Tom DiLorenzo on the political agenda of Henry Clay

When Henry Clay entered national politics in 1811 as a member of Congress, on the eve of the War of 1812 one of his first acts was to try to convince his colleagues to invade Canada, which they did, three times.  He waged a thirty-year political battle with the likes of James Madison, James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, John Randolph, Andrew Jackson, and the other defenders of the Jeffersonian philosophy of limited, decentralized, constitutional government.  Clay was the political heir to Alexander Hamilton and so championed centralized government power driven by political patronage for the benefit of what U.S. Senator John Taylor of Virginia called the "monied aristocracy."

~ Tom DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln, p. 62

Henry Clay
1873