41,
55, 156; in Kentucky legislature,
36-37, 38-40, 49-51; family life,
37, 71, 156-57; moves to Lexing
ton, 41; delegate to Whig na
tional convention, 1839, 41-42; in
election of 1840, 43-49; in elec
tion of 1841, 51-53; duel with
Robert WicklifTe, Jr., 52-53; as
pamphleteer, 55-59; on Negro
character, 56; in congressional
campaign, 1843, 60-62; fight at
Russell s Cave Springs, 61-63; elec
tion of 1844, 65-79; state militia
commander, 69-70; speech in Tre-
mont Temple, 76-77; and The
True American, 80-83, 87, 90-104;
plan of emancipation, 94; To All
the Followers of Christ . . . ,
105-6; and southern mountains,
107-9, I( 5; prayer for slavery, 109;
Broadway Tabernacle addresses,
no, 160; in Mexican War, 112-29;
in election of 1848, 130-33; Ken
tucky Constitutional Convention
debate, 1849, 133-42; 1851 guber

natorial campaign, 144-47; De ~
comes Republican, 149-56; opens
bank, 156; meets Lincoln, 159; on
southern commercial conventions,
161; Frankfort speech in 1860, 163;
Cooper Institute speech, 163-64;
Republican convention, 1860, 166-
67; in 1860 campaign, 169-70; seeks
appointive office, 170-75; and 1861
compromise efforts, 173; appoint
ment to Russia, 174-75; with Clay
Guards, 175-76; in London, 177-
79; in Paris, 179-80; first term in
Russia, 180-85; an d Radical Re
publicans, 186-89; visit to Ken
tucky, 1862, 190-91; in campaign
of 1862, 193-94; re-appointed to
Russia, 195-96; in Russia, 1862-69,
197-214; and Liberal Republicans,
215-25; divorces Mary Jane, 220-
21 ; joins Democratic Party, 226-
36; in Mississippi, 1875, 227; in re
tirement, 225-26, 230-45; writes
autobiography, 237-39; marriage to
Dora Richardson, 240-42; illness
and death, 244-45

Clay, Cassius Marcellus, Jr., 71

Clay, Green (father of Cassius):
business, 6-7; builds White Hall,
8; instruction to sons, 9-10, 14;
illness, n; will, 12-13; death, 12;
estate lost, 41

Clay, Green (nephew of Cassius),
182

Clay, Henry: home, 16; as orator,
17; American System, 27-29; Whig
candidate, 1839, 41-42; defends
Cassius in court, 62-63; and elec
tion of 1844, 65-79; md. 1848
nomination, 130-32; mentioned, 51,

"9, 2 45

Clay, James B., 18, 99
Clay, Launey, 233-35, 2 39
Clay, Mrs. Mary Jane Warfield. See

Warfield, Mary Jane

Index

291

Clay, Sally Lewis: marries Green
Clay, 7; instruction to sons, 14; re
ligious views, 15; remarries, 31;
encourages Cassius, 93; and Fox-
town fight, 141

Clay, Sidney Payne, 8

Cobb, Howell, 133

Coif ax, Schuyler, 210

College of St. Joseph, 11-12

Collins, Perry McDonough, 201-2

Collyer, H. H., 243

Combs, Leslie, 165

Committee of Sixty, 98-99, 103

Cooper Union, New York, 163-64,
166, 218

Corwin, Thomas, 73-74

Crittenden, John J., 131

Cuban Charitable Aid Society, 217-
20

Curd, John, 43, 45

Curie, Clayton, 43, 45

Curtin, Jeremiah: secretary of lega
tion, 200-202; and Fox expedition,
209; Clay attacks, 200-12

Dana, Charles A., 219

Davidorf, Count OrlofT, 204

Davis, Garret, 60

Day, Jeremiah, 20

Dayton, William L., 158, 179

Declary, John P., 31-33

Dejarnatt, James, 138

Democratic Party: and Liberal Re
publican movement, 221-25; Clay
joins, 226-36; mentioned, 35, 147

Douglas, Stephen A., 151

Elder, D. L., 145

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 157

Emily, a slave, 71

Encarnacion (Mexican hacienda),

123-24

English, William H., 236
Estill Springs, Ky., 7, 101
Evans, William R., 38
Everett, Edward, 20

