Clay finished with the fourth-most electoral votes in the multi-candidate 1824 presidential election , and he helped John Quincy Adams win the contingent election held to select the president . President Adams appointed Clay to the prestigious position of secretary of state ; critics alleged that the two had agreed to a " corrupt bargain . " Despite receiving support from Clay and other National Republicans , Adams was defeated by Democrat Andrew Jackson in the 1828 presidential election . Clay won election to the Senate in 1831 and ran as the National Republican nominee in the 1832 presidential election , but he was defeated by President Jackson . After the 1832 election , Clay helped bring an end to the Nullification Crisis by leading passage of the Tariff of 1833 . During Jackson 's second term , opponents of the president coalesced into the Whig Party , and Clay became a leading congressional Whig . Clay sought the presidency in the 1840 election but was defeated at the Whig National Convention by William Henry Harrison . He clashed with Harrison 's running mate and successor , John Tyler , who broke with Clay and other congressional Whigs after taking office in 1841 . Clay resigned from the Senate in 1842 and won the 1844 Whig presidential nomination , but he was defeated in the general election by Democrat James K. Polk , who made the annexation of the Republic of Texas his key issue . Clay strongly criticized the subsequent Mexican – American War and sought the Whig presidential nomination in 1848 , but was defeated by General Zachary Taylor . After returning to the Senate in 1849 , Clay played a key role in passing the Compromise of 1850 , which resolved a crisis over the status of slavery in the territories . Clay is generally regarded as one of the most important and influential political figures of his era . He was also an advocate of the extermination and extinction of Native Americans . As Secretary of State he predicted that Indians would be gone within 50 years and “ their disappearance from the human family ( would ) be no great loss to the world . ” Henry Clay was born on April 12 , 1777 , at the Clay homestead in Hanover County , Virginia . He was the seventh of nine children born to the Reverend John Clay and Elizabeth ( née Hudson ) Clay . His father , a Baptist minister nicknamed " Sir John " , died in 1781 , leaving Henry and his brothers two slaves each ; he also left his wife 18 slaves and of land . Clay was of entirely English descent and his ancestor , John Clay , settled in Virginia in 1613 . Clay was a distant cousin of Cassius Clay , a prominent anti-slavery activist active in the mid-19th century
Whig National Convention
1839 Whig National Convention
Henry Clay