Remarks to the Henry Clay Center Student Congress
The following is a transcript of Dr. Carey’s address to the 2016 class of the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship. Good evening. My name is Seamus Carey, and I am the president of Transylvania University. You’ve probably already heard some of the history of this institution. Suffice it to say that when you stand on the steps of Old Morrison, it is quite probable that Henry Clay stood in the same spot with some relief in 1834 when the building was finally completed, under his direction. In fact, he may have felt some personal responsibility to oversee the construction of that building, since it was the servant of his young cousin Cassius Clay, then a student at Transylvania, who had fallen asleep while “blacking [Cassius’s] boots” in the original college building across the street in Gratz Park, allowing the candle lighting his work to ignite the entire structure. I want to thank the Henry Clay Center for giving me the last word this evening, though perhaps you should reserve judgment on that decision until after I finish. As you may have noticed, we academics have little capacity for recognizing “too much talk.” You have already listened to a lot of words, and I will try not to increase too much the buzzing in your heads. Still, this congress is an important event at an important time in your lives and in our nation’s history, and I want to take a
