Before the Compromise:

• Gold Rush California applies to become free state
• South wanted Southern California as slave territory
• Texas claims territory as far as the Rio Grande
• New Mexico resists Texas, applies to be free state
• Texas takes El Paso February 1850
• Mormon pioneers apply to become State of Deseret

Territorial results of the Compromise:

• California is admitted undivided as a free state, denying Southern expansion to the Pacific
• Texas trades some territorial claims for debt relief
• New Mexico and Deseret are denied statehood and become New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory with slavery left to popular sovereignty

In the United States, the Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills, passed in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas, avoided secession or civil war and reduced sectional conflict for four years.

Map of free and slave states c. 1856

The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions.

• Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, which it had threatened war over, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line, transferred its crushing public debt to the federal government, and retained the control over El Paso that it had established earlier in 1850, with the Texas Panhandle (which earlier compromise proposals had detached from Texas) thrown in at the last moment.
• California's application for admission as a free state with its current boundaries was approved and a Southern proposal to split California at parallel 35° north to provide a Southern territory was not approved.
• The South avoided adoption of the symbolically significant Wilmot Proviso^[1] and the new New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory could in principle decide in the future to become slave states (popular sovereignty), even though Utah and a northern fringe of New Mexico were north of the Missouri Compromise Line where slavery had previously been banned in territories. In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their existing settlers were non-Southerners uninterested in slavery. The unsettled southern parts of New Mexico Territory, where Southern hopes for expansion had been centered, remained a part of New Mexico instead of becoming a separate territory.
• The most concrete Southern gains were a stronger Fugitive Slave Act, the enforcement of which outraged Northern public opinion, and preservation of slavery in the national capital.
• The slave trade was banned in Washington D.C.

The Compromise became possible after the sudden death of President Zachary Taylor, who, although a slaveowner, had favored excluding slavery from the Southwest. Whig leader Henry Clay designed a compromise, which failed to pass in early 1850. Upon Clay's instruction, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas (Illinois) then divided Clay's bill into several smaller pieces and narrowly won their passage over the opposition of those with stronger views on both sides, including Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.

Background[link]

An animation showing slave and free states and territories, 1789–1861.

Soon after the start of the Mexican War, when the extent of the territories to be acquired was still unclear, the question of whether to allow slavery in those territories polarized the Northern and Southern United States in the most bitter sectional conflict up to this time. Since Texas was a slave state, not only the residents of that State, but the pro- and anti-slavery camps on a national scale had an interest in the size of the state of Texas. Texas claimed land north of the 36°30' demarcation line for slavery set by the 1820 Missouri Compromise.

The Texas Annexation resolution had required that if any new states were formed out of Texas’ lands, those north of the Missouri Compromise line would become free states.^[2]

Senator Joseph Underwood referred to "the threatened civil war, unless we appease the hot bloods of Texas."^[3]

According to historian Mark Stegmaier, "The Fugitive Slave Act, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, the admission of California as a free state, and even the application of the formula of popular sovereignty to the territories were all less important than the least remembered component of the Compromise of 1850--the statute by which Texas relinquished its claims to much of New Mexico in return for federal assumption of the debts."^[4] Stegmaier also refers to "the principal Southern demand for a division of California at the line of 35° north latitude" and says that "Southern extremists made clear that a congressionally mandated division of California figured uppermost on their agenda."^[5]

During the deadlock of four years, the Second Party System broke up, Mormon pioneers settled Utah, the California Gold Rush settled northern California, and New Mexico under a federal military government turned back Texas's attempt to assert control over territory Texas claimed as far west as the Rio Grande. The eventual Compromise of 1850 preserved the Union, but only for another decade.

Proposals for compromise[link]

Proposals during 1846-50 on the division of the Southwest included;

• The Wilmot Proviso banning slavery in any new territory to be acquired from Mexico, not including Texas, which had been annexed the previous year. Passed by the House in August 1846 and February 1847 but not the Senate. Later an effort failed to attach the proviso to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

• Failed amendments to the Wilmot Proviso by William W. Wick and then Stephen Douglas extending the Missouri Compromise line (36°30' parallel north) west to the Pacific (south of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California), allowing the possibility of slavery in most of present day New Mexico and Arizona, and Southern California. The line was again proposed by the Nashville Convention of June 1850.

• Popular sovereignty, developed by Lewis Cass and Douglas as the eventual Democratic Party position, letting each territory decide whether to allow slavery.

• William L. Yancey's "Alabama Platform," endorsed by the Alabama and Georgia legislatures and by Democratic state conventions in Florida and Virginia, called for no restrictions on slavery in the territories either by the federal government or by territorial governments before statehood, opposition to any candidates supporting either the Wilmot Proviso or popular sovereignty, and federal legislation overruling Mexican anti-slavery laws.

• General Zachary Taylor, who became the Whig candidate in 1848 and then President from March 1849 to July 1850, proposed after becoming President that the entire area become two free states, called California and New Mexico but much larger than the eventual ones. None of the area would be left as an unorganized or organized territory, avoiding the question of slavery in the territories.

• Senator Thomas Hart Benton in December 1849 or January 1850: Texas's western and northern boundaries would be the 102nd meridian west and 34th parallel north.

• Senator John Bell (with the assent of Texas) in February 1850: New Mexico would get all Texas land north of the 34th parallel north (including today's Texas Panhandle), and the area to the south (including the southeastern part of today's New Mexico) would be divided at the Colorado River of Texas into two Southern states, balancing the admission of California and New Mexico as free states.^[6]

• First draft of the compromise of 1850: Texas's northwestern boundary would be a straight diagonal line from the Rio Grande 20 miles north of El Paso to the Red River (Mississippi watershed) at the 100th meridian west (the southwestern corner of today's Oklahoma).

• The Compromise of 1850, proposed by Henry Clay in January 1850, guided to passage by Douglas over Northern Whig and Southern Democrat opposition, and enacted September 1850,
  • admitted California as a free state
  • organized Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory with slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty.
  • Texas dropped its claim to land north of the 32nd parallel north and west of the 103rd meridian west in favor of New Mexico Territory, and north of the 36°30' parallel north and east of the 103rd meridian west which became unorganized territory. In return the US government assumed Texas's debts. El Paso, where Texas had successfully established county government, was left in Texas.
  • Also, the slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C. (but not slavery itself)
  • and the Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened.

Henry Clay and Douglas draft compromise[link]

Henry Clay takes the floor of the Old Senate Chamber; Vice President Millard Fillmore presides as he, Calhoun, and Webster look on.

Congress convened on December 3, 1849. On January 29, 1850, Whig Senator Henry Clay gave a speech which called for compromise on the issues dividing the Union. However, Clay's specific proposals for achieving a compromise, including his idea for Texas' boundary, were not adopted in a single bill.^[7] Upon Clay's urging, senator Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, divided Clay's bill into several smaller bills, and passed each separately. When he instructed Douglas, Clay was nearly dead and unable to guide the congressional debate any further. The Compromise came to coalesce around a plan dividing Texas at its present-day boundaries, creating territorial governments with "popular sovereignty" (without the Wilmot Proviso) for New Mexico and Utah, admitting California as a free state, abolishing the slave auctions in the District of Columbia, and enacting a new fugitive slave law.

View of Seward and Northern Whigs[link]

Most Northern Whigs, led by William Henry Seward who delivered his famous "Higher Law" speech during the controversy, opposed the Compromise as well because it would not have applied the Wilmot Proviso to the western territories and because of the new fugitive slave law, which would have pressed ordinary citizens into duty on slave-hunting patrols. This provision was inserted by Democratic Virginia Senator James M. Mason to coerce border-state Whigs, who faced the greatest danger of losing slaves as fugitives but who were lukewarm on general sectional issues related to the South into supporting Texas's land claims.^[8]

Zachary Taylor avoided the issue as the Whig candidate during the 1848 U.S. presidential election but then as President attempted to sidestep the entire controversy by pushing to admit California and New Mexico as free states immediately, avoiding the entire territorial process and thus the Wilmot Proviso question. Taylor's stand was unpopular among Southerners and surprised them because Taylor was a Southerner.^[9]

Northern Democrats and Southern Whigs supported the Compromise. Southern Whigs, many of whom were from the border states, supported the stronger fugitive slave law.

Debate and results[link]

  Free states in early 1850

  Slave states (minus Texas claims to NM)

  Territories (later state borders, Gadsden Purchase)

  Missouri Compromise Line 36°30'

On April 17, a "Committee of Thirteen" agreed on the border of Texas as part of Clay's plan. The dimensions were later changed. That same day, during debates on the measures in the Senate, Vice President Millard Fillmore and Senator Benton verbally sparred, with Fillmore charging that the Missourian was "out of order". During the heated debates, Compromise floor leader Henry S. Foote of Mississippi drew a pistol on Senator Benton.

