1807) in the United States Senate, where, contrary to custom, he
at once plunged into business, as though he had been there all his life.
He again served in the Kentucky legislature (1808-1809), was chosen
speaker of its lower house, and achieved distinction by preventing an
intense and widespread anti-British feeling from excluding the common
law from the Kentucky code. A year later he was elected to another
unexpired term in the United States Senate, serving in 1810-1811. At
thirty-four (1811) he was elected to the United States House of
Representatives and chosen speaker on the first day of the session. One
of the chief sources of his popularity was his activity in Congress in
promoting the war with Great Britain in 1812, while as one of the peace
commissioners he reluctantly signed the treaty of Ghent on the 24th of
December 1814. During the fourteen years following his first election,
he was re-elected five times to the House and to the speakership;
retiring for one term (1821-1823) to resume his law practice and
retrieve his fortunes. He thus served as speaker in 1811-1814, in
1815-1820 and in 1823-1825. Once he was unanimously elected by his
constituents, and once nearly defeated for having at the previous
session voted to increase congressional salaries. He was a warm friend
of the Spanish-American revolutionists (1818) and of the Greek
insurgents (1824). From 1825 to 1829 he served as secretary of state in
President John Quincy Adams's cabinet, and in 1831 he was elected to the
United States Senate, where he served until 1842, and again from 1849
until his death.

From the beginning of his career he was in favour of internal
improvements as a means of opening up the fertile but inaccessible West,
and was opposed to the abuse of official patronage known as "the spoils
system." The most important of the national questions with which Clay
was associated, however, were the various phases of slavery politics and
protection to home industries. The most prominent characteristics of his
public life were his predisposition to "compromises" and "pacifications"
which generally failed of their object, and his passionate patriotic
devotion to the Union.

His career as a Protectionist.

His earliest championship of protection was a resolution introduced by
him in the Kentucky legislature (1808) which favoured the wearing by its
members of home-made clothes; and one in the United States Senate (April
1810), on behalf o