Speech of Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, in Support of His Propositions to Compromise on the Slavery Question

This pamphlet collects another of Henry Clay’s many Senate speeches, this one delivered in support of a particular set of legislative resolutions that Clay had introduced before the chamber. The pattern of resolutions and the formal speeches that introduced or defended them was a standard feature of antebellum Senate practice, and Clay used these set piece addresses to lay out his positions on the great questions of the day, to build coalitions across regional and partisan lines, and to defend his record from the attacks that came from somewhere almost constantly.

The particular resolutions referenced in this speech would have addressed whatever the most pressing political issue happened to be at the time of delivery. Clay’s career spans a series of major sectional and economic crises, including the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Tariff Compromise of 1833, and the Compromise of 1850, and the speeches he delivered in support of his various legislative packages were often the most consequential public communications of his political life. The compromise speeches in particular have continued to be studied by historians as examples of how a legislator could thread a needle between sectional positions that seemed irreconcilable on their face.

Clay’s prose in his major speeches 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 through the partisan press. The arguments tend to be substantive, with extensive citation of historical and constitutional precedent, and the rhetorical structures are designed to leave the reader or listener with a clear sense of what Clay is asking and why he believes the package is preferable to the alternatives.

For students of antebellum American politics, of nineteenth century political oratory, of the Whig Party and the development of the Republican Party that grew out of its collapse, or of the long debates over slavery and union that culminated in the Civil War, Clay’s pamphlets are essential primary sources. This particular pamphlet is one of many similar documents that fill the volumes of his collected works. The Speech in Support of His Resolutions format recurs across his career and shows Clay at his most direct in his role as the Senate’s premier compromise broker.