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 Form No. 471 
 
7 
 
 V 
 
PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS 
 
 ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUES 
 
 THOMAS H. BENTON AND FRANCIS P. BLAIR 
 
 'RESENTED BY 
 
 THE SIWTE OF MISSOURI. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 I 900. 
 
CONXURRENT RESOLUTION. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate {the House of Representatives coneur- 
 rmg), That there be printed and bound of the proceedings in 
 Congress upon the acceptance of the statues of the late Thomas 
 H. Benton and Francis P. Blair, presented by the State of Mis- 
 souri, sixteen thousand five hundred copies, of which five thou- 
 sand shall be for the use of the Senate, ten thousand for the use 
 of the House of Representatives, and the remaining one thousand 
 five hundred shall be for the use and distribution b}' the Gov- 
 ernor of Missouri; and the Secretar}- of the Treasury is hereby 
 directed to have printed an engraving of said statues to accom- 
 pany said proceedings, said engravings to be paid for out of the 
 appropriation for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 
 
 Passed the Senate May 31, 1900. 
 
 Passed the House June 6, 1900. 
 
-V 
 
.ziiauaTj.tais Kiii.i 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Proceedi}io;s hi tJic House of Representatives 5 
 
 Address of Mr. Dockerv, of Missouri 7 
 
 Clark, of Missouri 16 
 
 Llovd, of Missouri 53 
 
 Proceedings in the Senate 73 
 
 Address of INIr. VEST, of Missouri 75 
 
 COCKRELL, of Missouri 96 
 
 Hoar, of Massachusetts 1 29 
 
 E1.KINS, of West Virginia 135 
 
 3 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUES OF THOMAS H. 
 BENTON AND FRANCIS P. V>IMK. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE 
 
 JANUARY i8, 1899. 
 
 Mr. Bland. Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask unanimous consent 
 for the present consideration of the resokition which I send to 
 the Clerk's desk. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to Lhe reception and acceptance 
 from the State of Missouri of the statues of Thomas H. Benton and 
 Francis P. Blair, erected in the old Hall of the House of Representa- 
 tives be made the special order for Saturday, February 4, at 3 o'clock 
 p. m. 
 
 The Speaker. Is there objection to the present considera- 
 tion of the resolution? [After a pause.] The Chair hears 
 none. 
 
 The question was taken; and the resolution was agreed to. 
 
 FEBRUARY 4, 1899. 
 
 The Speaker. The Clerk will read the special order. 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and accept- 
 ance from the State of Missouri of the statues of Thomas H. Benton and 
 Francis P. Blair, erected in the old Hall of the House of Represent- 
 atives, be made the special order for Saturday, February 4, at 3 o'clock 
 p. m. 
 
 Mr. Bland. Mr. Speaker, I will ask the Clerk to read the 
 following letter from the executive of the State of Missouri. 
 
 5 
 
6 Proceedings of the House on the Acceptance of the 
 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the I'nited States, U^as/i- 
 
 ington, D. C. 
 
 Gentlemen: In the year 1895 the general assembly of the State of 
 Missouri passed an act making an appropriation to have statues made of 
 Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair, to be placed in Statuary 
 Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington. In the act referred to, William J. 
 Stone, Odin Guitar, Peter L. Foy, B. B. Cahoon, O. H. Spencer, and James 
 H. Birch were constituted a commission to have the statues made and 
 properly placed. I am now informed by the commissioners that the 
 statues are completed and ready to be presented to Congress. 
 
 •I have the honor, therefore, as governor of Missouri, to present to the 
 Government of the United States, through the Congress, the statues of the 
 distinguished statesmen named and to ask that they may be assigned a 
 place in the hall dedicated to such vises at the Capitol. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 LON V. Stephens, Governor. 
 
 Mr. Bland. Mr. Speaker, I offer the following resolution. 
 The Speaker. The gentleman from Missouri offers the fol- 
 lowing resolution, which will be read by the Clerk. 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved by the House of Representatives {the Senate concurring). That 
 the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of Missouri for providing 
 and furnishing statues of Thomas Hart Benton, a deceased person, who 
 has been a citizen thereof and illustrious for his historic renown and for 
 distinguished civic services, and of Francis Preston Bl.\ir, a deceased 
 person, who has been a citizen thereof, and illustrious for his historic 
 renown and for distinguished civic and military services. 
 
 Resolved, That the statues be accepted and placed in the National Stat- 
 uary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions duly authen- 
 ticated be transmitted to the governor of the State of Missouri. 
 
 Mr. Bland. Mr. Speaker, there are some gentlemen present, 
 and others absent, who wash to print remarks in the Record on 
 the subject of the resolution, and I therefore ask unanimous 
 consent of the House that they have leave to do so. 
 
 The vSpkakkr. The gentleman from Missouri a.sks unani- 
 mous consent that members may be allowed to print in the 
 Record remarks on the subject of the resolution. Is there 
 objection? [After a pause.] The Chair hears none. 
 
Statues of TJiomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR, DOCKERY, OF MISSOURI, 
 Mr. Speaker, Congress having by the act of July 2, 1864, 
 in\-ited each of the States to present statues, not exceeding two 
 in number, in iHarble or bronze, of deceased persons who have 
 been distinguished citizens, and who, on account of civil or 
 military services, are deemed worthy of national commemora- 
 tion in Statuary Hall in the National Capitol, the State of Mis- 
 souri, in the fullness of time, has availed herself of the invita- 
 tion, and has presented the two marble statues which we 
 to-day formally accept on behalf of the Federal Government. 
 
 Various other States of the Union have already presented, 
 from time to time, statues of their distinguished departed sons: 
 Virginia, one, of George Washington; Massachusetts, two, of 
 Samuel Adams and John Winthrop; Connecticut, of Roger 
 Sherman and Jonathan Trumbull; Rhode Island, of Nathanael 
 Greene and Roger Williams; Vermont, of Ethan Allen and 
 Jacob Collamer; New Hampshire, of Daniel Webster and John 
 Stark; Maine, of William King; New York, of George CHnton 
 and Robert R. Livingston; Pennsylvania, of John P. G. Muhlen- 
 berg and Robert Fulton; New Jersey, of Richard Stockton and 
 Philip Kearny; Ohio, of James A. Garfield and William Allen; 
 Illinois, of James Shields; Michigan, of Lewis Ca.ss, and Wis- 
 consin, of Pere James Marquette. 
 
 By the act of the legislature of Missouri, approved April 8, 
 1895, a fund was appropriated and a commission constituted, 
 comprising Governor Wilham J. Stone, chairman; Peter L. Foy, 
 esq., of the city of St. Louis; Gen. Odon Guitar, of Boone 
 County; Judge O. M. Spencer, of Buchanan; Hon. B. B. Cahoon, 
 of St. Francois, and Col. James H. Birch, of Clinton, who were 
 directed to have executed statues of Thomas H. Benton and 
 
8 Address of Mr. Dockery on the Acceptance of the 
 
 Francis P. Blair. That commission discharged their func- 
 tions with care and complete success, and under their pains- 
 taking supervision models were selected and the sculptures 
 executed in marble by the artist, ]\Ir. Alexander Doyle, of New 
 York City. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, it is with special pride that Missouri contributes 
 to our national pantheon these memorials of two of her most 
 illustrious sons, Benton and Blair. Their names and their 
 deeds not only have wrought especial blessing and reflected 
 lasting renown upon their own imperial Commonwealth, but 
 they are the heritage of the whole country as well; and as such 
 their marble images worthily find a place in yonder hall, side 
 by side with those of others of the nation's noblest children — 
 pioneers, w^arriors, statesmen, inventors, benefactors — heroes all. 
 
 Both Benton and Blair rendered most distinguished service 
 in the National Legislature — Benton for five terms in the 
 Senate and one term in the House, and Blair for parts of four 
 terms in the House and part of a term in the Senate; so that 
 with peculiar fitness their sculptured images will stand yonder 
 and be viewed by generations to come, hard by the scenes of 
 their legislative struggles and triumphs. 
 
 In Benton we behold the mightiest son of the early West — 
 the most colossal figure in the march of trans-Mississippi de- 
 velopment, striding onward head and shoulders above all his 
 contemporaries. It was not my good fortune to have known 
 him, or my privilege ever to have seen him; but his grand, 
 manly character, his splendid achievements in public life, and 
 his princely qualities as a private citizen, as I have learned 
 them from the lips of others and as I find them chronicled in 
 our history, command my unstinted admiration. Himself a 
 pioneer, I take him to have been the recognized exponent of 
 the great pioneer class, hardy, enterprising, irresistible; the 
 
Statues of Thomas H. Bcntoii and Francis P. Blair . 9 
 
 ablest expounder of their \-ie\vs, and the most typical repre- 
 sentative of their aspirations. In his day and generation he 
 was the greatest champion of the West and its interests, and 
 the most zealous advocate of every movement for the extension 
 of the western boundaries of the Republic, beholding with 
 clearer vision than most of his fellows, through the mist of 
 coming years, something of the later grandeur and glory which 
 the nation has attained. 
 
 And yet, despite the strength of his local and sectional 
 predispositions, his aggressive patriotism was national and all- 
 embracing; the love of his great heart comprehended alike 
 the North, the South, the East, and the West. He gloried in 
 the American Union, and his marvelous endowments were 
 always freely offered to the service of his whole country. His 
 teachings, in their effect upon the people of his own State, 
 did perhaps as much as any other agency to keep Missouri 
 still within the sisterhood of the Union when her Southern 
 neighbors left it; they formed the groundwork upon which 
 Bi^AiR afterwards so brilliantly operated to hold the State fast 
 to her old moorings. 
 
 There w^ere giants in those days, and Benton was one of 
 them, towering amid the greatest of his colleagues — Webster, 
 Clay, and Calhoun. When it is remembered that, from the 
 time of Monroe down to the time of Buchanan, he exercised a 
 controlling sway over Western politics such as few statesmen 
 ever did, it is not surprising that he should have left behind 
 him such ineffaceable and monumental marks of his greatness. 
 During his service in the Senate that body was admittedly 
 the mo-st influential legislative body in the world. The nation's 
 greatest political chiefs were members of it; and in it, from the 
 time of Jackson, Benton stood forth continuously a command- 
 ing figure and the most eminent representative of Jacksonian 
 Democracy. 
 
lo Address of Mr. Dockery on the Acceptance of the 
 
 The Republic has never produced a statesman more vahantly 
 loyal and true to his convictions than Bentox. His faculties 
 always responded to the call of a great emergency. His metal 
 on such an occasion always rang true and clear. He grew 
 steadily wiser as he proceeded in his career. With his develop- 
 ing maturity he became better equipped for the performance of 
 yeoman service to the public, and it has been said of him that, 
 during the last period of his life — the heroic period — he ren- 
 dered greater service to the nation than any of his fellow 
 Senators. 
 
 In addition to his herculean achievements in statecraft, his 
 attainments in other directions attested his amazing industry, 
 versatility, and liberal culture. Daniel Webster once remarked 
 that Benton knew more political facts than any other man he 
 ever met, and posses.sed a wonderful fund of general knowledge. 
 He not only left his powerful impress upon the events in which 
 he was an actor during his thirty-two years' service in Con- 
 gress, but he left to posterity two veritable monuments attesting 
 his ceaseless activity and study — his two great literary produc- 
 tions, the "Thirty Years' View" and his "Abridgment of the 
 Debates of Congress from 1789 to 1850" — both of them acknowl- 
 edged to be indispensable to the student of American political 
 and governmental history. 
 
 Most happily has the sculptor modeled forth his physical 
 lineaments and suggested the qualities that characterized the 
 man. From a study of the artist's handiwork we can the 
 better understand what good sturdy stuff Benton was made 
 of — his magnificent physique, his tireless energy, his masterful 
 intellect, his indomitable will. From a contemplation of that 
 marble figure we can fancy his aggressive courage, his stern 
 sincerity, his earnestness, tenacity, and uprightness; we can 
 picture in our minds what a proud, resolute, fearless, self- 
 reliant hero he must have been in life, and we can join in 
 
Statues of Thomas H. Ben ton and Francis P. Blair. 1 1 
 
 humbly doiiii^ him honor for the immeasurable good he 
 wrought for his country in his own generation and for all 
 the generations after him. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, in a most remarkable way the life w^ork of 
 Benton and of Blair merged together, to the incalculable 
 benefit of our common State; the achievements of the younger 
 of the two linked themselves with and supplemented those of 
 the elder. When Benton died, in 1858, the tide of Southern 
 sentiment was rising like a flood, and but for the living influ- 
 ence of the veteran statesman, then still in death, Missouri 
 would probably have been overwhelmed by that tide. And 
 notwithstanding that potent infliience, it would 3'et have been 
 overwhelmed had not Blair, courageous and preternaturally 
 energetic, intervened at the right moment, and with the sagacity 
 of genius, to direct and utilize that influence. His lofty patriot- 
 ism, spirit, and capacity saved the State to the Union and left 
 her free at the close of the civil strife to march onward without 
 interruption in the paths of progress. 
 
 To have accomplished this was in it.self an extraordinary 
 achievement for any man. But Blair rested not there. He 
 plunged with knightly ardor into the Titanic struggle then 
 beginning, and ere long became a major-general of volunteers 
 and a corps commander of high efficiency. He was the most 
 illustrious soldier that Missouri gave to the Union; indeed, 
 he was regarded as one of the most successful of all the chiefs 
 of the volunteer army. 
 
 Meanwhile he served also with di.stinction in Congress; and 
 in the Thirty-seventh Congress, as chairman of the House Com- 
 mittee on Military Affairs, he reported and pressed those essen- 
 tial measures that equipped and maintained the Union armies 
 in the field. 
 
 He was a hero in council, in the camp, and on the field of 
 battle. And after the war, voluntarily renouncing the grateful 
 
12 Addi-ess of Mr. Dockery on the Acceptatice of the 
 
 political rewards that would have freely come to him from his 
 own political party, he devoted his energies to the heroic and 
 magnanimous but unpopular task of protecting his late enemies 
 from injustice at the hands of his own triumphant and intol- 
 erant partisans. In that work of self-abnegation, viewed calmly 
 after this lapse of time, the moral grandeiir of the hero shines 
 forth with dazzling luster. A hero in the tribulations of war, 
 he became ten times a hero in the tribulations of returning 
 peace. In the face of frenzied calumny-, furious partisanship, 
 and mob violence, his manly heart demanded justice for his 
 beaten foes; and with undaunted personal courage, with cool- 
 ness and bravery almost unexampled, he espoused the cause of 
 the weak, the disfranchised, the tax ridden, and the downtrod- 
 den, and sought by practical means to bind up and heal the 
 wounds of the recent strife. 
 
 Like others of the proscribed class who witnessed his intrepid 
 conduct in behalf of my oppressed people on the most trying 
 occasions, I may say that, in adding this humble tribute to his 
 fame, it is not prompted by a mere formal or prefunctory im- 
 pulse, ]jut by a sentiment of sincere personal affection. The 
 political and civic honors that would have come to him imme- 
 diately following the war, but which he denied to himself, and 
 the later political success which he would doubtless have 
 attained had his life been spared, are more than compensated 
 by the fervent love which all the people of Mis.souri cherish for 
 his memory. [lyoud applause.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I desire to append to my remarks and to incor- 
 porate in the Record a beautiful tribute to the memory of 
 Benton and Blair, written by Hon. J. H. Birch, of Platts- 
 burg, Mo., one of the State commissioners, and transmitted to 
 me for that purpose. It reads: 
 
 It is deemed proper that the only native-born Missourian on the com- 
 mission, who knew both of these distinguished citizens during their lives, 
 should be heard on this interesting occasion. I shall speak, therefore, 
 
Statues of Thomas IL Benton and Francis P. Blair. 13 
 
 from personal knowledge. Sixty years ati^o Colonel BENTON and my 
 father were friendly associates. Our home, in the village where we lived, 
 was occasionally honored by his visits. Sitting and listening to his con- 
 versation, I wondered that I was permitted to exist in such a presence. 
 In after years, when grown to manhood, and bitter personal enmity had 
 arisen between them, I recognized the fact that Baneton — for it was thus 
 he pronounced his name — was the most powerful political factor in the 
 great West. 
 
 No one favored him in appearance, manners, or personal characteris- 
 tics, and but few ever reached his level in intellectual power, information, 
 or influence. His was an isolated personality. He had but few, if any, 
 confidants. He recognized but two conditions in public life between 
 men— leadership and followers. He knew his own fitness to rule, and 
 demanded that others obey. He sought no advice, and permitted no 
 dissent; and criticism of his political infallibility resulted in personal 
 and political ostracism. If he ever forgot or forgave an intended injury, 
 onh' his Creator knew it. If he ever had an emotion in connection with 
 his ambition, it was kept as hidden as the thoughts of a Hindoo's god. 
 Had he lived in the days of the Csesars, there would have been another 
 Brutus. Had he commanded the Roman armies when Palmj^ra fell, he 
 might have spared Zenobia in recognition of her great prowess and char- 
 acter, but she would never have been carried through the streets of 
 Rome attached to his triumphal car, for in such a pageantry Benton 
 deemed the presence of no one necessary — if BenTON was there. 
 
 His courage was equal to every emergency, and was always under the 
 most perfect control; but it was as cold and as merciless as the heart of a 
 matadore. In its use he made but one mistake, when by it he forced his 
 enemies to conspire to kill him, that they might live. To accomplish his 
 political destruction they contrived to have passed through the general 
 assembly of Missouri during the winter of 184S-49 the celebrated Jackson 
 resolutions, instructing him how to vote on the great question of that day 
 then pending in the Senate — the resolutions of Mr. Calhoun. Thev knew 
 he would not obey them, because, first, of the disunion doctrine contained 
 in them, and, second, of personal resentment at the audacity of attempt- 
 ing to instruct Benton on such a subject. 
 
 As was expected, Benton defied the general assembly of Missouri, 
 charging it with misrepresenting the people of the State; and, issuing 
 his appeal to the people, came home in May, 1849, ^"^l opened a cam- 
 paign in person, which never closed until he was defeated for governor in 
 1856. Although quite 75 years of age, yet he canvassed the State until 
 election day in a carriage, making speeches every day. If he ever suffered 
 mental anguish at the waning of his political fortunes, he hid it beneath 
 that iron face with the stoicism of a martyr. Old as he was, he carried 
 with him on the stump that imperial presence which, in his younger days, 
 had awed multitudes into silence, and neither discomfort nor pain brought 
 complaint from his lips. 
 
14 Address of Air. Dockcry on the Acceptance of the 
 
 If anybod}- doubts the accuracy of the photograph thus drawn, let him 
 look at that statue. The sculptor, as if b}- inspiration, caught the secret 
 force of his individuality and drew it in its strongest lines, representing 
 him in the strength of his matured manhood, at the zenith of his political 
 power, and clothing him w-ith that air of arrogance which, like the waves 
 of the sea breaking upon the rock-bound shore, forbade the approach of 
 those who sought to cower at his feet. 
 
 Had the sculptor failed in this respect, the spirit of Benton would have 
 haunted him forever; for it can be said of Benton that his life was as 
 devoid of hypocrisy and of pretense as it was of love-making to gain popu- 
 lar favor. Like Cromwell, his wish was to be painted as he was — to be 
 seen and known among men as a man of indomitable will, of great force 
 of character, with a steady and strong purpose in life, guided b}- a brain 
 and aided by an intellect which enabled him to scale the highest peaks in 
 the great range of human possibilities. 
 