Fayette County, Ky.: politics in 1840,
43-44; in 1841 election, 51-53

Fee, John G., i53~54

Fillmore, Millard, 65, 67

Filson Club, 239

Fish, Hamilton, 214, 217

Force Bill of 1871, 222

Forty Chapters upon Clay . . . ,
207-8

Fox, Gustavus V., 209

Foxtown, Ky., 139-41

Frankfort Commonwealth, 44

Free-Soil Party, 149-51, 153

Fremont, John C., 158, 162, 179, 187

French, Richard, 133

Fry, Joshua, 10

Gaines, John P., 123-24, 129

Garrison, William Lloyd, 21, 28, 57,
100, 238

George, a slave, 8-9, 39

Giddings, Joshua, 72-73, 149

Goodloe, David S., 182

Goodloe, William C., 182

Gortchakov, Prince: and Alaska
telegraph, 201-2; and Perkins
Claim, 203-4; and Chautems af
fair, 208; mentioned, 180, 183

Grady, Henry W., 50

Grant, Ulysses S., 222-25

Great Kanawha River, 7

Greeley, Horace: editor, 57; and Lib
eral Republicans, 219-25; quoted,
84

Grimke, Sarah and Angelina, 47

Haldeman, Jacob S., 179
Hale, John P., 150, 158
Hamlin, Hannibal, 166
Hancock, Winfield S., 236
Harrison, William Henry, 42
Hart, Joel T., 157, 231
Hay, John, 176

Hayes, Rutherford B., 228, 230
Hayne, Robert Y., 20

292

Index

Helper, Hinton R^ 13, 48
Hendricks, Thomas A., 227
Henrie, Dan Drake, 124-25
Howe, Julia Ward, 20
Hudson s Bay Company, 213
Hunt, Washington, 65, 67, 77

Inland Tidewater, 108

Jackson, Andrew, 27, 35
Jackson, James S., 115
Johnson, George W., 98
Julian, George W., 150, 155

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 152

Kentucky: politics in 1832, 26-30; re
gions, 29-30; mountain interests in,
30, 107-9; constitutional conven
tion, 1849, 133-47; Republican
Party in, 158

Kentucky State Historical Society,

2 39

Kentucky System, 29-30, 50, 87
Kingsley, James L., 20

Landon, M. D., 211

Leo Xm, Pope, 245

Lewis, Thomas, 7

Lexington, Ky.: Clay s education at,

1 6, 31; Clay makes home there, 41;

The True American published at,

80-102
Lexington and Richmond Turnpike

Road Company, 36
Liberal Republican Party, 216-25
Liberty Party, 65-79, *33
Lincoln, Abraham: meets Cassius,

159; Cooper Union speech, 164;

1860 nomination, 166-68; and cab
inet appointments, 169, 171-72;

1 86 1 compromise efforts, 174; deals
with Radicals, 189-92; Emancipa
tion Proclamation, 192; hears Clay s
complaints, 200; mentioned, 4, 22,
158

Logue, James, 99
Lolu, a Mexican girl, 128
Longworth, Joseph, 20
Louisville Examiner, in, 115
Lumley, John S., 206

McKee, William R., 52
Madison County, Ky,: 1849 cam
paign, 138-42
Mann, Horace, 157
Marshall, Humphrey, 117-18, 121,

132

Marshall, Thomas A., 52

Marshall, Thomas F.: and The True
American, 96-98, 101; and Mexi
can War, 120-21; mentioned, 66,
70

Moran, Benjamin, 177-78, 200

Musical Fund Hall, 109

Negro Law of 1833, 44-46, 56; re
pealed, 133-35
Nelson, William, 191
New York Times, 188, 195
New York Tribune, 57-58, 69, 72, 84
Nicholas, Samuel S., 136-38
Northern Bank of Kentucky, 34

Observer and Reporter, quoted, 84,
104, in

Ohio American Anti-Slavery So
ciety, 114

Old Infantry Cavalry, 115-23, 128

Olmstead, Denison, 20

Palmer, John M., 219
Palmerston, Lord, 178
Payne, Elizabeth, 7
Peers, Rev. B. O., 33
Pendleton, George H., 226-27
Perkins, Benjamin, 203-4
Phillips, Wendell, 188
Polish revolt, 198-99
Polk, James K., 65, 73; and Mexican
War, 112-13

