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Thomas Hart Benton 
 
Thomas Hart Benton 
 
UNIFORM EDITION 
 
 TH? STORY o 
 
 By 
 
 THEODORE ROOS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 IE AND COMPANY 
 1903 
 
T hernias, ti art 
 
UNIFORM EDITION 
 
 THOMAS HART BENTON 
 
 THE STORY OF His LIFE AND WORK 
 
 By 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 GEBBIE AND COMPANY 
 1903 
 
Copyright, 1886 
 Copyright, 1899 
 
 by 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Copyright, 1899 
 Copyright, 1903 
 
 by 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 This edition of "Thomas Hart Benton " is issued under special 
 arrangement with HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 GIF! 
 
PREFACE 
 
 L340 
 
 B /-~R7 
 IQ n 3 
 
 1 (J O 
 
 THE rugged figure of Thomas Hart Benton 
 has never been given its proper place in the 
 American political pantheon. His public 
 career covered a period during which the leaders 
 of our political thought were more often to be 
 found in the Senate than even in the presidential 
 chair, and his name has been dimmed because of 
 its association with the great names of Clay, Cal- 
 houn, and Webster. He was not, like Calhoun, 
 the leader, and almost the embodiment, of a move 
 ment which for a quarter of a century became of 
 ever-increasing importance in our national poli 
 tics, until it broke in the bloody crash of the Civil 
 War. He was not, like Webster or Clay, the idol 
 and leader of a great wing of his own party. In 
 point of ability he was not the equal of any one of 
 these three men ; but none the less he was a very 
 able man, and in rugged force of character, in 
 unwavering intensity of purpose, and in honorable 
 and disinterested devotion to the good of the 
 country as he saw it, he was not surpassed by 
 any of his associates, and he was equaled by but 
 very few. 
 
 iii 
 
IV 
 
 Preface 
 
 The man who represented Missouri when she 
 was the westernmost State, with all the frontier 
 virtues, but also with all the frontier limitations 
 and narrow prejudices, could not well avoid 
 making what, by our standard, we should call 
 mistakes; but we cannot refuse the meed of 
 generous praise to a man who was always entirely 
 honest and entirely courageous. Even at the 
 present day we have plenty of statesmen and 
 publicists who can study with advantage a public 
 career which had for its cardinal points the belief 
 in sound money, and stern devotion to the wel 
 fare of the entire Union, without regard to sec 
 tional prejudices. 
 
 During the years when the West first rose to 
 prominence under the lead of those western- 
 middle States, which were called the border States 
 because they came between the North and the 
 South, though nearer to the latter Benton 
 shared with Clay and Jackson the leadership of 
 the new forces which were actively engaged in 
 transforming the political no less than the social 
 structures of American life. When the West 
 broke into North and South, as the East had 
 before broken, and when the tide of disunion 
 rose rapidly from the Gulf northward to the 
 Potomac and the Missouri, Benton sternly refused 
 to abandon his principles, and went down beneath 
 the flood without a sign either of yielding or of 
 
Preface v 
 
 complaint. He belongs in that group of men to 
 whom our country, in the second great crisis of 
 its existence, owes most; for his name must be 
 numbered among the names of the Southern men 
 who, when the South went wrong, stood by the 
 nation as against their own section. It was easy 
 enough for the Northerner, in 1860 and the years 
 immediately preceding it, to stand for national 
 union, because all the people round about him so 
 stood. In like manner it was not very difficult 
 for a Northerner to favor the abolition of slavery. 
 But it was a very different thing for a Southerner 
 to take such a stand at that moment. Just as 
 infinitely more credit attaches to a Southerner 
 who stood on the slave question where Birney 
 and Cassius M. Clay stood than can possibly 
 attach to any of their Northern colleagues in the 
 work, so the statesmen and soldiers who deserved 
 best of the country were those who, against the 
 feeling of their localities, upheld the National 
 Union. During the Civil War these men were 
 typified by soldiers like Thomas and sailors like 
 Farragut; in the years that led up to the war 
 they were typified by statesmen like Benton of 
 Missouri. 
 
 WASHINGTON, April, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAQR 
 
 THE YOUNG WEST . i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 BENTON S EARLY LIFE AND ENTRY INTO THE SENATE. . . 22 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 EARLY YEARS IN THE SENATE 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE ELECTION OF JACKSON, AND THE SPOILS SYSTEM. . . 66 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NULLIFIERS 84 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 JACKSON AND BENTON MAKE WAR ON THE BANK . . . 109 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SURPLUS 136 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE SLAVE QUESTION APPEARS IN POLITICS 149 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CHILDREN S TEETH ARE SET ON EDGE 174 
 
 vii 
 
viii Contents 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PAOB 
 
 LAST DAYS OP THE JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 198 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE PRESIDENT WITHOUT A PARTY 225 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 BOUNDARY TROUBLES WITH ENGLAND 246 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS DANCE TO THE SLAVE BARONS 
 
 PIPING 275 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 SLAVERY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES 300 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THE LOSING FIGHT 322 
 
 INDEX 347 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THOMAS HART BENTON . . . Frontispiece 
 From an Engraving by J. Rogers. 
 
 ROGER B. TANEY I2 ^ 
 
 From a Daguerreotype by Bennett. 
 
 JOHN C. FREMONT ..... 267 
 From a Photograph by Brady. 
 
 SAMUEL HOUSTON 310 
 
 From a Daguerreotype by B. P. Page. 
 
 ix 
 
THOMAS HART BENTON 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE YOUNG WEST. 
 
 EVEN before the end of the Revolutionary 
 War the movement had begun which was 
 to change in form a straggling chain of 
 seaboard republics into a mighty continental 
 nation, the great bulk of whose people would live 
 to the westward of the Appalachian Mountains. 
 The hardy and restless backwoodsmen, dwelling 
 along the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies, were 
 already crossing the mountain crests and hewing 
 their way into the vast, somber forests of the 
 Mississippi basin ; and for the first time English- 
 speaking communities were growing up along 
 waters whose outlet was into the Gulf of Mexico 
 and not into the Atlantic Ocean. Among these 
 communities Kentucky and Tennessee were the 
 earliest to form themselves into States; and 
 around them, as a nucleus, other States of the 
 woodland and the prairie were rapidly developed, 
 
2 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 until, by the close of the second decade in the 
 present century, the region between the Great 
 Lakes and the Gulf was almost solidly filled in, 
 and finally, in 1820, by the admission of Missouri, 
 the Union held within its borders a political body 
 whose whole territory lay to the west of the Mis 
 sissippi. 
 
 All the men who founded these States were of 
 much the same type; they were rough frontiers 
 men, of strong will and adventurous temper, ac 
 customed to the hard, barren, and yet strangely 
 fascinating life of those who dwell as pioneers in 
 the wilderness. Moreover, they were nearly all 
 of the same blood. The people of New York and 
 New England were as yet filling out their own 
 territory; it was not till many years afterward 
 that their stock became the predominant one in 
 the Northwestern country. Most of the men who 
 founded the new States north of the Ohio came 
 originally from the old States south of the Poto 
 mac; Virginia and North Carolina were the first 
 of the original thirteen to thrust forth their chil 
 dren in masses, that they might shift for them 
 selves in the then untrodden West. 
 
 But though these early Western pioneers were 
 for the most part of Southern stock, they were by 
 no means of the same stamp as the men who then 
 and thereafter formed the ruling caste in the old 
 slaveholding States. They were the mountaineers, 
 
The Young West 3 
 
 the men of the foothills and uplands, who lived in 
 what were called the backwater counties. Many 
 of them were themselves of northern origin. In 
 striking contrast to the somewhat sluggish and 
 peaceful elements going to make up the rest of 
 its heterogeneous population, Pennsylvania also 
 originally held within its boundaries many mem 
 bers of that most fiery and restless race, the 
 Scotch-Irish. These naturally drew toward the 
 wilder, western parts of the State, settling along 
 the slopes of the numerous inland mountain ridges 
 running parallel to the Atlantic coast; and from 
 thence they drifted southward through the long 
 valleys, until they met and mingled with their 
 kinsfolk of Virginia and the Carolinas, when the 
 movement again trended toward the West. In 
 a generation or two, all, whether their forefathers 
 were English, Scotch, Irish, or, as was often the 
 case, German and Huguenot, were welded into> 
 one people ; and in a very short time the stern and 
 hard surroundings of their life had hammered this 
 people into a peculiar and characteristically Amer 
 ican type, which to this day remains almost un 
 changed. In their old haunts we still see the 
 same tall, gaunt men, with strongly marked faces 
 and saturnine, resolute eyes ; men who may pass 
 half their days in listless idleness, but who are also 
 able to show on occasion the fiercest intensity of 
 purpose and the most sustained energy of action. 
 
4 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 We see them, moreover, in many places, even 
 across to the Pacific coast and down to the Rio 
 Grande. For after thronging through the gaps 
 and passes of the Appalachians, and penetrating 
 the forest region to the outskirts of the treeless 
 country beyond, the whilom mountaineers and 
 woodsmen, the wielders of the axe and rifle, then 
 streamed off far to the West and South and even 
 to the Northwest, their lumbering, white-topped 
 wagons being, even to the present moment, a 
 familiar sight to those who travel over the prairies 
 and the great plains ; while it is their descendants 
 who, in the saddle instead of afoot, and with rope 
 and revolver instead of axe and rifle, now form 
 the bulk of the reckless horsemen who spend their 
 lives in guarding the wandering cattle herds that 
 graze over the vast, arid plains of the " Far West." 
 The method of settlement of these States of the 
 Mississippi valley had nothing whatever in com 
 mon with the way in which California and the 
 Australian colonies were suddenly filled up by the 
 promiscuous overflow of a civilized population, 
 which had practically no fear of any resistance 
 from the stunted and scanty native races. It was 
 far more closely akin to the tribe movements of 
 the Germanic peoples in time past ; to that move 
 ment, for example, by which the Juttish and Low 
 Dutch sea-thieves on the coast of Britain worked 
 their way inland at the cost of the Cymric Celts. 
 
The Young West 5 
 
 The early settlers of the territory lying immedi 
 ately west of the Alleghanies were all of the same 
 kind ; they were in search of homes, not of riches, 
 and their actions were planned accordingly, except 
 in so far as they were influenced by mere restless 
 love of adventure and excitement. Individuals 
 and single families, of course, often started off by 
 themselves ; but for the most part the men moved 
 in bands, with their wives and their children, their 
 cattle and their few household goods ; each settler 
 being from the necessity of the case also a fighter, 
 ready, and often forced, to do desperate battle in 
 defense of himself and his family. Where such a 
 band or little party settled, there would gradually 
 grow up a village or small town; for instance, 
 where those renowned pioneers and heroes of the 
 backwoods, Boon and Harrod, first formed per 
 manent settlements after they had moved into 
 Kentucky, now stands the towns of Boonsboro and 
 Harrodsburg. 
 
 The country whither these settlers went was not 
 one into which timid men would willingly venture, 
 and the founders of the West were perforce men 
 of stern stuff, who from the very beginning formed 
 a most warlike race. It is impossible to under 
 stand aright the social and political life of the 
 section, unless we keep prominently before our 
 minds that it derived its distinguishing traits 
 largely from the extremely militant character 
 
6 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 acquired by all the early settlers during the long 
 drawn out warfare in which the first two genera 
 tions were engaged. The land was already held 
 by powerful Indian tribes and confederacies, who 
 waged war after war, of the most ferocious and 
 bloody character, against the men of the border, in 
 the effort to avert their inevitable doom, or at least 
 to stem for the time being the invasion of the 
 swelling tide of white settlement. At the present 
 time, when an Indian uprising is a matter chiefly 
 of annoyance, and dangerous only to scattered, 
 outlying settlers, it is difficult to realize the for 
 midable nature of the savage Indian wars waged 
 at the end of the last and the beginning of the 
 present centuries. The red nations were then 
 really redoubtable enemies, able to send into the 
 field thousands of well-armed warriors, whose 
 ferocious bravery and skill rendered them quite as 
 formidable antagonists as trained European sol 
 diers would have been. Warfare with them did 
 not affect merely outlying farms or hamlets; it 
 meant a complete stoppage of the white move 
 ment westward, and great and imminent danger 
 even to the large communities already in exis 
 tence, a state of things which would have to 
 continue until the armies raised among the pio 
 neers were able, in fair shock of battle, to shatter 
 the strength of their red foes. The victories of 
 Wayne and Harrison were conditions precedent 
 
The Young West 7 
 
 to the opening of the Ohio valley ; Kentucky was 
 won by a hundred nameless and bloody fights, 
 whose heroes, like Shelby and Sevier, afterward 
 rose to prominent rank in civil life; and it was 
 only after a hard-fought campaign and slaughter 
 ing victories that the Tennesseeans were able to 
 break the power of the great Creek confederacy, 
 which was thrust in between them and what were 
 at that time the French and Spanish lands lying 
 to the south and southwest. 
 
 The founders of our Western States were val 
 iant warriors as well as hardy pioneers, and from 
 the very first their fighting was not confined to 
 uncivilized foes. It was they who at King s Moun 
 tain slew gallant Ferguson, and completely de 
 stroyed his little army; it was from their ranks 
 that most of Morgan s men were recruited, when 
 that grizzled old bush-fighter smote Tarleton so 
 roughly at the battle of the Cowpens. These two 
 blows crippled Cornwallis, and were among the 
 chief causes of his final overthrow. At last, dur 
 ing the War of 1812, there was played out the 
 final act in the military drama of which the West 
 had been the stage during the lifetime of a genera 
 tion. For this war had a twofold aspect : on the 
 seaboard it was regarded as a contest for the 
 rights of our sailors, and as a revolt against Great 
 Britain s domineering insolence ; west of the moun 
 tains, on the other hand, it was simply a renewal 
 
8 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 on a large scale of the Indian struggles, all the 
 red-skinned peoples joining together in a great and 
 last effort to keep the lands which were being 
 wrested from them; and there Great Britain s 
 part was chiefly that of ally to the savages, help 
 ing them with her gold and with her well-drilled 
 mercenary troops. The battle of the Thames is 
 memorable rather because of the defeat and death 
 of Tecumseh than because of the flight of Proctor 
 and the capture of his British regulars; and for 
 the opening of the Southwest the ferocious fight 
 at the Horseshoe Bend was almost as important 
 as the far more famous conflict of New Orleans. 
 
 The War of 1812 brought out conspicuously the 
 solidarity of interest in the West. The people 
 there were then all pretty much of the same blood ; 
 and they made common cause against outsiders in 
 the military field, exactly as afterward they for 
 some time acted together politically. Farther 
 eastward, on the Niagara frontier, the fighting 
 was done by the troops of New York and New 
 England, unassisted by the Southern States ; and 
 in turn the latter had to shift for themselves when 
 Washington was burned and Baltimore menaced. 
 It was far otherwise in the regions lying beyond 
 the Appalachians. Throughout all the fighting in 
 the Northwest, where Ohio was the State most 
 menaced, the troops of Kentucky formed the bulk 
 of the American army, and it was the charge of 
 
The Young West 9 
 
 their mounted riflemen which at a blow won the 
 battle of the Thames. Again, on that famous 
 January morning, when it seemed as if the fair 
 Creole city was already in Pakenham s grasp, it 
 was the wild soldiery of Tennessee who, lolling 
 behind their mud breastworks, peered out through 
 the lifting fog at the scarlet array of the English 
 veterans, as the latter, fresh from their long and 
 unbroken series of victories over the best troops 
 of Europe, advanced, for the first time, to meet 
 defeat. 
 
 This solidarity of interest and feeling on the 
 part of the trans-Appalachian communities is a 
 factor often not taken into account in relating 
 the political history of the early part of this cen 
 tury; most modern writers (who keep forgetting 
 that the question of slavery was then not one- 
 tenth as absorbing as it afterward became) 
 apparently deeming that the line of demarcation 
 between North and South was at that period, as 
 it has since in reality become, as strongly defined 
 west of the mountains as east of them. That such 
 was not the case was due to several different 
 causes. The first comers into Tennessee and 
 Kentucky belonged to the class of so-called poor 
 whites, who owned few or no slaves, and who were 
 far less sectionally Southern in their feelings than 
 were the rich planters of the low, alluvial plains 
 toward the coast of the Atlantic; and though a 
 
io Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 slave-owning population quickly followed the first 
 pioneers, yet the latter had imprinted a stamp on 
 the character of the two States which was never 
 wholly effaced, as witness the tens of thousands 
 of soldiers which both, even the more southern of 
 the two, furnished to the Union army in the Civil 
 War. 
 
 If this immigration made Kentucky and Ten 
 nessee, and afterward Missouri, less distinctively 
 Southern in character than the south Atlantic 
 States, it at the same time, by furnishing the first 
 and for some time the most numerous element in 
 the population of the States north of the Ohio, 
 made the latter less characteristically Northern 
 than was the case with those lying east of them. 
 Up to 1 8 io Indiana kept petitioning Congress to 
 allow slavery within her borders ; Illinois, in the 
 early days, felt as hostile toward Massachusetts 
 as did Missouri. Moreover, at first the Southern 
 States west of the mountains greatly outweighed 
 the Northern, both in numbers and importance. 
 
 Thus several things came about. In the first 
 place, all the communities across the Alleghanies 
 originally felt themselves to be closely knit to 
 gether by ties of blood, sentiment, and interest; 
 they felt that they were, taking them altogether, 
 Western as opposed to Eastern. In the next place, 
 they were at first Southern rather than Northern 
 in their feeling. But, in the third place, they were 
 
The Young West n 
 
 by no means so extremely Southern as were the 
 southern Atlantic States. This was the way in 
 which they looked at themselves ; and this was the 
 way in which at that time others looked at them. 
 In our day Kentucky is regarded as an integral 
 portion of the solid South ; but the greatest of her 
 sons, Clay, was known to his own generation, not 
 as a Southern statesman, but as "Harry of the 
 West." Of the two presidents, Harrison and Tay 
 lor, whom the Whigs elected, one lived in Ohio 
 and one in Louisiana ; but both were chosen sim 
 ply as Western men, and, as a matter of fact, both 
 were born in Virginia. Andrew Jackson s victory 
 over Adams was in some slight sense a triumph of 
 the South over the North, but it was far more a 
 triumph of the West over the East. Webster s 
 famous sneer at old Zachary Taylor was aimed at 
 him as a "frontier colonel;" in other words, 
 though Taylor had a large plantation in Louisiana, 
 Webster and many others besides looked upon 
 him as the champion of the rough democracy of 
 the West rather than as the representative of the 
 polished slaveholders of the South. 
 
 Thus, during the first part of this century, the 
 term "Western" was as applicable to the States 
 lying south of the Ohio as to those lying north of 
 it. Moreover, at first, the Central, or, as they 
 were more usually termed, the Border States, were 
 more populous and influential than were those on 
 
12 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 either side of them, and so largely shaped the gen 
 eral tone of Western feeling. While the voters 
 in these States, whether Whigs or Democrats, ac 
 cepted as their leaders men like Clay in Kentucky, 
 Benton in Missouri, and Andrew Jackson in Ten 
 nessee, it could be taken for granted that on the 
 whole they felt for the South against the North, 
 but much more for the West against the East, 
 and most strongly of all for the Union as against 
 any section whatsoever. Many influences came 
 together to start and keep alive this feeling; but 
 one, more potent than all the others combined, was 
 working steadily and with ever-increasing power 
 against it ; and when slavery finally brought about 
 a break between the Northern and Southern States 
 of the West as complete as that in the East, then 
 the Democrats of the stamp of Jackson and Benton 
 disappeared as completely from public life as did 
 the Whigs of the stamp of Clay. 
 
 Benton s long political career can never be 
 thoroughly understood unless it is kept in mind 
 that he was primarily a Western and not a South 
 ern statesman ; and it owes its especial interest to 
 the fact that during its continuance the West first 
 rose to power, acting as a unit, and to the further 
 fact that it was brought to a close by the same 
 causes which soon afterward broke up the West 
 exactly as the East was already broken. Benton 
 was not one of the few statesmen who have left the 
 
The Young West 13 
 
 indelible marks of their own individuality upon 
 our history ; but he was, perhaps, the most typical 
 representative of the statesmanship of the Middle 
 West at the time when the latter gave the tone to 
 the political thought of the entire Mississippi val 
 ley. The political school which he represented 
 came to its fullest development in the so-called 
 Border States of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mis 
 souri, and swayed the destinies of the West so long 
 as the States to the north as well as the States to 
 the south were content to accept the leadership 
 of those that lay between them. It came to an 
 end and disappeared from sight when people north 
 of the Ohio at last set up their own standard, and 
 when, after some hesitation, the Border States 
 threw in their lot with the other side and con 
 cluded to follow the Southern communities, which 
 they had hitherto led. Benton was one of those 
 public men who formulate and express, rather than 
 shape, the thought of the people who stand behind 
 them and whom they represent. A man of strong 
 intellect and keen energy, he was for many years 
 the foremost representative of at least one phase of 
 that thought ; being, also, a man of high principle 
 and determined courage, when a younger genera 
 tion had grown up and the bent of the thought had 
 changed, he declined to change with it, bravely 
 accepting political defeat as the alternative, and 
 going down without flinching a hair s breadth 
 
14 Thomas Hart Ben ton 
 
 from the ground on which he had always stood. 
 To understand his public actions as well as his 
 political ideas and principles it is, of course, neces 
 sary to know at least a little of the men among 
 whom he lived and from whom he sprang, the 
 men who were the first of our people to press out 
 beyond the limits of the thirteen old States ; who 
 filled Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mis 
 souri, and who for so long a time were the domi 
 nant class all through the West, until, at last, 
 the flood of Northeastern immigration completely 
 swamped their influence north of the Ohio, while 
 along the Gulf coast the political control slipped 
 from their hands into the grasp of the great planter 
 class. 
 
 The wood-choppers, game-hunters, and Indian- 
 fighters, who first came over the mountains, were 
 only the forerunners of the more regular settlers 
 who followed them ; but these last had much the 
 same attributes as their predecessors. For many 
 years after the settlements were firmly rooted, the 
 life of the settlers was still subject to all the perils 
 of the wilderness. Above all, the constant war 
 fare in which they were engaged for nearly thirty- 
 five years, and which culminated in the battle of 
 New Orleans, left a deep and lasting imprint on 
 their character. Their incessant wars were waged 
 almost wholly by the settlers themselves, with 
 comparatively little help from the federal govern- 
 
The Young West 15 
 
 ment, and with hardly any regular troops as allies. 
 A backwoods levy, whether raised to meet an 
 Indian inroad or to march against the disciplined 
 armies of the British, was merely a force of volun 
 teers, made up from among the full-grown male 
 settlers, who were induced to join either from 
 motives of patriotism, or from love of adventure, 
 or because they felt that their homes and belong 
 ings were in danger from which they could only 
 extricate them by their own prowess. Every set 
 tler thus became more or less of a soldier, was 
 always expert with the rifle, and was taught to 
 rely upon his own skill and courage for his pro 
 tection. But the military service in which he 
 was from time to time engaged was of such a 
 lawless kind, and was carried on with such utter 
 absence of discipline, that it did not accustom 
 him in the least to habits of self-command, or 
 render him inclined to brook the exercise of 
 authority by an outsider; so that the Western 
 people grew up with warlike traditions and habits 
 of thought, accustomed to give free rein to their 
 passions, and to take into their own hands the 
 avenging of real or supposed wrongs, but without 
 any of the love for order and for acting in concert 
 with their fellows which characterize those who 
 have seen service in regular armies. On the 
 contrary, the chief effect of this long-continued 
 and harassing border warfare was to make more 
 
16 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 marked the sullen and almost defiant self-reliance 
 of the pioneer, and to develop his peculiarly Amer 
 ican spirit of individual self-sufficiency, his im 
 patience of outside interference or control, to a 
 degree not known elsewhere, even on this conti 
 nent. It also gave a distinct military cast to his 
 way of looking at territory which did not belong 
 to him. He stood where he was because he was 
 a conqueror; he had wrested his land by force 
 from its rightful Indian lords; he fully intended 
 to repeat the same feat as soon as he should reach 
 the Spanish lands lying to the west and southwest ; 
 he would have done so in the case of French Louis 
 iana if it had not been that the latter was pur 
 chased, and was thus saved from being taken by 
 force of arms. This belligerent, or, more properly 
 speaking, piratical way of looking at neighboring 
 territory, was very characteristic of the West, and 
 was at the root of the doctrine of " manifest 
 destiny." 
 
 All the early settlers, and most of those who 
 came after them, were poor, living narrow lives 
 fraught with great hardship, and varying between 
 toil and half -aimless roving ; even when the condi 
 tions of their life became easier, it was some time 
 before the influence of their old existence ceased to 
 make itself felt in their way of looking at things. 
 The first pioneers were, it is true, soon followed 
 by great slave owners ; and by degrees there grew 
 
The Young West 17 
 
 up a clan of large landed proprietors and stock- 
 raisers, akin to the planter caste which was so all- 
 powerful along the coast; but it was never rela 
 tively either so large or so influential as the latter, 
 and was not separated from the rest of the white 
 population by anything like so wide a gap as that 
 which, in the southern Atlantic and Gulf States, 
 marked the difference between the rich growers 
 of cotton, rice, and sugar, and the squalid "poor 
 whites " or " crackers. " 
 
 The people of the Border States were thus 
 mainly composed of small landowners, scattered 
 throughout the country; they tilled their small 
 farms for themselves, were hewers of their own 
 wood and drawers of their own water, and for 
 generations remained accustomed to and skilful 
 in the use of the rifle. The pioneers of the Middle 
 West were not dwellers in towns ; they kept to the 
 open country, where each man could shift for him 
 self without help or hindrance from his neighbors, 
 scorning the irksome restraints and the lack of 
 individual freedom of city life. They built but 
 few cities of any size ; the only two really impor 
 tant ones of whose inhabitants they formed any 
 considerable part, St. Louis and New Orleans, 
 were both founded by the French long before our 
 people came across the mountains into the Missis 
 sippi valley. Their life was essentially a country 
 life, alike for the rich and for the bulk of the 
 
is Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 population. The few raw frontier towns and 
 squalid, straggling villages were neither seats of 
 superior culture nor yet centers for the distribu 
 tion of educated thought, as in the North. Large 
 tracts of land remained always populated by a 
 class of backwoodsmen differing but little from 
 the first comers. Such was the district from 
 which grand, simple old Davy Crockett went to 
 Washington as a Whig Congressman ; and perhaps 
 there was never a quainter figure in our national 
 legislature than that of the grim old rifleman, 
 who shares with Daniel Boon the honor of stand 
 ing foremost in the list of our mighty hunters. 
 Crockett and his kind had little in common with 
 the men who ruled supreme in the politics of most 
 of the Southern States; and even at this day 
 many of their descendants in the wooded moun 
 tain lands are Republicans ; for when the Middle 
 States had lost the control of the West, and when 
 those who had hitherto followed such leaders as 
 Jackson, Clay, and Benton drifted with the tide 
 that set so strongly to the South, it was only the 
 men of the type of dogged, stubborn old Crockett 
 who dared to make head against it. But, indeed, 
 one of the characteristics of the people with whom 
 we are dealing was the slowness and suspicion 
 with which they received a new idea, and the 
 tenacity with which they clung to one that they 
 had at last adopted. 
 
The Young West 19 
 
 They were above all a people of strong, virile 
 character, certain to make their weight felt either 
 for good or for evil. They had many virtues 
 which can fairly be called great, and their faults 
 were equally strongly marked. They were not a 
 thrifty people, nor one given to long-sustained 
 drudging work ; there were not then, nor are there 
 now, to be found in this land such comfortable, 
 prosperous homes and farms as those which dot all 
 the country where dwell the men of Northeastern 
 stock. They were not, as a rule, even ordinarily 
 well educated; the public school formed no such 
 important feature in their life as it did in the life 
 of their fellow-citizens farther north. They had 
 narrow, bitter prejudices and dislikes; the hard 
 and dangerous lives they had led had run their 
 character into a stern and almost forbidding 
 mold. They valued personal prowess very 
 highly, and respected no man who did not pos 
 sess the strongest capacity for self-help, and 
 who could not shift for himself in any danger. 
 They felt an intense, although perhaps ignorant, 
 pride in and love for their country, and looked 
 upon all the lands hemming in the United States 
 as territory which they or their children should 
 some day inherit; for they were a race of mas 
 terful spirit, and accustomed to regard with easy 
 tolerance any but the most flagrant violations of 
 law. They prized highly such qualities as cour- 
 
20 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 age, loyalty, truth, and patriotism; but they 
 were, as a whole, poor, and not overscrupulous 
 of the rights of others, nor yet with the nicest 
 sense of money obligations ; so that the history of 
 their state legislation affecting the rights of debtor 
 and creditor, whether public or private, in hard 
 times, is not pleasant reading for an American who 
 is proud of his country. Their passions, once roused, 
 were intense, and if they really wished anything 
 they worked for it with indomitable persistency. 
 There was little that was soft or outwardly 
 attractive in their character: it was stern, rude, 
 and hard, like the lives they led ; but it was the 
 character of those who were every inch men, and 
 who were Americans through to the very heart s 
 core. In their private lives their lawless and arro 
 gant freedom and lack of self-restraint produced 
 much gross licentiousness and barbarous cruelty ; 
 and every little frontier community could tell its 
 story of animal savagery as regards the home rela 
 tions of certain of its members. Yet in spite of this 
 they, as a whole, felt the family ties strongly, and 
 in the main had quite a high standard of private 
 morality. Many of them, at any rate, were, 
 according to their lights, deeply and sincerely 
 religious ; though even their religion showed their 
 strong, coarse-fibred, narrow natures. Episco- 
 palianism was the creed of the rich slave owner, 
 who dwelt along the seaboard; but the Western 
 
The Young West 21 
 
 settlers belonged to some one or other of the divis 
 ions of the great Methodist and Baptist churches. 
 They were as savagely in earnest about this as 
 about everything else ; meekness, mildness, broad 
 liberality, and gentle tolerance of difference in 
 religious views were not virtues they appreciated. 
 They were always ready to do battle for their 
 faith, and, indeed, had to do it, as it was quite a 
 common amusement for the wilder and more 
 lawless members of the community to try to 
 break up by force the great camp-meetings which 
 formed so conspicuous a feature in the social and 
 religious life of the country. For even irreligion 
 took the form of active rebellion against God, 
 rather than disbelief in His existence. 
 
 Physically they were and are, especially in Ken 
 tucky, the finest members of our race ; an exami 
 nation of the statistics relating to the volunteers 
 in the Civil War shows that the natives of no other 
 State, and the men from no foreign country what 
 soever, came up to them in bodily development. 
 
 Such a people, in choosing men to represent 
 them in the national councils, would naturally 
 pay small heed to refined, graceful, and cultivated 
 statesmanship; their allegiance would be given 
 to men of abounding vitality, of rugged intellect, 
 and of indomitable will. No better or more char 
 acteristic possessor of these attributes could be 
 imagined than Thomas Benton. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 BENTON S EARLY LIFE AND ENTRY INTO THE 
 
 SENATE. 
 
 THOMAS HART BENTON was born on 
 March 14, 1782, near Hillsborough, in 
 Orange County, N. C., the same State that 
 fifteen years before, almost to a day, had seen the 
 birth of the great political chief whose most promi 
 nent supporter he in after life became. Benton, 
 however, came of good colonial stock; and his 
 early surroundings were not characterized by the 
 squalid poverty that marked Jackson s, though 
 the difference in the social condition of the two 
 families was of small consequence on the frontier, 
 where caste was, and is, almost unknown, and 
 social equality is not a mere figure of speech, 
 particularly it was not so at that time in the 
 Southwest, where there were no servants except 
 black slaves, and where even what in the North 
 would be called "hired help" was almost an un 
 known quantity. 
 
 Benton s father, who was a lawyer in good stand 
 ing at the North Carolina bar, died when the boy 
 was very young, leaving him to be brought up by 
 his Virginia mother. She was a woman of force, 
 and, for her time, of much education. She herself 
 
 22 
 
Early Life 23 
 
 began the training of her son s mind, studying 
 with him history and biography, while he also, of 
 course, had access to his father s law library. The 
 home in which he was brought up was, for that 
 time and for that part of the country, straitlaced ; 
 his mother, though a Virginian, had many traits 
 which belonged rather to the descendants of the 
 Puritans, and possessed both their strength of 
 character and their austerely religious spirit. Al 
 though living in a roistering age, among a class 
 peculiarly given to all the coarser kinds of plea 
 sure, and especially to drink and every form of 
 gambling, she nevertheless preserved the most 
 rigid decorum and morality in her own household, 
 frowning especially upon all intemperance, and 
 never permitting a pack of cards to be found 
 within her doors. She was greatly beloved and 
 respected by the son whose mind she did so much 
 to mould, and she lived to see him become one of 
 the foremost statesmen of the country. 
 
 Young Benton was always fond of reading. He 
 began his studies at home, and continued them at 
 a grammar school taught by a young New Eng- 
 lander of good ability, a very large proportion of 
 the school-teachers of the country then coming 
 from New England; indeed, school-teachers and 
 pedlers were, on the whole, the chief contribu 
 tions made by the Northeast to the personnel of 
 the new Southwest. Benton then began a course 
 
24 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina, 
 but broke off before completing it, as his mother 
 decided to move her family westward to the almost 
 unbroken wilderness near Nashville, Term., where 
 his father had left them a large tract of land. But 
 he was such an insatiable student and reader that 
 he rapidly acquired a very extensive knowledge, 
 not only of law, but of history and even of Latin 
 and English literature, and thus became a well- 
 read and cultivated, indeed a learned man ; though 
 his frequent displays of learning and knowledge 
 were sometimes marked by a trace of that self- 
 complacent, amusing pedantry so apt to charac 
 terize a really well-educated man who lives in a 
 community in which he believes, and with which 
 he has thoroughly identified himself, but whose 
 members are for the most part below the average 
 in mental cultivation. 
 
 The Bentons founded a little town, named after 
 them, and in which, of course, they took their 
 position as leaders and rich landed proprietors. It 
 lay on the very outskirts of the Indian country; 
 indeed, the great war trail of the southern Indians 
 led right through the settlement, and they at all 
 times swarmed around it. The change from the 
 still somewhat rude civilization of North Carolina 
 to the wilderness on the border was far less abrupt 
 and startling then than would be the case under 
 similar circumstances now, and the Bentons soon 
 
Early Life 25 
 
 identified themselves completely with the life and 
 interests of the people around them. They even 
 abandoned the Episcopalianism of their old home, 
 and became Methodists, like their neighbors. 
 Young Benton himself had his hands full, at 
 first, in attending to his great backwoods farm, 
 tilled by slaves, and in pushing the growth of the 
 settlement by building first a rude log school- 
 house (he himself taught school at one time, while 
 studying law), and a meeting-house of the same 
 primitive construction, then mills, roads, bridges, 
 and so forth. The work hardened and developed 
 him, and he readily enough turned into a regular 
 frontiersman of the better and richer sort. The 
 neighboring town of Nashville was a raw, preten 
 tious place, where horse-racing, cock-fighting, 
 gambling, whisky - drinking, and the various 
 coarse vices which masquerade as pleasures in 
 frontier towns, all throve in rank luxuriance. It 
 was somewhat of a change from Benton s early 
 training, but he took to it kindly, and though 
 never a vicious or debauched man, he bore his full 
 share in the savage brawls, the shooting and stab 
 bing affrays, which went to make up one of the 
 leading features in the excessively unattractive 
 social life of the place and epoch. 
 
 At that time dueling prevailed more or less 
 throughout the United States, and in the South 
 and West to an extent never before or since 
 
26 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 attained. On the frontier, not only did every man 
 of spirit expect now and then to be called on to 
 engage in a duel, but he also had to make up his 
 mind to take occasional part in bloody street- 
 fights. Tennessee, the State where Benton then 
 had his home, was famous for the affrays that 
 took place within its borders ; and that they were 
 common enough among the people at large may 
 be gathered from the fact that they were of con 
 tinual occurrence among judges, high state 
 officials, and in the very legislature itself, where 
 senators and assemblymen were always becoming 
 involved in undignified rows and foolish squabbles, 
 apparently without fear of exciting any unfavor 
 able comment, as witness Davy Crockett s naive 
 account of his early experiences as a backwoods 
 member of the Tennessee Assembly. Like Jack 
 son, Benton killed his man in a duel. This was 
 much later, in 1817, when he was a citizen of Mis 
 souri. His opponent was a lawyer named Lucas. 
 They fought twice, on Bloody Island, near St. 
 Louis. On the first occasion both were wounded ; 
 on the second Lucas was killed. The latter came 
 of a truculent family. A recent biographer of his 
 father, Judge John R. Lucas, remarks, with re 
 freshing unconsciousness of the grotesque humor 
 of the chronicle : " This gentleman was one of the 
 most remarkable men who ever settled west of 
 the Mississippi River. . . , Towards the close 
 
Early Life 27 
 
 of his life Judge Lucas became melancholy and 
 dejected the result of domestic affliction, for six 
 of his sons met death by violence." One feels 
 curious to know how the other sons died. 
 
 But the most famous of Benton s affrays was 
 that with Jackson himself, in 1813. This rose out 
 of a duel of laughable rather than serious char 
 acter, in which Benton s brother was worsted by 
 General Carroll, afterward one of Jackson s lieu 
 tenants at New Orleans. The encounter itself 
 took place between the Benton brothers on one 
 side, and on the other, Jackson, General Coffee, 
 also of New Orleans fame, and another friend. 
 The place was a great rambling Nashville inn, and 
 the details were so intricate that probably not 
 even the participants themselves knew exactly 
 what had taken place, while all the witnesses im 
 partially contradicted each other and themselves. 
 At any rate, Jackson was shot and Benton was 
 pitched headlong downstairs, and all the other 
 combatants were more or less damaged; but it 
 ended in Jackson being carried off by his friends, 
 leaving the Bentons masters of the field, where 
 they strutted up and down and indulged in a good 
 deal of loud bravado. Previous to this Benton 
 and Jackson had been on the best of terms, and 
 although there was naturally a temporary break 
 in their friendship, yet it proved strong enough 
 in the end to stand even such a violent wrench as 
 
28 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 that given by this preposterously senseless and 
 almost fatal brawl. They not only became com 
 pletely reconciled, but eventually even the closest 
 and warmest of personal and political friends ; for 
 Benton was as generous and forgiving as he was 
 hot-tempered, and Jackson s ruder nature was at 
 any rate free from any small meanness or malice. 
 
 In spite of occasional interludes of this kind, 
 which must have given a rather ferocious fillip to 
 his otherwise monotonous life, Benton completed 
 his legal studies, was admitted to the bar, and 
 began to practise as a frontier lawyer -at Franklin. 
 Very soon, however, he for the first time entered 
 the more congenial field of politics, and in 1811 
 served a single term in the lower house of the Ten 
 nessee Legislature. Even thus early he made his 
 mark. He had a bill passed introducing the cir 
 cuit system into the state judiciary, a reform of 
 much importance, especially to the poorer class of 
 litigants ; and he also introduced, and had enacted 
 into a law, a bill providing that a slave should 
 have the same right to the full benefit of a jury 
 trial as would a white man suffering under the 
 same accusation. This last measure is note 
 worthy as foreshadowing the position which 
 Benton afterward took in national politics, where 
 he appeared as a slaveholder, it is true, but as one 
 of the most enlightened and least radical of his 
 class. Its passage also showed the tendency of 
 
Early Life 29 
 
 Southern opinion at the time, which was un 
 doubtedly in the direction of bettering the con 
 dition of the blacks, though the events of the 
 next few years produced such a violent revulsion 
 of feeling concerning the negro race that this cur 
 rent of public opinion was completely reversed. 
 Benton, however, was made of sturdy stuff, and 
 as he grew older his views on the question did not 
 alter as did those of most of his colleagues. 
 
 Shortly after he left the legislature the War of 
 1812 broke out, and its events impressed on Ben- 
 ton another of what soon became his cardinal 
 principles. The war was brought on by the 
 South and West, the Democrats all favoring it, 
 while the Federalists, forming the then anti- 
 Democratic party, especially in the Northeast, 
 opposed it ; and finally their more extreme mem 
 bers, at the famous Hartford Convention, passed 
 resolutions supposed to tend toward the dissolu 
 tion of the Union, and which brought upon the 
 party the bitter condemnation of their antag 
 onists. Says Benton himself: "At the time of 
 its first appearance the right of Recession was 
 repulsed and repudiated by the Democracy gen 
 erally. . . . The leading language [in respect to 
 it south of the Potomac was that no State had a 
 right to withdraw from the Union, . . . and that 
 any attempt to dissolve it, or to obstruct the 
 action of constitutional laws, was treason. If 
 
30 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 since that time political parties and sectional 
 localities have exchanged attitudes on this ques 
 tion, it cannot alter the question of right." For, 
 having once grasped an idea and made it his own, 
 Benton clung to it with unyielding tenacity, no 
 matter whether it was or was not abandoned by 
 the majority of those with whom he had been 
 in the habit of acting. 
 
 Thus early Benton s political character became 
 molded into the shape which it ever afterward 
 retained. He was a slaveholder, but as advanced 
 as a slaveholder could be ; he remained to a cer 
 tain extent a Southerner, but his Southernism was 
 of the type prevalent immediately after the Revo 
 lution, and not of the kind that came to the fore 
 prior to the Rebellion. He was much more a 
 Westerner in his feelings, and more than all else 
 he was emphatically a Union man. 
 
 Like every other hot spirit of the West and 
 the West was full of little but hot spirits 
 Benton heartily favored the War of 1812. He 
 served as a colonel of volunteers under Jackson, 
 but never saw actual fighting, and his short term 
 of soldiership was of no further account than to 
 furnish an excuse to Polk, thirty-five years later, 
 for nominating him commanding general in the 
 time of the Mexican war, an incident which, as 
 the nomination was rejected, may be regarded 
 as merely ludicrous, the gross impropriety of the 
 
Early Life 31 
 
 act safely defying criticism. He was of genuine 
 use, however, in calling on and exciting the vol 
 unteers to come forward; for he was a fluent 
 speaker, of fine presence, and his pompous self- 
 sufficiency was rather admired than otherwise by 
 the frontiersmen, while his force, energy, and 
 earnestness commanded their respect. He also, 
 when Jackson s reckless impetuosity got him into 
 a snarl with the feeble national administration, 
 whose imbecile incapacity to carry on the war 
 became day by day more painfully evident, went 
 to Washington, and there finally extricated his 
 chief by dint of threatening that, if " justice" was 
 not done him, Tennessee would, in future political 
 contests, be found ranged with the administra 
 tion s foes. For Benton already possessed politi 
 cal influence, and being, like most of his class, 
 anti-Federalist, or Democratic, in sentiment, was 
 therefore of the same party as the people at Wash 
 ington, and was a man whose representations 
 would have some weight with them. 
 
 During his stay in Tennessee Benton s char 
 acter was greatly influenced by his being thrown 
 into close contact with many of the extraordinary 
 men who then or afterward made their mark in 
 the strange and picturesque annals of the South 
 west. Jackson even thus early loomed up as the 
 greatest and arch-typical representative of his 
 people and his section. The religious bent of the 
 
32 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 time was shown in the life of the grand, rugged old 
 Methodist, Peter Cartwright, who, in the far-off 
 backwoods, was a preacher and practical exponent 
 of "muscular Christianity" half a century before 
 the day when, under Bishop Selwyn and Charles 
 Kingsley, it became a cult among the most highly 
 civilized classes of England. There was David 
 Crockett, rifleman and congressman, doomed to a 
 tragic and heroic death in that remarkable conflict 
 of which it was said at the time, that " Thermopylae 
 had its messengers of death, but the Alamo had 
 none;" and there was Houston, who, after a sin 
 gular and romantic career, became the greatest of 
 the statesmen and soldiers of Texas. It was these 
 men, and their like, who, under the shadow of 
 world-old forests and in the sunlight of the great, 
 lonely plains, wrought out the destinies of a nation 
 and a continent, and who, with their rude war- 
 craft and state-craft, solved problems that, in the 
 importance of their results, dwarf the issues of all 
 European struggles since the day of Waterloo as 
 completely as the Punic wars in their outcome 
 threw into the shade the consequences of the wars 
 waged at the same time between the different 
 Greek monarchies. 
 
 Benton, in his mental training, came much 
 nearer to the statesmen of the seaboard, and was 
 far better bred and better educated, than the rest 
 of the men around him. But he was, and was felt 
 
Early Life 33 
 
 by them to be, thoroughly one of their number, 
 and the most able expounder of their views ; and 
 it is just because he is so completely the type of a 
 great and important class, rather than because 
 even of his undoubted and commanding ability as 
 a statesman, that his life and public services will 
 always repay study. His vanity and boastfulness 
 were faults which he shared with almost all his 
 people ; and, after all, if they overrated the conse 
 quence of their own deeds, the deeds, nevertheless, 
 did possess great importance, and their fault was 
 slight compared to that committed by some of us 
 at the present day, who have gone to the opposite 
 extreme and try to belittle the actions of our 
 fathers. Benton was deeply imbued with the 
 masterful, overbearing spirit of the West, a 
 spirit whose manifestations are not always agree 
 able, but the possession of which is certainly a 
 most healthy sign of the virile strength of a young 
 community. He thoroughly appreciated that he 
 was helping to shape the future of a country, 
 whose wonderful development is the most im 
 portant feature in the history of the nineteenth 
 century ; the non-appreciation of which fact is in 
 itself sufficient utterly to disqualify any American 
 statesman from rising to the first rank. 
 
 It was not in Tennessee, however, that Benton 
 rose to political prominence, for shortly after the 
 close of the war he crossed the Mississippi and 
 3 
 
34 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 made his permanent home in the territory of Mis 
 souri. Missouri was then our extreme western 
 outpost, and its citizens possessed the characteris 
 tic Western traits to an even exaggerated extent. 
 The people were pushing, restless, and hardy ; they 
 were lawless and violent to a degree. In spite of 
 the culture and education of some families, society, 
 as a whole, was marked by florid unconvention- 
 ality and rawness. The general and widespread 
 intemperance of the judges and high officials of 
 state was even more marked than their proclivities 
 for brawling. The lawyers, as usual, furnished 
 the bulk of the politicians; success at the bar 
 depended less upon learning than upon "push" 
 and audacity. The fatal feuds between individ 
 uals and families were as frequent and as bloody 
 as among Highland clans a century before. The 
 following quotations are taken at random from a 
 work on the Bench and Bar of Missouri, by an 
 ex-judge of its supreme court: "A man by the 
 name of Hiram K. Turk, and four sons, settled in 
 1839 near Warsaw, and a personal difficulty oc 
 curred between them and a family of the name of 
 Jones, resulting in the death of one or two. The 
 people began to take sides with one or the other, 
 and finally a general outbreak took place, in 
 which many were killed, resulting in a general 
 reign of terror and of violence beyond the power 
 of the law to subdue. " The social annals of this 
 
Early Life 35 
 
 pleasant town of Warsaw could not normally have 
 been dull; in 1844, for instance, they were en 
 livened by Judge Cherry and Senator Major fight 
 ing to the death on one of its principal streets, the 
 latter being slain. The judges themselves were by 
 no means bigoted in their support of law and order. 
 " In those days it was common for people to settle 
 their quarrels during court week. . . . Judge 
 Allen took great delight in these exhibitions, and 
 would at any time adjourn his court to witness 
 one. ... He (Allen) always traveled with a 
 holster of large pistols in front of his saddle, and 
 a knife with a blade at least a foot long." Han 
 nibal Chollop was no mere creature of fancy ; on 
 the contrary, his name was legion, and he flour 
 ished rankly in every town throughout the Missis 
 sippi valley. But, after all, this ruffianism was 
 really not a whit worse in its effects on the national 
 character than was the case with certain of the 
 "universal peace" and "non-resistance" develop 
 ments in the Northeastern States; in fact, it was 
 more healthy. A class of professional non-com 
 batants is as hurtful to the real, healthy growth 
 of a nation as is a class of fire-eaters ; for a weak 
 ness or folly is nationally as bad as a vice, or worse ; 
 and, in the long run, a Quaker may be quite as 
 undesirable a citizen as is a duelist. No man who 
 is not willing to bear arms and fight for his rights 
 can give a good reason why he should be entitled 
 
36 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 to the privilege of living in a free community. The 
 decline of the militant spirit in the Northeast dur 
 ing the first half of this century was much to be 
 regretted. To it is due, more than to any other 
 cause, the undoubted average individual inferior 
 ity of the Northern compared to the Southern 
 troops ; at any rate, at the beginning of the great 
 war of the Rebellion. The Southerners, by their 
 whole mode of living, their habits, and their love 
 of outdoor sports, kept up their warlike spirit; 
 while in the North the so-called upper classes 
 developed along the lines of a wealthy and timid 
 bourgeoisie type, measuring everything by a mer 
 cantile standard (a peculiarly debasing one if 
 taken purely by itself), and submitting to be ruled 
 in local affairs by low foreign mobs, and in national 
 matters by their arrogant Southern kinsmen. The 
 militant spirit of these last certainly stood them 
 in good stead in the Civil War. The world has 
 never seen better soldiers than those who followed 
 Lee; and their leader will undoubtedly rank as 
 without any exception the very greatest of all the 
 great captains that the English-speaking peoples 
 have brought forth and this, although the last 
 and chief of his antagonists may himself claim to 
 stand as the full equal of Marlborough and Wel 
 lington. 
 
 The other Western States still kept touch on the 
 old colonial communities of the seacoast, having a 
 
Early Life 37 
 
 second or alternative outlet through Louisiana, 
 newly acquired by the United States, it is true, 
 but which was nevertheless an old settled land. 
 Missouri, however, had lost all connection with 
 the seacoast, and though, through her great river 
 towns, swarming with raftsmen and flat-boatmen, 
 she drove her main and most thriving trade with 
 the other Mississippi cities, yet her restless and 
 adventure-loving citizens were already seeking 
 other outlets for their activity, and were estab 
 lishing trade relations with the Mexicans; being 
 thus the earliest among our people to come into 
 active contact with the Hispano-Indian race from 
 whom we afterward wrested so large a part of 
 their inheritance. Missouri was thrust out beyond 
 the Mississippi into the vast plains-country of the 
 Far West, and, except on the river-front, was com 
 pletely isolated, being flanked on every side by 
 great stretches of level wilderness, inhabited by 
 roaming tribes of warlike Indians. Thus for the 
 first time the borderers began to number in their 
 ranks plainsmen as well as backwoodsmen. In 
 such a community there were sure to be numbers 
 of men anxious to take part in any enterprise that 
 united the chance of great pecuniary gain with the 
 certainty of even greater personal risk, and both 
 these conditions were fulfilled in the trading ex 
 peditions pushed out from Missouri across the 
 trackless wastes lying between it and the fringe 
 
38 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 of Mexican settlements on the Rio del Norte. 
 The route followed by these caravans, which 
 brought back furs and precious metals, soon 
 became famous tinder the name of the Santa F6 
 trail; and the story of the perils, hardships, and 
 gains of the adventurous traders who followed it 
 would make one of the most striking chapters of 
 American history. 
 
 Among such people Benton s views and habits 
 of thought became more markedly Western and 
 ultra-American than ever, especially in regard to 
 our encroachments upon the territory of neighbor 
 ing powers. The general feeling in the West 
 upon this last subject afterward crystallized into 
 what became known as the "Manifest Destiny" 
 idea, which, reduced to its simplest terms, was: 
 that it was our manifest destiny to swallow up the 
 land of all adjoining nations who were too weak to 
 withstand us; a theory that forthwith obtained 
 immense popularity among all statesmen of easy 
 international morality. It cannot be too often 
 repeated that no one can understand even the 
 domestic, and more especially the foreign, policy 
 of Benton and his school without first understand 
 ing the surroundings amidst which they had been 
 brought up and the people whose chosen repre 
 sentatives they were. Recent historians, for 
 instance, always speak as if our grasping after 
 territory in the Southwest was due solely to the 
 
Early Life 39 
 
 desire of the Southerners to acquire lands out of 
 which to carve new slaveholding States, and as if 
 it was merely a move in the interests of the slave 
 power. This is true enough so far as the motives 
 of Calhoun, Tyler, and the other public leaders of 
 the Gulf and southern seaboard States were con 
 cerned. But the hearty Western support given 
 to the movement was due to entirely different 
 causes, the chief among them being the fact that 
 the Westerners honestly believed themselves to 
 be indeed created the heirs of the earth, or at least 
 of so much of it as was known by the name of 
 North America, and were prepared to struggle 
 stoutly for the immediate possession of their 
 heritage. 
 
 One of Benton s earliest public utterances was 
 in regard to a matter which precisely illustrates 
 this feeling. It was while Missouri was still a 
 territory, and when Benton, then a prominent 
 member of the St. Louis bar, had by his force, 
 capacity, and power as a public speaker already 
 become well known among his future constituents. 
 The treaty with Spain, by which we secured Flor 
 ida, was then before the Senate, which body had to 
 consider it several times, owing to the dull irreso 
 lution and sloth of the Spanish government in 
 ratifying it. The bounds it gave us were far too 
 narrow to suit the more fiery Western spirits, and 
 these cheered Benton to the echo when he attacked 
 
40 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 it in public with fierce vehemence. "The magnifi 
 cent valley of the Mississippi is ours, with all its 
 fountains, springs, and floods; and woe to the 
 statesman who shall undertake to surrender one 
 drop of its water, one inch of its soil to any foreign 
 power." So he said, his words ringing with the 
 boastful confidence so well liked by the masterful 
 men of the West, strong in their youth, and 
 proudly conscious of their strength. The treaty 
 was ratified in the Senate, nevertheless, all the old 
 Southern States favoring it, and the only votes at 
 any stage recorded against it being of four Western 
 Senators, coming respectively from Ohio, Ken 
 tucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana. So that in 
 1818, at any rate, the desire for territorial aggran 
 dizement, at the expense of Spain or Mexico, was 
 common to the West as a whole, both to the free 
 and the slave States, and was not exclusively 
 favored by the Southerners. The only effect of 
 Benton s speech was to give rise to the idea that 
 he was hostile to the Southern and Democratic 
 administration at Washington, and against this 
 feeling he had to contend in the course of his suc 
 cessful candidacy for the United States Senator- 
 ship the following year, when Missouri was claim 
 ing admittance to the Union. 
 