 During the last years of his life, secluded from the world, he took the 
 most ample revenge upon his enemies, for he left behind him the greatest 
 political history of the century, his Thirty Years' View. 
 
 And now, nearly fifty years after the people of Missouri had driven him 
 from his seat in the highest councils of the nation, which for thirty j-ears 
 he had adorned with his great character, wdth fidelity to his State and his 
 country, they order, without a single dissenting voice, that his name and 
 his memory be forever perpetuated in marble, in the Capitol of his coun- 
 try, in the very building where he won his enduring fame. 
 
 Gen. Francis Preston Blair, who is associated with Colonel Benton 
 in this memorial dedication, was his great friend and youthful associate. 
 At his feet he learned those lessons which guided his political conduct in 
 after life. In personal characteristics, action, and manners they were as 
 different as they were in appearance. I knew General Blair well. He 
 was my elder, but our ages enabled us to fraternize with ease. In early 
 life, he being a follower of BenTon, we naturally separated; but, as the 
 years advanced, the great political controversies which overwhelmed the 
 country brought us close together, and, becoming the warmest of friends, 
 our lines of life ran close together. 
 
 We were comrades during the w^ar with Mexico. He was a private and 
 I was a corporal. We were comrades during the ' ' war between the States. ' ' 
 He was a major-general and I a simple colonel. In the great political 
 struggle which swept over Missouri in 1.S70— the .sole issue being the reen- 
 franchisement of the people, and which led to the overthrow of the Rei)ub- 
 licans in the State — we were comrades again, and that winter found us 
 both members of the general assembly of Missouri. 
 
 In the vSenatorial caucus which followed a most exciting and Ijitterl)-- 
 contested ballot, I moved and carried the proposition to make his nomina- 
 tion unanimous. Before the vote was counted and announced, and in the 
 joint session of the two houses, my name coming first on the senate roll, 
 I had the honor of casting the first vote for him for United States Senator. 
 
 By a singular coincidence, being in Jefferson City three years ago, the 
 
S/a/urs of Thomas If. Puiilon and Prancis P. Plair. 15 
 
 distinguished chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, now rep- 
 resenting his country as consul-general at Montreal, honored me with the 
 request that I draft 'the bill which he introduced and passed through the 
 general assembly, and under the commands whereof these statues were 
 executed. Being named as one of the connnissioners, I am proud of -the 
 privilege which enables me thus to garland Blair's statue with a wreath, 
 which at least is embalmed with the perfume of personal friendship. 
 
 General Blair needs no eulogy. That statue is the embodiment of the 
 will of the people of Missouri, and is the most perfect representation of 
 a man I ever saw in marble. He was a Coeur de Leon in courage and 
 knightly manner. No one in his presence ever acknowledged a wrong 
 done him but it was accepted with a princely graciousness that instantly 
 dissolved the self-abasement that was in the act. His courage was part of 
 his soul, and, filling his body, came at his call like an electric spirit, borne 
 on the great blood-waves of his heart; and the necessity for its use having 
 passed, it went back with his blood, leaving no rankling thorns behind. 
 
 Such a spirit naturally drew around him as bold and as determined a 
 following as ever marched beneath a highland banner, and, as a conse- 
 quence, a host of enemies equally bold and resolute; and as a result, the 
 political battlefields of Missouri after the war rivaled in many respects, 
 except the clash of arms, the real battlefields which preceded them. 
 Blair was the master-spirit in those campaigns, and victory came as the 
 result of his leadership. Yet so bravely did he lead that the fierce spirit 
 of personal antagonism passed away with the settlement of the question. 
 His selection for the honors of this day was equally unanimous with 
 Benton's. 
 
 It was not in consequence of the absence of great men in Missouri 
 that Blair was thus honored. There has been no time when her voice 
 has been silent during the progress of the great controversies which have 
 arisen since her admission into the Union. There sleep within her 
 borders many men who had but few peers, whether on the battlefield 
 or in the halls of Congress, any one of whom Missouri would proudly 
 honor; but it was the life and later services of Blair which evoked such 
 a combination of public sentiment that all other claims were merged 
 in his; and to-day Missouri presents the statues of two of her citizens 
 who laid down the duties of this life only in obedience to the bugle call 
 from the other shore. 
 
 It was a grand and patriotic conception which led to the dedication of 
 that Hall as the pantheon of so many American heroes. It had been 
 hallowed by the presence of the great spirits who cemented the founda- 
 tions of American liberty, and it is proper that the unborn generations 
 who shall tread its sacred floor may read the history of the past in the 
 silent .statues gathered there. No other spot would have been so appro- 
 priate, and no less a tribute to its historic memories would have been 
 proper. 
 
 And now we leave these statues there, to remain forever, sheltered by 
 that historic roof, and protected by that flag which has grown to be the 
 emblem of the power of the greatest people of the earth. 
 
[6 Address of Mr, Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, when Governor B. Gratz Brown, one of the 
 most brilliant of all Missouri statesmen, on a historic occasion 
 said, "Missouri is a grand State and deserves to be grandly 
 governed," he uttered an immortal truth. He might have 
 added with equal veracity, "She deserves to be grandly repre- 
 sented in the Congress of the United States, ' ' and she has been 
 in the main, particularly in the Senate, where paucity- of mem- 
 bers and length of tenure more surely fix a man in the public 
 eye than service in the House. 
 
 First and last, Missouri has commissioned twenty-one differ- 
 ent men to represent her at the other end of the Capitol, in 
 the less numerous branch of the National Legislature, in the 
 Chamber of the Conscript Fathers, in "the Upper House of 
 Congress," improperl}^ so called; or, as Senator Morgan, of 
 Alabama, would have it, "Ambassadors of a sovereign State" 
 to the Federal Government. Beginning with David Barton and 
 Thomas Hart Benton, her pioneer Senators, who at once 
 attracted general attention and challenged universal admiration 
 by reason of their commanding talents, down to this very hour, 
 when in the persons of Francis Marion Cockrell and George 
 Graham Vest she holds such an enviable position in that con- 
 spicuous arena, Missouri has taken second place to none of her 
 sister States. 
 
 These twenty-one Senators naturally divide themselves into 
 two classe.s — the Barton line and the Benton line, fifteen in 
 the former and only six in the latter. 
 
 In the Barton line are Barton himself, Alexander Buckner, 
 Lewis F. Linn, David R. Atchison, James S. Green, Waldo P. 
 Johnson, Robert Wilson, B. Gratz Brown, Charles D. Drake, 
 
S/a/f/cs of Thomas II. Bcif/ou and Francis P. lUair. 17 
 
 Daniel T. Jcwett, Francis P. Blaik, Lewis V. Bogy, David H. 
 Annstroiig, James vSliields, and George G. Vest. 
 
 In the Benton line are Benton himself, Henry S. Gej^er, 
 Trusten Polk, John B. Henderson, Carl Schurz, and Francis 
 Marion Cockrell. 
 
 Lucky the man who gets into Barton's seat; luckier, far 
 luckier, the man who secures that of Thomas H. Benton, as 
 the precedents indicate a longer public life for him. 
 
 An examination of the dates at which Missourians entered 
 and left the Senate will disclose two curious facts in Missouri 
 history. She is the onl}- State that ever elected two men for 
 five full consecutive terms to the Senate of the United States — 
 
 six Roman lustrums, ' ' as Benton was wont to boast in his 
 pompous way. These were Benton and Cockrell. She was 
 the first State that had only one Senator for any considerable 
 length of time through failure to elect another. By reason of 
 the unrelenting warfare between the Bentonites and the anti- 
 Bentonites the legislature chosen in 1854 never could and never 
 did elect a Senator, as it was in duty bound to do, so that for 
 two entire years Henry S. Geyer was Missouri's only Senator. 
 
 What is more, the governor did not appoint or attemjit to 
 appoint anyone to fill the vacancy, nobody then dreaming that 
 the governor had such power. But in these later days several 
 States have followed Missouri's example in failing to elect 
 Senators; and, strange to say, divers governors have insisted 
 on the right to fill \'acancies by appointment under similar 
 circumstances, until finally the Senate, after lengthy and pon- 
 derous debate, solemnly vindicated the wisdom and knowledge 
 of constitutional law possessed by the governor of Missouri in 
 1855 and 1856, Sterling Price, by declaring that a governor 
 has no right to make such ad interim appointment. 
 
 Of Missouri's 21 Senators there were 14 Democrats, i Whig, 
 and 6 Republicans. Of 156 years of Senatorial representation 
 S. Doc. 456 2 
 
i8 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acccptaiicc of the 
 
 to which she has been entitled, 2 were not used, 6 fell to Whigs, 
 22 to Republicans, and 126 to Democrats. 
 
 This roster of Missouri Senators is an array of names of 
 which the nation, no less than the State, may well be proud. 
 There are many great men— scarcely a small one— in the list. 
 
 Missouri is proud of her innneasurable physical resources, 
 which will one day make her facile princeps among her sisters; 
 but there is something else of which she is prouder still, and 
 that is her splendid citizenship, consisting at this day of nearly 
 4,000,000 industrious, intelligent, patriotic, progressive, law- 
 abiding. God-fearing people. 
 
 When questioned as to her riches she could with propriety 
 imitate the example and quote the words of Cornelia, the 
 mother of the heroic Gracchi, and, pointing to her children, .say 
 truthfully and pridefully, "These are my jewels." 
 
 In sending Thomas Hart Benton and the younger Francis 
 Preston Blair to forever represent her in the great American 
 Valhalla, where the effigies of a nation's immortal worthies do 
 congregate, Missouri made a mo.st happy and a most fitting 
 selection from among a host of her distinguished sons. These 
 two men complement each other to an extraordinary degree. 
 Really their lives formed but one career — a great career — a 
 career of vast import to the State and nation. Both were 
 Southerners by birth; both were soldiers of the Republic; both 
 members of this Hou.se; both Senators of the United States; 
 both added largely to American renown; both left spotless 
 reputations as a heritage to their countrymen. 
 
 The dominant passion of these two Mis.souri Titans was an 
 absorbing love of the Union. To its preservation they devoted 
 their great energies of mind and heart and body. To that end 
 they were not only theoretically willing to spend and be spent, 
 but were actually and literally spent. In that warfare they 
 
S/a/iu's of Thomas II. I>rii/oii and Francis P. Blair. 19 
 
 sacrificed all those things which most inen hold dear. In that 
 cause Bexton went to his political death, and Frank Blair 
 rendered himself a physical wreck. In their vocabularj- there 
 was no such word as "concession" or as "compromise." In 
 very truth they took their liv^es in their hands and fought the 
 battle to the bitter end. 
 
 Under the law each State has the right to place the statues 
 of two — and only two — illustrious American citizens in Statu- 
 ary Hall; but in this regard Missouri has been more fortunate 
 than most of her sister States, for, while she can place only two 
 there herself, three of her soldier-statesmen stand there in 
 bronze and marble as perpetual reminders of her glory. In 
 addition to Benton and Blair, through the action of Illinois 
 there stands Gen. James Shields, that illustrious Irish-Ameri- 
 can, a hero of two wars, and the only man that ever did, or in 
 all human probability ever will, represent three States of the 
 Union in the Senate of the United States. 
 
 Upon the base of his statue in yonder hall are blazoned 
 the coats of arms of Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri, in who.se 
 service he spent his life, but as he wrought for the whole 
 country in the Senate and in the field, his fame belongs to the 
 whole country, in whose cause he freel)' shed his blood. 
 
 Either Benton or Blair is a sufficient theme for any orator. 
 
 I shall confine my remarks, in the main, to the latter, with 
 only incidental reference to the former, leaving the great con- 
 temporary of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun to my colleagues. 
 
 In this era of good feeling it may .seem ungracious to talk 
 much about the civil war and may appear Hke "sweet bells 
 jangled, out of tune;" but this is a hi.storic occasion, Frank 
 Blair is a historic personage, and the truth should be told 
 about him. All his deeds with which history will concern 
 itself are those which he performed in matters pertaining to 
 
20 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 that unhappy period — either before, during, or after. A speech 
 about him and without mention of these things would be like 
 the pla}' of Hamlet wdth the Prince of Denmark left out. 
 
 HIS BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 Born in the lovely blue-grass region of Kentucky, reared in 
 Washington City, in the excitement and swirl of national 
 politics, spending his manhood's days in St. Louis, the great 
 city of the Iron Crown, his opportunities for growth were of 
 the best, and he developed according to the expectations of 
 his mo.st sanguine friends. 
 
 Within a radius of 75 miles of Lexington, Ky., where Fraxk 
 Blair first looked forth upon this glorious w^orld, more orators 
 of renown were born or have exercised their lungs and tongues 
 than upon any other plat of rural ground of the same size upon 
 the habitable globe. 
 
 Whether the in.spiring cause is the climate, the soil, the 
 water, the liuiestone, or the whisky, I do not know, but the 
 fact remains. 
 
 Within that circle are the counties of Franklin, Woodford, 
 Scott, Fayette, Mercer, Bourbon, Nelson, Washington, Ander- 
 son, Owen, Shelby, Marion, Madison, Jessamine, Montgomery, 
 Clark, and Boyle. 
 
 Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, the INLirshalls, the Breckin- 
 ridges, the Pre.stons, the vShelbys, the McAfees, the Browns, 
 the Blairs, the Buckners, the Deshas, the Houstons, Old Bob 
 Letcher, the Harlans, the Wickliffs, Old Ben Hardin, Leslie 
 Coombs, John Rowan, the Thompsons, the Davises, the Turn- 
 ers, Richard H. Menifee, the Goodloes, the Hansons, Henry 
 Bascom, John Pope, the Johnstons, Chief Justice Robert.son, 
 Ca.s.sius M. Clay, and his brother Brutus Junius, Joe Blackburn, 
 George Graham Vest, Heni-y W^atterson, J. Proctor Knott, Jim 
 
S/cr/ncs ()/' yy/o/z/as //. lU-iitoii and Francis P. Blair. 21 
 
 McKen/.ie. and a host of choicL* spirits have rotised the inuUi- 
 tude and made the welkin ring. If sttch a deh neater of char- 
 acter as Wilham Makepeace Thackeray could have known the 
 men who first and last have been aronnd Lexington, and given 
 us his impressions of them, or if such a biographer as James 
 Boswell could have followed lovingly at their heels to record 
 their sayings, we would have the most entrancing book that 
 human eye ever gazed upon. 
 
 Philo-sophers may .say what they please, but man is largely 
 a creature of environment, and with his surroundings from 
 infancy, it was inevitable that Frank Blair would devote 
 his life to politics. 
 
 RISE OF THE BLAIRS. 
 
 The rise of the Blairs, father and sons, to great political emi- 
 nence and power forms a most curious and interesting chapter 
 in our hi.story. 
 
 The foundation of their career was laid by an anonymous 
 article written by Francis P. Blair, sr. , for mental recreation 
 purely, and printed in the Frankfort, Ky., Argus, in the incipi- 
 ent stage of the war of extermination waged by Andrew Jack- 
 son again.st the old Bank of the United States, which article 
 luckily fell under Jackson's eagle eye and attracted his atten- 
 tion. It may be doubted whether any other anonymous com- 
 munication to any newspaper in zx\y country since Guttenberg 
 invented movable types was ever productive of so many and 
 such far-reaching consequences. 
 
 In that elder day, while the American newspaper, was still in 
 its infancy, every Admini.stration had an " organ " at the seat of 
 government, supported in the main by public pap and by sub- 
 scriptions from Federal officials. Subscribe, resign, or be kicked 
 out were the alternatives pre.sented to all holders of govern- 
 mental positions, from Secretary of State down to the spittoon 
 
22 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 cleaners. So that to edit the organ was, in the popular par- 
 lance of this day, to have a decidedh' soft snap. 
 
 Until his quarrel with John C. Calhoun, a quarrel which 
 wrecked more lives and was more prolific of calamities than the 
 Trojan war, Jackson's organ was the United States Telegraph, 
 owned and edited b}' Gen. Duff Green. As long as he was 
 faithful to his irascible and exacting chief, he lived in tall 
 clover. 
 
 But early in that historic feud Duff began to show signs of 
 ratting to Calhoun, whereupon Jackson, with characteristic 
 promptittide, began looking for another organist, and he found 
 him accidentally, in the most unlikely person and most unex- 
 pected place — certainly the greatest, the fiercest, the most cour- 
 ageous, the most loyal to his chief, the most puissant organist 
 President ever had, Francis Preston Blair, sr. , author of the 
 anonymous article aforesaid, clerk of a court at Frankfort, Ky., 
 the neighbor, relative, and quondam stipporter of Henry Clay, 
 ' ' the great commoner. " ' To lay on and spare not the enemies 
 of Andrew Jackson, personal or political, to smite them hip and 
 thigh, to draw, quarter, and break them on the wheel, to scalp 
 and tomahawk them, to flay them alive inch by inch, to roast 
 them at the stake, to gibbet them l:)efore high Heaven was a 
 labor of love to that brave, brain)', but modest Kentuckian. 
 
 Recreant Democrats were the pet aversions — the betes 
 noire — of this man whose pen was dipped in aqua fortis. For 
 them he had no bowels of compassion; toward them he was 
 absolutely merciless. According to his logic, desertion of 
 Jackson was high treason to the country. For all such the pen- 
 alty was death without benefit of clergy. When even so illus- 
 trious a personage as Col. William R. King, of Alabama, sub- 
 sequently Vice-President, once begged him to soften a savage 
 attack upon an erring Democrat, Blair sternly replied: " Xo; let 
 it tear his heart out! " 
 
Sfa flies of T/ioiiias II. Ju')ito)i and I-'ra/ia's P. Jilair. 23 
 
 Blair was es.seiitiall>- and incorri<^il)ly a hero worshipper; 
 but it must be confessed that he had a hero worthy of the 
 passionate love of all friends of human liberty, the matchless 
 soldier who at New Orleans, with a handful of raw militia, in 
 one i^lorious, rapturous hour slaughtered 2,600 Englishmen, 
 defeated the picked veterans of the Peninsula who had snatched 
 the iron crown of Charlemagne from the brazen brow of Napo- 
 leon, and lowered to the dust the towering pride of that mighty 
 monarchy upon whose dominion the sun never sets and whose 
 morning drumbeat encircles the globe. 
 
 No such popularity as Andrew Jackson's has been vouchsafed 
 to an American President since George Washington was laid to 
 rest on the banks of the Potomac, a popularity which abides to 
 this day and which will continue until our race has run its 
 course and until the wide firmament is gathered up as a scroll. 
 
