Henry Clay? Or Abraham Lincoln?

[ELCore]

"He loved his country partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country; and he burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity and glory, because he saw in such, the advancement, prosperity and glory, of human liberty, human right and human nature. He desired the prosperity of his countrymen partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show to the world that freemen could be prosperous."

That's from Lincoln's eulogy of his hero Sen. Henry Clay. I can't help but think it applies just as well to Pres. Abraham Lincoln.

Real Lincoln Quotes

"July 6, 1852; Eulogy on Henry Clay; Speeches and Writings, Volume I, page 264; Collected Works, Volume II, page 126; originally in Illinois Weekly Journal, July 21, 1852; Henry Clay was Lincoln's greatest political hero; Lincoln died in Petersen House on this day, April 15, in 1865."

[LincolnMan]

Great words. Perhaps it shows that Clay had a significant influence on Lincoln's thinking, as well. Clay is pretty much unknown today.

[Laurie Verge]

Henry Clay had a great deal of influence on Mary Lincoln, didn't he?

[Bill Richter]

Clay's so-called American System of federal financing of internal improvements, a high import tariff, support of a national banking system, and the colonization of freed slaves back to Africa attracted Lincoln at an early age and caused him to join Clay's Whig Party, much of whose policies became part of the Republican platform of 1860, with which Lincoln won the presidency.

If Clay is unknown today it is the fault of American education on all levels. Clay was instrumental in keeping the early nation together thorough his participation in the Missouri Compromise of 1820-21, the Compromise of 1833 over Nullification, and the Compromise of 1850. He wasn't called the Great Compromiser for nothing. He ran for president three times unsuccessfully (1824, 1836, 1844) and supposedly coined the phrase, "I'd rather be right than president." The joke was that he was neither.

But he, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster were the big 3 in American politics from 1812 to 1850. I would hope that they are not forgotten. Recently there has been much talk on states nullifying Federal laws. I note that the advocates spoke of Jefferson and Madison (the Kentucky and Virginia resolves of 1798) but left out the Hartford Convention in 1814 when New England and the New York Essex Junto tried unsuccessfully to nullify Federal actions in the War of 1812, and nullification's foremost advocate, Calhoun, who proposed how it could be done thereafter. Nullification a la Calhoun led to the attempts of the South to secede in 1833, 1850, and actual secession in 1860-61. Maybe the nation needs a lesson in American history before the more recent Progressives (Wilson and T. Roosevelt, F D Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama) and today's so-called RINO Republicans became dominant.

Henry Clay is still relevant today and as important as ever IMO.

[Joe Di Cola]

Here are a couple of very fine books that will introduce peope to Henry Clay and to why Lincoln considered him the "beau ideal of a statesman."

Merrill Peterson's THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE
Ferguis Bordewich's AMERICA'S GREAT DEBATE

Joe

[Laurie Verge]

From what I can gather having watched my daughter's history education over the past 25 years and now my grandson's, I'm not sure that very many of our forefathers are considered relevant anymore...

[RJNorton]

(05-14-2013 10:34 AM)Laurie Verge Wrote:  Henry Clay had a great deal of influence on Mary Lincoln, didn't he?

Indeed, Laurie. There are several references to this in The Mary Lincoln Enigma. The two were neighbors when she was growing up.

(05-14-2013 11:28 AM)Joe Di Cola Wrote:  Here are a couple of very fine books that will introduce peope to Henry Clay and to why Lincoln considered him the "beau ideal of a statesman."

Merrill Peterson's THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE
Ferguis Bordewich's AMERICA'S GREAT DEBATE

Joe

Another good one from Merrill Peterson is Lincoln in American Memory. A "must have" IMO.

[LincolnMan]

(05-14-2013 11:20 AM)william l. richter Wrote:  Clay's so-called American System of federal financing of internal improvements, a high import tariff, support of a national banking system, and the colonization of freed slaves back to Africa attracted Lincoln at an early age and caused him to join Clay's Whig Party, much of whose policies became part of the Republican platform of 1860, with which Lincoln won the presidency.

If Clay is unknown today it is the fault of American education on all levels. Clay was instrumental in keeping the early nation together thorough his participation in the Missouri Compromise of 1820-21, the Compromise of 1833 over Nullification, and the Compromise of 1850. He wasn't called the Great Compromiser for nothing. He ran for president three times unsuccessfully (1824, 1836, 1844) and supposedly coined the phrase, "I'd rather be right than president." The joke was that he was neither.

