XIV.-HENRY CLAY AS SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

BY MISS MARY PARKER FOLLETT.

HENRY CLAY AS SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.*

By MARY PARKER FOLLETT.

Notwithstanding all that has been written about Henry Clay, his Speakership has been neglected. It was overshadowed by his later career. Yet had Clay's public life ended in 1825, with the close of his service as Speaker, that alone. would have marked him as one of the greatest of Americans. The accounts of Clay's Speakership are based to a great extent on reminiscences and hearsay rather than upon the records. It has been my purpose to supplement the personal narrative by use of the Congressional Journals and Debates. This material has peculiar value, because it disproves the assumption that the political development of the Speaker's power dates from recent times. I hope to be able to show that Henry Clay was the first political Speaker.

The choice of Clay as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1811 marks a great change in the spirit of the American people-a change, first, in the objects of their national. system, and, secondly, in the parliamentary methods by which those objects were attained. In 1811 the active young Republicans, who were boldly taking matters into their own hands, rebelled against their cautious elders and demanded a more vigorous policy. War with Great Britain was the emphatic cry. President Madison was unfit to direct military operations. Congress had shown weakness and timidity. A crisis had come when the nation needed a new leader and needed him in a position which should correspond to his consequence and power. The natural leader of that moment was Henry Clay. That the position he was given from which to lead the Printed in the New England Magazine.

S. Mis. 173-—17

country was the chair of the House of Representatives is a fact of great significance.

The new principles set forth during Clay's long service were, first, the increase of the Speaker's parliamentary power; secondly, the retention of his personal influence, and, thirdly, the establishment of his position as legislative leader. As a presiding officer Clay from the first showed that he considered himself not the umpire, but the leader of the House. His object was clearly and expressly to govern the House as far as possible. In this he succeeded to an extent never before or since equaled by a Speaker of the House of Representatives. Clay was the boldest of Speakers. He made no attempt to disguise the fact that he was a political officer. Speakers now, to be sure, following the example of such predecessors as Clay, seek to give their party every possible advantage from their position in the chair; yet, on occasions when nothing is to be gained, they attempt to keep up the fiction of the Speaker as a parliamentary officer. But Clay had no thought of effacing himself in the least degree. He allowed no opportunity of expressing his attitude on the subjects that came before the House to pass unused. When in 1812 the repeal of nonintercourse came up, instead of simply throwing his casting vote with the nays, he took occasion to express "the pleasure he felt in having opportunity to manifest his decided opposition to the measure.” He was the first Speaker, moreover, and one of very few, to vote when his vote could make no difference in the result. He demanded the right for the first time when the attempt was made in 1817 to pass the internal improvement bill over the President's veto. Often Clay was / very arbitrary. When Mr. Winthrop became Speaker, Clay gave him this advice: "Decide promptly and never give the reasons for your decisions. The House will sustain your decisions, but there will always be men to cavil and quarrel over your reasons." His conception of the Speakership was too wide for the canons of parliamentary law of that time. When an aim was set clearly before him he was too impatient to think of choosing between proper and improper means. He took the means which would most easily and quickly accomplish his end. With a fearless nation and abundant faith in himself, he was heedless of consequences.

An instance of his manipulations of the rules is seen in the way in which he stopped debate on the declaration of war, May