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.