Henry Clay..............

Henry Clay     1777-1852

Henry Clay held public office, more or less continuously, from 1806-1852.  The "Great Compromiser" was a candidate for the Presidency in 1832, 1840, 1844, and 1848.  Most of the quotes below are attributed to speeches he made on the floor of the Senate.

"I have no commiseration for princes.  My sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind."

December 25, 1810

"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."

February 11, 1811

"Sir, if you wish to avoid foreign commerce; give up all your prosperity. It is the thing protected, not the instrument of protection, that involves you in war. Commerce engenders collision, collision war, and war, the argument supposes, leads to despotism. Would the councils of that statesman be deemed who would recommend that the nation should be unarmed - that in the art of war, the material spirit, and martial exercises, should be prohibited......and that the great body of the people should be taught that the national happiness was to be found in perpetual peace alone? No, sir."

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

January 22, 1812

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

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

March 24, 1818

"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."

May 16, 1829

"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."

March 14, 1835

"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."

February 18, 1835

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

1844

"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."

October 12, 184

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

January 29, 1850

"I would rather be right than be President."

1850