 For twenty years all of the most serious and learned argu- 
 ments of Whig statesmen were triumphantly and successfully 
 answered by ' ' Hurrah for Jackson ! ' ' and assuredly since the 
 morning stars first sang together no man has better deserved 
 being hurrahed for than Old Hickory. The intense love which 
 his followers bore him has alwai's reminded me of the pathetic 
 enthusiasm of the French soldier, sorely wounded, who, as 
 Napoleon swept by at the head of the Old Guard, tore his 
 shattered arm from his shoulder and waving it above his head 
 shouted "Vive I'Empereurl" 
 
 Blair completely won the generous heart of Andrew Jack- 
 son, which in itself was a greater honor than could have been 
 conferred by any patent of nobility. The insignia of the Order 
 of the Thistle or of the Star and Garter, or of any other order, or 
 of all others ever devised by the ingenuity of man or bestowed 
 by the hand of any king, emperor, prince, czar, or potentate, it 
 seems to me, would not give an American as much pride. and 
 pleasure as to be able to say truthfully, "I was beloved of 
 
24 
 
 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 Andrew Jackson." If Blair loved Jackson, the iron soldier 
 repaid that love in Scripture measure, heaped up, pressed 
 down, and running over. Almost the last letter he ever wrote 
 was to Blair, at a time when the Polk Administration was 
 endeavoring to force him to sell them the Globe under the 
 penalty of their starting an opposition paper. I here quote 
 part of it, so highly honorable to both the writer and the 
 recipient and so characteristic of the former. Even at this 
 distant day one can .scarcely read the closing sentence with 
 dry eyes: 
 
 How loathsome — 
 
 Wrote Jackson — 
 
 it is to me to see an old friend laid aside, principles of justice and friend- 
 ship forgotten, and all for the sake of policy, and the great Democratic 
 party divided or endangered for policy. I can not reflect upon it with any 
 calmness. Every point of it, upon scrutiny, turns to harm and disunion, 
 and not one beneficial result can be expected from it. I will be anxious 
 to know the result. If harmony is restored, and the Globe the organ, I 
 will rejoice; if sold, to whom, and for what? Have, if you sell, the pur- 
 chase money well secured. This may be the last letter I may be able 
 to write you, but, live or die, I am your friend (and never deserted one 
 from policy), and leave my papers and reputation in your keeping. 
 
 The parenthesis in that sentence explains the secret of Jack- 
 son's wondrous power over the minds and hearts of men. 
 ' ' Never deserted a friend from policy ' ' — tho.se be golden 
 words. He might with exactest truth have enlarged the 
 .statement so as to read, "I never deserted either a friend or 
 a principle from policy 'or for any other reason whatsoever. ' ' 
 
 The original of that letter is carefully preserved in a gla.ss 
 ca.se in the Congressional Library, and should be regarded as 
 one of the precious trea.sures of the archives of the Republic. 
 
 But this man, who swooped down upon Jackson's enemies 
 with cruel beak and bloody talons to rend and tear them — this 
 man, who in his capacity of editor was so masterful, inexora- 
 ble, and so dreaded, who killed off a Senator, a Cabinet officer. 
 
S/a/!/i's of Thomas II. Bcuton and Francis P. Blair. 25 
 
 a minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary, or even 
 an aspirant for the Presidency as ruthlessly as he would have 
 impaled a fly— was in private life ])ashful in dei)()rtment, 
 a fond husband, a dotiu": father, a kindly and ol)ligin.ti 
 friend. 
 
 SOLDIER. 
 
 Frank Blair was a soldier of two wars. He received his 
 ' ' baptism of fire ' ' during our brief but glorious conflict with 
 Mexico, being a lieutenant in that small, heroic band of Mis- 
 sourians who, under Col. Alexander W. Doniphan, made the 
 astounding march to Santa Fe, Chihuahua, vSacramento, and 
 Monterey — an achievement which added an empire to the 
 Union and which threw into the shade that far-famed per- 
 formance of Xenophon and his ten thousand which has been 
 acclaimed by the historians of twenty centuries. 
 
 In the civil war he began as a colonel, fought his wa}' to a 
 major-generalcy, and was pronounced by General Grant to l^e 
 one of the two best volunteer officers in the service, John A. 
 Logan, "the Black Eagle of Illinois," who married a Missouri 
 wife, being the other. In Sherman's famous march to the sea 
 Blair commanded a corps, and was considered the Marshal 
 Ney of that army. 
 
 THE FIGHT FOR MISSOURI. 
 
 Early impressions are never effaced; and it may be — who 
 knows? — that the fact that when a child he sat upon the knee 
 of Andrew Jackson, received the kiss of hereditary friendship 
 from his lips, and heard words of patriotism fall burning from 
 his tongue determined his course in the awful days of '61, for 
 Jackson himself, could he ha\-e returned to earth in the prime 
 of life, could not have acted a sterner or more heroic part than 
 did his foster son. 
 
26 Address of Mr. Clark on iJic Acceptance of the 
 
 The fact that Andrew Jackson, Thomas Hart Benton, 
 and the elder Francis Preston Blair were sworn friends most 
 probably caused young Frank to settle in St. Louis, a perform- 
 ance which, though little noted at the time, in all human prob- 
 ability kept Missouri in the Union and thereby defeated the 
 efforts of the Southern people for independence; for had it not 
 been for Blair's cool courage, clear head, unquailing spirit, 
 indefatigable industry, commanding influence, and rare fore- 
 sight, the Southern sympathizers in Missouri would have 
 succeeded in taking her into the Confederacy. 
 
 There never was in this world a struggle in which lime 
 was more the essence of things than in the fight for Missouri. 
 The people were divided into something like three equal 
 parts — one for the Union, another for secession, while the minds 
 of the third were not made up, but were in a plastic condition. 
 This halting, wavering third became decisive of the contest. 
 To control it Blair and his opponents waged a battle royal. 
 If, in the beginning, Blair could have aroused the Federal 
 Government to a realization of the vast strategic importance 
 of Missouri and to the necessity for early action, his task 
 would have been easy. If, in the beginning, his antagonists 
 could have aroused the Missouri legislature to a comprehen- 
 sion of the situation and could have induced the State authori- 
 ties to seize the United States Arsenal at St. Louis before Gen. 
 Nathaniel Lyon was placed in command, their task would have 
 been easy; but when Lyon appeared upon the scene, their one 
 golden opportunity was gone. 
 
 It was a colossal stake for which this master spirit played; 
 nevertheless, understanding clearly the gravity of the game, he 
 played it to the end with superb audacity and with nerves of 
 steel — no hesitation, no equivocation, no menial reservation, 
 no repining, no doubting, no backward glance on his part. 
 
Statiirs ofTlionias II. Bcnloii and Francis I\ /Hair. 27 
 
 Without leave or license from anybody he organized and 
 drilled in secret four regiments, mostly Germans, armin>; them 
 with .^uns which he purchased with money be.s^ged by him from 
 l^nionists in the North, so that when Governor Jackson per- 
 emptorily declined to furnish the four regiments which consti- 
 tuted Missouri's quota under President Lincoln's first call for 
 75,000 volunteers, Blair promptly tendered by telegraph his 
 four regiments which he had been for months secretly recruit- 
 ing in St. Louis and had them mustered into the service. Not 
 onlv that, but he tendered six more regiments, which were also 
 accepted. 
 
 The Government offered him a brigadier's commission as 
 commander of that brigade, which he gracefully and firmly 
 declined in favor of L>-on— an act of generosity and self-abnega- 
 tion unusual among men. 
 
 Time fought for Blair in this strange contest for possession 
 of a State, for the preservation of the Republic. 
 
 Those who most effectually tied the hands of the secessionists 
 and who unwittingly but most largely played into Blair's were 
 the advocates of "armed neutrality "—certainly the most pre- 
 posterous theory ever hatched in the brain of man. \\\\o was 
 its father can not now be definitely ascertained, as nobody is 
 anxious to claim the dubious honor of its paternity. What 
 it really meant may be shown by an incident that happened in 
 the great historic county of Pike, where I now reside — a county 
 which furnished one brigadier-general and five colonels to the 
 Union Army and three colonels to the Confederate, with a full 
 complement of officers and men. 
 
 Early in 1861 a great "neutrality meeting" was held at 
 Bowling Green, the county seat. Hon. William L. Gatewood, 
 a prominent lawyer, a Virginian or Kentuckian by birth, an 
 ardent Southern symi)athizer, suljsequently a State senator, was 
 
28 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 elected chairman. The Pike County orators were out in full 
 force, but chief among them was Hon. George W. Anderson, 
 also a prominent lawyer, an East Tennesseean by nativity, 
 afterwards a colonel in the Union Army, State senator, and for 
 four years a member of Congress. Eloquence was on tap and 
 flowed freely. Men of all shades of opinion fraternized; they 
 pa.ssed strong and ringing resolutions in favor of ' ' armed neu- 
 trality," and " all went merry as a marriage bell." 
 
 Chairman Gatewood was .somewhat mystified and not alto- 
 gether satisfied h\ the harmonious proceedings; so, after 
 adjournment sine die, he took Anderson out under a convenient 
 tree and in his shrill tenor nervously inquired, " George, what 
 does 'armed neutralitj' mean, an^-how?" Anderson, in his 
 deep bass, growled, "It means guns for the Union men and 
 none for the rebels!" — the truth and wisdom of which remark 
 are now perfectly apparent. [Eaughter.] So it was, verily. 
 Andenson had hit the bull's-eye, and no mi.stake. If he had 
 orated for an entire month, he could not have stated the case 
 more luminously or more comprehensively. He had exhausted 
 the subject. Before the moon had waxed and waned again 
 the leaders of that " neutrality " love feast were hurrying to and 
 fro, beating up for volunteers in every nook and corner in the 
 county — some for service in the Union, others for service in 
 the Confederate, army. 
 
 But it is proverbial that "hindsight is better than foresight." 
 Men nmst be judged by their own knowledge at the time they 
 acted, not by ours; by the circumstances with which they were 
 surrounded, and not by those which environ us. What may 
 appear unfathomable problems to the wi.se men of one genera- 
 tion may be clear as crystal to even the dullest of the suc- 
 ceeding generation. However ridiculous "armed neutrality," 
 judged by the hard logic of events, nia>- appear in the retro- 
 .spect; however untenable we now know it to have been, the fact 
 
S/a/ins of T/unias //. Boiton and Francis P. lUair. 29 
 
 iieverthck'ss remains that it was honestly l)eheve(l in and enthu- 
 siastically advocated by thousands of capal)le, brave, and honest 
 men all over Kentucky and Missoin-i. many of whom afterwards 
 won laurels on the battlefield and laid down their lives in one 
 arm>- or the other in defense of what they deemed ri.s,^ht. 
 
 When we consider the men who were against Blair it is 
 astounding that he succeeded. To say nothing of scores then 
 unknown to fame, who were conspicuous soldiers in the Con- 
 federate army and who have since held high political position, 
 arrayed against him were the governor of the State, Clail)orne 
 F. Jackson; the lieutenant-governor, Thomas C. Reynolds; 
 ex-United States Senator and ex- Vice-President David R. 
 Atchison; United States Senators Trusten Polk and James S. 
 Green, the latter of whom had no superior in intellect or as a 
 debater upon this continent; Waldo P. Johnson, elected to suc- 
 ceed Green in March, 1861, and the well-beloved ex-governor 
 and ex-brigadier-general in the Mexican war, Sterling Price, 
 by long odds the most popular man in the State. 
 
 No man between the two oceans drew his sword with more 
 reluctance or used it with more valor than "Old Pap Price." 
 The statement is not too extravagant or fanciful for belief that 
 had he been the sole and absolute commander of the Confed- 
 erates who won the battle of Wilson's Creek, he wotild have 
 rescued Missouri from the Unionists. 
 
 The thing that enabled Blair to succeed was his settled 
 conviction from the first that there would be war — a war of 
 coercion. While others were hoping against hope that war 
 could be averted or, at least, that Missouri could be kei)t out 
 of it, even if it did come — while others were making constitu- 
 tional arguments, while others were temporizing and dallying — 
 he acted. Believing that the questions at is.sue could be settled 
 onlv bv the sword, and also believing in Napoleon's maxim 
 
30 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance oj the 
 
 that "God fights on the side of the heaviest battalions," he 
 grimly made ready for the ])art which he intended to play in 
 the blood}' drama. 
 
 "THE ARDUOUS GREATNESS OF THINGS DONE." 
 
 Blair was 5 feet 11 inches in height, straight as an Indian, 
 of slender, wir}^ frame, hazel ej^es, auburn hair, ruddy complex- 
 ion, and aquiline nose. He was of what the phrenologists 
 denominate the sanguine-nervous temperament. He was an 
 optimist by nature and had unbounded confidence in him.self 
 and in Missourians, with whose capabilities, characteristi:s, 
 sentiments, and prejudices he was as well acquainted as any 
 man that ever lived. 
 
 On the 30th of May, 186 1, in urging the President to author- 
 ize the enlistment of a. large number of Missourians, he wrote 
 these words, which, in the light of what happened in the suc- 
 ceeding four years, appear amazing: 
 
 We are well able — 
 
 He said — 
 
 to take care of ourselves in this State without assistance from elsewere if 
 authorized to raise a sufficient force within the State; and after that work 
 is done we can take care of the secessionists from the Arkansas line to the 
 Gulf, along the west shore of the Mississippi. 
 
 The most .spectacular feature of the great Chicago national 
 Republican convention of 1880 was Conkling's speech nominat- 
 ing Orant. That masterful oration will be read with raptiu'e 
 by millions yet unborn. It contained a single sentence which 
 alone made it worthy of rememl)rance. In describing Grant, 
 Conkling said: 
 
 His fame was born not alone of thinj^s written and said, but of the ardu- 
 ous j^reatness of things done. 
 
 The phrase "the arduous greatness of things done" was 
 
 original with the l)rilliant New Yorker, and constitutes a rich 
 
S/(7//(rs of TJioDias //. lu-ii/oii and Francis P. Blair. 31 
 
 and pcnnaueiit atUlilioii lo our literature'. It sticks to the 
 memory like a burr. It fills a lonj.;-felt want. It applies to 
 Fk.\xk Bl.mr as well as to the threat captain in who.se presence 
 the whole world uncovered, for Blair's fame rests also largely 
 on "the arduous greatness of things done." 
 
 Col. Thomas L. vSnead, who was Price's chief of ordnance as 
 well as adjutant-general of the vState guard, who wrote The 
 Fight for Missouri, one of the very best books about the ci\il 
 war, in speaking of the battle of Boonville, pays this si)lendid 
 and ungrudging tribute to Blair: 
 
 Insignificant as was this engagement in a military aspect, it was in fact 
 a stunning blow to the Southern-rights people of the State, and one which 
 did incalculable and unending injury to the Confederates. It was indeed 
 the consummation of Bi..\ir'S .statesmanlike scheme to make it impos- 
 sible for Missouri to secede or out of her great resources to contribute 
 abundantly of men and material to the Southern cause, as she would 
 surely have done had her people been left free to do as they pleased. 
 
 It was also the crowning achievement of Lyon's well-conceived cam- 
 paign. The capture of Camp Jackson had disarmed the State and com- 
 pelled the lovalty of St. Louis and all the adjacent counties. The advance 
 upon Jefferson City had put the State government to flight and taken 
 away from it that prestige which gives force to established authority. 
 The dispersion of the volunteers who had rushed to Boonville to fight 
 under Price for Missouri and the South extended Lyon's conquest over 
 all that country lying between the Missouri and the State of Iowa, closed 
 all the avenues by which the Southern men of that part of Missouri 
 could make their way to Price, made the Missouri an unobstructed Fed- 
 eral highway from its source to its mouth, and rendered it impossible 
 for Price to hold the rich, populous, and friendly counties in the vicinity 
 of Lexington. Price had indeed no alternative now but to retreat in all 
 haste to the southwestern corner of the State, there to organize his army 
 under the protection of the force which the Confederate government was 
 mustering in northwestern Arkansas under General McCulloch for the 
 protection of that State and the Indian Territory. 
 
 Again, in summing up the achievements of Gen. Nathaniel 
 
 Lyon, who was Blair's sworn friend and ally, carrying out 
 
 Blair's general plan. Colonel Snead says: 
 
 By capturing the vState nulitia at Camp Jack.son and driving the gov- 
 ernor from the capital and all his troops into the uttermo.st corner of 
 the State, and by holding Price and INIcCuUoch at bay, he had given 
 
7,2 Address of Mr. Clark on tJic Acccptaiice of the 
 
 tlie Union men of Missouri time, opportunity, and courage to brinjj their 
 State convention together again, and had given the convention an excuse 
 and the power to depose Governor Jackson and Lieutenant-Governor 
 Reynolds, to vacate the seats of the members of the general assembly, 
 and to establish a State government which was loyal to the Union and 
 which would use the whole organized power of the State— its treasury, its 
 credit, its militia, and all its great resources — to sustain the Union and 
 crush the South. 
 
 A few incidents out of a multitude which might be cited will 
 show the character of political warfare in Missouri in the days 
 when Blair was on the boards. 
 
 Before the war he went to Hannibal to make an emancipation 
 speech. A mob gathered to break up the meeting. While he 
 was speaking some one hit him squarel}' in the forehead with 
 an &^^. He wiped it oif with his finger, flipped it on the 
 groimd, and imperturbably proceeded, making not the slightest 
 allusion to the incident. His marvelous nerve charmed his 
 audience, hostile though it was, and those who had come to 
 stone him remained to applaud. 
 
 In the outskirts of Louisiana, Mo. , stand four innnense sugar 
 trees, which, if the Druidical religion were in vogue in the Mis- 
 sissippi \'alley, would be set aside as objects of worsliip by 
 Democrats. They form the corners of a rectangle about large 
 enough for a speaker's platform. Beneath their grateful 
 shadow, with the Father of Waters behind liinL the eternal 
 hills in front of him, the blue sky above his head, in the pres- 
 ence of a great and curious concoiir.se of people, Fkaxk Blair 
 made the first Democratic speech delivered in Missouri after 
 the close of the civil war. Excitement was intense. Armed 
 men of all .shades of opinion abounded on every hand. When 
 Blair aro.se to .speak he unlnickled his pistol belt and coolly 
 laid two navy revolvers on the tal)le. He prefaced his remarks 
 as follows: 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I undenstand that I am to be killed here to-day. I have 
 just come out of four years of that sort of business. If there is to l)e any 
 of it here, it had better be atttended to l)efore the speaking begins. 
 
S/a/ius of ThoDias II. Biiiton and Francis P. Blair. 
 
 oo 
 
 That calm l)Ul prei;nanl cxonliuni lias pt;rhai)S no couiilcr- 
 part in the entire range of oratory. 
 
 There was silence deep as death; 
 
 And Ihr l).)l(U-st lu'ld his hrc-aUi 
 I'\)r a linu-. 
 
 He then proceeded with his speech, but had not been going 
 more than five minutes until a man of gigantic proportions 
 started toward him, shaking his huge fist and shouting, " He's 
 an arrant rebel! Take him out! Take him out!" Blaik 
 stopped, looked the man in the face, crooked his finger at 
 him, and said, "You come and take me out!" which put an 
 end to that episode, for the man who was yelling "Take him 
 out!" suddenly realized that Bi^air's index finger, which was 
 beckoning him on, would soon be pressing the trigger of one 
 of those pistols if he did go on, and he prudently declined 
 Blair's invitation. 
 
 He got through that day without bloodshed; but when he 
 spoke at "W^arrensburg, a little later, he had not proceeded a 
 quarter of an hour before a prominent citizen sitting on the 
 speaker's stand started toward Blair, with a pistol in his hand 
 and with a mighty oath, yelling: "That statement is a lie!" 
 which instantly precipitated a free fight, in which one man was 
 killed and several severely wounded. Bl.mr went on with his 
 speech amid ceaseless interruptions. I know a venerable, mild- 
 mannered. Christian statesman, now in this very Capitol, who 
 for two mortal hours of that pandemonium stood with his hand 
 upon his revolver ready to shoot down any man that assaulted 
 Blair. 
 
