Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/664

 652 CLAY co., Kentucky, Oct. 19, 1810. He graduated at Yale college in 1832, practised law in Ken- tucky, and was elected to the state legislature in 1835 and 1837. Removing to Lexington, he was again elected to the legislature in 1840, but was defeated in 1841 on account of his op- position to slavery. In 1844 he made a tour of the north to advocate the election of his relative Henry Clay to the presidency. In 1845 he issued in Lexington the first number of the " True American," a weekly anti-sla- very newspaper ; but the press was seized by a mob and sent to Cincinnati. The journal was afterward revived by Mr. Clay, who printed it in Cincinnati and published it in Lexington. Upon the breaking out of the war with Mexi- co in 1846, he entered the service as captain, and was taken prisoner at Encarnacion, Jan. 23, 1847. In 1843 he supported the nomina- tion of Gen. Taylor for the presidency. The question of changing the state constitution was discussed the next year, and by the influ- ence of Mr. Clay a large convention of emanci- pationists assembled at Frankfort. In 1850 he separated from the whig party and became the anti-slavery candidate for governor, receiving about 5,000 votes. On the accession of Presi- dent Lincoln in 1861 he was appointed minis- ter to Russia. Returning to the United States, he was commissioned major general of volun- teers April 11, 1862, but resigned March 11, 1863, and was reappointed minister to Russia, which position he held till 1869. In 1870 he publicly supported the cause of the Cuban revolutionists, and in 1872 the election of Hor- ace Greeley as president. A volume of his speeches, edited by Horace Greeley, was pub- lished in 1848. (LAY, Clement Comer, an American politician, born in Madison co., Alabama, in 1819. He graduated from the law department of the university of Virginia in 1839, and was ad- mitted to the bar of Alabama in 1840. In 1842 and 1844 he was elected to the legisla- ture, and in 1846 judge of the county court, which office he resigned in 1848. In Novem- ber, 1853, he was elected to the United States senate, and took his seat in December, 1854. In November, 1857, he was reflected for a sec- ond term of six years from March 4, 1859. In the spring of 1858 he delivered a speech in favor of the admission of Kansas under the Lecomp- ton constitution. Later in the session he spoke in favor of a bill repealing the bounty on ves- sels engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries. In 1860 he was chairman of the committee on commerce. In February, 1861, he resigned his seat in the senate, and was chosen a sena- tor in the confederate congress. In 1864 he went to Canada as one of the secret agents of the confederate government, and took part in planning the raids on the northern frontier; and in July made some unsuccessful attempts to enter upon negotiations with President Lin- coln. He returned t& the confederacy, but after the surrender of the armies took refuge in Canada. Being subsequently pardoned, he resumed the practice of law in Alabama. CLAY, Green, an American soldier, born in Powhatan co., Virginia, Aug. 14, 1757, died Oct. 31, 1826. Prompted by the example of Boone's adventurous career in Kentucky, he migrated to that district before he was 20 years of age, and entered the office of a sur- veyor, whose deputy he soon became ; after- ward he engaged in the surveying business on his own account, and by locating lands laid the foundation of a fortune. He was a represen- tative of the Kentucky district in the Virginia legislature ; was a member of the Virginia con- vention which ratified the federal constitution of 1789, in favor of which he spoke and voted ; and was a leading member of the convention which formed the Kentucky constitution in 1799. He served for a long time in both branches of the state legislature, and was speaker of the senate. In 1813 he led 3,000 Kentucky volunteers to the relief of Gen. Har- rison, then besieged in Fort Meigs by the Brit- ish. He cut his way through the hostile lines, and this accession of strength to the fort forced the enemy to withdraw. Gen. Harrison left him in command of Fort Meigs, which was soon after unsuccessfully attacked by a large force of British and Indians under Gen. Proctor and the famous chief Tecumseh.* For his skilful conduct of this defence, Gen. Clay received the special thanks of Gen. Harrison. At the close of the war he. retired to his estate in Kentucky, and devoted the remainder of his life to agricultural pursuits. CLAY, Henry, an American statesman, born in Hanover co., near Richmond, Virginia, April 12, 1777, died in Washington, June 29, 1852. His father, who was a Baptist preacher, died in 1782, leaving a small and encumbered property to his widow, with their seven chil- dren, of whom Henry was the fifth. His mother, a woman of decided mental force as well as of fervent piety and high moral worth, married again and emigrated to Kentucky in 1792 ; but Henry, having received a very lim- ited education, remained in Richmond, and entered the office of Peter Tinsley, clerk of the high court of chancery, where he continued four years, when he began to study law under Robert Brooke, then attorney general, after- ward governor of Virginia. During his clerk- ship he had attracted the special regard of Chancellor Wythe, who employed him as an amanuensis and directed his studies. In No* vember, 1797, having been admitted to the bar, he removed to Lexington, Ky., where he open- ed an office, and soon achieved decided suc- cess, which was due in part to his winning ad- dress, and to the frank, gallant, cordial man- ner which was so marked in after life. He soon took part in public affairs, and in 1799, when the people of Kentucky were about to adopt a state constitution, he advocated the gradual abolition of slavery. In 1804 he was elected to the legislature, and in 1806 was