In early June, nine slave holding Southern states sent delegates to the Nashville Convention to determine their course of action should the compromise take hold. While some delegates preached secession, eventually the moderates ruled, and they proposed a series of compromises, including extending the geographic dividing line designated by the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to the Pacific Coast.

The various bills were initially combined into one "omnibus" bill. Despite Clay's efforts, it failed in a crucial vote on July 31 with the majority of his Whig Party opposed. He announced on the Senate floor the next day that he intended to persevere and pass each individual part of the bill. Clay, however, was physically exhausted as the effects of the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him began to take its toll. Clay left the Senate to recuperate in Newport, Rhode Island, while Stephen A. Douglas wrote the separate bills and guided them through the Senate.^[10] The situation was changed by the death of President Taylor and the accession of Fillmore on July 9, 1850. The influence of the new administration was now thrown in favor of the compromise. The Northern Democrats held together and supported each of the bills and gained Whigs or Southern Democrats to pass each one. All passed and were signed by President Fillmore between September 9 and September 20, 1850.

1. California was admitted as a free state. It passed 150-56.^[11]
2. The slave trade was abolished (the sale of slaves, not the institution of slavery) in the District of Columbia.
3. The Territory of New Mexico (including present-day Arizona) and the Territory of Utah were organized under the rule of popular sovereignty. It passed 97-85.
4. A harsher Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the Senate 27-12, and by the House 109-75.^[12]
5. Texas gave up much of the western land which it claimed and received compensation of $10,000,000 to pay off its national debt.

Clay was still given much of the credit for the Compromise's success. It quieted the controversy between Northerners and Southerners over the expansion of slavery and delayed secession and civil war for another decade. Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi, who had suggested the creation of the Committee of Thirteen, later said, "Had there been one such man in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 1860–'61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war."^[13]

Implications[link]

The Compromise in general proved widely popular politically, as both parties committed themselves in their platforms to the finality of the Compromise on sectional issues. The strongest opposition in the South occurred in the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, but unionists soon prevailed, spearheaded by Georgians Alexander Stephens, Robert Toombs, and Howell Cobb and the creation of the Georgia Platform. This peace was broken only by the divisive Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 introduced by Stephen Douglas, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and led directly to the formation of the Republican Party, whose capture of the national government in 1860 led directly to the secession crisis of 1860-61.

Many historians argue that the Compromise played a major role in postponing the American Civil War for a decade, during which time the Northwest was growing more wealthy and more populous, and was being brought into closer relations with the Northeast.^[14] During that decade, the Whig Party had completely broken down, being replaced with the new Republican Party dominant in the North and the Democrats in the South.^[15] But others argue that the Compromise only made more obvious pre-existing sectional divisions and laid the groundwork for future conflict. In this view, the Fugitive Slave Law helped polarize North and South, as shown in the enormous reaction to Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law aroused feelings of bitterness in the North. Furthermore, the Compromise of 1850 led to a breakdown in the spirit of compromise in the United States in the antebellum period, directly before the Civil War. The Compromise exemplifies this spirit, but the deaths of influential senators who worked on the compromise, primarily Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, contributed to this feeling of increasing disparity between the North and South.

The delay of hostilities for ten years allowed the free economy of the northern states to continue to industrialize. The southern states, to a large degree based on slave labor and cash crop production, lacked the ability to industrialize heavily.^[16] By 1860, the northern states had added many more miles of railroad, steel production, modern factories, and population to the advantages it possessed in 1850. The North was better able to supply, equip, and man its armed forces, an advantage that would prove decisive in the later stages of the war.

Issues[link]

Three major types of issues were addressed by the Compromise of 1850, to wit: a variety of boundary issues; status of territory issues; and the issue of slavery. While capable of analytical distinction, the boundary and territory issues were actually included in the overarching issue of slavery. Pro- and anti-slavery interests were each concerned with both the amount of land on which slavery was permitted and with the number of States which respectively would be in the slave or free camps. Since Texas was a slave state, not only the residents of that state, but the pro- and anti-slavery camps on a national scale had an interest in the size of the state of Texas.

The general solution that was adopted by the Compromise of 1850 was to transfer a considerable part of the territory claimed by the state of Texas to the federal government, to formally organize two new territories, the Territory of New Mexico and the Territory of Utah, which expressly would be allowed to locally determine whether they would become slave or free territories, to add another free state to the Union (California), adopt a severe measure to recover slaves who had escaped to a free state or free territory (the Fugitive Slave Law), and to abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

Proposals for Texas northwestern boundary

Texas[link]

The independent Republic of Texas won the decisive Battle of San Jacinto (April 21, 1836) against Mexico and captured Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. He signed the Treaties of Velasco which recognized the Rio Grande River as the boundary of the Republic of Texas. The Treaties were repudiated by the government of Mexico which insisted it was sovereign over Texas and promised to reclaim the lost territories. To the extent that there was a de facto recognition, Mexico treated the Nueces River as its northern boundary control. A huge area lay between the two rivers—largely unsettled. Neither Mexico nor the Republic of Texas had the military strength to effectively assert its territorial claim. On December 29, 1845, the Republic of Texas was annexed to the United States and became the 28th state. Texas was staunchly committed to slavery, with its constitution making illegal the unauthorized emancipation of slaves by their owners. With this annexation the United States inherited the territorial claims of the former Republic of Texas against Mexico. The territorial claim to the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande River and Mexican resistance to it led to the Mexican-American War. On February 2, 1848, that war was concluded by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Among the provisos of the Treaty was the recognition by Mexico of the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande River being a part of the United States.

The Republic of Texas claimed ownership of the eastern half of present-day New Mexico, along with sections of Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming. Texas had never effectively controlled the area, which was dominated by hostile Indian tribes (see Comancheria). However the federal government had seized and controlled the area after 1846. The Compromise of 1850 solved the problem by setting the present boundaries of Texas in return for $10 million in federal bonds paid to the state of Texas.^[17]

The state of Texas was heavily burdened with debt which had arisen during its struggles as the Republic of Texas. The federal government agreed to pay $10,000,000.00 in "stock" in trade for the transfer of a large portion of the claimed area of the state of Texas to the territory of the federal government and for the relinquishment of various claims which Texas had upon the federal government. (This "stock" bore interest at the rate of 5%, which interest was collectible every six months, and the principal was redeemable at the end of fourteen years.)^[18]

The Constitution (Article IV, Section 3) does not permit Congress to unilaterally reduce the territory of any state so the first part of the Compromise of 1850 had to take the form of an offer to the Texas State Legislature, rather than a unilateral enactment. The Texas State Legislature did ratify the bargain and in due course the transfer of a large swath of land from the state of Texas to the federal government was accomplished. Texas was allowed to keep the following portions of the erstwhile disputed land: that which is south of the 32nd parallel, and that which is south of the 36°30' parallel north and east of the 103rd meridian west. The rest of the land which had been disputed between Mexico and the Republic of Texas was transferred to federal government

New Mexico and Utah Territories[link]

New Mexico proposed boundary before Compromise of 1850

The Utah Territory is shown in blue and outlined in black. The boundaries of the provisional State of Deseret are shown with a dotted line.

The first law of the Compromise of 1850 also organized the Territory of New Mexico. The second law, also enacted September 9, 1850, organized the Territory of Utah.

The land committed to each of these newly organized territories was drawn from two distinct sources.

One of these sources was the Mexican Cession of 1848. The Mexican Cession was a major provision of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the treaty which concluded the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848. The land transferred from Mexico to the United States by the Mexican Cession included all of present-day California, Nevada and Utah, most of present-day Arizona, most of the western part of present-day New Mexico, present-day Colorado west of the crest of the Rocky Mountains, and a small portion of present-day Wyoming. (A strip of land along the southern border of present-day Arizona and New Mexico was not acquired from Mexico until 1853 with the Gadsden Purchase.)

The other of these sources was land which had been claimed by the Republic of Texas. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made no mention of the claims of the Republic of Texas; Mexico simply agreed to a Mexico-U.S. border south of both the "Mexican Cession" and the Republic of Texas claims.^[19] Prior to the Compromise of 1850, this disputed land had been claimed but never controlled by the state of Texas. This land included present-day eastern New Mexico, southern and western parts of present-day Colorado, and small parts of present-day Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

From the Mexican Cession, the New Mexico Territory received most of the present-day state of Arizona, most of the western part of the present-day state of New Mexico, and the southern tip of present-day Nevada (south of the 37th parallel). From Texas, the territory received most of present-day eastern New Mexico, a portion of present-day Colorado (east of the crest of the Rocky Mountains, west of the 103rd meridian, and south of the 38th parallel), and a small portion of present-day Wyoming.