 Afterwards Blair was adverti.sed to speak at Marshall, in 
 Saline County. On the day of his arrival an armed mob was 
 organized to prevent him from speaking, and an armed bod>- of 
 Democrats swore he should. A collision occurred, resulting in 
 a regular pitched battle, in which several men lo.st their lives 
 and others were badl\- injured, lint Blaik made his sjieech. 
 S. Doc. 456 3 
 
34 Address of Mr. Clark o)i the Acceptance of i lie 
 
 One night he was speaking in Lncas Market pkice, in vSt. 
 Louis, when a man in the crowd, not 20 feet from the stand, 
 pointed a revolver directly at him. Friendly hands interposed 
 to turn the aim skyward. "Let him shoot, if he dares," said 
 Bl.vir, gazing C00II3' at his would-be murderer; " if I am wrong, 
 I ought to be shot, but this man is not the proper executioner." 
 The fellow was hustled from the audience. 
 
 Amid such scenes he toured the State from the Des Moines 
 River to the Arkan.sas line and from the Missis.sippi to the 
 mouth of the raging Kaw. The man who did that had a lion's 
 heart in his breast. 
 
 A LEADER. 
 
 Tlie old Latin dictum runs: " Poeta nascitur, non fit." The 
 same is true of the leader of men — he is born, not made. 
 
 What constitutes the quality of leadership, Mr. Speaker? 
 Vou do not know. I do not know. None of us knows. No 
 man can tell. 
 
 Talent, genius, learning courage, eloquence, greatness in 
 many fields we may define with something approximating 
 exactness; but who can inform us as to the con.stituent ele- 
 ments of leadership? We all recognize the leader the moment 
 we l)ehold him, but what entitles him to that di.stinction is and 
 perhaps must forever remain one of the unsolved mysteries of 
 ])sychology. 
 
 Talent, even genius, does not make a man a leader, for some 
 men of the profoiuidest talents, (others of the most dazzling 
 genius, have been .servile followers and have deba.sed their rich 
 gifts from God to the flattery of despots. Most notable among 
 those was Lord Bacon, the father of the inductive philosojihy, 
 who po.ssessed the most exqui.site intellect ever housed in a 
 human .skull, and who.se spirit was .so abject and .so groveling 
 
S/a/ucs o/TIiouias //. lioitoii and /-ynncis P. Blair. 35 
 
 that he was iu)t mijustly described in tliat hlisterin.^;, scornful 
 couplet by Alexander Pope: 
 
 If parts allure thee, think how Hacon shin'd. 
 The wisest, brifrhtest, meanest of mankind! 
 
 Courage is not synonymous with the quality of leadership, 
 though necessary to it, for sonic of the bravest soldiers that 
 ever niet Death upon the battlefield and defied him to his face 
 were amazingly lacking in that regard. 
 
 Learning does not render a man a leader, for some of the 
 greatest scholars of whom history tells were wholly without 
 inlluence over their fellow-men. Kkxpience does not make a 
 leader,- for some of the world's greatest orators, among them 
 Cicero, have been the veriest cravens; and no craven can lead 
 men. 
 
 Rut whatever the quality is, people recognize it instinctively, 
 and inevitabl>- follow the man vi^ho possesses it. 
 
 Fr.\xk Blair was a natural leader. 
 
 Yet during his career there were finer .scholars in Mi.ssouri 
 than he, though he was an excellent .scholar, a graduate from 
 Princeton; there were more splendid orators, though he ranked 
 with the most convincing and persuasive; there were pro- 
 founder lawyers, though he stood high at the l)ar; there were 
 better mixers, though he was of cordial and wimiing manners; 
 there were men, perhaps, of stronger mental force, though he 
 was amply endowed with brains, so good a judge of human 
 nature as Abraham Lincoln saying of him, "He has abundant 
 talents;'- there were men as brave, though he was of the 
 bravest; but as a leader he overtopped them all. 
 
 Believing .sincerely that human .slavery was wnjng per .se and 
 that it was of most evil to the States where it exi.sted, he 
 fought it tooth and nail, not from .sympathy for the negroes 
 so much as from aflfection for the whites, and created the 
 
36 Address of Mr. Clark on (he Acceptance of the 
 
 Republican party in Missouri before the civil war — a most 
 hazardous performance in that day and latitude. At its close, 
 when, in his judgment, his party associates had become the 
 oppressors of the people and the enemies of liberty, he k-ft 
 them, and lifting in his might>' arms the Democracy, which lay 
 bleeding and swooning in the dust, he breathed into its nos- 
 trils the breath of life — another performance of extraordinary 
 hazard. 
 
 This man was of the stuff out of which martyrs are made, 
 and he would have gone grimly, undauntetll>', unflinchingly, 
 and defiantly to the block, the scaffold, or the stake in defense 
 of any cause which he considered just. Though he was impe- 
 rious, tempestuous, dogmatic, and impetuous, though no danger 
 could swerve him from the path of duty, though he gave tre- 
 mendous blows to his antagonists and received many of the 
 same kind, he had infinite compassion for the helpless and 
 the weak, and to the end his heart remained tender as a 
 little child's. 
 
 When he came out of the Army, with his splendid military 
 and civil record, it may be doubted whether there was any 
 official position, however exalted, beyond his reach if he had 
 remained with the Republicans. I have always believed, and 
 do now believe, that by severing his connection with them he 
 probably threw awa}.- the Vice- Presidency — possibly the Presi- 
 dency itself — a position for which most statesmen pant even as 
 the hart panteth for the water brook. During his long, .stormy, 
 and vicissitudinous career he always unhesitatingly did what 
 he thought was right for right's sake, leaving the consequences 
 to take care of them.selves. That he was ambitious of political 
 preferment there can be wo question: but office had no charms 
 for him if it involved sacrifice of principle or compromise of 
 conscience. 
 
S/a/ui's of Thomas If. Hcntox and Francis /\ Blair. 37 
 
 This <?reat man, for .ureat he was beyond even the shadow of 
 a doubt, enjoyed the distinction nniciue amonj^ statesmen of 
 being hated and loved in turn 1)>- all Missourians, of changing 
 his political affiliations violently twice long after he had passed 
 the formative and effervescent period of youth, and, while s])end- 
 ing nearly his entire life in the hurly-1)urly of politics, of dying 
 at last mourned by every man and woman in the State whose 
 good opinion was worth possessing. In that respect his career 
 is without a parallel. Born a Democrat, he served in this House 
 as a Republican, in the Senate as a Democrat, and died, finally, 
 in the political faith of his fathers. 
 
 Change of party affiliations by a man of mature age is nearly 
 always a painful performance — generally injuriotis to his fame; 
 but Bl.\ir's two complete changes of ba.se appear to have 
 increased the respect in which men held him, and the secret of 
 this anomaly is that in each instance he quit a triumphant and 
 arrogant majority with which he was a prime favorite to link 
 his fortunes with a feeble and hopeless minority — proof con- 
 clu.sive of his rectittide of purpose, whereas, if he had aljandoned 
 a minority to join a majority his honesty of motive might have 
 w^ell been impugned. 
 
 Benton's .scorn of his opponents was so lofty and .so galling, 
 the excoriations he inflicted — aye, lavi.shed — upon them bred 
 such rancor in their hearts, the lash with which he .scourged 
 them left such festering wounds, that the}- never forgave him 
 until the}" knew he was dead — dead as Julius Caesar — dead 
 beyond all cavil. Then they put on sackcloth and a.shes and 
 gave him the most magnificent funeral ever seen west of the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Blair's was a happier fate than that of his illustrious proto- 
 type and exemplar. While from the day of his return from 
 the Mexican war to the hour of his retirement fnjni the Senate 
 
38 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance 0/ the 
 
 he was in the forefront of every pohtical battle in Missouri — 
 and nowhere on earth were poHtical wars waged with more 
 ungovernable fury — stich were his endearing quahties that the 
 closing years of his life were placid as a sunnner evening, and 
 he died amid the lamentations of [a mighty people. Republi- 
 cans seemed to remember only the good he had done them, 
 forgetting the injuries, while Democrats forgot the injitries he 
 had inflicted upon them and remembered only the invaluable 
 service he had rendered. Union veterans named a Grand Army 
 po.st for him; Confederates proudly call their boys Frank Blair, 
 and his fellow-citizens, without regard to creed or party, erected 
 his statue of heroic .size in Forest Park to perpetuate his fame 
 to coming generations. 
 
 THE BORDER STATES DURING THE W.\R. 
 
 Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman once said, " War is hell! " 
 Those who lived in ' ' the border States ' ' during our civil war 
 and who are old enough to remember the tragic events of that 
 bloody but heroic epoch in our annals will with one accord 
 indorse his idea, if not his sulphurous language. 
 
 It was easy to be a Union man in Mas.sachusetts. It was not 
 profitable to be anything else. It was easy to be a Confederate 
 in South Carolina. It was not safe to be anything else. But 
 in Kentucky, Missouri, and the other border vStates it was peril- 
 ous to be the one thing or the other. Indeed it was dangerous 
 to be neither and to sit on the fence. [Laughter.] 
 
 I was a child when Sumter was fired on, living in Washing- 
 ton Count)'. Ky. I remember an old fellow from whom the 
 Union raiders took one horse and the Confederate raiders 
 another. So when a third ])arty of soldiers met him in the 
 road and inquired whether he were a Union man or a rebel, 
 being dubious as to their arm\- affiliations, he answered diplo- 
 maticalK", "I am neither one nor the other, and \(.'r\- little of 
 
statues of Thontas II. lui/toii aint /-"ranc/s /'. JUair. 39 
 
 that," and tlieu-hy lost his third and last liorse to ConfederaU-s 
 dis.uuiscd in hhic uniforms. [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 TIk- KL-ntuckians are a peculiar people — the most liospital)le. 
 the most emotional, the kinde.st hearted under the sun: hul 
 thev are l)orn warriors. A orenuine .son of "the Dark and 
 Bloody ( jround " is in his normal condition otdy when fi.^hl- 
 ino-. It .seems to me that somebody must have sown that 
 rich land with drai^nm's teeth in the early days. To use a 
 sentence indigenous to the soil, "A Kentuckian will fight at 
 the drop of a hat, and drop it him.self." So the war was his 
 golden opportunity. He went to death as to a festival. Xearl>- 
 every able-bodied man in the State — and a great many not able- 
 bodied — not only of military age, but of any age, young enough 
 or old enough to .squeeze in, took up arms on one side or the 
 other, and .sometimes on both. 
 
 Neighbor against neighbor, father again.st son, brother 
 again.st brother, slave against ma.ster, and frequenth- wife 
 against husband; the fierce contention entered even into the- 
 ology, rent congregations in twain, .severed the ties of blood, 
 and blotted out the friend.ships of a lifetime. 
 
 Men who were born and reared on adjoining farms, who had 
 attended the same .schools, played the same games, courted the 
 same girls, danced in the same .sets, belonged to the same 
 lodges, and worshiped in the .same churches, suddenl>- went 
 gunning for each other as remorselessly as red Indian.s — onl\- 
 they had a clearer vi.sion and a .surer aim. From the moiUh 
 of the Big Sandy to the mouth of the Tennes.see there was not 
 a square mile in which some awful act of violence did not take 
 place. 
 
 Kentucky has always been celebrated for and cursed by its 
 bloody feuds — feuds which cau.se the Italian vendetta to appear 
 a holiday performance in comparison. Of course the war was 
 the evening-up time, and many a man became a violent Unioni.st 
 
40 Ac/drcss of Mr. Clark on tJic ^Icccptajicc of tJic 
 
 because the ancient enemies of his house were vSouthern sympa- 
 thizers, and vice versa. Some of them could have £(iven point- 
 ers to Fra Diavolo himself. 
 
 As all the evil passions of men were aroused, and all restraints 
 of propriet}- as well as all fear of law were removed, every 
 latent tendency toward crime was warmed into life. The land 
 swarmed with cutthroats, robbers, thieves, firebugs, and male- 
 factors of every degree and kind, wdio preyed upon the old, the 
 infirm, the helpless, and committed thousands of brutal and 
 heinous crimes — in the name of the Union or the Southern 
 Confederacy. 
 
 Missouri, prior to the war, was more a Kentucky colony than 
 anything else, with the Kentucky characteristics, feuds and all, 
 reproduced in stronger and larger form in her amazingh- fertile 
 .soil. vSo all that goes before applies to Mis.souri as well as to 
 Kentucky. 
 
 From the first Missouri has been the stormy petrel of Amer- 
 ican politics. The richest, the most imperial Commonwealth 
 in the Union, her geographical location always placed her in 
 the thick of the fight. She was a slave peninsula jutting out 
 into a free-soil sea. 
 
 The first serious trouble on the slavery cjuestion came with 
 her admission into the Union, and the second over the admis- 
 .sion of California — a Missouri colony. Most people date hos- 
 tilities from Sumter, April, 1861. As a matter of fact, Missouri 
 and Kansas had been carrying on a civil war on their own hook 
 for five or six years before the first gun was fired in Charleston 
 Harljor. 
 
 If Sir Walter Scott had li\-ed in that day, he could have 
 found enough material for fifty novels descriptive of border 
 warfare in the forays and exploits of the Mi.ssourians and Kan- 
 .sans ])efore the first soldier was legall>- mustered into the ser\-ice 
 of either armw 
 
Sfahti's of T/ioinas II. Boitoii and Frain/s P. II /air. 41 
 
 Out on a Kansas prairie stands a moniunent to old John 
 Brown, reciting the fact, inter aha, that he commanded "at the 
 battle ot Ossawatomie on the .^oth day of August, iS56."" 
 
 Whether the o|)]-)osing conunander has n monument I do 
 not know. 
 
 I witnessed only one battle during the civil war. A line in 
 Gen. Basil W. Duke's entertaining book, Morgan and His 
 Men, is all that is vouchsafed to it in the literature of the war; 
 but surely it was the most astounding martial caper e\'er cut 
 since Nimrod invented the military art, and it fully illustrates 
 the Kentuckian's inherent and ineradicable love of fighting. 
 
 I saw seven home guards charge the whole of Morgan's Ca\-- 
 alry — the very flower of Kentucky chivalry. 
 
 I was working as a farm hand for one John Call, who was 
 the proud owner of several fine horses of the famous ' ' copper- 
 bottom" V)reed. 
 
 Morgan had, perhaps, as good an eye for a ".saddler" as was 
 ever set in a human head, and during tho.se troublous days his 
 mind was .sadly mixed on the meum and tuum when it came to 
 equines — a remark applicable to manj- others besides Morgan, 
 on i)oth sides at that. 
 
 Call, hearing that Morgan was coming, and knowing his pen- 
 chant for the noblest of quadrupeds, ordered me to mount " in 
 hot haste ' ' and ' ' take the horses to the woods. 
 
 Just as I had climbed upon a magnificent che.stnut sorrel, fit 
 for a king's charger, and was rottnding up the others, I looked 
 up, and in the level rays of the setting .summer sun saw Mor- 
 gan's Cavalry in "all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of 
 glorious war ' ' riding up the broad gravel road on the backbone 
 of a long, high ridge, half a mile to the .south. Fascinated by 
 the glittering array, boy like, I forgot Call and the ])eril of his 
 hor.ses and watched the gay cavalcade. 
 
 Suddenly I saw seven horsemen emerge from the little \illage 
 
42 Address of Mr. Clark on tJic AcccptcDicc of f/w 
 
 of Mackville and ride furiously down the turnpike to within 
 easy pistol ranv^^e of the Confederates and open fire. I could 
 hear the crack of the revolvers and see the flash and smoke, 
 and when Morgan's advance guard fell back on the main body 
 I observed that one riderless horse went back with them and 
 that only six home guards rode back to Mackville in lieu of the 
 seven who had ridden forth to battle. 
 
 Morgan's connnand halted, deployed in battle line, and rode 
 slowly up the hill, while I rode a great deal faster to the woods. 
 
 The home guards had shot one man out of his saddle and 
 captured him, and Morgan had captured one of them. Next 
 morning the home guards, from their forest fastness, sent in a 
 flag of truce and regularly negotiated an exchange of prisoners 
 according to the rules in such cases made and provided. 
 
 Of course Morgan would have paid no attention to the .seven 
 men, but he supposed that even his own native Kentucky never 
 nurtured seven dare-devils so reckless as to do a thing like that 
 unless they had an army back of them. 
 
 I have often thought of that matchless deed of daring, and 
 can say, in the language of the Frenchman who witnes.sed the 
 charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava: "It is magnificent, 
 but not war." 
 
 Years afterwards one of the seven was .seutling his clnldren 
 to school to me. After I became well acquainted with him, 
 one day I .said to him: "Gibson, I have always wanted to know 
 wliat made you .seven fellows charge Morgan." "Oh," lie 
 replied, "we were all full of fighting whisky" — an explanation 
 which explained not only that fight but thousands more. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 If th.'it splendid feat of arms had been performed in New 
 lingland l)y New Englanders the world could scarcely contain 
 the books wliich would have been written about it. Il would 
 
S/a/ucs of TJionias //. Benton and Francis I\ Blair. 43 
 
 have been chronicled in history and chanted in scjn^ as an 
 inexhaustible theme. 
 
 It is oenerally assumed by the wiseacres who write the his- 
 tories that in the Ixn-der States the old, wealthy, prominent 
 slaveholdino- families all adhered to the Confederacy, and that 
 only the poor, the obscure natives and the immigrants from the 
 North stood by the old flag. This is a serious mistake. The 
 great historic dominant family connections divided, thereby 
 making confusion worse confounded. Prominent people wore 
 the Confederate gray. Others ju.st as prominent wore the 
 Union blue. 
 
 Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, the great theologian, with a 
 decided and incurable bias for politics, who presided over 
 the Republican national convention of 1864, which nominated 
 Abraham Uucoln and Andrew John.son, was a stanch Tnion 
 man. Two of his sons achieved high rank in the Confederate 
 armies and two others in the Union armies. 
 
 His illustrious cousin, John C. Breckinridge, resigned his seat 
 in the United States Senate to become a lieutenant-general in 
 the Southern army, while James S. Jackson, Representative 
 from the Green River district, resigned his .seat in the House to 
 become a brigadier in the Union Army and died a hero's death, 
 leading his division on the hard-fought field of Perryville. 
 
 Rodger Hanson, the eloquent, became a Confederate general 
 and fell on the field of his glory at Stone River, while his 
 brother won distinction on the other side as general of brigade. 
 
 John J. Crittenden — the best beloved of Kentucky states- 
 men — unflinchingly .stood by the Union, while one of his .sons 
 wore the double stars of a Union major general, another achie\-- 
 ing similar rank in the Confederate army. 
 
 The Hemx- Clay branch of the great Clay family espoused 
 the Confederate cau.se. while the Cassius M. Clay l)ranch 
 
44 Address of Mi-. Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 fought with the traditional courage of their race for the soH- 
 darity of the Ihiion. 
 
 John Marshall Harlan— now Mr. Justice Harlan, of the vSu- 
 preme Court — with a pedigree rumiing back to the cavaliers 
 of Jamestown — won retAown on many a bloody field, fighting 
 under "Old Pap" Thomas — "the Rock of Chickamauga." 
 
