A biographer describes him at this period as raw-boned, lank and awkward, with a countenance by no means handsome, and dressed in garments home-made and ill-fitting, with linen starched to such a stiffness as to make him look peculiarly strange and uncomfortable. As he took his place at the desk to copy papers, his new companions tittered at his appearance, and his blushing confusion. They soon learned to like him, however, and he was found to be a faithful and industrious worker. He read incessantly during his hours of leisure but unfortunately acquired a habit of cursory perusing, a “skimming over” which he never conquered, and which seriously interfered with thoroughness. This became afterward to him a source of profound regret.
His diligence at work attracted the attention of the Chancellor, George Wythe, who selected him for amanuensis to write out and record the decisions of the Court. This was the turning point of his career. Wythe was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He believed in what he promulgated, emancipating his slaves and making provision for their subsisting. Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall had been his students. The four years thus spent there decided Clay to become a lawyer, and he entered the office of Robert Brooke the Attorney-General as a regular student. A year later he received the license to practice. At the age of twenty he set out for Kentucky to seek his fortune, making his residence at Lexington then styled “the literary and intellectual centre of the West.”
He became, like all Southern men of note, a politician, and quickly gained distinction as a speaker. In 1797 a Convention was held to revise the Constitution of the State, and he labored assiduously, but without success to procure the adoption of a system of emancipation. He saved his popularity, however, by vigorously declaring against the Alien and Sedition Laws of Congress. So much easier is it to resent and deplore the wrongs that others commit than to repent of those we commit ourselves. Mr. Clay was from this time a champion of the helpless and the wronged. It required personal as well as moral courage. There were men in Kentucky who regarded themselves as leaders in Society and above being held to account for unworthy and lawless acts. Colonel Joseph Daviess, then District Attorney of the United States and a Federalist, perpetrated a brutal assault upon a private citizen. Everybody feared him but Mr. Clay. He took the matter boldly up. Daviess warned him to desist, but was unable to frighten him even by a challenge to a duel. With like sentiment toward a man that he conceived to be wronged, he became a defender of Aaron Burr, but on learning of deception he refused further friendly relations.
After a period of service in the Legislature, Mr. Clay was chosen to fill an unexpired term in the Senate at Washington and took his seat in December, 1806, when under thirty years of age. He seems to have paid little heed to the unwritten law of reticence, but took active part in speaking and legislating. He advocated the projects of a bridge across the Potomac, and also roads and canals to facilitate communication between the Atlantic Seaboard and the region west of the Allegheny Mountains. A monument near Wheeling commemorates his support of the Cumberland Road.
Political opinions then current have a curious flavor now. Many questioned the constitutionality of such legislation. The establishment of a Navy was opposed. The Barbary States received tribute year by year for abstaining from piracy on American Commerce. Great Britain, claiming to be mistress of the seas, took some six thousand seamen from merchant vessels to serve in her Navy, and confiscated goods that were shipped to European markets. France, likewise, issued decrees of forfeiture; and all the defense attempted was an embargo forbidding American vessels to leave port. Spain pretended that her possessions in West Florida extended to the Mississippi River, and the Federalists in Congress denounced the action of President Madison to hold that region as being a spoliation of a helpless and unoffending power.
Mr. Clay had just come again to the Senate. Although the youngest member he was foremost in sustaining vigorous action. “I have no commiseration for princes,” said he; “my sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind, and I own that the people of Spain have them most sincerely.”
Then he turned upon the great sensitiveness exhibited toward Great Britain. “This phantom has too much influence on the councils of the Nation,” he declared. “I most sincerely desire peace and amity with England; I even prefer an adjustment of differences with her before one with any other Nation. But if she persists in a denial of justice to us, or if she avails herself of the occupation in West Florida to commence war upon us, I trust and hope that all hearts will unite in a bold and vigorous vindication of our rights.”
Mr. Clay next appears as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1811. The House was more to his liking than the Senate; it was at that time a debating body not dominated as it is now by Committees appointed by the Presiding Officer. He was vehement in demanding preparations for war with England, and talked of terms of peace to be dictated at Halifax. The President was timid, and the North and East opposed; but a declaration was made, and Mr. Madison proposed to make Mr. Clay Commander-in-chief. This he declined. There was a likelihood of cabals in Congress like those which assailed General Washington in the Revolution. The Navy saved the credit of the Nation, which the Army failed to sustain, and with that it averted a peril of disunion.
Negotiations for peace were held at Ghent. Mr. Clay, as one of the Commissioners, yielded a reluctant consent to the treaty. He would not visit England till he heard of the Battle of New Orleans, but he went to Paris.
In an interview with Madame de Stael, she spoke of the exasperation in England and the serious intentions of sending the Duke of Wellington to America. “I wish they had,” said Clay. “Why?” she asked. “Because,” said he, “If he had beaten us we should only have been in the condition of Europe, without disgrace. But if we had been so fortunate as to defeat him, we should have greatly added to the renown of our arms.”