Henry Clay quotes

Henry Clay was an influential American statesman and skilled orator, often called the "Great Compromiser" for his efforts to bridge sectional divides. A leading figure in American politics during the first half of the 19th century, he served as Speaker of the House and Secretary of State. He played a key role in shaping major legislative compromises that helped hold the Union together. Here are 29 of his quotes:

An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.

Henry Clay

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.

Henry Clay

Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.

Henry Clay

The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity-unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.

Henry Clay

If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.

Henry Clay

Impart additional strength to our happy Union. Diversified as are the interests of its various parts, how admirably do they harmonize and blend together! We have only to make a proper use of the bounties spread before us, to render us prosperous and powerful.

Henry Clay

The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.

Henry Clay

The great advantage of our system of government over all others, is, that we have a written constitution, defining its limits, and prescribing its authorities; and that, however, for a time, faction may convulse the nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its functionaries, the season of reflection will recur, when calmly retracing their deeds, all aberrations from fundamental principle will be corrected.

Henry Clay

All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.

Henry Clay

In all cases where incidental powers are acted upon, the principal and incidental ought to be congenial with each other, and partake of a common nature. The incidental power ought to be strictly subordinate and limited to the end proposed to be obtained by the specified power. In other words, under the name of accomplishing one object which is specified, the power implied ought not to be made to embrace other objects, which are not specified in the constitution.

Henry Clay

How often are we forced to charge fortune with partiality towards the unjust!

Henry Clay

Precedents deliberately established by wise men are entitled to great weight. They are evidence of truth, but only evidence...But a solitary precedent...which has never been reexamined, cannot be conclusive.

Henry Clay

We have had good and bad Presidents, and it is a consoling reflection that the American Nation possesses such elements of prosperity that the bad Presidents cannot destroy it, and have been able to do no more than slightly to retard the public's advancement.

Henry Clay

The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."

Henry Clay

I am not, sir, in favor of cherishing the passion of conquest. I am permitted ... to indulge the hope of seeing, ere long, the new United States, (if you will allow me the expression,) embracing not only the old ....

Henry Clay

Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land-whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation.

Henry Clay

Statistics are no substitute for judgment.

Henry Clay

I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.

Henry Clay

What is the nature of this government? It is emphatically federal, vested with an aggregate of special powers for general purposes, conceded by existing sovereignties, who have themselves retained what is not so conceded. It is said that there are cases in which it must act on implied powers. This is not controverted, but the implication must be necessary, and obviously flow from enumerated power with which it is allied.

Henry Clay

My friends are not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill them!... If there were two Henry Clays, one of them would make the other President of the United States!... It is a diabolical intrigue, I know now, which has betrayed me. I am the most unfortunate man in the history of parties: always run by my friends when sure to be defeated, and now betrayed for a nomination when I, or any one, would be sure of an election.

Henry Clay

It is totally unnecessary for the gentleman to remind me of my coming from a slaveholding state. I know whence I came, and I know my duty, and I am ready to submit to any responsibility which belongs to me as a senator from a slaveholding state. I have heard something said on this and a former occasion about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance. I owe allegiance to two sovereignty, and only two: one is the sovereignty of this Union, and the other is the sovereignty of the state of Kentucky. My allegiance is to this Union and to my state; but if gentlemen suppose they can exact from me an acknowledgement of allegiance to any ideal or future contemplated confederacy of the South, I here declare that I owe no allegiance to it; nor will I, for one, come under any such allegiance if I can avoid it.

Henry Clay

All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises.

Henry Clay