The compromise by which Missouri was admitted as a slave State, while slavery should be excluded from all territory outside of it north of 36 deg. 30’, was a temporary measure of expediency, and at that period was probably a wise one; since, if slavery had been excluded from Missouri, there might have been a dissolution of the Union.  The preservation of the Union was the dearest object to the heart of Clay, who was genuinely and thoroughly patriotic.  Herein he doubtless rendered a great public service, and proved himself to be a broad-minded statesman.  To effect this compromise Clay had put forth all his energies, not only in eloquent speeches and tireless labors in committees and a series of parliamentary devices for harmonizing the strife, but in innumerable interviews with individuals.

In 1820, Clay retired to private life in order to retrieve his fortunes by practice at the bar.  Few men without either a professional or a private income can afford a long-continued public service.  Although the members of Congress were paid, the pay was not large enough,—­only eight dollars a day at that time.  But Clay’s interval of rest was soon cut short.  In three years he was again elected to the House of Representatives, and in December, 1823, was promptly chosen Speaker by a large majority.  He had now recovered his popularity, and was generally spoken of as “the great pacificator.”

In Congress his voice was heard again in defence of internal improvements,—­the making of roads and canals,—­President Monroe having vetoed a bill favoring them on the ground that it was unconstitutional for Congress to vote money for them.  Clay, however, succeeded in inducing Congress to make an appropriation for a survey of such roads as might be deemed of national importance, which Mr. Monroe did not oppose.  It was ever of vital necessity, in the eyes of Mr. Clay, to open up the West to settlers from the East, and he gloried in the prospect of the indefinite expanse of the country even to the Pacific ocean.  “Sir,” said he, in the debate on this question, “it is a subject of peculiar delight to me to look forward to the proud and happy period, distant as it may be, when circulation and association between the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they are at this moment in England, the most highly improved country on the globe.  Sir, a new world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted....  Are we to neglect and refuse the redemption of that vast wilderness which once stretched unbroken beyond the Alleghany?” In these views he proved himself one of the most far-sighted statesmen that had as yet appeared in Congress,—­a typical Western man of enthusiasm and boundless hope.

Not less enthusiastic was he in his open expressions of sympathy with the Greek struggle for liberty; as was the case also with Daniel Webster,—­both advocating relief to the Greeks, not merely from sentiment, but to strike a blow at the “Holy Alliance” of European kingdoms, then bent on extinguishing liberty in every country in Europe.  Clay’s noble speech in defence of the Greeks was not, however, received with unanimous admiration, since many members of Congress were fearful of entangling the United States in European disputes and wars; and the movement came to naught.