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The Henry Clay Family

A Register of Its Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Henry Barnard
Revised and expanded by Harry G. Heiss

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2000

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2000

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms000010

Latest revision: 2004-11-16

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Occupations:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

Microfilm:

Published Editions:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Note

Henry Clay

Scope and Content Note

Organization of the Papers

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Names:

Subjects:

Occupations:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

The papers of Henry Clay, congressman, senator, and secretary of state, and those of his family were received by the Library of Congress through numerous purchases and gifts, 1899-1997, with the largest acquisitions being a purchase from Thomas Jacob Clay and George Hudson Clay in 1924 and donations by the estate of Thomas Jacob Clay in 1940 and 1943.

Processing History:

The papers of the Henry Clay family were arranged and described in 1981. Additional material was incorporated into the collection in 2000.

Transfers:

Photographs and other pictorial material have been transferred to the Library's Prints and Photographs Division where they are identified as part of these papers.

Copyright Status:

The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Henry Clay is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).

Microfilm:

A microfilm edition of part of the Henry Clay Family Papers and of selected Henry Clay items from other collections in the Manuscript Division is available on twenty-four reels. Produced by the National Archives and Records Administration, the microfilm edition is described in a separate register. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan.

Published Editions:

The Henry Clay Family Papers have also been substantially reproduced in The Works of Henry Clay, 6 vols. (New York, N.Y.: A. S. Barnes & Burr, 1855-1857), Works of Henry Clay, Comprising His Life, Correspondence, and Speeches, edited by Calvin Colton (New York, N.Y.: Henry Clay Publishing Co., 1897), and The Papers of Henry Clay, edited by James F. Hopkins and Mary W. M. Hargreaves (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, ca. 1959, ca. 1992).

Preferred Citation:

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Roman numeral designating the Part followed by a colon and container number, The Henry Clay Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Henry Clay

Scope and Content Note

The Henry Clay Family Papers span the years 1732-1927, with the bulk of the material that pertains to Henry Clay (1777-1852) himself falling in the period 1814-1852. The papers consist of personal, official, and family correspondence, business records, biographical material, speeches, writings, legal files, printed matter, and other material that chiefly document the public career and private life of Henry Clay and, to a lesser extent, that of his immediate family. The papers are organized in two parts based on their acquisition by the Library. Part I consists mostly of material acquired in 1924 from Henry Clay's grandsons, Thomas Jacob Clay and George Hudson Clay. Part II was received primarily from the estate of Thomas Jacob Clay in 1940 and 1943. Both Part I and II also contain smaller acquisitions received by the Library from other sources.

Part I

Part I of the papers, 1770-1910, is comprised of three series: General Correspondence, Dispatches and Instructions, and Addenda. The General Correspondence series consists of letters received and copies of letters sent by Henry Clay and members of the Clay family. The material has been bound and is almost exclusively political in content but also includes occasional business records and family papers. An index to the Henry Clay correspondence in this series is available in the Manuscript Division Reading Room and on microfilm. Abstracts of the general correspondence in Part I are included in this register.

The Dispatches and Instructions series has also been bound and includes information sent to chargés d'affaires and ministers plenipotentiary during Clay's tenure as secretary of state. The series does not include incoming material. For unofficial correspondence with ministers, particularly James Brown and Christopher Hughes, see the General Correspondence series of Part I.

The Addenda includes correspondence and printed matter received since or omitted from the bound volumes.

The collection does not include material on Clay's childhood or adolescence, nor does it include correspondence on the political stands he assumed in the late 1790s in regard to the Alien and Sedition acts or the Kentucky constitutional crisis over slavery. There is little political correspondence for the decade 1790-1800, but professional correspondence and business records exist for the period 1800-1810.

For the Aaron Burr litigation in Kentucky in 1806, the collection contains several letters in which Burr requests Clay's professional services while assuring Clay of his innocence in regard to the charge of treason. There is documentation for Clay's duels with Humphrey Marshall in January 1809 and John Randolph in April 1826. Letters between Clay and military and political leaders on the conduct of the War of 1812 reveal Clay's reaction following military setbacks during the war, particularly the fall of Detroit. There is much correspondence between Clay and other Treaty of Ghent commissioners while in Europe, including extensive and revealing correspondence between Clay and William H. Crawford while the peace negotiations were in progress.

