The Papers of Henry Clay. Volume 10. Candidate, Compromiser, Elder Statesman. January 1, 1844-June 29, 1852

The culminating volume in The Papers of Henry Clay begins in 1844, the year when Clay came within a hair\u27s breadth of achieving his lifelong goal-the presidency of the United States. Volume 10 of Clay\u27s papers, then, more than any other, reveals the Great Compromiser as a major player on the national political stage. Here are both the peak of his career and the inevitable decline. On a tour through the southern states in the spring of 1844, Clay seemed certain of gaining the Whig nomination and the national election, until a series of highly publicized letters opposing the annexation of Texas cost him crucial support in both South and North. In addition to the Texas issue, the bitter election was marked by a revival of charges of a corrupt bargain, the rise of nativism, the influence of abolitionism, and voter fraud. Democrat James K. Polk defeated Clay by a mere 38,000 popular votes, partly because of illegal ballots cast in New York City. Speaking out against the Mexican War, in which his favorite son was a casualty, the Kentuckian announced his willingness to accept the 1848 Whig nomination. But some of his closest political friends, including many Kentucky Whig leaders, believed he was unelectable and successfully supported war hero Zachary Taylor. The disconsolate Clay felt his public career was finally finished. Yet when a crisis erupted over the extension of slavery into the territories acquired from Mexico, he answered the call and returned to the United States Senate. There he introduced a series of resolutions that ultimately passed as the Compromise of 1850, the most famous of his three compromises. Clay\u27s last years were troubled ones personally, yet he remained in the Senate until his death in 1852, continuing to warn against sectional extremism and to stress the importance of the Union-messages that went unheeded as the nation Clay had served so well moved inexorably toward separation and civil war. Publication of this book is being assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Melba Porter Hay is a specialist in the history of Kentucky and was associate editor of volumes 8 and 9 of The Papers of Henry Clay.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_papers/1011/thumbnail.jp

Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South

Preeminent Kentucky reformer and women\u27s rights advocate Madeline McDowell Breckinridge (1872–1920) was at the forefront of social change during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Breckinridge had a remarkably varied activist career that included roles in the promotion of public health, education, women\u27s rights, and charity. Founder of the Lexington Civic League and Associated Charities, she successfully lobbied to create parks and playgrounds and to establish a juvenile court system in Kentucky. Breckinridge also became president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, served as vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and even campaigned across the country for the League of Nations. This book draws on newly discovered correspondence and rich personal interviews with her female associates to illuminate the fascinating life of this important Kentucky activist. Balancing Breckinridge\u27s public reform efforts with her private concerns, it tells the story of her marriage to Desha Breckinridge, editor of the Lexington Herald, and how she used the match to her advantage by promoting social causes in the newspaper. The book also chronicles her ordeals with tuberculosis and amputation, and emotionally trying episodes of family betrayal and sex scandals. It describes how Breckinridge\u27s physical struggles and personal losses transformed her from a privileged socialite into a selfless advocate for the disadvantaged. Later, as vice president of the National American Women Suffrage Association, she lobbied for Kentucky\u27s ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in 1920. While devoting much of her life to the woman suffrage movement on the local and national levels, Breckinridge also supported the antituberculosis movement, social programs for the poor, compulsory school attendance, and laws regulating child labor.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/1191/thumbnail.jp

The Papers of Henry Clay: Supplement, 1793–1852

This supplement to The Papers of Henry Clay contains documents discovered too late to be included in the proper chronological sequence in earlier volumes. Spanning the years from 1793 to 1852, the items shed important light on Clay\u27s early years in Kentucky, his legal career, and his work for the Bank of the United States. Material dealing with the Corrupt Bargain charge is particularly rich, and many of the letters that appear in this volume fill gaps in exchanges already published. Clay\u27s correspondence with Benjamin Watkins Lee of Virginia and Mary Bayard, wife of Delaware senator Richard Henry Bayard, is especially interesting.An essay on Clay portraits by Clifford Amyx, professor emeritus of art at the University of Kentucky, provides a detailed discussion of the paintings, statues, busts, engravings, and daguerreotypes that featured Clay as the subject. Appended to the essay is a calendar listing each major work, the artist, date of completion, and present location. A comprehensive bibliography of works cited in the entire series will benefit researchers seeking information in addition to that provided in the annotations. This supplement is an essential addition to the earlier volumes in the series. Melba Porter Hay was associate editor of volumes 8 and 9 and editor of volume 10 of The Papers of Henry Clay. She is Division Manager of Research and Publication at the Kentucky Historical Society.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_papers/1015/thumbnail.jp