 In the same army were Lovell H. Rousseau, the ideal sol- 
 dier and princely gentleman, and Benjamin H. Bristow, who 
 missed the Presidency only by a scratch and through lack of 
 organization of his forces. 
 
 I had two schoolmates, older than myself, named Dickinson, 
 beardless boys and brothers, one of whom enlisted with Mor- 
 gan as a private and the other in the same capacity in brave 
 old Frank Wolford's famous First Kentucky Union Cavalry. 
 The strange fortunes of civil war brought these brothers face 
 to face in the great Indiana-Ohio raid— the greatest ride ever 
 taken since horses were first broken to bit and rein — and 
 when Morgan was captured, the Confederate Dickinson sur- 
 rendered to his Union brother. 
 
 In Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton, "the great Senator," 
 a North Carolinian by birth and a Tennesseean by training, 
 lost his curule chair in 1S51 on the slavery question, and so 
 long as he lived his vast influence was for the Union; and 
 it was his political pupil — Frank P. Blair, a Kentuckian 
 and a .slaveholder — who more than any other held Missouri 
 to the Union, while his cousin. Gen. Jo Shelby, was the beau 
 .sabreur of the trans- Mi.ssi.s.sippi Confederates. 
 
 To the same class belonged James O. Broadhead, John B. 
 Henderson, Edward Bates, Hamilton R. Gamble, Willard P. 
 Hall, John D. Stevenson, Thomas C. Fletcher, Thomas T. 
 Crittenden, Samuel T. Glover, John F. Phillips, B. Grat/ Brown, 
 John D. S. Dryden, Janies S. Rollins — the most brilliant orator 
 
Shx/iics of T/ioiiias II. Jn'ii/oit and Frauds P. Blatr. 45 
 
 and one of the largest slave owners in the State— and a large 
 minority, if not a positive majority, of the leading Unionists 
 of Missouri. 
 
 So far as I know. onl>- one Virginian of the first rank 
 fought f(n- the Union— Gen. Creorge H. Thomas— but he was 
 a host within himself, the greatest soldier on the Federal 
 side, for that will be the verdict of posterity after the sleight- 
 of-hand performers have done juggling the facts of history 
 for political effect. 
 
 Indeed, it is safe to say that had none of the aristcjcratic 
 families— wrongfully so called— none of the great families, 
 none of the slaveholders stood for the Union, Kentuck>-. Mis- 
 souri, and Maryland would have seceded, and if they had gone 
 with the South unanimoush- the Confederacy would ha\'e 
 achieved its independence; but if those States had been solidly 
 for the Union, if the house had not been hopelessly divided 
 against itself in all that region, the war would not have lasted 
 half .so long and William H. vSeward's optimistic prophecy of 
 a "ninety days' picnic" would have been fulfilled. 
 
 This brings me to the central idea of this .speech— the main 
 fact — of which I never think without anger and resentment, 
 for I believe that justice should be done, even in writing his- 
 tory, though the heavens fall, and it is this: 
 
 Population considered. Kentucky and Mi.s.souri .sent more 
 soldiers to the civil war than any other State and receive less 
 credit for it. 
 
 They were .splendid .soldiers, too. Theodore Roosevelt .says 
 that by actual measurement the Kentucky Union soldiers were 
 the finest specimens of physical manhood who were in the Fed- 
 eral armies; and when Jefferson Davis, him.self a renowned 
 soldier, reviewed the army at Corinth, he declared Cockrell's 
 Missouri brigade to be the most magnificent soldiers his trained 
 military eye had ever gazed upon. 
 
46 Address of Mr. Clark oti tJic jlcccptaiicc of the 
 
 Nevertheless it is difficult to induce extreme Southerners to 
 admit that the Kentucky and Missouri Confederates were o^ood 
 Confederates, though the Kentuckians and Missourians made 
 a four years' war possible. It is even more difficult to induce 
 extreme Northerners, whose skins and homes and property were 
 all safe during the war, to admit that the Unionists of Ken- 
 tuck\- and Missouri deserve any credit, when as a matter of 
 fact they prevented secession from succeeding. 
 
 If Lovell H. Rousseau had never recruited his Louisville 
 Legion; if old Frank Wolford and Thomas E. Bramlette had 
 never established Camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky would have 
 .seceded and the Ohio River would have been an impassable 
 barrier to the invading armies. 
 
 If Frank Blair had never captured Camp Jackson — for it 
 was Blair who conceived and carried out that great strategic 
 movement, and not Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, of New England, as 
 the Northern war books say — Missouri would have joined the 
 Confederacy under the lead of Governor Claiborne F. Jack.son 
 and Gen. Sterling Price, the peerless soldier, and with her vast 
 resources to command, Lee's soldiers would not have been 
 starved and frozen into a surrender. 
 
 If the Government built monuments to .soldiers in proportion 
 to what they really accomplished for the Union cause, Frank 
 Blair's would tower proudly among the loftiest. Camp Jack- 
 son is slurred over with an occasional paragraph in the history 
 l)ooks, but it was the turning point in the war west of the 
 Mississippi, and it was the work of Frank Blair, the Ken- 
 tuckian, the Missourian, the sla\-e owner, tlie patrician, the 
 leonine soldier, the patriotic statesman. 
 
 vSome da>- a Tacitus, Sismondi, or Ma(,aula>- will write a 
 truthful history of our civil war— the bloodiest chapter in the 
 book of time — and when it is written the Kentucky and Mis- 
 souri heroes, both Union and Confederate, will be em'obed in 
 innnorlal ulorw 
 
S/(7/!n-s of Thonia:^ If. Boitoji and Francis P. li/air. 47 
 
 It is said that figures will not lie. and here lliex are; To 
 tile I'nion armies Missouri contributed 109,111 soldiers: Ken- 
 tucky, 75,760: Maryland, 46,638: Tennessee, 31,092, and West 
 \'ir!L;inia, 32,068 — niakiui^ a ,<;rand total of 294,669. 
 
 Now, suppose a case. vSuppose that as tlie sun was setting 
 on the gory field of Shiloh, when Albert vSidne>- John.ston died, 
 all the Kentuckians, Mi.ssourians, and Teiniesseeans had been 
 suddenly subtracted from the Union Arm\- and transferred to 
 the Confederate .side. Can any .sane man doubt what would 
 have happened? As certain as fate llly.sses vSimp.son Grant 
 and the renniants of his army would have been captured or 
 driven into the Tennes.see and Beauregard would have fattened 
 his famished soldiers on the fertile prairies of Illinois and 
 Indiana. All the Buells and Nelsons in Christendom could 
 not have saved the .silent .soldier had it not been for the 
 Kentuckians, Missourians, and Tennesseeans fighting for their 
 country there: and with all Grant's l)ulldog tenacity the history 
 of \'icksbtirg, Mi.ssionar\- Ridge, Cold Harbor, the Wilderness, 
 and Appomattox never would have been written, for the all- 
 sufficient reason that there would not have been an\- to write. 
 
 Suppo.se another case. Suppo.se that George H. Thomas had 
 gone with his vState, as all his brothers in arms from \'irginia 
 did, and that when Pickett made his s])ectacular charge at 
 Gettysbtirg, Thomas had in the nick of time reenforced him 
 with the 294,669 veteran Kentuckians, Missourians, Mary- 
 landers, West \"irginians, and Tennes.seeans then fighting in 
 the I'nion armies, can any human being fail to understand 
 what would have been the re.sult? Meade's grand arm\- would 
 have been ground to powder, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Har- 
 ri.sburg, Washington, New York wotild have been taken, the 
 nations of Europe would have run races with each other to 
 recognize the independence of the Confederacy, and more aid 
 than he needed would have been freely tendered Jeflferson 
 
48 Address of Mr. C lark on tJie Acceptance of the 
 
 Davis to enable him to realize the aspirations of the vSoiith 
 for a separate government. 
 
 In taking a retrospect of the conduct of the border vStates 
 during the war and of how the slaveholders therein fought 
 valiantly for their own undoing, I am forced to the conclusion 
 that when Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address: 
 
 I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 
 of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right 
 to do so, and I have no inclination to do so- 
 
 he did more for the preservation of the Union than was done 
 by all the .speeches, great and .small, delivered since the con- 
 fusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, for that one declara- 
 tion held hundreds of thousands in the border States faithful to 
 the Union who otherwise and naturally would have gone with 
 the vSouth. The Kentuckians and Missourians belong to that 
 class who, having put their hands to the plow, do not look 
 back, and they fought on after the emancipation proclamation 
 as bravely and doggedly as before. 
 
 It may be that the fact that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson 
 Davis were both Kentuckians, born within a few miles of each 
 other, added fuel Id the flames throughout Kentuck\ and 
 Mi.ssouri and where\'er the Kentuckians had .settled in large 
 numbers. The accident of their birth in the same vicinity con- 
 tributed to the awful tragedy the element of feud, inlierent in 
 the Kentucky character. 
 
 At any rate, Lincoln understood the Kentuckians ami Mi.s- 
 sourians better than an>' other Republican President, and to 
 the day of his death they had a warm place in his sympathetic 
 heait. 
 
 More than all this, the border vStale men fought, whatever 
 their rank. 
 
 The only instance on record during the entire war of one 
 field ofiiicer killing another in battle was at Mill .Spring, wlien 
 
S^aZ/us of ThoDhxs If. ficii/oi a//i/ /-'/(r/zcis ]\ Blair. 49 
 
 Geti. Sj^eed vSinith Fry, of Kentucky, a Union soldier, shot and 
 killed ("ieneral Zollicoffer, coniniandin^^ a ])rigade of Tennessee 
 Confederates. The ouIn' jjarallel to this sang-uinary perform- 
 ance in all our military annals was the killing of Tecumseh, at 
 the battle of the river Thames, by Col. Richard M. Johnson, 
 another Kentuckian, popularly called "Old Dick." 
 
 Ed Porter Thompson, of Kentucky, a Confederate captain, 
 hobbled into the battle of Murfreesboro on his crutches, and for 
 two days fought side b>- side with those possessing the soundest 
 and most stalwart legs, thereby rivaling the far-resounding feats 
 of Charles XII of vSweden at Pultowa and Gen. Joseph Wheeler 
 at Santiago of being carried into battle upon a stretcher. 
 
 One of my own constituents, P. Wells, is the only soldier, 
 living or dead, so far as history tells, that ever had a wooden 
 leg shot off in battle, for the reason, perhaps, that he is the 
 only soldier that ever went into battle with a wooden leg. He 
 survived his wound to become a wealthy and enthusiastic 
 Populist. 
 
 In Mis.souri the war was waged wath unspeakable bitterness, 
 sometimes with inhuman cruelty. It was fought by men in 
 single combat, in squads, in companies, in regiments, in great 
 armies, in the open, in fortified towns, and in ambush, under 
 the Stars and Stripes, under the Stars and Bars, and under the 
 black flag. The arch fiend himself seems to have been on the 
 field in person, inspiring, directing, commanding. Up in north 
 Missouri Gen. John McNeil took 12 innocent men out and shot 
 them in cold blood, because it was supposed that .some bush- 
 whacker had killed a Union man. That is known in local 
 history as "the Palmyra massacre," and has " dannicd " John 
 McNeil " to everlasting fame." It turned out afterwards that 
 the Union man was still alive, and so the 12 men had died in 
 vain — even according to the hard rule of^lex talionis. 
 S. Doc. 456 4 
 
50 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 At Centralia one day a Wabash train containing more than 
 30 Union soldiers was captured by Bill Anderson, a guerrilla 
 chief, who had sustained some grievous personal injury at the 
 hands of the Unionists, and whose blood some subtle mental 
 alchemy had converted into gall. He deliberately took them 
 out and shot them every one, as though they had been so many 
 wolves. 
 
 Having completed that gory job, he marched out to a skirt 
 of timber, about a mile from town, and camped at the foot of 
 a long, gentle prairie slope. Shortly after a certain Colonel 
 Johnson, with a body of Union cavalry, followed him and took 
 position on the ridge of the prairie. The sight of them made 
 Anderson wild with delight and whetted his appetite for blood; 
 so he mounted his 80 men, the most superb horsemen in the 
 world, who, with bridle reins between their teeth and a navy 
 revolver in each hand, rode up on Johnson's 160 men, whom 
 he had foolishly dismounted, and, firing to right and left, killed 
 143 of them, and would have killed the other 17 if they could 
 have been caught. Only one man was taken alive, and he badly 
 wounded, the legend in the neighborhood being that he saved 
 himself by giving the Masonic sign of distress. 
 
 Such are samples of the civil war in Missouri and Kentuckj-. 
 
 The survivors of those cruel days, Union and Confederate, 
 are now living side by side, cultivating assiduously the arts of 
 peace in the imperial Commonwealth of Missouri — the most 
 delectable place for human habitation beneath the stars. 
 
 A PIOXEER PEACKMAKEK. 
 
 Lately we have heard a vast deal of eloquence about a 
 reunited countr>-. Thirty-two years after Appomattox men 
 are accounted orators, .statesmen, and philanthropists because 
 they grandiloquently declare that at last the time has arrived 
 
Siafiu's of Tho)iias H. Boiton and Frai/iis l\ Blair. 51 
 
 to bury the animosities of the civil war in a grave upon whose 
 headstone shall be inscribed, "No Resurrection." I would not 
 detract even in the estimation of a hair from the fame of these 
 eleventh-hour pacificators. I humbly and fervently thank 
 Almighty God that the country is reunited. 
 
 When I look into the faces of my little children, my heart 
 swells with ineffable pride to think that they are citizens of this 
 great Republic, one and indivisible, which is destined not for 
 a day, but for all time, and which will be the crowning glory 
 and dominating influence of all the centuries yet to be. Btit if 
 we applaud these ex post facto peacemakers and shed tears of 
 joy over their belated pathos, what shall be our meed of praise, 
 the measure of our gratitude, the manifestation of our admira- 
 tion, the expression of our love for Frank Blair, the magnifi- 
 cent Missourian, the splendid American, who, with his military 
 laurels fresh upon him, within a few days after Lee surren- 
 dered, returned to his State, which had been ravaged by fire 
 and sword, holding aloft the olive branch, proclaiming to the 
 world that there were no rebels any more, that his fellow-citi- 
 zens who had fought for the South were entitled to equal 
 respect and equal rights with other citizens, and that real peace 
 must "tinkle on the shepherd's bells and sing among the 
 reapers" of Missouri? He took the ragged and defeated Con- 
 federates by the hand and, in the words of Abraham to Lot, 
 said, " We be brethren." 
 
 The truly brave, 
 When they behold the brave oppressed with odds, 
 Are touched with a desire to shield and save. 
 
 [Applause.] 
 
 It seems to me that the very angels in heaven, looking down 
 with approving eyes upon his magnanimous conduct, must 
 have sung, in full chorus, the .song of nineteen hundred years 
 ago, "On earth, peace; good will toward men." 
 
52 Address of Mr. Clark on the Acceptance of the 
 
 King Solomon says: 
 
 To every thinj^ there is a season and a time to every purpose under 
 heaven: A time to kill, and a time to heal. 
 
 In the time for killing, Frank Bi.air was one of the most 
 persistent fighters. When the time for healing came, he was 
 one of the first to pour the balm of consolation into bruised 
 hearts and to bind up the nation's wounds. 
 
 In the Army he was one of the favorite lieutenants of Ulysses 
 Simpson Grant, who with knightly honor resolutely and cour- 
 ageously kept his plighted faith to Lee, thereby preventing an 
 aftermath of death at the very thought of which the world 
 grows pale. 
 
 In the fierce and all-pervading light of history, which beats 
 not upon thrones alone, but upon all high places as well, 
 Blair will stand side by side with the invincible soldier who 
 said, "Let us have peace"— the noblest words that ever fell 
 from martial lips. 
 
Statues of Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair. 53 
 
 Address of Mr. Lloyd, of Missouri. 
 
 Mr. vSpeaker, Missouri presents to-day to the Congress of the 
 United States statues of two of her honored dead and asks that 
 they may be received and placed in Statuary Hall in this Capitol 
 as a permanent memorial not onh- of her devotion to their 
 memory, but in recognition of the fact that few men have 
 accomplished more for this nation than they have done. 
 
 The cold marble, fashioned through skill and energy to repre- 
 sent the body of the living or the dead, is one of the wonderful 
 achievements of the ages. Two excellent evidences of perfec- 
 tion in this art are presented here to-day. It was never my 
 privilege to see either of the extraordinary characters thus 
 shown in .statuary form, but the names of Benton and Blair 
 are household words in Missouri, and are recognized anywhere 
 as the names of prominent characters in national history. 
 
 It is claimed by those who should know that these statues 
 are hfelike; but, sir, these inanimate representations, perfect as 
 they may l:>e, have not the vital force of the living being, and 
 but serve to show the weakness of man in his efforts to repro- 
 duce that from which the providence of God has withdrawn the 
 breath of life. 
 
 Among the great men of this nation who have had part in its 
 achievements, who have secured place in the hearts of their 
 countrymen, and who have left indelible impress for good, few 
 have ever been entitled to greater honor and re.spect than 
 Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair, jr. 
 
 Missouri does not present these emblems in stone simplj- as 
 matter of form — that it may have the honor of representation 
 in yonder Statuary Hall, once the National House of Repre- 
 sentatives — but that it may discharge a duty in showing appre- 
 ciation of its honored dead. It would teach its youth to cherish 
 
54 Address of Mr. Lloyd on tJic Acceptance of the 
 
 the memory of those who have biiiU \\\> its institutions and 
 given the State such high place. It would remind them to 
 look with admiration upon the good deeds of its great men, 
 and to ever show respect to the dead whose lives were spent in 
 successful achievement for their country's honor and develop- 
 ment. 
 
 It is not my purpose to contrast the characters of Blair and 
 Benton. I have not one word to say in disparagement of 
 either, but it is understood that \\\y remarks shall be directed 
 mainly to the statue of Colonel Benton, as others will pay the 
 tribute to General Blair which his distinguished services and 
 personal character so richly deserve. 
 
 Thoma.s Hart Benton was born in the last year of that 
 eventful period in national history, the Revolutionary war, 
 within two months of the birth of Daniel Webster. His 
 birthplace was near Hillsboro, in Orange County, N. C. His 
 ancestors were among the leaders of the Revolution of 1775, 
 and contributed largely in every way to the service of their 
 country. Col. Jesse Benton, his father, was a gentleman of 
 excellent character and a lawyer of recognized ability. His 
 mother was Ann Gooch, of the Gooch family of \"irginia. A 
 lady of strong and resolute character, she possessed unusual 
 mental endowment, and her literary acquirements were good 
 for the period. At the age of 8 years it was Mr. Benton's 
 misfortune to lose his father, he being the eldest of several 
 children left in the care of the mother. While he obtained 
 his education, in the most part, in private schools, he also 
 spent some time at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel 
 Hill, tliough he did not graduate from the institution. 
 
 But few years elapsed after his father's death until his 
 mother, with her children, moved to Tennessee and lived upon 
 a large landed estate which had been left b>- her husband. She 
 
S/a/iirs of r/tonias //. Ih->ilon and Francis P. Blair. 55 
 succeeded well in the development of the estate and in the 
 acquisition of property, considering the fact that they were on 
 the frontier, or nearly so, of civilization. He studied law, but 
 in the meantime tau-ht in a small school on Duck Creek, near 
 Franklin, in that State. He was admitted to the bar at Frank- 
 lin, the home of the present distinguished Representative from 
 thai district [Mr. Cox], and there began the practice of his 
 profession. Shortly afterwards he was elected to the legis- 
 lature of that State and distinguished himself in his efforts 
 to secure the passage of two bills, one for the reform of the 
 judicial system and the other in which the same right of trial 
 by jury was given to slaves as to white men. 
 