After the War of 1812, correspondence concerning the tariff, public lands, internal improvements, and South America appears intermittently over three decades. There is very little material on the Missouri Compromise.

Of all the topics chronicled by the Henry Clay Family Papers, the one documented most heavily is presidential politics. The documentation goes beyond coverage of the elections of 1832 and 1844 when Clay was his party's principal standard bearer. Correspondence on presidential politics begins in 1821, when Clay first considered running in the 1824 race, and ends with Clay's defeat before the Whig nominating convention of 1848. Only the 1836 presidential campaign, when Clay disclaimed candidacy, is not covered.

Correspondence written between the stalemated presidential election on 9 November 1824 and the run-off election in the House of Representatives on 9 February 1825 sheds light on the circumstances surrounding the "bargain and intrigue" scandal. Subsequent correspondence follows the sporadic course of events of the scandal, including a challenge to James K. Polk to debate the issue. Noteworthy are the numerous letters Tobias Watkins solicited after the fact as evidence in Clay's behalf.

There is a considerable amount of correspondence in opposition to the Andrew Jackson administration. Beginning in 1830, politicians including Hiram Kitchum, John L. Lawrence, P. B. Porter, W. B. Rochester, and Richard Rush, wrote to Clay on the anti-Masonry issue. There is substantial correspondence beginning in 1830 on rechartering the Bank of the United States. A side issue was Clay's professional relationship with bank officials Langdon Cheves and Nicholas Biddle before Clay resigned from the bank on 8 March 1825. Correspondence on nullification begins very early, with the first suggestion of impending conflict appearing in letters about the time of the Tariff of Abominations. From that point on, the correspondence on nullification grows until the spring of 1833, when it predominates.

Toward the end of the 1830s, correspondents take up the issues of slavery in the District of Columbia and the annexation of Texas. Letters between Clay and newly-elected William Henry Harrison disclose a sudden break in their relationship. A sizable amount of correspondence on the effect of New York politics and the Liberty Party on the presidential election of 1844 appears before and after the election. There is very little material on the Compromise of 1850.

Henry Clay regularly corresponded with three individuals who may well be regarded as his political confidants: Francis Brooke, James Brown, and Josiah Stoddard Johnston. He also corresponded with such eminent individuals as John Quincy Adams, Nicholas Biddle, Francis Preston Blair, Horace Greeley, William Henry Harrison, Christopher Hughes, Amos Kendall, de Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, Marquis Lafayette, John L. Lawrence, John Marshall, James Monroe, P. B. Porter, W. B. Rochester, Richard Rush, John Sargeant, Zachary Taylor, Daniel Webster, and Robert Wickliffe.

Part II

Part II of the Henry Clay Family Papers consists of twelve series: General Correspondence, Family Correspondence, Business Records, Biographical File, Writings File, Miscellany, Legal File, James Morrison Papers, George Nicholas Papers, Transylvania University Archives, Addenda, and Microfilm.

The General Correspondence series includes letters received and copies of letters sent pertaining principally to Henry Clay's professional and business interests. The series also includes occasional memoranda, notes, and speeches, as well as correspondence with Francis Brooke and Josiah Stoddard Johnston copied by Clay's biographer, Calvin Colton. Letters of condolence and other correspondence about Clay are located at the end of the series.

The Family Correspondence series contains mostly letters of Clay family members other than Henry Clay, with occasional notes, memoranda, journals, speeches, and telegrams. Correspondents include Clay's mother, Elizabeth Watkins Clay; brothers, Porter Clay and John Clay; father-in-law, Thomas Hart; wife, Lucretia Hart Clay; children, Theodore Wythe Clay, Anne Brown Clay Erwin, Henry Clay, Jr., and James Brown Clay; James's wife, Susan Maria Jacob Clay; and James and Susan's children, James Brown Clay, Jr., John Cathart Johnston Clay, Henry "Harry" Clay, Thomas Jacob Clay, Charles Donald Clay, George Hudson Clay, and Lucretia Hart Clay.

