Editing Henry Clay (section)

==Ideology and slavery==
===American System===
{{main|American System (economic plan)}}

Throughout most of his political life, Clay promoted his American System as both an economic program and a means for unifying the country. Clay's American System rejected [[strict constructionism]] in favor of an activist government that would promote industry and commerce. The American System had four key tenets: high tariffs, a stable financial system, federal investment in internal improvements, and a public land sale policy designed to raise revenue and provide for carefully managed expansion into the [[American frontier]].{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=80–82}} Through high tariffs, Clay hoped to free the United States from dependence on foreign imports, especially from Britain.{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=85–87}} Clay sought to ensure a stable financial system through support for the national bank, which regulated the country's banking system and helped ensure a consistent supply of credit.{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=87–89}} Clay's support for federally financed internal improvements stemmed from his belief that only the federal government could construct the transportation system necessary for uniting the country commercially and culturally.{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=89–91}} His land policy focused on using federal revenue from land sales to fund states' investments in education, infrastructure projects, and other priorities.{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=220–221}}

===Practices as an enslaver and the Dupuy case===

Clay inherited enslaved people as a young child,{{sfn|Eaton|1957|pp=6–7}} and he continued to own enslaved people throughout his life. In the 1790s, he adopted anti-slavery views under the influence of his mentor, Founding Father [[George Wythe]], who emancipated his own human property.{{sfn|Heidler|Heidler|2010|pp=19–21}} Like most of his contemporaries, Clay was not a racial egalitarian and never called for the immediate abolition of slavery, but he viewed slavery as a "grievous wrong to the slave" and spoke in favor of equal treatment for [[free black]]s.{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=189–191}} Early in his career, Clay favored gradual emancipation in both Kentucky and Missouri, but each state rejected plans that would have provided for gradual emancipation.{{sfn|Heidler|Heidler|2010|pp=33–36, 143–144}} Clay continued to support gradual emancipation throughout his career and published an open letter in 1849 calling for gradual emancipation in Kentucky, though he qualified this view by stating he would only support emancipation if it included a plan for colonizing free blacks outside of the state.{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=354–356}} Unlike many other Southern leaders, he consistently favored recognition of [[Haiti]], which had been established through a [[Haitian Revolution|slave revolt]].{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=191–192}}

In 1816, Clay helped establish the [[American Colonization Society]], a group that wanted to establish a colony for free American blacks in Africa. The group was made up of [[abolitionism in the United States|abolitionists]] who wanted to end slavery and slaveholders who wanted to deport free blacks.{{sfn|Eaton|1957|p=133}} Clay's support for colonization reflected his belief that a multiracial society was ultimately unworkable, both for whites and free blacks.{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=198–199}} Under Clay's plan, all enslaved children born after 1860 would be freed at age 25. At that time, they were to work for three years in order to finance their own importation. During this period, enslavers could still sell or mortgage their human property.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Woo |first=Ilyon |title=Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-5011-9105-3 |edition=First hardcover |location=New York London Sydney Toronto New Delhi |pages=194–195}}</ref> Some abolitionists did not view this plan favorably. In 1849, [[Frederick Douglass]] denounced this plan in a speech to the [[New England Anti-Slavery Society]] at [[Faneuil Hall]]. He objected to the three years when the enslaved were in jeopardy as they were still held as property. The date of 1860 would lead to family separations as those born before 1860 would remain enslaved and those born after were subjected to a mandatory importation. Those gathered first applauded at the mention of Clay; however, once Douglass made these points, those gathered change their response to hisses and cries of shame.<ref name=":4" /> Later in his career, Clay became increasingly concerned about abolitionism, remarking that "the ultraism of the South on the one hand ... and the ultraism of abolition on the other" represented the greatest threat to the Union. Nonetheless, he consistently defended the right of abolitionists to send materials through the mail and opposed the [[gag rule]], which [[Gag rule (United States)|limited congressional debate on slavery]].{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=204–205, 247}}