 It was in reference to this matter of admitting 
 Missouri that the slavery question for the first 
 time made its appearance in national politics, 
 
Early Life 41 
 
 where it threw everything into confusion and for 
 the moment overshadowed all else ; though it van 
 ished almost as quickly as it had appeared, and 
 did not again come to the front for several years. 
 The Northerners, as a whole, desiring to " restrict" 
 the growth of slavery and the slave power, de 
 manded that Missouri, before being admitted as a 
 State, should abolish slavery within her bounda 
 ries. The South was equally determined that she 
 should be admitted as a slave State ; and for the 
 first time the politicians of the country divided on 
 geographical rather than on party lines, though 
 the division proved but temporary, and was of but 
 little interest except as foreshadowing what was to 
 come a score of years later. Even within the ter 
 ritory itself the same contest was carried on with 
 the violence bred by political conflicts in frontier 
 States, there being a very respectable "restriction" 
 party, which favored abolition. Benton was him 
 self a slaveholder, and as the question was in no 
 way one between the East and the West, or be 
 tween the Union as a whole and any part of it, he 
 naturally gave full swing to his Southern feelings, 
 and entered with tremendous vigor into the con 
 test on the anti-restriction side. So successful 
 were his efforts, and so great was the majority of 
 the Missourians who sympathized with him, that 
 the restrictionists were completely routed, and 
 succeeded in electing but one delegate to the 
 
42 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 constitutional convention. In Congress the matter 
 was finally settled by the passage of the famous 
 Missouri Compromise bill, a measure Southern in 
 its origin, but approved at the time by many if 
 not most Northerners, and disapproved by not a 
 few Southerners. Benton heartily believed in it, 
 announcing somewhat vaguely that he was 
 "equally opposed to slavery agitation and to 
 slavery extension." By its terms Missouri was 
 admitted as a slave State, while slavery was abol 
 ished in all the rest of the old province of Louisi 
 ana lying north and west of it and north of the 
 parallel of 36 30 . Owing to an objectionable 
 clause in its Constitution, the admission was not 
 fully completed until 1821, and then only through 
 the instrumentality of Henry Clay. But Benton 
 took his seat immediately, and entered on his 
 thirty years of service in the United States Senate. 
 His appearance in national politics was thus co 
 incident with the appearance of the question 
 which, it is true, almost immediately sank out of 
 sight for a period of fifteen years, but which then 
 reappeared to stay for good and to become of pro 
 gressively absorbing importance, until, combining 
 itself with the still greater question of national 
 unity, it dwarfed all other issues, cleft the West as 
 well as the East asunder, and, as one of its minor 
 results, brought about the political downfall of 
 Benton himself and of his whole school in what 
 
Early Life 43 
 
 were called the Border States. Before entering 
 the Senate, Benton did something which well 
 illustrates his peculiar uprightness, and the 
 care which he took to keep his public acts free 
 from the least suspicion of improper influence. 
 When he was at the bar in St. Louis, real 
 estate litigation was much the most important 
 branch of legal business. The condition of Mis 
 souri land-titles was very mixed, since many of 
 them were based upon the thousands of "con 
 cessions" of land made by the old French and 
 Spanish governments, which had been ratified by 
 Congress, but subject to certain conditions which 
 the Creole inhabitants, being ignorant and law 
 less, had generally failed to fulfil. By an act of 
 Congress these inchoate claims were to be brought 
 before the United States recorder of land titles; 
 and the Missouri bar were divided as to what 
 action should be taken on them, the majority 
 insisting that they should be held void, while 
 Benton headed the opposite party, which was 
 averse to forfeiting property on technical grounds, 
 and advocated the confirmation of every honest 
 claim. Further and important legislation was 
 needed to provide for these claims. Benton, 
 being much the most influential member of the 
 bar who had advocated the confirmation of the 
 claims, and being so able, honest, and energetic, 
 was the favorite counsel of the claimants, and had 
 
44 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 hundreds of their titles under his professional 
 charge. Of course in such cases the compensation 
 of the lawyer depended solely upon his success; 
 and success to Benton would have meant wealth. 
 Nevertheless, and though his action was greatly 
 to his own pecuniary hurt, the first thing he did 
 when elected Senator was to convene his clients, 
 and tell them that henceforth he could have 
 nothing more to do, as their attorney, with the 
 prosecution of their claims, giving as his reason 
 that their success largely depended upon the 
 action of Congress, of which he was now himself 
 a member, so that he was bound to consult, not 
 any private interest, but the good of the com 
 munity as a whole. He even refused to designate 
 his successor in the causes, saying that he was 
 determined not only to be quite unbiased in act 
 ing upon the subject of these claims as Senator, 
 but not to have, nor to be suspected of having, 
 any personal interest in the fate of any of them. 
 Many a modern statesman might most profitably 
 copy his sensitiveness. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 EARLY YEARS IN THE SENATE. 
 
 WHEN Benton took his seat in the United 
 States Senate, Monroe, the last president 
 of the great house of Virginia, was about 
 beginning his second term. He was a courteous, 
 high-bred gentleman, of no especial ability, but 
 well fitted to act as presidential figurehead during 
 the politically quiet years of that era of good feel 
 ing which lasted from 1816 till 1824. The Fed 
 eralist party, after its conduct during the war, 
 had vanished into well-deserved obscurity, and 
 though influences of various sorts were working 
 most powerfully to split the dominant and all- 
 embracing Democracy into factional fragments, 
 these movements had not yet come to a head. 
 
 The slavery question, it cannot be too often said, 
 was as yet of little or no political consequence. 
 The violent excitement over the admission of Mis 
 souri had subsided as quickly as it had arisen; 
 and though the Compromise bill was of immense 
 importance in itself, and still more as giving a hint 
 of what was to come, it must be remembered that 
 its effect upon general politics, during the years 
 immediately succeeding its passage, was slight. 
 Later on, the slavery question became of such 
 
 45 
 
46 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 paramount consequence, and so completely identi 
 fied with the movement for the dissolution of the 
 Union, that it seems impossible for even the best 
 of recent historians of American politics to under 
 stand that such was not the case at this time. One 
 writer of note even goes so far as to state that 
 "From the night of March 2, 1820, party history 
 is made up without interruption or break of the 
 development of geographical [the context shows 
 this to mean Northern and Southern] parties." 
 There is very little ground for such a sweeping 
 assertion until a considerable time after the date 
 indicated ; indeed, it was more than ten years later 
 before any symptom of the development spoken of 
 became at all marked. Until then, parties divided 
 even less on geographical lines than had been the 
 case earlier, during the last years of the existence 
 of the Federalists ; and what little division there 
 was had no reference to slavery. Nor was it till 
 nearly a score of years after the passage of the 
 Missouri Compromise bill that the separatist spirit 
 began to identify itself for good with the idea of 
 the maintenance of slavery. Previously to that 
 there had been outbursts of separatist feeling in 
 different States, but always due to entirely differ 
 ent causes. Georgia flared up in hot defiance of 
 the federal government, when the latter rubbed 
 against her on the question of removing the Cher- 
 okees from within her borders. But her having 
 
Early Years in the Senate 47 
 
 negro slaves did not affect her feelings in the least, 
 and her attitude was just such as any Western 
 State with Indians on its frontier is now apt to 
 assume so far as it dares, such an attitude as 
 Arizona, for example, would at this moment take 
 in reference to the Apaches, if she were able. 
 Slavery was doubtless remotely one of the irritat 
 ing causes that combined to work South Carolina 
 up to a fever heat of insanity over the nullification 
 excitement. But in its immediate origin nullifica 
 tion arose from the outcry against the protective 
 tariff, and it is almost as unfair to ascribe it in 
 any way to the influence of slavery as it would 
 be to assign a similar cause for the Virginia and 
 Kentucky resolutions of 1798, or to say that the 
 absence of slavery was the reason for the abor 
 tively disloyal agitation in New England, which 
 culminated in the Hartford Convention. The 
 separatist feeling is ingrained in the fiber of our 
 race, and though in itself a most dangerous fail 
 ing and weakness, is yet merely a perversion and 
 distortion of the defiant and self-reliant inde 
 pendence of spirit which is one of the chief of 
 the race virtues ; and slavery was partly the cause 
 and partly merely the occasion of the abnormal 
 growth of the separatist movement in the South. 
 Nor was the tariff question so intimately associ 
 ated with that of slavery as has been commonly 
 asserted. This might be easily guessed from the 
 
48 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 fact that the originator and chief advocate of a 
 high tariff himself came from a slave State, and 
 drew many of his warmest supporters from among 
 the slaveholding sugar-planters. Except in the 
 futile discussion over the proposed Panama Con 
 gress it was not till Benton s third senatorial term 
 that slavery became of really great weight in 
 politics. 
 
 One of the first subjects that attracted Benton s 
 attention in the Senate was the Oregon question, 
 and on this he showed himself at once in his true 
 character as a Western man, proud alike of every 
 part of his country, and as desirous of seeing the 
 West extended in a northerly as in a southerly 
 direction. Himself a slaveholder, from a slave 
 State, he was one of the earliest and most vehe 
 ment advocates of the extension of our free terri 
 tory northward along the Pacific coast. All the 
 country stretching north and south of the Oregon 
 River was then held by the United States in joint 
 possession with Great Britain. But the whole 
 region was still entirely unsettled, and as a matter 
 of fact our British rivals were the only parties in 
 actual occupation. The title to the territory was 
 doubtful, as must always be the case when it rests 
 upon the inaccurate maps of forgotten explorers, 
 or upon the chance landings of stray sailors and 
 traders, especially if the land in dispute is unoc 
 cupied and of vast but uncertain extent, of little 
 
Early Years in the Senate 49 
 
 present value, and far distant from the powers 
 claiming it. The real truth is that such titles are 
 of very little practical value, and are rightly 
 enough disregarded by any nations strong enough 
 to do so. Ben ton s intense Americanism, and his 
 pride and confidence in his country and in her 
 unlimited capacity for growth of every sort, gifted 
 him with the power to look much farther into the 
 future, as regarded the expansion of the United 
 States, than did his colleagues; and moreover 
 caused him to consider the question from a much 
 more far-seeing and statesmanlike standpoint. 
 The land belonged to no man, and yet was sure 
 to become very valuable ; our title to it was not 
 very good, but was probably better than that of 
 any one else. Sooner or later it would be filled 
 with the overflow of our population, and would 
 border on our dominion, and on our dominion 
 alone. It was therefore just, and moreover in 
 the highest degree desirable, that it should be 
 made a part of that dominion at the earliest pos 
 sible moment. Benton introduced a bill to enable 
 the President to terminate the arrangement with 
 Great Britain and make a definite settlement in 
 our favor ; and though the Senate refused to pass 
 it, yet he had the satisfaction of bringing the sub 
 ject prominently before the people, and, moreover, 
 of outlining the way in which it would have to be 
 and was finally settled. In one of his speeches on 
 4 
 
50 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 the matter he said, using rather highflown lan 
 guage (for he was unfortunately deficient in sense 
 of humor) : * Upon the people of Eastern Asia the 
 establishment of a civilized power on the opposite 
 coast of America could not fail to produce great 
 and wonderful benefits. Science, liberal principles 
 in government, and the true religion might cast 
 their lights across the intervening sea. The valley 
 of the Columbia might become the granary of 
 China and Japan, and an outlet to their impris 
 oned and exuberant population." Could he have 
 foreseen how, in the future, the Americans of the 
 valley of the Columbia would greet the " impris 
 oned and exuberant population" of China, he 
 would probably have been more doubtful as to 
 the willingness of the latter empire to accept our 
 standard of the true religion and liberal principles 
 of government. In the course of the same speech 
 he for the first time, and by what was then con 
 sidered a bold flight of imagination, suggested the 
 possibility of sending foreign ministers to the 
 Oriental nations, to China, Japan, and Persia, 
 " and even to the Grand Turk." 
 
 Better success attended a bill he introduced to 
 establish a trading-road from Missouri through the 
 Indian country to New Mexico, which, after much 
 debate, passed both houses and was signed by 
 President Monroe. The road thus marked out and 
 established became, and remained for many years, 
 
Early Years in the Senate 51 
 
 a great thoroughfare, and among the chief of the 
 channels through which our foreign commerce 
 flowed. Until Benton secured the enactment of 
 this law, so important to the interests and develop 
 ment of the West, the overland trade with Mexico 
 had been carried on by individual effort, and at the 
 cost of incalculable hazard, hardship, and risk of 
 life. Mexico, with its gold and silver mines, its 
 strange physical features, its population utterly 
 foreign to us in race, religion, speech, and ways of 
 life, and especially because of the glamour of mys 
 tery which surrounded it and partly shrouded it 
 from sight, always dazzled and strongly attracted 
 the minds of the Southwesterners, occupying much 
 the same place in their thoughts that the Spanish 
 Main did in the imagination of England during 
 the reign of Elizabeth. The young men of the 
 Mississippi valley looked upon an expedition with 
 one of the bands of armed traders, who wound 
 their way across Indian-haunted wastes, through 
 deep canyons, and over lofty mountain passes, to 
 Santa Fe, Chihuahua, and Sonora, with the same 
 feelings of eager excitement and longing that were 
 doubtless felt by some of their forefathers more 
 than two centuries previously in regard to the 
 cruises of Drake and Hawkins. The long wagon 
 trains or pack trains of the traders carried with 
 them all kinds of goods, but especially cotton, and 
 brought back gold and silver bullion, bales of furs 
 
52 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 and droves of mules ; and, moreover, they brought 
 back tales of lawless adventure, of great gains and 
 losses, of fights against Indians and Mexicans, 
 and of triumphs and privations, which still further 
 inflamed the minds of the Western men. Where 
 they had already gone as traders, who could on 
 occasion fight, they all hoped on some future day 
 to go as warriors, who would acquire gain by their 
 conquests. These hopes were openly expressed, 
 and with very little more idea of their being any 
 right or wrong in the matter than so many Norse 
 Vikings might have felt. The South westerners 
 are credited with altogether too complex motives 
 when it is supposed that they were actuated in 
 regard to the conquest of northern Mexico by a 
 desire to provide for additional slave States to 
 offset the growth of the North ; their emotions in 
 regard to their neighbors land were in the main 
 perfectly simple and purely piratical. That the 
 Northeast did not share in the greed for new terri 
 tory felt by the other sections of the country was 
 due partly to the decline in its militant spirit (a 
 decline on many accounts sincerely to be re 
 gretted), and partly to its geographical situation, 
 since it adjoined Canada, an unattractive and 
 already well-settled country, jealously guarded 
 by the might of Great Britain. 
 
 Another question, on which Benton showed him 
 self to be thoroughly a representative of Western 
 
Early Years in the Senate 53 
 
 sentiment, was the removal of the Indian tribes. 
 Here he took a most active and prominent part in 
 reporting and favoring the bills, and in advocating 
 the treaties by which the Indian tribes of the 
 South and West were forced or induced (for the 
 latter word was very frequently used as a euphe 
 mistic synonym of the former), to abandon great 
 tracts of territory to the whites and to move 
 farther away from the boundaries of their ever- 
 encroaching civilization. Nor was his action 
 wholly limited to the Senate, for it was at his 
 instance that General Clark, at St. Louis, con 
 cluded the treaties with the Kansas and Osage 
 tribes, by which the latter surrendered to the 
 United States all the vast territory which they 
 nominally owned west of Missouri and Arkansas, 
 except small reserves for themselves. Benton, 
 as was to be expected, took the frontier view of 
 the Indian question, which, by the way, though 
 often wrong, is much more apt to be right than is 
 the so-called humanitarian or Eastern view. But, 
 so far as was compatible with having the Indians 
 removed, he always endeavored to have them 
 kindly and humanely treated. There was, of 
 course, much injustice and wrong inevitably at 
 tendant upon the Indian policy advocated by him, 
 and by the rest of the Southern and Western 
 statesmen; but it is difficult to see what other 
 course could have been pursued with most of the 
 
54 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 tribes. In the Western States there were then 
 sixty millions of acres of the best land, owned in 
 great tracts by barbarous or half -barbarous In 
 dians, who were always troublesome and often 
 dangerous neighbors, and who did not come in 
 any way under the laws of the States in which 
 they lived. The States thus encumbered would 
 evidently never have been satisfied until all their 
 soil was under their own jurisdiction and open to 
 settlement. The Cherokees had advanced far on 
 the road toward civilization, and it was undoubt 
 edly a cruel grief and wrong to take them away 
 from their homes ; but the only alternative would 
 have been to deprive them of much of their land, 
 and to provide for their gradually becoming citi 
 zens of the States in which they were. For a 
 movement of this sort the times were not then, 
 and, unfortunately, are not yet ripe. 
 
 Much maudlin nonsense has been written about 
 the governmental treatment of the Indians, espe 
 cially as regards taking their land. For the sim 
 ple truth is that they had no possible title to most 
 of the lands we took, not even that of occupancy, 
 and at the most were in possession merely by 
 virtue of having butchered the previous inhabit 
 ants. For many of its actions toward them the 
 government does indeed deserve the severest criti 
 cism; but it has erred quite as often on the side 
 of too much leniency as on the side of too much 
 
Early Years in the Senate 55 
 
 severity. From the very nature of things, it was 
 wholly impossible that there should not be much 
 mutual wrong-doing and injury in the intercourse 
 between the Indians and ourselves. It was 
 equally out of the question to let them remain as 
 they were, and to bring the bulk of their number 
 up to our standard of civilization with sufficient 
 speed to enable them to accommodate themselves 
 to the changed condition of their surroundings. 
 The policy toward them advocated by Benton, 
 which was much the same as, although more 
 humane than, that followed by most other West 
 ern men who have had practically to face the 
 problem, worked harshly in many instances and 
 was the cause of a certain amount of temporary 
 suffering. But it was infinitely better for the 
 nation, as a whole, and, in the end, was really 
 more just and merciful, than it would have been 
 to attempt following out any of the visionary 
 schemes which the more impracticable Indian 
 enthusiasts are fond of recommending. 
 
 It was during Monroe s last term that Henry 
 Clay brought in the first protective tariff bill, as 
 distinguished from tariff bills to raise revenue with 
 protection as an incident only. It was passed by 
 a curiously mixed vote, which hardly indicated 
 any one s future position on the tariff excepting 
 that of Clay himself; Massachusetts, under the 
 lead of Webster, joining hands with the Southern 
 
56 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 seacoast States to oppose it, while Tennessee and 
 New York split, and Missouri and Kentucky, to 
 gether with most of the North, favored it. Benton 
 voted for it, but on the great question of internal 
 improvements he stood out clearly for the views 
 that he ever afterward held. This was first 
 brought up by the veto, on constitutional grottnds, 
 of the Cumberland Road bill, which had previ 
 ously passed both houses with singular unanimity, 
 Benton s vote being one of the very few recorded 
 against it. In regard to all such matters Benton 
 was strongly in favor of a strict construction of 
 the Constitution and of guarding the rights of the 
 States, in spite of his devoted attachment to the 
 Union. While voting against this bill, and deny 
 ing the power or the right of the federal govern 
 ment to take charge of improvements which would 
 benefit one State only, Benton was nevertheless 
 careful to reserve to himself the right to support 
 measures for improving national rivers or harbors 
 yielding revenues. The trouble is, that however 
 much the two classes of cases may differ in point 
 of expediency, they overlap so completely that it 
 is wholly impossible to draw a hard and fast line 
 between them, and the question of constitution 
 ality, if waived in the one instance, can scarcely 
 with propriety be raised in the other. 
 
 With the close of Monroe s second term the 
 "era of good feeling" came to an end, and the 
 
Early Years in the Senate 57 
 
 great Democratic-Republican party split up into 
 several fragments, which gradually crystallized 
 round two centers. But in 1824 this process was 
 still incomplete, and the presidential election of 
 that year was a simple scramble between four 
 different candidates, Jackson, Adams, Clay, and 
 Crawford. Jackson had the greatest number of 
 votes, but as no one had a majority, the election 
 was thrown into the House of Representatives, 
 where the Clay men, inasmuch as their candidate 
 was out of the race, went over to Adams and 
 elected him. Benton at the time, and afterward 
 in his "Thirty Years View," inveighed against 
 this choice as being a violation of what he called 
 the " principle demos krateo " a barbarous phrase 
 for which he had a great fondness, and which he 
 used and misused on every possible occasion, 
 whether in speaking or writing. He insisted that, 
 as Jackson had secured the majority of the elec 
 toral vote, it was the duty of the House of Repre 
 sentatives to ratify promptly this " choice of the 
 people." The Constitution expressly provided 
 that this need not be done. So Benton, who on 
 questions of state rights and internal improve 
 ments was so pronounced a stickler for a strict 
 construction of the Constitution, here coolly 
 assumed the absurd position that the Constitu 
 tion was wrong on this particular point, and 
 should be disregarded, on the ground that there 
 
58 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 was a struggle "between the theory of the Con 
 stitution and the democratic principle." His 
 proposition was ridiculous. The "democratic 
 principle" had nothing more to do with the mat 
 ter than had the law of gravitation. Either the 
 Constitution was or it was not to be accepted as a 
 serious document, that meant something; in the 
 former case the election of Adams was proper in 
 every respect, in the latter it was unnecessary to 
 have held any election at all. 
 
 At this period every one was floundering about 
 in efforts to establish political relations, Benton 
 not less than others ; for he had begun the canvass 
 as a supporter of Clay, and had then gone over to 
 Crawford. But at the end he had become a 
 Jacksonian Democrat, and during the rest of his 
 political career he figured as the most prominent 
 representative of the Jacksonian Democracy in 
 the Senate. Van Buren himself, afterward Jack 
 son s prime favorite and political heir, was a Craw 
 ford man during this campaign. 
 
 Adams, after his election, which was owing to 
 Clay s support, gave Clay the position of secretary 
 of state in his cabinet. The affair unquestionably 
 had an unfortunate look, and the Jacksonians, 
 especially Jackson, at once raised a great hue and 
 cry that there had been a corrupt bargain. Ben- 
 ton, much to his credit, refused to join in the 
 outcry, stating that he had good and sufficient 
 
Early Years in the Senate 59 
 
 reasons which he gave to be sure of its falsity ; 
 a position which brought him into temporary dis 
 favor with many of his party associates, and 
 which a man who had Benton s ambition and 
 bitter partisanship, without having his sturdy 
 pluck, would have hesitated to take. The assault 
 was directed with especial bitterness against Clay, 
 whom Jackson ever afterward included in the 
 very large list of individuals whom he hated with 
 the most rancorous and unreasoning virulence. 
 Randolph of Roanoke, the privileged eccentric of 
 the Senate, in one of those long harangues in 
 which he touched upon everybody and every 
 thing, except possibly the point at issue, made a 
 rabid onslaught upon the Clay-Adams coalition 
 as an alliance of "the blackleg and the Puritan." 
 Clay, who was susceptible enough to the charge 
 of loose living, but who was a man of rigid honor 
 and rather fond than otherwise of fighting, 
 promptly challenged him, and a harmless inter 
 change of shot took place. Benton was on the 
 field as a friend of both parties, and his account 
 of the affair is very amusing in its description of 
 the solemn, hair-splitting punctilio with which 
 it is evident that both Randolph and many of 
 his contemporaries regarded points of dueling 
 honor, which to us seem either absurd, trivial, or 
 wholly incomprehensible. 
 
 Two tolerably well-defined parties now emerged 
 
60 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 from the chaos of contending politicians : one was 
 the party of the administration, whose members 
 called themselves National Republicans, and later 
 on Whigs ; the other was the Jacksonian Democ 
 racy. Adams s inaugural address and first mes 
 sage outlined the Whig policy as favoring a 
 protective tariff, internal improvements, and a 
 free construction of the Constitution generally. 
 The Jacksonians accordingly took the opposite 
 side on all these points, partly from principle and 
 partly from perversity. In the Senate they 
 assailed with turgid eloquence every administra 
 tion measure, whether it was good or bad, very 
 much of their opposition being purely factious 
 in character. There has never been a time when 
 there was more rabid, objectless, and unscrupu 
 lous display of partisanship. Benton, little to 
 his credit, was a leader in these purposeless con 
 flicts. The most furious of them took place over 
 the proposed Panama mission. This was a scheme 
 that originated in the fertile brain of Henry Clay, 
 whose Americanism was of a type quite as pro 
 nounced as Benton s, and who was always inclined 
 to drag us into a position of hostility to European 
 powers. The Spanish-American states, having 
 succeeded in winning their independence from 
 Spain, were desirous of establishing some principle 
 of concert in action among the American republics 
 as a whole, and for this purpose proposed to hold 
 
Early Years in the Senate 61 
 
 an international congress at Panama. Clay s 
 fondness for a spirited and spectacular foreign 
 policy made him grasp eagerly at trie chance of 
 transforming the United States into the head of 
 an American league of free republics, which would 
 be a kind of cis-Atlantic offset to the Holy Alli 
 ance of European despotisms. Adams took up 
 the idea, nominated ministers to the Panama Con 
 gress, and gave his reasons for his course in a 
 special message to the Senate. The administra 
 tion men drew the most rosy and impossible pic 
 tures of the incalculable benefits which would be 
 derived from the proposed congress; and the 
 Jacksonians attacked it with an exaggerated 
 denunciation that was even less justified by the 
 facts. 
 
 Adams s message was properly open to attack 
 on one or two points; notably in reference to its 
 proposals that we should endeavor to get the 
 Spanish- American states to introduce religious 
 tolerance within their borders. It was certainly 
 an unhappy suggestion that we should endeavor 
 to remove the mote of religious intolerance from 
 our brother s eye while indignantly resenting the 
 least allusion to the beam of slavery in our own. 
 It was on this very point of slavery that the real 
 opposition hinged. The Spanish states had eman 
 cipated their comparatively small negro popula 
 tions, and, as is usually the case with Latin 
 
62 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 nations, did not have a very strong caste feeling 
 against the blacks, some of whom accordingly had 
 risen to high civic and military rank; and they 
 also proposed to admit to their congress the negro 
 republic of Hayti. Certain of the slaveholders 
 of the South fiercely objected to any such associa 
 tion ; and on this occasion Benton for once led and 
 voiced the ultra-Southern feeling on the subject, 
 announcing in his speech that diplomatic inter 
 course with Hayti should not even be discussed in 
 the Senate chamber, and that we could have no 
 association with republics who had "black gen 
 erals in their armies and mulatto senators in their 
 congresses." But this feeling on the part of the 
 slaveholders against the measure was largely, 
 although not wholly, spurious ; and really had less 
 to do with the attitude of the Jacksonian Demo 
 crats than had a mere factious opposition to 
 Adams and Clay. This was shown by the vote 
 on the confirmation of the ministers, when the 
 Senators divided on party and not on sectional 
 lines. The nominations were confirmed, but not 
 till after such a length of time that the ministers 
 were unable to reach Panama until after the con 
 gress had adjourned. 
 
 The Oregon question again came up during 
 Adams s term, the administration favoring the 
 renewal of the joint occupation convention, by 
 which we held the country in common with Great 
 
Early Years in the Senate 63 
 
 Britain. There was not much public feeling in 
 the matter ; in the East there was none whatever. 
 But Benton, when he opposed the renewal, and 
 claimed the whole territory as ours, gave expres 
 sion to the desires of all the Westerners who 
 thought over the subject at all. He was followed 
 by only half a dozen Senators, all but one from 
 the West, and from both sides of the Ohio Illi 
 nois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi; the North 
 west and Southwest as usual acting together. 
 
 The vote on the protective tariff law of 1828 
 furnished another illustration of the solidarity of 
 the West. New England had abandoned her free 
 trade position since 1824, and the North went 
 strongly for the new tariff ; the southern seacoast 
 States, except Louisiana, opposed it bitterly ; and 
 the bill was carried by the support of the Western 
 States, both the free and the slave. This tariff 
 bill was the first of the immediate irritating causes 
 which induced South Carolina to go into the nulli 
 fication movement. Benton s attitude on the 
 measure was that of a good many other men who, 
 in their public capacities, are obliged to appear as 
 protectionists, but who lack his frankness in stat 
 ing their reasons. He utterly disbelieved in and 
 was opposed to the principle of the bill, but as it 
 had bid for and secured the interest of Missouri 
 by a heavy duty on lead, he felt himself forced to 
 support it ; and so he announced his position. He 
 
64 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 simply went with his State, precisely as did Web 
 ster, the latter, in following Massachusetts change 
 of front and supporting the tariff of 1828, turning 
 a full and complete somersault. Neither the one 
 nor the other was to blame. Free traders are apt 
 to look at the tariff from a sentimental standpoint ; 
 but it is in reality purely a business matter, and 
 should be decided solely on grounds of expediency. 
 Political economists have pretty generally agreed 
 that protection is vicious in theory and harmful in 
 practice ; but if the majority of the people in in 
 terest wish it, and it affects only themselves, there 
 is no earthly reason why they should not be 
 allowed to try the experiment to their hearts 
 content. The trouble is that it rarely does affect 
 only themselves; and in 1828 the evil was pecu 
 liarly aggravated on account of the unequal way 
 in which the proposed law would affect different 
 sections. It purported to benefit the rest of the 
 country, but it undoubtedly worked real injury to 
 the planter States, and there is small ground for 
 wonder that the irritation over it in the region so 
 affected should have been intense. 
 
 During Adams s term Benton began his fight for 
 disposing of the public lands to actual settlers at a 
 small cost. It was a move of enormous importance 
 to the whole West ; and Benton s long and sturdy 
 contest for it, and for the right of preemption, en 
 title him to the greatest credit. He never gave up 
 
Early Years in the Senate 65 
 
 the struggle, although repulsed again and again, 
 and at the best only partially successful; for he 
 had to encounter much opposition, especially from 
 the short-sighted selfishness of many of the North- 
 easterners, who wished to consider the public lands 
 purely as sources of revenue. He utterly opposed 
 the then existing system of selling land to the 
 highest bidder a most hurtful practice; and 
 objected to the establishment of an arbitrary 
 minimum price, which practically kept all land 
 below a certain value out of the market altogether. 
 He succeeded in establishing the preemption sys 
 tem, and had the system of renting public mines, 
 etc., abolished; and he struggled for the principle 
 of giving land outright to settlers in certain cases. 
 As a whole, his theory of a liberal system of land 
 distribution was undoubtedly the correct one, and 
 he deserves the greatest credit for having pushed 
 it as he did. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ELECTION OF JACKSON, AND THE SPOILS 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 IN the presidential election of 1828 Jackson and 
 Adams were pitted against each other as the 
 only candidates before the people, and Jack 
 son won an overwhelming victory. The followers 
 of the two were fast developing respectively into 
 Democrats and Whigs, and the parties were hard 
 ening and taking shape, while the dividing lines 
 were being drawn more clearly and distinctly. 
 But the contest was largely a personal one, and 
 Jackson s success was due to his own immense 
 popularity more than to any party principles 
 which he was supposed to represent. Almost the 
 entire strength of Adams was in the Northeast; 
 but it is absolutely wrong to assume, because of 
 this fact, that the election even remotely fore 
 shadowed the way in which party lines would be 
 drawn in the coming sectional antagonism over 
 slavery. Adams led Jackson in the two slave 
 States of Maryland and Delaware; and in the 
 free States outside of New England Jackson had 
 an even greater lead over Adams. East of the 
 Alleghanies it may here and there have been taken 
 as in some sort a triumph of the South over the 
 
 66 
 
The Election of Jackson 67 
 
 North; but its sectional significance, as far as it 
 had any, really came from its being a victory of 
 the West over the East. Infinitely more impor 
 tant than this was the fact that it represented the 
 overwhelmingly successful upheaval of the most 
 extreme Democratic elements in the community. 
 
 Until 1828 all the presidents, and indeed almost 
 all the men who took the lead in public life, alike 
 in national and in state affairs, had been drawn 
 from what in Europe would have been called the 
 "upper classes." They were mainly college-bred 
 men of high social standing, as well educated as 
 any in the community, usually rich or at least 
 well-to-do. Their subordinates in office were of 
 much the same material. It was believed, and 
 the belief was acted upon, that public life needed 
 an apprenticeship of training and experience. 
 Many of our public men had been able ; almost all 
 had been honorable and upright. The change of 
 parties in 1800, when the Jeffersonian Democracy 
 came in, altered the policy of the government, but 
 not the character of the officials. In that move 
 ment, though Jefferson had behind him the mass 
 of the people as the rank and file of his party, yet 
 all his captains were still drawn from among the 
 men in the same social position as himself. The 
 Revolutionary war had been fought under the 
 leadership of the colonial gentry; and for years 
 after it was over the people, as a whole, felt that 
 
68 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 their interests could be safely entrusted to and 
 were identical with those of the descendants of 
 their revolutionary leaders. The classes in which 
 were to be found almost all the learning, the talent, 
 the business activity, and the inherited wealth and 
 refinement of the country, had also hitherto con 
 tributed much to the body of its rulers. > 
 
 The Jacksonian Democracy stood for the revolt 
 against these rulers; its leaders, as well as their 
 followers, all came from the mass of the people. 
 The majority of the voters supported Jackson 
 because they felt he was one of themselves, 
 and because they understood that his election 
 would mean the complete overthrow of the classes 
 in power and their retirement from the control 
 of the government. There was nothing to be said 
 against the rulers of the day ; they had served the 
 country and all its citizens well, and they were 
 dismissed, not because the voters could truthfully 
 allege any wrong-doing whatsoever against them, 
 but solely because, in their purely private and 
 personal feelings and habits of life, they were 
 supposed to differ from the mass of the people. 
 This was such an outrageously absurd feeling that 
 the very men who were actuated by it, or who, 
 like Benton, shaped and guided it, were ashamed 
 to confess the true reason of their actions, and tried 
 to cloak it behind an outcry, as vague and sense 
 less as it was clamorous, against "aristocratic 
 
The Election of Jackson 69 
 
 corruption" and other shadowy and spectral 
 evils. Benton even talked loosely of " retriev 
 ing the country from the deplorable condition 
 in which the enlightened classes had sunk it, * 
 although the country was perfectly prosperous 
 and in its usual state of quiet, healthy growth. 
 On the other hand, the opponents of Jackson 
 indulged in talk almost as wild, and fears even 
 more extravagant than his supporters hopes; 
 and the root of much of their opposition lay in a 
 concealed but still existent caste antagonism to 
 a man of Jackson s birth and bringing up. In 
 fact, neither side, in spite of all their loud talk of 
 American republicanism, had yet mastered enough 
 of its true spirit to be able to see that so long as 
 public officers did their whole duty to all classes 
 alike, it was not in the least the affair of their con 
 stituents whether they chose to spend their hours 
 of social relaxation in their shirt-sleeves or in 
 dress coats. 
 
 The change was a great one ; it was not a change 
 of the policy under which the government was 
 managed, as in Jefferson s triumph, but of the 
 men who controlled it. The two great Democratic 
 victories had little in common ; almost as little as 
 had the two great leaders under whose auspices 
 they were respectively won, and few men were 
 ever more unlike than the scholarly, timid, and 
 shifty doctrinaire, who supplanted the elder 
 
yo Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Adams, and the ignorant, headstrong, and straight 
 forward soldier, who was victor over the younger. 
 That the change was the deliberate choice of the 
 great mass of the people, and that it was one for 
 the worse, was then, and has been ever since, the 
 opinion of most thinking men ; certainly the pub 
 lic service then took its first and greatest step in 
 that downward career of progressive debasement 
 and deterioration which has only been checked in 
 our own days. But those who would, offhand, 
 decry the Democratic principle on this account 
 would do well to look at the nearly contempo 
 raneous career of the pet heroes of a trans-Atlan 
 tic aristocracy before passing judgment. A very 
 charming English historian of our day 1 has com 
 pared Wellington with Washington ; it would have 
 been far juster to have compared him with Andrew 
 Jackson. Both were men of strong, narrow minds 
 and bitter prejudices, with few statesmanlike 
 qualities, who, for brilliant military services, were 
 raised to the highest civil positions in the gift of 
 the State. The feeling among the aristocratic 
 classes of Great Britain in favor of the Iron Duke 
 was nearly as strong and quite as unreasonable as 
 was the homage paid by their homelier kinsfolk 
 across the Atlantic to Old Hickory. Wellington s 
 military successes were far greater, for he had 
 more chances ; but no single feat of his surpassed 
 Austin McCarthy. 
 
The Election of Jackson 71 
 
 the remarkable victory won against his ablest 
 lieutenant and choicest troops by a much smaller 
 number of backwoods riflemen under Andrew 
 Jackson. As a statesman Wellington may have 
 done less harm than Jackson, for he had less in 
 fluence; but he has no such great mark to his 
 credit as the old Tennessean s attitude toward the 
 Nullifiers. If Jackson s election is a proof that 
 the majority is not always right, Wellington s 
 elevation may be taken as showing that the 
 minority, or a fraction thereof, is in its turn quite 
 as likely to be wrong. 
 
 This caste antagonism was the distinguishing 
 feature in the election of 1828, and the partially 
 sectional character of the contest was due to the 
 different degree of development the caste spirit 
 had reached in different portions of the Union. In 
 New England wealth was quite evenly distributed, 
 and education and intelligence were nearly univer 
 sal ; so there the antagonism was slight, the bulk 
 of the New England vote being given, as usually 
 before and since, in favor of the right candidate. 
 In the Middle States, on the contrary, the antago 
 nism was very strong. In the South it was of but 
 little political account as between the whites them 
 selves, they all being knit together by the barba 
 rous bond of a common lordship of race ; and here 
 the feeling for Jackson was largely derived from 
 the close kinship still felt for the West, In the 
 
72 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 West itself, where Jackson s great strength lay, 
 the people were still too much on the same plane 
 of thought as well as of material prosperity, and 
 the wealthy and cultivated classes were of too lim 
 ited extent to admit of much caste feeling against 
 the latter ; and, accordingly, instead of hostility to 
 them, the Western caste spirit took the form of 
 hostility to their far more numerous representa 
 tives who had hitherto formed the bulk of the 
 political rulers of the East. 
 
 New England was not only the most advanced 
 portion of the Union, as regards intelligence, cul 
 ture, and general prosperity, but was also most 
 disagreeably aware of the fact, and was possessed 
 with a self-conscious virtue that was peculiarly 
 irritating to the Westerners, who knew that they 
 were looked down upon, and savagely resented it 
 on every occasion ; and, besides, New England was 
 apt to meddle in affairs that more nearly con 
 cerned other localities. Several of Benton s 
 speeches at this time show this irritation against 
 the Northeast, and also incidentally bring out the 
 solidarity of interest felt throughout the West. 
 In a long and able speech, favoring the repeal of 
 the iniquitous salt tax," or high duty on im 
 ported salt (a great hobby of his, in which, after 
 many efforts, he was finally successful), he brought 
 out the latter point very strongly, besides com 
 plaining of the disproportionate lightness of the 
 
The Election of Jackson 73 
 
 burden imposed upon the Northeast by the high 
 tariff, of which he announced himself to be but a 
 moderate adherent. In common with all other 
 Western statesmen he resented keenly the sus 
 picion with which the Northeast was then only 
 too apt to regard the West, quoting in one of his 
 speeches with angry resentment a prevalent New 
 England sneer at "the savages beyond the Alle- 
 ghanies." At the time we are speaking of it must 
 be remembered that many even of the most ad 
 vanced Easterners were utterly incapable of 
 appreciating the almost limitless capacity of their 
 country for growth and expansion, being in this 
 respect far behind their Western brethren; in 
 deed, many regarded the acquisition of any new 
 territory in the West with alarm and regret, as 
 tending to make the Union of such unwieldy size 
 that it would break of its own weight. 
 
 Benton was the leading opponent of a proposal, 
 introduced by Senator Foote of Connecticut, to in 
 quire into the expediency of limiting the sales of 
 public lands to such lands as were then in the 
 market. The limitation would have been most 
 injurious to the entire West, which was thus men 
 aced by the action of a New Englander, while 
 Benton appeared as the champion of the whole 
 section, North and South alike, in the speech 
 wherein he strenuously and successfully opposed 
 the adoption of the resolution, and at the same 
 
74 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 time bitterly attacked the quarter of the country 
 from which it came, as having from the earliest 
 years opposed everything that might advance the 
 interests of the people beyond the Alleghanies. 
 Webster came to the assistance of the mover of 
 the measure in a speech wherein, among other 
 things, he claimed for the North the merit of the 
 passage of the Ordinance of 1787, in relation to 
 the Northwest Territory, and especially of the 
 anti-slavery clause therein contained. But Ben- 
 ton here caught him tripping, and in a very good 
 speech showed that he was completely mistaken 
 in his facts. The debate now, however, com 
 pletely left the point at issue, taking a bitterly 
 sectional turn, and giving rise to the famous con 
 troversy between Hayne of South Carolina, who 
 for the first time on the floor of the Senate an 
 nounced the doctrine of nullification, and Web 
 ster, who, in response to his antagonist, voiced 
 the feeling of the Union men of the North in that 
 wonderful and magnificent speech known ever 
 since under the name of the "Reply to Hayne," 
 and the calling forth of which will henceforward 
 be Hayne s sole title to fame. Benton, though 
 himself a strong Union and anti-nullification man, 
 was still too excited over the subject-matter of the 
 bill and the original discussion over it to under 
 stand that the debate had ranged off upon matters 
 of infinitely greater importance, and entirely failed 
 
The Election of Jackson 75 
 
 to realize that he had listened to the greatest piece 
 of oratory of the century. On the contrary, en 
 couraged by his success earlier in the debate, he 
 actually attempted a kind of reply to Webster, 
 attacking him with invective and sarcasm as an 
 alarmist, and taunting him with the memory of 
 the Hartford Convention, which had been held 
 by members of the Federalist party, to which 
 Webster himself had once belonged. Benton 
 afterward became convinced that Webster s 
 views were by no means those of a mere alarmist, 
 and frankly stated that he had been wrong in his 
 position ; but at the time, heated by his original 
 grievance, as a Western man against New Eng 
 land, he failed entirely to understand the true 
 drift of Hayne s speech. Much of New England s 
 policy to the West was certainly excessively nar 
 row-minded. 
 
 Jackson s administration derives a most unen 
 viable notoriety as being the one under which the 
 " spoils system " became, for the first time, grafted 
 on the civil service of the nation; appointments 
 and removals in the public service being made de 
 pendent upon political qualifications, and not, as 
 hitherto, upon merit or capacity. Benton, to his 
 honor, always stoutly opposed this system. It is 
 unfair to assert that Jackson was the originator of 
 this method of appointment ; but he was certainly 
 its foster-father, and more than any one else is 
 
76 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 responsible for its introduction into the affairs of 
 the national government. Despite all the Eastern 
 sneers at the "savages" of the West, it was from 
 Eastern men that this most effective method of 
 debauching political life came. The Jacksonian 
 Democrats of the West, when they introduced it 
 into the working of the federal government, sim 
 ply copied the system which they found already 
 firmly established by their Eastern allies in New 
 York and Pennsylvania. For many years the 
 course of politics throughout the country had been 
 preparing and foreshadowing the advent of the 
 "spoils system." The greatest single stroke in its 
 favor had been done at the instigation of Craw 
 ford, when that scheming politician was seeking 
 the presidency, and, to further his ends, he pro 
 cured the passage by Congress of a law limiting 
 the term of service of all public officials to four 
 years, thus turning out of office all the fifty thou 
 sand public servants during each presidential 
 term. This law has never been repealed, every 
 low politician being vitally interested in keeping 
 it as it is, and accordingly it is to be found on the 
 statute-books at the present day; and though it 
 has the company of some other very bad measures, 
 it still remains very much the worst of all, as 
 regards both the evil it has done and that which 
 it is still doing. This four years limitation law 
 was passed without comment or protest, every 
 
The Spoils System 77 
 
 one voting in its favor, its probable working not 
 being comprehended in the least. Says Benton, 
 who, with all his colleagues, voted for it: "The 
 object of the law was to pass the disbursing officers 
 every four years under the supervision of the 
 appointing power, for the inspection of their 
 accounts, in order that defaulters might be de 
 tected and dropped, while the faithful should be 
 ascertained and continued. ... It was found to 
 operate contrary to its intent, and to have become 
 the facile means of getting rid of faithful disburs 
 ing officers, instead of retaining them." New 
 York has always had a low political standard, one 
 or the other of its great party and factional organ 
 izations, and often both or all of them, being at all 
 times most unlovely bodies of excessively un 
 wholesome moral tone. Aaron Burr introduced 
 the "spoils system" into her state affairs, and his 
 methods were followed and improved upon by 
 Marcy, Wright, Van Buren, and all the "Albany 
 Regency." In 1829 these men found themselves 
 an important constituent portion of the winning 
 party, and immediately, by the help of the only 
 too willing Jackson, proceeded to apply their sys 
 tem to affairs at Washington. It was about this 
 time that, in the course of a debate in the Senate, 
 Marcy gave utterance to the now notorious maxim, 
 " To the victors belong the spoils." 
 
 Under Adams the non-partisan character of the 
 
78 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 public service had been guarded with a scrupulous 
 care that could almost be called exaggerated. In 
 deed, Adams certainly went altogether too far in 
 his non-partisanship when it came to appointing 
 cabinet and other high officers, his views on such 
 points being not only fantastic, but absolutely 
 wrong. The colorless character of his administra 
 tion was largely due to his having, in his anxiety to 
 avoid blind and unreasoning adherence to party, 
 committed the only less serious fault of paying too 
 little heed to party; for a healthy party spirit is 
 prerequisite to the performance of effective work 
 in American political life. Adams was not elected 
 purely for himself, but also on account of the men 
 and the principles that he was supposed to repre 
 sent ; and when he partly surrounded himself with 
 men of opposite principles, he just so far, though 
 from the best of motives, betrayed his supporters, 
 and rightly forfeited much of their confidence. 
 But, under him, every public servant felt that, so 
 long as he faithfully served the State, his position 
 was secure, no matter what his political opinions 
 might be. 
 
 With the incoming of the Jacksonians all this 
 changed, and terribly for the worse. A perfect 
 reign of terror ensued among the office-holders. 
 In the first month of the new administration more 
 removals took place than during all the previous 
 administrations put together. Appointments were 
 
The Spoils System 79 
 
 made with little or no attention to fitness, or even 
 honesty, but solely because of personal or political 
 services. Removals were not made in accordance 
 with any known rule at all; the most frivolous 
 pretexts were sufficient, if advanced by useful poli 
 ticians who needed places already held by capable 
 incumbents. Spying and tale -bearing became 
 prominent features of official life, the meaner 
 office-holders trying to save their own heads by 
 denouncing others. The very best men were un 
 ceremoniously and causelessly dismissed; gray- 
 headed clerks, who had been appointed by the 
 earlier presidents, by Washington, the elder 
 Adams, and Jefferson, being turned off at an 
 hour s notice, although a quarter of a century s 
 faithful work in the public service had unfitted 
 them to earn their living elsewhere. Indeed, it 
 was upon the best and most efficient men that the 
 blow fell heaviest; the spies, tale-bearers, and 
 tricksters often retained their positions. In 1829 
 the public service was, as it always had been, ad 
 ministered purely in the interest of the people; 
 and the man who was styled the especial cham 
 pion of the people dealt that service the heaviest 
 blow it has ever received. 
 
 Benton himself always took a sound stand on 
 the civil service question, although his partisan 
 ship led him at times to defend Jackson s course 
 when he must have known well that it was 
 
8o Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 indefensible. He viewed with the greatest alarm 
 and hostility the growth of the spoils system, and 
 early introduced, as chairman of a special commit 
 tee, a bill to repeal the harmful four years limita 
 tion act. In discussing this proposed bill after 
 ward, he wrote, in words that apply as much at 
 this time as they did then : " The expiration of the 
 four years term came to be considered as the ter 
 mination and vacation of all the offices on which it 
 fell, and the creation of vacancies to be filled at 
 the option of the President. The bill to remedy 
 this defect gave legal effect to the original inten 
 tion of the law by confining the vacation of office 
 to actual defaulters. The power of the President 
 to dismiss civil officers was not attempted to be 
 curtailed, but the restraints of responsibility were 
 placed upon its exercise by requiring the cause of 
 dismission to be communicated to Congress in each 
 case. The section of the bill to that effect was in 
 these words : That in all nominations made by the 
 President to the Senate, to fill vacancies occasioned 
 by an exercise of the President s power to remove 
 from office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to 
 the Senate at the same time that the nomination is 
 made, with a statement of the reasons for which such 
 officer may have been removed. This was intended 
 to operate as a restraint upon removals without 
 cause." 
 
 In the "Thirty Years View" he again writes, 
 
The Spoils System 8r 
 
 in language which would be appropriate from 
 every advanced civil service reformer of the pres 
 ent day, that is, from every disinterested man who 
 has studied the workings of the "spoils system" 
 with any intelligence : 
 
 I consider "sweeping" removals, as now practised 
 by both parties, a great political evil in our country, 
 injurious to individuals, to the public service, to the 
 purity of elections, and to the harmony and union of 
 the people. Certainly no individual has a right to an 
 office; no one has an estate or property in a public 
 employment; but when a mere ministerial worker 
 in a subordinate station has learned its duties by 
 experience and approved his fidelity by his conduct, 
 it is an injury to the public service to exchange him 
 for a novice whose only title to the place may be a 
 political badge or partisan service. It is exchanging 
 experience for inexperience, tried ability for untried, 
 and destroying the incentive to good conduct by de 
 stroying its reward. To the party displaced it is an 
 injury, he having become a proficient in that business, 
 expecting to remain in it during good behavior, and 
 finding it difficult, at an advanced age, and with 
 fixed habits, to begin a new career in some new walk 
 of life. It converts elections into scrambles for office, 
 and degrades the government into an office for re 
 wards and punishments ; and divides the people of the 
 Union into adverse parties, each in its turn, and as it 
 becomes dominant, to strip and proscribe the other. 
 
 Benton had now taken the position which he 
 was for many years to hold, as the recognized sen 
 atorial leader of a great and well-defined party. 
 6 
 
82 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Until 1828 the prominent political chiefs of the 
 nation had either been its presidents, or had been 
 in the cabinets of these presidents. But after 
 Jackson s time they were in the Senate, and it was 
 on this body that public attention was concen 
 trated. Jackson s cabinet itself showed such a 
 falling off, when compared with the cabinets of 
 any of his predecessors, as to justify the caustic 
 criticism that, when he took office, there came in 
 the millennium of the minnows. In the Senate, 
 on the contrary, there were never before or since so 
 many men of commanding intellect and powers. 
 Calhoun had been elected as vice-president on the 
 Jacksonian ticket, and was thus, in 1829, presid 
 ing over the body of which he soon became an 
 active member; Webster and Clay were already 
 taking their positions as the leaders of the great 
 National Republican, or, as it was afterward 
 called, Whig party. 
 
 When the rupture between Calhoun and the 
 Jacksonian Democrats, and the resignation of the 
 former from the vice-presidency took place, three 
 parties developed in the United States Senate. 
 One was composed of the Jacksonian Democrats, 
 with Benton at their head; one was made up of 
 the little band of Nullifiers, led by Calhoun ; and 
 the third included the rather loose array of the 
 Whigs, tinder Clay and Webster. The feeling 
 of the Jacksonians toward Calhoun and the 
 
The Spoils System 83 
 
 Nullifiers and toward Clay and the Clay Whigs 
 were largely those of personal animosity ; but they 
 had very little of this sentiment toward Webster 
 and his associates, their differences with them 
 being on questions of party principle, or else 
 proceeding from merely sectional causes. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NULLIFIERS. 
 
 DURING both Jackson s presidential terms 
 he and his adherents were engaged in two 
 great struggles : that with the Nullifiers, 
 and that with the Bank. Although these strug 
 gles were in part synchronous, it will be easier to 
 discuss each by itself. 
 
 The nullification movement in South Carolina, 
 during the latter part of the third and early part 
 of the fourth decades in the present century, had 
 nothing to do, except in the most distant way, 
 with slavery. Its immediate cause was the high 
 tariff; remotely it sprang from the same feelings 
 which produced the Virginia and Kentucky reso 
 lutions of 1798. 
 
 Certain of the slave States, including those 
 which raised hemp, indigo, and sugar, were high- 
 tariff States; indeed, it was not till toward the 
 close of the presidency of Monroe that there had 
 been much sectional feeling over the policy of pro 
 tection. Originally, while we were a purely agri 
 cultural and mercantile people, free trade was the 
 only economic policy which occurred to us as possi 
 ble to be followed, the first tariff bill being passed 
 in 1816. South Carolina then was inclined to 
 
 84 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 85 
 
 favor the system, Calhoun himself supporting the 
 bill, and, his subsequent denials to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, distinctly advocating the policy 
 of protection to native industries; while Massa 
 chusetts then and afterward stoutly opposed its 
 introduction, as hostile to her interests. However, 
 the bill was passed, and Massachusetts had to sub 
 mit to its operation. After 1816, new tariff laws 
 were enacted about every four years, and soon the 
 coast slave States, except Louisiana, realized that 
 their working was hurtful to the interests of the 
 planters. New England also changed her attitude ; 
 and when the protective tariff bill of 1828 came 
 up, its opponents and supporters were sharply 
 divided by sectional lines. But these lines were 
 not such as would have divided the States on the 
 question of slavery. The Northeast and North 
 west alike favored the measure, as also did all the 
 Southern States west of the Alleghanies, and Lou 
 isiana. It was therefore passed by an overwhelm 
 ing vote, against the solid opposition of the belt of 
 Southern coast States stretching from Virginia to 
 Mississippi, and including these two. 
 
 The States that felt themselves harmed by the 
 tariff did something more than record their disap 
 proval by the votes of their representatives in Con 
 gress. They nearly all, through their legislatures, 
 entered emphatic protests against its adoption, as 
 being most harmful to them and dangerous to the 
 
86 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Union ; and some accompanied their protests with 
 threats as to what would be done if the obnox 
 ious laws should be enforced. They certainly 
 had grounds for discontent. In 1828 the tariff, 
 whether it benefited the country as a whole or not, 
 unquestionably harmed the South ; and in a fed 
 eral Union it is most unwise to pass laws which 
 shall benefit one part of the community to the 
 hurt of another part, when the latter receives no 
 compensation. The truculent and unyielding atti 
 tude of the extreme protectionists was irritating in 
 the extreme ; for cooler men than the South Caro 
 linians might well have been exasperated at such 
 an utterance as that of Henry Clay, when he stated 
 that for the sake of the "American system"- by 
 which title he was fond of styling a doctrine 
 already ancient in medieval times he would 
 "defy the South, the President, and the devil." 
 
 On the other hand, both the good and the 
 evil effects of the tariff were greatly exaggerated. 
 Some harm to the planter States was doubtless 
 caused by it ; but their falling back, as compared 
 with the North, in the race for prosperity, was 
 doubtless caused much more by the presence of 
 slavery, as Dallas of Pennsylvania pointed out in 
 the course of some very temperate and moderate 
 remarks in the Senate. Clay s assertions as to 
 what the tariff had done for the West were equally 
 ill-founded, as Benton showed in a good speech, 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 87 
 
 wherein he described picturesquely enough the in 
 dustries and general condition of his portion of the 
 country, and asserted with truth that its revived 
 prosperity was due to its own resources, entirely 
 independent of federal aid or legislation. He 
 said : I do not think we are indebted to the high 
 tariff for our fertile lands and our navigable rivers ; 
 and I am certain we are indebted to these blessings 
 for the prosperity we enjoy." " In all that comes 
 from the soil the people of the West are rich. 
 They have an abundant supply of food for man 
 and beast, and a large surplus to send abroad. 
 They have the comfortable living which industry 
 creates for itself in a rich soil, but beyond this 
 they are poor. . . . They have no roads paved or 
 macadamized ; no canals or aqueducts ; no bridges 
 of stone to cross the innumerable streams ; no edi 
 fices dedicated to eternity ; no schools for the fine 
 arts; not a public library for which an ordinary 
 scholar would not apologize." Then he went on 
 to speak of the commerce of the West and its 
 exports, "the marching myriads of living animals 
 annually taking their departure from the heart of 
 the West, defiling through the gorges of the Cum 
 berland, the Alleghany, and the Appalachian 
 Mountains, or traversing the plains of the South, 
 diverging as they march, . . . and the flying 
 steamboats and the fleets of floating arks, loaded 
 with the products of the forest, the farm, and the 
 
88 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 pasture, following the courses of our noble rivers, 
 and bearing their freights to the great city" of 
 New Orleans. 
 
 Unfortunately Benton would interlard even his 
 best speeches with theories of economics often 
 more or less crude, and, still worse, with a series 
 of classic quotations and allusions; for he was 
 grievously afflicted with the rage for cheap pseudo- 
 classicism that Jefferson and his school had bor 
 rowed from the French revolutionists. Nor could 
 he resist the temptation to drag in allusions to 
 some favorite hobby. The repeal of the salt tax 
 was an especial favorite of his. He was perfectly 
 right in attacking the tax, and deserves the great 
 est credit for the persistency which finally won 
 him the victory. But his associates, unless of a 
 humorous turn of mind, must have found his allu 
 sions to it rather tiresome, as when, apropos of 
 the commerce of the Mississippi, and without any 
 possible excuse for speaking of the iniquity of 
 taxing salt, he suddenly alluded to New Orleans 
 as " that great city which revives upon the banks 
 of the Mississippi the name of the greatest of the 
 emperors 1 that ever reigned upon the banks of 
 the Tiber, and who eclipsed the glory of his own 
 heroic exploits by giving an order to his legions 
 never to levy a contribution of salt upon a Roman 
 citizen f" 
 
 1 Aurelian. 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 89 
 
 It must be admitted that the tariff did some 
 harm to the South, and that it was natural for the 
 latter to feel resentment at the way in which it 
 worked. But it must also be remembered that no 
 law can be passed which does not distribute its 
 benefits more or less unequally, and which does 
 not, in all probability, work harm in some cases. 
 Moreover, the South was estopped from complain 
 ing of one section being harmed by a law that 
 benefited, or was supposed to benefit, the country 
 at large, by her position in regard to the famous 
 embargo and non-importation acts. These in 
 flicted infinitely more damage and loss in New 
 England than any tariff law could inflict on South 
 Carolina, and, moreover, were put into execution 
 on account of a quarrel with England forced on by 
 the West and South contrary to the desire of the 
 East. Yet the Southerners were fierce in their 
 denunciations of such of the Federalists as went to 
 the extreme in opposition to them. Even in 1816 
 Massachusetts had been obliged to submit with 
 good grace to the workings of a tariff which she 
 deemed hostile to her interests, and which many 
 Southerners then advocated. Certainly, even if 
 the new tariff laws were ill-advised, unjust, and 
 unequal in their working, yet they did not, in the 
 most remote degree, justify any effort to break up 
 the Union ; especially the South had no business 
 to complain when she herself had joined in laying 
 
90 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 heavier burdens on the shoulders of New England. 
 Complain she did, however; and soon added 
 threats to complaints, and was evidently ready to 
 add acts to threats. Georgia, at first, took the 
 lead in denunciation; but South Carolina soon 
 surpassed her, and finally went to the length of 
 advocating and preparing for separation from the 
 Union ; a step that produced a revulsion of feeling 
 even among her fellow anti-tariff States. The 
 South Carolinian statesmen now proclaimed the 
 doctrine of nullification, that is, proclaimed that 
 if any State deemed a federal law improper, it 
 could proceed to declare that law null and void so 
 far as its own territory was concerned, and, as a 
 corollary, that it had the right forcibly to prevent 
 execution of this void law within its borders. This 
 was proclaimed, not as an exercise of the right of 
 revolution, which, in the last resort, belongs, of 
 course, to every community and class, but as a 
 constitutional privilege. Jefferson was quoted as 
 the father of the idea, and the Kentucky resolu 
 tions of 1798-99, which he drew, were cited as the 
 precedent for the South Carolinian action. In 
 both these last assertions the Nullifiers were cor 
 rect. Jefferson was the father of nullification, 
 and therefore of secession. He used the word 
 * nullify" in the original draft which he supplied 
 to the Kentucky Legislature, and though that 
 body struck it out of the resolutions which they 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 91 
 
 passed in 1798, they inserted it in those of the 
 following year. This was done mainly as an un 
 scrupulous party move on Jefferson* s part, and 
 when his side came into power he became a firm 
 upholder of the Union; and, being constitution 
 ally unable to put a proper value on truthfulness, 
 he even denied that his resolutions could be con 
 strued to favor nullification though they could 
 by no possibility be construed to mean anything 
 else. 
 
