Henry Clay

Character Key Number: 
3120
Display Name: 
Henry Clay
Sort Name: 
Clay, Henry
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
No
Biography: 

Henry Clay represented Kentucky in both houses of the U.S. Congress during the decades before the Civil War. As a U.S. Senator, he was the architect of the Compromise of 1850 (referred to in Requiem for a Nun as "Clay's last compromise," 86), which attempted to resolve the national conflict about the spread of slavery westward across the Mississippi.

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