oratory. In 1805, he was appointed to the faculty of Transylvania University where he taught, among others, future Kentucky Governor Robert P. Letcher and Robert Todd, the future father-in-law of Abraham Lincoln. Clay's most notable client was Aaron Burr, who was indicted for treason in the Burr conspiracy. Clay and his law partner John Allen successfully defended Burr without a fee in 1807. Thomas Jefferson later convinced Clay that Burr had been guilty of the charges. Clay's legal practice was light after his election to Congress. In the 1823 case Green v. Biddle, Clay submitted the Supreme Court's first amicus curiae. However, he lost that case. Early political career Clay entered politics shortly after arriving in Kentucky. In his first political speech, he attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts, laws passed by Federalists to suppress dissent during the Quasi-War with France. Like most Kentuckians, Clay was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, but he clashed with state party leaders over a state constitutional convention. Using the pseudonym "Scaevola" (in reference to Gaius Mucius Scaevola), Clay advocated for direct elections for Kentucky elected officials and the gradual emancipation of slavery in Kentucky. The 1799 Kentucky Constitution included the direct election of public officials, but the state did not adopt Clay's plan for gradual emancipation. In 1803, Clay won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives. His first legislative initiative was the partisan gerrymander of Kentucky's Electoral College districts, which ensured that all of Kentucky's presidential electors voted for President Jefferson in the 1804 presidential election. Clay clashed with legislators who sought to reduce the power of Clay's Bluegrass region, and he unsuccessfully advocated moving the state capitol from Frankfort to Lexington. Clay frequently opposed populist firebrand Felix Grundy, and he helped defeat Grundy's effort to revoke the banking privileges of the state-owned Kentucky Insurance Company. He advocated for the construction of internal improvements, which would become a consistent theme throughout his public career. Clay's influence in Kentucky state politics was such that in 1806 the Kentucky legislature elected him to the United States Senate. During his two-month tenure in the Senate, Clay advocated for the construction of various bridges and canals, including a canal connecting the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River. After Clay returned to Kentucky in 1807, he was elected as the speaker of the state house of representatives. That same year, in response to attacks on American shipping