 At this time it is not necessary to discuss nullifi 
 cation as a constitutional dogma ; it is an absurd 
 ity too great to demand serious refutation. The 
 United States has the same right to protect itself 
 from death by nullification, secession, or rebellion, 
 that a man has to protect himself from death by 
 assassination. Calhoun s hair-splitting and meta 
 physical disquisitions on the constitutionality of 
 nullification have now little more practical interest 
 than have the extraordinary arguments and dis 
 cussions of the school-men of the Middle Ages. 
 
 But at the time they were of vital interest, for 
 they were words which it was known South Caro 
 lina was prepared to back up by deeds. Calhoun 
 was vice-president, the second officer in the federal 
 government, and yet also the avowed leader of the 
 most bitter disunionists. His State supported him 
 by an overwhelming majority, although even with 
 in its own borders there was an able opposition, 
 
92 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 headed by the gallant and loyal family of the 
 Dray tons, the same family that afterward fur 
 nished the captain of Farragut s flagship, the 
 glorious old Hartford. There was a strong senti 
 ment in the other Southern States in his favor; 
 the public men of South Carolina made speech 
 after speech goading him on to take even more 
 advanced ground. 
 
 In Washington the current at first seemed to be 
 all setting in favor of the Nullifiers; they even 
 counted on Jackson s support, as he was a South 
 erner and a states -rights man. But he was also a 
 strong Unionist, and, moreover, at this time, felt 
 very bitterly toward Calhoun, with whom he had 
 just had a split, and had in consequence remodeled 
 his cabinet, thrusting out all Calhoun s supporters, 
 and adopting Van Buren as his political heir, the 
 position which it was hitherto supposed the great 
 Carolina separatist occupied. 
 
 The first man to take up the gauntlet the Nulli 
 fiers had thrown down was Webster, in his famous 
 reply to Hayne. He, of course, voiced the senti 
 ment of the Whigs, and especially of the North 
 east, where the high tariff was regarded with 
 peculiar favor, where the Union feeling was 
 strong, and where there was a certain antagonism 
 felt toward the South. The Jacksonian Demo 
 crats, whose strength lay in the West, had not yet 
 spoken. They were, for the most part, neither 
 
The Struggles with the Nullifiers 93 
 
 ultra-protectionists nor absolute free-traders; 
 Jackson s early presidential utterances had given 
 offense to the South by not condemning all high- 
 tariff legislation, but at the same time had de 
 clared in favor of a much more moderate degree 
 of protection than suited the Whigs. Only a few 
 weeks after Webster s speech Jackson s chance 
 came, and he declared himself in unmistakable 
 terms. It was on the occasion of the Jefferson 
 birthday banquet, April 13, 1830. An effort was 
 then being made to have Jefferson s birthday cele 
 brated annually ; and the Nullifiers, rightly claim 
 ing him as their first and chief apostle, attempted 
 to turn this particular feast into a demonstration 
 in favor of nullification. Most of the speakers 
 present were actively or passively in favor of the 
 movement, and the toasts proposed strongly 
 savored of the new doctrine. But Jackson, Ben- 
 ton, and a number of other Union men were in 
 attendance also, and when it came to Jackson s 
 turn he electrified the audience by proposing: 
 "Our federal Union; it must be preserved." 
 Calhoun at once answered with: "The Union; 
 next to our liberty the most dear; may we all 
 remember that it can only be preserved by re 
 specting the rights of the States and distributing 
 equally the benefit and burden of the Union." 
 The issue between the President and the Vice- 
 President was now complete, and the Jacksonian 
 
94 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Democracy was squarely committed against nulli 
 fication. Jackson had risen to the occasion as 
 only a strong and a great man could rise, and his 
 few, telling words, finely contrasting at every 
 point with Calhoun s utterances, rang throughout 
 the whole country, and will last as long as our 
 government. One result, at least, the Nullifiers 
 accomplished, they completely put an end to the 
 Jefferson birthday celebrations. 
 
 The South Carolinians had no intention of 
 flinching from the contest which they had pro 
 voked, even when they saw that the North and 
 West were united against them, and though the 
 tide began to set the same way in their sister 
 States of the South; North Carolina, among the 
 latter, being the first and most pronounced in her 
 support of the President and denunciation of the 
 Nullifiers. The men of the Palmetto State have 
 always ranked high for hot-headed courage, and 
 they soon showed that they had wills as fiery as 
 that of Jackson himself. Yet in the latter they 
 had met an antagonist well worthy of any foeman s 
 steel. In declining an invitation to be present at 
 Charleston, on July 4, 1831, the President again 
 defined most clearly his position in favor of the 
 Union, and his words had an especial significance 
 because he let it be seen that he was fully deter 
 mined to back them up by force if necessary. But 
 his letter only had the effect of inflaming still 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 95 
 
 more the minds of the South Carolinians. The 
 prime cause of irritation, the tariff, still remained ; 
 and in 1832, Clay, having entered the Senate after 
 a long retirement from politics, put the finishing 
 stroke to their anger by procuring the passage of 
 a new tariff bill, which left the planter States 
 almost as badly off as did the law of 1828. Jack 
 son signed this, although not believing that it went 
 far enough in the reduction of duties. 
 
 In the presidential election of 1832, Jackson 
 defeated Clay by an enormous majority; Van 
 Buren was elected vice-president, there being thus 
 a Northern man on the ticket. South Carolina 
 declined to take part in the election, throwing 
 away her vote. Again, it must be kept in mind 
 that the slave question did not shape, or, indeed, 
 enter into this contest at all, directly, although 
 beginning to be present in the background as a 
 source of irritation. In 1832 there was tenfold 
 more feeling in the North against masonry and 
 secret societies generally, than there was against 
 slavery. 
 
 Benton threw himself in, heart and soul, with 
 the Union party, acting as Jackson s right-hand 
 man throughout the contest with South Carolina, 
 and showing an even more resolute and unflinch 
 ing front than Old Hickory himself. No better or 
 trustier ally than the Missouri statesman, in a hard 
 fight for a principle, could be desired. He was 
 
96 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 intensely national in all his habits of thought ; he 
 took a deep, personal pride in all his country, 
 North, South, East, and West. He had been very 
 loath to believe that any movement hostile to the 
 Union was really on foot; but once thoroughly 
 convinced of it he chose his own line of action 
 without an instant s hesitation. 
 
 A fortnight after the presidential election South 
 Carolina passed her ordinance of nullification, di 
 rected against the tariff laws generally, and against 
 those of 1828 and 1832 in particular. The ordi 
 nance was to take effect on February i ; and if, 
 meantime, the federal government should make 
 any attempt to enforce the laws, the fact of such 
 attempt was to end the continuance of South Caro 
 lina in the Union. 
 
 Jackson promptly issued a proclamation against 
 nullification, composed jointly by himself and the 
 great Louisiana jurist and statesman, Livingston. 
 It is one of the ablest, as well as one of the most 
 important, of all American state papers. It is 
 hard to see how any American can read it now 
 without feeling his veins thrill. Some claim it as 
 being mainly the work of Jackson, others as that 
 of Livingston ; it is great honor for either to have 
 had a hand in its production. 
 
 In his annual message the President merely re 
 ferred, in passing, to the Nullifiers, expressing his 
 opinion that the action in reducing the duties, 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 97 
 
 which the extinction of the public debt would per 
 mit and require, would put an end to the proceed 
 ings. As matters grew more threatening, how 
 ever, South Carolina making every preparation 
 for war, and apparently not being conciliated in 
 the least by the evident desire in Congress to meet 
 her more than half way on the tariff question, 
 Jackson sent a special message to both houses. 
 He had already sent General Scott to Charleston, 
 and had begun the concentration of certain mili 
 tary and naval forces in or near the state bounda 
 ries. He now asked Congress to pass a measure 
 to enable him to deal better with possible resist 
 ance to the laws. South Carolina having com 
 plained of the oppressed condition in which she 
 found herself, owing to the working of the tariff, 
 Jackson, in his message, with some humor, quoted 
 in reply the last Thanksgiving proclamation of 
 her governor, wherein he dilated upon the State s 
 unexampled prosperity and happiness. 
 
 It must always be kept in mind in describing 
 the attitude of the Jacksonian Democrats toward 
 the Nullifiers, that they were all along, especially 
 in the West, hostile to a very high tariff. Jackson 
 and Benton had always favored a much lower 
 tariff than that established in 1828 and hardly 
 changed in 1832. It was no change of front on 
 their part now to advocate a reduction of duties. 
 Jackson and Benton both felt that there was much 
 7 
 
98 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 ground for South Carolina s original complaint, 
 although as strongly opposed to her nullification 
 attitude as any Northerner. Most of the Southern 
 senators and representatives, though opposed to 
 nullification, were almost equally hostile to the 
 high tariff ; and very many others were at heart in 
 sympathy with nullification itself. The intensely 
 national and anti-separatist tone of Jackson s dec 
 laration, a document that might well have come 
 from Washington or Lincoln, and that would have 
 reflected high honor on either, though warmly 
 approved by Benton, was very repugnant to many 
 of the Southern Democrats, and was too much even 
 for certain of the Whigs. In fact, it reads like 
 the utterance of some great Federalist or Repub 
 lican leader. The feeling in Congress as a whole 
 was as strong against the tariff as it was against 
 nullification; and Jackson had to take this into 
 account, all the more because not only was he in 
 some degree of the same way of thinking, but also 
 many of his followers entertained the sentiment 
 even more earnestly. 
 
 Calhoun introduced a series of nullification 
 resolutions into the Senate, and defended them 
 strongly in the prolonged constitutional debate 
 that followed. South Carolina meanwhile put off 
 the date at which her decrees were to take effect, 
 so that she might see what Congress would do. 
 Beyond question, Jackson s firmness, and the way 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 99 
 
 in which he was backed up by Benton, Webster, 
 and their followers, was having some effect. He 
 had openly avowed his intention, if matters went 
 too far, of hanging Calhoun " higher than Raman." 
 He unquestionably meant to imprison him, as well 
 as the other South Carolina leaders, the instant 
 that State came into actual collision with the 
 Union; and to the end of his life regretted, and 
 with reason, that he had not done so without wait 
 ing for an overt act of resistance. Some his 
 torians have treated this as if it were an idle threat ; 
 but such it certainly was not. Jackson undoubt 
 edly fully meant what he said, and would have 
 acted promptly had the provocation occurred, 
 and, moreover, he would have been sustained by 
 the country. He was not the man to weigh 
 minutely what would and what would not fall 
 just on one side or the other of the line defining 
 treason; nor was it the time for too scrupulous 
 adherence to precise wording. Had a collision 
 occurred, neither Calhoun nor his colleague would 
 ever have been permitted to leave Washington; 
 and brave though they were, the fact -unquestion 
 ably had much influence with them. 
 
 Webster was now acting heartily with Benton. 
 He introduced a set of resolutions which showed 
 that in the matters both of the tariff and of nullifi 
 cation his position was much the same as was that 
 of the Missourian. Unfortunately Congress as a 
 
ioo Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 whole was by no means so stiff -kneed. A certain 
 number of Whigs followed Webster, and a certain 
 number of Democrats clung to Benton ; but most 
 Southerners were very reluctant to allow pressure 
 to be brought to bear on South Carolina, and many 
 Northerners were as willing to compromise as 
 Henry Clay himself. In accordance with Jack 
 son s recommendations two bills were introduced: 
 one the so-called " Force Bill," to allow the Presi 
 dent to take steps to defend the federal authority 
 in the event of actual collision ; and the other a 
 moderate, and, on the whole, proper tariff bill, to 
 reduce protective duties. Both were introduced 
 by administration supporters. Benton and Web 
 ster warmly sustained the "Force Bill," which 
 was bitterly attacked by the Nullifiers and by 
 most of the Southerners, who really hardly knew 
 what stand to take, the leading opponent being 
 Tyler of Virginia, whose disunion attitude was 
 almost as clearly marked as that of Calhoun him 
 self. The measure was eminently just, and was 
 precisely what the crisis demanded ; and the Sen 
 ate finally passed it and sent it to the House. 
 
 All this time an obstinate struggle was going on 
 over the tariff bill. Calhoun and his sympathizers 
 were beginning to see that there was real danger 
 ahead, alike to themselves, their constituents, and 
 their principles, if they followed unswervingly the 
 course they had laid down; and the weak-kneed 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 101 
 
 brethren on the other side, headed by Clay, were 
 becoming even more uneasy. Calhoun wished to 
 avert collision with the federal government ; day 
 was quite as anxious to avoid an outbreak in the 
 South and to save what he could of the protective 
 system, which was evidently doomed. Calhoun 
 was willing to sacrifice some of his constitutional 
 theories in regard to protection ; Clay was ready 
 greatly to reduce protection itself. Each of them, 
 but especially Clay, was prepared to shift his stand 
 somewhat from that of abstract moral right to 
 that of expediency. Benton and Webster were 
 too resolute and determined in their hostility to 
 any form of yielding to South Carolina s insolent 
 defiance to admit any hope of getting them to 
 accept a compromise ; but the majority of the 
 members were known to be only too ready to jump 
 at any half-way measure which would patch up the 
 affair for the present, no matter what the sacrifice 
 of principle or how great the risk incurred for the 
 future. Accordingly, Clay and Calhoun met and 
 agreed on a curious bill, in reality recognizing the 
 protective system, but making a great although 
 gradual reduction of duties ; and Clay introduced 
 this as a "compromise measure." It was substi 
 tuted in the House for the administration tariff bill, 
 was passed and sent to the Senate. It gave South 
 Carolina much, but not all, that she demanded. 
 Her representatives announced themselves 
 
102 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 satisfied, and supported it, together with all 
 their Southern sympathizers; Webster and Ben- 
 ton fought it stoutly to the last, but it was passed 
 by a great majority ; a few Northerners followed 
 Webster, and Benton received fair support from 
 his Missouri colleagues and the Maryland senators ; 
 the other senators, Whigs and Democrats alike, 
 voted for the measure. Many of the Southerners 
 were imbued with separatist principles, although 
 not yet to the extent that Calhoun was; others, 
 though Union men, did not possess the unflinch 
 ing will and stern strength of character that en 
 abled Benton to stand out against any section of 
 the country, even his own, if it was wrong. Silas 
 Wright of New York, a typical Northern " dough 
 face" politician, gave exact expression to the 
 "dough-face" sentiment, which induced Northern 
 members to vote for the compromise, when he 
 stated that he was unalterably opposed to the 
 principle of the bill, but that on account of the 
 attitude of South Carolina, and of the extreme 
 desire which he had to remove all cause of dis 
 content in that State, and in order to enable her 
 again to become an affectionate member of the 
 Union, he would vote for what was satisfactory 
 to her, although repugnant to himself. Wright, 
 Marcy, and their successors in New York politics, 
 almost up to the present day, certainly carried 
 cringing subserviency to the South to a pitch that 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 103 
 
 was fairly sublime. The "Force Bill" and the 
 compromise tariff bill passed both houses nearly 
 simultaneously, and were sent up to the President, 
 who signed both on the same day. His signing 
 the compromise bill was a piece of weakness out 
 of keeping with his whole character, and especially 
 out of keeping with his previous course toward 
 the Nullifiers. The position assumed by Ben- 
 ton and Webster that South Carolina should be 
 made to submit first and should have the justice 
 of her claims examined into afterward, was 
 unquestionably the only proper attitude. 
 
 My objections to this bill, and to its mode of being 
 passed, were deep and abiding, and went far beyond 
 its own obnoxious provisions, and all the transient and 
 temporary considerations connected with it. . . . A 
 compromise made with a state in arms is a capitula 
 tion to that state. . . . The injury was great then, 
 and a permanent evil example. It remitted the gov 
 ernment to the condition of the old confederation, 
 acting upon sovereignties instead of individuals. It 
 violated the feature of our Union which discriminated 
 it from all confederacies that ever existed, and which 
 was wisely and patriotically put into the Constitution 
 to save it from the fate which had attended all con 
 federacies, ancient and modern. . . . The framers of 
 our Constitution established a Union instead of a 
 League to be sovereign and independent within its 
 sphere, acting upon persons through its own laws and 
 courts, instead of acting on communities through 
 persuasion or force. The effect of this compromise 
 legislation was to destroy this great feature of our 
 
104 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Union to bring the general and state governments 
 into conflict and to substitute a sovereign state for 
 an offending individual as often as a state chose to 
 make the cause of that individual her own. 
 
 Not only was Benton s interpretation of the 
 Constitution sound, and one that by the course of 
 events has now come to be universally accepted, 
 but his criticisms on the wisdom of the com 
 promise bill were perfectly just. Had the Anti- 
 Nullifiers stood firm, the Nullifiers would probably 
 have given way, and if not, would certainly have 
 been crushed. Against a solid North and West, 
 with a divided South, even her own people not 
 being unanimous, and with Jackson as chief ex 
 ecutive, South Carolina could not have made even 
 a respectable resistance. A salutary lesson then 
 might very possibly have saved infinite trouble 
 and bloodshed thereafter. But in Jackson s case 
 it must be remembered that, so far as his acts 
 depended purely upon his own will and judgment, 
 no fault can be found with him ; he erred only in 
 ratifying a compromise agreed to by the vast 
 majority of the representatives of the people in 
 both houses of Congress. 
 
 The battle did not result in a decisive victory 
 for either side. This was shown by the very fact 
 that each party insisted that it had won a signal 
 triumph. Calhoun and Clay afterward quarreled 
 in the Senate chamber as to which had given up 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 105 
 
 the more in the compromise. South Carolina had 
 declared, first, that the tariff was unconstitutional, 
 and therefore to be opposed upon principle; 
 second, that it worked injustice to her interests, 
 and must be abolished forthwith; thirdly, that, 
 if it were not so abolished, she would assert her 
 power to nullify a federal law, and, if necessary, 
 would secede from the Union. When her repre 
 sentatives agreed to the compromise bill, they 
 abandoned the first point; the second was de 
 cided largely in her favor, though protection was 
 not by any means entirely given up ; the third she 
 was allowed to insist upon with impunity, although 
 the other side, by passing the " Force Bill, "showed 
 that in case matters did proceed to extremities 
 they were prepared to act upon the opposite con 
 viction. Still, she gained most of that for which 
 she contended, and the victory, as a whole, rested 
 with her. Calhoun s purposes seem to have been, 
 in the main, pure ; but few criminals have worked 
 as much harm to their country as he did. The 
 plea of good intentions is not one that can be 
 allowed to have much weight in passing historical 
 judgment upon a man whose wrong-headedness 
 and distorted way of looking at things produced, 
 or helped to produce, such incalculable evil ; there 
 is a wide political applicability in the remark 
 attributed to a famous Texan, to the effect that 
 he might, in the end, pardon a man who shot him 
 
io6 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 on purpose, but that he would surely never forgive 
 one who did so accidentally. 
 
 Without doubt, the honors of the nullification 
 dispute were borne off by Benton and Webster. 
 The latter s reply to Hayne is, perhaps, the great 
 est single speech of the nineteenth century, and 
 he deserves the highest credit for the stubborn 
 ness with which he stood by his colors to the last. 
 There never was any question of Webster s cour 
 age ; on the occasions when he changed front he 
 was actuated by self-interest and ambition, not by 
 timidity. Usually he appears as an advocate 
 rather than an earnest believer in the cause he 
 represents ; but when it came to be a question of 
 the Union, he felt what he said with the whole 
 strength of his nature. 
 
 An even greater meed of praise attaches to Ben- 
 ton for the unswerving fidelity which he showed 
 to the Union in this crisis. Webster was a high- 
 tariff man, and was backed up by all the sectional 
 antipathies of the Northeast in his opposition to 
 the Nullifiers; Benton, on the contrary, was a 
 believer in a low tariff, or in one for revenue 
 merely, and his sectional antipathies were the 
 other way. Yet, even when deserted by his chief, 
 and when he was opposed to every senator from 
 south of the Potomac and the Ohio, he did not 
 flinch for a moment from his attitude of aggressive 
 loyalty to the national Union. He had a singularly 
 
The Struggle with the Nullifiers 107 
 
 strong and upright character; this country has 
 never had a statesman more fearlessly true 
 to his convictions, when great questions were at 
 stake, no matter what might be the cost to him 
 self, or the pressure from outside, even when, as 
 happened later, his own State was against him. 
 Intellectually he cannot for a moment be com 
 pared to the great Massachusetts senator; but 
 morally he towers much higher. 
 
 Yet, while praising Jackson and Benton for their 
 behavior toward South Carolina, we cannot forget 
 that but a couple of years previously they had not 
 raised their voices even in the mildest rebuke of 
 Georgia for conduct which, though not nearly 
 so bad in degree as that of South Carolina, was 
 of much the same kind. Toward the close of 
 Adams s term, Georgia had bid defiance to the 
 mandates of the Supreme Court, and proceeded to 
 settle the Indian question within her borders with 
 out regard to the authority of the United States, 
 and these matters were still unsettled when Jack 
 son became president. Unfortunately he let his 
 personal feelings bias him; and, as he took the 
 Western and Georgian view of the Indian ques 
 tion, and, moreover, hated the Supreme Court 
 because it was largely Federalist in its composi 
 tion, he declined to interfere. David Crockett, 
 himself a Union man and a nationalist to the back 
 bone, rated Jackson savagely, and with justice, 
 
io8 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 for the inconsistency of his conduct in the two 
 cases, accusing him of having, by his harmful 
 leniency to Georgia, encouraged South Carolina 
 to act as she did, and ridiculing him because, 
 while he smiled at the deeds of the one State, 
 when the like acts were done by the other, "he 
 took up the rod of correction and shook it over 
 her." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JACKSON AND BENTON MAKE WAR ON THE BANK. 
 
 IF the struggle with the Nullifiers showed Ben- 
 ton at his best, in the conflict with the Bank 
 he exhibited certain qualities which hardly 
 place him in so favorable a light. Jackson s 
 attack upon the Bank was a move undertaken 
 mainly on his own responsibility, and one which, 
 at first, most of his prominent friends were 
 alarmed to see him undertake. Benton alone 
 supported him from the beginning. Captain and 
 lieutenant alike intensely appreciated the joy of 
 battle; they cared for a fight because it was a 
 fight, and the certainty of a struggle, such as 
 would have daunted weaker or more timid men, 
 simply offered to them an additional inducement 
 to follow out the course they had planned. Ben- 
 ton s thoroughgoing support was invaluable to 
 Jackson. The President sorely needed a friend 
 in the Senate who would uphold him through thick 
 and thin, and who yet commanded the respect 
 of all his opponents by his strength, ability, and 
 courage. To be sure, Benton s knowledge of 
 financial economics was not always profound ; but, 
 on the other hand a thorough mastery of the laws 
 of finance would have been, in this fight, a very 
 
 109 
 
no Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 serious disadvantage to any champion of Jackson. 
 The rights and wrongs of this matter have been 
 worn threadbare in countless discussions. For 
 much of the hostility of Jackson and Benton 
 toward the Bank there were excellent grounds; 
 but many of their actions were wholly indefensible 
 and very harmful in their results to the country. 
 An assault upon what Benton called "the money 
 power " is apt to be popular in a democratic repub 
 lic, partly on account of the vague fear with which 
 the poorer and more ignorant voters regard a 
 powerful institution, whose working they do not 
 understand, and partly on account of the jealousy 
 they feel toward those who are better off than 
 themselves. When these feelings are appealed to 
 by men who are intensely in earnest, and who are 
 themselves convinced of the justice and wisdom of 
 their course, they become very formidable factors 
 in any political contest. 
 
 The struggle first became important when the 
 question of the recharter of the Bank was raised, 
 toward the end of Jackson s first term, the present 
 charter still having three years to run. This char 
 ter had in it many grave faults ; and there might 
 well be a question as to whether it should be re 
 newed. The Bank itself, beyond doubt, possessed 
 enormous power; too much power for its own or 
 outsiders good. Its president, Biddle, was a man 
 of some ability, but conceited to the last degree, 
 
War on the Bank m 
 
 untruthful, and to a certain extent unscrupulous in 
 the use he made of the political influence of the 
 great moneyed institution over which he presided. 
 Some of the financial theories on which he man 
 aged the Bank were wrong ; yet, on the whole, it 
 was well conducted, and under its care the mone 
 tary condition of the country was quiet and good, 
 infinitely better than it had been before, or than, 
 under the auspices of the Jacksonian Democracy, 
 it afterward became. 
 
 The two great reasons for Jackson s success 
 throughout his political career were to be found in 
 the strength of the feeling in his favor among the 
 poorer and least educated classes of voters, and in 
 the ardent support given him by the low poli 
 ticians, who, by playing on his prejudices and 
 passions, molded him to their wishes, and who 
 organized and perfected in their own and his in 
 terests a great political machine, founded on the 
 "spoils system;" and both the Jacksonian rank 
 and file and the Jacksonian politicians soon agreed 
 heartily in their opposition to the Bank. Jackson 
 and Benton opposed it for the same reasons that 
 the bulk of their followers did; that is to say, 
 partly from honest and ignorant prejudice and 
 partly from a well-founded feeling of distrust as 
 to some of its actions. The mass of their fellow 
 party leaders and henchmen assailed it with the 
 cry that it was exerting its influence to debauch 
 
n2 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 politics, while at the same time they really sought 
 to use it as a power in politics on their own side. 
 
 Jackson, in his first annual message in 1829, 
 had hinted that he was opposed to the recharter 
 of the Bank, then a question of the future and not 
 to arise for four or five years. At the same time 
 he had called in question the constitutionality and 
 expediency of the Bank s existence, and had criti 
 cised as vicious its currency system. The matter 
 of constitutionality had been already decided by 
 the Supreme Court, the proper tribunal, and was, 
 and had been for years, an accepted fact ; it was 
 an absurdity to call it in question. As regards 
 the matter of expediency, certainly the Jackson- 
 ians failed signally to put anything better in its 
 place. Yet it was undeniable that there were 
 grave defects in the currency system. 
 
 The President s message roused but little in 
 terest, and what little it did rouse was among the 
 Bank s friends. At once these began to prepare 
 the way for the recharter by an active and exten 
 sive agitation in its favor. The main bank was at 
 Philadelphia, but it had branches everywhere, and 
 naturally each branch bank was a center of opposi 
 tion to the President s proposed policy. As the 
 friends of the Bank were greatly interested, and 
 as the matter did not immediately concern those 
 who afterward became its foes, the former, for 
 the time, had it all their own way, and the drift of 
 
War on the Bank 113 
 
 public opinion seemed to be strongly in its favor. 
 Bentonwas almost the only public man of prom 
 inence who tried to stem this tide from the be 
 ginning. Jackson s own party associates were 
 originally largely against him, and so he stood all 
 the more in need of the vigorous support which 
 he received from the Missouri senator. Indeed, it 
 would be unfair in the matter of the attack on the 
 Bank to call Benton Jackson s follower ; he might 
 with more propriety be called the leader in the 
 assault, although of course he could accomplish 
 little compared with what was done by the great 
 popular idol. He had always been hostile to the 
 Bank, largely as a matter of Jeff ersonian tradition, 
 and he had shown his hostility by resolutions in 
 troduced in the Senate before Jackson was elected 
 president. 
 
 Early in 1831 he asked leave to introduce a 
 resolution against the recharter of the Bank ; his 
 purpose being merely to give formal notice of war 
 against it, and to attempt to stir up a current of 
 feeling counter to that which then seemed to be 
 generally prevailing in its favor. In his speech 
 he carefully avoided laying stress upon any such 
 abstract point as that of constitutionality, and 
 dwelt instead upon the questions that would affect 
 the popular mind; assailing the Bank as "having 
 too much power over the people and the govern 
 ment, over business and politics, and as too much 
 8 
 
U4 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 disposed to exercise that power to the prejudice of 
 the freedom and equality which should prevail in 
 a republic, to be allowed to exist in our country." 
 The force of such an argument in a popular elec 
 tion will be acknowledged by all practical poli 
 ticians. But, although Benton probably believed 
 what he said, or at any rate most of it, he certainly 
 ought not to have opened the discussion of a great 
 financial measure with a demagogic appeal to caste 
 prejudices. He wished to substitute a gold cur 
 rency in the place of the existing bank-notes, and 
 was not disturbed at all as to how he would supply 
 the place of the Bank, saying : * I am willing to see 
 the charter expire, without providing any substi 
 tute for the present Bank. I am willing to see the 
 currency of the federal government left to the hard 
 money mentioned and intended in the Constitu 
 tion ; . . . every species of paper might be left to 
 the state authorities, unrecognized by the federal 
 government!" Of the beauties of such a system 
 as the last the country later on received practical 
 demonstration. Some of his utterances, however, 
 could be commended to the friends of greenbacks 
 and of dishonest money even at the present day, as 
 when he says: "Gold and silver are the best cur 
 rency for a republic; it suits the men of middle 
 property and the working people best; and if I 
 was going to establish a workingman s party it 
 should be on the basis of hard money a hard- 
 
War on the Bank 115 
 
 money party against a paper party." The Bank 
 was in Philadelphia ; much of the stock was held 
 in the East, and a good deal was held abroad, 
 which gave Benton a chance to play on sectional 
 feelings, as follows: "To whom is all the power 
 granted? To a company of private individuals, 
 many of them foreigners, and the mass of them 
 residing in a remote and narrow corner of the 
 Union, unconnected by any sympathy with the fer 
 tile regions of the Great Valley, in which the natu 
 ral power of this Union the power of numbers 
 will be found to reside long before the renewed 
 term of a second charter would expire." Among 
 the other sentences occurs the following bit of 
 pure demagogic pyrotechnics: "It [the Bank] 
 tends to aggravate the inequality of fortunes ; to 
 make the rich richer and the poor poorer ; to mul 
 tiply nabobs and paupers; and to deepen and 
 widen the gulf which separates Dives from Laza 
 rus. A great moneyed power is favorable to 
 great capitalists, for it is the principle of money 
 to favor money. It is unfavorable to small capi 
 talists, for it is the principle of money to eschew 
 the needy and unfortunate It is injurious to 
 the laboring classes." Altogether it was not a 
 speech to be proud of. The Senate refused per 
 mission to introduce the resolution by the close 
 vote of twenty-three to twenty. 
 
 Benton lived only a generation after that one 
 
n6 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 which had itself experienced oppression from a 
 king, from an aristocratic legislature, and from a 
 foreign power; and so his rant about the undue 
 influence of foreigners in our governmental affairs, 
 and his declamation over the purely supposititious 
 powers that were presumed to be conspiring against 
 the welfare of the poorer classes probably more 
 nearly expressed his real feelings than would be 
 the case with the similar utterances of any leading 
 statesman nowadays. He was an enthusiastic 
 believer in the extreme Jeffersonian doctrinaire 
 views as to the will of the majority being always 
 right, and as to the moral perfection of the aver 
 age voter. Like his fellow statesmen he failed to 
 see the curious absurdity of supporting black 
 slavery, and yet claiming universal suffrage for 
 whites as a divine right, not as a mere matter of 
 expediency resulting on the whole better than any 
 other method. He had not learned that the 
 majority in a democracy has no more right to 
 tyrannize over a minority than, under a different 
 system, the latter would have to oppress the 
 former ; and that, if there is a moral principle at 
 stake, the saying that the voice of the people is 
 the voice of God may be quite as untrue, and do 
 quite as much mischief, as the old theory of the 
 divine right of kings. The distinguishing feature 
 of our American governmental system is the free 
 dom of the individual ; it is quite as important to 
 
War on the Bank 117 
 
 prevent his being oppressed by many men as it is 
 to save him from the tyranny of one. 
 
 This speech on the recharter showed a great 
 deal of wide reading and much information ; but 
 a good part of it was sheer declamation, in the 
 turgid, pompous style that Benton, as well as a 
 great many other American public speakers, was 
 apt to mistake for genuine oratory. His subse 
 quent speech on currency, however, was much 
 better. This was likewise delivered on the occa 
 sion of asking leave to present a joint resolution, 
 which leave was refused. The branch draft sys 
 tem was the object of the assault. These branch 
 drafts were for even sums of small denomination, 
 circulating like bank-notes; they were drawn on 
 the parent bank at Philadelphia to the order of 
 some officer of the branch bank, and were indorsed 
 by the latter to bearer. Thus paper was issued at 
 one place which was payable at another and a dis 
 tant place ; and among other results there ensued 
 a constant inflation of credit. They were very 
 mischievous in their workings ; they had none of 
 the marks of convertible bank-notes or money, 
 and so long as credit was active there could be no 
 check on the inflation of the currency by them. 
 Payment could be voluntarily made at the branch 
 banks whence issued, but if it was refused the 
 owner had only the right to go to Philadelphia 
 and sue the directors there. Most of these drafts 
 
us Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 were issued at the most remote and inaccessible 
 branches, the payment of them being, therefore, 
 much delayed by distance and difficulty; nor 
 were the directors liable for excessive issues. 
 They constituted the bulk of all the paper seen in 
 circulation ; they were supposed to be equivalent 
 to money, but being bills of exchange they were 
 merely negotiable instruments ; they did not have 
 the properties of bank-notes, which are constantly 
 and directly interchangeable with money. In 
 their issue Biddle had laid himself open to attack ; 
 and in defending them he certainly did not always 
 speak the truth, wilfully concealing or coloring 
 facts. Moreover, his self-satisfaction and the 
 foolish pride in his own power, which he could not 
 conceal, led him into making imprudent boasts as 
 to the great power the Bank could exercise over 
 other local banks, and over the general prosperity 
 of the country, while dilating upon its good con 
 duct in not using this power to the disadvantage 
 of the public. All this was playing into Benton s 
 hands. He showed some of the evils of the branch 
 draft system, although apparently not seeing 
 others that were quite as important. He at 
 tacked the Bank for some real and many imagi 
 nary wrong-doings ; and quoted Biddle himself as 
 an authority for the existence of powers dangerous 
 to the welfare of the State. 
 
 The advocates of the Bank were still in the 
 
War on the Bank 119 
 
 majority in both houses of Congress, and soon 
 began preparations for pushing through a bill for 
 the recharter. The issue began to become politi 
 cal. Webster, Clay, and most of the other anti- 
 administration men were for the Bank; and so 
 when the convention of the National Republicans, 
 who soon afterward definitely assumed the name 
 of Whigs, took place, they declared heartily in its 
 favor, and nominated for the presidency its most 
 enthusiastic supporter, Henry Clay. The Bank 
 itself unquestionably preferred not to be dragged 
 into politics ; but Clay, thinking he saw a chance 
 for a successful stroke, fastened upon it, and the 
 convention that nominated him made the fight 
 against Jackson on the ground that he was hostile 
 to the Bank. Even had this not already been the 
 case, no more certain method of insuring his hos 
 tility could have been adopted. 
 
 Still, however, many of Jackson s supporters were 
 also advocates of recharter ; and the bill for that 
 purpose commanded the majority in Congress. 
 Benton took the lead in organizing the opposition, 
 not with the hope of preventing its passage, but 
 "to attack incessantly, assail at all points, display 
 the evil of the institution, rouse the people, and 
 prepare them to sustain the veto." In other 
 words, he was preparing for an appeal to the 
 people, and working to secure an anti-Bank 
 majority in the next Congress. He instigated 
 
120 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 and prepared the investigation into the affairs of 
 the Bank, which was made in the House, and he 
 led the harassing parliamentary warfare carried 
 on against the rechartering bill in the Senate. 
 He himself seems to have superintended the 
 preparation of the charges which were investi 
 gated by the House. A great flurry was made 
 over them, Benton and all his friends claiming 
 that they were fully substantiated ; but the only 
 real point scored was that against the branch 
 drafts. Benton, with the majority of the com 
 mittee of investigation, had the loosest ideas as 
 to what a bank ought to do, loud though they 
 were in denunciation of what this particular bank 
 was alleged to have done. 
 
 Webster made the great argument in favor of 
 the recharter bill. Benton took the lead in oppo 
 sition, stating, what was probably true, that the 
 bill was brought up so long before the charter ex 
 pired for political reasons, and criticizing it as 
 premature; a criticism unfortunately applicable 
 with even greater force to Jackson s message. His 
 speech was largely mere talking against time, and 
 he wandered widely from the subject. Among 
 other things he invoked the aid of the principle of 
 states -rights, because the Bank then had power to 
 establish branches in any State, whether the latter 
 liked it or not, and free from state taxation. He 
 also appealed to tne Western members as such, 
 
War on the Bank 121 
 
 insisting that the Bank discriminated against their 
 section of the country in favor of the East; the 
 facts being that the shrewdness and commercial 
 morality of the Northeast, particularly of New 
 England, saved them from the evils brought on 
 the Westerners by the foolishness with which they 
 abused their credit and the laxness with which 
 they looked on monetary obligations. But in spite 
 of all that Benton could do, the bill passed both 
 houses, the Senate voting in its favor by twenty- 
 eight ayes against twenty nays. 
 
 Jackson, who never feared anything, and was 
 more than ready to accept the fight which was in 
 some measure forced on him, yet which in some 
 degree he had courted, promptly vetoed the bill in 
 a message which stated some truths forcibly and 
 fearlessly, which developed some very queer con 
 stitutional and financial theories, and which con 
 tained a number of absurdities, evidently put in, 
 not for the benefit of the Senate, but to influence 
 voters at the coming presidential election. The 
 leaders of the opposition felt obliged to make a 
 show of trying to pass the bill over the veto in 
 order to get a chance to answer Jackson. Web 
 ster again opened the argument. Clay made the 
 fiercest onslaught, assailing the President person 
 ally besides attacking the veto power, and trying 
 to discredit its use. But the presidential power of 
 veto is among the best features of our government, 
 
122 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 and Benton had no difficulty in making a good 
 defense of it; although many of the arguments 
 adduced by him in its favor were entirely unsound, 
 being based on the wholly groundless assumption 
 that the function of the President corresponded to 
 that of the ancient Roman tribune of the people, 
 and was supposed to be exercised in the interests 
 of the people to control the legislature thus wil 
 fully overlooking the fact that the legislature also 
 was elected by the people. When on his ultra- 
 democratic hobby Benton always rode very loose 
 in the saddle, and with little knowledge of where 
 he was going. Clay and Benton alike drew all 
 sorts of analogies between the state of affairs in 
 the United States and that formerly prevailing 
 in France, England, and above all in the much 
 suffering republics of antiquity. Benton insisted 
 that the Bank had wickedly persuaded the West 
 to get in debt to it so as to have that section in its 
 power, and that the Western debt had been cre 
 ated with a view to political engineering ; the fact 
 being that the Westerners had run into debt purely 
 by their own fault, and that the Bank itself was 
 seriously alarmed at the condition of its Western 
 branches. The currency being in much worse 
 shape in the West than in the Northeast, gold and 
 silver naturally moved toward the latter place; 
 and this result of their own shortcomings was 
 again held up as a grievance of the Westerners 
 
War on the Bank 123 
 
 against the Bank. He also read a severe lecture 
 on the interests of party discipline to the Demo 
 crats who had voted for the recharter, assuring 
 them that they could not continue to be both for 
 the Bank and for Jackson. The Jacksonian 
 Democracy, nominally the party of the multitude, 
 was in reality the nearest approach the United 
 States has ever seen to the " one man power ;" and 
 to break with Jackson was to break with the 
 Democratic party. The alternative of expulsion 
 or of turning a somersault being thus plainly pre 
 sented to the recalcitrant members, they for the 
 most part chose the latter, and performed the re 
 quired feat of legislative acrobatics with the most 
 unobtrusive and submissive meekness. The de 
 bate concluded with a sharp and undignified inter 
 change of personalities between the Missouri and 
 Kentucky senators, Clay giving Benton the lie 
 direct, and the latter retorting in kind. Each side, 
 of course, predicted the utter ruin of the country, 
 if the other prevailed. Benton said that, if the 
 Bank conquered, the result would be the estab 
 lishment of an oligarchy, and then of a monarchy, 
 and finally, the death of the republic by corruption. 
 Webster stated as his belief that, if the sentiments 
 of the veto message received general approbation, 
 the Constitution could not possibly survive its 
 fiftieth year. Webster, however, in that debate, 
 showed to good advantage. Benton was no match 
 
124 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 for him, either as a thinker or as a speaker; but 
 with the real leader of the Whig party, Henry 
 Clay, he never had much cause to fear comparison. 
 
 All the state banks were of course rabidly in 
 favor of Jackson ; and the presidential election of 
 1832 was largely fought on the bank issue. In 
 Pennsylvania, however, the feeling for the Bank 
 was only less strong than that for Jackson; and 
 accordingly that Boeotian community sapiently 
 cast its electoral votes for the latter, while instruct 
 ing its senators and representatives to support the 
 former. But the complete and hopeless defeat of 
 Clay by Jackson sealed the fate of the Bank. Jack 
 son was not even content to let it die naturally by 
 the lapse of its charter. His attitude toward it 
 so far had been one for which much could be said ; 
 indeed, very good grounds can be shown for think 
 ing his veto proper. But of the impropriety of 
 his next step there could be no possible ques 
 tion. Congress had passed a resolution declaring 
 its belief in the safety of the United States 
 deposits in the Bank; but the President, in the 
 summer of 1833, removed these deposits and 
 placed them in certain state banks. He experi 
 enced some difficulty in getting a secretary of the 
 treasury who would take such a step; finally he 
 found one in Taney. 
 
 The Bank memorialized Congress at once ; and 
 the anti-administration majority in the Senate 
 
o 
 
 Ha 
 
 
 him, either as a thinker or as a sp^-eer: but 
 with the real leader of the Whig party Henry 
 Clay, he never had much cause to fear cotr; pa v^on; 
 All the state banks were of course rabidly in 
 favor of Jackson ; and the presidential clarion of 
 1832 was largely fought on the bank issue. In 
 Pennsyh icwever, the feeling for the Bajik 
 
 was only <<* f.*iv.ng than that for Jackson; and 
 aca.^J community sapient 1y 
 
 cs* i-> <tter, while instruct- 
 
 *ttg J- - fcfcttaM io support the 
 
 * fsewfcs&; - :*HI & ^rter defeat of 
 
 iccked, very gcK^d ground-- .v.in *>e snown for tliink- 
 ing his veto proper. But of the impropriety of 
 his next step there could he no possible ques 
 tion. Congress had pissed a resolv. . ! declaring 
 its belie* in the ^3*ty *_*f. ^ i ^itcd States 
 deposits ia ih. n&i &^ President, in the 
 
 summer of i"U these deposits and 
 
 placed them in eft**** *?ate banks. He experi 
 enced some dif^cul- ; sn getting a secretary of the 
 treasur}^ who would take such a step; finally he 
 found one in Taney. 
 
 The Bank memorialized Congress at once, an-.J 
 the. anti-administration majority in the S- 
 
" 
 
Roger B. 
 
Roger B 
 
War on the Bank 125 
 
 forthwith took up the quarrel. They first re 
 jected Jackson s nominations for bank directors, 
 and then refused to confirm Taney himself. Two 
 years later Jackson made the latter chief justice of 
 the Supreme Court, in which position he lived to 
 do even more mischief than he had time or oppor 
 tunity to accomplish as secretary of the treasury. 
 
 Benton was the administration champion in the 
 Senate. Opposed to him were Webster and Clay, 
 as leaders of the Whigs, supported for the time 
 being by Calhoun. The feeling of Clay and Cal- 
 houn against the President was bitterly personal, 
 and was repaid by his rancorous hatred. But 
 Webster, though he was really on most questions 
 even more antagonistic to the ideas of the Jack- 
 sonian school, always remained personally on good 
 terms with its leaders. 
 
 Clay introduced a resolution directing the return 
 of the deposits ; Benton opposed it ; it passed by 
 a vote of twenty-eight to eighteen, but was lost in 
 the House. Clay then introduced a resolution de 
 manding to know from the President whether the 
 paper alleged to have been published by his au 
 thority as having been read to the cabinet, in 
 relation to the removal of the deposits, was genu 
 ine or not ; and, if it was, asking for a copy. Ben- 
 ton opposed the motion, which nevertheless passed. 
 But the President refused to accede to the de 
 mand. Meanwhile the new departure in banking, 
 
i26 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 inaugurated by the President, was working badly. 
 One of the main grounds for removing the deposits 
 was the allegation that they were used to debauch 
 politics. This was never proved against the old 
 United States Bank ; but under Jackson s admin 
 istration, which corrupted the public service in 
 every way, the deposits became fruitful sources of 
 political reward and bribery. 
 
 Clay then introduced his famous resolution cen 
 suring the President for his action, and supported 
 it in a long and fiery speech ; a speech which, like 
 most of Clay s, was received by his followers at the 
 time with rapture, but in which this generation 
 fails to find the sign of that remarkable ability 
 with which his own contemporaries credited the 
 great Kentuckian. He attacked Jackson with 
 fierce invective, painting him as an unscrupulous 
 tyrant, who was inaugurating a revolution in the 
 government of the Union. But he was outdone 
 by Calhoun, who, with continual interludes of com 
 placent references to the good already done by the 
 Nullifiers, assailed Jackson as one of a band of art 
 ful, corrupt, and cunning politicians, and drew a 
 picture even more lurid than Clay s of the future 
 of the country, and the danger of impending revo 
 lution. Webster s speeches were more self-con 
 tained in tone. Benton was the only Jacksonian 
 senator who could contend with the great Nullifier 
 and the two great Whigs ; and he replied at length, 
 
War on the Bank 127 
 
 and in much the same style as they had spoken. 
 The Senate was flooded with petitions in favor 
 of the Bank, which were presented with suitable 
 speeches by the leading Whigs. Benton ridiculed 
 the exaggerated tone of alarm in which these peti 
 tions were drawn, and declared that the panic, ex 
 citement, and suffering existing in business circles 
 throughout the country were due to the deliberate 
 design of the Bank, and afforded a fresh proof that 
 the latter was a dangerous power to the State. 
 
 The resolution of censure was at last passed by 
 a vote of twenty-six to twenty, and Jackson, in a 
 fury, sent in a written protest against it, which the 
 Senate refused to receive. The excitement all 
 over the country was intense throughout the strug 
 gle. The suffering, which was really caused by 
 the President s act, but which was attributed by 
 his supporters to the machinations of the Bank, 
 was very real ; even Benton admitted this, although 
 contending that it was not a natural result of the 
 policy pursued, but had been artificially excited 
 or, as he very clumsily phrased it, "though ficti 
 tious and forged, yet the distress was real, and did 
 an immensity of damage." Neither Jackson nor 
 Benton yielded an inch to the outside pressure; 
 the latter was the soul of the fight in Congress, 
 making over thirty speeches during the struggle. 
 
 During the debate on receiving the President s 
 protest, Benton gave notice of his intention at an 
 
128 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 early day to move to expunge from the journal the 
 resolution of censure. This idea was entirely his 
 own, and he gave the notice without having con 
 sulted anybody. It was, however, a motion after 
 Jackson s own heart, as the latter now began to 
 look upon the affair as purely personal to himself. 
 His party accepted this view of the matter with a 
 servile alacrity only surpassed by the way in which 
 its leaders themselves bowed down before the mob ; 
 and for the next two years the state elections were 
 concerned purely with personal politics, the main 
 point at issue in the choice for every United States 
 senator being, whether he would or would not sup 
 port Benton s expunging resolution. The whole 
 affair seems to us so puerile that we can hardly 
 understand the importance attached to it by the 
 actors themselves. But the men who happened at 
 that period to be the leaders in public affairs were 
 peculiarly and frankly incapable of separating in 
 their minds matters merely affecting themselves 
 from matters affecting their constituents. Each 
 firmly believed that if he was not the whole State, 
 he was at least a most important fraction of it; 
 and this was as plainly seen in Webster s colossal 
 egoism and the frank vanity of Henry Clay as in 
 Benton s ponderous self -consciousness and the all- 
 pervading personality of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 Some of the speeches on the expunging resolu 
 tion show delicious, although entirely unconscious, 
 
War on the Bank 129 
 
 humor. If there ever was a wholly irrational state 
 of mind it was that in which the Jacksonians per 
 petually kept themselves. Every canvass on Jack 
 son s behalf was one of sound, fury, and excite 
 ment, of appeal to the passions, prejudices, and 
 feelings, but never the reason, of the people. A 
 speech for him was generally a mere frantic denun 
 ciation of whatever and whoever was opposed to 
 him, coupled with fulsome adulation of "the old 
 hero. * His supporters rarely indeed spoke to the 
 cool judgment of the country, for the very excel 
 lent reason that the cool judgment of the country 
 was apt to be against them. Such being the case, 
 it is amusing to read in Benton s speech on receiv 
 ing the protest the following sentences, apparently 
 uttered in solemn good faith, and with sublime 
 unconsciousness of irony: 
 
 To such a community [the American body politic] 
 in an appeal on a great question of constitutional law 
 to the understandings of such a people declamation, 
 passion, epithets, opprobrious language, will stand for 
 nothing. They will float harmless and unheeded 
 through the empty air, and strike in vain upon the ear 
 of a sober and dispassionate tribunal. Indignation, 
 real or affected; wrath, however hot; fury, however 
 enraged; asseverations, however violent; denuncia 
 tion, however furious, will avail nothing. Facts, 
 inexorable facts, are all that will be attended to; 
 reason, calm and self-possessed, is all that will be 
 listened to. 
 
 The description of the mass of Jacksonian voters 
 9 
 
130 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 as forming "a sober and dispassionate tribunal" 
 is an artistic touch of fancy quite unique, but ad 
 mirably characteristic of Benton, whose state 
 ments always rose vigorously to the necessities of 
 the occasion. 
 
 Webster, in an effort to make the best of un 
 toward circumstances, brought in a bill to rechar- 
 ter the Bank for a short period, at the same time 
 doing away with some of the features that were 
 objectionable in the old charter. This bill might 
 have passed, had it not been opposed by the ex 
 treme Bank men, including Clay and Calhoun. 
 In the course of the debate over it Benton deliv 
 ered a very elaborate and carefully studied speech 
 in favor of hard money and a currency of the pre 
 cious metals; a speech which is to this day well 
 worth careful reading. Some of his financial 
 theories were crude and confused; but on the 
 main question he was perfectly sound. Both he 
 and Jackson deserve great credit for having done 
 much to impress the popular mind with the benefit 
 of hard, that is to say honest, money. Benton 
 was the strongest hard-money man then in public 
 life, being, indeed, popularly nicknamed "Old 
 Bullion." He thoroughly appreciated that a 
 metallic currency was of more vital importance 
 to the laboring men and to men of small capital 
 generally than to any of the richer classes. A 
 metallic currency was always surer and safer than 
 
War on the Bank 131 
 
 a paper currency ; where it exists a laboring man 
 dependent on his wages need fear less than 
 any other member of the community the evils of 
 bad banking. Benton s idea of the danger to the 
 masses from " the money power " was exaggerated ; 
 but in advocating a sound gold currency he took 
 the surest way to overcome any possible danger 
 ous tendency. A craze for "soft," or dishonest, 
 money a greenback movement, or one for short- 
 weight silver dollars works more to the disad 
 vantage of the whole mass of the people than even 
 to that of the capitalists ; it is a move directly in 
 the interests of "the money power," which its 
 loud-mouthed advocates are ostensibly opposing 
 in the interests of democracy. 
 
 Benton continued his speeches. The panic was 
 now subsiding ; there had not been time for Jack 
 son s ruinous policy of making deposits in numer 
 ous state banks, and thereby encouraging wild 
 inflation of credit, to bear fruit and, as it after 
 ward did, involve the whole country in financial 
 disaster. Therefore Benton was able to exult 
 greatly over the favorable showing of affairs in 
 the report of the secretary of the treasury. He 
 also procured the passage of a gold currency law, 
 which, however, fixed the ratio of value between 
 gold and silver at sixteen to one; an improper 
 proportion, but one which had prevailed for three 
 centuries in the Spanish- American countries, from 
 
132 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 which he copied it. In consequence of this law 
 gold, long banished, became once more a circu 
 lating medium of exchange. 
 
 The Bank of the United States afterward was 
 turned into the State Bank of Pennsylvania; it 
 was badly managed and finally became insolvent. 
 The Jacksonians accepted its downfall as a vindi 
 cation of their policy ; but in reality it was due to 
 causes not operative at the time of the great strug 
 gle between the President and the Senate over 
 its continued existence. Certainly by no possible 
 financial policy could it have produced such wide 
 spread ruin and distress as did the system intro 
 duced by Jackson. 
 
 Long after the Bank controversy had lost all 
 practical bearing it continued to be agitated by 
 the chief parties to it, who still felt sore from the 
 various encounters. Jackson assailed it again in 
 his message ; a friendly committee of the Senate 
 investigated it and reported in its favor, besides 
 going out of their way to rake up charges against 
 Jackson and Benton. The latter replied in a long 
 speech, and became involved in personalities with 
 the chairman, Tyler of Virginia. Neither side 
 paid attention to any but the partisan aspect of 
 the question, and the discussions were absolutely 
 profitless. 
 
 The whole matter was threshed over again and 
 again, long after nothing but chaff was left, during 
 
War on the Bank 133 
 
 the debates on Benton s expunging resolution. 
 Few now would defend this resolution. The origi 
 nal resolution of censure may have been of doubt 
 ful propriety ; but it was passed, was entered on 
 the record, and had become a part of the journal 
 of the Senate. It would have been perfectly 
 proper to pass another resolution condemning or 
 reversing the original one, and approving the 
 course of the President ; but it was in the highest 
 degree improper to set about what was in form 
 falsifying the record. Still, Benton found plenty 
 of precedents in the annals of other legislative 
 bodies for what he proposed to do, and the country 
 as a whole, backed him up heartily. He was 
 further stimulated by the knowledge that there 
 was probably no other legislative act in which 
 Jackson took such intense interest, or which could 
 so gratify his pride ; the mortification to Clay and 
 Calhoun would be equally great. Benton s motion 
 failed more than once, but the complexion of the 
 Senate was rapidly changed by the various States 
 substituting Democratic for Whig or anti-Jackson 
 senators. Some of the changes were made, as in 
 Virginia, by senators refusing to vote for the ex 
 punging resolution, as required by the state legis 
 latures, and then resigning their seats, pursuant to 
 a ridiculous theory of the ultra-Democrats, which, 
 if carried out, would completely nullify the provi 
 sion for a six years senatorial term. Finally, at 
 
i34 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 the very close of Jackson s administration, Benton 
 found himself with a fair majority behind him, 
 and made the final move. His speech was of 
 course mainly filled with a highly colored account 
 of the blessings wrought for the American people 
 by Andrew Jackson, and equally of course the 
 latter was compared at length to a variety of 
 ancient Roman worthies. The final scene in the 
 Senate had an element of the comic about it. 
 The expungers held a caucus and agreed to sit the 
 session out until the resolution was passed; and 
 with prudent forethought, Benton, well aware that 
 when hungry and tired his followers might show 
 less inflexibility of purpose, provided in an adjoin 
 ing committee-room "an ample supply of cold 
 hams, turkeys, rounds of beef, pickles, wines, and 
 cups of hot coffee/ wherewith to inspirit the faint 
 hearted. 
 
