From the Colonel’s Desk: The Union, the Constitution, and the freedom of mankind

This installment of “From the Colonel’s Desk” comes from the pen of Col. John Riley, Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels (commissioned 1985), a longtime numismatist who hails from the Bluegrass State.

“Kentucky, my own, my native land”—so addressed deposed Confederate States president Jefferson Davis, a native of Christian County in southwestern Kentucky, in 1886. “Wherever the name of Kentucky is mentioned, every hand shall be lifted and every head bowed for all that is grand, all that is glorious, all that is virtuous, all that is honorable and manly.”

This 19th-century prose evokes all the sentimentality, as well as the contradictions, that still exist in modern-day Kentucky. And this yin-and-yang, positive/negative, often unapologetically out of step with mainstream America, appeals to the collector in me: “Old money” and nods to European royalty peacefully coexisting with other areas seemingly in perpetual hard times.

Kentucky was scarcely a concept, or an ideal, to Americans of European descent when future statesman Henry Clay was born in Virginia in 1777. Westward expansion was shortly on and the fertile land, game, and free-flowing waters of what the Native Americans called the “Dark and Bloody Ground” was an irresistible draw for frontiersmen and colonists seeking land opportunities. Newly minted barrister Clay joined family in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1797 and found immediate success in the rapidly expanding legal field of property rights—particularly the sorting out of rightful deeds and land grants to Revolutionary War veterans.

His strengths as an orator and negotiator were recognized early and political involvement was immediate. After an initial stint in the Kentucky State Legislature, Clay was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810 as a Democratic-Republican (later a Whig), and rocketed within a single year to the powerful role as speaker of the House, a position he would hold off-and-on for more than 10 years. The rapid positioning thrust him into the spotlight as a leading national figure in engaging war with Great Britain in 1812 and brilliantly negotiating the Peace Treaty of Ghent, Belgium, that followed. Clay would go on to serve a single term as U.S. secretary of State during the John Quincy Adams administration of 1825–1829. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1831, Clay would spend the remainder of his career in service to the country. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. presidency in 1824, 1828, 1832, 1844, and 1848—coming closest to obtaining the prize in the campaign of 1844 against Democrat James K. Polk.

Clay’s vital contributions, and Kentucky’s pride, were his efforts to promote national peace on the signal topic of the era: Slavery in the United States. The so-called “Missouri Compromise” of 1820 was largely brokered by Clay and would balance power in Congress between Free and Slave states by allowing slavery to exist in newly created Missouri in exchange for admitting Maine as a free state, separating it from Massachusetts. Additionally, the Compromise agreed that new states emerging from the Louisiana territory would exclude slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri. The compromise would later be repealed and the issue returned as a crisis in 1850 over the question of allowing slavery in territory acquired in the peace terms of the U.S.–Mexican War. Through five separate bills, including California’s statehood admission as “Free,” confrontation again was defused.

Although a slave owner, Henry Clay’s personal position was of gradual emancipation. Clay would die at 75 years old in 1852, his headstone in beloved Lexington reading “I know no North — no South — no East — no West.”

What is tantalizing, looking through the prism of retrospect, is what could have been. Had Clay been elected to the U.S. presidency, had he served a generation later, could the political malaise of the 1850s have been avoided and a peaceful solution to the American slavery paradox have been found? Could the American Civil War have been prevented?

Kentucky’s national prominence peaked during this time with Lexington and its Transylvania University, dubbed “The Athens of the West,” but northern and westward expansion kept much of the population moving on, and the depressionary after-effects of the Civil War have been generational challenges to the present day. Nonetheless, the state continues to produce a proportional share of the country’s innovators and leaders in science, progressive thought, and entertainment.

Henry Clay’s influence on a young, Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln is noteworthy. Lincoln termed Clay as his “Beau Ideal of a Statesman” and the reverence felt is indelibly on much of Lincoln’s own legacy. Clay had some limited correspondence with the Illinois lawyer and congressman, and was certainly well acquainted with Mary Todd Lincoln’s own illustrious Lexington family. In November 1847 Lincoln attended an address by Clay at Lexington’s Market House, but it is not believed that they actually met.

Clay was frequently memorialized in contemporary medallic images—mostly campaign promotions but also eulogies upon his death, recognizing his years of outstanding service to the country and his contributions to peace. The citizens of New York City presented the statesman with a 30-ounce gold medal shortly before his death. A 2016 Heritage auction sold this medal, directly consigned by a Clay descendent, for $346,000.

Many token and medal observations record his beloved Lexington estate, Ashland, still a Lexington landmark. The one-time 672-acre farm and grand home was Clay’s abiding passion as a farmer and horseman. He professionally bred thoroughbred racehorses and oversaw the raising of tobacco, hemp, and grain throughout his adult life.

Thank you for the opportunity of this forum to discuss a hobby passion—and we should note there are a wealth of other areas to explore within. I wish to extend a small tribute to friend Jerry “Beanie” Schaeper Jr., of Erlanger, Kentucky, who passed away in October 2021. Jerry collected and dealt in Kentucky numismatics and his knowledge and collection were to serve as a base for a Kentucky-specific reference that I am contemplating in the near future, including scrip. No single guidebook currently exists. This will be a more difficult project now without Beanie, but hope springs eternal.

Dennis Tucker, Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, is the publisher of Whitman Publishing, a leading producer of storage and display supplies, reference books, and other resources for collectors and hobbyists. He was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel in March 2021 for his career in book publishing and his promotion of the Bluegrass State’s status as an important subject in numismatics. His column “From the Colonel’s Desk” explores the Commonwealth’s diverse connections to American coins, tokens, medals, paper money, private currency, and related artifacts.

John Riley, Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, is an active numismatist—a longtime member and officer of the Chicago Coin Club and one of the principal coordinators of the Philippine Collectors Forum. He is working on a book-length study of Kentucky numismatics.

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