 At the close of this service he moved to Nashville, the 
 beautiful capital of that State, near the attractive home of 
 his friend and admirer, Gen. Andrew Jackson, afterwards 
 President Jackson. This home, known as the Hermitage, is 
 carefully preserved up to the present time and is about 12 
 miles distant from Nashville. General Jackson took an active 
 interest in Mr. Benton and assisted him very greatly m 
 securing position at the bar. 
 
 From Foote's Bench and Bar of the South and Southwest we 
 learn that Mr. BenTon formed a partnership for the practice of 
 the law at Nashville with the late O. B. Hayes, a native of 
 Massachusetts, of liberal education and more than ordinary 
 
 abilitv. 
 
 In the war of 1812 young Benton was General Jackson's aid- 
 de-camp for a short time. He also raised a regiment of vol- 
 unteers, but had no opportunity to engage in actual warfare. 
 But no one doubts his courage or his ability, if opportunity had 
 come to him, to meet an enemy on the field of battle. In 1813 
 he was appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the United States 
 Armv bv President Madison. He at once started to Canada, 
 
56 Addrc'ss of Mr. Lloyd on the Acccpfaficc of the 
 
 but on his way learned that peace had been declared, and, 
 returning, he resigned his commission. Thus ended a short 
 Init willing service, for no man of his day was more patriotic, 
 and none braver could be found. The laurels which come 
 from victorious conflict could not be claimed for him, l)Ut his 
 devotion to his country is fully shown by his voluntary offer 
 to assist it. 
 
 In 18 1 5 he took up his residence in St. Louis and began the 
 practice of law. On account of his integrity, legal knowledge, 
 energy, and devotion to the cause of his clients, he soon built 
 up a good practice. He became connected during that time 
 with a newspaper at St. Louis, which gave him opportunity to 
 reach the people. He advocated vigorously such matters as he 
 believed were for the interests of the growing West. He made 
 a .strong fight in favor of the admission of Missouri to the 
 Union notwithstanding her slavery constitution. The stand 
 taken in this matter had more to do than any one thing, per- 
 haps, in giving him the prominence which secured him the 
 distinguished honor of being one of the first two Senators 
 elected by that vState in the j^ear 1820. 
 
 vSir, we now approach the greater work of Colonel Bextox — 
 that broad field of labor in which he wrought so mightily for 
 mankind. The results achieved here will live in American 
 history long after the enduring statue shall have become 
 clouded with age. I have not the time to elal)orate on his 
 great service as a public servant, and can only, in a very 
 general way, refer to his labors and to a few of the vital 
 questions which engaged his attention. He went into the 
 Senate as a representative of the West and Western sentiment. 
 He could hardly be classed as belonging to either the North 
 or the South at any period in his history, for while he was 
 himself a slave owner he was an ardent Union man, and was 
 
Sfa/iirs of Thomas II. Bcnto)i and Francis I\ lUair. 57 
 
 chiefly ccMiccrned that the Ha^ ot his country should ever 
 wave over a united people. He condennied the Hartford 
 convention in its disunion sentiment, and ever re^^arded his 
 country as more important than any part of it. 
 
 Colonel Benton was fully imbued with the political teach- 
 ings of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic school 
 of statesmanship, and was the very impersonation of the genius 
 of the West, where these theories had taken their deepest root. 
 He knew better than anyone who preceded him its needs, its 
 capabilities, and its destinies. He devoted himself with all 
 of his unusual powers of l)ody and mind to the important 
 duty of supplying these wants, showing its capa])ilities, and 
 in preparing the way for its future development. He 
 sought to expose to public gaze the vicious legislation that 
 so hampered its growth and chained its giant energies. 
 
 This unfortunate condition resulted in part from ignorance 
 and largely from that local, selfish class interest which fixes 
 it.self upon every object from wdiich it may draw strength. He 
 insisted that the pro.sperity of the West would be shared by 
 every other section. He demanded the repeal of those laws 
 by which her lands were withheld from cultivation and settle- 
 •ment that they might be purchased and controlled by specu- 
 lators; by which her mines and saline lands were leased out 
 to rich syndicates without gain to anyone, and l^y which the 
 necessaries of life were taxed to pay bounties to .some losing 
 trade in another section. He believed in the fundamental doc- 
 trine of equahty before the law. He resolved to attack and 
 overthrow these monsters of evil because they were in opposi- 
 tion to that basic principle of the Republic. 
 
 The cultivation of the soil is the source of all national pros- 
 perity; it gives comfort and independence to the people, and 
 is that upon which the nation must draw for its revenue. 
 
58 Address of Mr. Lloyd on the Acceptance of the 
 
 strength, and stability. At the time of Colonel Benton's 
 entry into politics the minimum price for public lands was $2 
 per acre; but none could be bought at that sinn until it had 
 first been exposed at public sales to the highest bidder and 
 rejected. The result naturally was that speculators bought the 
 best lands and held them up for higher prices, and none but 
 refuse lands could be bought by the actual settlers at the mini- 
 mum Government price. 
 
 No one could go on public lands before sale, for he was then 
 treated as a trespasser and was likely to be ejected by military 
 authority. The mineral and saline lands were held by monop- 
 olists, so that the poor and struggling pioneer had but little 
 chance in the race of life. No scheme could have been devised 
 better calculated to keep the growth of the country in check 
 or to prevent the settlement and cultivation of it. 
 
 Colonel Benton, the first great statesman of the West — the 
 only one of his time west of the Mississippi River — who was 
 classed with Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, championed early in 
 his eventful career the cause of the people, and sought the 
 enactment of such laws as would secure the development of 
 the country whose oppression he deplored and whose interests 
 were his own. He believed that preemption, graduation, and 
 homestead would cause this neglected portion of the vast 
 domain to be dotted over with homes of u.seful, industrious, and 
 happy people, who would luring to the bar of their country's 
 wealth the fruits of the possibilities of that matchless region, 
 and that soon after its adoption the whole nation would be 
 astonished at its rapid development, and would rejoice in its 
 unexpected achievement. 
 
 He accordingly introduced a bill which provided for the right 
 of preemption to the actual .settler at the mininunn price, the 
 reduction of the price of the land, the graduation of the prices 
 
Staines of TJionias II. Ih'iifoii a)id Francis P. Blair. 59 
 
 of refuse lands in ])r()]K)rti()ii to the time the\" had been in the 
 market, and the donati(Mi of homesteads to impoverished Init 
 indnstrioiis persons who would cultivate the land for a given 
 period. He began this battle for the emancipation of the 
 farmer and laborer of that section almost alone. He renewed 
 his bills for these purposes with each succeeding Congress, and 
 developed the whole subject by throwing upon it the calcium 
 light of truth with that unequaled industry and energy for 
 which he was distinguished above all public men. 
 
 He reproduced these speeches in the newspaper and upon 
 the rostrum, calling the people's attention to the importance 
 of the proposed legislation and hoping that they would compel 
 Congress to adopt his measures. The contest was long and 
 arduous; it was met with the most determined opposition. His 
 plans were thwarted from time to time by schemes for the 
 distribution of the lands or the proceeds of their sale among 
 the States, which held out a glittering argument of greed and 
 gain as a pecuniary incentive to deny these great measures of 
 justice to the undeveloped West. But defeat and delay left 
 him undaunted, and with greater determination and earnest- 
 ness he pressed the battle, gaining strength for his cause with 
 each successive engagement. A single quotation from one of 
 his speeches will serve to show the scope of his reasoning: 
 
 The example of all nations, ancient and modern, republican and mon- 
 archical, is in favor of giving lands in parcels suitable to their wants to 
 meritorioi;s cultivators. There is not an instance upon earth, except that 
 of our own Federal Government, which made merchandise of land to its 
 own citizens, exacted the highest price it could obtain, and refused to 
 .suffer tlie country to be settled until it was paid for. The promi.sed land 
 was divided among the children of Israel. All the Atlantic States, when 
 British colonies, were settled upon gratuitous donations or nominal sales. 
 
 Kentucky and Tenne.ssee were chiefly settled in the same way. The two 
 Floridas and Upper and Lower Louisiana were gratuitously distributed by 
 the kings of Spain to settlers, in quantities adapted to their means of 
 cultivation, and with the whole vacant domain to select from, according 
 
6o Address of Mr. Lloyd on the Acceptance of the 
 
 to their pleasure. Mr. Burke, in his great argument in the British Par- 
 liament upon the sale of the Crown lands, said he considered the revenue 
 derived from the sale of such lands as a trifle of no account compared 
 to the amount of the revenue derivable from the same lands through 
 their settlement and cultivation. 
 
 Colonel Bextox'S advanced and statesmanlike views finally 
 took hold upon the country. They were adopted by other 
 public men, who took up the cause and assisted in its work, 
 while the people rallied to his support. General Jackson and 
 Mr. Van Buren, in their messages to Congress on these ques- 
 tions, embodied his ideas in recommendations. Many of the 
 States embraced his measures, and in many ways public interest 
 was aroused until their passage was secured. The great West, 
 in its development of this age, is the monument to the enact- 
 ment of that and other beneficent measures in which he took 
 prominent part. He who holds his farm by preemption right 
 to-day, or through the graduation laws, or has been enabled to 
 make a happy home for himself and family through the home- 
 stead enactments, should accord to Colonel. Bkxtox the meed 
 of praise for securing these legal rights. It is no exaggerated 
 eulogy to attribute to him the first place among those who 
 wrought so well as to make possible the development of the 
 West and to show its colossal greatness. 
 
 Conspicuous among these efforts at reform and legislation for 
 the masses was the overthrow of the salt tax. This article, so 
 vital to our well-being, almost as necessary as the water we 
 drink, wms enormously taxed in order to pay a bounty to an 
 unimportant interest in New England. When once these class 
 interests have secured footing, their tenacity is .so great that it 
 becomes almost impossible to make them release their hold. 
 This tax was onerous and distressing to the whole country, 
 but especially .so to the We.st. Colonel Bentox made war 
 upon it. It was a m()noi-)()ly, seizing an object of imivensal 
 
ShT flies of TlioDias II. Boiloii and Francis P. Blair, 6i 
 
 necessity and taxing it for the benefit of the few. As such, 
 he hated it; he wrote and spoke against it until the whole 
 country was aroused. He portrayed what would be the result 
 of class legislation in an alarming manner; but little, however, 
 did he realize, with all his gifted forethought, what influence 
 monopoly, trusts, and classes would have upon the vital ener- 
 gies of the country he loved so well at the close of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 His power in speech was now universally recognized. In 
 Bungay's Offhand Takings of Noticeable Men of Our Age, he 
 said of Colonel Kkxton: 
 
 As a speaker he is more argumentative than eloquent, more philo- 
 sophical than poetical; Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, and Cass were 
 to the United States Senate what the five senses are to the human 
 system. 
 
 In Bateman's Biographies of Distinguished National Men it 
 
 is said: 
 
 Mr. Benton was distinguished by great learning, an" iron will, practical 
 mind, and strong memory. His speeches when written were firmly fixed 
 in his mind, so that he could repeat them accurately in public without 
 the manuscript. He was industrious, determined, and unyielding, with 
 poclcets overflowing with statistics, and his head full of historical lore. 
 
 In biographical sketches found in the United States Demo- 
 cratic Review for the year 1858 one of Colonel Benton's 
 associates in the Senate relates an incident which shows the 
 effects of his speeches in a very forceful way. 
 
 A subject of some interest had been under discussion for 
 several days. At the commencement of the debate Mr. Clay 
 had spoken against the measure. Prior to the taking of the 
 vote Mr. Benton got the floor and spoke with unusual effect 
 for more than an hour, his argument being mainly a reply to 
 the speech of Mr. Clay. To the surprise of the whole Senate, 
 when the vote was taken Mr. Clay voted for the bill, and thus 
 secured its pas.sage. Mr. Cla\- explained the reason of this 
 
62 Address of Mr. Lloyd on the Acceptance of the 
 
 apparent inconsistency between his speech and vote by saying 
 that he "could not help it;" that Colonel Benton had con- 
 vinced him that the view he had taken was wrong, not so 
 much from his reasoning as from something connected with 
 his speech, but what that something was he could not explain. 
 It is said that Mr. Cla>' did not stand alone in this singularity, 
 for Mr. Webster had made a like remark as to the effect of 
 Benton's speeches upon himself. 
 
 His efforts to overthrow bank paper was the climax, perhaps, 
 of his energy and ability. The speeches he made on that sub- 
 ject were the best and strongest he ever made. He was Presi- 
 dent Jackson's support in that great contest which liberated 
 the Government of the people from the thraldom of the bank. 
 He was the mouthpiece of the people and the Administration. 
 Pitted against him were Webster and Clay, whose eloquence 
 always swayed the Senate and the nation. Accordingly the 
 success of Colonel Benton's cause, when we consider the 
 charm of their oratory and the beauty and power of expres- 
 sion which characterized all that fell from the lips of these 
 illustrious men, can hardly be accounted for except through 
 his own power of speech and the righteousness of the cause 
 which he so clearly demonstrated and so ably upheld. 
 
 Colonel Benton was impressed with the idea that the pos- 
 sessions of the Government .should extend from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific Ocean. He gloried in the genius of Jefferson in 
 securing the acquisition of what was known as the Louisiana 
 purchase. When Texas was exchanged for Florida by the 
 treaty of 1819 and the joint occupation of Oregon was conceded 
 to Great Britain in 1820, Colonel Benton raised his voice 
 against it, and though others could not see the neces.sity for 
 these regions. Colonel Benton's prophetic vision already saw 
 
S/{7/urs of Thomas II. Bciiton and Francis [\ lilair. 63 
 
 them peopled with vast cities, marking the hi.t^^hway of the 
 
 wHirld's commerce. He coiulemned the statesmen who were 
 
 thus wilhiig: to set a hmit to the boundaries of the country 
 
 because they could not foresee the future which would fill 
 
 them with a teeming population, and in that connection used 
 
 these remarkable words: 
 
 The magnificent valley of the Mississippi is ours, with all its fountain 
 springs and floods, and woe to the statesman who shall undertake to sur- 
 render one drop of its water or one inch of its soil to any foreign power. 
 
 He renounced the treaty for the joint occupation of Oregon 
 with the British and urged the policy of planting it with an 
 American colony. He made him.self familiar with all that 
 country lying between the Missis.sippi and the Pacific Ocean. 
 The hunters and trappers, fur traders, Indian agents, Army 
 officers, and others who visited the great West made their 
 headquarters and place of outfit at St. Louis. He talked with 
 all these, entertained them at his home, and was their friend. 
 He knew more of the country than those who had spent years 
 in it, because he sought to know everything that was known 
 by all who had l)een there. 
 
 He and his colleague, Dr. Linn, con.stantly urged the planting 
 of an American colony in the place of that founded by John 
 Jacob Astor. They sought to induce colonists, by donations 
 of land and military protection on the route and in the Ter- 
 ritory, to settle in the then far-off land. The.se measures 
 finally rewarded their efforts; the colony was planted, the 
 joint occupation by the British terminated by treaty, the 
 route to the distant Oregon explored by scientific officers, 
 and the results have been promulgated. Lieutenant Fremont, 
 at that time an officer of engineers in the Lnited States Army, 
 a sou-iu-law of Colonel Benton, had nuich to do with these 
 
64 Address of Mr. Lloyd oil the Acceptance of the 
 
 explorations and in the additions made to science and geograph- 
 ical knowledge. Lieutenant Fremont for years traveled over 
 the West, and the intimate relation existing between him and 
 Colonel Benton was such that the early settlers of all the 
 Western country learned to feel that their chief advocate at 
 the national capital was Colonel Benton. 
 
 There are a number of other matters in Colonel Benton's 
 official career to which I should refer did not limited time 
 prevent. I wish, however, to call ' attention to his views on 
 the slavery question. It was his belief that there was a settled 
 plan and determination on the part of certain eminent leaders 
 to bring about a separation of the States. He repeatedly 
 expressed this belief, and in the contest in 1850, when he 
 was a candidate for the sixth time for the position which 
 he had filled with so much credit, his views on the slavery 
 question were an element in the campaign, and were the cause, 
 as most persons believe, of his defeat. The bitter experience 
 of that deadly strife, of which his rejection for the Senate 
 was one of the opening scenes, may well remind us of the 
 warning he uttered in vain, and of the sacrifices he made of 
 himself to save his State and country. 
 
 Even those to whom his fiery zeal in defense of the endan- 
 gered Union gave offense will not now fail to honor the noble 
 magnanimity and lofty patriotism which prompted him to make 
 the contest. Personal feeling ran high at that time in Mis- 
 souri. After his defeat the people of his adopted city elected 
 him to the House of Representatives, and when some of his 
 friends were rejoicing over his victory in this contest he used 
 these words, "Exaltation, my friend, is natural, but moderation 
 is the ornament of victory." There never was a time when 
 he was not devoted to his country. He was anxious that futu- 
 rity should find it united and the States harmoniously living 
 Uix the development of their common interests. 
 
S/aiiu'S of Tlio»ias //. Bc)ito)i coid Francis P. />/n/r. 65 
 
 He served but one term in the House of Representatives; he 
 was defeated for reelection. In 1856 he was a candidate for 
 governor. On account of (li\-isi()n in his own ])art>- he was 
 defeated. From the lime lie went out of Congress until his 
 death he devoted him.self to literar\- work, i)rei)arin<^ a very 
 valuable publication known as " Thirty Years in Congress," 
 which covered the period from 1820 to 1850. He presented 
 in this work a connected narrative of the time from Adams 
 to Pierce, and dealt largely with the .secret political hi.story 
 of that period. He then undertook the task of abridging the 
 debates of Congre.ss from the foundation of the Government. 
 This work he was just com])leting when death came to him. 
 It has since been published, and is a very valuable compilation 
 of about fifteen volumes. 
 
 While Colonel Benton was a man of exalted ])atriotism, he 
 was a man of great pas.sion as well. Indeed, his animosities 
 showed him unrelenting, though later in life he became for- 
 giving. Mr. Webster is reported in Harve>'s Reminiscences 
 and Anecdotes to have said that Colonel Benton and he never 
 .spoke to each other for several 3^ears, but that he came to him 
 one da\- and told him, with tears in his eyes, of being on board 
 the Princeton in the ver)' best po.sition to .see the experiment 
 of discharging her guns. 
 
 Some one in the midst of the great throng touched him and 
 caused him to move his position. Shortly after the explosion 
 came, and the man was killed who stood where he had. 
 Colonel Benton said that it .seemed to him that the touch was 
 the hand of the Almight\- stretched down to draw him away 
 from the place of instantaneous death. This circumstance 
 changed the whole current of his life. He was now a different 
 man and wanted to be at .peace with everyone, and for that 
 purpose he visited Webster. He .said, "Let us bur\- the 
 S. Doc. 456 5 
 
66 Address of Mr. IJovd on the Acceptance of the 
 
 hatchet." Webster accepted the offer, and they were ever 
 afterwards the best of friends. 
 
