Person1777 – 1852

Henry Clay

Kentucky statesman, the “Great Compromiser”, who shaped the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Compromise of 1850

A Kentucky lawyer, he served as Speaker of the House, senator and secretary of state. He championed the “American System” of tariffs, a national bank and internal improvements to build domestic industry, and led the Whig Party. Through the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the tariff compromise of 1833 and the Compromise of 1850 he repeatedly averted sectional conflict, earning the name “the Great Compromiser”. He ran for president three times and lost each time, and died of tuberculosis in Washington two years after the 1850 compromise.

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1850Compromise of 1850key figure
As North and South clashed over slavery in the lands won from Mexico, Congress compromised in five laws, admitting California as a free state but passing a harsher Fugitive Slave Act.

People who appear alongside

Stephen A. Douglas1813 – 1861
Democratic senator from Illinois who championed popular sovereignty, wrote the Kansas–Nebraska Act and lost the 1860 election to Lincoln

Themes this person appears in

The American Civil War1850 – 1865
From the Compromise of 1850 to Lincoln’s assassination — a nation divided over slavery fought four years of civil war, preserving the Union and ending slavery