Index

293

Pomeroy, Samuel C, 188
Port Lavacca, Texas, 1 19-20
Powell, Lazarus W,, 147
Progress of the Age, 145

Republican Party: organizes, 155-56;
in 1856, 162; 1860 convention, 166;
1860 campaign, 1 69-70; internal
division over slavery, 186-88;
quarrels over Reconstruction, 2 1 5-
25; Cassius returns to, 236-37
Rice, N. L., 17
Richardson, Dora, 240-42
Richmond, battle of, 191
Rodes, William, 41
Rollins, James S., 32-33, 173
Runyon, Richard, 139-40
Russell s Cave Springs, 61-62, 83
Russian-American Fur Company,

213

Russian-American Telegraph Com
pany, 201-2, 2 i i

Scott, Winfield, 127

Seward, William H.: Clay favors
nomination of in 1860, 217; Secre
tary of State, 174-75; and Polish
revolt, 198-99; Clay s hostility to,
199-200, 210; and Chautems affair,
207; and Curtin, 210-11; and
Alaska, 212-13; mentioned, 143-
44, 150, 158, 163, 165-66

Seymour, Horatio, 193

Sibley, Hiram, 201-2

Silliman, Benjamin, 20

Simmons, Josiah F., 244

Smith, Gerrit, 68

Smith, J. Speed, 143

Smith, Kirby, 190-92

Southern mountains, 30, 107-9, 160-
61

Sprigg, James C., 39-40

Stanton, Edwin M., 188, 217

Stanton, Henry B., 66

Stevenson, Thomas B., 85

Stewart, Joseph B., 203
Stoeckl, "Baron" de, 213
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 151
Sumner, Charles, 158, 217

Tappan, Lewis, 59, 66, 77, 84, 100

Tate s Creek, 7

Taylor, Bayard, 182, 205

Taylor, Zachary: and Mexican War,
112; and 1848 election, 131-33

Texas: annexation debate, 65-79; an< ^
Mexican War, 112-13, 119-24

The True American: founding of,
80-82; office fortified, 82-83; de
scription, 85; editorial matter, 86-
88; influence, 88; suppressed, 90-
102; revived, 104; assumes moral
istic tone, 105-6; publication ceases,
115

Thorn Hill, 41

Tilden, Samuel J., 226-28

Train, George Francis, 180

Transylvania University, 16, 18, 31

Trumbull, Lyman, 222

Turner, Cyrus, 140-42

Turner, Squire, 138-42

Union Pacific Railroad, 196
Vaughan, John C., 115, 145

Wade, Benjamin F., 219

Walker, Robert J., 213

Wallace, Lew, 191

Warfield, Elisha, 31

Warfield, Mary Jane (Mrs. Cassius
Clay): as a girl, 19, 31; marries, 33;
accompanies husband on campaign
in 1844, 71-75; and Mexican War,
116-17, 128-29; family life, 157; in
Russia, 181; returns home, 184;
divorce, 220-21

Webster, Daniel, 20

Weddle, George, 38, 41

294

Index

Weed, Thurlow: and 1844 campaign,
65, 67, 77; and 1860 campaign, 165

Whig Party: in Kentucky, 35, 37,
129-33, I 4 2 ~43i I 47> ^39 national
convention, 41; conflict in Ken
tucky, 43; election of 1844, ^5-

79

White, Perry, 234-35
White Hall: built, 8; fortified, 230,

242; described, 231-32
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 20
WicldifTe, Robert: orator, 17; and

American System, 28; opponent of

Cassius, 38; and election of 1840,

45-49; in The True American, 83,
86

Wickliffe, Robert, Jr.: candidate for
legislature, 1840, 44-49; election,
1841, 51-53; duel with Cassius, 52-
53; congressional campaign, 1843,
60-6 1 ; mentioned, 18

Williams, Robert, 211

Wilson, Henry, 200, 210, 221

Wool, John E., 121

Worth, William J., 123

Yale College, 20-25
Yell, Archibald, 121-22

106919

^71

3j8