Third Time's The Charm, Part I

However, although Jackson agreed to run an issue-based campaign, there was no way even he could control his supporters who again hailed him as the Hero of New Orleans, and portrayed him as a man of the people, born in a log cabin, and a courageous man of action. Also, Clay had chosen as his issue, a boring and complicated one that most voters did not understand or care about. Clay lost in a landslide by a vote of 219 to 49.

Clay's Whig Party had excellent chances to win in the election of 1840, but they gave the nomination to a colorful war hero, William Henry Harrison. It seems that, as Clay once complained, the Whigs only turned to him when they were in trouble, never when they were assured of victory. Harrison won the election, but died only thirty days after taking office.

Clay did get the nomination four years later. The Democrats were expected to nominate former President Martin Van Buren, the man Harrison defeated in 1840. But Van Buren refused to take a clear stand on the annexation of Texas, and lost the nomination to former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives James K. Polk. Clay, like Van Buren, also tried to avoid taking a definite stand on Texas so as not to alienate one section of the country or another. Polk took a definite expansionist position, demanding not only the annexation of Texas, but also the occupation of the Oregon Territory in his famous policy Manifest Destiny (the notion that the U.S. was obviously fated to control the entire continent from Atlantic to Pacific). In a close race, Clay lost the White House for the third time, losing to Polk 170 to 105.

Clay continued to serve in the U.S. Senate, authoring (or leading the supporters of) the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise Tariff of 1833 which ended the Nullification Crisis, and the Compromise of 1850 which prevented the Civil War for another ten years, giving the North time to become more industrialized making the outcome of the war inevitable.

The second three-time loser came at the turn of the 20th century, and captured the imagination of the common man in a way that Clay never accomplished. If Clay was the Great Compromiser, then this second three-time loser was The Great Commoner. We will learn about him in the next article.

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