From the Mexican Cession, the Utah Territory received present-day Utah, most of present-day Nevada (everything north of the 37th parallel), a major part of present-day Colorado (everything west of the crest of the Rocky Mountains), and a small part of present-day Wyoming. this included the newly founded colony at Salt Lake of Brigham Young. From Texas, the Utah Territory received most of present day eastern New Mexico, and some of present-day Colorado that is east of the crest of the Rocky Mountains.

A key provision of each of the laws respectively organizing the Territory of New Mexico and the Territory of Utah was that slavery would be either permitted or prohibited as a local option (Popular Sovereignty). This was an important repudiation of the Wilmot Proviso, which would have forbidden slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico.

California[link]

Map of Mexico. S. Augustus Mitchell, Philadelphia, 1847. New California is depicted with a north-eastern border at the meridian leading north of the Rio Grande headwaters.

California also became part of the U.S. as a result of the Mexican Cession. After the Mexican War, California was essentially run by military governors. President James K. Polk tried to get Congress to officially establish a territorial government in California, but the increasing North vs. South debates prevented this.^[20] The South wanted to extend slave territory to Southern California and to the Pacific coast, while the North did not.

Starting in late 1848, Americans and foreigners of many different countries rushed into California for the California Gold Rush, quickly increasing the population exponentially. In response to growing demand for a better more representative government, a Constitutional Convention was held in 1849. The delegates there unanimously outlawed slavery. They had no interest in extending the Missouri Compromise Line through California and splitting the state; the lightly populated southern half never had slavery and was heavily Hispanic.^[21]

The third statute of the Compromise of 1850 allowed California to be admitted to the Union, undivided, as a free state on September 9, 1850.^[22]

Fugitive Slave Law[link]

The fourth statute of the Compromise of 1850, enacted September 18, 1850, is informally known as the Fugitive Slave Law or the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. (It bolstered the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.) The new version of the Fugitive Slave Law required federal judicial officials in all states and federal territories, including in those states and territories in which slavery was prohibited, to actively assist with the return of escaped slaves to their masters in the states and territories permitting slavery. Any federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave was liable to a fine of $1,000. Law-enforcement officials everywhere in the United States had a duty to arrest anyone suspected of being a fugitive slave on no more evidence than a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf. In addition, any person aiding a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was to be subject to six months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Officers capturing a fugitive slave were entitled to a fee for their work.

In addition to federal officials, the ordinary citizens of free states could be summoned into a posse and be required to assist in the capture and/or custody and/or transportation of the alleged escaped slave. This particular law was so rigorously pro-slavery as to prohibit the admission of the testimony of a person accused of being an escaped slave into evidence at the judicial hearing to determine the status of the accused escaped slave. Thus, if a freedman were claimed to be an escaped slave under the Fugitive Slave Law he or she could not resist his or her return to slavery by truthfully telling his or her own actual history

The Fugitive Slave Act was essential to meet Southern demands. In terms of public opinion in the North the critical provision was that ordinary citizens were required to aid slave catchers. Many northerners deeply resented this requirement that they personally aid and abet slavery. Resentment towards this act continued to heighten tensions between the North and South, as inflamed by abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her book Uncle Tom's Cabin stressed the horrors of recapturing escaped slaves, and outraged Southerners.^[23]

Banning slave trade in the District of Columbia[link]

The fifth law, enacted on September 20, 1850, prohibited the slave trade was illegal (but not slavery itself) in the District of Columbia.^[24] Southerners in Congress were unanimous in opposing this provision, which was seen as a concession to the abolitionists, but were outvoted.^[25]

See also[link]

• Uncle Tom's Cabin

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Foster, Herbert D. (1922). "Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement, 1850". American Historical Review 27 (2): 245–270. DOI:10.2307/1836156. 
• Heidler, David S., and Jeanne T. Heidler. Henry Clay: The Essential American (2010), major scholarly biography; 624pp
• Holman Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 (1964), the standard historical study
• Holman Hamilton. "Democratic Senate Leadership and the Compromise of 1850," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 41, No. 3. (Dec., 1954), pp. 403–418. in JSTOR
• Holman Hamilton. Zachary Taylor, Soldier in the White House (1951)
• Holt, Michael F. The Political Crisis of the 1850s (1978).
• Holt, Michael F. The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War (2005).
• Johannsen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas (1973) (ISBN 0195016203)
• William Aloysius Keleher (1951). Turmoil in New Mexico. Santa Fe: Rydal Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-0632-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=yoZCx5MnOO0C. 
• Knupfer, Peter B. "Compromise and Statesmanship: Henry Clay’s Union." in Knupfer, The Union As It Is: Constitutional Unionism and Sectional Compromise, 1787-1861 (1991), pp. 119–57.
• Morrison, Michael A. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (1997) (ISBN 0807823198)
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union (1947) v 2, highly detailed narrative
• Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (1977), pp 90–120; Pulitzer Prize
• Remini, Robert. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991)
• Remini, Robert. At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise That Saved the Union (2010) 184 pages; the Compromise of 1850
• Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, vol. i. (1896). complegte text online
• Rozwenc, Edwin C. ed. The Compromise of 1850. (1957) convenient collection of primary and secondary documents; 102 pp.
• Russel, Robert R. "What Was the Compromise of 1850?" Journal of Southern History Vol. 22, No. 3 (Aug., 1956), pp. 292–309 in JSTOR
• Sewell, Richard H. Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States 1837-1860 New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
• Stegmaier, Mark J. (1996). Texas, New Mexico, and the compromise of 1850: boundary dispute & sectional crisis. Kent State University Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=RDp6AAAAMAAJ. 
• Wiltse, Charles M. John C. Calhoun, Sectionalist, 1840-1850 (1951)

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article Compromise Measures of 1850.

• Compromise of 1850
• Compromise of 1850 and related resources
• Texas Library and Archive Commission Page on 1850 Boundary Act
• Search for even more information

To compromise is to make a deal between different parties where each party gives up part of their demand. In arguments, compromise is a concept of finding agreement through communication, through a mutual acceptance of terms—often involving variations from an original goal or desire. Extremism is often considered as antonym to compromise, which, depending on context, may be associated with concepts of balance, tolerance. In the negative connotation, compromise may be referred to as capitulation, referring to a "surrender" of objectives, principles, or material, in the process of negotiating an agreement. In human relationships "compromise" is frequently said to be an agreement that no party is happy with, this is because the parties involved often feel that they either gave away too much or that they received too little.^[1]

Studies in compromise[link]

Defining and finding the best possible compromise is an important problem in fields like game theory and the voting system.

Research has indicated that suboptimal compromises are often the result of negotiators failing to realize when they have interests that are completely compatible with those of the other party and settle for suboptimal agreements. Mutually better outcomes can often be found by careful investigation of both parties' interests, especially if done early in negotiations. ^[2]

See also[link]

• Three-Fifths Compromise (USA)
• Connecticut Compromise (USA)
• Missouri Compromise (USA)
• Compromise of 1850 (USA)
• Compromise of 1867 (Austria-Hungary)
• Argument to moderation
• Constitution
• Win-win game

References[link]

Look up compromise in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Compromise

Henry Clay
Portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, 1818
8th, 10th and 13th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
In office March 4, 1823 – March 4, 1825 March 4, 1815 – October 28, 1820 March 4, 1811 – January 19, 1814
9th United States Secretary of State
In office March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1829
President	John Quincy Adams
Preceded by	John Quincy Adams
Succeeded by	Martin Van Buren
United States Senator from Kentucky
In office March 5, 1849 – June 29, 1852 November 10, 1831 – March 31, 1842 January 4, 1810 – March 4, 1811 December 29, 1806 – March 4, 1807
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 3rd district 2nd district (1813–1821)
In office March 4, 1823 – March 4, 1825 March 4, 1815 – March 3, 1821 March 4, 1811 – January 19, 1814
Personal details
Born	April 12, 1777 (1777-04-12) Hanover County, Virginia
Died	June 29, 1852 (1852-06-30) (aged 75) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Democratic-Republican National Republican Whig
Spouse(s)	Lucretia Hart Clay
Children	Henrietta Theodore Thomas Susan Anne Lucretia Henry, Jr. Eliza Laura James Brown Clay John Morrison Clay
Profession	Law
Religion	Episcopalian
Signature

Henry Clay, Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852), was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives. He served three different terms as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and was also Secretary of State from 1825 to 1829.

Clay was a dominant figure in both the First and Second Party systems. As a leading war hawk, he favored war with Britain and played a significant role in leading the nation to war in 1812.^[1] Later he was involved in the "Corrupt Bargain" of 1824, after which he was appointed Secretary of State by newly elected President John Quincy Adams, earning the scorn of Andrew Jackson. He was the foremost proponent of the American System, fighting for an increase in tariffs to foster industry in the United States, the use of federal funding to build and maintain infrastructure, and a strong national bank. He opposed the annexation of Texas, fearing it would inject the slavery issue into politics. Clay also opposed the Mexican-American War and the "Manifest Destiny" policy of Democrats, which cost him votes in the close 1844 election.