[[File:1873 Lewis Hayden Massachusetts House of Representatives.png|thumb|Lewis Hayden's wife and child were enslaved by Clay. The three journeyed via the Underground Railroad to Amherstburg, Ontario. The couple became prominent abolitionists and later resided in Boston. Lewis was elected in 1873 to the state legislature.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lewis and Harriet Hayden House – Boston African American National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/boaf/learn/historyculture/lewis-and-harriet-hayden-house.htm |access-date=2023-01-18 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref>]]
On his 600-acre plantation, there were 122 enslaved people held over the course of his life.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=People Enslaved at Ashland – Henry Clay |url=https://henryclay.org/mansion-grounds/enslaved-people-at-ashland/ |access-date=2023-01-18 |language=en-US}}</ref> Clay's status as a slave owner and his anti-slavery views occasionally led to conflicts in his political career.  During a visit to Indiana in the 1840s, Clay was confronted at a political meeting by a [[Quaker]] abolitionist, Hiram Mendenhall, who presented Clay with a petition calling on him to free his enslaved people. Clay dismissed Mendenhall out of hand, stating that the petition was no different from if it demanded he give up his farm.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129229303 | title=American Lives: Reconsidering Henry Clay | website=NPR }}</ref> Many of his contemporaries, including anti-slavery activist [[James G. Birney]], believed that Clay's home state of Kentucky had the laws most permissive to enslaved people of any slave state. Clay considered himself to be a "good" master. Biographer [[James C. Klotter]] concludes that Clay took actions, such as keeping families together, to mitigate the harshness of slavery; however, showing the opposite is his treatment of the family of [[Lewis Hayden]].<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Turley-Adams |first=Alicestyne |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1337923258 |title=The gospel of freedom : Black evangelicals and the Underground Railroad |date=2022 |publisher=University of Kentucky Press |isbn=978-0-8131-9548-3 |edition=EPUB |location=Lexington, Kentucky |pages=149–150, 310 |oclc=1337923258}}</ref> Klotter also states that there is no evidence that Clay ever had sex with any of his enslaved people. Others state quite the contrary of his punitive and sexual practices.<ref name=":32">{{Cite book |last=Myers |first=Amrita Chakrabarti |title=The vice president's Black wife: the untold life of Julia Chinn |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-4696-7523-7 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=133, 152, 241, 243}}</ref>

In 1844, Clay's wife discovered that he was having relations with the "yellow girl that attended his poultry and fowls". The young woman and her children were then sent to Louisiana to be sold.<ref name=":32" /> While in Washington, D.C., Clay acquired an [[Quadroon|octoroon]] to serve as [[Concubinage|concubine]]. Phoebe Moore, age 16, was purchased by Henry Clay from his wife's cousin,<ref name=":2" /> Senator [[Thomas Hart Benton (politician)|Thomas Hart Benton]], according to her obituary in [[New Orleans Times-Picayune|New Orleans ''Times-Picayune'']]''.'' When he was in Washington, she resided with Clay in his Washington home and bore him two children. After he emancipated her, she moved to [[Memphis, Tennessee]].<ref name="Blackford">{{Cite web |last=Blackford |first=Linda |date=July 10, 2020 |title=With stories of the enslaved, Ashland brings 'new truth' to Henry Clay story |url=https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/linda-blackford/article243925262.html#storylink=cpy |access-date=December 1, 2023 |website=The Lexington Herald Leader}}</ref><ref name="noclexington.com">{{Cite web |date=2021-12-08 |title=Passing the word on Henry Clay and the slave labor camp known as Ashland |url=https://noclexington.com/on-henry-clay-and-the-slave-labor-camp-known-as-ashland/ |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=North of Center |language=en-US}}</ref>

[[File:Harriet Bell Hayden.png|left|thumb|The Hayden household sheltered hundreds of blacks seeking freedom; it was said they "harbored 75 percent of all slaves passing through Boston". Following the passage of the [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850|Fugitive Slave Act in 1850]], Harriet Hayden managed and operated Boston's main Underground Railroad operations, and was key to leading people through Boston's tunnel system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Snodgrass |first=Mary Ellen |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/85830740 |title=The Underground Railroad : an encyclopedia of people, places, and operations |date=2008 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |isbn=978-0-7656-8093-8 |location=Armonk, N.Y. |oclc=85830740}}</ref>]]
Regarding keeping families together, Clay applied the opposite to the family of [[Lewis Hayden]].<ref name=":22"/> Around 1836. Clay had an enslaved mother, Esther Harvey, and her son, sold South. They were the family of [[Lewis Hayden]], a waiter at the upscale [[Phoenix Hotel (Lexington, Kentucky)|Phoenix Hotel]].<ref name=":4" /> Around 1842, Hayden was threatened, also by Clay, with the sale of his second wife, [[Harriet Bell Hayden]] and her son Joseph who he had adopted. Hayden secured the aid of [[Vermont]] resident [[Delia Webster]] and [[Oberlin College]] student Rev. [[Calvin Fairbank]] through the assistance of John Mifflin, AME minister and resident of [[Oberlin, Ohio]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The AME Church and Kentucky Underground Railroad |url=https://issuu.com/finance-spame/docs/souvenir_journal_-_156_annual_conference_temp/s/32878014 |access-date=2024-02-03 |website=issuu |language=en}}</ref> They crafted a successful escape plan via the [[Underground Railroad]] through [[Maysville, Kentucky]], across the Ohio River to the [[Slave states and free states|free states]] of Ohio and Michigan. The Haydens became residents of [[Amherstburg]], Ontario, Canada.<ref name=":22" /> On January 4, 1845, Webster received a sentence of two years hard labor for her part in the escape; she was pardoned on February 24, 1845. Also during February, Fairbank was sentenced to 15 years.<ref name=":0" /> The Kentucky governor pardoned him in 1849. However, he was imprisoned again in 1852 and served 12 years for aiding in another escape.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cheves |first=John |date=March 12, 2010 |title=Pardons pushed for Kentuckians convicted of helping slaves escape |work=Lexington Herald Leader |url=https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/franklin-county/article44025858.html |access-date=January 17, 2023}}</ref>