 Fortified by the refreshments, the expungers 
 won a complete victory. If the language of Jack 
 son s admirers was overdrawn and strained to the 
 last degree in lauding him for every virtue that he 
 had or had not, it must be remembered that his 
 opponents went quite as far wrong on the other 
 side in their denunciations and extravagant proph 
 ecies of gloom. Webster made a very dignified 
 and forcible speech in closing the argument against 
 the resolution, but Calhoun and Clay were much 
 less moderate, the latter drawing a vivid picture 
 
War on the Bank 135 
 
 of a rapidly approaching reign of lawless military 
 violence, and asserting that his opponents had 
 "extinguished one of the brightest and purest 
 lights that ever burnt at the altar of civil liberty." 
 As a proper finale Jackson, to show his apprecia 
 tion, gave a great dinner to the expungers and 
 their wives, Benton sitting at the head of the 
 table. Jackson and Benton solemnly thought 
 that they were taking part in a great act of justice, 
 and were amusingly unable to see the comic side 
 of their acts. They probably really believed 
 most of their own denunciations of the Bank, and 
 very possibly thought that the wickedness of its 
 followers might tempt them to do any desperate 
 deed. At any rate, they enjoyed posing alike to 
 themselves and to the public as persons of antique 
 virtue, who had risked both life and reputation in 
 a hazardous but successful attempt to save the 
 liberties of the people from the vast and hostile 
 forces of the aristocratic "money power." 
 
 The best verdict on the expunging resolution 
 was given by Webster when he characterized the 
 whole affair as one which, if it were not regarded as 
 a ruthless violation of a sacred instrument, would 
 appear to be little elevated above the character of 
 a contemptible farce. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SURPLUS. 
 
 BENTON was supremely self-satisfied with the 
 part he had played in the struggle with the 
 Bank. But very few thinking men would 
 now admit that his actions, as a whole, on the occa 
 sion in question, were to his credit, although in the 
 matter of the branch drafts he was perfectly right, 
 and in that of the recharter at least occupied de 
 fensible ground. His general views on monetary 
 matters, however, were sound, and on some of the 
 financial questions that shortly arose he occupied 
 a rather lonely preeminence of good sense among 
 his fellow senators; such being particularly the 
 case as regards the various mischievous schemes 
 in relation to disposing of tne public lands, and of 
 the money drawn from their sale. The revenue 
 derived from all sources, including these sales of 
 public lands, had for some years been much in 
 excess of the governmental expenses, and a sur 
 plus had accumulated in the treasury. This sur 
 plus worked more damage than any deficit would 
 have done. 
 
 There were gold mines in the Southern States, 
 which had been growing more and more produc 
 tive ; and, as the cost of freighting the bullion was 
 
 136 
 
The Distribution of the Surplus 137 
 
 excessive, a bill was introduced to establish branch 
 mints at New Orleans and in the gold regions of 
 Georgia and North Carolina. Benton advocated 
 this strongly, as a constitutional right of the South 
 and West, and as greatly in the interest of those 
 two sections ; and also as being another move in 
 favor of a hard-money currency as opposed to one 
 of paper. There was strong opposition to the bill ; 
 many of the Whigs having been carried so far by 
 their heated devotion to the United States Bank 
 in its quarrel that they had become paper-money 
 men. But the vote was neither sectional nor par 
 tisan in its character. Clay led the opposition, 
 while Webster supported Benton. 
 
 Before this time propositions to distribute among 
 the States the revenue from the public lands had 
 become common; and they were succeeded by 
 propositions to distribute the lands themselves, 
 and then by others to distribute all the surplus 
 revenue. Calhoun finally introduced an amend 
 ment to the Constitution to enable the surplus in 
 the treasury during the next eight years to be 
 distributed among the various States; the esti 
 mate being that for the time mentioned there 
 would be about nine millions surplus annually. 
 Benton attacked the proposal very ably, showing 
 the viciousness of a scheme which would degrade 
 every state government into the position of a 
 mendicant, and would allow money to be collected 
 
138 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 from the citizens with one hand in order to be 
 given back to them with the other ; and also deny 
 ing that the surplus would reach anything like the 
 dimensions indicated. He ridiculed the idea of 
 making a constitutional amendment to cover so 
 short a period of time ; and stated that he would 
 greatly prefer to see the price paid for public lands 
 by incoming settlers reduced, and what surplus 
 there was expended on strengthening the defenses 
 of the United States against foreign powers. This 
 last proposition was eminently proper. We were 
 then, as always, in our chronic state of utter de- 
 fenselessness against any hostile attack, and yet 
 were in imminent danger of getting embroiled with 
 at least one great power, France. Our danger 
 is always that we shall spend too little, and not too 
 much, in keeping ourselves prepared for foreign 
 war. Calhoun s resolution was a total failure, and 
 was never even brought to a vote. 
 
 Benton s proposed method of using the surplus 
 came in with peculiar propriety on account of the 
 conduct of the Whigs and Nullifiers in joining to 
 oppose the appropriation of three millions of dol 
 lars for purposes of defense, which was provided 
 for in the general fortification bill. The House 
 passed this bill by a great majority. It was emi 
 nently proper that we should at once take steps 
 to provide for the very possible contingency of a 
 war with France, as the relations with that power 
 
The Distribution of the Surplus 139 
 
 were growing more threatening every day ; but the 
 opposition of the anti- Jackson men to the admin 
 istration and to all its measures had become so 
 embittered that they were willing to run the risk 
 of seriously damaging the national credit and 
 honor, if they could thereby score a point against 
 their political adversaries. Accordingly, under 
 the lead of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, they 
 defeated the bill in the Senate, in spite of all that 
 could be done to save it by Benton, who, what 
 ever his faults, was always patriotic. The appro 
 priation had been very irregular in form, and 
 under ordinary circumstances there would have 
 been good justification for inquiring into it before 
 permitting its passage; but under the circum 
 stances its defeat at the moment was most unfor 
 tunate. For the President had been pressing 
 France, even to the point of tolerably plain 
 threats, in order to induce or compel her to fulfil 
 the conditions of the recent treaty by which she 
 had bound herself to pay a considerable indem 
 nity, long owing by her to the United States for 
 depredations on our commerce. Now she men 
 aced war, avowedly on the ground that we were 
 unprepared to resist her; and this vote in the 
 Senate naturally led the French government to 
 suppose that Jackson was not sustained by the 
 country in the vigorous position which he had 
 assumed. In speaking on the message of the 
 
140 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 President which alluded to this state of affairs, 
 Benton strongly advocated our standing firmly 
 for our rights, making a good speech, which 
 showed much historical learning. He severely 
 reproached the anti-administration senators for 
 their previous conduct in causing the loss of the 
 defense appropriation bill, and for preferring to 
 do worse than waste the surplus by distributing it 
 among the different States instead of applying it 
 according to the provisions of that wise measure. 
 This brought on a bitter wrangle, in which Ben- 
 ton certainly had the best of it. Calhoun was in 
 favor of humiliating non-resistance ; he never ad 
 vocated warlike measures when the dignity of the 
 nation was at stake, fond though he was of threat 
 ening violence on behalf of slavery or that form of 
 secession known as nullification. Benton quoted 
 from speeches in the French Chamber of Deputies 
 to show that the French were encouraged to take 
 the position that they did on account of the action 
 of the Senate, and the disposition shown by a ma 
 jority among the senators rather to pull down the 
 President in a party struggle than to uphold him 
 in his efforts to save the national honor in a contest 
 with France. A curious feature of his speech was 
 that in which he warned the latter power that, in 
 the event of a conflict, it would have to do with a 
 branch of the same race which, "from the days of 
 Agincourt and Crecy, of Blenheim and Ramillies, 
 
The Distribution of the Surplus 141 
 
 down to the days of Salamanca and Waterloo, has 
 always known perfectly well how to deal with the 
 impetuous and fiery courage of the French." This 
 sudden outcropping of what, in Bentonian Eng 
 lish, might be called Pan -Anglo-Saxon sentiment 
 was all the more surprising inasmuch as both Ben- 
 ton himself and the party to which he belonged 
 were strongly anti-English in their way of looking 
 at our foreign policy, at least so far as North 
 America was concerned. In the end France 
 yielded, though trying to maintain her dignity 
 by stating that she had not done so, and the 
 United States received what was due them. 
 
 Benton strongly opposed the payment by the 
 United States of the private claims of its citizens 
 for damages arising from the French spoliations 
 at the end of the last century. He pointed out 
 that the effort to pay such claims, scores of years 
 after the time of their accruing, rarely benefits 
 any of the parties originally in interest, and can 
 only do real service to dishonest speculators. His 
 speech on this matter would not be bad reading 
 for some of the pension- jobbing congressmen of 
 the present day, and their supporters ; but as con 
 cerned these French claims he could have been 
 easily answered. 
 
 In the controversy over the bill introduced by 
 Clay, to distribute the revenue derived from the 
 public lands among the States for the next five 
 
142 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 years, Benton showed to great advantage com 
 pared both to the introducer of the bill himself, 
 and to Webster, his supporter. He had all along 
 taken the view of the land question that would be 
 natural to a far-seeing Western statesman de 
 sirous of encouraging immigration. He wished 
 the public lands to be sold in small parcels to 
 actual settlers, at prices that would allow any 
 poor man who was thrifty to take up a claim. He 
 had already introduced a bill to sell them at grad 
 uated prices, the minimum being established at a 
 dollar and twenty-five cents an acre ; but if land 
 remained unsold at this rate for three years it was 
 then to be sold for what it would bring in the 
 market. This bill passed the Senate, but failed 
 in the House. 
 
 In opposing Clay s distribution scheme Benton 
 again brought forward his plan of using the sur 
 plus to provide for the national defenses ; and in 
 his speech showed the strongly national turn of his 
 mind, saying: 
 
 In this great system of national defense the whole 
 Union is equally interested ; for the country, in all that 
 concerns its defenses, is but a unit, and every section is 
 interested in the defense of every other section, and 
 every individual citizen is interested in the defense of 
 the whole population. It is in vain to say that the 
 navy is on the sea, and the fortifications on the sea 
 board, and that the citizens in the interior States, or in 
 the valley of the Mississippi, have no interest in these 
 
The Distribution of the Surplus 143 
 
 remote defenses. Such an idea is mistaken and delu 
 sive; the inhabitant of Missouri or of Indiana has a 
 direct interest in keeping open the mouths of the 
 rivers, defending the seaport towns, and preserving 
 a naval force that will protect the produce of his labor 
 in crossing the ocean and arriving safely in foreign 
 markets. 
 
 Benton s patriotism always included the whole 
 country in spite of the strength of his local sympa 
 thies. The bill passed the Senate by a rather close 
 vote, and went to the House, where it soon became 
 evident that it was doomed to failure. There was 
 another bill, practically of much the same import, 
 before the Senate, providing for the distribution 
 of the surplus among the States in proportion to 
 their electoral votes, but omitting the excellent 
 proviso concerning the defenses. To suit the 
 views of Calhoun and the sticklers for strict con 
 struction generally, the form of this rival bill was 
 changed, so that the "distribution" purported to 
 be a "deposit" merely; the money being nomi 
 nally only loaned to the States, who pledged their 
 faith to return it when Congress should call for it. 
 As it was of course evident that such a loan would 
 never be repaid, the substitution of "deposit" for 
 "distribution" can only be regarded as a verbal 
 change to give the doctrinaires a loophole for 
 escape from their previous position ; they all took 
 advantage of it, and the bill received overwhelm 
 ing support, and was passed by both houses. 
 
144 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Benton, however, stood out against it to the 
 last, and in a very powerful speech foretold the 
 evils which the plan would surely work. He 
 scornfully exposed the way in which some of the 
 members were trying, by a trick of wording, to 
 hide the nature of the bill they were enacting into 
 a law, and thus to seem to justify themselves for 
 the support they were giving it. " It is in name a 
 deposit; in form, a loan; in essence and design, 
 a distribution," said Benton. He ridiculed the 
 attitude of the hair-splitting strict construction- 
 ists, like Calhoun, who had always pretended most 
 scrupulously to respect the exact wording of the 
 Constitution, and who had previously refused to 
 vote for distribution on the ground that it was 
 unconstitutional : 
 
 At the commencement of the present session a 
 proposition was made [by Calhoun] to amend the 
 Constitution, to permit this identical distribution to 
 be made. That proposition is now upon our calendar, 
 for the action of Congress. All at once it is discov 
 ered that a change of name will do as well as a change 
 of the Constitution. Strike out the word "dis 
 tribute" and insert the word "deposit," and incon 
 tinently the impediment is removed; the constitu 
 tional difficulty is surmounted, and the distribution 
 can be made. 
 
 He showed that to the States themselves the 
 moneys distributed would either be useless, or 
 else and much more probably they would be 
 
The Distribution of the Surplus 145 
 
 fruitful sources of corruption and political de 
 bauchery. He was quite right. It would have 
 been very much better to have destroyed the sur 
 plus than to have distributed it as was actually 
 done. None of the States gained any real benefit 
 by the transaction ; most were seriously harmed. 
 At the best, the money was squandered in the rage 
 for public improvements that then possessed the 
 whole people; often it was stolen outright, or 
 never accounted for. In the one case, it was an 
 incentive to extravagance ; in the other, it was a 
 corruption fund. Yet the popular feeling was 
 strongly in favor of the measure at the time, and 
 Benton was almost the only public man of note 
 who dared to resist it. On this occasion, as in the 
 closing act of the struggle with the Nullifiers, he 
 showed more backbone than did his great chief; 
 for Jackson signed the bill, although criticizing it 
 most forcibly and pungently. 
 
 The success of this measure naturally encour 
 aged the presentation of others. Clay attempted to 
 revive his land-money distribution bill, btit was 
 defeated, mainly through Benton s efforts. Three 
 or four other similar schemes, including one of 
 Calhoun s, also failed. Finally, a clause providing 
 for a further " deposit " of surplus moneys with the 
 States was tacked to a bill appropriating money 
 for defenses, thereby loading it down so that it 
 was eventually lost. In the Senate the " deposit" 
 
 10 
 
146 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 amendment was finally struck out, in spite of 
 the opposition of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. 
 Throughout the whole discussion of the distribu 
 tion of the surplus Benton certainly shines by com 
 parison with any one of his three great senatorial 
 rivals. 
 
 He shows to equally great advantage compared 
 to them in the part taken by him in reference to 
 Jackson s so-called specie circulars. The craze for 
 speculation had affected the sales of public lands, 
 which were increasing at an extraordinary rate, 
 nearly twenty-five million dollars worth being sold 
 in 1836. As a rule, the payments were made in 
 the notes of irresponsible banks, gotten up in many 
 cases by the land speculators themselves. The 
 sales were running up to five millions a month, 
 with prospect of a boundless increase, so that all 
 the public land bade fair to be converted into in 
 convertible paper. Benton had foreseen the evil 
 results attending such a change, and, though well 
 aware that he was opposing powerful interests in 
 his own section of the country, had already tried 
 to put a stop to it by law. In his speech he had 
 stated that the unprecedented increase in the sale 
 of public lands was due to the accommodations re 
 ceived by speculators from worthless banks, whose 
 notes in small denominations would be taken to 
 some distant part of the country, whence it would 
 be a long time before they were returned and 
 
The Distribution of the Surplus 147 
 
 presented for payment. The speculators, with 
 paper of which the real value was much below par, 
 could outbid settlers and cultivators who could only 
 offer specie, or notes that were its equivalent. He 
 went on to say that* the effect was equally injurious 
 to every interest concerned except the banks and 
 the speculators : it was injurious to the treasury, 
 which was filling up with paper ; to the new States, 
 which were flooded with paper ; and to settlers and 
 cultivators, who were outbid by speculators loaded 
 with this borrowed paper. A return to specie 
 payments for lands was the remedy for all these 
 evils/ 
 
 Benton s reasoning was perfectly sound. The 
 effects on settlers, on the new States, and on the 
 government itself were precisely such as he de 
 scribed, and the proposed remedy was the right 
 one. But his bill failed ; for the Whigs, including 
 even Webster, had by this time worked themselves 
 up until they were fairly crazy at the mere mention 
 of paper-money banks. 
 
 Jackson, however, not daunted by the fate of 
 the bill, got Benton to draw up a treasury order, 
 and had it issued. This served the same purpose, 
 as it forbade the land offices to receive anything 
 but gold and silver in payment for land. It was 
 not issued until Congress had adjourned, for fear 
 that body might counteract it by a law ; and this 
 was precisely what was attempted at the next 
 
148 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 session, when a joint resolution was passed rescind 
 ing the order, and practically endeavoring to im 
 pose the worthless paper currency of the States 
 upon the federal government. Benton stood 
 almost alone in the fight he made against this 
 resolution, although the right of the matter was 
 so plainly on his side. In his speech he foretold 
 clearly the coming of the great financial crisis that 
 was then near at hand. The resolution, however, 
 amounted to nothing, as it turned out, for it was 
 passed so late in the session that the President, by 
 simply withholding his signature from it, was 
 enabled to prevent it from having effect. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SLAVE QUESTION APPEARS IN POLITICS. 
 
 TOWARD the close of Jackson s adminis 
 tration, slavery for the first time made its 
 permanent appearance in national politics ; 
 although for some years yet it had little or no in 
 fluence in shaping the course of political move 
 ments. In 1833 the abolition societies of the 
 North came into prominence; they had been 
 started a couple of years previously. 
 
 Black slavery was such a grossly anachronistic 
 and un-American form of evil, that it is difficult 
 to discuss calmly the efforts to abolish it, and to 
 remember that many of these efforts were calcu 
 lated to do, and actually did, more harm than 
 good. We are also very apt to forget that it was 
 perfectly possible and reasonable for enlightened 
 and virtuous men, who fully recognized it as an 
 evil, yet to prefer its continuance to having it 
 interfered with in a way that would produce even 
 worse results. Black slavery in Hayti was char 
 acterized by worse abuse than ever was the case 
 in the United States ; yet, looking at the condition 
 of that republic now, it may well be questioned 
 whether it would not have been greatly to her 
 benefit in the end to have had slavery continue a 
 
 149 
 
150 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 century or so longer, its ultimate extinction 
 being certain, rather than to have had her attain 
 freedom as she actually did, with the results that 
 have flowed from her action. When an evil of 
 colossal size exists, it is often the case that there 
 is no possible way of dealing with it that will not 
 itself be fraught with baleful results. Nor can 
 the ultra-philanthropic method be always, or even 
 often, accepted as the best. If there is one ques 
 tion upon which the philanthropists of the present 
 day, especially the more emotional ones, are 
 agreed, it is that any law restricting Chinese im 
 migration is an outrage ; yet it seems incredible 
 that any man of even moderate intelligence should 
 not see that no greater calamity could now befall 
 the United States than to have the Pacific slope 
 fill up with a Mongolian population. 
 
 The cause of the Abolitionists has had such a 
 halo shed round it by the after course of events, 
 which they themselves in reality did very little to 
 shape, that it has been usual to speak of them 
 with absurdly exaggerated praise. Their cour 
 age, and for the most part their sincerity, cannot 
 be too highly spoken of, but their share in abolish 
 ing slavery was far less than has commonly been 
 represented ; any single non-abolitionist politician, 
 like Lincoln or Seward, did more than all the 
 professional Abolitionists combined really to bring 
 about its destruction. The abolition societies 
 
Slave Question in Politics 151 
 
 were only in a very restricted degree the causes 
 of the growing feeling in the North against slav 
 ery ; they are rather to be regarded as themselves 
 manifestations or accompaniments of that feeling. 
 The anti-slavery outburst in the Northern States 
 over the admission of Missouri took place a dozen 
 years before there was an abolition society in 
 existence; and the influence of the professional 
 Abolitionists upon the growth of the anti-slavery 
 sentiment as often as not merely warped it and 
 twisted it out of proper shape, as when at one 
 time they showed a strong inclination to adopt 
 disunion views, although it was self-evident that 
 by no possibility could slavery be abolished unless 
 the Union was preserved. Their tendency toward 
 impracticable methods was well shown in the posi 
 tion they assumed toward him who was not only 
 the greatest American, but also the greatest man, 
 of the nineteenth century ; for during all the ter 
 rible four years that sad, strong, patient Lincoln 
 worked and suffered for the people, he had to 
 dread the influence of the extreme Abolitionists 
 only less than that of the Copperheads. Many 
 of their leaders possessed no good qualities beyond 
 their fearlessness and truth qualities that were 
 also possessed by the Southern fire-eaters. They 
 belonged to that class of men that is always en 
 gaged in some agitation or other; only it hap 
 pened that in this particular agitation they were 
 
152 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 right. Wendell Phillips may be taken as a very 
 good type of the whole. His services against 
 slavery prior to the war should always be remem 
 bered with gratitude ; but after the war, and until 
 the day of his death, his position on almost every 
 public question was either mischievous or ridicu 
 lous, and usually both. 
 
 When the abolitionist movement started it was 
 avowedly designed to be cosmopolitan in charac 
 ter ; the originators looked down upon any merely 
 national or patriotic feeling. This again deserv 
 edly took away from their influence. In fact, it 
 would have been most unfortunate had the major 
 ity of the Northerners been from the beginning in 
 hearty accord with the Abolitionists ; at the best 
 it would have resulted at that time in the disrup 
 tion of the Union and the perpetuation of slavery 
 in the South. 
 
 But after all is said, the fact remains, that on 
 the main issue the Abolitionists were at least 
 working in the right direction. Sooner or later, 
 by one means or another, slavery had to go. It 
 is beyond doubt a misfortune that in certain dis 
 tricts the bulk of the population should be com 
 posed of densely ignorant negroes, often criminal 
 or vicious in their instincts ; but such is the case, 
 and the best, and indeed the only proper course to 
 pursue, is to treat them with precisely the same 
 justice that is meted out to whites. The effort to 
 
Slave Question in Politics 153 
 
 do so in time immediately past has not resulted so 
 successfully as was hoped and expected; but 
 nevertheless no other way would have worked as 
 well. 
 
 Slavery was chiefly responsible for the streak of 
 coarse and brutal barbarism which ran through 
 the Southern character, and which marked the 
 ferocious outcry instantly raised by the whole 
 Southern press against the Abolitionists. There 
 had been an abortive negro rising in Virginia 
 almost at the same time that the abolitionist 
 movement first came into prominence; and this 
 fact added to the rage and terror with which the 
 South regarded the latter. The clamor against 
 the North was deafening ; and though it soon sub 
 sided for the time being, it never afterward en 
 tirely died away. As has been shown already, 
 there had always been a strong separatist feeling 
 in the South ; but hitherto its manifestations had 
 been local and sporadic, never affecting all the 
 States at the same time; for it had never hap 
 pened that the cause which called forth any par 
 ticular manifestation was one bearing on the 
 whole South alike. The alien and sedition laws 
 were more fiercely resented in Virginia and Ken 
 tucky than in South Carolina ; the tariff, which so 
 angered the latter, pleased Louisiana; and 
 Georgia and Alabama alone were affected by the 
 presence of great Indian communities within their 
 
154 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 borders. But slavery was an interest common to 
 the whole South. When it was felt to be in any 
 way menaced, all Southerners came together for 
 its protection; and, from the time of the rise of 
 the Abolitionists onward, the separatist move 
 ment throughout the South began to identify itself 
 with the maintenance of slavery, and gradually to 
 develop greater and greater strength. Its growth 
 was furthered and hastened by the actions of the 
 more ambitious and unscrupulous of the Southern 
 politicians, who saw that it offered a chance for 
 them to push themselves forward, and who were 
 perfectly willing to wreak almost irreparable harm 
 to the nation if by so doing they could advance 
 their own selfish interests. It was in reference 
 to these politicians that Benton quoted with 
 approval a letter from ex-President Madison, 
 which ran: 
 
 The danger is not to be concealed, that the sym 
 pathy arising from known causes, and the inculcated 
 impression of a permanent incompatibility of interests 
 between the South and the North may put it in the 
 power of popular leaders, aspiring to the highest sta 
 tions, to unite the South, on some critical occasion, 
 in a course that will end by creating a new theatre of 
 great, though inferior, interest. In pursuing this 
 course the first and most obvious step is nullification, 
 the next secession, and the last a farewell separation. 
 
 This was a pretty good forecast of the crisis 
 that was precipitated by the greedy and reckless 
 
Slave Question in Politics 155 
 
 ambition of the secessionist leaders in 1860. The 
 moral difference between Benedict Arnold on the 
 one hand, and Aaron Burr or Jefferson Davis on 
 the other, is precisely the difference that obtains 
 between a politician who sells his vote for money 
 and one who supports a bad measure in consider 
 ation of being given some high political position. 
 
 The Abolitionists immediately contrived to 
 bring themselves before the notice of Congress in 
 two ways ; by the presentation of petitions for the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 
 and by sending out to the Southern States a shoal 
 of abolition pamphlets, newspapers, and rather 
 ridiculous illustrated cuts. What the precise 
 point of the last proceeding was no one can tell; 
 the circulation of such writings as theirs in the 
 South could not possibly serve any good purpose. 
 But they had a right to send what they wished, 
 and the conduct of many of the Southerners in 
 trying to get a federal law passed to prohibit their 
 writings from being carried in the mail was as 
 wrong as it was foolish; while the brutal clamor 
 raised in the South against the whole North as 
 well as against the Abolitionists, and the conduct 
 of certain Southern legislatures, in practically 
 setting prices on the heads of the leaders in the 
 objectionable movement, in turn angered the 
 North and gave the Abolitionists tenfold greater 
 strength than they would otherwise have had. 
 
156 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 The question first arose upon the presentation 
 of a perfectly proper and respectful petition sent 
 to the Senate by a society of Pennsylvania Qua 
 kers, and praying for the abolition of slavery in 
 the District of Columbia. The District was solely 
 under the control of Congress, and was the prop 
 erty of the nation at large, so that Congress was 
 the proper and the only body to which any peti 
 tion concerning the affairs of the District could be 
 sent ; and if the right of petition meant anything, 
 it certainly meant that the people, or any portion 
 thereof, should have the right to petition their 
 representatives in regard to their own affairs. Yet 
 certain Southern extremists, under the lead of Cal- 
 houn, were anxious to refuse to receive the paper. 
 Benton voted in favor of receiving it, and was 
 followed in his action by a number of other South 
 ern senators. He spoke at length on the subject, 
 and quite moderately, even crediting the petition 
 ers, or many of them, with being "good people, 
 aiming at benevolent objects, and endeavoring to 
 ameliorate the condition of one part of the human 
 race, without inflicting calamities on another 
 part," which was going very far indeed for a slave- 
 holding senator of that time. He was of course 
 totally opposed to abolition and the Abolitionists, 
 and showed that the only immediate effect of the 
 movement had been to make the lot of the slaves 
 still worse, and for the moment to do away with 
 
Slave Question in Politics 157 
 
 any chance of intelligently discussing the question 
 of emancipation. For, like many other South 
 erners, he fondly cherished the idea of gradual 
 peaceful emancipation, an idea which the course 
 of events made wholly visionary, but which, under 
 the circumstances, might well have been realized. 
 He proceeded to give most questionable praise to 
 the North for some acts as outrageous and dis 
 graceful as were ever perpetrated by its citizens, 
 stating that 
 
 Their conduct was above all praise, above all 
 thanks, above all gratitude. They had chased off 
 the foreign emissaries, silenced the gabbling tongues 
 of female dupes, and dispersed the assemblages, 
 whether fanatical, visionary, or incendiary, of all that 
 congregated to preach against evils that affected 
 others, not themselves; and to propose remedies to 
 aggravate the disease which they had pretended to 
 cure. They had acted with a noble spirit. They 
 had exerted a vigor beyond all law. They had 
 obeyed the enactments, not of the statute-book, but 
 of the heart. 
 
 These fervent encomiums were fully warranted 
 by the acts of various Northern mobs, that had 
 maltreated abolitionist speakers, broken up anti- 
 slavery meetings, and committed numerous other 
 deeds of lawless violence. But however flattered 
 the Northerners of that generation may have been, 
 in feeling that they thoroughly deserved Benton s 
 eulogy, it is doubtful if their descendants will 
 
158 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 take quite the same pride in looking back to it. 
 An amusing incident of the debate was Calhoun s 
 attack upon one of the most subservient allies the 
 South ever had in the Northern States ; he caused 
 to be sent up to the desk and read an abolition 
 paper published in New Hampshire, which con 
 tained a bitter assault upon Franklin Pierce, then 
 a member of Congress. Nominally he took this 
 course to show that there was much greater 
 strength in the abolition movement, and therefore 
 much greater danger to the South, than the North 
 ern senators were willing to admit; in reality he 
 seems to have acted partly from wanton malice, 
 partly from overbearing contempt for the truck 
 ling allies and apologists of slavery in the North, 
 and partly from a desire not to see the discussion 
 die out, but rather, in spite of his continual profes 
 sion to the contrary, to see it maintained as a 
 standing subject of irritation. He wished to refuse 
 to receive the petitions, on the ground that they 
 touched a subject that ought not even to be dis 
 cussed ; yet he must have known well that he was 
 acting in the very way most fitted to give rise to 
 discussion, a fact that was pointed out to him by 
 Benton, in a caustic speech. He also took the 
 ground that the question of emancipation affected 
 the States exclusively, and that Congress had no 
 more jurisdiction over the subject in the District 
 of Columbia than she had in the State of North 
 
Slave Question in Politics 159 
 
 Carolina. This precious contribution to the true 
 interpretation of the Constitution was so farcically 
 and palpably false that it is incredible that he 
 should himself have believed what he was saying. 
 He was still smarting from the nullification con 
 troversy ; he had seceded from his party, and was 
 sore with disappointed ambition; and it seems 
 very improbable that he was honest in his profes 
 sions of regret at seeing questions come up which 
 would disturb the Union. On the contrary, much 
 of the opposition he was continually making to 
 supposititious federal and Northern encroach 
 ments on the rights of the South must have been 
 merely factious, and it seems likely that, partly 
 from a feeling of revenge and partly with the hope 
 of gratifying his ambition, he was anxious to do 
 all he could to work the South up to the highest 
 pitch of irritation, and keep her there until there 
 was a dissolution of the Union. Benton evidently 
 thought that this was the case ; and in reading the 
 constant threats of nullification and secession 
 which run through all Calhoun s speeches, and the 
 innumerable references he makes to the alleged 
 fact that he had come off victorious in his treason 
 able struggle over the tariff in 1833, it is difficult 
 not to accept Benton s view of the matter. He 
 always spoke of Calhoun with extreme aversion, 
 and there were probably moments when he was 
 inclined heartily to sympathize with Jackson s 
 
160 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 death-bed regret that he had not hung the South 
 Carolina Nullifier. Doubtless in private life, or 
 as regards any financial matters, Calhoun s con 
 duct was always blameless; but it may well be 
 that he has received far more credit for purity of 
 motive in his public conduct than his actions fairly 
 entitle him to. 
 
 Calhoun was also greatly exercised over the cir 
 culation of abolition documents in the South. At 
 his request a committee of five was appointed to 
 draft a bill on the subject ; he was chairman, and 
 three of the other four members were from the 
 slave States; yet his report was so extreme that 
 only one of the latter would sign it with him. He 
 introduced into it a long argument to the effect 
 that the Constitution was a mere compact between 
 sovereign states, and inferentially that nullifica 
 tion and secession were justifiable and constitu 
 tional; and then drew a vivid picture of the 
 unspeakable horrors with which, as he contended, 
 the action of the Northern Abolitionists menaced 
 the South. The bill subjected to penalties any 
 postmaster who should knowingly receive and 
 put into the mail any publication touching slavery, 
 to go into any State which had forbidden by law 
 the circulation of such a publication. In discuss 
 ing* this bill he asserted that Congress, in refusing 
 to pass it, would be cooperating with the Aboli 
 tionists ; and then he went on to threaten as usual 
 
Slave Question in Politics 161 
 
 that in such case nullification or secession would 
 become necessary. Benton had become pretty 
 well tired of these threats, his attachment to the 
 Union even exceeding his dislike to seeing slavery 
 meddled with; and he headed the list of half a 
 dozen Southern senators who joined with the bulk 
 of the Northerners in defeating the bill, which 
 was lost by a vote of twenty-five to nineteen. A 
 few of the Northern " dough-faces" voted with 
 Calhoun. There is a painfully striking contrast 
 between the courage shown by Benton, a slave 
 holder with a slaveholding constituency, in op 
 posing this bill, and the obsequious subserviency 
 to the extreme Southern feeling shown on the 
 same occasion by Wright, Van Buren, and Bu 
 chanan fit representatives of the sordid and 
 odious political organizations of New York and 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Several other questions came up toward the end 
 of Jackson s administration which were more or 
 less remotely affected by the feeling about slavery. 
 Benton succeeded in getting a bill through to 
 extend the boundaries of the State of Missouri so 
 as to take in territory lying northwest of her pre 
 vious limit, the Indian title to which was extin 
 guished by treaty. This annexed land lay north 
 of the boundary for slave territory established by 
 the Missouri Compromise ; but Benton experi 
 enced no difficulty in getting his bill through. It 
 ii 
 
i6a Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 was not, however, in the least a move designed in 
 the interests of the slave power. Missouri s feeling 
 was precisely that which would actuate Oregon or 
 Washington Territory to-day, if either wished to 
 annex part of northern Idaho. 
 
 The territories of Arkansas and Michigan had 
 applied for admission into the Union as States; 
 and as one would be a free and the other a slave 
 State, it was deemed proper that they should come 
 in together. Benton himself urged the admission 
 of the free State of Michigan, while the interests 
 of Arkansas were confided to Buchanan of Penn 
 sylvania. The slavery question entered but little 
 into the matter; although some objections were 
 raised on that score, as well as on account of the 
 irregular manner in which the would-be States 
 had acted in preparing for admission. The real 
 ground of opposition to the admission of the two 
 new States was political, as it was known that 
 they could both be relied upon for Democratic 
 majorities at the approaching presidential election. 
 Many Whigs, therefore, both from the North and 
 the South, opposed it. 
 
 The final removal of the Cherokees from Georgia 
 and Alabama was brought about in 1836 by means 
 of a treaty with those Indians. Largely through 
 the instrumentality of Benton, and in spite of the 
 opposition of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, this 
 instrument was ratified in the Senate by the close 
 
Slave Question in Politics 163 
 
 vote of thirty-one to fifteen. Although new slave 
 territory was thus acquired, the vote on the treaty 
 was fractional and not sectional, being equally 
 divided between the Northern and the Southern 
 States, Calhoun and six other Southern senators 
 opposing it, chiefly from hostility to the adminis 
 tration. The removal of the Indians was prob 
 ably a necessity ; undoubtedly it worked hardship 
 in individual instances, but on the whole it did not 
 in the least retard the civilization of the tribe, 
 which was fully paid for its losses ; and moreover, 
 in its new home, continued to make progress in 
 every way until it became involved in the great 
 Civil War, and received a setback from which it 
 has not yet recovered. These Cherokees were 
 almost the last Indians left in any number east of 
 the Mississippi, and their removal solved the 
 Indian problem so far as the old States were con 
 cerned. 
 
 Later on, Benton went to some trouble to dis 
 prove the common statement that we have robbed 
 the original Indian occupants of their lands. He 
 showed by actual statistics that up to 1840 we had 
 paid to the Indians eighty-five millions of dollars 
 for land purchases, which was over five times as 
 much as the United States gave the great Napo 
 leon for Louisiana ; and about three times as much 
 as we paid France, Spain, and Mexico together for 
 the purchase of Louisiana, Florida, and California ; 
 
164 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 while the amount of land received in return would 
 not equal any one of these purchases, and was but 
 a fractional part of Louisiana or California. We 
 paid the Cherokee s for their territory exactly as 
 much as we paid the French, at the height of their 
 power, for Louisiana; while as to the Creek and 
 Choctaw nations, we paid each more for their lands 
 than we paid for Louisiana and Florida combined. 
 The dealings of the government with the Indian 
 have often been unwise, and sometimes unjust; 
 but they are very far indeed from being so black 
 as is commonly represented, especially when the 
 tremendous difficulties of the case are taken into 
 account. 
 
 Far more important than any of these matters 
 was the acknowledgment of the independence of 
 Texas ; and in this, as well as in the troubles with 
 Mexico which sprang from it, slavery again played 
 a prominent part, although not nearly so impor 
 tant at first as has commonly been represented. 
 Doubtless the slaveholders worked hard to secure 
 additional territory out of which to form new 
 slave States ; but Texas and California would have 
 been in the end taken by us, had there not been a 
 single slave in the Mississippi valley. The greed 
 for the conquest of new lands which characterized 
 the Western people had nothing whatever to do 
 with the fact that some of them owned slaves. 
 Long before there had been so much as the faintest 
 
Slave Question in Politics 165 
 
 foreshadowing of the importance which the 
 slavery question was to assume, the West had 
 been eagerly pressing on to territorial conquest, 
 and had been chafing and fretting at the restraint 
 put upon it, and at the limits set to its strivings by 
 the treaties established with foreign powers. The 
 first settlers beyond the Alleghanies, and their 
 immediate successors, who moved down along the 
 banks of the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Ten 
 nessee, and thence out to the Mississippi itself, 
 were not generally slaveholders; but they were 
 all as anxious to wrest the Mississippi valley from 
 the control of the French as their descendants 
 were to overrun the Spanish lands lying along the 
 Rio Grande. In other words, slavery had very 
 little to do with the Western aggressions on Mex 
 ican territory, however it might influence the 
 views of Southern statesmen as to lending support 
 to the Western schemes. 
 
 The territorial boundaries of all the great powers 
 originally claiming the soil of the West France, 
 Spain, and the United States were very ill- 
 defined, there being no actual possession of the 
 lands in dispute, and each power making a great 
 showing on its own map. If the extreme views of 
 any one were admitted, its adversary, for the time 
 being, would have had nothing. Thus before the 
 treaty of 1819 with Spain our nominal boundaries 
 and those of the latter power in the West over- 
 
166 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 lapped each other ; and the extreme Western men 
 persisted in saying that we had given up some of 
 the territory which belonged to us because we had 
 consented to adopt the middle line of division, and 
 had not insisted upon being allowed the full extent 
 of our claims. Benton always took this view of it, 
 insisting that we had given up our rights by the 
 adoption of this treaty. Many Southerners im 
 proved on this idea, and spoke of the desirability 
 of " reannexing" the territory we had surrendered, 
 endeavoring by the use of this very inappropriate 
 word to give a color of right to their proceedings. 
 As a matter of fact it was inevitable, as well as in 
 the highest degree desirable for the good of human 
 ity at large, that the American people should ulti 
 mately crowd out the Mexicans from their sparsely 
 populated northern provinces. But it was quite 
 as desirable that this should not be done in the 
 interests of slavery. 
 
 American settlers had begun to press into the 
 outlying Spanish province of Texas before the 
 treaty of 1819 was ratified. Their numbers went 
 on increasing, and at first the Mexican govern 
 ment, having achieved independence of Spain, 
 encouraged their incoming. But it soon saw that 
 their presence boded danger, and forbade further 
 immigration ; without effect, however, as the set 
 tlers and adventurers came thronging in as fast as 
 ever. The Americans had brought their slaves 
 
Slave Question in Politics 167 
 
 with them, and when the Mexican government 
 issued a decree liberating all slaves, they refused 
 to be bound by it ; and this decree was among the 
 reasons alleged for their revolt. It has been repre 
 sented as the chief if not the sole cause of the 
 rebellion; but in reality it was not the cause at 
 all; it was merely one of the occasions. Long 
 before slavery had been abolished in Mexico, and 
 before it had become an exciting question in the 
 United States, the infant colony of Texas, when 
 but a few months old, had made an abortive 
 attempt at insurrection. Any one who has ever 
 been on the frontier, and who knows anything 
 whatever of the domineering, masterful spirit and 
 bitter race prejudices of the white frontiersmen, 
 will acknowledge at once that it was out of the 
 question that the Texans should long continue 
 under Mexican rule; and it would have been a 
 great misfortune if they had. It was out of the 
 question to expect them to submit to the mastery 
 of the weaker race, which they were supplanting. 
 Whatever might be the pretexts alleged for revolt 
 the real reasons were to be found in the deeply 
 marked difference of race, and in the absolute 
 unfitness of the Mexicans then to govern them 
 selves, to say nothing of governing others. During 
 the dozen years that the American colony in Texas 
 formed part of Mexico, the government of the 
 latter went through revolution after revolution, 
 
168 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 republic, empire, and military dictatorship fol 
 lowing one another in bewildering succession. 
 A state of things like this in the central govern 
 ment, especially when the latter belonged to a race 
 alien in blood, language, religion, and habits of 
 life, would warrant any community in determining 
 to shift for itself. Such would probably have been 
 the result even on people as sober and peaceable 
 as the Texan settlers were warlike, reckless, and 
 overbearing. 
 
 But the majority of those who fought for Texan 
 independence were not men who had already set 
 tled in that territory, but, on the contrary, were 
 adventurers from the States, who had come to help 
 their kinsmen and to win for themselves, by their 
 own prowess, homes on what was then Mexican 
 soil. It may as well be frankly admitted that the 
 conduct of the American frontiersmen all through 
 this contest can be justified on no possible plea of 
 international morality or law. Still, we cannot 
 judge them by the same standard we should apply 
 to the dealings between highly civilized powers of 
 approximately the same grade of virtue and intel 
 ligence. Two nations may be contemporaneous 
 so far as mere years go, and yet, for all that, may 
 be existing among surroundings which practically 
 are centuries apart. The nineteenth century on 
 the banks of the Thames, the Seine, and the Rhine, 
 or even of the Hudson and the Potomac, was one 
 
Slave Question in Politics 169 
 
 thing ; the nineteenth century in the valley of the 
 Rio Grande was another and quite a different 
 thing. 
 
 The conquest of Texas should properly be classed 
 with conquests like those of the Norse sea-rovers. 
 The virtues and faults alike of the Texans were 
 those of a barbaric age . They were restless, brave , 
 and eager for adventure, excitement, and plunder; 
 they were warlike, resolute, and enterprising ; they 
 had all the marks of a young and hardy race, 
 flushed with the pride of strength and self-confi 
 dence. On the other hand, they showed again and 
 again the barbaric vices of boastfulness, ignorance, 
 and cruelty ; and they were utterly careless of the 
 rights of others, looking upon the possessions of 
 all weaker races as simply their natural prey. A 
 band of settlers entering Texas was troubled by no 
 greater scruples of conscience than, a thousand 
 years before, a shipload of Knut s followers might 
 have felt at landing in England; and when they 
 were engaged in warfare with the Mexicans they 
 could count with certainty upon assistance from 
 their kinsfolk who had been left behind, and for 
 the same reasons that had enabled Rolf s Norse 
 men on the seacoast of France to rely confidently 
 on Scandinavian help in their quarrels with their 
 Karling over-lords. The great Texan hero, Hous 
 ton, who drank hard and fought hard, who was 
 mighty in battle and crafty in council, with his 
 
170 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 reckless, boastful courage and his thirst for 
 changes and risks of all kinds, his propensity 
 for private brawling, and his queerly blended 
 impulses for good and evil, might, with very 
 superficial alterations of character, stand as the 
 type of an old world Viking plus the virtue of a 
 deep and earnestly patriotic attachment to his 
 whole country. Indeed his career was as pic 
 turesque and romantic as that of Harold Hard- 
 raada himself, and, to boot, was much more im 
 portant in its results. 
 
 Thus the Texan struggle for independence stirred 
 up the greatest sympathy and enthusiasm in the 
 United States. The administration remained 
 nominally neutral, but obviously sympathized 
 with the Texan s, permitting arms and men to be 
 sent to their help, without hindrance, and indeed 
 doing not a little discreditable bullying in the 
 diplomatic dealing with Mexico, which that un 
 fortunate community had her hands too full to 
 resent. Still we did not commit a more flagrant 
 breach of neutrality than, for instance, England 
 was at the same time engaged in committing in 
 reference to the civil wars in Spain. The victory 
 of San Jacinto, in which Houston literally anni 
 hilated a Mexican force twice the strength of his 
 own, virtually decided the contest ; and the Senate 
 at once passed a resolution recognizing the inde 
 pendence of Texas. Calhoun wished that body 
 
Slave Question in Politics 171 
 
 to go farther, and forthwith admit Texas as a State 
 into the Union; but Benton and his colleagues 
 were not prepared to take such a step at so early 
 a date, although intending of course that in the 
 end she should be admitted. There was little 
 opposition to the recognition of Texan independ 
 ence, although a few members of the lower house, 
 headed by Adams, voted against it. While a 
 cabinet officer, and afterward as president, 
 Adams had done all that he could to procure by 
 purchase or treaty the very land which was after 
 ward the cause of our troubles with Mexico. 
 
 Much the longest and most elaborate speech in 
 favor of the recognition of Texan independence 
 was made by Benton, to whom the subject ap 
 pealed very strongly. He announced emphatically 
 that he spoke as a Western senator, voicing the 
 feeling of the West ; and he was right. The op 
 position to the growth of our country on its south 
 western frontier was almost confined to the 
 Northeast; the West as a whole, free States as 
 well as slave, heartily favored the movement. 
 The settlers of Texas had come mainly, it is true, 
 from the slave States; but there were also many 
 who had been born north of the Ohio. It was a 
 matter of comment that the guns used at San 
 Jacinto had come from Cincinnati and so had 
 some of those who served them. 
 
 In Benton s speech he began by pointing out the 
 
172 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 impropriety of doing what Calhoun had done in 
 attempting to complicate the question of the recog 
 nition of Texan independence with the admission 
 of Texas as a State. He then proceeded to claim 
 for us a good deal more credit than we were en 
 titled to for our efforts to preserve neutrality; 
 drew a very true picture of the commercial bonds 
 that united us to Mexico, and of the necessity that 
 they should not be lightly broken ; gave a spirited 
 sketch of the course of the war hitherto, condemn 
 ing without stint the horrible butcheries com 
 mitted by the Mexicans, but touching gingerly on 
 the savage revenge taken by the Americans in 
 their turn ; and ended by a eulogy of the Texans 
 themselves, and their leaders. 
 
 It was the age of "spread-eagle" speeches, and 
 many of Benton s were no exception to the rule. 
 As a people we were yet in a condition of raw, 
 crude immaturity; and our very sensitiveness to 
 foreign criticism a sensitiveness which we now 
 find it difficult to understand and the realiza 
 tion of our own awkwardness made us inclined to 
 brag about and exaggerate our deeds. Our public 
 speakers and writers acquired the abominable 
 habit of speaking of everything and everybody 
 in the United States in the superlative ; and there 
 fore, as we claimed the highest rank for all our 
 fourth-rate men, we put it out of our power to 
 do justice to the really first-rate ones; and on 
 
Slave Question in Politics 173 
 
 account of our continual exaggerations we were 
 not believed by others, and hardly even believed 
 ourselves, when we presented estimates that were 
 truthful. When every public speaker was de 
 clared to be a Demosthenes or a Cicero, people 
 failed to realize that we actually had, in Webster, 
 the greatest orator of the century; and when 
 every general who whipped an Indian tribe was 
 likened to Napoleon, we left ourselves no words 
 with which properly to characterize the really 
 heroic deeds done from time to time in the grim 
 frontier warfare. All Benton s oratory took on 
 this lurid coloring ; and in the present matter his 
 final eulogy of the Texan warriors was greatly 
 strained, though it would hardly have been in his 
 power to pay too high a tribute to some of the 
 deeds they had done. It was the heroic age of 
 the Southwest ; though, as with every other heroic 
 age, there were plenty of failings, vices, and weak 
 nesses visible, if the standpoint of observation was 
 only close enough. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 THE CHILDREN S TEETH ARE SET ON EDGE. 
 
 IN his dealings with the Bank and his disposal 
 of the deposits Jackson ate sour grapes to his 
 heart s content; and now the teeth of his 
 adopted child Van Buren were to be set on edge. 
 
 Van Buren was the first product of what are 
 now called machine politics" that was put into 
 the presidential chair. He owed his elevation 
 solely to his own dexterous political manipulation, 
 and to the fact that, for his own selfish ends, and 
 knowing perfectly well their folly, he had yet 
 favored or connived at all the actions into which 
 the administration had been led either through 
 Jackson s ignorance and violence, or by the crafty 
 unscrupulousness and limited knowledge of the 
 kitchen cabinet. The people at large would never 
 have thought of him for president of their own 
 accord; but he had become Jackson s political 
 legatee, partly because he had personally endeared 
 himself to the latter, and partly because the poli 
 ticians felt that he was a man whom they could 
 trust. The Jacksonian Democracy was already 
 completely ruled by a machine, of which the most 
 important cogs were the countless office-holders, 
 whom the spoils system had already converted 
 
 174 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 175 
 
 into a band of well-drilled political mercenaries. 
 A political machine can only be brought to a state 
 of high perfection in a party containing very 
 many ignorant and uneducated voters; and the 
 Jacksonian Democracy held in its ranks the mass 
 of the ignorance of the country. Besides this, 
 such an organization requires, in order that it 
 may do its most effective work, to have as its 
 leader and figurehead, a man who really has a 
 great hold on the people at large, and who yet can 
 be managed by such politicians as possess the 
 requisite adroitness; and Jackson fulfilled both 
 these conditions. The famous kitchen cabinet 
 was so called because its members held no official 
 positions, and yet were known to have Jackson 
 more under their influence than was the case with 
 his nominal advisers. They stood as the first 
 representatives of a type common enough after 
 ward, and of which Thurlow Weed was perhaps 
 the best example. They were men who held no 
 public position, and yet devoted their whole time 
 to politics, and pulled the strings in obedience to 
 which the apparent public leaders moved. 
 
 Jackson liked Van Buren because the latter had 
 served him both personally and politically 
 indeed Jackson was incapable of distinguishing be 
 tween a political and a personal service. This lik 
 ing, however, would not alone have advanced Van 
 Buren s interests, if the latter, who was himself 
 
176 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 a master in the New York state machine, had 
 not also succeeded in enlisting the good-will and 
 self-interest of the members of the kitchen cabi 
 net and the other intimate advisers of the Presi 
 dent. These first got Jackson himself thoroughly 
 committed to Van Buren, and then used his name 
 and enormous influence with the masses, coupled 
 with their own mastery of machine methods, to 
 bring about the New Yorker s nomination. In 
 both these moves they had been helped, and Van 
 Buren s chances had been immensely improved, 
 by an incident that had seemed at the time very 
 unfortunate for the latter. When he was secre 
 tary of state, in carrying on negotiations with 
 Great Britain relative to the West India trade, he 
 had so far forgotten what was due to the dignity of 
 the nation as to allude disparagingly, while thus 
 communicating with a foreign power, to the course 
 pursued by the previous administration. This 
 extension of party lines into our foreign diplo 
 macy was discreditable to the whole country. The 
 anti-administration men bitterly resented it, and 
 emphasized their resentment by rejecting the 
 nomination of Van Buren when Jackson wished to 
 make him minister to England. Their action was 
 perfectly proper, and Van Buren, by right, should 
 have suffered for his undignified and unpatriotic 
 conduct. But instead of this, and in accordance 
 with the eternal unfitness of things, what really 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 177 
 
 happened was that his rejection by the Senate 
 actually helped him ; for Jackson promptly made 
 the quarrel his own, and the masses blindly fol 
 lowed their idol. Ben ton exultingly and truth 
 fully said that the President s foes had succeeded 
 in breaking a minister only to make a president. 
 
 Van Buren faithfully served the mammon of 
 unrighteousness, both in his own State and, later 
 on, at Washington ; and he had his reward, for he 
 was advanced to the highest offices in the gift of 
 the nation. He had no reason to blame his own 
 conduct for his final downfall ; he got just as far 
 along as he could possibly get; he succeeded be 
 cause of, and not in spite of, his moral shortcom 
 ings ; if he had always governed his actions by a 
 high moral standard he would probably never have 
 been heard of. Still, there is some comfort in 
 reflecting that, exactly as he was made president 
 for no virtue of his own, but simply on account 
 of being Jackson s heir, so he was turned out of the 
 office, not for personal failure, but because he was 
 taken as scapegoat, and had the sins of his political 
 fathers visited on his own head. 
 
 The opposition to the election of Van Buren 
 was very much disorganized, the Whig party not 
 yet having solidified, indeed it always remained 
 a somewhat fluid body. The election did not have 
 the slightest sectional significance, slavery not 
 entering into it, and both Northern and Southern 
 
 12 
 
178 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 States voting without the least reference to the 
 geographical belongings of the candidates. He 
 was the last true Jacksonian Democrat Union 
 Democrat who became president; the South 
 Carolina separatists and many of their fellows 
 refused to vote for him. The Democrats who 
 came after him, on the contrary, all had leanings 
 to the separatist element which so soon obtained 
 absolute control of the party, to the fierce indigna 
 tion of men like Benton, Houston, and the other 
 old Jacksonians, whose sincere devotion to the 
 Union will always entitle them to the gratitude of 
 every true American. As far as slavery was con 
 cerned, however, the Southerners had hitherto had 
 nothing whatever to complain of in Van Buren s 
 attitude. He was careful to inform them in his 
 inaugural address that he would not sanction any 
 attempt to interfere with the institution, whether 
 by abolishing it in the District of Columbia or in 
 any other way distasteful to the South. He also 
 expressed a general hope that he would be able 
 throughout to follow in the footsteps of Jackson. 
 
 He had hardly been elected before the ruinous 
 financial policy to which he had been party, but 
 of which the effects, it must in justice be said, 
 were aggravated by many of the actions of the 
 Whigs, began to bear fruit after its kind. The 
 use made of the surplus was bad enough, but the 
 withdrawal of the United States deposits from one 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 179 
 
 responsible bank and their distribution among 
 scores of others, many of which were in the most 
 rickety condition, was a step better calculated 
 than any other to bring about a financial crash. 
 It gave a stimulus to extravagance, and evoked 
 the wildest spirit of speculation that the country 
 had yet seen. The local banks, to whom the cus 
 tody of the public moneys had been entrusted, 
 used them as funds which they and their custom 
 ers could hazard for the chance of gain ; and the 
 gambling spirit, always existent in the American 
 mercantile community, was galvanized into furious 
 life. The public dues were payable in the paper 
 of these deposit banks and of the countless others 
 that were even more irresponsible. The deposit 
 banks thus became filled up with a motley mass 
 of more or less worthless bank paper, which thus 
 formed the "surplus," of which the distribution, 
 had caused Congress so much worry. Their condi 
 tion was desperate, as they had been managed with 
 the most reckless disregard for the morrow. Many 
 of them had hardly kept as much specie in hand 
 as would amount to one-fiftieth of the aggregate 
 of their deposits and other immediate liabilities. 
 
 The people themselves were of course primarily 
 responsible for the then existing state of affairs; 
 but the government had done all in its power to 
 make matters worse . Panics were certain to occur 
 more or less often in so speculative and venture- 
 
i8o Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 some a mercantile community, where there was 
 such heedless trust in the future and such reck 
 lessness in the use of credit. But the government, 
 by its actions, immensely increased the severity of 
 this particular panic, and became the prime factor 
 in precipitating its advent. Be-nton tried to throw 
 the blame mainly on the bankers and politicians, 
 who, he alleged, had formed an alliance for the 
 overthrow of the administration ; but he made the 
 plea more half-heartedly than usual, and probably 
 in his secret soul acknowledged its puerility. 
 
 The mass of the people were still happy in the 
 belief that all things were working well, and that 
 their show of unexampled prosperity and business 
 activity denoted a permanent and healthy condi 
 tion. Yet all the signs pointed to a general col 
 lapse at no distant date ; an era of general bank 
 suspensions, of depreciated currency, and of insol 
 vency of the federal treasury was at hand. No 
 one but Benton, however, seemed able to read the 
 signs aright, and his foreboding utterances were 
 laughed at or treated with scorn by his fellow 
 statesmen. He recalled the memory of the times 
 of 1818-19, when the treasury reports of one year 
 showed a superfluity of revenue of which there 
 was no want, and those of the next showed a 
 deficit which required to be relieved by a loan; 
 and he foretold an infinitely worse result from the 
 inflation of the paper system, saying : 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge iSi 
 
 Are we not at this moment, and from the same 
 cause, realizing the first part the elusive and treach 
 erous part of this picture? and must not the other, 
 the sad and real sequel, speedily follow? The day of 
 revulsion in its effects may be more or less disastrous ; 
 but come it must. The present bloat in the paper 
 system cannot continue; violent contraction must 
 follow enormous expansion; a scene of distress and 
 suffering must ensue to come of itself out of the 
 present state of things, without being stimulated and 
 helped on by our unwise legislation. . . . 7 am one 
 of those who promised gold, not paper; 7 did not join 
 in putting down the Bank of the United States to put up 
 a wilderness of local banks. 7 did not join in putting 
 down the currency of a national bank to put up a 
 national paper currency of a thousand local banks. I 
 did not strike Caesar to make Antony master of Rome. 
 
