Henry Clay Quotes

Sir, I would rather be right than to be President.

I am not, sir, in favor of cherishing the passion of conquest. I am permitted … to indulge the hope of seeing, ere long, the new United States, (if you will allow me the expression,) embracing not only the old ….

Their disappearance from the human family would be no great loss to the world.

How often are we forced to charge fortune with partiality towards the unjust!

How is it with the President? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast Republic. By means of principles which he has introduced, and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises, uncontrolled, the power of the State.

I prefer the troubled ocean of war...to the tranquil, putrescent pool of ignominious peace.

My friends are not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill them!... If there were two Henry Clays, one of them would make the other President of the United States!... It is a diabolical intrigue, I know now, which has betrayed me. I am the most unfortunate man in the history of parties: always run by my friends when sure to be defeated, and now betrayed for a nomination when I, or any one, would be sure of an election.

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.

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.

I'd rather be right than be President

Statistics are no substitute for judgment.

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.

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.

Sir, I had rather be right than to be President.

The time will come when Winter will ask you what you were doing all Summer.