Each US state loans two statues for display in the US Capitol Statuary. Kentucky has provided statues of Henry Clay and Ephraim McDowell. Clay served as a US Senator, a US Representative, a Kentucky Legislator, Speaker of the House, and Secretary of State under President Adams. Henry Clay died on June 29, 1852, and was the first person to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. McDowell practiced surgery and was a pioneer in abdominal surgical techniques, performing the first ovariotomy in the United States in 1809. One of his most famous patients was James K. Polk, for whom he removed a gall stone and repaired a hernia. In June 1830 McDowell was stricken with an acute attack of violent pain, nausea, and fever. He died on June 25, most likely a victim of appendicitis.
Henry Clay Statue, Charles H. Niehaus, National Statuary Hall, 1929*
The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the meeting place of the United States Congress and the seat of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government. It is located on Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Though no longer at the geographic center of the federal district, the Capitol forms the origin point for the district's street-numbering system and the district's four quadrants.
The original building was completed in 1800. It was partly destroyed in the 1814 burning of Washington, then was fully restored within five years. The building was later enlarged, with the addition of a massive dome, and extended wings with expanded chambers for the bicameral legislature, the House of Representatives in the south wing and the Senate in the north wing. Like the principal buildings of the executive and judicial branches, the Capitol is built in the neoclassic style and has a white exterior. Both its east and west elevations are formally referred to as fronts, though only the east front was intended for the reception of visitors and dignitaries.