Another example is Lewis Richardson, Clay's self-emancipated enslaved person. He gave a speech that belies Clay's self-portrayal as a "good master". Richardson had been enslaved at Ashland for 20 years, and after a beating escaped via the Underground Railroad in January, 1846. By May of that year, Richardson was also living in Amherstburg, Ontario. In a speech he gave at Union Chapel there, he told not only of continual sparse food and lack of warm clothing but of 150 lashes from overseer Ambrose Brice for the offense of being an hour late returning from a visit to his wife.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lewis Richardson – Henry Clay |url=https://henryclay.org/mansion-grounds/enslaved-people-at-ashland/lewis-richardson/ |access-date=2023-01-16 |language=en-US}}</ref> Brice later denied this claim, stating it was 16 lashes, and the offense was drunkenness. Clay was away on business when this occurred.<ref name=":2" /> Richardson's speech was published in the abolitionist newspaper ''[[Signal of Liberty]]''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Richardson, Lewis · Notable Kentucky African Americans Database |url=https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/2580 |access-date=2023-01-16 |website=nkaa.uky.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Black refugees in Canada : accounts of escape during the era of slavery · Notable Kentucky African Americans Database |url=https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/300002637 |access-date=2023-01-16 |website=nkaa.uky.edu}}</ref> The text of his speech is available at the following reference.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Richardson |first=Lewis |date=2007-01-24 |title=(1846) Lewis Richardson, "I am Free From American Slavery" 1846 • |url=https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/1846-lewis-richardson-i-am-free-american-slavery-1846/ |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Blackpast |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1829, [[Charlotte Dupuy]], who was enslaved by Clay, sued [[Freedom suit|for her freedom]] while visiting relatives in [[Maryland]]. Dupuy's attorney gained an order from the court for her to remain in Washington until the case was settled, and she worked for wages for 18 months for [[Martin Van Buren]], Clay's successor as secretary of state.{{sfn|Heidler|Heidler|2010|pp=217–218}} The case embarrassed Clay politically and personally, but he ultimately prevailed in court. After winning the case, Clay sent Dupuy to [[New Orleans]], causing her to be away from her own family, but he later freed Dupuy and two of her children. Aaron Dupuy, Charlotte's husband, was ordered by Clay to be whipped, at the behest of Clay's wife, Lucretia. Dupuy's infraction was a late return as Lucretia's carriage driver. The overseer attempted the whipping, but Dupuy managed to wrest the whip away and began beating the overseer.<ref name="Still, Peter, 1970">{{Cite book |author=Still, Peter |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/641424126 |title=The kidnapped and the ransomed : the narrative of Peter and Vina Still after forty years of slavery |date=1970 |publisher=Jewish Publication Society |oclc=641424126}}</ref> He was not freed at the time of Clay's death, but became freed after the Civil War.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Aaron Dupuy – Henry Clay |url=https://henryclay.org/mansion-grounds/enslaved-people-at-ashland/aaron-dupuy/ |access-date=2023-01-18 |language=en-US}}</ref> Clay himself wrote, "here in Kentucky slavery is in its most mitigated form, still it is slavery."{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=192–193, 196}}{{sfn|Klotter|2018|pp=195–196}} Clay's will provided for the gradual emancipation of the slaves he held at the time of his death in 1852. Aaron Dupuy was an exception. Clay also stipulated that several of those enslaved people were bequeathed to his son, John.{{sfn|Heidler|Heidler|2010|p=484}}