The Business Records series contains material from the law offices of Henry Clay, Thomas Hart, James Brown Clay, and several of James's children. Also included are the wills of Henry Clay, John Clay, Lucretia Hart Clay, Susan Maria Jacob Clay, Thomas Hart, John I. Jacob, Richard Taylor, and John Watkins. Material of Clay's father-in-law, Thomas Hart, an early settler and entrepreneur in Kentucky, includes correspondence with William Blount and Thomas Hart Benton.

James Brown Clay, one of Henry Clay's sons, was chargé d'affaires to Portugal under President Zachary Taylor. Opposing the American Party as the heir apparent to the Whig Party, he gave his support to James Buchanan in the presidential election of 1856. Clay's support did much to clear Buchanan of the charge of duplicity over the George Kremer scandal involving Henry Clay. In return, James was consulted on the formation of the Buchanan cabinet and was offered the mission to Prussia, which he declined. He was then elected as a Union Democrat to the House of Representatives, where he served from 1857 to 1859. As a member of Congress he took an active part in the recurring debates over "bleeding Kansas." Later, in 1861, he was appointed a delegate to the failed peace convention that attempted to avert the Civil War. Unable from ill health to assume a colonel's commission in the Confederate Army under Braxton Bragg, he fled Kentucky when Bragg withdrew his troops following the Battle of Perryville. James subsequently ran the blockade. From Havana, Cuba, he went to Canada, where he died in Montreal in 1864 from consumption.

The collection contains James Brown Clay's diplomatic correspondence, speeches as an old-line Whig, and correspondence touching upon Kansas, the peace convention, and the Civil War. His political correspondence with Thomas B. Stevenson during the 1850s is particularly revealing. Toward the end of his life he wrote a sketch of his political career and a critical account of Braxton Bragg's military campaign in Kentucky.

James Brown Clay had three sons whose papers are also represented in the collection, James Brown Clay, Jr., Thomas Jacob Clay, and Henry "Harry" Clay. As a lieutenant and aide-de-camp on the staff of Major General John C. Breckinridge, James Brown Clay, Jr., corresponded with his mother concerning military life during the Civil War. His correspondence with G. C. Wharton in 1905-1906 examines major campaigns during the Civil War.

Thomas Jacob Clay served as a lieutenant in the United States Cavalry. Stationed at Fort Clark, Texas, he kept a journal describing forays across the Rio Grande against marauding Mexicans and Indians in 1878.

Henry "Harry" Clay, a lawyer who established the firm of Clay and Rothchild in San Francisco, participated in the expedition to Lady Franklin Bay, Greenland, organized by Henry W. Howgate. Subsequently, the site was used as a staging area for the Adolphus W. Greely expedition to the Arctic. On that expedition, Clay started out with Greely but was forced to retreat. When the Greely party ran into difficulties, Henry's brother, Thomas Jacob Clay, still in the Army, volunteered for the relief party. In a letter dated 21 December 1883, Henry advises Thomas on the perils of Arctic travel. He also wrote an article in the Louisville Courier Journal in January 1884 advising how to undertake the operation. The correspondence on the Arctic expedition falls in the period 1880-1884 and includes letters from Greely.

The Biographical File contains an unpublished biography of Henry Clay titled "Henry Clay; His Slanderers: James Parton, Andrew Jackson; As Judged by His Contemporaries" written by Clay's daughter-in-law, Susan Maria Jacob Clay, and revised by her daughter, Lucretia Hart Clay. The file also contains biographical sketches of Henry Clay, Henry "Harry" Clay, James Brown Clay, John Cathart Johnston Clay, Lucretia Hart Clay, Lucy Jacob Clay, Nathaniel Hart Clay, Porter Clay, Susan Maria Jacob Clay, Thomas Hart, John I. Jacob, Nathaniel Rochester, and Richard Taylor. Also included is a circular by Susan Maria Jacob Clay, "Slavery in Politics: A Plea for the Negro."

The Writings File contains religious and fictional writings of Lucretia Hart Clay and poetry copied and written by Clay family members. The writings of Lucretia Hart Clay include "What God Has Revealed Respecting the Animal Creation," "Introduction to the Gospel of St. John," "Money-Mad," and "A House-Party at Iverloch."

