The Clay Speakership Revisited

Abstract

The speakership of Henry Clay marks an important period in the early development of American politics and political institutions. The survival explanation of the Clay speakership, first proposed in James Sterling Young's, The Washington Community, 1800-1828, has enjoyed wide currency and more recently has been incorporated in work by scholars associated with the institutionalism in rational choice theory. In this article we revisit Young's account of the Clay speakership, focusing on the period after the War of 1812. Using evidence from committee assignment and roll call records, we show that Speaker Clay's leadership strategy was more complex than Young and the new institutionalist accounts propose, and that it advanced Clay's public policy goals as well as his political ambition. A new survey of historical evidence also shows that Young significantly understated Clay's importance as a leader on matters of national policy. We propose a strategic majority explanation, which provides a...