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Senator Henry S. Foote is credited with the famous line "Had there been one such man in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 1860–'61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war." How true is this? Webster and Calhoun were both dead by the time 1853 started, the Whigs were crippled by Scott's loss in the year Clay died, and arguably Clay had become so eulogized because he was buried before Bleeding Kansas and the western Civil War broke out. Could he himself do much with a country no longer content to just let Slavery expand, the Slave Power demanding more respect, rights, tributes?

Would the Whigs still deteriorate with Clay alive, would he just retire or struggle on with a rump Constitutional Union Party, and how would various Clay men (most notably Lincoln) go with their hero still alive? Let's say he dies in 1867, at 90 years.
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