But he, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster were the big 3 in American politics from 1812 to 1850. I would hope that they are not forgotten. Recently there has been much talk on states nullifying Federal laws. I note that the advocates spoke of Jefferson and Madison (the Kentucky and Virginia resolves of 1798) but left out the Hartford Convention in 1814 when New England and the New York Essex Junto tried unsuccessfully to nullify Federal actions in the War of 1812, and nullification's foremost advocate, Calhoun, who proposed how it could be done thereafter. Nullification a la Calhoun led to the attempts of the South to secede in 1833, 1850, and actual secession in 1860-61. Maybe the nation needs a lesson in American history before the more recent Progressives (Wilson and T. Roosevelt, F D Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama) and today's so-called RINO Republicans became dominant.

Henry Clay is still relevant today and as important as ever IMO.

Most informative. Yes, I think Clay is forgotten. I didn't hear anything about him in high school in the late 1960's. One year of American History in college-nothing. Lincoln was barely mentioned, for that matter.

[Bill Richter]

Bill, that is the biggest indictment of Am Hist teaching I have heard in some time. Sad.

[LincolnMan]

It is sad. I bet I could ask the next 24 houses in my block if they knew Clay was_and none of them would know. They might know Lincoln.

[Liz Rosenthal]

Listen, most Americans don't know who the current Supreme Court justices are. A huge number are unaware of major recent Federal enactments. Many don't know who the vice president is. Few are familiar with world geography or even U.S. geography. A large number don't know when the colonies declared their independence from the mother country. (This isn't just young people - this is Americans across the board.) So why should it be surprising that they haven't heard of Henry Clay?

Personally, I'm much more shocked and disappointed when I run into someone who isn't familiar with Rachel Carson.

[Bill Richter]

Well, I can guarantee that the students in my US Hist survey to 1865 course in a nothing University in Oklahoma kew who Henry Clay was (not to mention all the presidents, from GW to AL including Martin Van Buren, and other major figures) or they did not go on to the next level. I doubt if they remember all this now, but they got it then. We were evaluated as teachers by the students in those days and three things came through loud and clear--I knew the subject (believe it or not, students know when their prof is an idiot), my tests were tough but my grades fair, and I gave one heck of a good lecture with stories and jokes interspersed irregularly to keep everyone, including me, awake.

US geography is a real bummer--I agree that most student or their parents knew what states surround theirs, and I found out in high school in an International Relations course I took as a senior that no one else knew where the nations of the world were (I did because my father was from Germany and worked in Latin America before coming to the US to teach international business and he insisted). But then, when the local high school sent home our 4 year minimum requirements for graduation my father added to it such un-required things as a foreign language (I voted for German, but as we lived in Arizona der Alte said it was to be Spanish), 4 years of math to calculus, 4 years of English (although I never really learned English until I took Spanish grammar and then German grammar in college).

I understand that 42% of Americans don't know that Obama care has passed, much less anything else.

So I am with Liz--although I think the justices of the US Supreme Court are more important than Rachel Carson, but that's just a personal prejudice--yes, I have read your websites, Liz, and understand where you are coming from. Kudos.

Still it is all very sad. Remember, the idiots vote and outnumber us all. Bleah!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Liz, that's an interesting thought: Would Lincoln nowadays be engaged in environmentalism or environmental policy?

Mr. Richter, please do keep German grammar in good memory (particularly the genitive and the imperfect), for it is terribly going
south. As to every thing there is a season, IMO there is a time AND purpose and a unique beauty to every language (nothing IMO e.g. could replace Italian for Tosca etc.), for which it should be protected, at least to a certain extent (as the French do by commissioning the Institut Francais).
I'm sure and glad that a great deal of the forum members enjoy and value the beauty of language and are willing to preserve it.

For an experience of oddly displaced language watch the "Lincoln trailer Italiano" on Youtube (no need to speak Italian, for sure you will have some fun)!

[BettyO]

(05-14-2013 03:51 PM)Liz Rosenthal Wrote:  Listen, most Americans don't know who the current Supreme Court justices are. A huge number are unaware of major recent Federal enactments. Many don't know who the vice president is. Few are familiar with world geography or even U.S. geography. A large number don't know when the colonies declared their independence from the mother country. (This isn't just young people - this is Americans across the board.) So why should it be surprising that they haven't heard of Henry Clay?

Personally, I'm much more shocked and disappointed when I run into someone who isn't familiar with Rachel Carson.

I do think that is a problem with our educational system today - so many folk are NOT attuned to geography, etc., much less current affairs and/or history. It's just not deemed important, unfortunately! As for Rachel Carson, I've read her Silent Spring years ago in college as well as I like to keep an eye on the Rachel Carson building in Harrisburg PA and watch the live video cam of the Peregrine Falcons which nest there each year.

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/falcon/

They are getting ready to band the chicks soon -

[LincolnMan]

(05-14-2013 10:34 AM)Laurie Verge Wrote:  Henry Clay had a great deal of influence on Mary Lincoln, didn't he?

Didn't see make frequent visits to his residence when she was very young?