On the recordJanuary 23, 2013
When I graduated from Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Kentucky, just over 20 years ago, I had little notion that I would stand before you today occupying the seat which the Great Compromiser himself once held. Henry Clay was first elected to this House in 1811 becoming the only person elected as Speaker the same day he took office. During his remarkable four decades on the national stage, he steered America through a daunting array of crises, each of which might have shattered the Union absent his remarkable leadership. Indeed, Henry Clay demonstrated that an unwavering dedication to principle and a practical commitment to compromise are not incompatible values. They are, instead, the tools of statesmanship, the implements of progress, and the guardians of freedom. He was Abraham Lincoln's ``beau ideal of a great man.'' Eulogizing Clay in 1852, Lincoln called him ``the man for a crisis,'' declaring that Clay ``desired the prosperity of his countrymen partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show the world that freemen could be prosperous. Henry Clay understood the indispensable link between liberty, prosperity, and basic human dignity. His struggle to harness our system of checks and balances to serve these goals echoes across the generations.…
