O'Connor and Kassebaum Baker Co-Chair International Statesmanship Effort

Lexington, KY - Located in the historic law office of Henry Clay in Lexington, Kentucky, The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship has been created by the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation to promote the principles and ideals of Henry Clay: statesmanship, diplomacy, dialogue and beneficial compromise. The Center will help educate a new generation in these skills and processes.
The Center is governed by a National Advisory Committee Co-Chaired by the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Honorable Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former United States Senator from Kansas.

Speaking on the legacy of Henry Clay, Justice O’Connor said, “Henry Clay has had an incredible impact upon the history of our nation. In his fifty years of public service, Clay served as a congressman, a diplomat, and a senator - and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Clay himself is said to have remarked, ‘Sir, I would rather be right than be President.’ His career skipped across the entire surface of American political waters, and we still feel the ripples of his actions today. He said: ‘The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity-unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.’ Henry Clay did not act solely for his generation. Henry Clay acted for posterity's sake. And for that, I am grateful.”

“I am honored to serve as Co-Chair with Justice O’Connor,” Senator Kassebaum Baker said. “We need to encourage the next generation on the importance of statesmanship. This requires an understanding of history, which is sadly lacking. We need a knowledge and appreciation of those who have gone before us."*

The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship will develop and operate an annual undergraduate short course which will expose top college juniors from every U.S. State to a curriculum in diplomacy, dialogue, listening skills, negotiation and mediation.

The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship Board is Co-Chaired by Robert N. Clay and Bill Giles. The Board President is D.G. Van Clief, Jr. Also serving on the Board are John Hall, John Carroll, Mira Ball, William Farish, Jr., Phyllis George, Tracy Farmer, Dr. Kay Clawson, Dr. Charles Shearer, Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh and Alex Boone. The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship Executive Director is Mindy Shannon Phelps.

The Center is working in partnership with Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate; The University of Kentucky Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce and the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration; Transylvania University and the Kentucky Society of Washington, D.C.

* The U.S. Senate Select Committee to nominate the five outstanding senators in history, chaired by Senator John F. Kennedy in 1957, chose Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette and Robert Taft (in that order) as the five preeminent senators in U.S. history.

“As one who has made some study of the life of Henry Clay, both in my writings and in my capacity as chairman (of this committee),” Kennedy wrote to Kentucky Historian Thomas D. Clark, “ I know that the careers of few other American statesman have played such a significant role in the development of our country and its political and economic institutions.”