Born on October 19, 1810 in Madison County, Cassius Marcellus Clay became one of Kentucky’s most famous advocates of emancipation. In 1832, after graduating from Transylvania University, Clay attended Yale, where he heard William Lloyd Garrison speak against slavery. Clay stated that this speech, combined with his first-hand experience with slavery in Kentucky, convinced him of the necessity of emancipation. When Clay returned to Kentucky, he became active in Whig politics, and in 1835, was elected to the state legislature. By the end of the decade, Clay focused his political career on the gradual abolition of slavery. Given his proximity to slaveholders and proslavery politicians, Clay was often met with violence. On numerous occasions he engaged in physical combat, using either a pistol or a bowie knife, to protect himself from his enemies. In 1845, he began publishing The True American, an antislavery newspaper based in Lexington. The newspaper was soon suppressed and he moved his operations to Cincinnati. In the 1850s, Clay attempted to establish a branch of the Republican Party in Kentucky, but he found little support for its antislavery platform. However, he rose to prominence in the national party, and Lincoln appointed him minister to Russia in 1861. In 1862, he returned to the United States, and Lincoln sent him to Kentucky to get a sense of the state’s feelings about emancipation. Clay reported that most Kentuckians would remain loyal, and following the Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In 1863, Clay began his second tenure as minister to Russia and held that position until 1869. Upon his return to Kentucky, Clay grew dissatisfied with the Republican Party and in 1872 helped form the Liberal Republican faction. After the 1870s, Clay was mostly retired, living at White Hall, his Madison County home. He died on July 22, 1903.

David L. Smiley, The Lion of White Hall: The Life of Cassius Marcellus Clay (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962); H. Edward Richardson, Cassius Marcellus Clay: Firebrand of Freedom (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976).