 These last sentences referred to the passage of 
 the act repealing the specie circular and making 
 the notes of the banks receivable in payment of 
 federal dues. The act was most mischievous, and 
 Benton s criticisms both of it and of the great 
 Whig senator who pressed it were perfectly just; 
 but they apply with quite as much weight to Jack 
 son s dealings with the deposits, which Benton had 
 defended. 
 
 Benton foresaw the coming of the panic so 
 clearly, and was so particularly uneasy about the 
 immediate effects upon the governmental treasury, 
 that he not only spoke publicly on the matter in 
 the Senate, but even broached the subject in the 
 
i82 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 course of a private conversation with the Presi 
 dent-elect, to get him to try to make what prep 
 aration he could. Van Buren, cool, skilful, and 
 far-sighted politician though he was, on this occa 
 sion showed that he was infected with the com 
 mon delusion as to the solidity of the country s 
 business prosperity. He was very friendly with 
 Benton, and was trying to get him to take a posi 
 tion in his cabinet, which the latter refused, pre 
 ferring service in the Senate ; but now he listened 
 with scant courtesy to the warning, and paid no 
 heed to it. Benton, an intensely proud man, 
 would not speak again ; and everything went on 
 as before . The law distributing the surplus among 
 the States began to take effect ; under its opera 
 tions drafts for millions of dollars were made on 
 the banks containing the deposits, and these banks, 
 already sinking, were utterly unable to honor 
 them. It would have been impossible, under any 
 circumstances, for the President to ward off the 
 blow, but he might at least, by a little forethought 
 and preparation, have saved the government from 
 some galling humiliations. Had Benton s advice 
 been followed, the moneys called for by the appro 
 priation acts might have been drawn from the 
 banks, and the disbursing officers might have been 
 prevented from depositing in them the sums 
 which they drew from the treasury to provide 
 for their ordinary expenses ; thus the government 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 183 
 
 would have been spared the disgrace of being 
 obliged to stop the actual daily payments to the 
 public servants; and the nation would not have 
 seen such a spectacle as its rulers presented when 
 they had not a dollar with which to pay even a 
 day laborer, while at the same time a law was 
 standing on the statute-book providing for the 
 distribution of forty millions of nominal surplus. 
 
 No effort was made to stave off even so much of 
 the impending disaster as was at that late date 
 preventable; and a few days after Van Buren s 
 inauguration the country was in the throes of the 
 worst and most widespread financial panic it has 
 ever seen. The distress was fairly appalling both 
 in its intensity and in its universal distribution. 
 All the banks stopped payment, and bankruptcy 
 was universal. Bank paper depreciated with 
 frightful rapidity, especially in the West; specie 
 increased in value so that all the coin in the coun 
 try, down to the lowest denomination, was almost 
 immediately taken out of circulation, being either 
 hoarded or gathered for shipment abroad as bul 
 lion. For small change every kind of device was 
 made use of, tokens, bank-bills for a few cents 
 each, or brass and iron counters. 
 
 Benton and others pretended to believe that the 
 panic was the result of a deep-laid plot on the part 
 of the rich classes, who controlled the banks, to 
 excite popular hostility against the Jacksonian 
 
184 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Democracy, on account of the caste antagonism 
 which these same richer classes were supposed to 
 feel toward the much- vaunted " party of the 
 people;" and as Benton s mental vision was 
 singularly warped in regard to some subjects, 
 it is possible that the belief was not altogether a 
 pretense. It is entirely unnecessary now seri 
 ously to discuss the proposition that it would be 
 possible to drag the commercial classes into so 
 widespread and profoundly secret a conspiracy, 
 with such a vague end in view, and the certainty 
 that they themselves would be, from a business 
 standpoint, the main sufferers. 
 
 The efforts made by Benton and the other Jack- 
 sonians to stem the tide of public feeling and 
 direct it through the well-worn channel of sus 
 picious fear of, and anger at, the banks, as the true 
 authors of the general wretchedness, were unavail 
 ing ; the stream swelled into a torrent and ran like 
 a mill-race in the opposite way. The popular 
 clamor against the administration was deafening; 
 and if much of it was based on good grounds, much 
 of it was also unreasonable. But a very few years 
 before the Jacksonians had appealed to a senseless 
 public dislike of the so-called " money power," in 
 order to help themselves to victory ; and now they 
 had the chagrin of seeing an only less irrational 
 outcry raised against themselves in turn, and used 
 to oust them from their places, with the same 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 185 
 
 effectiveness which had previously attended their 
 own frothy and loud-mouthed declamations. The 
 people were more than ready to listen to any one 
 who could point out, or pretend to point out, the 
 authors of, and the reasons for, the calamities that 
 had befallen them. Their condition was pitiable ; 
 and this was especially true in the newer and West 
 ern States, where in many places there was abso 
 lutely no money at all in circulation, even the men 
 of means not being able to get enough coin or its 
 equivalent to make the most ordinary purchases. 
 Trade was at a complete standstill ; laborers were 
 thrown out of employment and left almost starv 
 ing ; farmers, merchants, mechanics, craftsmen of 
 every sort, all alike were in the direst distress. 
 They naturally, in seeking relief, turned to the 
 government, it being almost always the case that 
 the existing administration receives more credit if 
 the country is prosperous, and greater blame if it 
 is not, than in either case it is rightfully entitled 
 to. The Democracy was now held to strict reck 
 oning, not only for some of its numerous real sins, 
 but also for a good many imaginary ones ; and the 
 change in the political aspect of many of the com 
 monwealths was astounding. Jackson s own home 
 State of Tennessee became strongly Whig; and 
 Van Buren had the mortification of seeing New 
 York follow suit ; two stinging blows to the Presi 
 dent and the ex-President. The distress was a 
 
1 86 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 godsend to the Whig politicians. They fairly 
 raved in their anger against the administration, 
 and denounced all its acts, good and bad alike, 
 with fluent and incoherent impartiality. Indeed, 
 in their speeches, and in the petitions which they 
 circulated and then sent to the President, they 
 used language that was to the last degree absurd 
 in its violence and exaggeration, and drew descrip 
 tions of the iniquities of the rulers of the country 
 which were so overwrought as to be merely ridicu 
 lous. The speeches about the panic, and in refer 
 ence to the proposed laws to alleviate it, were 
 remarkable for their inflation, even in that age 
 of windy oratory. 
 
 Van Buren, Benton, and their associates stood 
 bravely up against the storm of indignation which 
 swept over the whole country, and lost neither 
 head nor nerve. They needed both to extricate 
 themselves with any credit from the position in 
 which they were placed. In deference to the 
 urgent wish of almost all the people an extra ses 
 sion of Congress was called especially to deal with 
 the panic. Van Buren s message to this oody was 
 a really statesmanlike document, going exhaust 
 ively into the subject of the national finances. 
 The Democrats still held the majority in both 
 houses, but there was so large a floating vote, and 
 the margins were so narrow, as to make the admin 
 istration feel that its hold was precarious. 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 187 
 
 The first thing to be done was to provide for 
 the immediate wants of the government, which 
 had not enough money to pay even its most neces 
 sary running expenses. To make this temporary 
 provision two plans were proposed. The fourth 
 instalment of the surplus ten millions was due 
 to the States. As there was really no surplus, but 
 a deficit instead, it was proposed to repeal the 
 deposit law so far as it affected their fourth pay 
 ment; and treasury notes were to be issued to 
 provide for immediate and pressing needs. 
 
 The Whigs frantically attacked the President s 
 proposals, and held him and his party accountable 
 for all the evils of the panic ; and in truth it was 
 right enough to hold them so accountable for part ; 
 but, after all, the harm was largely due to causes 
 existing throughout the civilized world, and espe 
 cially to the speculative folly rife among the whole 
 American people. But it is always an easy and a 
 comfortable thing to hold others responsible for 
 what is primarily our own fault. 
 
 Benton did not believe, as a matter of principle, 
 in the issue of treasury notes, but supported the 
 bill for that purpose on account of the sore straits 
 the administration was in, and its dire need of 
 assistance from any source. He treated it as a 
 disagreeable but temporary makeshift, only allow 
 able on the ground of the sternest and most grind 
 ing necessity. He stated that he supported the 
 
IBS Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 issue only because the treasury notes were made 
 out in such a form that they could not become 
 currency; they were merely loan notes. Their 
 chief characteristic was that they bore interest; 
 they were transferable only by indorsement ; were 
 payable at a fixed time ; were not reissuable, nor 
 of small denominations ; and were to be canceled 
 when paid. Such being the case he favored their 
 issue, but expressly stated that he only did so on 
 account of the urgency of the governmental wants ; 
 and that he disapproved of any such issue until 
 the ordinary resources of taxes and loans had been 
 tried to the utmost and failed. "I distrust, dis 
 like, and would fain eschew this treasury-note 
 resource; I prefer the direct loans of 1820-21. I 
 could only bring myself to support this present 
 measure when it was urged that there was not 
 time to carry a loan through in its forms ; nor even 
 then would I consent to it until every feature of a 
 currency character had been eradicated from the 
 bill." 
 
 A sharp struggle took place over the bill brought 
 in by the friends of the administration and advo 
 cated by Benton, to repeal the obligation to de 
 posit the fourth instalment of the surplus with the 
 States. This scheme of a distribution, thinly 
 disguised under the name of deposit to soothe 
 the feelings of Calhoun and the other strict con- 
 structionist pundits, had worked nothing but 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 189 
 
 mischief from the start ; and now that there was 
 no surplus to distribute, it would seem incredible 
 that there should have been opposition to its 
 partial repeal. Yet Webster, Clay, and their 
 followers strenuously opposed even such repeal. 
 It is possible that their motives were honest, but 
 much more probable that they were actuated 
 by partisan hostility to the administration, 
 or that they believed they would increase their 
 own popularity by favoring a plan that seem 
 ingly distributed money as a gift among the 
 States. The bill was finally amended so as to 
 make it imperative to pay this fourth instalment 
 in a couple of years; yet it was not then paid, 
 since on the date appointed the national treasury 
 was bankrupt and the States could therefore never 
 get the money, which was the only satisfactory 
 incident in the whole proceeding. The financial 
 theories of Jackson and Benton were crude and 
 vicious, it is true, but Webster, Clay, and most 
 other public men of the day seem to have held 
 ideas on the subject that were almost, if not quite, 
 as mischievous. 
 
 The great financial measures advocated by the 
 administration of Van Buren, and championed 
 with especial zeal by Benton, were those provid 
 ing for an independent treasury and for hard- 
 money payments; that is, providing that the 
 government should receive nothing but gold and 
 
Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 silver for its revenues, and that this gold and silver 
 should be kept by its own officers in real, not con 
 structive, treasuries, in strong buildings, with 
 special officers to hold the keys. The treasury 
 was to be at Washington, with branches or sub- 
 treasuries at the principal points of collection and 
 disbursement. 
 
 These measures, if successful, meant that there 
 would be a total separation of the federal govern 
 ment from all banks ; in the political language of 
 the times they became known as those for the 
 divorce of bank and state. Hitherto the local 
 banks chosen by Jackson to receive the deposits 
 had been actively hostile to Biddle s great bank 
 and to its friends; but self-interest now united 
 them all in violent opposition to the new scheme. 
 Webster, Clay, and the Whigs generally fought it 
 bitterly in the Senate ; but Calhoun now left his 
 recent allies and joined with Benton in securing 
 its passage. However, it was for the time being 
 defeated in the House of Representatives. Most 
 of the opposition to it was characterized by sheer 
 loud-mouthed demagogy cries that the govern 
 ment was too aristocratic to accept the money that 
 was thought good enough for the people, and simi 
 lar claptrap. Benton made a very earnest plea 
 for hard money, and especially denounced the doc 
 trine that it was the government s duty to inter 
 fere in any way in private business ; for, as usual 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 191 
 
 in times of general distress, a good many people 
 had a vague idea that in some way the govern 
 ment ought to step in and relieve them from the 
 consequences of their own folly. 
 
 Meanwhile the banks had been endeavoring to 
 resume specie payment. Those of New York had 
 taken steps in that direction but little more than 
 three months after the suspension. Their weaker 
 Western neighbors, however, were not yet in con 
 dition to follow suit ; and the great bank at Phila 
 delphia also at first refused to come in with them. 
 But the New York banks persisted in their pur 
 pose, resumed payment a year after they had sus 
 pended, and eventually the others had to fall into 
 line ; the reluctance to do so being of course at 
 tributed by Ben ton to "the factious and wicked 
 machinations" of a "powerful combined political 
 and moneyed confederation" a shadowy and 
 spectral creation of vivid Jacksonian imaginations, 
 in the existence of which he persisted in believing. 
 
 Clay, always active as the friend of the banks, 
 introduced a resolution, nominally to quicken the 
 approach of resumption, but really to help out pre 
 cisely those weak banks which did not deserve 
 help, making the notes of the resuming banks 
 receivable in payment of all dues to the federal 
 government. This was offered after the banks of 
 New York had resumed, and when all the other 
 solvent banks were on the point of resuming also ; 
 
i92 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 so its nominal purpose was already accomplished, 
 as Benton, in a caustic speech, pointed out. He 
 then tore the resolution to shreds, showing that it 
 would be of especial benefit to the insolvent and 
 unsound banks, and would insure a repetition of 
 the worst evils under which the country was 
 already suffering. He made it clear that the 
 proposition practically was to force the govern 
 ment to receive paper promises to pay from banks 
 that were certain to fail, and therefore to force 
 the government in turn to pay out this worthless 
 paper to its honest creditors. Benton s speech 
 was an excellent one, and Clay s resolution was 
 defeated. 
 
 All through this bank controversy, and the 
 other controversies relating to it, Benton took the 
 leading part, as mouthpiece of the administration. 
 He heartily supported the suggestion of the Presi 
 dent, that a stringent bankrupt law against the 
 banks should be passed. Webster stood out as 
 the principal opponent of this measure, basing his 
 objections mainly upon constitutional grounds; 
 that is, questioning the right, rather than the 
 expediency, of the proposed remedy. Benton 
 answered him at length in a speech showing an 
 immense amount of careful and painstaking study 
 and a wide range of historical reading and legal 
 knowledge; he replied point by point, and more 
 than held his own with his great antagonist. His 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 193 
 
 speech was an exhaustive study of the history and 
 scope of bankruptcy laws against corporations. 
 Benton s capacity for work was at all times im 
 mense; he delighted in it for its own sake, and 
 took a most justifiable pride in his wide reading, 
 and especially in his full acquaintance with his 
 tory, both ancient and modern. He was very 
 fond of illustrating his speeches on American 
 affairs with continual allusions and references to 
 events in foreign countries or in old times which 
 he considered to be more or less parallel to those 
 he was discussing ; and indeed he often dragged in 
 these comparisons when there was no particular 
 need for such a display of his knowledge. He 
 could fairly be called a learned man, for he had 
 studied very many subjects deeply and thor 
 oughly; and though he was too self-conscious 
 and pompous in his utterances not to incur more 
 than the suspicion of pedantry, yet the fact 
 remains that hardly any other man has ever sat 
 in the Senate whose range of information was as 
 wide as his. 
 
 He made another powerful and carefully 
 wrought speech in favor of what he called the 
 act to provide for the divorce of bank and state. 
 This bill, as finally drawn, consisted of two dis 
 tinct parts, one portion making provision for the 
 keeping of the public moneys in an independent 
 treasury, and the other for the hard money 
 
194 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 currency, which was all that the government was 
 to accept in payment of revenue dues. This last 
 provision, however, was struck out, and the bill 
 thereby lost the support of Calhoun, who, with 
 Webster, Clay, and the other Whigs, voted against 
 it ; but, mainly through Benton s efforts, it passed 
 the Senate, although by a very slender majority. 
 Benton, in his speech, dwelt with especial admira 
 tion on the working of the monetary system of 
 France, and held it up as well worthy to be copied 
 by us. Most of the points he made were certainly 
 good ones, although he overestimated the benefi 
 cent results that would spring from the adoption 
 of the proposed system, believing that it would 
 put an end for the future to all panics and com 
 mercial convulsions. In reality it would have 
 removed only one of the many causes which go to 
 produce the latter, leaving the others free to work 
 as before; the people at large, not the govern 
 ment, were mainly to blame, and even with them 
 it was in some respects their misfortune as much as 
 their fault. Benton s error, however, was natural ; 
 like most other men he was unable fully to realize 
 that hardly any phenomenon, even the most sim 
 ple, can be said to spring from one cause only, and 
 not from a complex and interwoven tissue of causa 
 tion and a panic is one of the least simple and 
 most complex of mercantile phenomena. Ben- 
 ton s deep-rooted distrust of and hostility to such 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 195 
 
 banking as then existed in the United States cer 
 tainly had good grounds for existence. 
 
 This distrust was shown again when the bill for 
 the recharter of the district banks came up. The 
 specie basis of many of them had been allowed to 
 become altogether too low; and Benton showed 
 himself more keenly alive than any other public 
 man to the danger of such a state of things, and 
 argued strongly that a basis of specie amounting 
 to one-third the total of liabilities was the only 
 safe proportion, and should be enforced by law. 
 He made a most forcible argument, using numer 
 ous and apt illustrations to show the need of his 
 amendment. 
 
 Nor was the tireless Missouri senator satisfied 
 even yet; for he introduced a resolution asking 
 leave to bring in a bill to tax the circulation of 
 banks and bankers, and of all corporations, com 
 panies, or individuals, issuing paper currency. 
 One object of the bill was to raise revenue; but 
 even more he aimed at the regulation of the cur 
 rency by the suppression of small notes ; and for 
 this end the tax was proposed to be made heaviest 
 on notes under twenty dollars, and to be annually 
 augmented until it had accomplished its object 
 and they had been driven out of circulation. In 
 advocating his measure he used, as was per 
 haps unavoidable, some arguments that savored 
 strongly of demagogy ; but on the whole he made 
 
196 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 a strong appeal, using as precedents for the law 
 he wished to see enacted both the then existing 
 banking laws in England and those that had ob 
 tained previously in the history of the United 
 States. 
 
 Taken altogether, while the Jacksonians, dur 
 ing the period of Van Buren s presidency, rightly 
 suffered for their previous financial misdeeds, yet 
 so far as their actions at the time were concerned, 
 they showed to greater advantage than the Whigs. 
 Nor did they waver in their purpose even when 
 the tide of popular feeling changed. The great 
 financial measure of the administration, in which 
 Benton was most interested, the independent 
 treasury bill, he succeeded in getting through 
 the Senate twice ; the first time it was lost in the 
 House of Representatives; but on the second 
 occasion, toward the close of Van Buren s term, 
 firmness and perseverance met their reward. The 
 bill passed the Senate by an increased majority, 
 scraped through the House after a bitter contest, 
 and became a law. It developed the system 
 known as that of the Sub-Treasury, which has 
 proved satisfactory to the present day. 
 
 It was during Van Buren s term that Biddle s 
 great bank, so long the pivot on which turned the 
 fortunes of political parties, finally tottered to its 
 fall. It was ruined by unwise and reckless man 
 agement; and Benton sang a paean over its 
 
Teeth are Set on Edge 197 
 
 downfall, exulting in its fate as a justification of 
 all that he had said and done. Yet there can be 
 little doubt that its mismanagement became gross 
 only after all connection with the national govern 
 ment had ceased; and its end, attributable to 
 causes not originally existent or likely to exist, can 
 hardly be rightly considered in passing judgment 
 upon the actions of the Jacksonians in reference 
 to it. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 LAST DAYS OP THE JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY. 
 
 THE difficulty and duration of a war with an 
 Indian tribe depend less upon the numbers 
 of the tribe itself than upon the nature of 
 the ground it inhabits. The two Indian tribes 
 that have caused the most irritating and pro 
 longed struggle are the Apaches, who live in the 
 vast, waterless mountainous deserts of Arizona 
 and New Mexico, and whom we are at this present 
 moment engaged in subduing, and the Seminoles, 
 who, from among the impenetrable swamps of 
 Florida, bade the whole United States army 
 defiance for seven long years; and this although 
 neither Seminoles nor Apaches ever brought much 
 force into the field, nor inflicted such defeats upon 
 us as have other Indian tribes, like the Creeks and 
 Sioux. 
 
 The conflict with the Seminoles was one of the 
 legacies left by Jackson to Van Buren; it lasted 
 as long as the Revolutionary War, cost thirty mil 
 lions of dollars, and baffled the efforts of several 
 generals and numerous troops, who had previ 
 ously shown themselves equal to any in the world. 
 The expense, length, and ill-success of the strug 
 gle, and a strong feeling that the Seminoles had 
 
 198 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 199 
 
 been wronged, made it a great handle for attack 
 on the administration ; and the defense was taken 
 up by Benton, who always accepted completely 
 the Western estimate of any form of the Indian 
 question. 
 
 As is usually the case in Indian wars, there had 
 been much wrong done by each side ; but in this 
 instance we were the more to blame, although the 
 Indians themselves were far from being merely 
 harmless and suffering innocents. The Seminoles 
 were being deprived of their lands in pursuance of 
 the general policy of removing all the Indians 
 west of the Mississippi. They had agreed to go, 
 under pressure, and influenced, probably, by 
 fraudulent representations; but they declined to 
 fulfil their agreement. If they had been treated 
 wisely and firmly they might probably have been 
 allowed to remain without serious injury to the 
 surrounding whites. But no such treatment was 
 attempted, and as a result we were plunged in 
 one of the most harassing Indian wars we ever 
 waged. In their gloomy, tangled swamps, and 
 among the unknown and untrodden recesses of 
 the everglades the Indians found a secure asylum ; 
 and they issued from their haunts to burn and 
 ravage almost all the settled parts of Florida, 
 fairly depopulating five counties; while the sol 
 diers could rarely overtake them, and when they 
 did, were placed at such a disadvantage that the 
 
200 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Indians repulsed or cut off detachment after de 
 tachment, generally making a merciless and com 
 plete slaughter of each. The great Seminole 
 leader, Osceola, was captured only by deliberate 
 treachery and breach of faith on our part, and the 
 Indians were worn out rather than conquered. 
 This was partly owing to their remarkable capaci 
 ties as bush-fighters, but infinitely more to the 
 nature of their territory. 
 
 Our troops generally fought with great bravery ; 
 but there is very little else in the struggle, either 
 as regards its origin or the manner in which it was 
 carried on, to which an American can look back 
 with any satisfaction. We usually group all our 
 Indian wars together, in speaking of their justice 
 or injustice ; and thereby show flagrant ignorance. 
 The Sioux and Cheyennes, for instance, have more 
 often been sinning than sinned against ; for exam 
 ple, the so-called Chivington or Sandy Creek Mas 
 sacre, in spite of certain most objectionable details, 
 was on the whole as righteous and beneficial a deed 
 as ever took place on the frontier. On the other 
 hand, the most cruel wrongs have been perpe 
 trated by whites upon perfectly peaceable and 
 unoffending tribes like those of California, or the 
 Nez Perces. Yet the emasculated professional 
 humanitarians mourn as much over one set of 
 Indians as over the other and indeed, on all 
 points connected with Indian management, are 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 201 
 
 as untrustworthy and unsafe leaders as would be 
 an equal number of the most brutal white border 
 ers. But the Seminole War was one of those 
 where the Eastern or humanitarian view was more 
 nearly correct than was any other ; although even 
 here the case was far from being entirely onesided. 
 Ben ton made an elaborate but not always can 
 did defense of the administration, both as to the 
 origin and as to the prosecution of the war. He 
 attempted to show that the Seminoles had agreed 
 to go West, had broken their treaty without any 
 reason, had perpetrated causeless massacres, had 
 followed up their successes with merciless butch 
 eries, which last statement was true; and that 
 Osceola had forfeited all claim or right to have a 
 flag of truce protect him. There was a certain 
 justice in his position even on these questions, and 
 when he came to defend the conduct of our soldiers 
 he had the right entirely with him. They were 
 led by the same commander, and belonged to the 
 same regiments, that in Canada had shown them 
 selves equal to the famous British infantry ; they 
 had to contend with the country, rather than with 
 their enemies, as the sweltering heat, the stagnant 
 lagoons, the quaking morasses, and the dense for 
 ests of Florida made it almost impossible for an 
 army to carry on a successful campaign. More 
 over, the Seminoles were well armed; and many 
 tribes of North American Indians show them- 
 
202 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 selves, when with good weapons and on their own 
 ground, more dangerous antagonists than would 
 be an equal number of the best European troops. 
 Indeed, under such conditions they can only be 
 contended with on equal terms if the opposing 
 white force is made up of frontiersmen who are as 
 good woodsmen and riflemen as themselves, and 
 who, moreover, have been drilled by some man 
 like Jackson, who knows how to handle them to 
 the best advantage, both in disciplining their 
 lawless courage and in forcing them to act under 
 orders and together, the lack of which discipline 
 and power of supporting each other has often 
 rendered an assemblage of formidable individual 
 border-fighters a mere disorderly mob when 
 brought into the field. 
 
 The war dragged on tediously. The troops 
 regulars, volunteers, and militia alike fought 
 the Indians again and again; there were pitched 
 battles, surprises, ambuscades, and assaults on 
 places of unknown strength ; hundreds of soldiers 
 were slain in battle or by treachery ; hundreds of 
 settlers were slaughtered in their homes, or as 
 they fled from them; the bloody Indian forays 
 reached even to the outskirts of Tallahatchee and 
 to within sight of the walls of quaint old St. 
 Augustine. Little by little, however, the power of 
 the Seminoles was broken ; their war bands were 
 scattered and driven from the field, hundreds 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 203 
 
 of their number were slain in fight, and five 
 times as many surrendered and were taken west 
 of the Mississippi. The white troops marched 
 through Florida down to and into the everglades, 
 and crossed it backward and forward, from the 
 Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean ; they hunted 
 their foes from morass to morass and from hum 
 mock to hummock; they mapped out the whole 
 hitherto unknown country; they established 
 numerous posts; opened hundreds of miles of 
 wagon road ; and built very many causeways and 
 bridges. But they could not end the war. The 
 bands of Indians broke up and entirely ceased to 
 offer resistance to bodies of armed whites ; but as 
 individuals they continued as dangerous to the 
 settlers as ever, prowling out at night like wild 
 beasts from their fastnesses in the dark and fetid 
 swamps, murdering, burning, and ravaging in all 
 the outlying settlements, and destroying every 
 lonely farmhouse or homestead. 
 
 There was but one way in which the war could 
 be finally ended, and that was to have the terri 
 tory occupied by armed settlers ; in other words, 
 to have it won and held exactly as almost all the 
 land of the United States has been in the begin 
 ning. Benton introduced a bill to bring this about, 
 giving to every such settler a good inheritance 
 in the soil as a reward for his enterprise, toil, and 
 danger; and the war was finished only by the 
 
204 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 adoption of this method. He supported his bill 
 in a very effective speech, showing that the pro 
 posed way was the only one by which a permanent 
 conquest could be effected ; he himself had, when 
 young, seen it put into execution in Tennessee and 
 Kentucky, where the armed settlers, with their 
 homesteads in the soil, formed the vanguard of 
 the white advance ; where the rifle-bearing back 
 woodsmen went forth to fight and to cultivate, 
 living in assemblages of blockhouses at first and 
 separating into individual settlements afterward. 
 The work had to be done with axe, spade, and rifle 
 alike. Benton rightly insisted that there was no 
 longer need of a large army in Florida : 
 
 Why, the men who are there now can find nobody 
 to fight! It is two years since a fight has been had. 
 Ten men who will avoid surprises and ambuscades can 
 now go from one end of Florida to the other. As war 
 riors, these Indians no longer appear; it is only as 
 assassins, as robbers, as incendiaries, that they lurk 
 about. What is now wanted is not an army to fight, 
 but settlers and cultivators to take possession and 
 keep possession ; and the armed cultivator is the man 
 for that. The blockhouse is the first house to be 
 built in an Indian country; the stockade the first 
 fence to be put up. Within that blockhouse, or 
 within a hollow square of blockhouses, two miles long 
 on each side, two hundred yards apart, and enclosing 
 a good field, safe habitations are to be found for fami 
 lies. Cultivation and defense then go hand in hand. 
 The heart of the Indian sickens when he hears the 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 205 
 
 crowing of the cock, the barking of the dog, the sound 
 of the axe, and the crack of the rifle. These are the 
 true evidences of the dominion of the white man; 
 these are the proofs that the owner has come and 
 means to stay, and then the Indians feel it to be time 
 for them to go. While soldiers alone are in the coun 
 try they feel their presence to be temporary ; that they 
 are mere sojourners in the land, and sooner or later 
 must go away. It is the settler alone, the armed set 
 tler, whose presence announces the dominion, the 
 permanent dominion, of the white man. 
 
 Benton s ideas were right, and were acted upon. 
 It is impossible even to subdue an Indian tribe by 
 the army alone ; the latter can only pave the way 
 for and partially protect the armed settlers who 
 are to hold the soil. 
 
 Benton continued to take a great interest in the 
 disposal of the public lands, as was natural in a 
 senator from the West, where the bulk of these 
 lands lay. He was always a great advocate of a 
 homestead law. During Van Buren s administra 
 tion, he succeeded in getting two or three bills 
 on the subject through the Senate. One of these 
 allowed lands that had been five years in the mar 
 ket to be reduced in price to a dollar an acre, and 
 if they stood five years longer to go down to 
 seventy-five cents. The bill was greatly to the 
 interest of the Western farmer in the newer, 
 although not necessarily the newest, parts of the 
 country. The man who went on the newest land 
 
206 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 was in turn provided for by the preemption bill, 
 which secured the privilege of first purchase to 
 the actual settler on any lands to which the Indian 
 title had been extinguished ; to be paid for at the 
 minimum price of public lands at the time. An 
 effort was made to confine the benefits of this pro 
 posed law to citizens of the United States, exclud 
 ing unnaturalized foreigners from its action. 
 Benton, as representing the new States, who 
 desired immigrants of every kind, whether foreign 
 or native, successfully opposed this. He pointed 
 out that there was no question of conferring politi 
 cal rights, which involved the management of the 
 government, and which should not be conferred 
 until the foreigner had become a naturalized citi 
 zen ; it was merely a question of allowing the alien a 
 right to maintain himself and to support his family. 
 He especially opposed the amendment on account 
 of the class of foreigners it would affect. Aliens 
 who wished to take up public lands were not 
 paupers or criminals, and did not belong to the 
 shiftless and squalid foreign mob that drifted into 
 the great cities of the seaboard and the interior; 
 but on the contrary were among our most enter 
 prising, hardy, and thrifty citizens, who had 
 struck out for themselves into the remote parts 
 of the new States and had there begun to bring 
 the wilderness into subjection. Such men de 
 served to be encouraged in every way, and should 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 207 
 
 receive from the preemption laws the same benefits 
 that would inure to native-born citizens. The 
 third bill introduced, which passed the Senate but 
 failed in the House, was one to permit the public 
 lands sold to be immediately taxed by the States 
 in which they lay. Originally these lands had 
 been sold upon credit, the total amount not being 
 paid, nor the title passed, until five years after the 
 sale; and during this time it would have been 
 unjust to tax them, as failure in paying the instal 
 ments to the government would have let the lands 
 revert to the latter; but when the cash system 
 was substituted for credit Ben ton believed that 
 there was no longer reason why the new lands 
 should not bear their share of the state burdens. 
 
 During Van Buren s administration the stand 
 ard of public honesty, which had been lowering 
 with frightful rapidity ever since, with Adams, 
 the men of high moral tone had gone out of power, 
 went almost as far down as it could go ; although 
 things certainly did not change for the better 
 under Tyler and Polk. Not only was there the 
 most impudent and unblushing rascality among 
 the public servants of the nation, but the people 
 themselves, through their representatives in the 
 state legislatures, went to work to swindle their 
 honest creditors. Many States, in the rage for 
 public improvements, had contracted debts which 
 they now refused to pay ; in many cases they were 
 
208 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 unable, or at least so professed themselves, even 
 to pay the annual interest. The debts of the 
 States were largely held abroad; they had been 
 converted into stock and held in shares, which had 
 gone into a great number of hands, and now, of 
 course, became greatly depreciated in value. It 
 is a painful and shameful page in our history ; and 
 every man connected with the repudiation of the 
 States debts ought, if remembered at all, to be 
 remembered with scorn and contempt. However, 
 time has gradually shrouded from our sight both 
 the names of the leaders in the repudiation and 
 the names of the victims whom they swindled. 
 Two alone, one in each class, will always be kept 
 in mind. Before Jefferson Davis took his place 
 among the arch-traitors in our annals he had 
 already long been known as one of the chief re- 
 pudiators; it was not unnatural that to dishon 
 esty toward the creditors of the public he should 
 afterward add treachery toward the public itself. 
 The one most prominent victim was described by 
 Benton himself: "The Rev. Sydney Smith, of 
 witty memory, but amiable withal, was accus 
 tomed to lose all his amiability, but no part of his 
 wit, when he spoke of his Pennsylvania bonds 
 which, in fact, was very often." 
 
 Many of the bondholders, however, did not 
 manifest their grief by caustic wit, but looked to 
 more substantial relief; and did their best to 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 209 
 
 bring about the assumption of the state debts, 
 in some form, whether open or disguised, by 
 the federal government. The British capitalists 
 united with many American capitalists to work 
 for some such action; and there were plenty of 
 people in the States willing enough to see it done. 
 Of course it would have been criminal folly on the 
 part of the federal government to take any such 
 step; and Benton determined to meet and check 
 the effort at the very beginning. The London 
 Bankers Circular had contained a proposition 
 recommending that the Congress of the United 
 States should guarantee, or otherwise provide for, 
 the ultimate payment of the debts which the 
 States had contracted for state or local purposes. 
 Benton introduced a series of resolutions declaring 
 utter opposition to the proposal, both on the 
 ground of expediency and on that of constitution 
 ality. The resolutions were perfectly proper in 
 their purpose, but were disfigured by that cheap 
 species of demagogy which consists in denouncing 
 purely supposititious foreign interference, com 
 plicated by an allusion to Benton s especial pet 
 terror, the inevitable money power. As he put it : 
 "Foreign interference and influence are far more 
 dangerous in the invidious intervention of the 
 moneyed power than in the forcible invasions of 
 fleets and armies." 
 
 An attempt was made directly to reverse the 
 14 
 
210 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 effect of the resolutions by amending them so as 
 to provide that the public land revenue should be 
 divided among the States, to help them in the 
 payment of these debts. Both Webster and Clay 
 supported this amendment, but it was fortunately 
 beaten by a large vote. 
 
 Benton s speech, like the resolutions in support 
 of which he spoke, was right in its purpose, but 
 contained much matter that was beside the mark. 
 He had worked himself into such a condition over 
 the supposititious intrigues of the "money power" 
 an attack on which is almost always sure to 
 be popular that he was very certain to discover 
 evidence of their existence on all, even the most 
 unlikely, occasions ; and it is difficult to think that 
 he was not himself aware how overdrawn was his 
 prophecy of a probable interference of foreign 
 powers in our affairs, if the resolutions he had 
 presented were not adopted. 
 
 The tariff had once more begun to give trouble, 
 and the South was again complaining of its work 
 ings, aware that she was falling always more to 
 the rear in the race for prosperity, and blindly 
 attributing her failure to everything but the true 
 reason, the existence of slavery. Even Benton 
 himself showed a curiously pathetic eagerness to 
 prove both to others and himself that the cause of 
 the increasing disparity in growth, and incompati 
 bility in interest between the two sections, must 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 211 
 
 be due to some temporary and artificial cause, and 
 endeavored to hide from all eyes, even from his 
 own, the fact that the existence of slavery was 
 working, slowly but surely, and with steadily in 
 creasing rapidity, to rend in sunder the Union 
 which he loved and served with such heartfelt 
 devotion. He tried to prove that the main cause 
 of discontent was to be found in the tariff and 
 other laws, which favored the North at the ex 
 pense of the South. At the same time he entered 
 an eloquent plea for a warmer feeling between the 
 sections, and pointed out the absolute hopeless 
 ness of attempting to better the situation in any 
 way by disunion. The great Missourian could 
 look back with fond pride and regret to the con 
 dition of the South as it was during and immedi 
 ately after the colonial days, when it was the seat 
 of wealth, power, high living, and free-handed 
 hospitality, and was filled to overflowing with the 
 abounding life of its eager and turbulent sons. 
 The change for the worse in its relative condition 
 was real and great. He reproved his fellow 
 Southerners for attributing this change to a single 
 cause, the unequal working of the federal gov 
 ernment, " which gave all the benefits of the 
 Union to the South and all its burdens to the 
 North;" he claimed that it was due to many 
 other causes as well. Yet those whom he re 
 buked were as near right as he was ; for the change 
 
212 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 was due in the main to only one cause but that 
 cause was slavery. It is almost pitiful to see the 
 strong, stern, self-reliant statesman refusing, with 
 nervous and passionate wilfulness, to look the 
 danger in the face, and, instead thereof, trying to 
 persuade himself into the belief that the remedy 
 lies in the right working of the Constitution; in 
 the cessation of unequal legislation ; in the reduc 
 tion of the inordinate expenses of the government ; 
 in its return to the simple, limited, and economical 
 machine it was intended to be ; and in the revival 
 of fraternal feelings and respect for each other s 
 rights and just complaints." Like many another 
 man he thought, or tried to think, that by sweep 
 ing the dust from the door-sill he could somehow 
 stave ofl the whirling rush of the sand-storm. 
 
 The compromise tariff of 1833 had abolished all 
 specific duties, establishing ad valorem ones in 
 their place ; and the result had been great uncer 
 tainty and injustice in its working. Now whether 
 a protective tariff is right or wrong may be open to 
 question ; but if it exists at all, it should work as 
 simply and with as much certainty and exactitude 
 as possible ; if its interpretation varies, or if it is 
 continually meddled with by Congress, great dam 
 age ensues. It is in reality of far less importance 
 that a law should be ideally right than that it 
 should be certain and steady in its workings. 
 Even supposing that a high tariff is all wrong, it 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 213 
 
 would work infinitely better for the country than 
 would a series of changes between high and low 
 duties. Benton strongly advocated a return to 
 specific duties, as being simpler, surer, and better 
 on every account. In commenting on the ad 
 valorem duties, he showed how they had been 
 adopted blindly and without discussion by the 
 frightened, silent multitude of congressmen and 
 senators, who jumped at Clay s compromise bill 
 in 1833 as giving them a loophole of escape from a 
 situation where they would have had to face evil 
 consequences, no matter what stand they took. 
 Benton s comment on men of this stamp deserves 
 chronicling, from its justice and biting severity: 
 It (the compromise act) was passed by the aid of 
 the votes of those always a considerable per 
 centum in every public body to whom the name 
 of compromise is an irresistible attraction; ami 
 able men, who would do no wrong of themselves, 
 and without whom the designing could also do 
 but little wrong." 
 
 He not only devoted himself to the general sub 
 ject of the tariff in relation to specific duties, but 
 he also took up several prominent abuses. One 
 subject, on which he was never tired of harping 
 with monotonous persistency, was the duty on 
 salt. The idea of making salt free had become 
 one which he was almost as fond of bringing into 
 every discussion, no matter how inappropriate to 
 
214 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 the matter in hand, as he was of making irrelevant 
 and abusive allusions to his much-enduring and 
 long-suffering hobby, the iniquitous "money 
 power." Benton had all the tenacity of a snap 
 ping turtle, and was as firm a believer in the policy 
 of "continuous hammering" as Grant himself. 
 His tenacity and his pertinacious refusal to aban 
 don any contest, no matter what the odds were 
 against him, and no matter how often he had to 
 return to the charge, formed two of his most in 
 valuable qualities, and when called into play on 
 behalf of such an object as the preservation of the 
 Union, cannot receive too high praise at our hands ; 
 for they did the country services so great and last 
 ing that they should never be forgotten. It would 
 have been fortunate indeed if Clay and Webster 
 had possessed the fearless, aggressive courage and 
 iron will of the rugged Missourian, who was so 
 often pitted against them in the political arena. 
 But when Benton s attention was firmly fixed on 
 the accomplishment of something comparatively 
 trivial, his dogged, stubborn, and unyielding 
 earnestness drew him into making efforts of which 
 the disproportion to the result aimed at was rather 
 droll. Nothing could thwart him or turn him 
 aside; and though slow to take up an idea, yet, 
 if it was once in his head, to drive it out was a sim 
 ply hopeless task. These qualities were of such 
 invaluable use to the State on so many great 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 215 
 
 occasions that we can well afford to treat them 
 merely with a good-humored laugh, when we see 
 them exercised on behalf of such a piece of fool 
 ishness as, for example, the expunging resolution. 
 The repeal of the salt tax, then, was a particular 
 favorite in Ben ton s rather numerous stable of 
 hobbies, because it gave free scope for the use of 
 sentimental as well as of economic arguments. 
 He had the right of the question, and was not in 
 the least daunted by his numerous rebuffs and the 
 unvarying ill success of his efforts. Speaking in 
 1840, he stated that he had been urging the repeal 
 for twelve years ; and for the purpose of furnishing 
 data with which to compare such a period of time, 
 and without the least suspicion that there was any 
 thing out of the way in the comparison, he added, 
 in a solemn parenthesis, that this was two years 
 longer than the siege of Troy lasted. In the same 
 speech was a still choicer morsel of eloquence 
 about salt: "The Supreme Ruler of the Universe 
 has done everything to supply His creatures with 
 it; man, the fleeting shadow of an instant, in 
 vested with his little brief authority, has done 
 much to deprive them of it." After which he 
 went on to show a really extensive acquaintance 
 with the history of salt taxes and monopolies, and 
 with the uses and physical structure and surround 
 ings of the mineral itself all which might have 
 taught his hearers that a man may combine much 
 
216 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 erudition with a total lack of the sense of humor. 
 The salt tax is dragged, neck and heels, into many 
 of Benton s speeches much as Cooper manages, on 
 all possible occasions, throughout his novels, to 
 show the unlikeness of the Bay of Naples to the 
 Bay of New York not the only point of resem 
 blance, by the way, between the characters of the 
 Missouri statesman and the New York novelist. 
 Whether the subject under discussion was the tax 
 ation of bank-notes, or the abolition of slavery, 
 made very little difference to Benton as to intro 
 ducing an allusion to the salt monopoly. One of 
 his happy arguments in favor of the repeal, which 
 was addressed to an exceedingly practical and 
 commonplace Congress, was that the early Chris 
 tian disciples had been known as the salt of the 
 earth a biblical metaphor, which Benton kindly 
 assured his hearers was very expressive; and 
 added that a salt tax was morally as well as politi 
 cally wrong, and in fact "was a species of im 
 piety." 
 
 But in attacking some of the abuses which had 
 developed out of the tariff of 1833 Benton made 
 a very shrewd and practical speech, without per 
 mitting himself to indulge in any such intellec 
 tual pranks as accompanied his salt orations. He 
 especially aimed at reducing the drawbacks on 
 sugar, molasses, and one or two other articles. 
 In accordance with our whole clumsy, haphazard 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 217 
 
 system of dealing with the tariff we had originally 
 put very high duties on the articles in question, 
 and then had allowed correspondingly heavy 
 drawbacks; and yet, when in 1833, by Clay s 
 famous compromise tariff bill, the duties were 
 reduced to a fractional part of what they had pre 
 viously been, no parallel reduction was made in the 
 drawbacks, although Benton (supported by Web 
 ster) made a vain effort even then, while the com 
 promise bill was on its passage, to have the injustice 
 remedied. As a consequence, the exporters of 
 sugar and rum, instead of drawing back the exact 
 amounts paid into the treasury, drew back several 
 times as much ; and the ridiculous result was that 
 certain exporters were paid a naked bounty out of 
 the treasury, and received pay for doing and suf 
 fering nothing. In 1839 the drawback paid on the 
 exportation of refined sugar exceeded the amount 
 of revenue derived from imported sugar by over 
 twenty thousand dollars. Benton showed this 
 clearly, by unimpeachable statistics, and went on 
 to prove that in that year the whole amount of the 
 revenue from brown and clayed sugar, plus the 
 above-mentioned twenty thousand dollars, was 
 paid over to twenty-nine sugar refiners ; and that 
 these men thus "drew back" from the treasury 
 what they had never put into it. Abuses equally 
 gross existed in relation to various other articles. 
 But in spite of the clear justice of his case, Benton 
 
218 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 was able at first to make but little impression on 
 Congress; and it was some time before matters 
 were straightened out, as all the protective in 
 terests felt obliged to make common cause with 
 each other, no matter what evils might be perpe 
 trated by their taking such action. 
 
 Toward the close of Van Buren s administra 
 tion, when he was being assailed on every side, as 
 well for what Jackson as for what he himself had 
 done or left undone, one of the chief accusations 
 brought against him was that he had squandered 
 the public money, and that, since Adams had been 
 ousted from the presidency, the expenses of run 
 ning the government had increased out of all pro 
 portion to what was proper. There was good 
 ground for their complaint, as the waste and pecu 
 lation in some of the departments had been very 
 great ; but Benton, in an elaborate defense of both 
 Jackson and Van Buren, succeeded in showing 
 that at least certain of the accusations were un 
 founded although he had to stretch a point or 
 two in trying to make good his claim that the 
 administration was really economical, being re 
 duced to the rather lame expedient of ruling out 
 about two-thirds of the expenditures on the 
 ground that they were extraordinary." 
 
 The charge of extravagance was one of the least 
 of the charges urged against the Jacksonian Demo 
 crats during the last days of their rule. While 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 219 
 
 they had been in power the character of the public 
 service had deteriorated frightfully, both as re 
 garded its efficiency and infinitely more as regarded 
 its honesty ; and under Van Buren the amount of 
 money stolen by the public officers, compared to 
 the amount handed in to the treasury, was greater 
 than ever before or since. For this the Jacksoni- 
 ans were solely and absolutely responsible; they 
 drove out the merit system of making appoint 
 ments, and introduced the "spoils" system in its 
 place ; and under the latter they chose a peculiarly 
 dishonest and incapable set of officers, whose sole 
 recommendation was to be found in the knavish 
 trickery and low cunning that enabled them to 
 manage the ignorant voters who formed the back 
 bone of Jackson s party. The statesmen of the 
 Democracy in after days forgot the good deeds of 
 the Jacksonians ; they lost their attachment to the 
 Union, and abandoned their championship of hard 
 money: but they never ceased to cling to the 
 worst legacy their predecessors had left them. 
 The engrafting of the "spoils * system on our 
 government was, of all the results of Jacksonian 
 rule, the one which was most permanent in its 
 effects. 
 
 All these causes the corruption of the public 
 officials, the extravagance of the government, and 
 the widespread distress, which might be regarded 
 as the aftermath of its ruinous financial policy 
 
220 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 combined with others that were as little to the dis 
 credit of the Jacksonians as they were to the credit 
 of the Whigs, brought about the overthrow of the 
 former. There was much poetic justice in the fact 
 that the presidential election which decided their 
 fate was conducted on as purely irrational princi 
 ples, and was as merely one of sound and fury, as 
 had been the case in the election twelve years pre 
 viously, when they came into power. The Whigs, 
 having exhausted their language in denouncing 
 their opponents for nominating a man like Andrew 
 Jackson, proceeded to look about in their own 
 party to find one who should come as near him as 
 possible in all the attributes that had given him 
 so deep a hold on the people ; and they succeeded 
 perfectly when they pitched on the old Indian 
 fighter, Harrison. "Tippecanoe" proved quite as 
 effective a war-cry in bringing about the downfall 
 of the Jacksonians as "Old Hickory" had shown 
 itself to be a dozen years previously in raising 
 them up. General Harrison had already shown 
 himself to be a good soldier, and a loyal and hon 
 est public servant, although by no means standing 
 in the first rank either as regards war-craft or 
 state-craft ; but the mass of his supporters appar 
 ently considered the facts, or supposed facts, that 
 he lived in a log-cabin the walls of which were 
 decorated with coon-skins, and that he drank hard 
 cider from a gourd, as being more important than 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 221 
 
 his capacity as a statesman or his past services to 
 the nation. 
 
 The Whigs having thus taken a shaft from the 
 Jacksonians quiver, it was rather amusing to see 
 the latter, in their turn, hold up their hands in 
 horror at the iniquity of what would now be called 
 a hurrah" canvass; blandly ignoring the fact 
 that it was simply a copy of their own successful 
 proceedings. Says Benton, with amusing gravity : 
 "The class of inducements addressed to the pas 
 sions and imaginations of the people was such as 
 history blushes to record," a remark that provokes 
 criticism, when it is remembered that Benton had 
 been himself a prominent actor on the Jacksonian 
 side in the campaigns of 28 and 32, when it was 
 exclusively to "the passions and imaginations of 
 the people" that all arguments were addressed. 
 
 The Democrats did not long remain out of 
 power; and they kept the control of the govern 
 mental policy in their hands pretty steadily until 
 the time of the Civil War; nevertheless it is true 
 that with the defeat of Van Buren the Jacksonian 
 Democracy, as such, lost forever its grip on the 
 direction of national affairs. When, under Polk, 
 the Democrats came back, they came under the 
 lead of the very men whom the original Jacksoni 
 ans had opposed and kept down. With all their 
 faults, Jackson and Benton were strong Union 
 men, and under them their party was a Union 
 
222 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 party. Calhoun and South Carolina, and the dis- 
 unionists in the other Southern States were their 
 bitter foes. But the disunion and extreme slav 
 ery elements within the Democratic ranks were 
 increasing rapidly all the time; and they had 
 obtained complete and final control when the 
 party reappeared as victors after their defeat in 
 1840. Until Van Buren s overthrow the national 
 ists had held the upper hand in shaping Demo 
 cratic policy ; but after that event the leadership 
 of the party passed completely into the hands of 
 the separatists. 
 
 The defeat of Van Buren marks an era in more 
 ways than one. During his administration slavery 
 played a less prominent part in politics than did 
 many other matters ; this was never so again. His 
 administration was the last in which this question, 
 or the question springing from it, did not overtop 
 and dwarf in importance all others. Again, the 
 presidential election of 1840 was the last into 
 which slavery did not enter as a most important, 
 and in fact as the vital and determining factor. 
 In the contest between Van Buren and Harrison 
 it did not have the least influence upon the result. 
 Moreover, Van Buren was the last Democratic 
 president who ruled over a Union of States; all 
 his successors, up to the time of Lincoln s election, 
 merely held sway over a Union of sections. The 
 spirit of separation had identified itself with the 
 
Last of Jacksonian Democracy 223 
 
 maintenance of slavery, and the South was rapidly 
 uniting into a compact array of States with inter 
 ests that were hostile to the North on the point 
 most vitally affecting the welfare of the whole 
 country. 
 
 No great question involving the existence of 
 slavery was brought before the attention of Con 
 gress during Van Buren s term of office ; nor was 
 the matter mooted except in the eternal wrangles 
 over receiving the abolitionist petitions. Benton 
 kept silent in these discussions, although voting to 
 receive the petitions. As he grew older he con 
 tinually grew wiser, and better able to do good 
 legislative work on all subjects; but he was not 
 yet able to realize that the slavery question was 
 one which could not be kept down, and which was 
 bound to force itself into the sphere of national 
 politics. He still insisted that it was only dragged 
 before Congress by a few fanatics at the North, 
 and that in the South it was made the instrument 
 by which designing and unscrupulous men wished 
 to break up the federal republic. His devotion to 
 the Union, ever with him the chief and overmas 
 tering thought, made him regard with horror and 
 aversion any man, at the North or at the South, 
 who brought forward a question so fraught with 
 peril to its continuance. He kept trying to delude 
 himself into the belief that the discussion and the 
 danger would alike gradually die away, and the 
 
224 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 former state of peaceful harmony between the sec 
 tions, and freedom from disunion excitement, 
 would return. 
 
 But the time for such an ending already lay 
 in the past; thereafter the outlook was to grow 
 steadily darker year by year. Slavery lowered 
 like a thunderstorm on the horizon ; and though 
 sometimes it might seem for a moment to break 
 away, yet in reality it had reached that stage 
 when, until the final all-engulfing outburst took 
 place, the clouds were bound for evermore to 
 return after the rain. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT WITHOUT A PARTY. 
 
 THE Whigs in 1 840 completely overthrew the 
 Democrats, and for the first time elected a 
 president and held the majority in both 
 houses of Congress. Yet, as it turned out, all that 
 they really accomplished was to elect a president 
 without a party, for Harrison died when he had 
 hardly more than sat in the presidential chair, and 
 was succeeded by the Vice-President, Tyler of Vir 
 ginia. 
 
 Harrison was a true Whig ; he was, when nomi 
 nated, a prominent member of the Whig party, 
 although of course not to be compared with its 
 great leader, Henry Clay, or with its most mighty 
 intellectual chief and champion in the Northeast, 
 Daniel Webster, whose mutual rivalry had done 
 much to make his nomination possible. Tyler, 
 however, could hardly be called a Whig at all ; on 
 the contrary, he belonged rightfully in the ranks 
 of those extreme Democrats who were farthest re 
 moved from the Whig standard, and who were as 
 much displeased with the Union sentiments of the 
 Jacksonians as they were with the personal tyranny 
 of Jackson himself. He was properly nothing 
 but a dissatisfied Democrat, who hated the Jack 
 sonians, and had been nominated only because the 
 15 225 
 
226 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Whig politicians wished to strengthen their ticket 
 and insure its election by bidding for the votes of 
 the discontented in the ranks of their foes. Now 
 a chance stroke of death put the presidency in the 
 hands of one who represented this, the smallest, 
 element in the coalition that overthrew Van Buren. 
 
 The principles of the Whigs were hazily outlined 
 at the best, and the party was never a very credit 
 able organization; indeed, throughout its career 
 it could be most easily defined as the opposition 
 to the Democracy. It was a free constructionist 
 party, believing in giving a liberal interpretation 
 to the doctrines of the Constitution ; otherwise, its 
 principles were purely economic, as it favored a 
 high tariff, internal improvements, a bank, and 
 kindred schemes; and its leaders, however they 
 might quarrel among themselves, agreed thor 
 oughly in their devout hatred of Jackson and all 
 his works. 
 
 It was on this last point only that Tyler came 
 in. His principles had originally been ultra- 
 Democratic. He had been an extreme strict con 
 structionist, had belonged to that wing of the 
 Democracy which inclined more and more toward 
 separation, and had thus, on several grounds, 
 found himself opposed to Jackson, Benton, 
 and their followers. Indeed, he went into op 
 position to his original party for reasons akin 
 to those that influenced Calhoun; and Se ward s 
 
The President Without a Party 227 
 
 famous remark about the "ill-starred coalition 
 between Whigs and Nullifiers" might with certain 
 changes have been applied to the presidential 
 election of 1840 quite as well as to the senatorial 
 struggles to which it had reference. 
 
 Tyler, however, had little else in common with 
 Calhoun, and least of all his intellect. He has 
 been called a mediocre man; but this is unwar 
 ranted flattery. He was a politician of monu 
 mental littleness. Owing to the nicely divided 
 condition of parties, and to the sheer accident 
 which threw him into a position of such promi 
 nence that it allowed him to hold the balance of 
 power between them, he was enabled to turn poli 
 tics completely topsy-turvy ; but his chief mental 
 and moral attributes were peevishness, fretful 
 obstinacy, inconsistency, incapacity to make up 
 his own mind, and the ability to quibble indefi 
 nitely over the most microscopic and hair-split 
 ting plays upon words, together with an inordinate 
 vanity that so blinded him to all outside feeling 
 as to make him really think that he stood a chance 
 to be renominated for the presidency. 
 
 The Whigs, especially in the Senate, under 
 Henry Clay, prepared at once to push through 
 various measures that should undo the work of the 
 Jacksonians. Clay was boastfully and domineer 
 ingly sure of the necessity of applying to actual 
 governmental work the economic theories that 
 
228 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 formed the chief stock in trade of his party. But 
 it was precisely on these economic theories that 
 Tyler split off from the Whigs. The result was 
 that very shortly the real leader of the dominant 
 party, backed by almost all his fellow party men 
 in both houses of Congress, was at daggers drawn 
 with the nominal Whig president, who in his turn 
 was supported only by a " corporal s guard" of 
 followers in the House of Representatives, by all 
 the office-holders whom fear of removal reduced to 
 obsequious subserviency, and by a knot of obscure 
 politicians who used him for their own ends, and 
 worked alternately on his vanity and on his fears. 
 The Democrats, led by Benton, played out their 
 own game, and were the only parties to the three- 
 cornered fight who came out of it with profit. 
 The details now offer rather dry reading, as the 
 economic theories of all the contestants were more 
 or less crude, the results of the conflict indecisive, 
 and the effects upon our history ephemeral. 
 
