CLAY, CASSIUS MARCELLUS American politician, was born in Madison county, Ky., on Oct. 19, 181o. He was the son of Green Clay (17 57-1826), a Kentucky soldier of the War of 1812 and a relative of Henry Clay. He was edu cated at Centre college, Danville, Ky., and at Yale, where he graduated in 1832. Influenced to some extent by William Lloyd Garrison, he became an advocate of the abolition of slavery. In 1835, 1837 and 184o he was elected as a Whig to the Kentucky legislature, where he advocated a system of gradual emancipation. In 1845 he established, at Lexington, Ky., an anti-slavery publica tion known as The True American, but in the same year his office and press were wrecked by a mob, and he removed the publication office to Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1856 he joined the Republican Party, and wielded considerable influence as a Southern represen tative in its councils. In 1861 he was sent by President Lincoln as minister to Russia; in 1862 he returned to America to accept a commission as major-general of volunteers, but in 1863 was re appointed to his former post at St. Petersburg, where he remained until 1869. Disapproving of the Republican policy of reconstruc tion, he left the party, and in 1872 was largely instrumental in securing the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. In the political campaign of 1884 he rejoined the Republican Party. He died at Whitehall, Ky., on July 22, 1903.
See his autobiography, The Life, Memoirs, Writings and Speeches of Cassius Marcellus Clay (Cincinnati, 1896) ; and The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay (edited with a "Memoir" by Horace Greeley, 1848).