Dubbed the "Great Pacificator," Clay brokered important compromises during the Nullification Crisis and on the slavery issue. As part of the "Great Triumvirate" or "Immortal Trio," along with his colleagues Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, he was instrumental in formulating the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850. He was viewed as the primary representative of Western interests in this group, and was given the names "Henry of the West" and "The Western Star."^[2] A plantation owner, Clay held slaves during his lifetime but freed them in his Will.^[3]

Abraham Lincoln, the Whig leader in Illinois, was a great admirer of Clay, saying he was "my ideal of a great man." Lincoln wholeheartedly supported Clay's economic programs.^[4] In 1957, a Senate Committee selected Clay as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, and Robert Taft.^[5]

Early life and education[link]

Childhood[link]

Henry Clay was born on April 12, 1777, at the Clay homestead in Hanover County, Virginia in a story-and-a-half frame house. It was an above-average home for a common Virginia planter of that time. At the time of his death, Clay's father owned more than 22 slaves, making him part of the planter class in Virginia (those men who owned 20 or more slaves).^[6]

Henry was the seventh of nine children of the Reverend John Clay and Elizabeth Hudson Clay.^[7] His father, a Baptist minister nicknamed "Sir John," died four years after his birth (1781).^[6] The father left Henry and his brothers two slaves each, and his wife 18 slaves and 464 acres (188 ha) of land.^[8] Henry Clay was a second cousin of Cassius Marcellus Clay, who became an abolitionist in Kentucky.

The widow Elizabeth Clay married Capt. Henry Watkins, who was an affectionate stepfather. Henry Watkins then moved the family to Richmond, Virginia.^[9] Elizabeth had seven more children with Watkins, bearing a total of sixteen.^[8]

Education[link]

In Richmond, Clay was hired as a shop assistant.^[9] His stepfather secured Clay employment in the office of the Court of Chancery, where he displayed an aptitude for law.^[10] There he became friends with George Wythe.^[10] Hampered by a crippled hand, Wythe chose Clay as his secretary.^[10] After Clay was employed as Wythe's amanuensis for four years, the chancellor took an active interest in Clay's future; he arranged a position for him with the Virginia attorney general, Robert Brooke. Clay received no formal legal education but, as was customary at the time, "read the law" by working and studying with Wythe, Chancellor of the Commonwealth of Virginia (also a mentor to Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, among others) and Brooke.^[11] Clay studied for the bar for a year under Brooke and was admitted to practice law in 1797.^[9]

Legal career[link]

In November 1797, Clay relocated to Lexington, Kentucky, the growing town near where his family then resided in Woodford County. He soon established a reputation for his legal skills and courtroom oratory.^[12] Some of his clients paid him with horses and others with land. Clay came to own town lots and the Kentucky Hotel.

By 1812, Clay owned a productive 600-acre (240 ha) plantation, which he called "Ashland," and numerous slaves to work the land.^[3] He held 60 slaves at the peak of operations, and likely produced tobacco and hemp, the two chief commodity crops of the Bluegrass Region.

One of Clay's clients was his father-in-law, Colonel Thomas Hart, an early settler of Kentucky and a prominent businessman.^[13] Clay's most notable client was Aaron Burr in 1806, after the US District Attorney Joseph Hamilton Daviess indicted him for planning an expedition into Spanish Territory west of the Mississippi River. Clay and his law partner John Allen successfully defended Burr.^[14] Some years later Thomas Jefferson convinced Clay that Daviess had been right in his charges. Clay was so upset that many years later, when he met Burr again, Clay refused to shake his hand.^[15]

Marriage and family[link]

After beginning his law career, on April 11, 1799, Clay married Lucretia Hart at the Hart home in Lexington, Kentucky. She was a sister to Captain Nathaniel G. S. Hart, who died in the Massacre of the River Raisin in the War of 1812.^[13]

Clay and his wife had eleven children (six daughters and five sons): Henrietta (1800–1801), Theodore (1802–1870), Thomas (1803–1871), Susan (1805–1825), Anne (1807–1835), Lucretia (1809–1823), Henry, Jr.(1811–1847), Eliza (1813–1825), Laura (1815–1817), James Brown (1817–1864), and John (1821–1887).

Seven of Clay's children died before him as well as his wife. By 1835 all six daughters had died of varying causes, two when very young, two as children, the other two as young women: from whooping cough, yellow fever, and complications of childbirth. Henry Clay, Jr. was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista during the Mexican-American War.

Lucretia Hart Clay died in 1864 at the age of 83. She is interred with her husband in the vault of his monument at the Lexington Cemetery. Henry and Lucretia Clay were great-grandparents of the suffragette Madeline McDowell Breckinridge.^[16]

Early political career[link]

State legislator[link]

View of Henry Clay's law office (1803-1810), Lexington, Kentucky

In 1803 Clay was elected to serve as the representative of Fayette County in the Kentucky General Assembly. As a legislator, Clay advocated a liberal interpretation of the state's constitution and initially the gradual emancipation of slavery in Kentucky, although the political realities of the time forced him to abandon that position.^[3] Clay also advocated moving the state capitol from Frankfort to Lexington. He defended the Kentucky Insurance Company, which he saved from an attempt in 1804 by Felix Grundy to repeal its monopolistic charter.^[17]

First Senate appointment and eligibility[link]

Clay's influence in Kentucky state politics was quickly such that in 1806 the Kentucky legislature elected him to the Senate seat of John Breckinridge. He had resigned when appointed as US Attorney General. The legislature first chose John Adair to complete Breckinridge's term, but he had to resign over his alleged role in the Burr Conspiracy.^[18] On December 29, 1806, Clay was sworn in as senator, serving for less than one year that first time.^[19]

When elected by the legislature, Clay was below the constitutionally required age of thirty. His age did not appear to have been noticed by any other Senator, and perhaps not by Clay.^[19] Three months and 17 days into his Senate service, he reached the age of eligibility.^[20] Such an age qualification issue has occurred with only two other U.S. Senators. Joe Biden was also elected to the Senate at the age of 29, but he had reached the required age of 30 before being sworn in.^[21]

Speaker of the State House and duel with Humphrey Marshall[link]

When Clay returned to Kentucky in 1807, he was elected the Speaker of the state House of Representatives.^[22] On January 3, 1809, Clay introduced a resolution to require members to wear homespun suits rather than those made of imported British broadcloth. Two members voted against the measure. One was Humphrey Marshall, an "aristocratic lawyer who possessed a sarcastic tongue," who had been hostile toward Clay in 1806 during the trial of Aaron Burr.^[23]

Clay and Marshall nearly came to blows on the Assembly floor, and Clay challenged Marshall to a duel. The duel took place on January 9 in Shippingport, Kentucky. They each had three turns. Clay grazed Marshall once, just below the chest. Marshall hit Clay once in the thigh.^[23]

Second Senate appointment[link]

In 1810, United States Senator Buckner Thruston resigned to serve as a judge on the United States Circuit Court, and Clay was again selected to fill his seat.

Speaker of the House[link]

Early years[link]

In the summer of 1811, Clay was elected to the United States House of Representatives. He was chosen Speaker of the House on the first day of his first session, something never done before or since. During the fourteen years following his first election, he was re-elected five times to the House and to the speakership.^[24] Like other Southern Congressmen, Clay took slaves to Washington, DC to work in his household. They included Aaron and Charlotte Dupuy, their son Charles and daughter Mary Ann.^[25]

Before Clay's election as Speaker of the House, the position had been that of a rule enforcer and mediator. Clay made the position one of political power second only to the President of the United States. He immediately appointed members of the War Hawk faction (of which he was the "guiding spirit")^[1] to all the important committees, effectively giving him control of the House. This was a singular achievement for a 34-year-old House freshman. During his early House service, Clay strongly opposed the creation of a National Bank, in part because of his personal ownership in several small banks in his hometown of Lexington. Later he changed his position and, when he was seeking the presidency, gave strong support for the Second National Bank.

The War Hawks, mostly from the South and the West, resented British violations of United States (US) maritime rights and its treatment of US sailors; they feared British designs on US territory in the Old Northwest. They advocated a declaration of war against the British.^[26] As the Congressional leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, Clay took charge of the agenda, especially as a "War Hawk" supporting the War of 1812 against the British Empire. Later, as one of the peace commissioners, Clay helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent and signed it on December 24, 1814.^[3] In 1815, while still in Europe, he helped negotiate a commerce treaty with Great Britain.