 Clay began by a heated revival of one of Jack 
 son s worst ideas, namely, that when the people 
 elect a president they thereby mark with the seal 
 of their approval any and every measure with 
 which that favored mortal or his advisers may 
 consider themselves identified, and indorse all his 
 and their previous actions. He at once declared 
 that the people had shown, by the size of Harri 
 son s majority, that they demanded the repeal of 
 
The President Without a Party 229 
 
 the independent treasury act, and the passage of 
 various other laws in accordance with some of his 
 own favorite hobbies, two out of three voters, as 
 a matter of fact, probably never having given a 
 second thought to any of them. Accordingly he 
 proceeded to introduce a whole batch of bills, 
 which he alleged that it was only yielding due 
 respect to the spirit of Democracy to pass forth 
 with. 
 
 Benton, however, even outdid Clay in paying 
 homage to what he was pleased to call the "demo 
 cratic idea." At this time he speaks of the last 
 session of the Twenty-sixth Congress as being 
 "barren of measures, and necessarily so, as being 
 the last of an administration superseded by the 
 popular voice and soon to expire; and therefore 
 restricted by a sense of propriety, during the brief 
 remainder of its existence, to the details of busi 
 ness and the routine of service . According to this 
 theory an interregnum of some sixteen weeks 
 would intervene between the terms of service of 
 every two presidents. He also speaks of Tyler 
 as having, when the legislature of Virginia disap 
 proved of a course he wished to follow, resigned his 
 seat "in obedience to the democratic principle," 
 which, according to his views, thus completely nul 
 lified the section of the Constitution providing for 
 a six years term of service in the Senate. In 
 truth Benton, like most other Jacksonian and 
 
230 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Jeffersonian leaders, became both foolish and 
 illogical when he began to talk of the bundle of 
 vague abstractions, which he knew collectively as 
 the democratic principle . Although not so bad 
 as many of his school, he had yet gradually worked 
 himself up to a belief that it was almost impious to 
 pay anything but servile heed to the will of the 
 majority;" and was quite unconscious that to 
 surrender one s own manhood and judgment to a 
 belief in the divine right of kings was only one 
 degree more ignoble, and was not a shadow more 
 logical, and but little more defensible, than it was 
 blindly to deify a majority not of the whole peo 
 ple, but merely of a small fraction consisting of 
 those who happened to be of a certain sex, to 
 have reached a certain age, to belong to a certain 
 race, and to fulfil some other conditions. In fact 
 there is no natural or divine law in the matter at 
 all ; how large a portion of the population should 
 be trusted with the control of the government is a 
 question of expediency merely. In any purely 
 native American community manhood suffrage 
 works infinitely better than would any other sys 
 tem of government, and throughout our country 
 at large, in spite of the large number of ignorant 
 foreign-born or colored voters, it is probably prefer 
 able as it stands to any modification of it; but 
 there is no more "natural right " why a white man 
 over twenty-one should vote than there is why a 
 
The President Without a Party 231 
 
 negro woman under eighteen should not. " Civil 
 rights" and "personal freedom" are not terms 
 that necessarily imply the right to vote. People 
 make mistakes when governing themselves, ex 
 actly as they make mistakes when governing 
 others ; all that can be said is, that in the former 
 case their self-interest is on the side of good gov 
 ernment, whereas in the latter it always may be, 
 and often must be, the reverse ; so that, when any 
 people reaches a certain stage of mental develop 
 ment and of capacity to take care of its own con 
 cerns, it is far better that it should itself take the 
 reins. The distinctive features of the American 
 system are its guarantees of personal independence 
 and individual freedom ; that is, as far as possible, 
 it guarantees to each man his right to live as he 
 chooses and to regulate his own private affairs as 
 he wishes, without being interfered with or tyran 
 nized over by an individual, or by an oligarchic 
 minority, or by a democratic majority; while, 
 when the interests of the whole community are at 
 stake, it is found best in the long run to let them 
 be managed in accordance with the wishes of the 
 majority of those presumably concerned. 
 
 Clay s flourish of trumpets foreboded trouble 
 and disturbance to the Jacksonian camp. At last 
 he stood at the head of a party controlling both 
 branches of the legislative body, and devoted to 
 his behests; and, if a little doubtful about the 
 
232 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 President, he still believed he could frighten him 
 into doing as he was bid. He had long been in the 
 minority, and had seen his foes ride roughshod 
 over all he most believed in ; and now he prepared 
 to pay them back in their own coin and to leave a 
 heavy balance on his side of the reckoning. Nor 
 could any Jacksonian have shown himself more 
 domineering and influenced by a more insolent 
 disregard for the rights of others than Clay did 
 in his hour of triumph. On the other side, Ben- 
 ton braced himself with dogged determination for 
 the struggle; for he was one of those men who 
 fight a losing or winning battle with equal resolu 
 tion. 
 
 Tyler s first message to Congress read like a 
 pretty good Whig document. It did not display 
 any especial signs of his former strict construction 
 theories, and gave little hope to the Democrats. 
 The leader of the latter, indeed, Benton, com 
 mented upon both it and its author with rather 
 grandiloquent severity, on account of its latitudi- 
 narian bias, and of its recommendation of a bank 
 of some sort. However, the ink with which the 
 message was written could hardly have been dry 
 before the President s mind began to change. He 
 himself probably had very little idea what he in 
 tended to do, and so contrived to give the Whigs 
 the impression that he would act in accordance 
 with their wishes; but the leaven had already 
 
The President Without a Party 233 
 
 begun working in his mind, and, not having much 
 to work on, soon changed it so completely that he 
 was willing practically to eat his own words. 
 
 Shortly after Tyler had sent in his message out 
 lining what legislation he deemed proper, he being 
 by virtue of his position the nominal and titular 
 leader of the Whigs, Clay, who was their real and 
 very positive chief, and who was, moreover, deter 
 mined to assert his chieftainship, in his turn laid 
 down a programme for his party to follow, intro 
 ducing a series of resolutions declaring it necessary 
 to pass a bill to repeal the sub-treasury act, an 
 other to establish a bank, another to distribute the 
 proceeds of the public land sales, and one or two 
 more, to which was afterward added a bank 
 ruptcy measure. 
 
 The sub-treasury bill was first taken up and 
 promptly passed and signed. Benton, of course, 
 led the hopeless fight against it, making a long and 
 elaborate speech, insisting that the finances were in 
 excellent shape as they were, showing the advan 
 tages of hard money, and denouncing the bill on 
 account of the extreme suddenness with which it 
 took effect, and because it made no provision for 
 any substitute. He also alluded caustically to the 
 curious and anomalous bank bill, which was then 
 being patched up by the Whig leaders so as to get 
 it into some such shape that the President would 
 sign it. 
 
234 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 The other three important measures, that is, the 
 bank, distribution, and bankruptcy bills, were all 
 passed nearly together; as Benton pointed out, 
 they were got through only by a species of bargain 
 and sale, the chief supporters of each agreeing to 
 support the other, so as to get their own pet 
 measure through. "All must go together or fall 
 together. This is the decree out of doors. When 
 the sun dips below the horizon a private 
 congress is held; the fate of the measures is 
 decided; a bundle is tied together; and while 
 one goes ahead as a bait, another is held back 
 as a rod." 
 
 The bankruptcy bill went through and was 
 signed. It was urged by all the large debtor class, 
 whose ranks had been filled to overflowing by the 
 years of wild speculation and general bank suspen 
 sion and insolvency. These debtors were quite 
 numerous enough to constitute an important fac 
 tor in politics, but Benton disregarded them, never 
 theless, and fought the bill as stoutly as he did its 
 companions, alleging that it was a gross outrage 
 on honesty and on the rights of property, and was 
 not a bankrupt law at all, but practically an in 
 solvent law for the abolition of debts at the will of 
 the debtor. He pointed out grave and numerous 
 defects of detail, and gave an exhaustive abstract 
 of bankruptcy legislation in general; the speech 
 gave evidence of the tireless industry and wide 
 
The President Without a Party 235 
 
 range of learning for which Benton was preemi 
 nently distinguished. 
 
 The third bill to be taken up and passed was 
 that providing for the distribution of the public 
 lands revenue, and thus indirectly for assuming the 
 debts of the States. Tyler, in his message, had 
 characteristically stated that, though it would be 
 wholly unconstitutional for the federal govern 
 ment to assume the debts of the States, yet it 
 would be highly proper for it to give the latter 
 money wherewith to pay them. Clay had always 
 been an enthusiastic advocate of a distribution 
 bill; and accordingly one was now passed and 
 signed with the least possible delay. It was an 
 absolutely indefensible measure. The treasury 
 was empty, and loan and tax bills were pending 
 at the very moment, in order to supply money for 
 the actual running of the government. As Ben- 
 ton pointed out, Congress had been called together 
 (a special session having been summoned by Har 
 rison before his death) to raise revenue, and the 
 first thing done was to squander it. The distribu 
 tion took place when the treasury reports showed 
 a deficit of sixteen millions of dollars. The bill was 
 pushed through mainly by the States which had 
 repudiated their debts in whole or in part ; and as 
 these debts were largely owed abroad, many prom 
 inent foreign banking-houses and individuals took 
 an active part in lobbying for the bill. Benton 
 
236 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 was emphatically right in his opposition to the 
 measure, but he was very wrong in some of the 
 grounds he took. Thus he inveighed vigorously 
 against the foreign capitalists who had come to 
 help push the bill through Congress; but he did 
 not have anything to say against the scoundrelly 
 dishonesty displayed by certain States toward 
 their creditors, which had forced these capitalists 
 into the endeavor to protect themselves. He also 
 incidentally condemned the original assumption 
 by the national government of the debts of the 
 States at the time of the formation of the Consti 
 tution, which was an absolute necessity; and his 
 constitutional views throughout seemed rather 
 strained. But he was right beyond cavil on the 
 main point. It was criminal folly to give the 
 States the impression that they would be allowed 
 to create debts over which Congress could have no 
 control, yet which Congress in the end would give 
 them the money to pay. To reward a State for 
 repudiating a debt by giving her the wherewithal 
 to pay it was a direct and unequivocal encourage 
 ment of dishonesty. In every respect the bill was 
 wholly improper; and Benton s attitude toward 
 it and toward similar schemes was incomparably 
 better than the position of Clay, Webster, and the 
 other Whigs. 
 
 Both the bankrupt bill and the distribution bill 
 were repealed very shortly; the latter before it 
 
The President Without a Party 237 
 
 had time to take effect. This was an emphatic 
 indorsement by the public of Benton s views, and 
 a humiliating rebuke to the Whig authors of the 
 measures. Indeed, the whole legislation of the 
 session was almost absolutely fruitless in its results. 
 One feature of the struggle was an attempt by 
 Clay, promptly and successfully resisted by Ben- 
 ton and Calhoun, to institute the hour limit for 
 speeches in the Senate. There was a good deal of 
 excuse for Clay s motion. The House could cut 
 off debate by the previous question, which the 
 Senate could not, and nevertheless had found it 
 necessary to establish the hour limit in addition. 
 Of course it is highly undesirable that there should 
 not be proper freedom of debate in Congress ; but 
 it is quite as hurtful to allow a minority to exer 
 cise their privileges improperly. The previous 
 question is often abused and used tyrannically; 
 but on the whole it is a most invaluable aid to 
 legislation. Benton, however, waxed hot and 
 wrathful over the proposed change in the Senate 
 rules. He, with Calhoun and their followers, had 
 been consuming an immense amount of time in 
 speech-making against the Whig measures, and in 
 offering amendments ; not with any hopes of bet 
 tering the bills, but for outside effect, and to annoy 
 their opponents. He gives an amusingly naive 
 account of their course of action, and the reasons 
 for it, substantially as follows : 
 
238 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 The Democratic senators acted upon a system, and 
 with a thorough organization and a perfect under 
 standing. Being a minority, and able to do nothing, 
 they became assailants, and attacked incessantly; not 
 by formal orations against the whole body of a 
 measure, but by sudden, short, and pungent speeches 
 directed against the vulnerable parts, and pointed 
 by proffered amendments. Amendments were con 
 tinually offered a great number being prepared 
 every night and placed in suitable hands for use the 
 next day always commendably calculated to expose 
 an evil and to present a remedy. Near forty propo 
 sitions of amendment were offered to the first fiscal 
 agent bill alone the yeas and nays were taken upon 
 them seven and thirty times. All the other promi 
 nent bills distribution, bankrupt, fiscal corporation, 
 new tariff act, called revenue were served the same 
 way; every proposed amendment made an issue. 
 There were but twenty-two of us, but every one was 
 a speaker and effective. The Globe newspaper was a 
 powerful ally, setting out all we did to the best advan 
 tage in strong editorials, and carrying out our speeches, 
 fresh and hot, to the people; and we felt victorious in 
 the midst of unbroken defeats. 
 
 It is no wonder that such rank filibustering, 
 coupled with the exasperating self-complacency 
 of its originators, should have excited in Whig 
 bosoms every desperate emotion short of homi 
 cidal mania. 
 
 Clay, to cut off such useless talk, gave notice 
 that he would move to have the time for debate for 
 each individual restricted ; remarking very truth- 
 
The President Without a Party 239 
 
 fully that he did not believe the people at large 
 would complain of the abridgment of speeches in 
 Congress. But the Democratic senators, all rather 
 fond of windy orations, fairly foamed at the mouth 
 at what they affected to deem such an infringement 
 of their liberties; and actually took the inex 
 cusable resolution of bidding defiance to the rule if 
 it was adopted, and refusing to obey it, no matter 
 what degree of violence their conduct might bring 
 about a resolution that was wholly unpardon 
 able. Benton was selected to voice their views 
 upon the matter, which he did in a long and not 
 very wise speech; while Calhoun was quite as 
 emphatic in his threats of what would happen if 
 attempt should be made to enforce the proposed 
 rule. Clay was always much bolder in opening a 
 campaign than in carrying it through ; and when 
 it came to putting his words into deeds, he wholly 
 lacked the nerve which would have enabled him to 
 contend with two such men as the senators from 
 Missouri and South Carolina. Had he possessed a 
 temperament like that of either of his opponents, 
 he would have gone on and have simply forced 
 acquiescence; for any legislative body can cer 
 tainly enforce what rules it may choose to make as 
 to the conduct of its own members in addressing it ; 
 but his courage failed him, and he withdrew from 
 the contest, leaving the victory with the Demo 
 crats. 
 
240 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 When the question of the recharter of the dis 
 trict banks came up, it of course gave Benton 
 another chance to attack his favorite foe. He 
 offered a very proper amendment, which was voted 
 down, to prohibit the banks from issuing a cur 
 rency of small notes, fixing upon twenty dollars as 
 being the lowest limit. This he supported in a 
 strong speech, wherein he once again argued at 
 length in favor of a gold and silver currency, and 
 showed the evil effects of small bank-notes, which 
 might not be, and often were not, redeemable at 
 par. He very properly pointed out that to have 
 a sound currency, especially in all the smaller de 
 nominations, was really of greater interest to the 
 working-men than to any one else. 
 
 The great measure of the session, however, and 
 the one that was intended to be the final crown 
 and glory of the Whig triumph, was the bill to 
 establish a new national bank. Among the politi 
 cal theories to which Clay clung most closely, only 
 the belief in a bank ranked higher in his estima 
 tion than his devotion to a protective tariff. The 
 establishment of a national bank seemed to him 
 to be the chief object of a Whig success ; and that 
 it would work immediate and immense benefit to 
 the country was with him an article of faith. With 
 both houses of Congress under his control, he at 
 once prepared to push his pet measure through, 
 impatiently brushing aside all resistance. 
 
The President Without a Party 241 
 
 But at the very outset difficulty was feared from 
 the action of the President. Tyler could not at 
 first make up his mind what to do ; or rather, he 
 made it up in half a dozen different ways every 
 day. His peevishness, vacillation, ambitious van 
 ity, and sheer puzzle -headedness made him incline 
 first to the side of his new friends and present 
 supporters, the Whigs, and then to that of his 
 old Democratic allies, whose views on the bank, as 
 on most other questions, he had so often openly 
 expressed himself as sharing. But though his 
 mind oscillated like a pendulum, yet each time it 
 swung farther and farther over to the side of the 
 Democracy, and it began to look as if he would 
 certainly in the end come to a halt in the camp of 
 the enemies of the Whigs; his approach to this 
 destination was merely hastened by Clay s over 
 bearing violence and injudicious taunts. 
 
 However, at first Tyler did not dare to come out 
 openly against any and all bank laws, but tried to 
 search round for some compromise measure ; and 
 as he could not invent a compromise in fact, he 
 came to the conclusion that one in words would do 
 just as well. He said that his conscience would 
 not permit him to sign a bill to establish a bank 
 that was called a bank, but that he was willing to 
 sign a bill establishing such an institution pro 
 vided that it was called something else, though it 
 should possess all the properties of a bank. Such 
 
 16 
 
242 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 a proposal opened a wide field for the endless quib 
 bling in which his soul delighted. 
 
 The secretary of the treasury, in response to a 
 call from the Senate, furnished a plan for a bank, 
 having modeled it studiously so as to overcome 
 the President s scruples; and a select committee 
 of the Senate at once shaped a bill in accordance 
 with the plans. Said Benton: "Even the title 
 was made ridiculous to please the President, 
 though not so much so as he wished. He ob 
 jected to the name of bank either in the title or 
 the body of the charter, and proposed to style it 
 * Fiscal Institute; and afterward the Fiscal 
 Agent, and finally the Fiscal Corporation. " Such 
 preposterous folly on the President s part was 
 more than the hot-blooded and overbearing Ken- 
 tuckian could stand ; and, in spite of his absorbing 
 desire for the success of his measure, and of the 
 vital necessity for conciliating Tyler, Clay could 
 not bring himself to adopt such a ludicrous title, 
 even though he had seen that the charter provided 
 that the institution, whatever it might be styled 
 in form, should in fact have all the properties of a 
 bank. After a while, however, a compromise title 
 was agreed on, but only a shadow less imbecile 
 than the original one proposed by the President; 
 and it was agreed to call the measure the "Fiscal 
 Bank "bill. 
 
 The President vetoed it, but stated that he was 
 
The President Without a Party 243 
 
 ready to approve any similar bill that should be 
 free from the objections he named. Clay could 
 not resist reading Tyler a lecture on his miscon 
 duct, during the course of a speech in the Senate ; 
 but the Whigs generally smothered their resent 
 ment, and set about preparing something which 
 the President would sign, and this time concluded 
 that they would humor him to the top of his bent, 
 even by choosing a title as ridiculous as he wished ; 
 so they styled their bill one to establish a " Fiscal 
 Corporation." Benton held the title up to well- 
 deserved derision, and showed that, though there 
 had been quite an elaborate effort to disguise the 
 form of the measure, and to make it purport to 
 establish a bank that should have the properties of 
 a treasury, yet that in reality it was simply a 
 revival of the old scheme under another name. 
 The Whigs swallowed the sneers of their oppo 
 nents as best they could, and passed their bill. 
 
 The President again interposed his veto. An 
 intrigue was going on among a few unimportant 
 congressmen and obscure office-holders to form a 
 new party with Tyler at its head ; and the latter 
 willingly entered into the plan, his mind, which 
 was not robust at the best, being completely daz 
 zled by his sudden elevation and his wild hopes 
 that he could continue to keep the place which he 
 had reached. He had given the Whigs reason to 
 expect that he would sign the bill, and had taken 
 
244 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 none of his cabinet into his confidence. So, when 
 his veto came in, it raised a perfect whirlwind of 
 wrath and bitter disappointment. His cabinet all 
 resigned, except Webster, who stayed to finish the 
 treaty with Great Britain; and the Whigs for 
 mally read him out of the party. The Democrats 
 looked on with huge enjoyment, and patted Tyler 
 on the back, for they could see that he was bring 
 ing their foes to ruin; but nevertheless they de 
 spised him heartily, and abandoned him wholly 
 when he had served their turn. Left without any 
 support among the regulars of either side, and his 
 own proposed third party turning out a still-born 
 abortion, he simply played out his puny part until 
 his term ended, and then dropped noiselessly out 
 of sight. It is only the position he filled, and not 
 in the least his ability, for either good or bad, in 
 filling it, that prevents his name from sinking into 
 merciful oblivion. 
 
 There was yet one more brief spasm over the 
 bank, however; the President sending in a plan 
 for a " Fiscal Agent," to be called a Board of Ex 
 chequer. Congress contemptuously refused to pay 
 any attention to the proposition, Benton showing 
 its utter unworthiness in an excellent speech, one 
 of the best that he made on the whole financial 
 question. 
 
 Largely owing to the cross purposes at which 
 the President and his party were working, the con- 
 
The President Without a Party 245 
 
 dition of the treasury became very bad. It sought 
 to provide for its immediate wants by the issue of 
 treasury notes, differing from former notes of the 
 kind in that they were made reissuable. Benton 
 at once, and very properly, attacked this proceed 
 ing. He had a check drawn for a few days com 
 pensation as senator, demanded payment in hard 
 money, and when he was given treasury notes in 
 stead, made a most emphatic protest in the Senate, 
 which was entirely effectual, the practically com 
 pulsory tender of the paper money being forthwith 
 stopped. 
 
 It was at this time, also, that bills to subsidize 
 steamship lines were first passed, and that the en 
 larging and abuse of the pension system began, 
 which in our own day threatens to become a really 
 crying evil. Benton opposed both sets of measures ; 
 and in regard to the pension matter showed that he 
 would not let himself, by any specious plea of ex 
 ceptional suffering or need for charity, be led into 
 vicious special legislation, sure in the end to bring 
 about the breaking down of some of the most im 
 portant principles of government. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BOUNDARY TROUBLES WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 TWO important controversies with foreign 
 powers became prominent during Tyler s 
 presidency ; but he had little to do with the 
 settlement of either, beyond successively placing 
 in his cabinet the two great statesmen who dealt 
 with them. Webster, while secretary of state, 
 brought certain of the negotiations with England 
 to a close; and later on, Calhoun, while holding 
 the same office, took up Webster s work and also 
 grappled with indeed partly caused the troubles 
 on the Mexican border, and turned them to the 
 advantage of the South and slavery. 
 
 Our boundaries were still very ill-defined, ex 
 cept where they were formed by the Gulf and the 
 Ocean, the Great Lakes, and the river St. John. 
 Even in the Northeast, where huge stretches of 
 unbroken forest land separated the inhabited por 
 tions of Canada from those of New England, it was 
 not yet decided how much of this wilderness 
 belonged to us and how much to the Canadians; 
 and in the vast, unsettled regions of the far West 
 our claims came into direct conflict with those 
 of Mexico and of Great Britain. The ownership of 
 these little known and badly mapped regions 
 
 246 
 
Boundary Troubles 247 
 
 could with great difficulty be decided on grounds 
 of absolute and abstract right; the title of each 
 contestant to the land was more or less plausible, 
 and at the same time more or less defective. The 
 matter was sure to be decided in favor of the 
 strongest ; and, say what we will about the justice 
 and right of the various claims, the honest truth 
 is, that the comparative might of the different 
 nations, and not the comparative righteousness 
 of their several causes, was the determining factor 
 in the settlement. Mexico lost her northern prov 
 inces by no law of right, but simply by the law of 
 the longest sword the same law that gave India 
 to England. In both instances the result was 
 greatly to the benefit of the conquered peoples 
 and of every one else; though there is this wide 
 difference between the two cases: that whereas 
 the English rule in India, while it may last for 
 decades or even for centuries, must eventually 
 come to an end and leave little trace of its exist 
 ence; on the other hand our conquests from 
 Mexico determined for all time the blood, speech, 
 and law of the men who should fill the lands we 
 won. 
 
 The questions between Great Britain and our 
 selves were compromised by each side accepting 
 about half what it claimed, only because neither 
 was willing to push the other to extremities. Eng 
 lishmen like Palmerston might hector and ruffle, 
 
248 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 and Americans like Benton might swagger and 
 bully ; but when it came to be a question of actual 
 fighting, each people recognized the power of the 
 other, and preferred to follow the more cautious 
 and peaceful, not to say timid, lead of such states 
 men as Webster and Lord Melbourne. Had we 
 been no stronger than the Sikhs, Oregon and 
 Washington would at present be British posses 
 sions; and if Great Britain had been as weak as 
 Mexico, she would not now hold a foot of territory 
 on the Pacific coast. Either nation might perhaps 
 have refused to commit a gross and entirely un 
 provoked and uncalled-for act of aggression ; but 
 each, under altered conditions, would have readily 
 found excuses for showing much less regard for the 
 claims of the other than actually was shown. It 
 would be untrue to say that nations have not at 
 times proved themselves capable of acting with 
 great disinterestedness and generosity toward 
 other peoples ; but such conduct is not very com 
 mon at the best, and although it often may be 
 desirable, it certainly is not always so. If the 
 matter in dispute is of great importance, and if 
 there is a doubt as to which side is right, then the 
 strongest party to the controversy is pretty sure 
 to give itself the benefit of that doubt ; and inter 
 national morality will have to take tremendous 
 strides in advance before this ceases to be the case. 
 It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of 
 
Boundary Troubles 249 
 
 the treaties and wars by means of which we finally 
 gave definite bounds to our territory beyond the 
 Mississippi. Contemporary political writers and 
 students, of the lesser sort, are always painfully 
 deficient in the sense of historic perspective ; and 
 to such the struggles for the possession of the un 
 known and dimly outlined western wastes seemed 
 of small consequence compared to similar Euro 
 pean contests for territorial aggrandizement. Yet, 
 in reality, when we look at the far-reaching nature 
 of the results, the questions as to what kingdom 
 should receive the fealty of Holstein or Lorraine, 
 of Savoy or the Dobrudscha, seem of absolutely 
 trivial importance compared to the infinitely more 
 momentous ones as to the future race settlement 
 and national ownership of the then lonely and 
 unpeopled lands of Texas, California, and Oregon. 
 Benton, greatly to the credit of his foresight, 
 and largely in consequence of his strong national 
 ist feeling, thoroughly appreciated the importance 
 of our geographical extensions. He was the great 
 champion of the West and of western development, 
 and a furious partisan of every movement in the 
 direction of the enlargement of our western bound 
 aries. Many of his expressions, when talking of 
 the greatness of our country and of the magnitude 
 of the interests which were being decided, not only 
 were grandiloquent in manner, but also seem exag 
 gerated and overwrought even as regards matter. 
 
250 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 But when we think of the interests for which he 
 contended, as they were to become, and not as they 
 at the moment were, the appearance of exaggera 
 tion is lost, and the intense feeling of his speeches 
 no longer seems out of place or disproportionate to 
 the importance of the subject with which he dealt. 
 Without clearly formulating his opinions, even to 
 himself, and while sometimes prone to attribute 
 to his country at the moment a greatness she was 
 not to possess for two or three generations to 
 come, he, nevertheless, had engrained in his very 
 marrow and fiber the knowledge that inevitably, 
 and beyond all doubt, the coming years were to be 
 hers. He knew that, while other nations held the 
 past, and shared with his own the present, yet that 
 to her belonged the still formless and unshaped 
 future . More clearly than almost any other states 
 man he beheld the grandeur of the nation loom up, 
 vast and shadowy, through the advancing years. 
 
 He was keenly alive to the need of our having 
 free chance to spread toward the northwest; he 
 very early grasped the idea that in that direction 
 we ought to have room for continental develop 
 ment. In his earliest years, to be sure, when the 
 Mississippi seemed a river of the remote western 
 border, when nobody, not even the hardiest trap 
 per, had penetrated the boundless and treeless 
 plains that stretch to the foothills of the Rockies, 
 and when the boldest thinkers had not dared to 
 
Boundary Troubles 251 
 
 suppose that we could ever hold together as a peo 
 ple, when once scattered over so wide a territory, 
 he had stated in a public speech that he considered 
 the mountains to be our natural frontier line to the 
 west, and the barrier beyond which we ought not 
 to pass, and had expressed his trust that on the 
 Pacific coast there would grow up a kindred and 
 friendly republic. But very soon, as the seem 
 ingly impossible became the actual, he himself 
 changed, and ever afterward held that we should 
 have, wherever possible, no boundaries but the 
 two oceans. 
 
 Benton s violent and aggressive patriotism un 
 doubtedly led him to assume positions toward 
 foreign powers that were very repugnant to the 
 quiet, peaceable, and order-loving portion of the 
 community, especially when he gave vent to the 
 spirit of jealous antagonism which he felt toward 
 Great Britain, the power that held sway over the 
 wilderness bordering us on the north. Yet the 
 arrogant attitude he assumed was more than justi 
 fied by the destiny of the great republic; and it 
 would have been well for all America if we had in 
 sisted even more than we did upon the extension 
 northward of our boundaries. Not only the 
 Columbia but also the Red River of the North 
 and the Saskatchewan and Frazer as well should 
 lie wholly within our limits, less for our own sake 
 than for the sake of the men who dwell along their 
 
252 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 banks. Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba 
 would, as States of the American Union, hold posi 
 tions incomparably more important, grander, and 
 more dignified than they can ever hope to reach 
 either as independent communities or as provin 
 cial dependencies of a foreign power that regards 
 them with a kindly tolerance somewhat akin to 
 contemptuous indifference. Of course no one 
 would wish to see these, or any other settled com 
 munities, now added to our domain by force ; we 
 want no unwilling citizens to enter our Union ; the 
 time to have taken the lands was before settlers 
 came into them. European nations war for the 
 possession of thickly settled districts which, if con 
 quered, will for centuries remain alien and hostile 
 to the conquerors; we, wiser in our generation, 
 have seized the waste solitudes that lay near us, 
 the limitless forests and never-ending plains, and 
 the valleys of the great, lonely rivers; and have 
 thrust our own sons into them to take possession ; 
 and a score of years after each conquest we see 
 the conquered land teeming with a people that is 
 one with ourselves. 
 
 Benton felt that all the unoccupied land to the 
 northwest was by right our heritage, and he was 
 willing to do battle for it if necessary. He was a 
 perfect type of western American statesmanship 
 in his way of looking at our foreign relations ; he 
 was always unwilling to compromise, being of that 
 
Boundary Troubles 253 
 
 happy temperament which is absolutely certain 
 that its claims are just and righteous in their en 
 tirety, and that it would be wrong to accept any 
 thing less than all that is demanded ; he was will 
 ing to bully if our rights, as he deemed them, were 
 not granted us ; and he was perfectly ready to fight 
 if the bullying was unsuccessful. True, he did not 
 consistently carry through all his theories to their 
 logical consequences; but it may well be ques 
 tioned whether, after all, his original attitude 
 toward Great Britain was not wiser, looking to 
 its probable remote results, than that which was 
 finally taken by the national government, whose 
 policy was on this point largely shaped by the feel 
 ing among the richer and more educated classes of 
 the Northeast. These classes have always been 
 more cautious and timid than any others in the 
 Union, especially in their way of looking at pos 
 sible foreign wars, and have never felt much of 
 the spirit which made the West stretch out im 
 patiently for new lands. Fortunately they have 
 rarely been able to control our territorial growth. 
 
 No foot of soil to which we had any title in the 
 Northwest should have been given up; we were 
 the people who could use it best, and we ought to 
 have taken it all. The prize was well worth win 
 ning, and would warrant a good deal of risk being 
 run. We had even then grown to be so strong 
 that we were almost sure eventually to win in any 
 
254 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 American contest for continental supremacy. We 
 were near by, our foes far away for the contest 
 over the Columbia would have been settled in 
 Canada. We should have had hard fighting to be 
 sure, but sooner or later the result would have been 
 in our favor. There were no better soldiers in the 
 world than the men of Balaclava and Inkerman, 
 but the victors of Buena Vista and Chapultepec 
 were as good. Scott and Taylor were not great 
 generals, but they were, at least, the equals of Lord 
 Raglan ; and we did not have in our service any 
 such examples of abnormal military inaptitude as 
 Lords Lucan and Cardigan and their kind. 
 
 It was of course to be expected that men like 
 Benton would bitterly oppose the famous Ashbur- 
 ton treaty, which was Webster s crowning work 
 while secretary of state, and the only conspicuous 
 success of Tyler s administration. The Ashburton 
 treaty was essentially a compromise between the 
 extreme claims of the two contestants, as was 
 natural where the claims were based on very un 
 substantial grounds and the contestants were of 
 somewhat the same strength. It was most benefi 
 cial in its immediate effects ; and that it was a per 
 fectly dignified and proper treaty for America to 
 make is best proved by the virulent hostility with 
 which Palmerston and his followers assailed it as 
 a " surrender" on the part of England, while Eng 
 lishmen of the same stamp are to this day never 
 
Boundary Troubles 255 
 
 tired of lamenting the fact that they have allowed 
 our western boundaries to be pushed so far to the 
 north. But there appears to be much excuse for 
 Benton s attitude, when we look at the treaty as 
 one in a chain of incidents, and with regard to its 
 future results. Our territorial quarrels with Great 
 Britain were not like those between most other 
 powers. It was for the interest of the whole west 
 ern hemisphere that no European nation should 
 have extensive possessions between the Altantic 
 and the Pacific; and by right we should have 
 given ourselves the benefit of every doubt in all 
 territorial questions, and have shown ourselves 
 ready to make prompt appeal to the sword when 
 ever it became necessary as a last resort. 
 
 Still, as regards the Ashburton treaty itself, it 
 must be admitted that much of Benton s opposi 
 tion was merely factious and partisan, on account 
 of its being a Whig measure ; and his speeches on 
 the subject contain a number of arguments that 
 are not very creditable to him. 
 
 Some of his remarks referred to a matter which 
 had been already a cause of great excitement dur 
 ing Van Buren s administration, and on which he 
 had spoken more than once. This was the de 
 struction of the steamer Caroline by the British 
 during the abortive Canadian insurrection of 1837. 
 Much sympathy had been felt for the rebels by 
 the Americans along the border, and some of them 
 
256 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 had employed the Caroline in conveying stores to 
 the insurgents ; and in revenge a party of British 
 troops surprised and destroyed her one night while 
 she was lying in an American port. This was a 
 gross and flagrant violation of our rights, and was 
 promptly resented by Van Buren, who had done 
 what he could to maintain order along the border, 
 and had been successful in his efforts. Benton had 
 supported the President in preventing a breach of 
 neutrality on our part, and was fiercely indignant 
 when the breach was committed by the other side. 
 Reparation was demanded forthwith. The British 
 government at first made evasive replies. After a 
 while a very foolish personage named McLeod, a 
 British subject, who boasted that he had taken 
 part in the affair, ventured into New York and was 
 promptly imprisoned by the state authorities. His 
 boastings, fortunately for him, proved to be totally 
 unfounded, and he was acquitted by the jury before 
 whom he was taken, after a detention of several 
 months in prison. But meanwhile the British gov 
 ernment demanded his release adopting a very 
 different tone with Tyler and the Whigs from that 
 which they had been using toward Van Buren, 
 who still could conjure with Jackson s terrible 
 name. The United States agreed to release Mc 
 Leod, but New York refused to deliver him up; 
 and before the question was decided he was ac 
 quitted, as said above. It was clearly wrong for 
 
Boundary Troubles 257 
 
 a State to interfere in a disagreement between the 
 nation and a foreign power ; and on the other hand 
 the federal authorities did not show as much firm 
 ness in their dealings with England as they should 
 have shown. Benton, true to certain of his states - 
 rights theories and in pursuance of his policy of 
 antagonism to Great Britain, warmly supported 
 the attitude of New York, alleging that the United 
 States had no right to interfere with her disposal 
 of McLeod ; and asserting that while if the citizens 
 of one country committed an outrage upon another 
 it was necessary to apply to the sovereign for re 
 dress, yet that if the wrong-doers came into the 
 country which had been aggrieved they might be 
 seized and punished ; and he exultingly referred to 
 Jackson s conduct at the time of the first Seminole 
 war, when he hung off-hand two British subjects 
 whom he accused of inciting the Indians against 
 us, Great Britain not making any protest. The 
 Caroline matter was finally settled in the Ashbur- 
 ton treaty, the British making a formal but very 
 guarded apology for her destruction an apology 
 which did not satisfy Benton in the least. It is 
 little to Benton s credit, however, that, while thus 
 courting foreign wars, he yet opposed the efforts 
 of the Whigs to give us a better navy. Our navy 
 was then good of its kind, but altogether too small. 
 Benton s opposition to its increase seems to have 
 proceeded partly from mere bitter partisanship, 
 17 
 
258 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 partly from sheer ignorance and partly from the 
 doctrinaire dread of any kind of standing military 
 or naval force, which he had inherited, with a 
 good many similar ideas, from the Jeffersonians. 
 
 He attacked the whole treaty, article by article, 
 when it came up for ratification in the Senate, 
 making an extremely lengthy and elaborate speech 
 or rather set of speeches, against it. Much of his 
 objection, especially to the part compromising the 
 territorial claims of the two governments, was well 
 founded ; but much was also factious and ground 
 less. The most important point of all that was 
 in controversy, the ownership of Oregon, was left 
 unsettled; but, as will be shown farther on, this 
 was wise. He made this omission a base or pre 
 text for the charge that the treaty was gotten up 
 in the interests of the East, although with frank 
 lack of logic he also opposed it because it sacri 
 ficed the interests of Maine, and that it was det 
 rimental to the South and West; and he did his 
 best to excite sectional feeling against it. He also 
 protested against the omission of all reference to 
 the impressment of American sailors by British 
 vessels ; and this was a valid ground of opposition, 
 although Webster had really settled the matter 
 by writing a formal note to the British govern 
 ment, in which he practically gave official notice 
 that any attempt to revive the practice would be 
 repelled by force of arms. 
 
Boundary Troubles 259 
 
 Benton occupied a much less tenable position 
 when he came to the question of slavery, and 
 inveighed against the treaty because it did not 
 provide for the return of fugitive slaves, or of 
 slaves taken from American coasting vessels when 
 the latter happened to be obliged to put into West 
 Indian ports, and because it did contain a provi 
 sion that we ourselves should keep in commission 
 a squadron on the coast of Africa to cooperate 
 with the British in the suppression of the slave 
 trade. Benton s object in attacking the treaty 
 on this point was to excite the South to a degree 
 that would make the senators from that section 
 refuse to join in ratifying it ; but the attempt was 
 a flat failure. It is hardly to be supposed that he 
 himself was as indignant over this question as 
 he pretended to be. He must have realized that, 
 so long as we had among ourselves an institution 
 so wholly barbarous and out of date as slavery, 
 just so long we should have to expect foreign 
 powers to treat us rather cavalierly on that one 
 point. Whatever we might say among ourselves 
 as to the rights of property or the necessity of 
 preserving the Union by refraining from the dis 
 turbance of slavery, it was certain that foreign 
 nations would place the manhood and liberty of 
 the slave above the vested interest of the master 
 all the more readily because they were jealous of 
 the Union and anxious to see it break up, and 
 
260 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 were naturally delighted to take the side of ab 
 stract justice and humanity, when to do so was at 
 the expense of outsiders and redounded to their 
 own credit, without causing them the least pecu 
 niary loss or personal inconvenience. The attitude 
 of slaveholders toward freedom in the abstract 
 was grotesque in its lack of logic ; but the attitude 
 of many other classes of men, both abroad and at 
 home, toward it was equally full of a grimly 
 unconscious humor. The Southern planters, who 
 loudly sympathized with Kossuth and the Hunga 
 rians, were entirely unconscious that their tyranny 
 over their own black bondsmen made their attacks 
 upon Austria s despotism absurd; and Germans, 
 who were shocked at our holding the blacks in 
 slavery, could not think of freedom in their own 
 country without a shudder. On one night the 
 Democrats of the Northern States would hold a 
 mass meeting to further the cause of Irish free 
 dom, on the next night the same men would break 
 up another meeting held to help along the freeing 
 of the negroes ; while the English aristocracy held 
 up its hands in horror at American slavery and 
 set its face like a flint against all efforts to do 
 Ireland tardy and incomplete justice. 
 
 Again, in his opposition to the extradition clause 
 of the treaty, Benton was certainly wrong. Noth 
 ing is clearer than that nations ought to combine 
 to prevent criminals from escaping punishment 
 
Boundary Troubles 261 
 
 merely by fleeing over an imaginary line; the 
 crime is against all society, and society should 
 unite to punish it. Especially is there need of the 
 most stringent extradition laws between countries 
 whose people have the same speech and legal sys 
 tem, as with the United States and Great Britain. 
 Indeed, it is a pity that our extradition laws are 
 not more stringent. But Benton saw, or affected 
 to see, in the extradition clause, a menace to politi 
 cal refugees, and based his opposition to it mainly 
 on this ground. He also quoted on his side the 
 inevitable Jefferson; for Jefferson, or rather the 
 highly idealized conception of what Jefferson had 
 been, shared with the "demos krateo principle" 
 the honor of being one of the twin fetiches to 
 which Benton, in common with most of his fellow 
 Democrats, especially delighted to bow down. 
 
 But when he came to the parts of the treaty 
 that denned our northeastern boundary and so 
 much of our northwestern boundary as lay near 
 the Great Lakes, Benton occupied far more de 
 fensible ground ; and the parts of his speech refer 
 ring to these questions were very strong indeed. 
 He attempted to show that in the matter of the 
 Maine frontier we had surrendered very much 
 more than there was any need of our doing, and 
 that the British claim was unfounded; and there 
 seems now to be good reason for thinking him 
 right, although it must be admitted that in 
 
262 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 agreeing to the original line in earlier treaties the 
 British had acted entirely tinder a misapprehen 
 sion as to where it would go. Benton was also 
 able to make a good point against Webster for 
 finally agreeing to surrender so much of Maine s 
 claim by showing the opposition the latter had 
 made, while in the Senate, to a similar but less 
 objectionable clause in a treaty which Jackson s 
 administration had then been trying to get 
 through. Again Webster had, in defending the 
 surrender of certain of our claims along the 
 boundary west of Lake Superior, stated that 
 the country was not very valuable, as it was use 
 less for agricultural purposes; and Benton had 
 taken him up sharply on this point, saying that 
 we wanted the land anyhow, whether it produced 
 corn and potatoes or only furs and lumber. The 
 amounts of territory as to which our claims were 
 compromised were not very large compared to 
 the extent of the Pacific coast lands which were 
 still left in dispute ; and it was perhaps well that 
 the treaty was ratified; but certainly there is 
 much to be said on Ben ton s side so far as his 
 opposition to the proposed frontier was concerned. 
 However, he was only able to rally eight other 
 senators to his support, and the treaty went 
 through the Senate triumphantly. It encoun 
 tered an even more bitter opposition in Parlia 
 ment, where Palmerston headed a series of furious 
 
Boundary Troubles 263 
 
 attacks upon it, for reasons the precise opposite 
 of those which Benton alleged, arguing that Eng 
 land received much less, instead of much more, 
 than her due, and thereby showing Webster s 
 position in a very much better light than that in 
 which it would otherwise have appeared. Even 
 tually the British government ratified the treaty. 
 The Ashburton treaty did not touch on the 
 Oregon matter at all; nor was this dealt with by 
 Webster while he was secretary of state. But it 
 came before the Senate at that time, and later on 
 Calhoun took it up, when filling Webster s place 
 in the cabinet, although a final decision was not 
 reached until during Folk s presidency. Webster 
 did not appreciate the importance of Oregon in 
 the least, and moreover came from a section of 
 the country that was not inclined to insist on 
 territorial expansion at the hazard of a war, in 
 which the merchants of the seaboard would be 
 the chief sufferers. Calhoun, it is true, came from 
 a peculiarly militant and bellicose State, but on 
 the other hand from a section that was not very 
 anxious to see the free North acquire new terri 
 tory. So it happened that neither of Tyler s two 
 great secretaries felt called upon to insist too 
 vehemently upon going to extremes in defense of 
 our rights, or supposed rights, along the Pacific 
 coast; and though in the end the balance was 
 struck pretty evenly between our claims and 
 
264 Thomas Hart Bentbn 
 
 those of our neighbor, yet it is to be regretted 
 that we did not stand out stiffly for the whole of 
 our demand. Our title was certainly not perfect, 
 but it was to the full as good as, or better than, 
 Great Britain s ; and it would have been better 
 in the end had we insisted upon the whole terri 
 tory being given to us, no matter what price we 
 had to pay. 
 
 The politico-social line of division between the 
 East and the West had been gradually growing 
 fainter as that between the North and the South 
 grew deeper ; but on the Oregon question it again 
 became prominent. Southeastern Democrats, like 
 the Carolinian McDuffie, spoke as slightingly of 
 the value of Oregon, and were as little inclined to 
 risk a war for its possession, as the most peace- 
 loving Whigs of New England ; while the intense 
 Western feeling against giving up any of our 
 rights on the Pacific coast was best expressed by 
 the two senators from the slave State of Mis 
 souri. Benton was not restrained in his desire 
 to add to the might of the Union by any fear of 
 the possible future effect upon the political power 
 of the slave States. Although a slaveholder and 
 the representative of slaveholders, he was fully 
 alive to the evils of slavery, though as yet not 
 seeing clearly how all-important a question it had 
 become. The preservation and extension of the 
 Union and obedience to the spirit of Democracy 
 
Boundary Troubles 265 
 
 were the chief articles of his political creed, and 
 to these he always subordinated all others. When, 
 in speaking of slavery, he made use, as he some 
 times did, of expressions that were not far re 
 moved from those of men really devoted to the 
 slave interests, it was almost always because he 
 had some ulterior object in view, or for factional 
 ends ; for unfortunately his standard of political 
 propriety was not sufficiently high to prevent his 
 trying to make use of any weapon, good or bad, 
 with which to overturn his political foes. In pro 
 testing against the Ashburton treaty, he outdid 
 even such slavery champions as Calhoun in the 
 extravagance of his ideas as to what we should 
 demand of foreign powers in reference to their 
 treatment of our " peculiar institution;" but he 
 seems to have done this merely because thereby 
 he got an additional handle of attack against the 
 Whig measures. The same thing was true earlier 
 of his fulmination against Clay s proposed Pan 
 ama Congress ; and even before that, in attacking 
 Adams for his supposed part in the treaty whereby 
 we established the line of our Spanish frontier, he 
 dragged slavery into the question, not, apparently, 
 because he really particularly wished to see our 
 slave territory extended, but because he thought 
 that he might use the slavery cry to excite in one 
 other section of the country a feeling as strong 
 as that which the West already felt in regard to 
 
266 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 territorial expansion generally. Indeed, his whole 
 conduct throughout the Oregon controversy, espe 
 cially when taken in connection with the fact that 
 he stood out for Maine s frontier rights more 
 stoutly than the Maine representatives them 
 selves, shows how free from sectional bias was 
 his way of looking at our geographical growth. 
 
 The territory along the Pacific coast lying be 
 tween California on the south and Alaska on the 
 north "Oregon," as it was comprehensively 
 called had been a source of dispute for some 
 time between the United States and Great Britain. 
 After some negotiations both had agreed with Rus 
 sia to recognize the line of 54 40 as the southern 
 boundary of the latter s possessions ; and Mexico s 
 undisputed possession of California gave an equally 
 well marked southern limit, at the forty-second 
 parallel. All between was in dispute. The British 
 had trading posts at the mouth of the Columbia, 
 which they emphatically asserted to be theirs ; we, 
 on the other hand, claimed an absolutely clear title 
 up to the forty-ninth parallel, a couple of hundred 
 miles north of the mouth of the Columbia, and 
 asserted that for all the balance of the territory up 
 to the Russian possessions our title was at any rate 
 better than that of the British. In 1818 a treaty 
 had been made providing for the joint occupation 
 of the territory by the two powers, as neither was 
 willing to give up its claim to the whole, or at the 
 
Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 : - T* tonal expansion generally. Indeed, his >.vhole 
 Conduct throughout the Oregon controversy, >>pe- 
 oially when taken in connection with the fact that 
 he stood out for Maine s frontier rig! its more 
 stoutly than the Maine representatives them 
 selves, shows bow free from sectional bias was 
 his wny <>{ Vxiktfcg at our geographical growth. 
 
 ng the Pacific coast lying be- 
 twce / ; i & \ south arid Alaska on the 
 
 north*- us comprehensively 
 
 calkv; A .--.. :spute for some 
 
 1 Great Britain. 
 
 n was in dispute. The British 
 . -.5 at the.rnoutli of the Columbia, 
 
 -.vhirh tl .. latically asserted to be theirs ; we, 
 
 . U the other hand, claime-i an absolutely clear title 
 Mp to the forty *ninth {Xi.rallel, a. couple of hundred 
 miles north of the ITIO-; *. of the Columbia, and 
 asserted that for all th ; : >.tance of the territory. up 
 to the Russian possess! -HS our title was at any rate 
 hi- tier than that of the British. In 1818 a treaty 
 had been made providing for the joint occupation 
 of the territory by the two powers, as neither was 
 wilhttft U> eive uv its claim to the whole, or at the 
 
- 
 
John C . Fremont. 
 
Boundary Troubles 267 
 
 time at all understood the value of the possession, 
 then entirely unpeopled. This treaty of joint oc 
 cupancy had remained in force ever since. Under 
 it the British had built great trading stations, and 
 used the whole country in the interests of certain 
 fur companies. The Americans, in spite of some 
 vain efforts, were unable to compete with them in 
 this line ; but, what was infinitely more important, 
 had begun, even prior to 1840, to establish actual 
 settlers along the banks of the rivers, some mis 
 sionaries being the first to come in. As long, how 
 ever, as the territory remained sparsely settled, 
 and the communication with it chiefly by sea, the 
 hold of Great Britain gave promise of being the 
 stronger. But the aspect of affairs was totally 
 changed when in 1842 a huge caravan of over a 
 thousand Americans made the journey overland 
 from the frontiers of Missouri, taking with them 
 their wives and their children, their flocks and 
 herds, carrying their long rifles on their shoulders, 
 and their axes and spades in the great canvas- 
 topped wagons. The next year, two thousand 
 more settlers of the same sort in their turn crossed 
 the vast plains, wound their way among the 
 Rocky Mountains, through the pass explored by 
 Fremont, Benton s son-in-law, and after suffering 
 every kind of hardship and danger, and warding 
 off the attacks of hostile Indians, descended the 
 western slope of the great watershed to join their 
 
268 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 fellows by the banks of the Columbia. When 
 American settlers were once in actual possession 
 of the disputed territory, it became evident that 
 the period of Great Britain s undisputed sway was 
 over. 
 
 The government of the United States, mean 
 while, was so far from helping these settlers that 
 it on the contrary rather threw obstacles in their 
 way. As usual with us, the individual activity of 
 the citizens themselves, who all acted independ 
 ently and with that peculiar self-reliance that is 
 the chief American characteristic, outstripped the 
 activity of their representatives, who were obliged 
 all to act together, and who were therefore held 
 back by each other, our Constitution, while 
 giving free scope for individual freedom, wisely 
 providing such checks as to make our governmen 
 tal system eminently conservative in its workings. 
 Tyler s administration did not wish to embroil 
 itself with England ; so it refused any aid to the 
 settlers, and declined to give them grants of land, 
 as under the joint occupancy treaty that would 
 have given England offense and cause for com 
 plaint. But Benton and the other Westerners 
 were perfectly willing to offend England, if by so 
 doing they could help America to obtain Oregon, 
 and were too rash and headstrong to count the 
 cost of their actions. Accordingly, a bill was in 
 troduced providing for the settlement of Oregon, 
 
Boundary Troubles 269 
 
 and giving each settler six hundred and forty 
 acres, and additional land if he had a family; so 
 that every inducement was held out to the emi 
 grants, the West wanting to protect and encour 
 age them by all the means in its power. The 
 laws and jurisdiction of the Territory of Iowa 
 were to be extended to all the settlers on the 
 Pacific coast, who hitherto had governed them 
 selves merely by a system of mutual agreements. 
 
 The bill was, of course, strongly opposed, espe 
 cially on account of the clause giving land to the 
 settlers. It passed the Senate by a close vote, but 
 failed in the House. Naturally Benton was one 
 of its chief supporters, and spoke at length in its 
 favor. He seized the kernel of the matter when, 
 in advocating the granting of land, he spoke of 
 immigration as "the only thing which can save 
 the country from the British, acting through their 
 powerful agent, the Hudson s Bay Company." 
 He then blew a lusty note of defiance to Great 
 Britain herself: 
 
 I think she will take offense, do what we may in 
 relation to this territory. She wants it herself, and 
 means to quarrel for it, if she does not fight for it. ... 
 I grant that she will take offense, but that is not the 
 question with me. Has she a right to take offense? 
 That is my question! And this being decided in the 
 negative, I neither fear nor calculate consequences. 
 . . . Courage will keep her off, fear will bring her 
 upon us. The assertion of our rights will command 
 
270 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 her respect ; the fear to assert them will bring us her 
 contempt. . . . Neither nations nor individuals ever 
 escaped danger by fearing it. They must face it and 
 defy it. An abandonment of a right for fear of bring 
 ing on an attack, instead of keeping it off, will inevit 
 ably bring on the outrage that is dreaded. 
 
 He was right enough in his disposition to resent 
 the hectoring spirit which, at that time, character 
 ized Great Britain s foreign policy ; but he was all 
 wrong in condemning delay, and stating that if 
 things were left as they were, time would work 
 against us, and not for us. 
 
 In this respect Calhoun, who opposed the bill, 
 was much wiser. He advocated a policy of " mas 
 terly inactivity," foreseeing that time was every 
 thing to us, inasmuch as the land was sure in the 
 end to belong to that nation whose people had set 
 tled in it, and we alone were able to furnish a con 
 stantly increasing stream of immigrants. Later 
 on, however, Calhoun abandoned this policy, prob 
 ably mainly influenced by fear of the extension 
 of free territory, and consented to a compromise 
 with Great Britain. The true course to have pur 
 sued would have been to have combined the ideas 
 of both Benton and Calhoun, and to have gone 
 farther than either ; that is, we should have allowed 
 the question to remain unsettled as long as was 
 possible, because every year saw an increasing 
 American population in the coveted lands, and 
 
Boundary Troubles 271 
 
 rendered the ultimate decision surer to be for us. 
 When it was impossible to postpone the question 
 longer, we should have insisted upon its being set 
 tled entirely in our favor, no matter at what cost. 
 The unsuccessful attempts, made by Benton and 
 his supporters, to persuade the Senate to pass a 
 resolution, requiring that notice of the termination 
 of the joint occupancy treaty should forthwith be 
 given, were certainly ill-advised. 
 
 However, even Benton was not willing to go to 
 the length to which certain Western men went, 
 who insisted upon all or nothing. He had become 
 alarmed and angry over the intrigue for the ad 
 mission of Texas and the proposed forcible taking 
 away of Mexican territory. The Northwestern 
 Democrats wanted all Texas and all Oregon ; the 
 Southeastern ones wished all the former and part 
 of the latter. Benton then concluded that it would 
 be best to take part of each; for, although no 
 friend to compromises, yet he was unwilling to 
 jeopardize the safety of the Union as it was by 
 seeking to make it still larger. Accordingly, he 
 sympathized with the effort made by Calhoun 
 while secretary of state to get the British to accept 
 the line of 49 as the frontier; but the British 
 government then rejected this proposition. In 
 1844 the Democrats made their campaign upon 
 the issue of "fifty-four forty or fight;" and Polk, 
 when elected, felt obliged to insist upon this 
 
272 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 campaign boundary. To this, however, Great Brit 
 ain naturally would not consent; it was, indeed, 
 idle to expect her to do so, unless things should be 
 kept as they were until a fairly large American 
 population had grown up along the Pacific coast, 
 and had thus put her in a position where she could 
 hardly do anything else. Folk s administration 
 was neither capable nor warlike, however well- 
 disposed to bluster; and the secretary of state, 
 the timid, shifty, and selfish politician, Buchanan, 
 naturally fond of facing both ways, was the last 
 man to force a quarrel on a high-spirited and de 
 termined antagonist like England. Accordingly, 
 he made up his mind to back down and try for 
 the line of 49, as proposed by Calhoun, when in 
 Tyler s cabinet; and the English, for all their 
 affected indifference, had been so much impressed 
 by the warlike demonstrations in the United 
 States, that they in turn were delighted, singing 
 in a much lower key than before the "fifty-four 
 forty " cry had been raised ; accordingly they with 
 drew their former pretensions to the Columbia 
 River and accepted the offered compromise. Now, 
 however, came the question of getting the treaty 
 through the Senate ; and Buchanan sounded Ben- 
 ton, to see if he would undertake this task. 
 