 Mr. Webster relates another incident, which is fcmnd in the 
 same book, pecuharly interesting and illustrative of Colonel 
 Benton's relenting spirit. John Wilson, of St. Louis, came 
 to see Mr. Webster on a matter of business at his home in 
 Washington. Mr. Wilson was a lawyer of extensive practice 
 and of good talent, a man of violent prejudices and temper, 
 who was ever in open opposition to the course of Colonel 
 Benton. It was notorious in St. Louis that when Colonel 
 Benton went on the stump John Wilson would be there to 
 meet him and to abuse him in the strongest terms; Mr. Benton 
 would return the fire. 
 
 Mr. Webster had not seen Mr. Wilson for manj- years, but 
 he came to him now prematurely old, with fortiuie wrecked, 
 and told him of his desire to emigrate to California for his 
 family's sake. As far as he was concerned, poverty mattered 
 not, but on account of those dear to him he wished to try and 
 mend his fortunes. He therefore desired a letter to some one 
 in California which would say that Webster knew him to be a 
 respectable person worthy of confidence. Webster said he 
 knew no one in California. 
 
 Mr. Wilson insi.sted that this would make no difference, as 
 everybody would know him and that therefore a ;,ertificate 
 from him would be the most valuable testimonial he could 
 have. Webster said he would write one with pleasure, but 
 suggested that Colonel Benton, who almost owns California, 
 could give a letter to Fremont and others that would l)e of 
 great benefit to him. Wilson looked at Web.ster in astonish- 
 ment and said he would not .speak to Benton, "No, not if it 
 were to save the life of every member of my family; " that the 
 
Stn/iies of TJio)nas //. Ih')ifi))i and Francis P. Blair. 67 
 
 thought of it made him shudder; that he felt indignant at its 
 
 mention, since Webster knew that they were unfriendly. Mr. 
 
 Webster replied that he understood the situation, and, turning 
 
 to his desk, wrote the following note to Mr. Bi.;nT(>.\: 
 
 Dk.\r Sir: I am well aware of the disputes, personal and political, 
 which have taken place between yourself and the bearer of this note, 
 Mr. John Wilson. But he is now old, and is going to California and 
 needs a letter of reconnnendation. You know everybody, and a letter 
 from you would do him good. I have assured Mr. Wilson that it would 
 give >(ai more pleasure to forget what has passed between you and him 
 and to give him a letter that will do him good than it will him to receive 
 it. I am going to persuade him to carry you this note. 
 
 Webster then read the note to Wilson, who promptly refused 
 to carry it. After long and determined persistence on Webster's 
 part, Wilson .softened down and agreed to leave the letter at the 
 door. He told Webster afterwards that he took the note and 
 delivered it, with his card, to Benton's servant at the door, 
 and rushed to his apartments. To his great astonishment, in 
 a very few moments a note arri\'ed from Colonel Benton 
 acknowledging the receipt of the card and note, and stating 
 that Mrs. Benton and he would ha\-e nuich pleasure in receiv- 
 ing Mr. Wilson at breakfast at 9 o'clock next morning. They 
 would wait breakfa.st for him and no answer was expected. 
 Wilson told Webster afterwards that it so worried him that 
 he lay awake that night thinking of it, and in the morning 
 felt as a man with a sentence of death pa.ssed upon him, who 
 had been called h\ the turnkey to his last breakfast. 
 
 Making his toilet, with great hesitation he went to Colonel 
 Benton's house. He rang the doorbell, but in.stead of the 
 servant the Colonel himself came to the door. Taking Wil- 
 son cordially by both hands, he said: "Wilson, I am delighted 
 to see you; this is the happiest meeting I have had for twenty 
 years. Webster has done the kindest thing he ever did in his 
 
68 Address of Mr. Lloyd on tJir Accept a )ice of the 
 
 life." Proceedinjjj at once to the dining room, lie was pre- 
 sented to Mrs. Betiton, and after a few kind words, Bf;ntox 
 remarked: "Yon and I, Wilson, have l)een c^narreling on the 
 stump for twenty-five years. We ha\-e been calling each 
 other hard names, but really with no want of mutual respect 
 and confidence. It has been a fooli.sh political fight, and let's 
 wipe it out of mind. Everything that I have said about you 
 I ask pardon for." Wilson .said they both cried, he asked 
 Benton's pardon, and they were good friends. Colonel Bex- 
 ton had meantime prepared a number of letters to persons 
 whom he knew in California, in which he conunanded them to 
 show Mr. Wilson every favor within their power. 
 
 It is not my purpose to refer to acts which the friends of 
 Colonel Benton would blot from memory, nor to deeds which 
 could bring the tinge of remor.se. I would cover his imper- 
 fections with the mantle of charity, but would imprint in 
 burning letters, if I could, his patriotism, energy, indu.stry, 
 honesty, and devotion to the right as qualities worthy of 
 enuilation. Nor would \\\y remarks be complete did I not 
 refer to that greatest of his virtues, which showed itself in 
 the devotion and affection he exhibited toward his famil>-. 
 
 In 1844 his wife suffered a stroke of paral>sis, from which 
 she never fully recovered. From that time Colonel BicxTox 
 was never known to go to any place of festivity or anm.se- 
 ment, but devoted his lei.stire hours to trying to make com- 
 fortable, pleasant, and happy the loved one so sorely afflicted. 
 No man, it is said, ever regarded his family with more tender 
 solicitude than did he. In this are e\-inced, perhai)S, the true 
 cjualities of the man as nuich as in auNthing occurring in the 
 days of his eventful history. Mrs. Benton, in the language 
 of another, "was the pride and glory of his young ambition, 
 tlie sweet ornament of liis matmL- fame, and the l)est love of 
 
S/n/urs of TJionias ff. Ben ton and Francis P. Blair. 69 
 
 his ripened age." These are the coinpletiug (luahties whicli 
 enable us to know him who was — 
 
 I.ollv and sour to Uu'in lluit lovt-d liim not, 
 
 Hut lo those iiK'ii that soui^ht him swL-ut as suiinner. 
 
 Colonel BexTox died April 10, 1S5S. leaving as his last 
 audible words "T am comfortal)le and c.mtent." On the day 
 of his burial all l)usiness in St. Louis was su.spended, every 
 court adjourned, and it is .said that 40.000 people were present 
 and sought to \r\\ their last tribute of respect. Before the 
 adjournment of the United vStates circuit court for the district 
 of Missouri on that day, at the announcement of the Inirial of 
 Colonel Benton, Judge Wells, of that court, said: 
 
 I have heard with great sensibility of the death of Colonel Benton, one 
 of the oldest members of this bar. He was a man who devoted nearly all 
 his life to the service of this State. Colonel Bknton and my.self became 
 acquainted about forty years ago, and through all that time there was an 
 undeviating friend.ship between us. It is a great mistake to .suppose that 
 a difference of opinion would di.sturb the friend.ship entered into by Colonel 
 Benton. It was only when he supposed that he received a personal affront, 
 or that such was intended, that he ever deviated from it. 
 
 He was a man of great talents, great energy, and indomitable will. He 
 devoted all those great qualities not to his own interest, but to the interest 
 of the Union and to this State. I have it from the highest authority that, 
 to remain in this State and to devote his services to her interests, he refused 
 the highest gifts in the power of the United States Government to bestow. 
 He refused the office of Chief Justice of the United States; he refused being 
 put in nomination for Vice-Pre.sident and other high offices, all through a 
 desire to serve this State. As a father, as a husband, and in all the domes- 
 tic relations, he was a model. This I know personally, as I was intimate 
 in his family for several nionths. His private and domestic ties were only 
 second to his public duties. He was devoted to the prosperity of this State 
 and to the glory and perpetuity of our Union. 
 
 The following eloquent tribute to Colonel Benton is taken 
 
 from the issue of one of the St. Louis papers on the day of 
 
 the interment : 
 
 Greatness is ended, 
 An unsubstantial pageant all; 
 Droop o'er the scene the funeral pall. 
 
 Weave the cypress for the bier of the departed; gather the burial cor- 
 tege to lay his body within its final liome; summon fitting words of 
 
70 Address of Mr. Lloyd on the Acceptance of the 
 
 eulogy to voice the sorrow of those who knew him in life and mourn 
 him in death. 
 
 For this day, amid the drooping of banners, the low wail of martial 
 nuisic, and the multitudinous concourse of our citizens the solemn words 
 "dust to dust, and ashes to ashes" will be spoken over the remains of 
 Thomas H. Benton, a statesman without peer, a patriot without price. 
 Let us deal gently with his errors, remember his labor, and embalm his 
 virtues. In his public services and in his private attachments, in his 
 arduous labor and in his majestic death, he had earned an abiding 
 place in the memory of the American people, whilst his name will be 
 emblazoned more in the future than in the present as one of the most 
 illustrious of those who gave so much of renown to the deliberations of 
 our National Council. 
 
 Missouri is proud of her honored dead. She rejoices in the 
 achievements of her .sons. Many of her naaies are written 
 high on the mount of fame. These two are not alone the 
 object of her admiration. In statesmanship many others are 
 registered near the top of the scroll of honor; in legal attain- 
 ment she ranks well in the sisterhood of States; in educational 
 advantages she is seldom surpassed, and in natural resources is 
 without a peer. 
 
 Aside from the.se advantages, the chief glory of the Mis- 
 sourian is in the honor and integrity of his citi7.en.ship 
 Charged with being border ruffian by those who do not unde 
 stand the character of her people, with being outlaws by those 
 who have no knowledge of their morality, with being uncouth 
 and illiterate by those who have not learned of the education 
 and refinement of her sons and daughters, she stands without 
 a superior in the galaxy of States in the rectitude of her 
 intentions. This great State brings to you to-day all that she 
 has the power to do in honoring the dead and humbly asks 
 that the.se chiseled emblems, representing her .sons, shall find 
 suitable place in that apartment fixed by law for that purpose, 
 that, as the years roll on, it will be observed that she is not 
 
Sfnhies ofT/ionias //. Boiton and Francis P. Blair. 71 
 
 forgetful in cherishing the memory of those who liave wrought 
 so nobly for her welfare. 
 
 Mr. Bland. Mr. Speaker, I a.sk for the adoption of the reso- 
 lution. 
 
 The vSpeaker pro tempore (Mr. Connolly). The question is 
 on agreeing to the resolution offered by the gentleman from 
 Missouri [Mr. Bland]. 
 
 The resolution was agreed to. 
 
ACCI^ITANCE OF THE STATUES OF THOMAS 
 H. BEXrON AM) FRANCIS P. BLAIR. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 
 
 MAY 19, 1900. 
 
 Mr. CoCKRELL. Mr. President, in pursuance of the notice 
 heretofore given, I present a letter from the governor of the 
 State of Missouri, which I ask may be read by the Secretary. 
 
 The President pro tempore. The Secretary will read as 
 requested. 
 
 The Secretary read as follows: 
 
 To the Senate and House of Representatives, Washington , D. C. 
 
 Gentlemen : In the year 1895 the general assembly of the State of 
 Missouri passed an act making an appropriation to have statues made 
 of Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair, to be placed in Statuary 
 Hall, in the Capitol at Washington. In the act referred to, William J. 
 Stone, Odin Guitar, Peter L. Foy, B. B. Cahoon, O. H. S, encer, and James 
 H. Birch were constituted a commission to have the statues made and 
 properly placed. I am now informed by the commissioners that the stat- 
 ues are completed and ready to be presented to Congress. 
 
 I have the honor, therefore, as governor of Missouri, to present to the 
 Government of the United States, through the Congress, the statues of 
 the distinguished statesmen named, and to ask that they may be assigned 
 a place in the hall dedicated to such uses at the Capitol. 
 Verv respectfullv, 
 
 LOX \'. STEPHENS, Governor. 
 
 Mr. CoCKRELL. I ask that the concurrent resolution of the 
 House of Representatives may be laid before the Senate. 
 
 73 
 
74 Proceedings in the Senate. 
 
 The President pro tempore. The Chair lays before the 
 Senate a concurrent resolution of the House of Representatives, 
 which will be read. 
 
 The Secretary read as follows: 
 
 In the Hol-se of Representatives. 
 
 February 4, iSgg. 
 
 Resolved by the House of Representatives {the Senate concurring). That 
 the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of Missouri for providing 
 and furnishing statues of Thomas Hart Benton, a deceased person, who 
 has been a citizen thereof and illustrious for his historic renown and for 
 distinguished civic services, and of Francis Preston Blair, a deceased 
 person, who has been a citizen thereof and illustrious for his historic 
 renown and for distinguished civic and military services. 
 
 Resolved, That the statues be accepted and placed in the National Stat- 
 uary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions duh^ authen- 
 ticated be transmitted to the governor of the State of Missouri. 
 
S/a/i/rs of Tlio))ias II. Bi')ilo)i and Fra}icis P. Blair. 75 
 
 Address of Mr, Vest, of Missouri. 
 
 THOMAS H. BENTON, 
 
 Mr. President, nothing could more clearly show how rapidh' 
 the bitter memories of the civil war are passing away than the 
 fact that Missouri sends to the National Capitol the statues 
 of Thomas H. Benton and Frank P. Blair, Jr. 
 
 The first great conflict over African slavery in the llnited 
 States occurred when Mis.souri was admitted into the Union 
 as a slave State, accompanied by the enactment of what was 
 known as the Missouri compromise, which provided that north 
 of 36° 30' latitude slavery and involuntary servitude, except as 
 a punishment for crime, should never exist. The next contest 
 over slavery came with the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska 
 bill in 1854, the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and the 
 birth of the Republican party upon the distinct issue of free 
 soil and opposition to the extension of slavery. 
 
 This was followed by that terril^le border .war upon the 
 frontiers of Missouri and Kan.sas, which depopulated whole 
 counties, destroyed towns and villages, and reddei>ed the mid- 
 night sky with the lurid glare of burning homes. Old John 
 Brown declared upon the scaffold at Charlestown, \V. \'a., 
 that he had invaded Missouri three years before he attacked 
 Virginia, and had carried off seven slaves from Bates County 
 to Canada without firing a gun. Literally he fired no guns, 
 but he murdered in cold blood, with knives, one of the best 
 men in Piates County, who attempted to prevent forcibly the 
 outrage on his property. 
 
 No vState in the Union suffered more from internecine strife 
 and neighborhood war than Mi.ssouri. The wounds inflicted 
 
76 Address of Mr. I 'est on the Acceptance of the 
 
 were deep and cruel, no man being willing to prophesy when 
 their memory would pass away. But to-day Missouri sends to 
 the National Capitol and to Statuary Hall the marble images of 
 two men whose whole public lives were given to the cause of 
 free soil and against the further extension of African slavery. 
 
 Immediately after the Revolutionary war, and even before it 
 had closed, emigrants commenced passing over the Appalachian 
 Range into the gloomy forests of Kentucky and Tennessee to 
 contest supremacy over the soil with the Indians and wild 
 beasts. This emigration was composed largely of Scotch-Irish 
 blood, that most remarkable of all the races which have existed 
 upon this continent, independent, self-willed, impatient of re- 
 straint, yet not given to disorder; every man a soldier and his 
 own leader; e\-ery woman fit to be the mother of heroes. This 
 Scotch-Irish blood has given to the Western States, into which 
 they went, blazing the paths of civilization with the ax in one 
 hand and the rifle in the other, men who have impressed them- 
 selves in war and peace upon these great communities. 
 
 Nearly all the leading families of Tennessee, Kentucky, and 
 Missouri came from this Scotch- Irish lineage, which possessed 
 so much of individual and racial antipathies; always deter- 
 mined in their own opinions, and with .strong passions and 
 high prejudices, but at the .same time deeply religious, their 
 religion being militant, like that of the old Jews, who for fort}' 
 years went through the wilderne.ss praying by night and fight- 
 ing b}- day, but always carrying with them the Ark of the 
 Covenant. This vScotch- Irish l)loc)d has given to these Western 
 States men who molded their institutions and impre.s.sed them- 
 selves indelibly upon their destiny — the Jacksons, Hardins, 
 Clarks, McCullochs, McClernands, McKees, Estills, and Gen- 
 trys. Both their ancestors and their descendants have been 
 leaders in every community where they became citizens. 
 
Statues of Thomas //. /'cii/oji oik/ l-^raiicis I\ lUair. 77 
 
 Willi this remarkable pioneer migration across the Appa- 
 lachian Range of Scotch-Irish lineage there went also a small 
 contingent of Virginians, another most remarkable race. They 
 were the cavaliers of ICngland, who, after they lost the cause 
 of the Stuarts, and before the restoration of Charles II,. came 
 from England to \'irginia. They were the men who charged 
 with Prince Rupert against the ironsides of Cronuvell and 
 knew no fear. Among these families, descendants of whom 
 can be found to-da}- in the Old Dominion, and in the two 
 Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentuck>-, and Missouri, were the Lees, 
 known in England as the I.,oyal Lees, who gave to \'irginia 
 Light-Horse Harry in the Revolution, William Henry Lee in 
 the councils of Congress, and Robert E. Lee, the ])eerless 
 leader of his countrymen in our civil war. Side by side with 
 the Lees who charged under Prince Rupert were the Bentons. 
 Thomas H. Benton was descended from this famih-, and 
 passed across the Appalachian Range from Xorth Carolina, 
 where his father had settled, to cast his destinies with the 
 frontiersmen of Tennessee. 
 
 Benton's father, unlike the fathers of the Scotch- Irish 
 innnigrants, was not an extremely ])oor man. The Benton 
 family was entirely different in its circumstances from that of 
 Andrew Jackson. Jackson's mother was a widow in \-er\- 
 indigent circumstances, unal)le at times to procure the neces- 
 saries of life, and one of the most pathetic pictures of all our 
 early history is that of Jackson's mother walking more than 
 40 miles to see her two boys, pri.soners to the British, begging 
 her way as she went, without even an animal to ride. Ben- 
 ton's father was a lawyer in good practice, and he gave his 
 son a collegiate education at Chapel Hill, in North Carolina. 
 I lis mother was a Virginian. His father came directly from 
 Ivnglish lineage and his mother indirectl\- througli one of the 
 
78 Address of Mr. l^est on the Acceptance of the 
 
 splendid families of old Virginia, that turnished warriors and 
 statesmen, the State which is known as the mother of States 
 and statesmen. These people are described by Theodore 
 Roosevelt, now governor of the State of New York, in his Life 
 of Thomas H. Benton — one of the American series — in a few 
 lines, and I ask the Secretary to read them. 
 
 The President pro tempore. The Secretary will read as 
 requested. 
 
 The Secretary read as follows: 
 
 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 Wellington. 
 
 Mr. \'est. Mr. President, I make no apology for having this 
 quotation read, because it is worthy of this era of fraternization 
 and of the gallant soldier who penned those lines. No man 
 knows better the descendants of the old Virginians and the 
 Scotch- Irish, the people of the great Commonwealths of the 
 West, than Theodore Roosevelt. He led them up that historic 
 hill at Santiago when closed the Cuban war, and he knows that 
 the Rough Riders whom he led were the legitimate descendants 
 of those ancestors of whom I have spoken, having simply laid 
 aside the ax and rifle for the pistol and lariat of the plains. 
 
