"As to my motives for tendering him the Department of State when I did, let the man who questions them come forward. Let him look around among the statesmen and legislators of the nation and of that day. Let him select and name the man whom, by his pre-eminent talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent patriotism, by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid eloquence in behalf of the rights and liberties of mankind, by his long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign and domestic, a President of the United States intent only upon the honor and welfare of his country ought to have preferred to Henry Clay."
Just before the close of his administration President Adams offered him a position on the bench of the Supreme Court, which he declined.
His Position on African Slavery
Clay was a slaveholder, a kind master—but through his entire public life an open advocate of emancipation. He probably received his early predilections against slavery from his association with Chancellor Wythe, before removing from Virginia, as indeed the best part of his education probably came from personal contact with that able man. The intellectual forces of the border slave States were arrayed in favor of emancipation, until, as Clay writes with some feeling in 1849, they were driven to an opposite course "by the violent and indiscreet course of ultra abolitionists in the North"; but Clay remained to his death hopeful that by peaceable means his country might be rid of this great evil. In the letter above quoted, writing of his failure to establish a system of gradual emancipation in Kentucky, he says:—
"It is a consoling reflection that although a system of gradual emancipation cannot be established, slavery is destined inevitably to extinction by the operation of peaceful and natural causes. And it is also gratifying to believe that there will not be probably much difference in the period of its existence, whether it terminates legally or naturally. The chief difference in the two modes is that according to the first, we should take hold of the institution intelligently and dispose of it cautiously and safely; while according to the other it will some day or other take hold of us, and constrain us in some manner or other to get rid of it."
As early as 1798, he made his first political speeches in Kentucky advocating an amendment to the State Constitution, providing for the gradual emancipation of the slaves. Referring to the failure to adopt this amendment, he said in a speech delivered in the capital of Kentucky in 1829:—
"I shall never cease to regret a decision, the effects of which have been to place us in the rear of our neighbors who are exempt from slavery, in the state of agriculture, the progress of manufactures, the advance of improvements, and the general progress of society."
In these days, when public men who should be leaders bend to what they believe to be the popular wishes, the example of Clay, in his bold disregard of the prejudices and property interests of his constituents, is inspiring.
George W. Prentice was sent from New England to Kentucky to write a life of Clay, and writing in 1830 he says:—
"Whenever a slave brought an action at law for his liberty, Mr. Clay volunteered as his advocate, and it is said that in the whole course of his practice he never failed to obtain a verdict in the slave's favor.... He has been the slaves' friend through life. In all stations he has pleaded the cause of African freedom without fear from high or low. To him more than to any other individual is to be ascribed the great revolution which has taken place upon this subject—a revolution whose wheels must continue to move onward till they reach the goal of universal freedom."