 Benton, worried over the Texas matter, was 
 willing to recede somewhat from the very high 
 ground he had taken, although, of course, he 
 
Boundary Troubles 273 
 
 insisted that he had been perfectly consistent 
 throughout, and that the forty-ninth parallel was 
 the line he had all along been striving for. Under 
 his lead the proposal for a treaty on the basis in 
 dicated was carried through the Senate, and the 
 line in consequence ultimately became our fron 
 tier, in spite of the frantic opposition of the North 
 western Democrats, the latter hurling every sort 
 of charge of bad faith and treachery at their South 
 ern associates, who had joined with the Whigs in 
 defeating them. Benton s speech in support of 
 the proposal was pitched much lower than had 
 been his previous ones; and, a little forgetful of 
 some of his own remarks, he was especially severe 
 upon those members who denounced England and 
 held up a picture of her real or supposed designs 
 to excite and frighten the people into needless 
 opposition to her. 
 
 In its immediate effects the adoption of the 
 forty-ninth parallel as the dividing line between 
 the two countries was excellent, and entailed no 
 loss of dignity on either. Yet, as there was no 
 particular reason why we should show any gen 
 erosity in our diplomatic dealings with England, 
 it may well be questioned whether it would not 
 have been better to have left things as they were 
 until we could have taken all. Wars are, of 
 course, as a rule to be avoided ; but they are far 
 better than certain kinds of peace. Every war 
 
 18 
 
274 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 in which we have been engaged, except the one 
 with Mexico, has been justifiable in its origin ; and 
 each one, without any exception whatever, has 
 left us better off, taking both moral and material 
 considerations into account, than we should have 
 been if we had not waged it. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ABOLITIONISTS DANCE TO THE SLAVE 
 BARONS PIPING. 
 
 IN 1844 the Whig candidate for the presidency, 
 Henry Clay, was defeated by a Mr. Polk, the 
 nominee of the Democracy. The majorities 
 in several of the States were very small ; this was 
 the case, for example, in New York, the change in 
 whose electoral vote would have also changed the 
 entire result. 
 
 Up to 1860 there were very few political con 
 tests in which the dividing lines between right and 
 wrong so nearly coincided with those drawn be 
 tween the two opposing parties as in that of 1844. 
 The Democrats favored the annexation of Texas, 
 and the addition of new slave territory to the 
 Union; the Whigs did not. Almost every good 
 element in the country stood behind Clay; the 
 vast majority of intelligent, high-minded, upright 
 men supported him. Polk was backed by rabid 
 Southern fire-eaters and slavery extensionists, who 
 had deified negro bondage and exalted it beyond 
 the Union, the Constitution, and everything else ; 
 by the almost solid foreign vote, still unfit for the 
 duties of American citizenship ; by the vicious and 
 criminal classes in all the great cities of the North 
 
 275 
 
276 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 and in New Orleans; by the corrupt politicians, 
 who found ignorance and viciousness tools ready 
 forged to their hands, wherewith to perpetrate the 
 gigantic frauds without which the election would 
 have been lost; and, lastly, he was also backed 
 indirectly but most powerfully by the political 
 Abolitionists. 
 
 These Abolitionists had formed themselves into 
 the Liberty party, and ran Birney for president; 
 and though they polled but little over sixty thou 
 sand votes, yet as these were drawn almost en 
 tirely from the ranks of Clay s supporters, they 
 were primarily responsible for his defeat ; for the 
 defections were sufficiently large to turn the scale 
 in certain pivotal and closely contested States, 
 notably New York. Their action in this case was 
 wholly evil, alike in its immediate and its remote 
 results ; they simply played into the hands of the 
 extreme slavery men like Calhoun, and became, 
 for the time being, the willing accomplices of the 
 latter. Yet they would have accomplished noth 
 ing had it not been for the frauds and outrages 
 perpetrated by the gangs of native and foreign- 
 born ruffians in the great cities, under the leader 
 ship of such brutal rowdies as Isaiah Rynders. 
 
 These three men, Calhoun, Birney, and Isaiah 
 Rynders, may be taken as types of the classes that 
 were chiefly instrumental in the election of Polk, 
 and that must, therefore, bear the responsibility 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 277 
 
 for all the evils attendant thereon, including 
 among them the bloody and unrighteous war with 
 Mexico. With the purpose of advancing the cause 
 of abstract right, but with the result of sacrificing 
 all that was best, most honest, and most high- 
 principled in national politics, the Abolitionists 
 joined hands with Northern roughs and Southern 
 slaveocrats to elect the man who was, excepting 
 Tyler, the very smallest of the line of small presi 
 dents who came in between Jackson and Lincoln. 
 Owing to a variety of causes the Abolitionists 
 have received an immense amount of hysterical 
 praise, which they do not deserve, and have been 
 credited with deeds done by other men, whom they 
 in reality hampered and opposed rather than aided. 
 After 1840 the professed Abolitionists formed but 
 a small and comparatively unimportant portion of 
 the forces that were working toward the restriction 
 and ultimate destruction of slavery; and much 
 of what they did was positively harmful to the 
 cause for which they were fighting. Those of their 
 number who considered the Constitution as a 
 league with death and hell, and who therefore 
 advocated a dissolution of the Union, acted as 
 rationally as would anti-polygamists nowadays 
 if, to show their disapproval of Mormonism, they 
 should advocate that Utah should be allowed to 
 form a separate nation. The only hope of ulti 
 mately suppressing slavery lay in the preservation 
 
278 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 of the Union, and every Abolitionist who argued 
 or signed a petition for its dissolution was doing 
 as much to perpetuate the evil he complained of as 
 if he had been a slaveholder. The Liberty party, 
 in running Birney, simply committed a political 
 crime, evil in almost all its consequences ; they in 
 no sense paved the way for the Republican party, 
 or helped forward the anti-slavery cause, or hurt 
 the existing organizations. Their effect on the 
 Democracy was nil; and all they were able to 
 accomplish with the Whigs was to make them put 
 forward for the ensuing campaign a slaveholder 
 from Louisiana, with whom they were successful. 
 Such were the remote results of their conduct ; the 
 immediate evils they produced have already been 
 alluded to. They bore considerable resemblance 
 except that, after all, they really did have a 
 principle to contend for to the political prohibi 
 tionists of the present day, who go into the third 
 party organizations, and are, not even excepting 
 the saloon-keepers themselves, the most efficient 
 allies on whom intemperance and the liquor traffic 
 can count. 
 
 Anti-slavery men like Giddings, who supported 
 Clay, were doing a thousandfold more effective 
 work for the cause they had at heart than all the 
 voters who supported Birney; or, to speak more 
 accurately, they were doing all they could to ad 
 vance the cause, and the others were doing all they 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 279 
 
 could to hold it back. Lincoln in 1860 occupied 
 more nearly the ground held by Clay than that 
 held by Birney; and the men who supported the 
 latter in 1844 were the prototypes of those who 
 wished to oppose Lincoln in 1860, and only worked 
 less hard because they had less chance. The ultra- 
 Abolitionists discarded expediency, and claimed to 
 act for abstract right, on principle, no matter what 
 the results might be ; in consequence they accom 
 plished very little, and that as much for harm as 
 for good, until they ate their words, went counter 
 to their previous course, thereby acknowledging it 
 to be bad, and supported in the Republican party 
 the men and principles they had so fiercely con 
 demned. The Liberty party was not in any sense 
 the precursor of the Republican party, which was 
 based as much on expediency as on abstract right, 
 and was therefore able to accomplish good instead 
 of harm. To say that the extreme Abolitionists 
 triumphed in Republican success and were causes 
 of it, is as absurd as it would be to call prohibition 
 ists successful if, after countless futile efforts 
 totally to prohibit the liquor traffic, and after 
 savage denunciation of those who try to regulate 
 it, they should then turn round and form a com 
 paratively insignificant portion of a victorious 
 high-license party. 
 
 Many people in speaking of the Abolitionists 
 apparently forget that the national government, 
 
280 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 even under Republican rule, would never have 
 meddled with slavery in the various States unless 
 as a war measure, made necessary by the rebellion 
 into which the South was led by a variety of 
 causes, of which slavery was chief, but among 
 which there were others that were also prominent ; 
 such as the separatist spirit of certain of the com 
 munities and the unscrupulous, treacherous am 
 bition of such men as Davis, Floyd, and the rest. 
 The Abolitionists political organizations, such as 
 the Liberty party, generally produced very little 
 effect either way, and were scarcely thought of 
 during the contests waged for freedom in Congress. 
 The men who took a great and effective part in the 
 fight against slavery were the men who remained 
 within their respective parties ; like the Democrats 
 Benton and Wilmot, or the Whigs Seward and Ste 
 vens. When a new party with more clearly de 
 fined principles was formed, they, for the most 
 part, went into it ; but, like all other men who have 
 ever had a really great influence, whether for good 
 or bad, on American politics, they did not act in 
 dependently of parties, but on the contrary kept 
 within party lines although, of course, none of 
 them were mere blind and unreasoning partisans. 
 The plea that slavery was a question of princi 
 ple, on which no compromise could be accepted, 
 might have been made and could still be made on 
 twenty other points, woman suffrage, for in- 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 281 
 
 stance. Of course, to give women their just rights 
 does not by any means imply that they should 
 necessarily be allowed to vote, any more than the 
 bestowal of the rights of citizenship upon blacks 
 and aliens must of necessity carry with it the same 
 privilege. But there were until lately, and in 
 some States there are now, laws on the statute- 
 book in reference to women that are in principle 
 as unjust, and that are quite as much the rem 
 nants of archaic barbarism as was the old slave 
 code ; and though it is true that they do not work 
 anything like the evil of the latter, they yet cer 
 tainly work evil enough. The same laws that in 
 one Southern State gave a master a right to whip 
 a slave also allowed him to whip his wife, pro 
 vided he used a stick no thicker than his little 
 finger; the legal permission to do the latter was 
 even more outrageous than that to do the former, 
 yet no one considered it a ground for wishing a 
 dissolution of the Union or for declaring against 
 the existing parties. The folly of voting the 
 Liberty ticket in 1844 differed in degree, but not 
 at all in kind, from the folly of voting the Woman 
 Suffrage ticket in 1884. 
 
 The intrigue for the annexation of Texas, and 
 for thereby extending the slave territory of the 
 Union, had taken shape toward the close of Tyler s 
 term of office, while Calhoun was secretary of 
 state. Benton, as an aggressive Western man, 
 
282 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 desirous of seeing our territorial possessions ex 
 tended in any direction, north or south, always 
 hoped that in the end Texas might be admitted 
 into the Union ; but he disliked seeing any prema 
 ture steps taken, and was no party to the scheme 
 of forcing an immediate annexation in the inter 
 ests of slavery. Such immediate annexation was 
 certain, among other things, to bring us into grave 
 difficulties not only with Mexico, but also with 
 England, which was strongly inclined to take 
 much interest of a practical sort in the fate of 
 Texas, and would, of course, have done all it could 
 to bring about the abolition of slavery in that 
 State. The Southerners, desirous of increasing 
 the slave domain, and always in a state of fierce 
 alarm over the proximity of any free State that 
 might excite a servile insurrection, were impatient 
 to add the Lone Star Republic of the Rio Grande 
 to the number of their States ; the Southwestern- 
 ers fell in with them, influenced, though less 
 strongly, by the same motives, and also by the 
 lust for new lands and by race hatred toward the 
 Mexicans and traditional jealousy of Great Britain ; 
 and these latter motives induced many North- 
 westerners to follow suit. By a judicious harping 
 on all these strings Jackson himself, whose name 
 was still a mighty power among the masses, was 
 induced to write a letter favoring instant and 
 prompt annexation. 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 283 
 
 This letter was really procured for political pur 
 poses. Tyler had completely identified himself 
 with the Democracy, and especially with its ex 
 treme separatist wing, to which Calhoun also be 
 longed, and which had grown so as to be already 
 almost able to take the reins. The separatist 
 chiefs were intriguing for the presidency, and were 
 using annexation as a cry that would help them; 
 and, failing in this attempt, many of the leaders 
 were willing to break up the Union, and turn the 
 Southern States, together with Texas, into a 
 slave-holding confederacy. After Benton, the great 
 champion of the old-style Union Democrats was 
 Van Buren, who was opposed to immediate annex 
 ation, sharing the feeling that prevailed through 
 out the Northeast generally; although in certain 
 circles all through the country there were men at 
 work in its favor, largely as a mere matter of job 
 bery and from base motives, on account of specu 
 lations in Texan land and scrip, into which various 
 capitalists and adventurers had gone rather exten 
 sively Jackson, though a Southerner, warmly 
 favored Van Buren, and was bitterly opposed to 
 separatists ; but the latter, by cunningly working 
 on his feelings, without showing their own hands, 
 persuaded him to write the letter mentioned, and 
 promptly used it to destroy the chances of Van 
 Buren, who was the man they chiefly feared; and 
 though Jackson, at last roused to what was going 
 
284 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 on, immediately announced himself as in favor of 
 Van Buren s candidacy, it was too late to undo the 
 mischief. 
 
 Benton showed on this, as on many other occa 
 sions, much keener political ideas than his great 
 political chief. He was approached by a politi 
 cian, who himself was either one of those con 
 cerned in the presidential intrigues, or else one of 
 their dupes, and who tried to win him over to take 
 the lead on their side, complimenting him upon his 
 former services to the cause of territorial expan 
 sion toward the Southwest. Ordinarily the great 
 Missourian was susceptible enough to such flat 
 tery; but on this occasion, preoccupied with the 
 idea of an intrigue for the presidency, and indig 
 nant that there should be an effort made to impli 
 cate him in it, especially as it was mixed up with 
 schemes of stock- jobbing and of disloyalty to the 
 Union, he took fire at once, and answered with hot 
 indignation, in words afterward highly resented 
 by his questioner, " that it was on the part of some 
 an intrigue for the presidency, and a plot to dis 
 solve the Union; on the part of others, a Texas 
 scrip and land speculation; and that he was 
 against it." The answer was published in the 
 papers, and brought about a total break between 
 Benton and the annexation party. 
 
 He was now thoroughly on the alert, and 
 actively opposed at all points the schemes of 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 285 
 
 those whom he regarded as concerned in or in 
 stigating the intrigue. He commented harshly on 
 Tyler s annual message, which made a strong plea 
 for annexation, even at the cost of a war both with 
 Great Britain and Mexico ; also on Calhoun s letter 
 to Lord Aberdeen, which was certainly a remark 
 able diplomatic document, being a thesis on slav 
 ery and the benefits resulting from it. Tyler s 
 object was to prepare the way for a secret treaty, 
 which should secure the desired object. Benton, 
 in the course of some severe strictures on his acts, 
 said, very truly, that it was evidently the intention 
 to keep the whole matter as secret as possible until 
 the treaty was concluded, "and then to force its 
 adoption for the purpose of increasing the area of 
 slave territory, or to make its rejection a cause for 
 the secession of the Southern States ; and in either 
 event and in all cases to make the question of 
 annexation a controlling one in the nomination 
 of presidential candidates, and also in the election 
 itself." 
 
 When the treaty proposed by the administration 
 was rejected, and when it became evident that 
 neither Tyler nor Calhoun, the two most promi 
 nent champions of the extreme separatists, had 
 any chance for the Democratic nomination, the 
 disunion side of the intrigue was brought to the 
 front in many of the Southern States, beginning, 
 of course, with South Carolina. A movement was 
 
286 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 made for a convention of the Southern States, to 
 be held in the interest of the scheme; the key 
 note being struck in the cry of "Texas or dis 
 union!" But this convention was given up, on 
 account of the strong opposition it excited in the 
 so-called "Border States," an opposition largely 
 stirred up and led by Benton. Once more the 
 haughty slave leaders of the Southeast had found 
 that in the Missouri senator they had an opponent 
 whose fearlessness quite equaled their own, and 
 whose stubborn temper and strength of purpose 
 made him at least a match for themselves, in spite 
 of all their dash and fiery impetuosity. It must 
 have sounded strange, indeed, to Northern ears, 
 accustomed to the harsh railings and insolent 
 threats of the South Carolina senators, to hear one 
 of the latter complaining that Benton s tone in the 
 debate was arrogant, overbearing, and dictatorial 
 toward those who were opposed to him. This 
 same senator, McDuffie, had been speaking of the 
 proposed Southern meeting at Nashville; and 
 Benton warned him that such a meeting would 
 never take place, and that he had mistaken the 
 temper of the Tennesseans; and also reminded 
 him that General Jackson was still alive, and that 
 the South Carolinians in particular must needs be 
 careful if they hoped to agree with his followers, 
 whose name was still legion, because he would cer 
 tainly take the same position toward a disunion 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 287 
 
 movement in the interests of slavery that he had 
 already taken toward a nullification movement in 
 the interests of free trade. " Preservation of the 
 Federal Union is as strong in the old Roman s 
 heart now as ever; and while, as a Christian, he 
 forgives all that is past (if it were past) , yet no old 
 tricks tinder new names ! Texas disunion will be 
 to him the same as tariff disunion ; and if he de 
 tects a Texas disunionist nestling into his bed, I 
 say again : Woe unto the luckless wight ! " Boldly 
 and forcibly he went on to paint the real motives 
 of the promoters of the scheme, and the real char 
 acter of the scheme itself; stating that, though 
 mixed up with various speculative enterprises and 
 other intrigues, yet disunion was at the bottom of 
 it all, and that already the cry had become, 
 " Texas without the Union, rather than the Union 
 without Texas!" "Under the pretext of getting 
 Texas into the Union the scheme is to get the 
 South out of it. A Southern Confederacy stretch 
 ing from the Atlantic to the Calif ornias ... is the 
 cherished vision of disappointed ambition." He 
 bitterly condemned secession, as simply disunion 
 begat by nullification, and went on to speak of his 
 own attitude in apparently opposing the admission 
 of Texas, which he had always desired to see 
 become a part of the Union, and which he had 
 always insisted rightfully belonged to us, and to 
 have been given away by Monroe s treaty with 
 
288 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Spain. "All that is intended and foreseen. The 
 intrigue for the presidency was the first act in the 
 drama; the dissolution of the Union the second. 
 And I, who hate intrigue and love the Union, can 
 only speak of the intriguers and disunionists with 
 warmth and indignation. The oldest advocate for 
 the recovery of Texas, I must be allowed to speak 
 in just terms of the criminal politicians who prosti 
 tuted the question of its recovery to their own base 
 purposes, and delayed its success by degrading and 
 disgracing it. A Western man, and coming from 
 a State more than any other interested in the re 
 covery of this country, so unaccountably thrown 
 away by the treaty of 1819, I must be allowed to 
 feel indignant at seeing Atlantic politicians seizing 
 upon it, and making it a sectional question for the 
 purposes of ambition and disunion. I have spoken 
 warmly of these plotters and intriguers; but I 
 have not permitted their conduct to alter my own, 
 or to relax my zeal for the recovery of the sacri 
 ficed country. I have helped to reject the dis 
 union treaty ; and that obstacle being removed, I 
 have brought in the bill which will insure the re 
 covery of Texas, with peace and honor, and with 
 the Union." 
 
 It is important to remember, in speaking of his 
 afterward voting to admit Texas, that this was 
 what he had all along favored, and that he now 
 opposed it only on account of special circum- 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 289 
 
 stances. In both cases he was right ; for, slavery 
 or no slavery, it would have been a most unfor 
 tunate thing for us, and still worse for the Texans, 
 if the latter had been allowed to develop into an 
 independent nation. Benton deserves the great 
 est credit for the way in which he withstood the 
 ignorant popular feeling of his own section in 
 regard to Tyler s proposed treaty; and not only 
 did he show himself able to withstand pressure 
 from behind him, but also prompt in resenting 
 threats made by outsiders. When McDuffie told 
 him that the remembrance of his attitude on the 
 bill would, to his harm, meet him on some future 
 day, like the ghost that appeared to Brutus at 
 Philippi, he answered: 
 
 I can promise the ghost and his backers that if the 
 fight goes against me at this new Philippi, with which 
 I am threatened, and the enemies of the American 
 Union triumph over me as the enemies of Roman lib 
 erty triumphed over Brutus and Cassius, I shall not 
 fall upon my sword, as Brutus did, though Cassius be 
 killed, and run it through my own body; but I shall 
 save it and save myself for another day and another 
 use, for the day when the battle of the disunion of 
 these States is to be fought, not with words but with 
 iron, and for the hearts of the traitors who appear in 
 arms against their country. 
 
 Such a stern, defiant, almost prophetic warning 
 did more to help the Union cause than volumes of 
 elaborate constitutional argument, and it would 
 19 
 
290 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 have been well for the Northern States had they 
 possessed men as capable of uttering it as was the 
 iron Westerner. Benton always showed at his 
 best when the honor or integrity of the nation was 
 menaced, whether by foes from without or by foes 
 from within. On such occasions his metal always 
 rang true. When there was any question of break 
 ing faith with the Union, or of treachery toward 
 it, his figure always loomed up as one of the chief 
 in the ranks of its defenders; and his follies and 
 weaknesses sink out of sight when we think of the 
 tremendous debt which the country owes him for 
 his sorely tried and unswerving loyalty. 
 
 The treaty alluded to by Benton in his speech 
 against the abortive secession movement was the 
 one made with Texas while Calhoun was secretary 
 of state, and submitted to the Senate by Tyler, 
 with a message as extraordinary as some of his 
 secretary s utterances. The treaty was preposter 
 ously unjust and iniquitous. It provided for the 
 annexation of Texas, and also of a very large por 
 tion of Mexico, to which Texas had no possible 
 title, and this without consulting Mexico in any 
 way whatever ; Calhoun advancing the plea that it 
 was necessary to act immediately on account of the 
 danger that Texas was in of falling under the 
 control of England, and therefore having slavery 
 abolished within its borders ; while Tyler blandly 
 announced that we had acquired title to the ceded 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 291 
 
 territory which belonged to one power and was 
 ceded to us by another through his signature to 
 the treaty, and that, pending its ratification by 
 the Senate, he had despatched troops to the scene 
 of action to protect the ceded land "from inva 
 sion," the territory to be thus protected from 
 Mexican invasion being then and always having 
 been part and parcel of Mexico. 
 
 Benton opposed the ratification of the treaty in 
 a very strong speech, during which he mercilessly 
 assailed both Tyler and Calhoun. The conduct of 
 the former he dismissed with the contemptuous 
 remark that he had committed "a caper about 
 equal to the mad freaks with which the unfor 
 tunate Emperor Paul, of Russia, was accustomed 
 to astonish Europe;" and roughly warned him to 
 be careful how he tried to imitate Jackson s 
 methods, because in heroic imitations there was 
 no middle ground, and if he failed to fill the role of 
 hero he would then perforce find himself playing 
 that of harlequin. Calhoun received more atten 
 tion, for he was far more worthy of a foeman s 
 steel than was his nominal superior, and Benton 
 exposed at length the wilful exaggeration and the 
 perversion of the truth of which the Carolinian 
 had been guilty in trying to raise the alarm of 
 English interference in Texas, for the purpose 
 of excusing the haste with which the treaty was 
 carried through. 
 
292 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 He showed at length the outrage we should in 
 flict upon Mexico by seizing "two thousand miles 
 of her territory, without a word of explanation 
 with her, and by virtue of a treaty with Texas to 
 which she was no party;" and he conclusively 
 proved, making use of his own extensive acquaint 
 ance with history, especially American history, 
 that the old Texas, the only territory that the 
 Texans themselves or we could claim with any 
 shadow of right, made but a fraction of the terri 
 tory now "ceded" to us. He laughed at the idea 
 of calling the territory Texas, and speaking of its 
 forcible cutting off as re-annexation, "Humboldt 
 calls it New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and 
 Nuevo Santander; and the civilized world may 
 qualify this r^-annexation by some odious and 
 terrible epithet . . . robbery;" then he went on 
 to draw a biting contrast between our treatment 
 of Mexico and our treatment of England. "Would 
 we take two thousand miles of Canada in the same 
 way? I presume not. And why not? Why not 
 treat Great Britain and Mexico alike? Why not 
 march up to fifty-four forty as courageously as 
 we march upon the Rio Grande? Because Great 
 Britain is powerful and Mexico weak, a reason 
 which may fail in policy as much as in morals." 
 Also he ridiculed the flurry of fear into which the 
 Southern slaveholders affected to be cast by the 
 dread of England s hostility to slavery, when they 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 293 
 
 had just acquiesced in making a treaty with her 
 by which we bound ourselves to help to put down 
 the slave trade. He then stated his own position, 
 showing why he wished us to have the original 
 Texan lands, if we could get them honorably, and 
 without robbing Mexico of new territory ; and at 
 the same time sneered at Calhoun and Tyler be 
 cause they had formerly favored the Monroe 
 treaty, by which we abandoned our claims to 
 them: 
 
 We want Texas, that is to say, the Texas of La 
 Salle; and we want it for great natural reasons, 
 obvious as day, and permanent as nature. We want 
 it because it is geographically appurtenant to our 
 division of North America, essential to our political, 
 commercial, and social system, and because it would 
 be detrimental and injurious to us to have it fall into 
 the hands or sink under the domination of any foreign 
 power. For these reasons I was against sacrificing 
 the country when it was thrown away, and thrown 
 away by those who are now so suddenly possessed of 
 a fury to get it back. For these reasons, I am for 
 getting it back whenever it can be done with peace 
 and honor, or even at the price of just war against any 
 intrusive European power; but I am against all dis 
 guise and artifice, against all pretexts, and espe 
 cially against weak and groundless pretexts, discredit 
 able to ourselves and offensive to others, too thin and 
 shallow not to be seen through by every beholder, and 
 merely invented to cover unworthy purposes. 
 
 The treaty was rejected by an overwhelming 
 
294 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 vote, although Buchanan led a few of his time 
 serving comrades from the North to the support 
 of the extreme Southern element. Benton then 
 tried, but failed, to get through a bill providing 
 for a joint agreement between Mexico, Texas, and 
 the United States to settle definitely all boundary 
 questions. Meanwhile the presidential election 
 occurred, with the result already mentioned. The 
 separatist and annexationist Democrats, the ex 
 treme slavery wing of the party, defeated Van 
 Buren and nominated Polk, who was their man; 
 the Whigs nominated Clay, who was heartily 
 opposed to all the schemes of the disunion and 
 extreme slavery men, and who, if elected, while 
 he might very properly have consented to the 
 admission of Texas with its old boundaries, would 
 never have brought on a war nor have attempted 
 to add a vast extent of new slave territory to 
 the Union. Clay would have been elected, and 
 the slavery disunionists defeated, if in the very 
 nick of time the Abolitionists had not stepped in 
 to support the latter, and by their blindness in 
 supporting Birney given the triumph to their own 
 most bitter opponents. Then the Abolitionists, 
 having played their only card, and played it badly, 
 had to sit still and see what evil their acts had pro 
 duced; they had accomplished just as much as 
 men generally do accomplish when they dance to 
 the tune that their worst foes play. 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 295 
 
 Folk s election gave an enormous impulse to the 
 annexation movement, and made it doubly and 
 trebly difficult for any one to withstand it. The 
 extreme disunion and slavery men, of course, 
 hated Benton, himself a South westerner from a 
 slaveholding State, with peculiar venom, on ac 
 count of his attitude, very justly regarding him 
 as the main obstacle in their path; and the din 
 and outcry raised against all who opposed the 
 schemes of the intriguers was directed with espe 
 cial fury against the Missourian He was accused 
 of being allied to the Whigs, of wishing to break 
 up the Democracy, and of many other things. 
 Indeed, Benton s own people were very largely 
 against him, and it must always be remembered 
 that whereas Northeastern statesmen were certain 
 to be on the popular side in taking a stand against 
 the extreme pro-slavery men, Benton s position 
 was often just the reverse. With them it was 
 politic to do right ; with him it was not ; and for 
 this reason the praise awarded the latter should 
 be beyond measure greater than that awarded to 
 the former. 
 
 Still, there can be little question that he was 
 somewhat, even although only slightly, influenced 
 by the storm of which he had to bear the brunt ; 
 indeed, he would have been more than human if 
 he had not been ; and probably this outside pres 
 sure was one among the causes that induced him 
 
296 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 to accept a compromise in the matter, which took 
 effect just before Polk was inaugurated. The 
 House of Representatives had passed a resolution 
 giving the consent of Congress to the admission 
 of Texas as a State, and allowing it the privilege of 
 forming four additional States out of its territory, 
 whenever it should see fit. The line of the Mis 
 souri Compromise, 36 30 , was run through this 
 new territory, slavery being prohibited in the lands 
 lying north of it, and permissible or not, according 
 to the will of the State seeking admission, in those 
 lying south of it. Benton meanwhile had intro 
 duced a bill merely providing that negotiations 
 should be entered into with Texas for its admis 
 sion, the proposed treaty or articles of agreement 
 to be submitted to the Senate or to Congress. He 
 thereby kept the control in the hands of the legis 
 lature, which the joint resolution did not; and 
 moreover, as he said in his speech, he wished to 
 provide for due consideration being shown Mexico 
 in the arrangement of the boundary, and for the 
 matter being settled by commissioners. 
 
 Neither resolution nor bill could get through by 
 itself ; and accordingly it was proposed to combine 
 both into one measure, leaving the President free 
 to choose either plan. To this proposition Benton 
 finally consented, it being understood that, as only 
 three days of Tyler s term remained, the execution 
 of the act would be left to the incoming President, 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 297 
 
 and that the latter would adopt Benton s plans. 
 The friends of the admission of Texas assured the 
 doubtful voters that such would be the case. Polk 
 himself gave full assurance that he would appoint 
 a commission, as provided by Benton s bill, if 
 passed, with the House resolution as an alterna 
 tive; and McDuffie, Calhoun s friend, and the 
 senator from South Carolina, announced without 
 reserve that Calhoun for Tyler need not be con 
 sidered in the matter, after it had been committed 
 to the great nullifier would not have the " audac 
 ity" to try to take the settlement of the question 
 away from the President who was to be inaugu 
 rated on the fourth of March. On the strength of 
 these assurances, which, if made good, would, of 
 course, have rendered the "alternative" a merely 
 nominal one, Benton supported the measure, which 
 was then passed. Contrary to all expectation, Cal 
 houn promptly acted upon the legislative clause, 
 and Polk made no effort to undo what the former 
 had done. This caused intense chagrin and anger 
 to the Bentonians ; but they should certainly have 
 taken such a contingency into account, and though 
 they might with much show of reason say that 
 they had been tricked into acting as they had 
 done, yet it is probable that the immense pressure 
 from behind had made Benton too eager to follow 
 any way he could find that would take him out of 
 the position into which his conscience had led him. 
 
298 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 No amount of pressure would have made him de 
 liberately sanction a wrong ; but it did render him 
 a little less wary in watching to see that the right 
 was not infringed upon. It was most natural that 
 he should be anxious to find a common ground for 
 himself and his constituents to stand on ; but it is 
 to be regretted that this anxiety to find a common 
 ground should have made him willing to trust 
 blindly to vague pledges and promises, which he 
 ought to have known would not be held in the 
 least binding by those on whose behalf they were 
 supposed to be made. 
 
 Acting under this compromise measure Texas 
 was admitted, and the foundation for our war with 
 Mexico was laid. Calhoun, under whom this was 
 done, nevertheless sincerely regretted the war 
 itself, and freely condemned Folk s administration 
 for bringing it on ; his own position being that he 
 desired to obtain without a war what it was im 
 possible we should get except at the cost of one. 
 Benton, who had all along consistently opposed 
 doing a wrong to Mexico, attacked the whole war 
 party, and in a strong and bitter speech accused 
 Calhoun of being the cause of the contest ; show 
 ing plainly that, whatever the ex-secretary of state 
 might say in regard to the acts immediately pre 
 cipitating the conflict, he himself was responsible 
 as being in truth their original cause. While 
 stating his conviction, however, that Calhoun was 
 
Abolitionists and Slave Barons 299 
 
 the real author of the war, Benton added that he 
 did not believe that war was his object, although 
 an inevitable incident of the course he had pur 
 sued. 
 
 Although heartily opposed to the war in its 
 origin, Benton very properly believed in prose 
 cuting it with the utmost vigor when once we were 
 fairly in; and it was mainly owing to him that 
 the proposed policy of a "masterly inactivity" 
 was abandoned, and the scheme of pushing 
 straight for the city of Mexico adopted in its stead. 
 Indeed, it was actually proposed to make him 
 lieutenant-general, and therefore the commander- 
 in -chief of our forces in Mexico ; but this was de 
 feated in the Senate, very fortunately, as it would 
 have been a great outrage upon Scott, Taylor, and 
 every other soldier with real military training. It 
 seems extraordinary that Benton himself should 
 not have seen the absurdity and wrong of such a 
 proposition. 
 
 The wonderful hardihood and daring shown in 
 the various expeditions against Mexico, especially 
 in those whereby her northwest territory was 
 wrested from her, naturally called forth all Ben- 
 ton s sympathy; and one of his best speeches was 
 that made to welcome Doniphan s victorious vol 
 unteers after their return home from their famous 
 march to Chihuahua. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SLAVERY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES. 
 
 HARDLY was Polk elected before it became 
 evident to Benton and the other Jack- 
 sonians that the days of the old Union 
 or Nationalist Democracy were over, and that the 
 separatist and disunion elements within the party 
 had obtained the upper hand. The first sign of 
 the new order of things was the displacement of 
 Blair, editor of the Globe, the Democratic news 
 paper organ. Blair was a strong Unionist, and 
 had been bitterly hostile to Calhoun and the Nulli- 
 fiers. He had also opposed Tyler, the representa 
 tive of those states -rights and separatist Demo 
 crats, who by their hostility to Jackson had been 
 temporarily driven into the Whig camp, and who, 
 finding themselves in very uncongenial society, 
 and seeing, moreover, that their own principles 
 were gradually coming to the front in the old 
 party, had begun drifting back again into it. 
 Polk s chances of election were so precarious that 
 he was most anxious to conciliate the separatists ; 
 besides which he at heart sympathized with their 
 views, and had himself been brought forward in 
 the Democratic convention to beat the National 
 candidate, Van Buren. Moreover, Tyler with- 
 
 300 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 301 
 
 drew from the contest in his favor; in part pay 
 ment for which help, soon after the election, Blair 
 was turned out, and Ritchie, of Virginia, a man 
 whose views suited the new Democratic leaders, 
 was put in his place ; to the indignation not only 
 of Benton, but also of Jackson himself, then almost 
 on his death-bed. Of course the break between 
 the two wings was as yet by no means complete. 
 Polk needed the Union Democrats, and the latter 
 were still in good party standing. Benton him 
 self, as has been seen, was offered the command of 
 all the forces in Mexico, but the governmental 
 policy and the attitude of the party in Congress 
 after 1844 were widely different from what they 
 had been while Jackson s influence was supreme, 
 or while the power he left behind him was wielded 
 by a knot of Union men. 
 
 From this time the slavery question dwarfed all 
 others, and was the one with which Benton, as well 
 as other statesmen, had mainly to deal. He had 
 been very loath to acknowledge that it was ever to 
 become of such overshadowing importance ; until 
 late in his life he had not realized that, interwoven 
 with the disunionist movement, it had grown so 
 as to become in reality the one and only question 
 before the people ; but, this once thoroughly under 
 stood, he henceforth devoted his tremendous ener 
 gies to the struggle with it. He possessed such 
 phenomenal power of application and of study, 
 
302 Thomas Hart Beaton 
 
 and his capacity for and his delight in work were 
 so extraordinary, that he was able at the same 
 time to grapple with many other subjects of im 
 portance, and to present them in a way that 
 showed he had thoroughly mastered them both in 
 principle and detail, as witness his speech in 
 favor of giving the control of the coast survey to 
 the navy; but henceforth the importance of his 
 actions lay in their relation to the slavery exten 
 sion movements. 
 
 He had now entered on what may fairly be 
 called the heroic part of his career; for it would 
 be difficult to choose any other word to express 
 our admiration for the unflinching and defiant 
 courage with which, supported only by conscience 
 and by his loving loyalty to the Union, he bat 
 tled for the losing side, although by so doing he 
 jeopardized and eventually ruined his political 
 prospects, being finally, as punishment for his 
 boldness in opposing the dominant faction of the 
 Missouri Democracy, turned out of the Senate, 
 wherein he had passed nearly half his life. In 
 deed, his was one of those natures that show better 
 in defeat than in victory. In his career there were 
 many actions that must command our unqualified 
 admiration; such were his hostility to the Nulli- 
 fiers, wherein, taking into account his geographical 
 location and his refusal to compromise, he did 
 better than any other public man, not even except- 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 303 
 
 ing Jackson and Webster; his belief in honest 
 money; and his attitude toward all questions 
 involving the honor or the maintenance and ex 
 tension of the Union. But in all these matters he 
 was backed more or less heartily by his State, and 
 he had served four terms in the federal Senate as 
 the leading champion and representative, not 
 alone of Missouri, but also of the entire West. 
 When, however, the slavery question began to 
 enter upon its final stage, Benton soon found him 
 self opposed to a large and growing faction of the 
 Missouri Democracy, which increased so rapidly 
 that it soon became dominant. But he never for 
 an instant yielded his convictions, even when he 
 saw the ground being thus cut from under his feet, 
 fighting for the right as sturdily as ever, facing his 
 fate fearlessly, and going down without a murmur. 
 The contrast between the conduct toward the 
 slavery disunionists of this Democrat from a slave- 
 holding State, with a hostile majority at home 
 against him, and the conduct of Webster, a Whig, 
 enthusiastically backed by his own free State, in 
 the same issue, is a painful one for the latter. In 
 deed, on any moral point, Benton need have no 
 cause to fear comparison with any of his great 
 rivals in the political arena. During his career, 
 the United States Senate was perhaps the most 
 influential, and certainly the ablest legislative body 
 in the world; and after Jackson s presidency 
 
304 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 came to an end the really great statesmen 
 and political leaders of the country were to be 
 found in it, and not in the executive chair. The 
 period during which the great Missourian was so 
 prominent a figure in our politics, and which lasted 
 up to the time of the Civil War, might very appro 
 priately be known in our history as the time of the 
 supremacy of the Senate. Such senators as Ben- 
 ton, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, and later on 
 Douglas, Seward, and Sumner, fairly towered 
 above presidents like the obscure Southerners, 
 Tyler and Polk, or the truckling, time-serving 
 Northern politicians, Pierce and Buchanan. Dur 
 ing the long interval coming between the two 
 heroic ages of American history, the age of Wash 
 ington and Franklin, and the age of Lincoln and 
 Grant, it was but rarely that the nation gave its 
 greatest gift to its best or its greatest son. 
 
 Benton had come into the Senate at the same 
 time that Missouri was admitted into the Union, 
 with thanks, therefore, to the same measure, the 
 Missouri Compromise bill. This shut out slavery 
 from all territory north of the line of 36 30 , and 
 did not make it obligatory even where it was per 
 missible; and the immediate cause of Benton s 
 downfall was his courage and persistency in de 
 fending the terms of this compromise from the 
 attacks of the Southern slavery extensionists and 
 disunionists. The pro-slavery feeling was running 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 305 
 
 ever higher and higher throughout the South ; and 
 his stand on this question aroused the most furious 
 anger among a constantly increasing number of 
 his constituents, and made him the target for 
 bitter and savage assaults on the part of his foes, 
 the spirit of hostility against him being carried to 
 such length as finally almost to involve him in an 
 open brawl on the floor of the Senate with one of 
 his colleagues, Foote, who, like his fellow fire- 
 eaters, found that Benton was not a man who 
 could be bullied. Indeed, his iron will and mag 
 nificent physique both fitted him admirably for 
 such a contest against odds, and he seems to have 
 entered into it with a positive zest. 
 
 The political Abolitionists having put Polk in 
 power, their action bore fruit after its kind, and 
 very soon the question had to be faced, as to what 
 should be done with the immense tracts of terri 
 tory conquered from Mexico. Benton opposed, as 
 being needless and harmful, the Wilmot Proviso, 
 which forbade the introduction of slavery into any 
 part of the territory so acquired. He argued, and 
 produced in evidence the laws and Constitution of 
 Mexico, that the soil of California and Mexico was 
 already free, and that as slavery would certainly 
 never be, and indeed could never be, introduced 
 into either territory, the agitation of the question 
 could only result in harm. Calhoun and the other 
 extreme slavery leaders welcomed the discussion 
 
 20 
 
306 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 over this proviso, which led Benton to remark that 
 the Abolitionists and the Nullifiers were necessary 
 to each other, the two blades of a pair of shears, 
 neither of which could cut until they were joined 
 together. 
 
 When Calhoun introduced his famous resolutions 
 declaring that Congress had no power to interfere 
 with slavery in the territories, and therefore no 
 power to prevent the admission of new States ex 
 cept on the condition of their prohibiting slavery 
 within their limits, Benton promptly and strongly 
 opposed them as being firebrands needlessly thrown 
 to inflame the passions of the extremists, and, 
 moreover, as being disunionist in tendency. The 
 following is his own account of what then took 
 place : " Mr. Calhoun said he had expected the sup 
 port of Mr. Benton as the representative of a 
 slaveholding State. Mr. Benton answered that 
 it was impossible that he could have expected such 
 a thing. Then, said Mr. Calhoun, I shall know 
 where to find that gentleman/ To which Mr. Ben- 
 ton said : I shall be found in the right place, on 
 the side of my country and the Union. This an 
 swer, given on that day and on the spot, is one of 
 the incidents of his life which Mr. Benton will wish 
 posterity to remember." We can easily pardon 
 the vanity which wishes and hopes that such an 
 answer, given under such conditions, may be re 
 membered. Indeed, Benton s attitude through- 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 307 
 
 out all this period should never be forgotten ; and 
 the words he spoke in answer to Calhoun marked 
 him as the leader among those Southerners who 
 held the nation above any section thereof, even 
 their own, and whose courage and self-sacrifice in 
 the cause of the Union entitled them to more praise 
 than by right belongs to any equal number of 
 Northerners; those Southerners who in the Civil 
 War furnished Farragut, Thomas, Bristow, and 
 countless others as loyal as they were brave. The 
 effect of Benton s teachings and the still remaining 
 influence of his intense personality did more than 
 aught else to keep Missouri within the Union, when 
 her sister States went out of it. 
 
 Benton always regarded much of the slavery 
 agitation in the South as being political in char 
 acter, and the result of the schemes of ambitious 
 and unscrupulous leaders. He believed that Cal 
 houn had introduced a set of resolutions that were 
 totally uncalled for, simply for the purpose of car 
 rying a question to the slave States on which they 
 could be formed into a unit against the free States ; 
 and there is much to be said in support of his view. 
 Certainly the resolutions mark the beginning of the 
 first great slavery agitation throughout the South 
 ern States, which was engineered and guided for 
 their own ends by politicians like Jefferson Davis. 
 These resolutions were absolutely inconsistent with 
 many of Calhoun s previous declarations ; and that 
 
308 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 fact was also sharply commented on by Benton in 
 his speeches and writings. He also criticized with 
 caustic severity Calhoun s statements that he 
 wished to save the Union by forcing the North to 
 take a position so agreeable to the South as to 
 make the latter willing not to separate . He showed 
 that Calhoun s proposed "constitutional" and 
 "peaceable" methods of bringing this about by 
 prohibiting commercial intercourse between the 
 two sections would themselves be flagrant breaches 
 of the Constitution and acts of disunion, all the 
 more so as it was proposed to discriminate in favor 
 of the Northwest as against the Northeast. Cal- 
 houn wished to bring about a convention of the 
 Southern States, in order to secure the necessary 
 unity of action ; and one of the main obstacles to 
 the success of the plan was Missouri s refusal to 
 take part in it. Great efforts were made to win 
 her over, and to beat down Benton ; the extreme 
 pro-slavery men honoring him with a hatred more 
 intense than that they harbored toward any North 
 erner. Some of Calhoun s recent biographers have 
 credited him with being really a Union man at 
 heart. It seems absolutely impossible that this 
 could have been the case ; and the supposition is 
 certainly not compatible with the belief that he 
 retained his right senses. Benton characterizes 
 his system of slavery agitation, very truthfully, as 
 being one to force issues upon the North under 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 309 
 
 the pretext of self-defense, and to sectionalize the 
 South, preparatory to disunion, through the in 
 strumentality of sectional conventions, composed 
 wholly of delegates from the slaveholding States." 
 
 When the question of the admission of Oregon 
 came up, Calhoun attempted to apply to it a 
 dogma wholly at variance with all his former posi 
 tions on the subject. This was the theory of the 
 self -extension of the slavery part of the Constitu 
 tion to the territories; that is, he held that the 
 exclusion of slavery from any part of the new ter 
 ritory was itself a subversion of the Constitution. 
 Such a dogma was so monstrous in character, so 
 illogical, so inconsistent with all his former theo 
 ries, and so absolutely incompatible with the pres 
 ervation of the Union, that it renders it impossible 
 to believe that his asseverations of devotion to the 
 latter were uttered honestly or in good faith. Most 
 modern readers will agree with Benton that he 
 deliberately worked to bring about secession. 
 
 Meanwhile the Missourian had gained an ally of 
 his own stamp in the Senate. This was Houston, 
 from the new State of Texas, w r ho represented in 
 that State, like Andrew Jackson in Tennessee, and 
 Benton himself in Missouri, the old Nationalist 
 Democracy, which held the preservation of the 
 Union dear above all other things. Houston was 
 a man after Benton s own heart, and was thor 
 oughly Jacksonian in type. He was rough, honest, 
 
310 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 and fearless, a devoted friend and a vengeful 
 enemy, and he promised that combination of stub 
 born courage and capacity of devotion to an ideal 
 that renders a man an invaluable ally in a fight 
 against odds for principle. 
 
 After much discussion and amendment, the 
 Oregon bill, containing a radical anti-slavery 
 clause, passed both houses and became a law in 
 spite of the violent opposition of some of the 
 Southerners, headed by Calhoun,who announced 
 that the great strife between the North and the 
 South was ended, and that the time had come for 
 the South to show that, though she prized the 
 Union, yet there were matters which she regarded 
 as of greater importance than its preservation. 
 His ire was most fiercely excited by the action of 
 Benton and Houston in supporting the bill, and 
 after his return to South Carolina he denounced 
 them by name as traitors to the South, "a 
 denunciation," says Benton, " which they took 
 for a distinction ; as what he called treason to the 
 South they knew to be allegiance to the Union." 
 When it was proposed to extend by bill the Consti 
 tution of the United States into the territories, 
 with a view to carrying slavery into California, 
 Utah, and New Mexico, Benton was again opposed 
 to Calhoun. As a matter of course, too, he was 
 the stoutest opponent of the Southern convention 
 and other similar disunion movements that were 
 
Housi 
 
 
Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 v-oted friend and a vengeful 
 
 : that combination of stub- 
 
 ;e and capacity of devotion to an idea! 
 
 s a man an invaluable ally in a fight 
 
 r principle. 
 
 discussion and amendment, the 
 
 .lining a radical anti-slavery 
 
 rouses and became a law in 
 
 f : 4 >n of some of the 
 
 nn, who announced 
 
 TJH< ~n the North and the 
 
 I:*-, trrae had come for 
 .. she prized the 
 
 rv o.s ,- he r^j?"""- 
 
 ..ttWfcr . 
 
 His y ^-v iciion of 
 
 .rig the bill, and 
 
 >lina he denounced 
 
 tie as traitors to the South, : a 
 
 says Benton, "which they took 
 
 . % ; as what he called treason to the 
 
 w to be allegiance to the Union." 
 
 VV / o extend by bill the Consti- 
 
 \* 1 v into the territories, 
 
 wit o carrying slavery into Calif oniia. 
 
 Utah, and New Mexico, Benton was again opposed 
 
 to Calhcmn. As a matter of course, too, he was 
 
 the stoutest opponent of the Southern convention 
 
 and otlifct ..similar disunion movements that w<;re 
 
Samuel Houston. 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 311 
 
 beginning to take shape throughout the South, 
 instigated by the two rank secession States of 
 South Carolina and Mississippi. 
 
 Most of the momentous questions springing out 
 of the war with Mexico were left by Polk as lega 
 cies to his successor, when the former went out of 
 office, after an administration that Benton criti 
 cized with extreme sharpness, although he tried to 
 shield the President by casting the blame for his 
 actions upon his cabinet advisers ; characterizing 
 the Mexican War as one of " speculation and in 
 trigue," and as the "great blot" of his four years 
 term of office, and ridiculing the theory that we 
 were acting in self-defense, or that our soil had 
 been invaded. In 1 848 the Democrats nominated 
 Cass, a Northern pro-slavery politician of mod 
 erate abilities, and the Whigs put up and elected 
 old Zachary Taylor, the rough frontier soldier and 
 Louisiana slaveholder. The political Abolitionists 
 again took a hand in the contest, but this time 
 abandoned their abolition theories, substituting 
 instead thereof the prohibition of slavery in the 
 new territories. They derived much additional 
 importance from their alliance with a disap 
 pointed politician in the pivotal State of New 
 York; and in this case, in sharp contrast to the 
 result in 1844, their actions worked good, and not 
 evil. Van Buren, chagrined and angered by the 
 way he was treated by the regular Democrats, 
 
312 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 organized a revolt against them, and used the 
 banner of the new Free Soil party as one tinder 
 which to rally his adherents. This movement was 
 of consequence mainly in New York, ana-, there it 
 soon became little more than a mere fight between 
 the two sections of the Democracy. Benton him 
 self visited this all-important State to try to patch 
 up matters, but he fortunately failed. The fac 
 tions proved very nearly equal in strength; and 
 as a consequence the Whigs carried the State and 
 the election, and once more held the reins of gov 
 ernment. 
 
 When a Louisiana slaveholder was thus installed 
 in the White House, the extreme Southern men 
 may have thought that they were sure of him as 
 an ally in their fight against freedom. But, if so, 
 they soon found they had reckoned without their 
 host, for the election of Taylor affords a curious, 
 though not solitary, instance in which the Amer 
 ican people builded better than they knew in 
 choosing a chief executive. Nothing whatever 
 was known of his political theories, and the Whigs 
 nominated him simply because he was a successful 
 soldier, likely to take the popular fancy. But 
 once elected he turned out to have the very quali 
 ties we then most needed in a president, a stout 
 heart, shrewd common sense, and thorough-going 
 devotion to the Union. Although with widely 
 different training from Benton, and nominally dif- 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 313 
 
 fering from him in politics, he was yet of the same 
 stamp both in character and principles ; both were 
 Union Southerners, not in the least afraid of 
 openly asserting their opinions, and, if necessary, 
 of making them good by their acts. In his first 
 and only annual message, Taylor expressed, upon 
 all the important questions of the day, views that 
 were exactly similar to those advanced before or 
 after by Benton himself in the Senate ; and he used 
 similar emphasis and plainness of speech. He 
 declared the Union to be the greatest of blessings, 
 which he would maintain in every way against 
 whatever dangers might threaten it; he advised 
 the admission of California, which wished to come 
 in as a free State ; he thought that the Territories 
 of Utah and New Mexico should be left as they 
 were ; and he warned the Texans, who were blus 
 tering about certain alleged rights to New Mexican 
 soil, and threatening to take them by force of 
 arms, that this could not be permitted, and that 
 the matter would have to be settled by the judicial 
 authority of the United States. Benton heartily 
 indorsed the message. Naturally, it was bitterly 
 assailed by the disunionists under Calhoun; and 
 even Clay, who entirely lacked Taylor s backbone, 
 was dissatisfied with it as being too extreme in 
 tone, and conflicting with his proposed compro 
 mise measures. These same compromise measures 
 brought the Kentucky leader into conflict with 
 
314 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Benton also, especially on the point of their inter 
 fering with the immediate admission of California 
 into the Union. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss Clay s proposed 
 compromise, which was not satisfactory to the ex 
 treme Southerners, and still less so to the Union 
 ists and anti-slavery men. It consisted of five 
 different parts, relating to the recovery of fugitive 
 slaves, the suppression of the slave trade in the 
 District of Columbia, the admission of California 
 as a State, and the territorial condition of Utah 
 and New Mexico. Benton opposed it as mixing 
 up incongruous measures ; as being unjust to Cali 
 fornia, inasmuch as it confounded the question of 
 her admission with the general slavery agitation in 
 the United States ; and above all as being a con 
 cession or capitulation to the spirit of disunion 
 and secession, and therefore a repetition of the 
 error of 1833. Benton always desired to meet 
 and check any disunion movement at the very 
 outset, and, if he had had his way, would have 
 carried matters with a high hand whenever it came 
 to dealing with threats of such a proceeding ; and 
 therein he was perfectly right. In regard to the 
 proposed compromise he believed in dealing with 
 each question as it arose, beginning with the ad 
 mission of California, and refusing to have any 
 compromise at all with those who threatened 
 secession. 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 315 
 
 The slavery extensionists endeavored to have 
 the Missouri compromise line stretched on to the 
 Pacific. Benton, avowing his belief that slavery 
 was an evil, opposed this, and gave his reasons 
 why he did not wish to see the line which had 
 been used to divide free and slave soil in the 
 French or Louisiana purchase extended into the 
 lands won from Mexico. Slavery had always ex 
 isted in Louisiana, while it had been long abol 
 ished in Mexico. The Missouri compromise line, 
 extending to New Mexico and California, though 
 astronomically the same as that in Louisiana, 
 would be politically directly the opposite. One 
 went through a territory all slave, and made one 
 half free ; the other would go through territory all 
 free, and make one half slave. In fact, Benton, 
 as he grew older, unlike most of his compatriots, 
 gained a clearer insight into the effects of slavery. 
 This was shown in his comments upon Calhoun s 
 statement, made in the latter s last speech, in 
 reference to the unequal development of the North 
 and South ; which, Benton said, was partly owing 
 to the existence of "slavery itself, which he (Cal- 
 houn) was so anxious to extend." It was in this 
 same speech that Calhoun hinted at his plan for a 
 dual executive, one president from the free and 
 one from the slave States, a childish proposi 
 tion, that Benton properly treated as a simple 
 absurdity. 
 
Thomas Hart Ben ton 
 
 In his speech against the compromise, Benton 
 discussed it, section by section, with great force, 
 and with his usual blunt truthfulness. His main 
 count was the injustice done to California by de 
 laying her admittance, and making it dependent 
 upon other issues ; but he made almost as strong 
 a point against the effort to settle the claims of 
 Texas to New Mexican territory. The Texan 
 threats to use force he treated with cavalier indif 
 ference, remarking that as long as New Mexico 
 was a territory, and therefore belonged to the 
 United States, any controversy with her was a 
 controversy with the federal government, which 
 would know how to play her part by "defending 
 her territory from invasion, and her people from 
 violence," a hint that had a salutary effect upon 
 the Texans; in fact the disunionists, generally, 
 were not apt to do much more than threaten while 
 a Whig like Taylor was backed up by a Democrat 
 like Benton. He also pointed out that it was not 
 necessary, however desirable, to make a compact 
 with Texas about the boundaries, as they could 
 always be settled, whether she wished it or not, by 
 a suit before the Supreme Court; and again inti 
 mated that a little show of firmness would remove 
 all danger of a collision. "As to anything that 
 Texas or New Mexico may do in taking or relin 
 quishing possession, that is all moonshine. New 
 Mexico is the property of the United States, and 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 317 
 
 she cannot dispose of herself or any part of her 
 self, nor can Texas take her or any part of her." 
 He showed a thorough acquaintance with New 
 Mexican geography and history, and alluded to 
 the bills he had already brought in, in 1844 and 
 1850, to establish a divisional line between the 
 territory and Texas, on the longitude first of one 
 hundred and then of one hundred and two degrees. 
 He recalled the fact that before the annexation of 
 Texas, and in a bill proposing to settle all ques 
 tions with her, he had inserted a provision forever 
 prohibiting slavery in all parts of the annexed 
 territory lying west of the hundredth degree of 
 longitude. He also took the opportunity of for 
 mally stating his opposition to any form of slavery 
 extension, remarking that it was no new idea with 
 him, but dated from the time when in 1804, while 
 a law student in Tennessee, he had studied Black- 
 stone as edited by the learned Virginian, Judge 
 Tucker, who, in an appendix, treated of, and 
 totally condemned, black slavery in the United 
 States. The very difficulty, or, as he deemed it, 
 the impossibility, of getting rid of the evil, made 
 Benton all the more determined in opposing its 
 extension. "The incurability of the evil is the 
 greatest objection to the extension of slavery. If 
 it is wrong for the legislator to inflict an evil 
 which can be cured, how much more to inflict one 
 that is incurable, and against the will of the 
 
Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 people who are to endure it forever ! I quarrel with 
 no one for deeming slavery a blessing ; I deem it 
 an evil, and would neither adopt it nor impose it 
 on others." The solution of the problem of dis 
 posing of existent slavery, he confessed, seemed 
 beyond human wisdom; but "there is a wisdom 
 above human, and to that we must look. In the 
 mean time, do not extend the evil." In justifica 
 tion of his position he quoted previous actions of 
 Congress, done under the lead of Southern men, in 
 refusing again and again, down to 1807, to allow 
 slavery to be introduced into Indiana, when that 
 community petitioned for it. He also repudiated 
 strongly the whole spirit in which Clay had gotten 
 up his compromise bill, stating that he did not 
 believe in geographical parties ; that he knew no 
 North and no South, and utterly rejected any 
 slavery compromises except those to be found in 
 the Constitution. Altogether it was a great 
 speech, and his opposition was one of the main 
 causes of the defeat of Clay s measure. 
 
