BENTON, THOMAS HART (1782-1858). An American statesman of the Jacksonian epoch. He was born, of good family, near Hillsborough. N. C., and on the death of his father, his mother, a woman of character and of ambition for her son, took the boy to Tennessee. Here he studied law and was soon elected to the Legislature, where he did work as a reformer. Andrew Jack son became his friend, but in 1813 they had a remarkable encounter, Jackson getting a ball in his shoulder from Benton's brother. and Benton being thrown down-stairs. Jackson and Benton were reconciled many years later. In the War of 1812 he was given a lieutenant-coloneley, but did not serve effectively. Shortly after the seces sion agitation of the Hartford Convention, Ben ton became a pronounced Union man, and he held to this position. In 1815 Benton set tled in Saint Louis, and established the Mis souri Inquirer, a journal that occasioned for him a number of duels, in one of which he killed his opponent. He advocated the admission of Mis souri as a slave State, and after the famous com promise in 1820 was chosen United States Sena tor. He was regularly reelected, so that he was Senator for thirty successive years. One of his long-prosecuted plans was to amend the Consti tution so that the people could vote directly for President. or come as near as possible to such a system. This project he brought forward sev eral 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 opposition to the re chartering of the United States Bank. He advo cated instead the establishment of a currency of gold and silver only, for which idea he was long called 'Old Bullion,' After Jackson's removal of Secretary Duane in the fight against the Bank, the Senate adopted a resolution censuring the President; but Benton, who in many ways was Jackson's lieutenant, not long after moved to expunge that resol4ion from the record, and carried his point after a long and fierce contest.
Among other measures advocated by Benton were the preemption of public lands, a railroad to the Pacific, the abolition of the salt tax, and opening mineral lands to settlement. In other words, he was a strong supporter of Western interests. In the Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain he took a leading part against the 'fifty-four forty or fight' advocates, and his influence great ly condueed to the retreat of Polk's administra tion from an extreme position. He was of service to l'olk during the Mexican War, and it was actually proposed at one time to put him in com mand of the forces in the field. He opposed Cal houn's pro-slavery propaganda and the compro mise measures of Henry Clay in 1850. As a result of his hostility is Calhoun and the pro slavery Democrats be lost his senatorship. Two years after his long service in the Senate ended, he was chosen to the other House, where he op posed the Kansas-Nebraska bill and failed of reelection on that account. In 1856 he was a candidate for Governor of Missouri, but lost through the presence of a third ticket in the field. At the same election he supported Bu chanan for President, although his son-in-law, Frilmont, was the opposing candidate. He was a vigorous and telling speaker, and of great in fluence throughout his long senatorial career. He possessed considerable learning, but did not always escape in using it the disadvantages inci dent to his lack of early training. As a repre sentative of the West during the ante-bellum period he is of great importance to the student of American history. His Thirty Years' View (1356) is a well-known and valuable political retrospect of his experiences and observations in the Senate. He also made a notable Abridgment of the Debates in Congress from 1789 to 1S50, in 15 large volumes (1857). Consult Roosevelt, Thomas Hart Benton (Boston, 1887).