The Miscellany series contains speeches by Henry Clay and James Brown Clay; a map of Rome, Italy, 1845; circulars, Re-organization of the Whig Party in Kentucky, 1856, and Hon. James B. Clay, to His Constituents of the Ashland District, 1858; reports of the Ohio Canal Commission, 1823, and the Kentucky Lunatic Asylum Committee, ca. 1847; and Rules of the Republican Organization of Kentucky, 1901. Other material includes cookbooks; a cattle auction booklet of James Brown Clay, 1859; an obituary of Catherine H. Colt, 1846; and genealogies of the Caldwell, Clay, Conway, Hart, Jacob, Preston, Robertson, Rogers, Taylor, Watkins, and Wilson families.

The Legal File contains client records that are probably from the law offices of Henry Clay, George Nicholas, or James Morrison and deal principally with land exchanges, probate, and contracts.

The collection also contains papers of James Morrison and George Nicholas and archives of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. James Morrison was the executor of the George Nicholas estate. Heirs of the estate brought suit against Morrison that extended beyond his death. Morrison's executor in turn was Henry Clay. In addition, Clay represented the Morrison estate in the suit brought against it by the heirs of George Nicholas. In both capacities, as executor and as legal counsel, Clay obtained business and financial records of the two men. He was also responsible for administering an endowment from the Morrison estate to Transylvania University. In this role he acquired archival material, principally financial records of the university.

The James Morrison Papers cover the period 1790-1849, although the bulk of the material falls in the period 1808-1823. The papers are organized into business correspondence, business records, and estate papers. The business correspondence contains letters received and copies of letters sent, with some enclosed bills and receipts. The business records include records of Morrison's legal accounts with the Northwestern Army, Indian Department, Navy Department, War Department, and Treasury Department. The estate papers contain material concerning the probating of Morrison's estate, including his autopsy report, correspondence, accounts payable and schedule of debts, financial records of beneficiary Esther Morrison, and Clay's answers as legal counsel in the case of Heirs of George Nicholas v. James Morrison.

George Nicholas (ca. 1754-1790) had been a Revolutionary War colonel, Virginia and Kentucky legislator, author of the Kentucky constitution, lawyer, and first attorney general of Kentucky. Morrison served as executor of his estate, and when Morrison died in 1823, Clay, as executor of Morrison's estate, brought to completion the probate settlement of Nicholas's estate. The George Nicholas Papers cover the period 1777-1831, with the bulk of the material documenting the period 1790-1799. Nicholas's files have been organized into client and business file, correspondence, and estate papers. The client and business file and correspondence pertain to Nicholas's law practice. The estate papers include will, statements of assets and liabilities, and financial records of beneficiaries Mary Nicholas and Wilson Cary Nicholas.

Transylvania University was a financial beneficiary of the James Morrison estate. A series of Transylvania University archives, consisting mostly of financial records and covering the period 1829-1868, includes material pertaining to the Morrison legacy administered by Clay and articles of agreement deeding land from the Morrison estate to recompense Gideon Shryock, architect of Morrison College.

The Addenda contains correspondence received by the Library since the original processing of the Henry Clay Family Papers. Correspondents include Coleman Rogers and John M. Clayton.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in two parts composed of fifteen series:

• Part I
  • General Correspondence, 1770-1910, n.d.
  • Dispatches and Instructions, 1825-1829
  • Addenda, 1785-1924, n.d.
• Part II
  • General Correspondence, 1800-1891, n.d.
  • Family Correspondence, 1780-1927, n.d.
  • Business Records, 1771-1927, n.d.
  • Biographical File, 1901-1905, n.d.
  • Writings File, 1844-1901, n.d.
  • Miscellany, ca. 1793-1922, n.d.
  • Legal File, 1732-1857, n.d.
  • James Morrison Papers, 1790-1849, n.d.
  • George Nicholas Papers, 1777-1831, n.d.
  • Transylvania University Archives, 1829-1868, n.d.
  • Addenda, 1837-1847
  • Microfilm

Container List