BENTON, THOMAS HART, b. N. Y., Mar. 14, 1782; d. Washington. April 10, 185S. His family went to Tennessee. where he studied law and was elected to the legislature, where his first work was to reform the judiciary and to :secure to slaves the right of trial by jury. In the war with England, B. was one of Jackson's aids, and raised a regiment of volunteers. In 1815, B. settled in St. Louis, and established the _Ifi'xvottri Ingth•er, u journal that occasioned for him a number of duels, in one of which he killed his opponent. Ile advocated the admission of Missouri as a slave state, and after the famo.is compromise in 1820, was chosen U. S. senator. He was regularly re-elected, so that he was senator for 30 successive years, during all of which period he was conspicuous as a leader on almost every important question. One of his long prosecuted plans was to amend the constitution so that the people could vote directly for president, or come a; near as possible to such a system. This project he brought forward several times, but it never came near adoption, all friends of caucus nominations and secret machine work in politics naturally opposing it. One of his hardest fights was in opposing the re-char tering of the U. S. bank, when he advocated the establishment of a currency of gold and silver only, for which idea he was long called "Old Bullion." After the charter had passed and president Jackson had vetoed it, the senate adopted a resolution censuring the president; but B., not long after, moved to expunge that resolution from the record,
and carried his point after a long and fierce contest. Among other measures advocated by 13. were the pre-emption of public lands, a railroad to the Pacific, the abolition of the salt-tax, and opening mineral lands to settlement. In the Oregon boundary question with Great Britain he took a leading part against the "fifty-four forty or fight" advo cates, and his influence greatly conduced to the retreat of POlIt's administration from an extreme position. lie opposed the Compromise measures of Henry Clay in 1850. and they were defeated as a whole, but adopted separately-. Ile was friendly with Calhoun until the nullification episode, and thenceforth for a long period his enemy. Two years after his long service in the senate, B. was chosen to the other house, where he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill and failed of re-election on that account. In 1856, he was a candidate for governor of Missouri. through a "Native American" side issue. At the same election he supported 13nelianan for president, although his own son-in-law, Fre mont, was the opposing candidate. Benton's Thirty Years' View is a well known and valuable political retrospect of his experiences and observations in the senate. He also made an Abridgment of the Debates in Congress from 1789 to 1856, in 15 large volumes