Henry Clay helped establish and became president in 1816 of the American Colonization Society, a group that wanted to establish a colony for free American blacks in Africa; it founded Monrovia, in what became Liberia, for that purpose. The group was made up of both abolitionists from the North, who wanted to end slavery, and slaveholders, who wanted to deport free blacks to reduce what they considered a threat to the stability of slave society. On the "amalgamation" of the black and white races, Clay said that "The God of Nature, by the differences of color and physical constitution, has decreed against it."^[27] Clay presided at the founding meeting of the ACS on December 21, 1816, at the Davis Hotel in Washington, D.C. Attendees included Robert Finley, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key, and Daniel Webster.

The "American System"[link]

Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun helped to pass the Tariff of 1816 as part of the national economic plan Clay called "The American System," rooted in Alexander Hamilton's American School. Described later by Friedrich List, it was designed to allow the fledgling American manufacturing sector, largely centered on the eastern seaboard, to compete with British manufacturing through the creation of tariffs.

After the conclusion of the War of 1812, British factories were overwhelming American ports with inexpensive goods. To persuade voters in the western states to support the tariff, Clay advocated federal government support for internal improvements to infrastructure, principally roads and canals. These internal improvements would be financed by the tariff and by sale of the public lands, prices for which would be kept high to generate revenue. Finally, a national bank would stabilize the currency and serve as the nexus of a truly national financial system.

Clay's American System ran into strong opposition from President Jackson's administration. One of the most important points of contention between the two men was over the Maysville Road. Jackson vetoed a bill which would authorize federal funding for a project to construct a road linking Lexington and the Ohio River, the entirety of which would be in the state of Kentucky, because he felt that it did not constitute interstate commerce, as specified in the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

Foreign policy[link]

In foreign policy, Clay was the leading American supporter of independence movements and revolutions in Latin America after 1817. Between 1821 and 1826, the U.S. recognized all the new countries, except Uruguay (whose independence was debated and recognized only later). When in 1826 the U.S. was invited to attend the Columbia Conference of new nations, opposition emerged, and the American delegation never arrived. Clay supported the Greek independence revolutionaries in 1824 who wished to separate from the Ottoman Empire, an early move into European affairs.

The Missouri Compromise and 1820s[link]

In 1820 a dispute erupted over the extension of slavery in Missouri Territory. Clay helped settle this dispute by gaining Congressional approval for a plan called the "Missouri Compromise". It brought in Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state (thus maintaining the balance in the Senate, which had included 11 free and 11 slave states), and it forbade slavery north of 36° 30' (the northern boundary of Arkansas and the latitude line) except in Missouri.

Portrait of Henry Clay

Election of 1824 and Secretary of State[link]

By 1824, the unparalleled success of the Democratic-Republican Party had driven all other parties from the field. Four major candidates, including Clay, sought the office of president. Because of the unusually large number of candidates receiving electoral votes, no candidate secured a majority and the tie between the two front runners, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams, was broken in the House of Representatives.

Clay used his political clout to secure the victory for Adams, who he felt would be both more sympathetic to Clay's political views and more likely to appoint Clay to a cabinet position. When Clay was appointed Secretary of State, his maneuver was called a "corrupt bargain" by many of Jackson's supporters and tarnished Clay's reputation.

Slave freedom suit[link]

As Secretary of State, Clay lived with his family and slaves in Decatur House on Lafayette Square. As he was preparing to return to Lexington in 1829, his slave Charlotte Dupuy sued Clay for her freedom and that of her two children, based on a promise by an earlier owner. Her legal challenge to slavery preceded the more famous Dred Scott case by 17 years. The "freedom suit" received a fair amount of attention in the press at the time. Dupuy's attorney gained an order from the court for her to remain in DC until the case was settled, and she worked for wages for 18 months for Martin Van Buren, the successor to Secretary of State and the Decatur House. Clay returned to Ashland with Aaron, Charles and Mary Ann Dupuy.^[28][29]

The jury ruled against Dupuy, deciding that any agreement with her previous master Condon did not bear on Clay. Because Dupuy refused to return voluntarily to Kentucky, Clay had his agent arrest her. She was imprisoned in Alexandria, Virginia before Clay arranged for her transport to New Orleans, where he placed her with his daughter and son-in-law Martin Duralde. Mary Ann Dupuy was sent to join her mother, and they worked as domestic slaves for the Duraldes for another decade.^[28]

In 1840 Henry Clay finally gave Charlotte and her daughter Mary Ann Dupuy their freedom. He kept her son Charles Dupuy as a personal servant, frequently citing him as an example of how well he treated his slaves. Clay granted Charles Dupuy his freedom in 1844.^[28] While no deed of emancipation has been found for Aron Dupuy, in 1860 he and Charlotte were living together as free black residents in Fayette County, Kentucky. He may have been freed or "given his time" by one of Clay's sons, as Dupuy continued to work at Ashland, for pay.^[25]

Decatur House in Washington, DC, a National Historic Landmark and museum on Lafayette Square near the White House, has exhibits on urban slavery and Charlotte Dupuy's freedom suit against Henry Clay.^[28]

Senate career[link]

The Nullification Crisis[link]

After the passage of the Tariff of 1828, dubbed the "tariff of abominations" which raised tariffs considerably in an attempt to protect fledgling factories built under previous tariff legislation, South Carolina declared its right to nullify federal tariff legislation and stopped assessing the tariff on imports. It threatened to secede from the Union if the Federal government tried to enforce the tariff laws. Furious, President Jackson threatened to lead an army to South Carolina and hang any man who refused to obey the law.

The crisis worsened until 1833 when Clay, again a U.S. Senator re-elected by Kentucky in 1831, helped to broker a deal in Congress to lower the tariff gradually. This measure helped to preserve the supremacy of the Federal government over the states, but the crisis was indicative of the developing conflict between the northern and southern United States over economics and slavery.

Opposition to Jackson and creation of Whig Party[link]

Henry Clay

After the election of Andrew Jackson, Clay led the opposition to Jackson's policies. His supporters included the National Republicans, who were beginning to identify as "Whigs" in honor of ancestors during the Revolutionary War. They opposed the "tyranny" of Jackson, as their ancestors had opposed the tyranny of King George III. Clay strongly opposed Jackson's refusal to renew the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, and advocated passage of a resolution to censure Jackson for his actions.

In 1832 the National Republicans unanimously nominated Clay for the presidency. Jackson was nominated by the Democrats. The main issue was the policy of continuing the Second Bank of the United States. Clay lost by a wide margin to the highly popular Jackson (55% to 37%).

In 1840, Clay was a candidate for the Whig nomination, but he was defeated at the party convention by supporters of war hero William Henry Harrison. Harrison was chosen because his war record was attractive, and he was seen as more likely to win than Clay.

In 1844, Clay was nominated by the Whigs against James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate. Clay lost in part due to national sentiment in favor of Polk's "54°40' or Fight" campaign. This was to settle the northern boundary of the United States with Canada, then under the control of the British Empire. Clay opposed admitting Texas as a state because he believed it would reawaken the slavery issue and provoke Mexico to declare war. Polk took the opposite view, supported by most of the public, especially in the Southern United States. The election was close; New York's 36 electoral votes proved the difference, and went to Polk by a slim 5,000 vote margin. Liberty Party candidate James G. Birney won slightly more than 15,000 votes in New York and likely attracted votes that might have gone to Clay. His warnings about Texas proved prescient. The US annexation of Texas led to the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) (in which his namesake son died). The North and South came to increased tensions during Polk's Presidency over the extension of slavery into Texas and beyond.

The Compromise of 1850[link]

After losing the Whig Party nomination to Zachary Taylor in 1848, Clay decided to retire to his Ashland estate in Kentucky. Retired for less than a year, he was in 1849 again elected to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky. During his term, the controversy over the expansion of slavery in new lands had reemerged with the addition of the lands ceded to the United States by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War. David Wilmot, a Northern congressman, had proposed preventing the extension of slavery into any of the new territory in a proposal referred to as the "Wilmot Proviso".^[30]

On January 29, 1850, Clay proposed a series of resolutions, which he considered to reconcile Northern and Southern interests, what would widely be called the Compromise of 1850. While Clay originally intended the resolutions to be voted on separately, at the urging of southerners, Clay agreed to the creation of a Committee of Thirteen to consider the measures. The committee was formed on April 17. Clay as chair of the committee, on May 8 presented an omnibus bill linking all of the resolutions.^[31] The resolutions included:

• Admission of California as a free state, ending the balance of free and slave states in the senate.^[30]
• Organization of the Utah and New Mexico territories without any slavery provisions, giving the right to determine whether to allow slavery to the territorial populations.^[30]
• Prohibition of the slave trade, not the ownership of slaves, in the District of Columbia.^[30]
• A more stringent Fugitive Slave Act.^[30]
• Establishment of boundaries for the state of Texas in exchange for federal payment of Texas's ten million dollar debt.^[30]
• A declaration by Congress that it did not have the authority to interfere with the interstate slave trade.^[32]

The Omnibus bill, despite Clay's efforts, failed in a crucial vote on July 31 with the majority of his Whig Party opposed. He announced on the Senate floor the next day that he intended to persevere and pass each individual part of the bill. Clay was physically exhausted; the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him began to take its toll. Clay left the Senate to recuperate in Newport, Rhode Island. Stephen A. Douglas separated the bills and guided them through the Senate.^[33]

Clay was given much of the credit for the Compromise's success. It quieted the controversy between Northerners and Southerners over the expansion of slavery, and delayed secession and civil war for another decade. Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi, who had suggested the creation of the Committee of Thirteen, later said, "Had there been one such man in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 1860–'61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war."^[34]

Death and estate[link]

Clay continued to serve both the Union he loved and his home state of Kentucky. On June 29, 1852, he died of tuberculosis in Washington, D.C., at the age of 75. Clay was the first person to lie in state in the United States Capitol.