 Benton s position on the Wilmot Proviso is 
 worth giving in his own words: "That measure 
 was rejected again as heretofore, and by the votes 
 of those who were opposed to extending slavery 
 into the territories, because it was unnecessary and 
 inoperative, irritating to the slave States, with 
 out benefit to the free States, a mere work of 
 supererogation, of which the fruit was discontent. 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 319 
 
 It was rejected, not on the principle of non-inter 
 vention; not on the principle of leaving to the 
 territories to do as they pleased on the question, 
 but because there had been intervention ; because 
 Mexican law and constitution had intervened, 
 had abolished slavery by law in those dominions ; 
 which law would remain in force until repealed by 
 Congress. All that the opponents to the exten 
 sion of slavery had to do, then, was to do nothing. 
 And they did nothing." 
 
 Before California was admitted into the Union 
 old Zachary Taylor had died, leaving behind him 
 a name that will always be remembered among our 
 people. He was neither a great statesman nor yet 
 a great commander ; but he was an able and gal 
 lant soldier, a loyal and upright public servant, 
 and a most kindly, honest, and truthful man. 
 His death was a greater loss to the country than 
 perhaps the people ever knew. 
 
 The bill for the admission of California as a 
 free State, heartily sustained by Benton, was made 
 a test question by the Southern disunionists ; but 
 on this occasion they were thoroughly beaten. 
 The great struggle was made over a proposition to 
 limit the southern boundary of the State to the 
 line of 36 30 , and to extend the Missouri line 
 through to the Pacific, so as to authorize the ex 
 istence of slavery in all the territory south of that 
 latitude. This was defeated by a vote of thirty- 
 
320 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 two to twenty-four. Not only Benton, but also 
 Spruance and Wales of Delaware, and Underwood 
 of Kentucky, joined with the representatives from 
 the free States in opposing it. Had it not been 
 for the action of these four slave state senators in 
 leaving their associates, the vote would have been 
 tie; and their courage and patriotism should be 
 remembered. The bill was then passed by a vote 
 of thirty-four to eighteen, two other Southern sen 
 ators, Houston of Texas and Bell of Tennessee, 
 voting for it, in addition to the four already men 
 tioned. After its passage, ten of the senators who 
 had voted against it, including, of course, Jefferson 
 Davis, and also Benton s own colleague from Mis 
 souri, Atchison, joined in a protest against what 
 had been done, ending with a thinly veiled threat 
 of disunion, "dissolution of the confederacy," 
 as they styled it. Benton stoutly and successfully 
 opposed allowing this protest to be received or 
 entered upon the journal, condemning it, with a 
 frankness that very few of his fellow senators 
 would have dared to copy, as being sectional and 
 disunion in form, and therefore unfit even for 
 preservation on the records. 
 
 When the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was 
 passed, through the help of some Northern votes, 
 Benton refused to support it; and this was the 
 last act of importance that he performed as United 
 States senator. He had risen and grown steadily 
 
Slavery in the New Territories 321 
 
 all through his long term of service ; and during 
 its last period he did greater service to the nation 
 than any of his fellow senators. Compare his 
 stand against the slavery extremists and dis- 
 unionists, such as Calhoun, with the position of 
 Webster at the time of his famous seventh of 
 March speech, or with that of Clay when he 
 brought in his compromise bill! In fact, as the 
 times grew more troublesome, he grew steadily 
 better able to do good work in them. 
 
 It is this fact of growth that especially marks 
 his career. No other American statesman, except 
 John Quincy Adams, certainly neither of his 
 great contemporaries, Webster and Clay, kept 
 doing continually better work throughout his term 
 of public service, or showed himself able to rise to 
 a higher level at the very end than at the begin 
 ning. Yet such was the case with Benton. He 
 always rose to meet a really great emergency ; and 
 his services to the nation grew steadily in impor 
 tance to the very close of his life. Whereas Web 
 ster and Clay passed their zenith and fell, he kept 
 rising all the time. 
 
 21 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE LOSING FIGHT. 
 
 BENTON had now finished his fifth and last 
 term in the United States Senate. He had 
 been chosen senator from Missouri before 
 she was admitted into the Union, and had re 
 mained such for thirty years. During all that 
 time the State had been steadily Democratic, the 
 large Whig minority never being able to get con 
 trol ; but on the question of the extension of slav 
 ery the dominant party itself began at this time to 
 break into two factions. Hitherto Benton had 
 been the undisputed leader of the Democracy, but 
 now the pro-slavery and disunionist Democrats 
 organized a very powerful opposition to him ; while 
 he still received the enthusiastic support of an 
 almost equally numerous body of followers. Al 
 though the extension of slavery and the preserva 
 tion of the Union were the two chief and vital 
 points on which the factions differed, yet the 
 names by which they designated each other were 
 adopted in consequence of their differing also on a 
 third and only less important one. Benton was 
 such a firm believer in hard money, and a cur 
 rency of gold and silver, as to have received the 
 nickname of " Old Bullion," and his followers were 
 
 322 
 
The Losing Fight 323 
 
 called "hards;" his opponents were soft money 
 men, in addition to being secessionists and pro- 
 slavery fanatics, and took the name of "softs." 
 The principles of the Bentonians were right, and 
 those of their opponents wrong; but for all that 
 the latter gradually gained upon the former. 
 Finally, in the midst of Benton s fight against 
 the extension of slavery into the territories, the 
 "softs" carried the Missouri legislature, and 
 passed a series of resolutions based upon those 
 of Calhoun. These were most truculent and dis 
 loyal in tone, demanding that slavery be per 
 mitted to exist in all the new States to be ad 
 mitted, and instructing their senators to vote 
 accordingly. These resolutions were presented 
 in the Senate by Benton s colleague from Missouri, 
 Atchison, who was rather hostile to him and to 
 every other friend of the Union, and later on 
 achieved disreputable notoriety as a leader of the 
 "border ruffians" in the affrays on the soil of 
 Kansas. Benton at once picked up the glove that 
 had been flung down. He utterly refused to obey 
 the resolutions, denounced them savagely as being 
 treasonable and offensive in the highest degree, 
 asserted that they did not express the true opinions 
 of the voters of the State, and appealed from the 
 Missouri legislature to the Missouri people. 
 
 The issue between the two sides was now sharply 
 brought out, and as this took place toward the 
 
324 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 end of Benton s fifth term, the struggle to com 
 mand the legislature which should reelect him or 
 give him a successor was most exciting. Benton 
 himself took an active part in the preliminary can 
 vass . Neither faction was able to get a ma j ority of 
 the members, and the deadlock was finally broken 
 by the " softs " coming to the support of the Whigs, 
 and helping them to elect Benton s rival. Thus, 
 after serving his State faithfully and ably for 
 thirty years, he was finally turned out of the posi 
 tion which he so worthily filled, because he had 
 committed the crime of standing loyally by the 
 Union. 
 
 But the stout old Nationalist was not in the 
 least cast down or even shaken by his defeat. He 
 kept up the fight as bitterly as ever, though now 
 an old man, and in 1852 went to Congress as a 
 representative Union Democrat. For thirty years 
 he had been the autocrat of Missouri politics, and 
 had at one time wielded throughout his own State 
 a power as great as Calhoun possessed in South 
 Carolina ; greater than Webster held in Massachu 
 setts, or Clay in Kentucky. But the tide which had 
 so long flowed in his favor now turned, and for 
 the few remaining years of his life set as steadily 
 against him; yet at no time of his long public 
 career did he stand forth as honorably and promi 
 nently as during his last days, when he was show 
 ing so stern a front to his victorious foes. His love 
 
The Losing Fight 325 
 
 for work was so great that, when out of the Senate, 
 he did not find even his incessant political occupa 
 tions enough for him. During his contest for the 
 senatorship his hands had been full, for he had 
 spoken again and again throughout the entire 
 State, his carefully prepared speeches showing 
 remarkable power, and filled with scathing denun 
 ciation and invective, and biting and caustic sar 
 casm. But so soon as his defeat was assured he 
 turned his attention immediately to literature, 
 setting to work on his great " Thirty Years View," 
 of which the first volume was printed during his 
 congressional term, and was quoted on the floor 
 of the House, both by his friends and foes, during 
 the debates in which he was taking part. 
 
 In 1852, when he was elected to Congress as a 
 member of the House, he had supported Pierce for 
 the presidency against Scott, a good general, but 
 otherwise a wholly absurd and flatulent personage, 
 who was the Whig nominee. But it soon became 
 evident that Pierce was completely under the con 
 trol of the secession wing of the party, and Benton 
 thereafterward treated him with contemptuous 
 hostility, despising him, and seeing him exactly as 
 he was, a small politician, of low capacity and 
 mean surroundings, proud to act as the servile 
 tool of men worse than himself but also stronger 
 and abler. He was ever ready to do any work 
 the slavery leaders set him, and to act as their 
 
326 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 attorney in arguing in its favor, to quote Ben- 
 ton s phrase, with " undaunted mendacity, moral 
 callosity [and] mental obliquity. His last message 
 to Congress in the slavery interest Benton spoke 
 of as characteristic, and exemplifying "all the 
 modes of conveying untruths which long ages have 
 invented, direct assertion, fallacious inference, 
 equivocal phrase, and false innuendo." As he 
 entertained such views of the head of the Demo 
 cratic party, and as this same head was in hearty 
 accord with, and a good representative of the mass 
 of the rank and file politicians of the organization, 
 it is small wonder that Benton found himself, on 
 every important question that came up while he 
 was in Congress, opposed to the mass of his fellow 
 Democrats. 
 
 Although the great questions to which he de 
 voted himself, while a representative in Congress, 
 were those relating to the extension of slavery, yet 
 he also found time to give to certain other sub 
 jects, working as usual with indomitable energy, 
 and retaining his marvelous memory to the last. 
 The idea of desponding or giving up, for any cause 
 whatever, simply never entered his head. When 
 his house, containing all the manuscript and 
 papers of the nearly completed second volume of 
 his "Thirty Years View," was burned up, he did 
 not delay a minute in recommencing his work, and 
 the very next day spoke in Congress as usual. 
 
The Losing Fight 327 
 
 His speeches were showing a steady improve 
 ment ; they were not masterpieces, even at the last, 
 but in every way, especially in style, they were 
 infinitely superior to those that he had made on his 
 first entrance into public life. Of course, a man 
 with his intense pride in his country, and charac 
 terized by such a desire to see her become greater 
 and more united in every way, would naturally 
 support the proposal to build a Pacific Railroad, 
 and accordingly he argued for it at great length 
 and with force and justness, at the same time 
 opposing the propositions to build northern and 
 southern trans-continental roads as substitutes for 
 the proposed central route. He showed the char 
 acter of the land through which the road would 
 run, and the easiness of the passes across the 
 Rockies, and prophesied a rapid increase of States 
 as one of the results attendant upon its building. 
 At the end of his speech he made an elaborate 
 comparison of the courses of trade and commerce 
 at different periods of the world s history, and 
 showed that, as we had reached the Pacific coast, 
 we had finally taken a position where our trade 
 with the Oriental kingdoms, backed up by our 
 own enormous internal development, rendered us 
 more than ever independent of Europe. 
 
 In another speech he discussed very intelli 
 gently, and with his usual complete command of 
 the facts of the case, some of the contemporary 
 
328 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 Indian uprisings in the far West. He attacked our 
 whole Indian policy, showing that the corruption 
 of the Indian agents, coupled with astute aggres 
 sions, were the usual causes of our wars. Further, 
 he criticized our regular troops as being unfit to 
 cope with the savages, and advocated the forma 
 tion of companies of frontier rangers, who should 
 also be settlers, and should receive from the gov 
 ernment a bounty in land as part reward for their 
 service. Many of his remarks on our Indian policy 
 apply quite as well now as they did then, and our 
 regular soldiers are certainly not the proper oppo 
 nents for the Indians ; but Benton s military views 
 were, as a rule, the reverse of sensible, and we 
 cannot accept his denunciations of the army, and 
 especially of West Point, as being worth serious 
 consideration. His belief in the marvelous efficacy 
 of a raw militia, especially as regards war with 
 European powers, was childish, and much of his 
 feeling against the regular army officer was dic 
 tated by jealousy. He was, by all the peculiari 
 ties of his habits and education, utterly unfitted 
 for military command; and it would have been 
 an evil day for his good fame if Polk had suc 
 ceeded in having him made lieutenant-general of 
 our forces in Mexico. 
 
 His remarks upon our Indian policy were not 
 the only ones he made that would bear study even 
 yet. Certain of his speeches upon the different 
 
The Losing Fight 329 
 
 land bounty and pension bills, passed nominally in 
 the interests of veterans, but really through dema 
 gogy and the machination of speculators, could be 
 read with profit by not a few congressmen at the 
 present time. One of his utterances was: " I am 
 a friend to old soldiers . . . but not to old specu 
 lators;" and while favoring proper pension bills 
 he showed the foolishness and criminality of cer 
 tain others very clearly, together with the fact 
 that, when passed long after the services have been 
 rendered, they always fail to relieve the real suf 
 ferers, and work in the interests of unworthy out 
 siders. 
 
 But his great speech, and one of the best and 
 greatest that he ever made, was the one in opposi 
 tion to the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which was being 
 pushed through Congress by the fire-eaters and 
 their Northern pro-slavery followers. His own 
 position upon the measure was best expressed by 
 the words he used in commenting on the remarks 
 of a Georgian member: "He votes as a Southern 
 man, and votes sectionally ; I also am a Southern 
 man, but vote nationally on national questions." 
 
 The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had expressly 
 abolished slavery in the territory out of which 
 Kansas and Nebraska were carved. By the pro 
 posed bill this compromise was to be repealed, and 
 the famous doctrine of non-intervention, or "squat 
 ter sovereignty," was to take its place, the people 
 
330 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 of each territory being allowed to choose for them 
 selves whether they did or did not wish slavery. 
 Benton attacked the proposal with all the strength 
 of his frank, open nature as "a bungling attempt 
 to smuggle slavery into the territory, and through 
 out all the country, up to the Canada line and out 
 to the Rocky Mountains." He showed exhaust 
 ively the real nature of the original Missouri 
 Compromise, which, as he said, was forced by the 
 South upon the North, and which the South now 
 proposed to repeal, that it might humiliate the 
 North still further. The compromise of 1820 was, 
 he justly contended, right ; it was like the original 
 compromises of the Constitution, by which the 
 slave States were admitted to the formation of 
 the Union ; no greater concession of principle was 
 involved in the one case than in the other; and, 
 had either compromise failed, the Union would not 
 now be in existence. But the day when compro 
 mises had been necessary, or even harmless, had 
 passed. The time had come when the extension 
 of slavery was to be opposed in every constitu 
 tional way; and it was an outrage to propose to 
 extend its domain by repealing all that part of a 
 compromise measure which worked against it, 
 when the South had already long taken advantage 
 of such parts of the law as worked in its favor. 
 Said Benton: "The South divided and took half, 
 and now it will not do to claim the other half." 
 
The Losing Fight 331 
 
 Exactly as a proposition to destroy the slavery 
 compromises of the Constitution would be an open 
 attempt to destroy the Union, so, he said, the 
 attempt to abrogate the compromise of 1820 
 would be a preparation for the same ending. " I 
 have stood upon the Missouri Compromise for 
 about thirty years, and mean to stand upon it to 
 the end of my life. ... [It is] a binding covenant 
 upon both parties, and the more so upon the South, 
 as she imposed it." 
 
 The squatter sovereignty theories of Douglas he 
 treated with deserved ridicule, laughing at the idea 
 that the territories were not the actual property of 
 the nation, to be treated as the latter wished, and 
 having none of the rights of sovereign states ; and 
 he condemned even more severely the theory ad 
 vanced to the effect that Congress had no power to 
 legislate on slavery in the territories. Thus, he 
 pointed out that to admit any such theories was 
 directly to reverse the principles upon which we 
 had acted for seventy years in regard to the 
 various territories that from time to time grew to 
 such size as entitled them to come into the Union 
 as States. After showing that there was no excuse 
 for bringing in the bill on the plea of settling the 
 slavery question, since there was not a foot of ter 
 ritory in the United States where the subject of 
 slavery was not already settled by law, he closed 
 with an earnest appeal against such an attempt to 
 
332 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 break up the Union and outrage the North by 
 forcing slavery into a land where its existence was 
 already forbidden by law. His speech exceeded 
 the hour allotted to it, and he was allowed to go on 
 only by the courtesy of a member from Illinois, 
 who, when some of the Southerners protested 
 against his being heard further, gave up part of his 
 own time to the grand old Missourian, and asked 
 the House to hear him, if only " as the oldest living 
 man in Congress, the only man in Congress who 
 was present at the passage of the Missouri Com 
 promise bill. * Many a man at the North, ashamed 
 and indignant at seeing the politicians of his own 
 section cower at the crack of the Southern whip, 
 felt a glow of sincere gratitude and admiration for 
 the rugged Westerner, who so boldly bade defiance 
 to the ruling slave party that held the reins not 
 only in his own section, but also in his own State, 
 and to oppose which was almost certain political 
 death. 
 
 The Gadsden treaty was also strongly opposed 
 and condemned by Benton, who considered it to 
 be part of a great scheme or movement in the in 
 terest of the slavery disunionists, of which he also 
 believed the Kansas-Nebraska bill to be the first 
 development, the " thin end of the wedge." He 
 opposed the acquirement even of the small piece of 
 territory we were actually able to purchase from 
 Mexico; and showed good grounds for his belief 
 
The Losing Fight 333 
 
 that the administration, acting as usual only in 
 the interest of the secessionists, had tried to get 
 enough North-Mexican territory to form several 
 new States, and had also attempted to purchase 
 Cuba, both efforts being for the purpose of en 
 abling the South either to become again dominant 
 in the Union or else to set up a separate confed 
 eracy of her own. For it must be kept in mind 
 that Benton always believed that the Southern 
 disunion movements were largely due to con 
 spiracies among ambitious politicians, who used 
 the slavery question as a handle by which to in 
 fluence the mass of the people. This view has 
 certainly more truth in it than it is now the 
 fashion to admit. His objection to the actual 
 treaty was mainly based on its having been done 
 by the executive without the consent of the legis 
 lature, and he also criticized it for the secrecy with 
 which it had been put through. In bringing 
 forward the first objection, however, he was con 
 fronted with Jefferson s conduct in acquiring Lou 
 isiana, which he endeavored, not very successfully, 
 to show had nothing in common with the actions of 
 Pierce, who, he said, simply demanded a check 
 from the House with which to complete a purchase 
 undertaken on his own responsibility. 
 
 Throughout his congressional term of service, 
 Benton acted so as to deserve well of the Union as 
 a whole, and most well of Missouri in particular. 
 
334 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 But he could not stem the tide of folly and mad 
 ness in this State, and was defeated when he was 
 a candidate for reelection. The Whigs had now 
 disappeared from the political arena, and the 
 Know-Nothings were running through their short 
 and crooked lease of life ; they foolishly nominated 
 a third candidate in Benton s district, who drew off 
 enough votes from him to enable his pro-slavery 
 Democratic competitor to win. 
 
 No sooner had he lost his seat in Congress than 
 Benton, indefatigable as ever, set to work to finish 
 his "Thirty Years View," and produced the 
 second volume in 1856, the year when he made 
 his last attempt to regain his hold in politics, and 
 to win Missouri back to the old Union standard. 
 Although his own son-in-law, Fremont, the daring 
 Western explorer, was running as the first presi 
 dential candidate ever nominated by the Repub 
 licans, the old partisan voted for the Democrat, 
 Buchanan. He did not like Buchanan, consider 
 ing him weak and unsuitable, but the Republican 
 party he believed to be entirely too sectional in 
 character for him to give it his support. For 
 governor there was a triangular fight, the Know- 
 Nothings having nominated one candidate, the 
 secessionist Democrats a second, while Benton 
 himself ran as the choice of the Union Democracy. 
 He was now seventy-four years old, but his mind 
 was as vigorous as ever, and his iron will kept up 
 
The Losing Fight 335 
 
 a frame that had hardly even yet begun to give 
 way. During the course of the campaign he 
 traveled throughout the State, going in all twelve 
 hundred miles, and making forty speeches, each 
 one of two or three hours length. This was a 
 remarkable feat for so old a man ; indeed, it has 
 very rarely been paralleled, except by Gladstone s 
 recent performances. The vote was quite evenly 
 divided between the three candidates ; but Benton 
 came in third, and the extreme pro-slavery men 
 carried the day. After this, during the few 
 months of life he yet had left, he did not again 
 mingle in the politics of Missouri. 
 
 But in the days of his defeat at home, the regard 
 and respect in which he was held in the other 
 States, especially at the North, increased steadily ; 
 and in the fall of 1856 he made by request a lec 
 turing tour in New England, speaking on the dan 
 ger of the political situation and the imperative 
 necessity of preserving the Union, which he now 
 clearly saw to be gravely threatened. He was 
 well received, for the North was learning to respect 
 him, and he had gotten over his early hostility to 
 New England, a hostility originally shared by 
 the whole West. The New Englanders were not 
 yet aware, however, of the importance of the seces 
 sion movements, and paid little heed to the warn 
 ings that were to be so fully justified by the events 
 of the next few years. But Benton, in spite of his 
 
336 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 great age, saw distinctly the changes that were 
 taking place, and the dangers that were impend 
 ing, an unusual thing for a man whose active life 
 has already been lived out under widely different 
 conditions. 
 
 He again turned his attention to literature, and 
 produced another great work, the "Abridgment of 
 the Debates of Congress from 1789 to 1856," in 
 sixteen volumes, besides writing a valuable pam 
 phlet on the Dred Scott decision, which he severely 
 criticized. The amount of labor all this required 
 was immense, and his health completely gave way ; 
 yet he continued working to the very end, dictat 
 ing the closing portion of the "Abridgment" in a 
 whisper as he lay on his death-bed. When he 
 once began to fail his advanced years made him 
 succumb rapidly; and on April 10, 1858, he died, 
 in the city of Washington. As soon as the news 
 reached Missouri, a great revulsion of feeling took 
 place, and all classes of the people united to do 
 honor to the memory of the dead statesman, real 
 izing that they had lost a man who towered head 
 and shoulders above both friends and foes. The 
 body was taken to St. Louis, and after lying in 
 state was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery, more 
 than forty thousand people witnessing the funeral. 
 All the public buildings were draped in mourning ; 
 all places of business were closed, and the flags 
 everywhere were at half-mast. Thus at the very 
 
The Losing Fight 337 
 
 end the great city of the West at last again paid 
 fit homage to the West s mightiest son. 
 
 Benton s most important writings are those 
 mentioned above. The "Thirty Years View" 
 ("a history of the working of the American gov 
 ernment for thirty years, from 1820 to 1850") will 
 always be indispensable to every student of Amer 
 ican history. It deals with the deeds of both 
 houses of Congress, and of some of the higher 
 federal officials during his thirty years term of 
 service in the Senate, and is valuable alike for the 
 original data it contains, and because it is so com 
 plete a record of our public life at that time. The 
 book is also remarkable for its courteous and 
 equable tone, even toward bitter personal and 
 political enemies. It shows a vanity on the part 
 of the author that is too frank and free from malice 
 to be anything but amusing; the style is rather 
 ponderous, and the English not always good, for 
 Benton began life, and, in fact, largely passed it, 
 in an age of ornate periods, when grandiloquence 
 was considered more essential than grammar. In 
 much of the Mississippi valley the people had their 
 own canons of literary taste ; indeed, in a recent book 
 by one of Benton s admirers, there is a fond allusion 
 to his statement, anent the expunging resolution, 
 that "solitary and alone" he had set the ball in 
 motion, the pleonasm being evidently looked upon 
 in the light of a rather fine oratorical outburst. 
 
338 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 "The Abridgment of the Debates of Congress 
 from 1789 to 1856" he was only able to bring 
 down to 1850. Sixteen volumes were published. 
 It was a compilation needing infinite labor, and is 
 invaluable to the historian. While in the midst 
 of the vast work he also found time to write his 
 "Examination of the Dred Scott Case," in so far 
 as it decided the Missouri Compromise law to be 
 unconstitutional, and asserted the self -extension of 
 the Constitution into the territories, carrying slav 
 ery with it, the decision in this case promulgated 
 by Judge Taney, of unhappy fame, having been 
 the last step taken in the interests of slavery and 
 for the overthrow of freedom. The pamphlet con 
 tained nearly two hundred pages, and showed, as 
 was invariably the case with anything Benton did, 
 the effects of laborious research and wide histori 
 cal and legal learning. His summing up was, 
 "that the decision conflicts with the uniform 
 action of all the departments of the federal gov 
 ernment from its foundation to the present time, 
 and cannot be accepted as a rule to govern Con 
 gress and the people, without severing that act and 
 admitting the political supremacy of the court and 
 accepting an altered constitution from its hands, 
 and taking a new and portentous point of depar 
 ture in the working of the government." He 
 denounced the new party theories of the Democ 
 racy, which had abandoned the old belief of the 
 
The Losing Fight 339 
 
 founders of the republic, that Congress had power 
 to legislate upon slavery in territories, and which 
 had gone on "from the abrogation of the Missouri 
 Compromise, which saved the Union, to squatter 
 sovereignty, which killed the compromise, and 
 thence to the decisions of the Supreme Court, 
 which kill both." In closing he touched briefly 
 on the history of the pro-slavery agitation. " Up 
 to Mr. Pierce s administration the plan had been 
 defensive, that is to say, to make the secession of 
 the South a measure of self-defense against the 
 abolition encroachments and crusades of the 
 North. In the time of Mr. Pierce the plan became 
 offensive, that is to say, to commence the expan 
 sion of slavery, and the acquisition of territory to 
 spread it over, so as to overpower the North with 
 new slave States, and drive them out of the 
 
 Union The rising in the free States, in 
 
 consequence of the abrogation of the Missouri 
 Compromise, checked these schemes, and limited 
 the success of the disunionists to the revival of the 
 agitation which enables them to wield the South 
 against the North in all the federal elections and 
 all federal legislation. Accidents and events have 
 given the party a strange preeminence, under 
 Jackson s administration proclaimed for treason; 
 since at the head of the government and of the 
 Democratic party. The death of Harrison, and 
 the accession of Tyler, was their first great lift ; the 
 
340 
 
 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 election of Mr. Pierce was their culminating point." 
 This was the last protest of the last of the old 
 Jacksonian leaders against that new generation 
 of Democrats whose delight it had become to bow 
 down to strange gods. 
 
 In his private life Benton s relations were of the 
 pleasantest. He was a religious man, although, 
 like his great political chief, he could on occasions 
 swear roundly. He was rigidly moral, and he was 
 too fond of work ever to make social life a busi 
 ness. But he liked small dinners, with just a few 
 intimate friends or noted and brilliant public men, 
 and always shone at such an entertainment. Al 
 though he had not traveled much, he gave the 
 impression of having done so, by reason of his 
 wide reading, and because he always made a point 
 of knowing all explorers, especially those who had 
 penetrated our great western wilds. His geo 
 graphical knowledge was wonderful ; and his good 
 nature, as well as his delight in work for work s 
 sake, made him of more use than any library of 
 reference, if his friends needed information upon 
 some abstruse matter, Webster himself acknowl 
 edging his indebtedness to him on one occasion, 
 and being the authority for the statement that 
 Benton knew more political facts than any other 
 man he had ever met, even than John Quincy 
 Adams, and possessed a wonderful fund of general 
 knowledge. Although very gentle in his dealings 
 
The Losing Fight 341 
 
 with those for whom he cared, Benton originally 
 was rather quarrelsome and revengeful in charac 
 ter. His personal and political prejudices were 
 bitter, and he denounced his enemies freely in 
 public and from the stump ; yet he always declined 
 to take part in joint political debates, on account 
 of the personal discourtesy with which they were 
 usually conducted. He gave his whole time to 
 public life, rarely or never attending to his law 
 practice after he had fairly entered the political 
 field. 
 
 Benton was one of those who were present and 
 escaped death at the time of the terrible accident 
 on board the Princeton, during Tyler s administra 
 tion, when the bursting of her great gun killed so 
 many prominent men. Benton was saved owing 
 to the fact that, characteristically enough, he had 
 stepped to one side the better to note the marks 
 manship of the gunner. Ex-Governor Gilmer of 
 Virginia, who had taken his place, was instantly 
 killed. Tyler, who was also on board, was like 
 wise saved in consequence of the exhibition of a 
 characteristic trait ; for, just as the gun was about 
 to be fired, something occurred in another part of 
 the ship which distracted the attention of the 
 fussy, fidgety President, who accordingly ran off 
 to see what it was, and thus escaped the fatal ex 
 plosion. The tragic nature of the accident and 
 his own narrow escape made a deep impression 
 
342 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 upon Benton ; and it was noticed that ever after 
 ward he was far more forbearing and forgiving 
 than of old. He became good friends with Web 
 ster and other political opponents, with whom 
 he had formerly hardly been on speaking terms. 
 Calhoun alone he would never forgive. It was 
 not in his nature to do anything by halves; and 
 accordingly, when he once forgave an opponent, 
 he could not do enough to show him that the for 
 giveness was real. A Missourian named Wilson, 
 who had been his bitter and malignant political 
 foe for years, finally becoming broken in fortune 
 and desirous of bettering himself by going to Cali 
 fornia, where Ben ton s influence, through his son- 
 in-law, Fremont, was supreme, was persuaded by 
 Webster to throw himself on the generosity of his 
 old enemy. The latter not only met him half way, 
 but helped him with a lavish kindness that would 
 hardly have been warranted by less than a lifelong 
 friendship. Webster has left on record the fact 
 that, when once they had come to be on good 
 terms with each other, there was no man in the 
 whole Senate of whom he would more freely have 
 asked any favor that could properly be granted. 
 
 He was a most loving father. At his death he 
 left four surviving daughters, Mrs. William 
 Carey Jones, Mrs. Sarah Benton Jacobs, Madame 
 Susan Benton Boilleau, and Mrs. Jessie Ann Ben- 
 ton Fremont, the wife of the great explorer, whose 
 
The Losing Fight 343 
 
 wonderful feats and adventures, ending with the 
 conquest of California, where he became a sort of 
 viceroy in point of power, made him an especial 
 favorite with his father-in-law, who loved daring 
 and hardihood. Ben ton took the keenest delight 
 in Fremont s remarkable successes, and was never 
 tired of talking of them, both within and without 
 the Senate. He records with very natural pride 
 the fact that it was only the courage and judgment 
 displayed in a trying crisis by his own gifted 
 daughter, Fremont s wife, which enabled the ad 
 venturous young explorer to prosecute one of the 
 most important of his expeditions, when threat 
 ened with fatal interference from jealous govern 
 mental superiors. 
 
 He was an exceptionally devoted husband. His 
 wife was Miss Elizabeth McDowell of Virginia, 
 whom he married after he had entered the Senate. 
 Their life was most happy until 1844, when she 
 was struck by paralysis. From that time till her 
 death in 1854, he never went out to a public place 
 of amusement, spending all his time not occupied 
 with public duties in writing by her bedside. It 
 is scant praise to say that, while mere acquiescence 
 on his part would have enabled him to become rich 
 through government influence, he nevertheless 
 died a poor man. In public, as in private life, he 
 was a man of sensitive purity of character; he 
 would never permit any person connected with 
 
344 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 him by blood or marriage to accept office under 
 the government, nor would he ever favor any 
 applicant for a government contract on political 
 grounds. 
 
 During his last years, when his sturdy independ 
 ence and devotion to the Union had caused him 
 the loss of his political influence in his own State 
 and with his own party, he nevertheless stood 
 higher with the country at large than ever before. 
 He was a faithful friend and a bitter foe ; he was 
 vain, proud, utterly fearless, and quite unable to 
 comprehend such emotions as are expressed by the 
 terms despondency and yielding. Without being 
 a great orator or writer, or even an original 
 thinker, he yet possessed marked ability ; and his 
 abounding vitality and marvelous memory, his in 
 domitable energy and industry, and his tenacious 
 persistency and personal courage, all combined to 
 give him a position and influence such as few 
 American statesmen have ever held. His char 
 acter grew steadily to the very last; he made 
 better speeches and was better able to face new 
 problems when past threescore and ten than in his 
 early youth or middle age. He possessed a rich 
 fund of political, legal, and historical learning, and 
 every subject that he ever handled showed the 
 traces of careful and thorough study. He was 
 very courteous, except when provoked ; his cour 
 age was proof against all fear, and he shrank from 
 
The Losing Fight 345 
 
 no contest, personal or political. He was some 
 times narrow-minded, and always wilful and 
 passionate ; but he was honest and truthful. At 
 all times and in all places he held every good gift 
 he had completely at the service of the American 
 Federal Union. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, John Quincy: in 
 presidential election of 
 1824-5, 57, 58; makes Clay 
 secretary of state, 58; and 
 is assailed therefor, 58, 59; 
 outlines Whig policy in his 
 inaugural, 60; on the 
 Panama mission, 60-6 1 ; in 
 election of 1828, 66; pre 
 serves purity of civil ser 
 vice, 78; on recognition of 
 Texas, 171 
 
 "Albany Regency," the, 
 adopts "spoils system," 77 
 
 Arnold, Benedict:" compared 
 with Burr and J. Davis, 
 
 J 55 
 
 Atchison, protests against 
 admission of California, 
 320. 
 
 Benton, town of, founded, 24 
 Benton, Thomas Hart: local 
 character of his statesman 
 ship, 12-13; birth, 22; 
 boyhood and education, 25 
 et seq.; religious training, 
 25; fights a duel, 26; af 
 fray with Jackson, 27; ad 
 mitted to the bar, 28; in 
 legislature of Tennessee, 
 28; on the Hartford Con 
 vention, 29; a slaveholder, 
 30; favors war of 1812, 
 30; in service, 30; be 
 friends Jackson, 31 ; asso 
 ciations in Tennessee, 31 
 et seq.; some traits of char 
 
 acter, 32-33; settles in 
 Missouri, 34; surroundings 
 and influences there, 38; 
 speech on treaty with 
 Spain concerning Florida, 
 3940; first position con 
 cerning slavery, 4041 ; en 
 ters U. S. Senate, 42; hon 
 orable financial sacrifice, 
 43 ; position on the Oregon 
 question, 48-49, 62, 249 
 255, 258-264, 266-272; bill 
 to establish a trading road 
 through Missouri, 50; on 
 the removal of the In 
 dians, 53; votes for Clay s 
 protective tariff bill, 55, 
 60; opposes internal im 
 provements and Cumber 
 land Road bill, 56; con 
 demns election of John Q. 
 Adams to Presidency, 57; 
 supports Clay, then Jack 
 son, 58; will not join 
 outcry against Adams and 
 Clay, 58; a leader of the 
 opposition to Adams in 
 the Senate, 60; represents 
 ultra-Southern feeling con 
 cerning revolted Spanish 
 colonies, 62; vote on the 
 protective tariff of 1828, 
 63, 87, 97; efforts con 
 cerning disposal of public 
 land, 65, 73, 141, 146, 205; 
 hostility to the North 
 eastern States, 72; in the 
 Webster-Hayne debate, 74; 
 
 347 
 
348 
 
 Index 
 
 opposes Jackson s "spoils 
 system," 75-81; leader of 
 the Jacksonians in the 
 Senate, 81, 82; shows that 
 
 Erotective tariff has not 
 elped the West, 86 ; urges 
 repeal of the tax on salt, 
 88, 215; vigorously sus 
 tains Jackson in the nulli 
 fication troubles, 95-100; 
 sustains the Force bill, 100; 
 opposes Clay s compromise 
 measure, 102-104; remarks 
 on his position at this 
 period, 106; campaign 
 against the Bank of the 
 United States, 109, 121, 
 129, 136; speech on the 
 currency, 117, 130, 240; 
 conflict with Clay, 123; on 
 the removal of the de 
 posits, 125; opposes the 
 resolution of censure 
 against Jackson, 126; and 
 pushes through his own 
 expunging resolution, 128 
 129, 133-135; advocates 
 establishment of mints at 
 the South, 137; opposes 
 distribution of surplus, 138, 
 142; wishes it used for 
 fortifications, 138, 142- 
 145 ; advocates insisting on 
 our claims against France, 
 140; but opposes paying 
 claims of American citi 
 zens, 141; opposes the so- 
 called specie circulars, 146; 
 views concerning Southern 
 slavery politicians, 154; 
 opposed to the Abolition 
 ists, 156; criticises Cal- 
 houn, 159; aids to defeat 
 bill prohibiting circulation 
 of abolition docaments 
 through U. S. mails, 160; 
 
 carries bill extending boun 
 daries of Missouri, 161; 
 urges admission of Michi 
 gan, 162; carries through 
 treaty with Cherokees, 
 162; defends governmental 
 treatment of Indians, 163; 
 condemns treaty estab 
 lishing Southwestern boun 
 dary, 1 66; position con 
 cerning annexation of 
 Texas, 171-173; hostility 
 to separatist doctrines, 178; 
 blames bankers and poli 
 ticians for financial crisis 
 of 1837, l8 o, 183; his fore 
 bodings of this trouble, 
 180-182; demeanor in the 
 crisis, 1 86; supports issue 
 of Treasury notes, 187; 
 opposes payment of fur 
 ther instalment of surplus, 
 1 88; supports scheme for 
 independent Treasury, 189, 
 196; action concerning re 
 sumption by bonds, 192; a 
 supporter of the adminis 
 tration in these times, 192; 
 his knowledge, 192-193; 
 hostile to paper currency, 
 195; defends administra 
 tion in matters of Semi- 
 nole war, 201; theory for 
 conducting this war, 203- 
 204; advocates homestead 
 law, 205; opposes assump 
 tion of State debts by 
 national government, 209; 
 explains greater rapidity 
 of progress at North than 
 at South, 21 1 ; on the 
 tariff of 1833, 212-218; 
 defends Jackson and Van 
 Buren against charges of 
 squandering public mon 
 eys, 218; in the Harrison 
 
Index 
 
 349 
 
 campaign, 221; holds the 
 Democrats for the Union, 
 221-222; feeling concern 
 ing slavery about Van 
 Buren s time, 223; leads 
 the Democrats in struggle 
 between President Tyler 
 and Clay, 228-232; exalts 
 the "Democratic idea," 
 229; comments on Tyler s 
 first message to Congress, 
 232; opposes sub-Treasury 
 bill, 233; also the bank, 
 distribution and bank 
 ruptcy bills, 234-237; op 
 poses the hour limit for 
 speeches in the Senate, 
 237-239; speech concern 
 ing the district banks and 
 the currency, 240; opposes 
 effort to establish a na 
 tional bank during Tyler s 
 administration, 242-244; 
 opposes new form of Treas 
 ury notes, 245; opposes 
 subsidizing steamship lines, 
 245; also the abuse of the 
 pension system, 245; al 
 ways an advocate of ex 
 tending the national boun 
 daries, 249, 252; opposes 
 the Ashburton treaty, 254, 
 258-264; remarks concern 
 ing the Caroline imbroglio, 
 255; opposes making an 
 efficient navy, 257; refer 
 ences to slavery in speeches 
 on the Ashburton treaty, 
 259, 265; on the Oregon 
 question, 266-273; opposes 
 the South, 285-286; op 
 poses Calhoun s treaty, 
 290-294; hoodwinked by 
 the annexationists, 297; 
 attacks Calhoun and op 
 poses the Mexican war, 
 
 298; offered the command 
 of the army, 301; awakes 
 to importance of slavery 
 question, 301; his later 
 position concerning it, 303, 
 3 1 5-3 1 8 ; contests with pro- 
 slavery Senators, 305, 306; 
 opposes Calhoun as to 
 power of Congress over 
 slavery in territories, 306 
 310; and as to admission 
 of Oregon, 310; criticises 
 Folk s administration, 311; 
 visits New York in presi 
 dential campaign in 1848, 
 312; defends Taylor s mes 
 sage, 313; opposes Clay s 
 compromise, 314, 315318; 
 more antagonism toward 
 Calhoun, 315; position on 
 the Wilmot Proviso, 318; 
 advocates admission of 
 California as a Free State, 
 319; refuses to support 
 Fugitive Slave Act, 320; 
 nickname of "Old Bul 
 lion," 322; opposition to 
 him in Missouri, 323; de 
 feated, 324; goes to House 
 of Representatives, 324; 
 begins work on the "Thirty 
 Years View," 325; svtp- 
 ports Pierce for Presi 
 dency, 325; but later goes 
 into opposition, 325; sup 
 ports scheme for Pacific 
 Railroad, 326; discusses 
 the Indian policy, 327; 
 speeches on land-bounty 
 and pension bills, 328; 
 opposes Kansas- Nebraska 
 bill, 329-332; discusses his 
 torically the Missouri Com 
 promise, 329-330; ridicules 
 squatter sovereignty, 331; 
 opposes the Gladstone 
 
350 
 
 Index 
 
 treaty, 332 ; view of South 
 ern disunion scheme, 333; 
 again defeated in Missouri 
 elections, 334; returns to 
 labor on "Thirty Years 
 View," 334; votes for Bu 
 chanan, 334; candidate for 
 governorship, 334; stumps 
 the State, 335; respected 
 at the North, 335 ; prepares 
 his "Abridgment of the 
 Debates of Congress," 336; 
 death, 336; value of his 
 works, 337 ; criticism of the 
 Dred Scott case, 338; and 
 of the new Democratic 
 theories, 338; domestic re 
 lations, 340; extensive 
 knowledge, 340; on board 
 the Princeton at time of 
 explosion of great gun, 341 ; 
 generous temper, 342 
 
 Biddle, Nicholas: president 
 of Bank of United States, 
 no; his errors, 118; his 
 bank goes to pieces, 196 
 
 Birney, James G. : abolition 
 ist candidate for Presi 
 dency, 276; folly of nomi 
 nating him, 278, 294 
 
 Blair, Francis C., displaced, 
 300 
 
 Buchanan, James: on an 
 nexation of Texas, 294; 
 Benton votes for him, 334 
 
 Burr, Aaron: introduces 
 "spoils system" in New 
 York, 77; compared with 
 Benedict Arnold, 155 
 
 Calhoun, John C.: rupture 
 with Jackson, resignation 
 from Vice-Presidency, 82; 
 position concerning tariff 
 in 1816, 85; position as a 
 nullifier, 91; introduces 
 nullification resolutions, 
 
 98; threatened with hang 
 ing, 99; arranges compro 
 mise with Clay, 101; sub 
 sequent quarrel with Clay 
 concerning this, 104; his 
 purposes at this time, 105; 
 assails Jackson, 126; op 
 poses Webster s bill for 
 rechartering bank, 130; on 
 the expunging resolution, 
 134; proposes constitu 
 tional amendment for dis 
 tribution of Treasury sur 
 plus, 137; opposes appro 
 priating Treasury surplus 
 for fortifications, 139; at 
 tack on President Pierce, 
 158; his honesty, 160; on 
 admission of Texas, 170; 
 in connection with trouble 
 with Mexico, 246; on the 
 Oregon question, 270; in 
 strumental in election of 
 Polk, 276; letter to Lord 
 Aberdeen, 285; assailed by 
 Benton as to annexation 
 of Texas 291, 293; action 
 as to legislation about 
 Texas, 297; relations as to 
 Mexican war, 298; and the 
 Wilmot Proviso, 305; reso 
 lution as to power of Con 
 gress over slavery in the 
 territories, 306308; not 
 a "Union man," 308; on 
 the admission of Oregon, 
 309, 310, 311; dislikes 
 Taylor s message to Con 
 gress,^ 13 
 
 California, admission of, 319 
 
 Caroline, affair of the, 255 
 
 Cart wright, Peter, 32 
 
 Cass, Lewis: nominated for 
 Presidency, 311 
 
 Cherokees, treaty for their 
 removal, 162 
 
 Clay, Henry: introduces his 
 
Index 
 
 first tariff bill, 55; secre 
 tary of state under Adams, 
 58; assailed therefor, and 
 fights Randolph, 59; de 
 vises the Panama mission, 
 60; leader of National Re 
 publican or Whig party, 
 82; defies "the South, the 
 President, and the devil," 
 85; erroneous statement as 
 to effect of tariff in the 
 West, 86; angers the milli 
 ners, 95; defeated in presi 
 dential election in 1832, 
 95; alarmed at position of 
 Calhoun, 101; and pre 
 pares compromise, 101; 
 afterward quarrels about it 
 with Calhoun, 104; be 
 friends Bank of the United 
 States, 119, 121, 123; effect 
 on his political fortunes, 
 119; introduces resolution 
 for return of deposits, 123 ; 
 also for censuring Presi 
 dent Jackson, 126; opposes 
 Webster s bill for rechar- 
 tering Bank, 130; on the 
 expunging resolution, 134; 
 opposes establishment of 
 mints at the South, 137; 
 also appropriating surplus 
 for fortifications, 139; in 
 financial crisis of 1837, l8 .9J 
 on the sub-Treasury bill, 
 
 190, 194; on resumption 
 
 191, 192; opposes payment 
 of state debts by national 
 government, 210; prepares 
 financial measures upon 
 Tyler s accession, 227, 231; 
 construction of a presi 
 dential election, 228; pro 
 gramme for legislation un 
 der Tyler, 233 ; attempts to 
 introduce hour-limits for 
 speeches in Senate, 237, 
 
 239; lectures Tyler in the 
 Bank debate, 243; de 
 feated by Polk, 275 ; causes 
 thereof, 294; attacks Tay 
 lor s message to Congress, 
 313; proposes compromise 
 of slavery controversy, 
 313; defeated by Benton, 
 318; compared with Ben- 
 ton, 321 
 
 Crawford, William H. : adopts 
 the "spoils system," 76 
 
 Crockett, David, 26, 33; 
 berates Jackson, 107 
 
 Cumberland Road, Benton 
 votes against bill for, 56 
 
 Davis, Jefferson: compared 
 with Benedict Arnold, 155; 
 a repudiator, 208; and Cal- 
 houn s resolution as to 
 slavery in the territories, 
 308; protests against ad 
 mission of California, 320 
 
 Dray ton, family, loyalty of 
 the family in South Caro 
 lina, 92 
 
 Florida, the treaty securing 
 it to the United States, 39 
 
 Foote, Senator from Missis 
 sippi, opposition to his 
 public land scheme by 
 Benton and Webster, 73 
 
 Fremont, John C. : explores 
 Rocky Mountains, 263; 
 Benton will not vote for, 
 334; Benton s interest in 
 his explorations, 343 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R., sound 
 policy of, 278 
 
 Harrison, Wm. Henry: elec 
 tion not affected by slavery 
 question, 222; death and 
 character, 225 
 
 Hartford Convention, criti- 
 
352 
 
 Index 
 
 cized by Benton, 29, 75; 
 causes of, 47 
 
 Houston, Samuel, 32; wins 
 victory of San Jacinto, 
 1 70; hates Van Buren, 178; 
 description of, 309; votes 
 to admit California, 320 
 
 Indian tribes, Benton on the 
 removal of, 53 ; criticism on 
 treatment of, 55, 163, 328; 
 removal of Cherokees in I 
 1836, 162 
 
 Jackson, Andrew: affray with ! 
 Benton, 27; befriended by | 
 Benton at Washington, 31 ; 
 in presidential election of 
 1824, 57; incensed against 
 Adams and Clay, 59; suc 
 cess in election of 1828, 66 ; 
 character of his following, 
 68, 71, 72; his opponents, 
 69; his victory compared 
 with Jefferson s, 69; com 
 pared with Wellington, 70; 
 foster-father of the "spoils 
 system," 75, 78; inferior 
 character of his cabinet, 
 82; relations of his fol 
 lowers with those of Clay 
 and Calhoun, 82; struggles 
 with the Bank and the 
 nullifiers, 84; expected to 
 support nullification, 92; 
 but does not, 92; repudi 
 ates Calhoun and adopts 
 Van Buren, 92; at the Jef 
 ferson birthday banquet, 
 93 ; again defines his posi 
 tion, 94; signs new tariff 
 bill, 95; re-elected in 1832, 
 95; issues proclamation 
 against nullification, 96; 
 special message on nulli 
 fication, 97; opinion on 
 tariff, 97; threatens to 
 hang Calhoun, 99; signs 
 
 "force bill," also Clay s 
 compromise bill, 103; be 
 haves badly in case of 
 Georgia, 107; attack on 
 U. S. Bank, 109 et seq.; 
 reasons of his political suc 
 cess, 1 1 1 ; opposes re-char 
 ter of Bank in message of 
 1829, 112; vetoes bill for 
 re-charter, 121; re-elected, 
 124; removes the deposits, 
 124; protests against Clay s 
 resolution of censure, 126; 
 continued assaults on the 
 Bank, 132; gives a dinner 
 to the expungers, 134; 
 signs bill for distributing 
 Treasury surphis, 145; is 
 sues Treasury order con 
 cerning payments for pub 
 lic lands, 147; Kitchen 
 Cabinet and "machine 
 politics," 174, 175; liking 
 for Van Buren, 176; his 
 nationalism, 221; praised 
 by Benton for hanging 
 Arbuthnot and Ambrister, 
 257; favors annexation of 
 Texas, 282; and Van 
 Buren, 283 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas: character 
 of his following, 6 7 ; his vic 
 tory compared with Jack 
 son s, 69; his pseudo- 
 classicism, 88; quoted as 
 authority for nullification, 
 90; celebration of birth 
 day of, 93 
 
 Lee, Robert E.: military 
 
 standing of, 36 
 Lincoln, Abraham: services 
 
 in anti-slavery cause, 150 
 Livingston, Edward: aids 
 
 in preparing proclamation 
 
 against nullification, 96 
 Lucas, Benton s duel with, 26 
 
Index 
 
 353 
 
 Madison, James, quoted, 154 
 
 Marcy, William L., adopts 
 "spoils system," 77; 
 cringes to the South, 102 
 
 McDuffie, passage at arms 
 with Benton, 289; deceives 
 Benton as to taxes, 297 
 
 McLeod, Alexander, case of, 
 256 
 
 Missouri, character of its 
 population, 37; admission 
 to the Union, 42, 45; land 
 titles in, 43 
 
 Missouri Compromise bill, 42 ; 
 not the beginning of the 
 slavery and anti-slavery 
 divisions in the Union, 46 ; 
 Benton concerning repeal 
 of, 329 
 
 Monroe, James, remarks. 45, 
 55, 56, signs bill for trad 
 ing road, 50 
 
 New Orleans, Benton s as 
 tonishing description of, 88 
 
 Oregon, disputed between 
 Great Britain and the 
 United States, 48; Ben- 
 ton s remarks concerning, 
 50 ; comes into notice again 
 in J. Q. Adams s term, 62; 
 final settlement of the 
 matter, 246258; neglected 
 in Ashburton treaty, 263, 
 and by Calhoun, 263, and 
 others, 264; Benton s feel 
 ing about, 266, 268 ; bill for 
 settlement of, 269; Cal 
 houn on the admission of, 
 309-311 
 
 Panama mission, disputes 
 
 concerning, 60-62 
 Phillips, Wendell, estimate 
 
 of, 152 
 Pierce, Franklin, assailed by 
 
 23 
 
 Calhoun, 158; relations 
 with Benton, 325; a valua 
 tion of, 325-326; Benton 
 upon pro-slavery tenden 
 cies of, 339 
 
 Polk, James K., character of 
 his following, 221; and the 
 Southwestern boundary, 
 271-272 ; elected President, 
 275, 294; estimate of, 276; 
 deceives Benton as to 
 Texas, 297 ; displaces Blair, 
 300; relations with various 
 portions of Democratic 
 party, 300, 301 
 
 Randolph, John: duel with 
 
 Clay, 59 
 Rynders, Isaiah, a type, 276 
 
 Seminoles, war with, 198-205 
 
 Taney, Roger B., removes 
 the deposits, 124; after 
 ward made chief justice, 
 125; criticized by Benton 
 for his opinion in Dred 
 Scott case, 338 
 
 Taylor, Zachary, elected 
 President, 311; character, 
 312, 319; message to Con 
 gress, 313; dies, 319 
 
 Tyler, John, opposes "Force 
 Bill," 100; estimate of, on 
 his accession, 225; his 
 political affiliations, 226- 
 228; first message to Con 
 gress, 232; conduct con 
 cerning bill for establishing 
 a bank, 241244; his cabi 
 net resigns, 244; identifies 
 himself with the separatist 
 Democrats, 283; schemes 
 for annexation of Texas, 
 285, 291; assailed by Ben- 
 ton, 291, 293; behavior at 
 time of explosion of gun on 
 board the Princeton, 341 
 
354 
 
 Index 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, supports 
 Crawford for Presidency in 
 1824, 58; adopts "spoils 
 system," 77; adopted by 
 Jackson as his heir, 92; 
 Vice-President, 95; pro 
 duct of "machine poli 
 tics," 174; befriended by 
 Jackson, 175; sketch of, 
 and causes of his elevation, 
 176-178; his inaugural, 
 178; financial crisis and his 
 doings therein, 178 et seq., 
 183, 185, 1 86; financial 
 measures, 189; has to deal 
 with the Seminoles, 198; 
 public dishonesty under, 
 207; charged with squan 
 dering the public money, 
 218; significance of his 
 defeat, 221-222; slavery 
 question did not arise in 
 his administration, 223; 
 champion of old-style 
 Union Democrats, and op 
 posed to annexation of 
 Texas, 283; candidate for 
 Presidency, 283, 294; and 
 the Free Soil party, 312 
 
 War of 1812, a cause of the, 
 7; political influence on 
 Bent on, 29 
 
 Warsaw, social habits of the 
 town, 34 
 
 Webster, Daniel, position of, 
 concerning Clay s first tar 
 iff bill, 55; position on the 
 tariff question in 1828, 64; 
 in the debate on Foote s 
 resolution concerning sales 
 of public land, 74, 93; 
 leader of National Repub 
 lican, or Whig, party, 82; 
 aids Jackson in nullifica 
 tion troubles, 99; advo 
 
 cates the "force bill," 100; 
 resolute in opposition to 
 the South, 101, 102, 103; 
 remarks as to his services, 
 1 06; befriends Bank of 
 United States, 119, 120, 
 121, 123; personal rela 
 tions with the Jackson- 
 ians, 125; introduces bill 
 for re-charter of Bank, 
 130; on the expunging 
 resolution, 134; supports 
 establishment of mints at 
 the South, 137; opposes 
 appropriating Treasury 
 surplus for fortifications, 
 139; in financial crisis of 
 1837, 189; on sub-Treasury 
 scheme, 190, 194; opposes 
 payment of state debt by 
 national government, 210; 
 remains in Tyler s cabinet, 
 244; negotiates treaty with 
 England, settling boun 
 daries between United 
 States and British pos 
 sessions, 246, 248; criti 
 cized by Benton, 258-262; 
 neglects Oregon contro 
 versy, 263; compared with 
 Benton on the slavery 
 question, 303, 321; com 
 pliments Benton s knowl 
 edge, 340; on friendly 
 terms with Benton, 342 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, com 
 pared with Washington 
 and Jackson, 70 
 
 Wilmot Proviso, Benton s 
 remarks upon, 305, 318 
 
 Wright, Silas, adopts "spoils 
 system," 77; expresses the 
 "dough face " sentiment at 
 time of nullification trou 
 bles, 102 
 
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 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 FEB 81985 
 
 aV 
 
 
 RECEIVED 
 
 3 
 
 
 OCT 1 9 19! 
 
 J4 
 
 
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 DEPT. 
 
 
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 41 
 
 
 AUTO DISC CiRC 
 
 AU6 04*93 
 
 
 ,1(11 1.Q9J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 TO * 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 s tnrtntJ 
 
 A i\r i i ififlc 
 
 
 
 AUb 1 2 ?i^t) 
 
 
 
 CIRCULATION DEP 
 
 T. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720