Cassius Marcellus Clay Clay, Cassius Marcellus, 1810–1903,
American politician and diplomat, b. Madison co., Ky. Although
he came from a slaveholding family, Clay early came to abhor the
institution of slavery. In 1845 he established at Lexington,
Ky., the True American, an abolitionist paper. His press was
moved by his enemies to Cincinnati, and he continued its
publication there and at Louisville. He served as a captain in
the Mexican War and was captured and for a time imprisoned. In
1851 he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Kentucky
on an antislavery ticket; he captured enough votes, however, to
cause the defeat of the Whig candidate and thus hastened the
collapse of the Whigs in Kentucky. He was minister to Russia
(1861–62, 1863–69) and served briefly in the Civil War as a
major general of volunteers. See his autobiography (1866); his
writings, ed. by H. Greeley (1848, repr. 1969); biographies by
D. L. Smiley (1962) and W. H. Townsend (1967). The Columbia
Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copy