He was buried in Lexington Cemetery, and Theodore Frelinghuysen, Clay's vice-presidential candidate in the election of 1844, gave the eulogy.^[35] Clay's headstone reads: "I know no North — no South — no East — no West." Even though the 1852 pro-slavery^[36] novel Life at the South; or, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" As It Is, by W.L.G. Smith, is dedicated to his memory,^[37] Clay's Will freed all the slaves he held.^[3]

Ashland, named for the many ash trees on the property, was Clay's plantation and mansion for many years. He held as many as 60 slaves at the peak of the plantation operations. It was there he introduced the Hereford livestock breed to the United States.

By the time of his death, his only surviving sons were James Brown Clay and John Morrison Clay, who inherited the estate and took portions for use. For several years (1866–1878), James Clay allowed the mansion to be used as a residence for the regent of Kentucky University, forerunner of the University of Kentucky and present-day Transylvania University. Later the mansion and estate were rebuilt and remodeled by later descendants. John Clay designated his portion of the estate as Ashland Stud, which he devoted to breeding thoroughbred horses.

Maintained and operated as a museum, today Ashland includes 17 acres (6.9 ha) of the original estate grounds. It is located on Richmond Road (US 25) in Lexington. It is open to the public (admission charged).

Henry Clay is credited with introducing the mint julep drink to Washington, D.C., at the Willard Hotel during his residence as a senator in the city.^[38]

Monuments and memorials[link]

Tomb in Lexington, KY

Henry Clay Monument in New Orleans ca.1890

• Memorial column and statue at his tomb in Lexington, Kentucky
• Henry Clay monument in Pottsville, Pennsylvania^[39]
• Clay Streets in numerous cities, including New Haven, Connecticut, Richmond, Virginia, and Vicksburg, Mississippi
• Mount Clay in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire was named for Clay, since renamed Mount Reagan by the state legislature but not by the federal Board on Geographic Names
• Fifteen Clay counties in the United States, in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. (Clay County, Iowa is named for his son.)
• Ashland Ave. in Chicago, Illinois; Ashland, Virginia, Ashland County in Ohio and Wisconsin were named for his estate, as were the cities of Ashland in Kentucky, Alabama, and Pennsylvania.
• Ashland, Missouri, was named after Clay's Lexington, Kentucky estate, and Henry Clay Blvd was named for him in the same city.
• In New Orleans: Uptown – Henry Clay Avenue, and Downtown – 20-foot-tall monument erected in 1860 at Canal Street and St, Charles/Royal Avenues, and moved to the center of Lafayette Square in 1901.
• Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Kentucky,^[40] Henry Clay Middle School in Los Angeles, California, Henry Clay Elementary School in the Hegewisch neighborhood in Chicago, and Henry Clay Elementary School in his birthplace, Hanover County, Virginia.
• The "Instituto Educacional Henry Clay" in Caracas, Venezuela, a bilingual private school
• The Clay Dormitory at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky
• The Lafayette class submarine USS Henry Clay (SSBN-625), the only ship of the United States Navy named in his honor, although the USS Ashland is named for his estate
• Clay, New York, including the road Henry Clay Blvd.
• Henry Clay Village, on the left bank of Brandywine Creek just outside Wilmington, Delaware, factory and mill worker's residences.
• Clay is one of the many senators honored with a cenotaph in the Congressional Cemetery.
• He has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 3¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
• The town of Claysburg in central Pennsylvania is named in honor of Clay.
• Cooper's Rock State Forest in West Virginia features a preserved nineteenth century iron furnace named in commemoration of Henry Clay.

Notes[link]

References[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Life of Henry Clay

• Baxter, Maurice G. Henry Clay and the American System (1995)
• Baxter, Maurice G. Henry Clay the Lawyer (2000).
• Bowman, Shearer Davis. "Comparing Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 106 (Summer–Autumn 2008), 495–512
• Brown, Thomas. Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party (1985) ch 5
• Eaton, Clement. Henry Clay and the Art of American Politics (1957)
• Gammon, Samuel R. The Presidential Campaign of 1832 (1922)
• Heidler, David S., and Jeanne T. Heidler. Henry Clay: The Essential American (2010), major scholarly biography; 624pp
• Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (1999)
• Knupfer, Peter B. "Compromise and Statesmanship: Henry Clay’s Union." in Knupfer, The Union As It Is: Constitutional Unionism and Sectional Compromise, 1787–1861 (1991), pp. 119–57.
• Mayo, Bernard. Henry Clay, Spokesman of the West (1937)
• Peterson, Merrill D. The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987)
• Poage, George Rawlings. Henry Clay and the Whig Party (1936)
• Remini, Robert. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991), a standard scholarly biography
• Remini, Robert. At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise That Saved the Union (2010) 184 pages; the Compromise of 1850
• Schurz, Carl. Life of Henry Clay, 2 vols., 1899. Outdated biography.
•  Schurz, Carl (1911). "Clay, Henry". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 
• Strahan, Randall. Leading Representatives: The Agency of Leaders in the Politics of the U.S. House. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007
• Strahan, Randall; Moscardelli, Vincent G.; Haspel, Moshe; and Wike, Richard S. "The Clay Speakership Revisited" Polity 2000 32(4): 561–593. ISSN 0032-3497
• Van Deusen, Glyndon G. The Life of Henry Clay (1937), scholarly biography
• Watson, Harry L. ed. Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America (1998)
• Zarefsky, David. "Henry Clay and the Election of 1844: the Limits of a Rhetoric of Compromise" Rhetoric & Public Affairs 2003 6(1): 79–96. ISSN 1094-8392

Primary sources[link]

• Clay, Henry. The Papers of Henry Clay, 1797–1852. Edited by James Hopkins, Mary Hargreaves, Robert Seager II, Melba Porter Hay et al. 11 vols. University Press of Kentucky, 1959–1992. vol 1 online, 1797–1814
• Clay, Henry. Works of Henry Clay, 7 vols. (1897)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Henry Clay

• Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship (HenryClayCS.org)
• Clay's Ashland Home web site, (HenryClay.org)
• Henry Clay: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Works by Henry Clay at Project Gutenberg
• Henry Clay at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Henry Clay at Find a Grave
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825 For Henry Clay's election results.
• Henry Clay Letters, 1825-1851 at the Newberry Library
• Letters of Henry Clay
• Abraham Lincoln's Eulogy of Henry Clay at Teaching American History.Org
• Booknotes interview with Robert Remini on Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, May 5, 1992.
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with David and Jeanne Heidler on Henry Clay: The Essential American, May 30, 2010
• "Henry Clay, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • Beach, Chandler B., ed. (1914). "Clay, Henry". The New Student's Reference Work. Chicago: F. E. Compton and Co.. Wikisource 
  • Carl Schurz (1911). "Clay, Henry". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 
  • Carl Schurz (1900). "Clay, Henry". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 
  • Carl Schurz. Life of Henry Clay, 2 vols., 1899.
  • "Clay, Henry". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 5 (9th ed.). 1878. 

