Anne E. Marshall will discuss her book at a Filson Historical Society event on Dec. 4 at 6 p.m.

She spoke with LPM’s Bill Burton.

This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Bill Burton: We'll talk about the paradoxes of Clay in a minute. But can we just start with the basics of who Clay was?

Anne Marshall: Clay was a Kentuckian. He was born in Madison County, just south of Lexington, in 1810. He grew up in a privileged household, a slave-owning household, and inherited dozens of enslaved laborers from his father. He went on to become a budding politician in Kentucky in the 1830s and started to speak out against slavery. As you can imagine, that didn't necessarily make him very popular in a slave state like Kentucky, so he eventually turned his attention to national politics in

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