BENTON, Thomas Hart, American states man: b. Orange County, N. C., 14 March 1782; d. 10 April 1858. He was the greatest of that most valuable and scarcely appreciated class, the Border State leaders, whose sympathies were with the South, and who had no feeling against slavery, yet at the cost of their in fluence and much personal peril opposed the political aggressions of slavery and the doc trines of disunion. Early orphaned, the eldest of a large family, after part of a course in the University of Pennsylvania he went with his mother to Tennesgee as a pioneer, settling at the present Bcntontown. A few years later he took up the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1811 under the patronage of his friend Andrew Jackson, then a judge of the Supreme Court. Elected to the legidature, he pushed through a judiciary reform bill, and one to give slaves the right of jury trial. In the War of 1812 he was aide-de-camp to Jackson, raised a volunteer regiment, was made lieuten ant-colonel in the regular army, but saw no active service; meanwhile, 4 Sept. 1813, a mis understanding over a duel of his brother's led to an affray in which the brother was stabbed, Jackson shot and Thomas H. thrown down stairs, and the former friends were at bitter feud for many years. In 1815 he removed to Saint Louis, practised law and established a newspaper, which involved him in duels (one of which cost his opponent's life, to Benton's lasting regret); but which he used so vigor ously to advocate Missouri's admission to the Union as a slave State that she elected him one of her senators on her entrance in 1820, and re-elected him every term for 30 years. Dur ing this time he stood as one of the foremost public men of his generation—a speaker of great ability and mastery of facts, a hard headed logician and tremendous debater, of astonishing memory, unwearying industry, an iron will and physique, and a power of wit, sarcasm and denunciation that made most men shrink from a contest with him. Being the spokesman of the Western Democrats, his policy and political feelings were coincident with Jackson's, their personal quarrel was at last arranged and Benton became Jacicson's first lieutenant and admiring champion. In every regard he supported Western interests: he secured the passage of laws for pre-emption, donation and graded prices of lands, for throw ing open the government mineral and saline lands to occupancy and for repeal of the salt tax; advocated transcontinental exploration and post-roads, a Pacific railroad, occupation of the mouth of the Columbia, trade with New Mex ico, military stations through the Southwest, amicable relations with Indian tribes and every thing conducive to opening up the West and making it prosperous. This made him invin cible there till the slavery question drove him into opposition. He supported Jackson in his refusal to recharter the United States Bank, and made a series of sbeeches urging the adop tion of a metallic currency only, which were widely circulated, gained him the nickname of °Old Bullion," and had much to do with the creation of the sub-treasury scheme. When Jackson removed the Secretary of the Treasury, Duane, for refusing to check out the deposits in the bank, the Senate adopted a resolution censuring him for it; Benton set about having the resolution expunged from the records, and after a protracted struggle succeeded, despite the logical absurdity of his motion, in accom plishing his purpose by a senes of fervid pane gyrics on Jackson. In the Nullification contest,
Benton was Calhoun's chief opponent, not only as Jackson's supporter, but by conviction; and the two men of might —the chiefs of the State Rights and Nationalist wings of the Democ racy— remained deadly foes until Calhoun's death. In the Oregon boundary dispute Benton opposed the "fifty-four forty or fight° war-cry; it was dropped, but the Polk administration was glad of an excuse to drop it in order to yush the Mexican war, and had no notion of dimin ishing the area of slavery to enlarge that of freedom. He favored the vigorous prosecution of the war, and came near being made com mander-in-chief, from his close acquaintance with the territory. But from this time on, the slavery problem swallowed up every other. Benton fought Calhoun's State-Rights resolu tions in retort to the Wilmot Proviso (q.v.), and they never came to a vote; but Calhoun sent them to various State legislatures to adopt and utilize for instructing their senators, and they were pushed through the Missouri legisla ture without Benton's knowledge. He de nounced them as misrepresenting the people, canvassed his State for re-election in a long famous series of powerful and caustic speeches was supported by his party, but defeated by a fusion of Whigs and anti-Benton Democrats, and his senatorial service ended with 1850. He opposed the Clay compromise resolutions of that year, however (see COMPROMISE of 1850), with sarcasm still quoted. In 1852 he canvassed Missouri for election to the lower House and was triumphantly returned. He supported Pierce for election and in Congress till the Kansas-Nebraska bill came up. Against that he made one of his greatest speeches, and the administration thereupon ousted all his Mis souri supporters, and he was defeated for re election by the now dominant ultra-Southern sentiment in the Democratic party. The time of mediators and middle courses had gone by. He now set about writing his remarkable 'Thirty Years' View> (1854-56), a most valu able account of his senatorial experiences and the secret political history of the years 1820 50. In 1856 he ran for governor, but a third ticket in the field defeated him. In the cam paign of 1856 he supported Buchanan against his own son-in-law, Fremont,. as representing the party of union; but materially changed his mind before his death. In these last two years, though in extreme old age, he carried through the immense and useful labor of compiling an abridgment of the debates in Congress from the foundation of the government to 1850, pub lished later in 15 volumes. He also published an 'Examination of the Dred Scot Case> (1857). Consult Meigs, W. M., 'Life of T. H. Benton' (Philadelphia 1904); Rogers, J. M., 'Thomas H. Benton) (ib. 1905); Roosevelt, 'Thomas Hart Benton' (Boston 1887).