v t e Speakers of the United States House of Representatives Muhlenberg Trumbull Muhlenberg Dayton Sedgwick Macon Varnum Clay Cheves Clay Taylor Barbour Clay Taylor Stevenson Bell Polk Hunter White Jones Davis Winthrop Cobb Boyd Banks Orr Pennington Grow Colfax Pomeroy Blaine Kerr Randall Keifer Carlisle Reed Crisp Reed Henderson Cannon Clark Gillett Longworth Garner Rainey Byrns Bankhead Rayburn Martin Rayburn Martin Rayburn McCormack Albert O'Neill Wright Foley Gingrich Hastert Pelosi Boehner

v t e United States Senators from Kentucky Class 2 Brown Thruston Clay Bibb Walker Barry Hardin Crittenden Johnson Bibb Crittenden Morehead J. Underwood Thompson Powell Guthrie McCreery Stevenson Beck Carlisle Lindsay Blackburn Paynter James Martin Stanley Sackett Robsion Williamson M. Logan Chandler Stanfill Cooper Chapman T. Underwood Cooper Barkley Humphreys Cooper Huddleston McConnell Class 3 Edwards Marshall J. Breckinridge Adair Clay Pope Bledsoe Talbot W. Logan Talbot Rowan Clay Crittenden Metcalfe Clay Meriwether Dixon Crittenden J. C. Breckinridge Davis Machen McCreery Williams Blackburn Deboe McCreary Bradley Camden Beckham Ernst Barkley Withers Clements Morton Cook Ford Bunning Paul

v t e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Finance Campbell • Eppes • Sanford • Holmes • Lowrie • Smith • Webster • Wright • Clay • Evans • Woodbury • Calhoun • Lewis • Atherton • Dickinson • Hunter • Pearce • Fessenden • Sherman • Fessenden • Sherman • Morrill • Bayard • Morrill • Voorhees • Morrill • Aldrich • Penrose • Simmons • Penrose • McCumber • Smoot • Harrison • George • Millikin • George • Millikin • Byrd • Long • Dole • Packwood • Bentsen • Moynihan • Packwood • Roth • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus

v t e State Secretaries of the United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs 1781–1789 R. Livingston Jay Secretary of State 1789–present Jefferson Randolph Pickering J. Marshall Madison Smith Monroe Adams Clay Van Buren E. Livingston McLane Forsyth Webster Upshur Calhoun Buchanan Clayton Webster Everett Marcy Cass Black Seward Washburne Fish Evarts Blaine Frelinghuysen Bayard Blaine Foster Gresham Olney Sherman Day Hay Root Bacon Knox Bryan Lansing Colby Hughes Kellogg Stimson Hull Stettinius Byrnes G Marshall Acheson Dulles Herter Rusk Rogers Kissinger Vance Muskie Haig Shultz Baker Eagleburger Christopher Albright Powell Rice Clinton

v t e Cabinet of President John Quincy Adams (1825–1829) Vice President John C. Calhoun (1825–1829) Secretary of State Henry Clay (1825–1829) Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush (1825–1829) Secretary of War James Barbour (1825–1828) Peter B. Porter (1828–1829) Attorney General William Wirt (1825–1829) Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard (1825–1829)

Dick Morris (born November 28, 1948) is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant.

A friend and advisor to Bill Clinton during his time as Governor of Arkansas, Morris became a political adviser to the White House after Clinton was elected president in 1992. Morris encouraged Clinton to pursue third way policies of triangulation that combined, to achieve maximum political gain and popularity, traditional Republican and Democratic proposals, rhetoric, and issues. He worked as a Republican strategist before joining the Clinton administration, where he helped Clinton recover from the 1994 midterm elections by convincing the President to adopt Republican policies.^[1]

The president consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994.^[2] Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos has said, "Over the course of the first nine months of 1995, no single person had more power over the president."^[3] Morris went on to become campaign manager of Bill Clinton's successful 1996 bid for re-election to the office of President. His tenure on that campaign was cut short two months before the election, when it was revealed that he had allowed a prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. Morris then turned his focus to media commentary. He now writes a weekly column for the New York Post which is carried nationwide, contributes columns and blogs to both the print and online versions of The Hill, and appears regularly on the Fox News Channel for political commentary. He is also President of Vote.com.^[4]

More recently, Morris has emerged as a harsh critic of the Clintons and has written several books that criticize them, including Rewriting History, a rebuttal to Senator Hillary Clinton's Living History. Morris said that he would leave the United States if Hillary Clinton were elected president in 2008.^[5]

Morris was the strategist for Republican Christy Mihos's failed campaign in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.^[6]

Early life[link]

Morris is the son of writer Terry Lesser Morris, an early proponent of confessional human interest stories.^[7] He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City,^[8] where he was active on the debate team. He managed Jerrold Nadler's campaign for class president; Nadler has since gone on to represent New York in the House of Representatives. Morris was also involved in the first campaign of Richard Gottfried for New York State Assembly in 1970. Morris graduated from Stuyvesant in 1964, then attended Columbia University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating in 1967.

Morris and the Clintons[link]

Morris first worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton's successful 1978 bid for Governor of Arkansas. Morris is credited by many with engineering Clinton's re-election to the Arkansas governorship after a humiliating defeat at the end of Clinton's first term. As a result, Clinton turned to Morris after the mid-term elections of 1994, when Republicans gained control of the U.S. House and Senate and Clinton's own chance for a second presidential term seemed remote. From the early months of 1995 to August 1996, Morris was a principal architect of the Clinton-Gore re-election strategy.

Morris did not have a role in Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, which instead was headed by David Wilhelm, James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, and Paul Begala. After the 1994 mid-term election, in which Republicans took control of both houses of the United States Congress and gained considerable power in the states, Clinton once again sought Morris's help to prepare for the 1996 Presidential election. It was Morris who proposed a strategy that is now referred to as triangulation, in which Clinton would appeal to a diverse group of voters by distancing himself from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Scandal[link]

On August 29, 1996, Morris resigned from the Clinton campaign after tabloid reports stated that he had been involved with a female prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, as reported by the Washington Post. A New York tabloid newspaper, the Star, had obtained and published a set of photographs allegedly of Morris and the woman on a Washington, D.C., hotel balcony. News of the impending publication broke during the third day of the 1996 Democratic Convention. The Electronic Telegraph reported unverified claims that in order to impress the woman, S. Rowlands, Morris invited her to listen in on his conversations with President Clinton.^[9][10][11] It was also alleged he had an illegitimate child from an affair with a Texas woman.^[12]

Morris resigned on the same day that Bill Clinton spoke and accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. In his resignation statement, he said that "while I served I sought to avoid the limelight because I did not want to become the message. Now, I resign so I will not become the issue."^[13] In his response, President Clinton praised Morris as a "friend", and thanked him for his years of service. Privately, several of Clinton's aides were furious that in his resignation statement Morris credited himself with helping the President "come back from being buried in a landslide" and that Morris ended by comparing himself to Robert Kennedy.^[14]

Morris was featured on two consecutive covers of Time magazine. The September 2, 1996 issue, which was released before the prostitute story broke, featured Morris as "The Man Who Has Clinton's Ear".^[1] The following week, the cover featured Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, and the headline read "The Morris Mess: After the Fall".^[14]

Later work[link]

In his 1997 book, Behind the Oval Office, Morris wrote that, following an argument in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, he strode toward the exit and was tackled by Clinton. In 2003, Morris further stated that Clinton cocked his arm back to throw a punch, but Hillary Clinton pulled her husband off Morris. In both versions of the story, she consoled Morris and apologized to him, stating that Bill behaved such only with those he cared for most. According to Morris, she did this to keep him quiet about the incident. He says the incident was the reason for denying Bill Clinton's request to work on the 1992 campaign.

Morris has become a vocal and regular critic of the Clintons since his departure, in particular Hillary Rodham Clinton and her bid for the presidency. Morris has written extensively about the Clintons (see below) and also contributed to Hillary: The Movie, a documentary about Rodham Clinton when she was still a 2008 Presidential candidate.^[15] Later, after former President Bill Clinton's comments about the similarities between the Obama win and the win of presidential candidate Jesse Jackson in 1988, Morris put out an article on his blog that asserted that this was Clinton's way of injecting race into the political campaign.^[16]

Other work[link]

Political consulting[link]

As of August 2009, Morris lends his name and assistance to the League of American Voters, an advocacy group for seniors to defeat the Obama health care reform. He has been described as "America's most ruthless political consultant" in the BBC documentary Century of the Self Episode 4,^[17] which chronicled how he brought lifestyle marketing to politics for the first time.

Morris has also consulted for candidates in other countries of the western hemisphere, including the campaigns of Fernando de la Rua for President of Argentina (1999), Jorge Batlle for President of Uruguay (1999), Vicente Fox for President of Mexico (2000), and Raphael Trotman for President of Guyana (2006).^[18]

Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, are behind www.vote.com, a site intended to register non-scientific political public opinion on various issues.

