Clay was a Kentuckian, with the
characteristics of his state; but, in a larger sense, he represented
the stream of migration which had occupied the Ohio Valley during
the preceding half-century. This society was one which, in its
composition, embraced elements of the middle region as well as of
the south. It tended towards freedom, but had slaves in its midst,
and had been accustomed, through experience, to adjust relations
between slavery and free labor by a system of compromise.
Economically, it was in need of internal improvements and the
development of manufactures to afford a home market. It had the
ideal of American expansion, and in earlier days vehemently demanded
the control of the Mississippi and the expulsion of the Spaniard
from the coasts of the Gulf. In the War of 1812 it sent its sons to
destroy English influence about the Great Lakes and had been
ambitious to conquer Canada.
It is an evidence of the rapidity with which the west stamped itself
upon its colonists, that although Clay was born, and bred to the
law, in Virginia, he soon became the mouth-piece of these western
forces.
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