The Papers of Henry Clay. Volume 9. The Whig Leader, January 1, 1837-December 31,1843

The Papers of Henry Clay span the crucial first half of the nineteenth century in American history. Few men in his time were so intimately concerned with the formation of national policy, and few influenced so profoundly the growth of American political institutions. The year 1837 found Henry Clay hard at work in a successful effort to organize and strengthen the new Whig party. In his attempt to provide for it an ideological core, he emphasized restoration of the Bank of the United States, distribution of the treasury surplus to the states, continued adherence to his Compromise Tariff Act of 1833, and federal funding of internal improvements. The achievement of these goals, Clay reasoned, would mitigate the severe impact of the Depression of 1837 and sweep the Whigs into the White House in 1840. Soon after the election of 1836, Clay began running again for the presidency. By 1838 it was clear to him that he would have to come to grips politically with the long-muted slavery question. This he did in February 1839 in a Senate speech that was so proslavery, anti-abolitionist, and racially extremist that it cost him the Whig presidential nomination at the Harrisburg convention in December 1839. William Henry Harrison was nominated in his stead and won handily. But one month after his inauguration Harrison died and Vice President John Tyler, a states\u27 rights Democrat turned Whig, was elevated to the presidency. Senator Clay emerged from his disappointment at Harrisburg as the acknowledged leader of the Whig party and further unified it in a wide-ranging assault on the Tyler administration\u27s refusal to support Whig principles. By the end of 1843 Tyler had been broken, the Whig party was Clay\u27s to lead, and the Kentuckian was again in the presidential lists. Confident that 1844 would surely be his year, Clay unfortunately failed to see the formation and growth of the black cloud that was Texas annexation. Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Robert Seager II is professor of history at the University of Kentucky. Melba Porter Hay is a specialist in the history of Kentucky.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_papers/1004/thumbnail.jp

The Papers of Henry Clay. Volume 8. Candidate, Compromiser, Whig, March 5, 1829-December 31, 1836

Returning to Kentucky in the spring of 1829 after four years as secretary of state in the administration of John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay quickly regained the political dominance at home that would carry him to the U.S. Senate in 1831. Assuming leadership of the anti-Jackson forces, Senator Clay in 1832 mounted a spirited campaign for the presidency, advocating recharter of the national bank, high protective tariffs, and internal improvements, and alleging the administrative incompetence of Jackson and his cronies. Clay\u27s defeat by the popular military hero was probably foreordained, but he emerged with sufficient national prestige to play the leading role in mediation of the nullification crisis of December 1832-March 1833. The battle over the constitutionality of the protective tariff, during which the words secession, invasion, and civil war were freely used, pitted Jackson and the power of the federal government against the states\u27 rights politicians of South Carolina. Clay\u27s masterful legislative compromise of 1833 defused a tense situation and brought him national applause as savior of the Union. Continuing his efforts to form a political coalition strong enough to defeat the Jacksonians, Clay was successful in a Senate resolution to censure the president for unconstitutional exercise of power in removing government deposits from the Bank of the United States. But as the election of 1836 drew near it became evident that the emerging coalition could not defeat Democrat Martin Van Buren, Jackson\u27s hand- picked candidate; as the Reign of Jackson drew to a close, Clay could only view the national scene with dismay. Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Robert Seager II is professor of history at the University of Kentucky. Melba Porter Hay is a specialist in the history of Kentucky.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_papers/1018/thumbnail.jp

Roadside History: A Guide to Kentucky Highway Markers

We have all spied them as we blast down I-75 scanning the roadside for anything of interest or rolled past one while trying to find an elusive gas station in an unfamiliar small town. Perhaps we have even stopped to read one outside the local courthouse. Since 1949, the Kentucky Historical Highway Marker program has erected more than 1,800 markers that highlight the rich diversity of the state’s local and regional history as well as topics of statewide, and sometimes national, importance. They provide on-the-spot Kentucky history lessons, depicting subjects as diverse as a seven-year-old boy who served as a drummer in the Revolutionary War to a centuries-old sassafras tree. Roadside History is a key to the markers, enabling travelers to read Kentucky history without stopping to see each marker as they pass. There are two indexes arranged by subject and county. Dr. Melba Porter Hay is Division Manager for Research and Publications with the Kentucky Historical Society. Thomas H. Appleton Jr. is Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Kentucky History and Politics at Eastern Kentucky University.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/1027/thumbnail.jp