Was Henry Clay actually pro slavery?
- rebeccalynnfinch
- Sep 19, 2018
- 1 min read
Updated: Oct 2, 2018
Henry Clay was born in 1777 and passed away in 1852 in Lexington Kentucky. Clay was a Statesman and was in the House Of Representatives for the state of Kentucky. He was appointed Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams on March 7th, 1825 and was terminated on March 3rd, 1829. He served at the Speaker of the House longer than any other man.
Henry Clay was a slave holder, but not like the typical slave owner you may think of. When I think of slaveholders I think of the horror stories of the mean white men beating and punishing their slaves. They would give them 15 hour works days with no breaks and only enough water to keep them going. This was not the kind of Slave Owner Clay was. He treated his slaves with respect, and didn't beat them or starve them. He was willing to secretly free a few of his slaves out of respect for them, and their families
This brings us to the question of was Henry Clay actually pro slavery?
I believe he was against it, and was able to see flaws in the system. He only owned slaves since he was a public figure and that was the social norm for upper class white men. He owned a 500 acre slave farm called Ashland. Later on, it became discovered that he freed a slave named Lottie, and when she came out, he denied he had ever freed her. This shows to me that maybe Clay wasn't the “big bad slaveholder” he wanted people to think he was.
A few sites I found helpful :
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