Morris worked as a strategist for Christy Mihos, who sought the Republican nomination to run for Governor of Massachusetts in 2010 against incumbent Deval Patrick. Morris "oversaw strategy, polling, and advertising for Mihos".^[6] At the Republican state convention, Mihos lost to Charles D. Baker, Jr. by 89 percent to 11 percent; by failing to reach 15 percent, Mihos did not qualify for a primary against Baker.^[19]

Guest commentator and political prognosticator[link]

Since leaving Clinton's employ in 1996, Morris has said he has become profoundly "disillusioned" with the actions of the Clintons in the late 1990s. He has now formed a career as a political commentator and critic of the Clintons (particularly towards Hillary), appearing on Fox News programs such as Hannity & Colmes, Hannity, and the O'Reilly Factor, and on various local and nationally syndicated radio talk shows. Morris is also a regular columnist and Pundits Blogger for The Hill, a nonpartisan daily newspaper based in Washington, D.C., and for NewsMax.com, a conservative online news website.^[20][21][22]

Morris regularly makes predictions about candidates' chances of winning elections during these appearances. In a 2005 book on the 2008 presidential campaign, Morris stated that it was most likely that Hillary Clinton would face Condoleezza Rice for the presidency. Morris's critics reacted by mocking his mistaken predictions of past races.

Regarding the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, he initially stated that Howard Dean's candidacy could be written off right away. While ultimately vindicated, he had earlier discussed the likelihood of Dean defeating John Kerry after early strong showings by the former Vermont governor. Kerry defeated Dean and all his other rivals and won the nomination. Additionally, in a column in "The Hill" on June 22, 2005, Morris predicted that Hillary Clinton would face her "worst nightmare" in her 2006 Senate race against moderate Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro, whose campaign subsequently collapsed within a matter of two months after repeated crushing defeats in the opinion polls due to her husband's alleged mafia ties. He even went so far as to suggest that Clinton would "give up"^{[citation needed]} and drop out to focus on her 2008 campaign.^[23][24]

Morris further wrote that Hurricane Katrina "has the capacity to shape the second Bush term in the same way September 11 shaped his first term—not only in rebuilding New Orleans but in taking preventative steps around the nation to bolster our defenses against natural and man-made disasters and terror strikes. Responding to disasters is a source of presidential strength and popularity, and Bush is about to show how it is done."^[25] Appearing on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes on January 29, 2008, Morris said that those voting for John Edwards were "at the moment... those that can't decide which they don't like more—a black or a woman getting elected".^{[citation needed]} Host Alan Colmes asked if he was "saying that Edwards voters are bigots?"^{[citation needed]}

Morris elaborated that exit polls showed some Edwards voters were unsure if a woman or a Black American, in reference to then Democratic Primary front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, could get elected to the Presidency for the first time in 2008.^[26]

After Obama won the 2008 election, Morris was critical of him. In early 2009, Morris said: "Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.'s going to take over'? Well, they're beginning to have a case."^[27][28] In April 2009, Morris keynoted an animated debate at the Yale Political Union on the topic "Resolved: Save Capitalism from President Obama".^[29]

In March 2010, About.com, owned by The New York Times Company, named Morris one of the top 20 conservatives to follow on Twitter.^[30]

In a March 2011 column for The Hill, Morris predicted that Obama would not win a second term as President.^[31] For many years a "disillusioned Democrat," Dick Morris has stated he is now a Republican.

In August 2011, Morris began a petition on his website opposing federal funding for the Park51 Muslim community center, claiming that the center is "designed to celebrate the attacks that killed 3,000 Americans", and that the center would "train the same kinds of terrorists who caused the... attacks".

Foreign political consultant[link]

Morris worked with the United Kingdom Independence Party in their campaign before the 2004 European Parliament election. The party, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union, won 12 of the United Kingdom's 78 seats.

In 2004 and 2005, he and his wife had acted as campaign consultants to the successful Yushchenko Presidential campaign in Ukraine. Morris reports that he insisted on the use of exit polls as a means of potentially exposing ballot tampering. He argues this played a significant role in forcing the government of then President Leonid Kuchma to acquiesce to a new poll when the official results of the first varied materially from the exit surveys. Interestingly, faced with a similar (though smaller) divergence between exit polling and election returns, he took the opposite stance in a 2004 article in The Hill when he suspected "foul play" on the part of the exit pollsters in the US presidential race.^[32] Mexico 2004; Morris outlined the strategy of the negative campaign that would be used against the PRD and AMLO: "The PRD would be a disaster for Mexico, the country would go in the same direction as Chávez and Castro."^{[citation needed]} That is to say, López Obrador would be "a danger to Mexico",^{[citation needed]} as Rob Allyn said in an article published on April 3, 2006, published in the New York Post.

In a November 13, 2007 press conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Morris announced that he would be offering his consultancy services pro bono for the campaign to elect Raila Odinga as President of Kenya in the 2007 Presidential election running on the Orange Democratic Movement ticket.

With four weeks to the national elections, an editorial in one of the leading dailies called into question the legalities of Morris's consulting work from the perspective of his presence in and lack of legal ability to work in Kenya "pro bono" or "through the back door".^[33]

The outcome of the December 27, 2007 elections in Kenya is still disputed due to allegations of electoral fraud and rigging by the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, the Party of National Unity and erroneous reporting by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Massive protests and tribal tensions have since erupted between the president's Kikuyu tribe and the majority of other tribes not favorably aligned to the outcome. Major mediations have commenced between concerned parties, including possible formation of a coalition and/or interim government until reelections are held.

Morris's DVD[link]

Morris has appeared in, and wrote the screenplay for, the documentary film FahrenHYPE 9/11. The film was a response to Michael Moore's 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11.

Tax issues[link]

Morris said that he has reached an agreement with Connecticut, and his name will be removed from the next delinquency list. Morris says that he is committed to paying his taxes: "Following a difficult period in my life, I fell into arrears. But since then, I have paid almost $3 million in state and federal taxes."^[34]

Books[link]

Morris has written several books. He authored Condi vs. Hillary (subtitled The next great presidential race) (ISBN 0-06-083913-9) in which he argues that only Condoleezza Rice could block Hillary Clinton's anticipated 2008 bid for the White House. He co-authored this book with his wife, Eileen McGann.

Previously he wrote a pair of books criticizing the Clintons, again co-authored by his wife, Eileen McGann. Rewriting History (ISBN 0-06-073668-2) was published in May 2004 as a rebuttal to Hillary Clinton's book, Living History (ISBN 0-7432-2224-5). In it, he argues that Hillary Clinton has presented a false "nice" persona in the book. Morris instead remembers her as manipulative, cold, and single-minded in her pursuit of power. Similarly, Morris and McGann wrote Because He Could (ISBN 0-06-078415-6) in response to Bill Clinton's memoir My Life (ISBN 0-375-41457-6).

Morris has also written Behind the Oval Office: Winning the Presidency in the Nineties (ISBN 1-58063-053-7), a retrospective of his work with the Clintons that was published soon after his resignation from the campaign in 1996. Other books include Power Plays: Win or Lose—How History's Great Political Leaders Play the Game (ISBN 0-06-000444-4), The New Prince (ISBN 1580631479 ),Vote.com: How Big-Money Lobbyists and the Media Are Losing Their Influence, and the Internet Is Giving Power Back to the People (ISBN 1-58063-163-0)and "Outrage" (ISBN 978-0-06-119540-2).

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest collaboration is Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want To Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us...And What To Do About It (ISBN 9780061718663), published in June 2008. Its jacket copy states, "In this hard-hitting call to arms, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal the hundreds of ways American tax-payers are routinely fleeced--by our own government; by foreign countries like Dubai that are gobbling up American interests and spending millions to influence government decisions and American public opinion; by Washington lobbying firms that are pushing the agendas of corrupt foreign dictators on Capitol Hill; and by hedge-fund billionaires collecting huge tax breaks courtesy of the IRS."

His book Catastrophe was released in June 2009.

His latest book is Revolt! How to Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs, which was released in March 2011.

References[link]

• Conason, Joe (2008-04-09). "Daily show". comedycentral.com. http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/cc_insider/2008/09/jon-stewart-ann.html. Retrieved 2008-03-09. 
• Conason, Joe (2003-06-12). "Setting Dick Morris straight". Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/06/12/morris/index.html. Retrieved 2004-10-14. 
• "Dick Morris Biography". NewsMax.com. http://www.newsmax.com/pundits/bios/Morris-bio.shtml. Retrieved 2004-10-14. 
• "Clinton ex-adviser gives boost to Britain's anti-EU party". EUBusiness. 2004-06-15. Archived from the original on June 28, 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20040628084521/http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040615012643.oukbjuqc. Retrieved 2004-10-14. 
• Morris, Dick (2003-06-12). "Setting the Record Straight: An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton". National Review Online. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-morris061203.asp. Retrieved 2004-10-14. 
• "NewsHour Transcript: The Morris Resignation". Online NewsHour. 1996-08-29. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/august96/panel_morris_8-29.html. Retrieved 2004-10-14. 

External links[link]

• DickMorris.com, Dick Morris Blog and Opinion Site
• Vote.com, Dick Morris online polling site (heavily biased, it only offers options for Republican candidates, with none for Democratic ones)[1]
• Podcasts of Morris' recent articles
• Dick Morris' Pundits Blogs for The Hill