Remarks of Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, On Introducing His Propositions to Compromise, On the Slavery Question

This pamphlet contains remarks delivered by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in the United States Senate, introducing one of the legislative packages he is best known for. Clay was a master of the legislative compromise as a political tool, and his interventions in the great sectional crises of the antebellum period, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Tariff Compromise of 1833, and the Compromise of 1850, earned him the nickname the Great Compromiser. Each of those packages was introduced through speeches and remarks that Clay then printed as pamphlets for distribution to the wider literate public.

The particular propositions referenced in this pamphlet appear to belong to one of these compromise efforts, with Clay laying out his proposed resolution of the slavery question, the territorial issue, or the tariff dispute that had brought the country to crisis. His method in these speeches was consistent across his long career. Begin with an honest assessment of the depth of the disagreement. Acknowledge the legitimate concerns of all parties to the dispute. Propose a package of measures that requires concessions from each side. Argue for the package not as anyone’s preferred outcome but as the best alternative to the breakup of the union.

Clay’s prose is in the formal nineteenth century rhetorical style, dense by modern standards but carefully constructed for oral delivery to a Senate chamber and for subsequent print circulation to a literate political class. The arguments are substantive, the historical and constitutional references are extensive, and the rhetorical structures are designed to leave the reader with a clear sense of what Clay is asking and why he believes the package is preferable to the alternative.

For students of antebellum American politics, of the long debates over slavery and territorial expansion that preceded the Civil War, or of the development of compromise as a political technique in the early American republic, Clay’s pamphlets are essential primary sources. This particular pamphlet is one of many similar documents he produced across his decades in public service.