Henry Clay Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity—unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.

Henry Clay
I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance…The Union, sir, is my country.

Henry Clay
An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.

Henry Clay
Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.

Henry Clay
If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.

Henry Clay
Honor and good faith and justice are equally due from this country toward the weak as toward the strong.

Henry Clay
Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land—whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation.

Henry Clay
I am for resistance by the sword. No man in the nation desires peace more than I. But I prefer the troubled ocean of war…to the tranquil, putrescent pool of ignominious peace.

Henry Clay
It has been my invariable rule to do all for the Union. If any man wants the key of my heart, let him take the key of the Union, and that is the key to my heart.

Henry Clay
In all cases where incidental powers are acted upon, the principal and incidental ought to be congenial with each other, and partake of a common nature. The incidental power ought to be strictly subordinate and limited to the end proposed to be obtained by the specified power. In other words, under the name of accomplishing one object which is specified, the power implied ought not to be made to embrace other objects, which are not specified in the constitution.

Henry Clay
Precedents deliberately established by wise men are entitled to great weight. They are evidence of truth, but only evidence... But a solitary precedent... which has never been reexamined, cannot be conclusive.

Henry Clay
Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.

Henry Clay
The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."

Henry Clay
A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation's inheritance. They awe foreign powers, they arouse and animate our own people.

Henry Clay
Let him who elevates himself above humanity... say, if he pleases, "I will never compromise"; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise.

Henry Clay
In a scheme of policy which is devised for a nation, we should not limit our views to its operation during a single year, or even for a short term of years. We should look at its operation for a considerable time, and in war as well as in peace.

Henry Clay
Impart additional strength to our happy Union.?Diversified as are the interests of its various parts, how admirably do they harmonize and blend together!?We have only to make a proper use of the bounties spread before us, to render us prosperous and powerful.

Henry Clay
The imposition of taxes has its limits. There is a maximum which cannot be transcended. Suppose the citizen to be taxed by the general government to the utmost extent of his ability, or a thing as much as it can possibly bear, and the state imposes a tax at the same time, which authority is to take it?

Henry Clay
The measure of the wealth of a nation is indicated by the measure of its protection of its industry; the measure of the poverty of a nation is marked by the degree in which it neglects and abandons the care of its own industry, leaving it exposed to the action of foreign powers.

Henry Clay
Sir, if you wish to avoid foreign commerce; give up all your prosperity. It is the thing protected, not the instrument of protection, that involves you in war. Commerce engenders collision, collision war, and war, the argument supposes, leads to despotism. Would the councils of that statesman be deemed who would recommend that the nation should be unarmed—that in the art of war, the material spirit, and martial exercises, should be prohibited—…—and that the great body of the people should be taught that the national happiness was to be found in perpetual peace alone? No, sir.

Henry Clay
What is the nature of this government? It is emphatically federal, vested with an aggregate of special powers for general purposes, conceded by existing sovereignties, who have themselves retained what is not so conceded. It is said that there are cases in which it must act on implied powers. This is not controverted, but the implication must be necessary, and obviously flow from enumerated power with which it is allied.

Henry Clay
It consists in the genius of the nation, which is prone to peace; in that desire to arrange, by friendly negotiation, our disputes with all nations…. But a new state of things has arisen: negotiation has become hopeless. The power with whom it was to be conducted, if not annihilated, is in the situation that precludes it; and the subject-matter of it is in danger of being snatched forever from our power. Longer delay would be construed into a dereliction of our right, and would amount to a treachery to ourselves.

Henry Clay
The great advantage of our system of government over all others, is, that we have a written constitution, defining its limits, and prescribing its authorities; and that, however, for a time, faction may convulse the nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its functionaries, the season of reflection will recur, when calmly retracing their deeds, all aberrations from fundamental principle will be corrected.

Henry Clay
The gentleman [Josiah Quincy] can not have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, 'peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must'.

Henry Clay
I have no commiseration for princes. My sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind ….

Henry Clay