 Colonel Bentox, as I have stated, was born in North Caro- 
 lina, and his father, dying in middle age, left to the family a 
 large tract of land near Nashville, Tenn., to which the widow 
 removed, ThomAvS H. Benton being the .second .son. Young 
 Benton grew up on this tract of land, on wliich is located the 
 town bearing the family name of Benton, and his life was like 
 that of the average young frontiersman. He indulged in all 
 the rough and exciting anniscments and pursuits of tliat early 
 
Statues of T/ioiuas //. Boiton and Fnnicis /'. lilair. 79 
 
 era. He fought chickens and fought the Indians. He ran 
 horses and ran for the legislature. He indtdged in street 
 brawls and affrays, not entirely creditable, in one of which 
 Andrew Jackson was his opponent, Ijoth being badly wounded. 
 No prophet could then foresee that in after years Bkntox, as 
 Senator from Missouri, would become the great ally of Jackson 
 as President of the United vStates. 
 
 Benton served two years in the Tennessee legislature, intro- 
 ducing a bill to divide the State into judicial districts, which 
 became a law, and also a l)ill, enacted into law, giving to negro 
 slaves who were charged with criminal offenses the right of 
 trial by jury. This latter measure of legislation shows that 
 Colonel Benton did not belong to that extreme Southern class 
 who thought that negroes were mere chattels, to be bought 
 and sold, and not human beings. Benton, although a slave- 
 holder, was never an advocate of the institution of slavery. 
 He resented deeply the idea of interference from other States 
 whose people had owned slaves and then from self-interest had 
 done away with the institution; but he did not beheve that 
 slavery should be extended or that it was beneficial either to 
 the slave or the slave owner. 
 
 He was one of that class of national statesmen at the head 
 of whom was Thomas Jefferson, and to which belonged Henry 
 Clay, Houston, Davy Crockett, and Chief Justice Taney, who 
 delivered the celebrated Dred Scott decision. In all his life 
 Benton never hesitated to express his opinion in regard to the 
 institution of slavery as an economic institution, while at the 
 same time he resented deeply any intimation that the Southern 
 people were entirely responsible for its existence. 
 
 Just after the close of the war of 18 12 Benton removed to 
 the Territory of Missouri and settled in the old French village 
 of St. Genevieve, 35 miles l)elow St. Louis, on the Mis.si.ssippi 
 
8o .hMrrss o/'.l/r. !?s/ on the Acceplaiicc of the 
 
 River. Not long since I saw the law office, built of cypress 
 logs, in which he practiced his profession and from which you 
 could look out across the broad expanse of the Father of 
 Rivers. He remained it St. Genevieve onl>- a few >"ears. The 
 place was too small for his aggressive spirit, and he removed to 
 St. Louis, then giving promise of becoming the great empress 
 of the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Here he almost immediately l)ecame actively engaged in the 
 practice of law and political life. He was unfortunately 
 involved in a quarrel soon after he became a citizen of vSt. 
 Louis with young Lucas, a promising member of the bar and 
 a .son of Judge Lucas, who was the wealthiest and most influen- 
 tial Whig in the Mi.ssouri Territory. I do not care to .speak at 
 length about personal matters, but it would not be perhaps 
 improper to make a statement in regard to the tragic event 
 which cast a shadow over Colonel Benton's subsequent life 
 and was the constant source of attack in all his political career. 
 
 Benton, as I have said, came from that old ^'irginia .stock 
 that was extremely sensitive as to personal honor. No man 
 living ev^er attacked Colonel Benton personally in regard to 
 his integrity without being called to account. The la/.zaroni 
 of politics who indulge in declamation and general statement 
 fled before him, and the man who remained to make the charge 
 was com])elled .sooner or later to meet him face to face. I never 
 agreed with him politically, but standing here to-day I simply 
 state what I know to l)e true — that, .so far as the world could 
 observe, he never knew the .sen.sation of fear, either in ]niblic or 
 private life. 
 
 At the first election after Benton went to St. Louis and 
 offered to vote, young Lucas challenged his \-olr. He cluil- 
 lenged it after Benton had .sworn that he was a bona fide- 
 citizen of the citN- of St. Louis ruid had come there to remain. 
 
Sfnhtcs of TlioDias IF. Bottoii aiuf I-yajicis P. JUair. 8i 
 
 Bentox considered this as a charge of perjury, aud he declared, 
 the only time I ever heard that he mentioned the event after- 
 wards, that it would only l)e removed by an abject and full 
 apology or by l)lood. He promptly challenged Lucas. They 
 fought upon Bloody Island, just below the city of vSt. Louis, in 
 the Mississippi River. Lucas was almost mortall\- wounded. 
 Bextox waited until he was convalescent and challenged him 
 again. In the second encounter Lucas was killed. Colonel 
 Bentox never admitted that in the absence of a full apology, 
 after what Lucas had done, he could retain his self-respect or 
 deserve that of others until he killed the man who had attacked 
 his honor. 
 
 Mr. President, all this sounds to us now as semibarbarous, 
 and yet if we carry ourselves back to the age in which this 
 event occurred and place ourselves in the position public men 
 then held it will, I think, charitably be admitted that, enter- 
 taining the opinion he did and in the connnunity he lived. 
 Bentox could hardly have done anything else. Dueling was 
 then an institution. No man could remain in public or social 
 life without ostracism who refused what they called a chal- 
 lenge to the field of honor. All the distinguished men of 
 the United vStates fought duels. When Randolph and Clay 
 fought, in sight of this Capitol, members of the Cabinet and 
 members of the Senate and House of Representatives, among 
 whom was Colonel Bextox, were present as spectators. 
 Jackson had killed his adversary in a duel. Houston had 
 fought a duel and wounded his opponent severely. Davy 
 Crockett acknowledged the obligations of the duello and 
 participated in it, and it was not until Hamilton fell before 
 the deadly pistol of Aaron Burr that even the people of the 
 conservative. God-fearing North came to a full realization of the 
 terrible nature of this institution. 
 S. Doc. 456 6 
 
82 Acf(h'c\ss of Mr. I 'est on t)ie Acceptance of the 
 
 Colonel Benton was elected to the United States Senate 
 from the new State of Missouri, the second United States 
 Senator, David Barton being the first. The Oregon question 
 was then pending in the Senate of the United States, and 
 the people throughout our countrj' were preparing for war 
 with Great Britain. England and ' the United States had 
 been national tenants in common of that vast expanse of 
 country now comprising a large proportion of the Vancouver 
 district of British America and the great States of Oregon 
 and Washington. The rival interests of the fur companies, 
 the Hudson Ba}' Company, in England, and the North Amer- 
 ican Fur Company, under Astor, in the United States, soon 
 brought about even armed conflict, and it became absoluteh^ 
 necessary to settle the boundary line between the possessions 
 of the two countries. Colonel Benton when he entered 
 Congress threw himself with his usual aggressiveness into 
 the middle of the fight. He declared that the United States 
 must hold every inch of the disputed territory, and that with 
 10,000 Missourians he could settle the question in sixty days. 
 Benton believed in what was called manifest destiny, which 
 meant that the people of the United States had a right to 
 take all the territory that adjoined them, if they thought 
 proper to do so. 
 
 In his first speech delivered in the Senate upon the Oregon 
 question, which was addressed to this body in his ore rotundo 
 style and with great effusion of classical reference, he stated 
 that the United vStates must take this territory without compro- 
 mise, without que-stion, and that it would soon be peopled 1)y 
 millions of Orientals — Chinese and Japanese — who would come 
 to our shores, adopt our institutions, law, and religion, and 
 become our best citizens. If Colonel Benton could have lived 
 l)Ut a few years more, he would have seen those Orientals 
 
Slaiiu's of Tho))ias If. Ih'iihui and /•'ra/nis /'. Il/air. 83 
 
 whom he hospit:il)ly invilcd to our sliorcs fleeing at night, 
 shot down b)' brutal mobs in tlie hghl of their burning homes. 
 Colonel Bkxton overlooked, great man as he was, the racial 
 antagonism which is above all human law. 
 
 The Oregon question pa.s.sed awa\- without armed conflict, 
 but leaving unpleasant reminiscences in regard to the negotia- 
 tions between the two countries, an.d Bkxtox then addressed 
 himself to the material interests of the great West, whose 
 representative he peculiarly was. He advocated with great 
 power cutting down the inmiense Indian reser\'ations, so that 
 instead of being under the control of the savages they might 
 become the happy homes of industrious whites. He abo\'e all 
 other men was entitled to the credit for the establishment of 
 our land system, the homestead and preemption laws, and the 
 sales of our other lands at $1.25 an acre to actual settlers. He 
 opposed vigorously that inic^uitous system of putting up the 
 public lands to the highest bidder, which unquestionably placed 
 them all eventually in the hands of syndicates and speculators. 
 
 He passed through Congress a bill making the old Santa 
 Fe trail a national highway, to be defended by the soldiers 
 of the Federal Government, and he terminated in a ver\- few 
 years by that legislation the bloodshed which for so long had 
 occurred on the trail between Independence, Mo., and Sante Fe 
 and Albuquerque, in New INIexico, when the Sioux, Apaches, 
 Comanches, and Pawnees attacked every caravan unless it was 
 too strong to be overpowered. 
 
 In 1S2S came a great parliamentar>- contest in which BenTox 
 bore conspicuous part. Mr. Calhoun then advanced his idea of 
 nullification by a State of Federal legislation when the people 
 of that State believed the enactment of such legi.slatiou was 
 absolutely destructive of their best interests. Slavery was not 
 involved in that contest. It was a question of tariff taxation. 
 
84 Address of Mr. Vest on the Acceptance of the 
 
 Calhoun art^ued with great abihty that a State could remain in 
 the Union and yet nullify an act of the Federal Congress which 
 even the vSupreme Court decided to be constitutional. 
 
 I have always regarded Mr. Calhoun as one of the greatest 
 analytical disputants this or any other countr>^ has ever pro- 
 duced. I have studied his works; but I was never able to 
 appreciate his argument in favor of nullification. Jackson, who 
 was then President, looked upon it as absolute treason, and 
 declared that if Calhoun undertook to carr}' it out he would 
 hang him as high as Haman. Clay and Webster stood by the 
 side of Bentox in defending the position taken by Jackson, 
 and although there was a compromise without armed conflict 
 between South Carolina and the General Government, I have 
 no doubt that the nullification contest of 1828 influenced all 
 the subsequent career of Colonel Benton, and the opinions he 
 then formed were responsible for his final political overthrow in 
 Missouri. 
 
 Colonel Benton, above all men — I will not say above all 
 men, but certainh' without any superior in the regard I am 
 about to mention — loved the Union. It colored and influenced 
 all his life, and he firmly believed that Mr. Calhoun was a 
 traitor and had then inaugurated or attempted to inaugurate a 
 scheme to establish a Southern confederacy based upon the 
 institution of African slavery. Notwithstanding many acrimo- 
 nious debates, he renewed his friendship with Webster and 
 Clay, but never forgave Mr. Calhoun. I heard him in 1856, 
 when a candidate for governor of IMissouri, declare emphat- 
 ically in a public address that if he had Ijeen President in 1828, 
 instead of threatening to hang Calhoun, he would have hanged 
 him on the eastern exposure of the Capitol, and appealed to the 
 people of the United States to vindicate his action. 
 
 A few years after the nullification .struggle came the great 
 
Statues of TJionias II. luntoii and F)'a)icis P. lUair. <S5 
 
 conflict over the old United States Bank, when Jackson, with 
 his usual impetuosity and self-will, took the institution out 
 of the hands of Nicholas Biddle and reni()\-ed the deposits. 
 Whether he had a right to do that or not, which I do not care 
 now to discuss, because it is ancient history, Jackson believed 
 that he was doing his duty, and the people of the United .States 
 by a large majority vindicated his action. Clay, Calhoun, and 
 Webster attacked the Administration on account of the removal 
 of the bank deposits, and Benton, single-handed and alone, 
 fought that great triumvirate day after day in the Senate of 
 the United States until the resolution of censure was passed 
 against Jackson. 
 
 Ordinary men would then have given up the conflict, but not 
 so with Thomas H. Benton. With him the battle had just 
 commenced. After a short pause he introduced his resolution 
 to expunge the resolution of censure from the records of the 
 Senate. The last night of that terrible struggle, the mo.st 
 remarkable in our parliamentary history, and which took place 
 in what is now the room of the Supreme Court, was signalized 
 by many dramatic incidents. Benton said, and I have no 
 doubt believed, that he was to be assassinated upon that night 
 from the gallery, and he stood in the Chamber, throwing open 
 his coat and vest, and daring the bank robbers to attack him. 
 
 Then, as now, the Senate of the United States had no pre- 
 vious question, and the matter could be determined only l)y a 
 war of exhaustion physically. Benton stocked the connnittee 
 rooms with provisions and liquors so that starvation might not 
 weaken his forces. And, singularly enough, after succeeding 
 in expunging the hated resolution, Benton regarded that as 
 the great triumph of his life. He never spoke afterwards 
 before the people of Missouri without declaring that, single- 
 handed and alone, BenTOX put this ball in motion. As a 
 
86 Address of Mr. ]'cst o)i the Acceptance of the 
 
 matter of practical and material legislation it amounted to 
 nothing. As a personal triumph Colonel Bentox regarded it 
 as the crowning glory of his long and able public career. 
 
 Passing over intermediate events, I come now to the crisis in 
 Bentox's remarkable public life. The question of slavery 
 had remained not in a quiescent attitude, l)ut not the foremost 
 question in the politics of the day until after the Mexican war, 
 when Texas applied for admission to the Union in 1844-45 as a 
 slave State. Colonel Bextox opposed the admission of Texas, 
 and it sounded the knell of his fate in Missouri. A young, 
 ambitious, and able coterie of politicians had grown up in Mis- 
 souri while Bextox during thirty or nearly thirty years had 
 labored in Washington. His manners were not such as to 
 make him popular. He was aggressive and almost insulting to 
 men who differed with him. To give a single instance of his 
 manner of meeting the people: In one of the counties of my 
 old circuit when I first commenced practicing law was a most 
 excellent, learned, and modest man, not a politician, an old 
 Virginian of moderate estate, a gentleman of culture, and a 
 Democrat bej^ond question, who had supported Colonel Bextox 
 for more than twenty-five years. He saw proper to express 
 his disapproval of Colonel Bextox's course in regard to the 
 admission of Texas. After speaking at the county town, and 
 when the crowd came forward, as is the custom to-da}-, to 
 shake hands with an eminent speaker, this gentleman, after 
 the press of the crowd had disappeared, advanced and in old 
 Virginia style extended his hand and saluted Colonel BkxTOX. 
 In the presence of the audience, wIkj had not yet dispersed, 
 Bextox looked at him from head to foot without a single 
 evidence of recognition. This gentleman, bowing, .saitl: "You 
 possibly have forgotton nie. Colonel Bextox; I am Mr. 
 . " Drawing himself up to liis full heiglit, BexTOX 
 
S/a/iics of ThoDias II. Hen Ion and Francis /'. 11 lair. S7 
 
 replied in tones that could be heard in cver\- pan of the 
 building, "Sir, Benton once knew a man b\ that, name, but 
 he is dcnd; yes, sir, he is dead." And so he went into every 
 count V in the State, denouncing every man by name who dared 
 to oppose his political action. 
 
 .\s a matter of course, there could be but one way of deter- 
 mining an issue between Colonel Benton and those who 
 differed with him. He made no compromise; he asked none. 
 Every citizen must either agree with him or be ranked as his 
 personal and political enemy. It was his nature, and he could 
 no more change it than he could the color of his hair and e}-es. 
 
 Colonel Benton was assailed by his enemies because he had 
 advocated the admission of Missouri as a slave State and then 
 opposed the admission of Texas as a .slave State. His reply 
 was imperfect and not .satisfactory. He said he was opposed 
 to the extension of slavery ; that slavery existed in the Louisi- 
 ana purchase when Jefferson bought it from France, but that 
 .slavery had not exi.sted on the soil of Mexico, and therefore 
 Texas should not come in as a slave State. 
 
 Colonel Benton advocated the Missouri compromise, which 
 accompanied the admission of Mi.s.souri into the Union. That 
 compromise directly declared that slavery should not exist 
 north of 36° 30', but if it meant anything it .suggested that 
 a State south of 36° 30' could be admitted into the Union as 
 a .slave State if the people so desired. Colonel Benton was 
 accu.sed by his enemies of Ijeing .selfi.shly prompted when Mis- 
 .souri was admitted, because he expected to be a United States 
 Senator. It had its weight with a large number of people in 
 Missouri, but for my. self I never believed the charge to be true, 
 Ijecause of all the public men I have ever known Thoma.S H. 
 Benton con.sidered less than any other the political effect upon 
 himself. 
 
88 Address of Mr. I'est on the Accepiajice of the 
 
 He opposed the admission of Texas, as I believed then and 
 beheve now, because he thought it was a part of Calhoun's 
 scheme to dissolve the Union. Never after the nullification 
 fight of 1828 did Benton waver in his opinion that there was 
 a conspirac}^ to break up the Union and establish a Southern 
 confederacy upon the basis of slaver}-. 
 
 No man who ever existed in the public life of this country 
 more completely and apparently committed suicide than 
 Thomas H. Benton. He knew as well or better than any 
 other man what the prejudice and opinions of the people of 
 Missouri were on the subject of slavery, and their sympathy 
 with their brethren from the vSouthern States that had gone 
 to Texas, thrown off the yoke, and established an independent 
 State. 
 
 But more than this, he knew there was not a family in west- 
 ern Missouri that had not lost father, brother, husband, or son 
 upon the Santa Fe trail, fighting those murderous savages who 
 attacked every trapper and every caravan too small to resist 
 them, and that the people of Missouri firmly believed that the 
 Mexicans had incited the Indians to make these attacks. It 
 was well known that the merchants of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, 
 and Tamaulipas, and the other northern Mexican States ob- 
 jected to the trade between Missouri and New Mexico. It was 
 extremely lucrative to the.se Mexican merchants to have a 
 monopol>- of the sale of goods to their own people, and when- 
 ever an\- of these murderous Indians were made prisoners by 
 the Missourians there were always found amongst them Mexi- 
 cans dressed Hke the Indians, appealing to their passions and 
 prejudices and leading them on to these terrible outrages. 
 
 Colonel Benton, knowing all these things, did not hesitate. 
 The legislature of Missouri in 1848 pas.sed resolutions censuring 
 his course on the Texas question, and declaring that Missouri 
 
Sfa/iirs (y/'T/ioiiias If. /in/ /on (iinf Francis J\ h'/air. S9 
 
 would share the fate of her Southern brethren. The challenge 
 was promptly accepted. Bknton came back from Washington, 
 canvassed the vSlale in a x-itriolic canipai.un such as has never 
 been known. If any man amongst his opponents had a weak 
 place in his armor, Bkntox found it out and assailed him by 
 name. That he lived through this canvass was a miracle, for 
 the men of the frontier were quick to avenge an insult or a 
 wrong, and there was not a speech made by him in which 
 drawn pistols and kni\-es were not brandished in his face. His 
 personal fearlessness saved his life, for if there was one quality 
 more prized than another ii]X)n the frontier it was insensil)ility 
 to personal danger. 
 
 "Benton was defeated in his appeal to the people in 1849, 
 and Henry S. Geyer, a prominent Whig lawyer of St. lyouis, 
 was elected to succeed him in the Senate by a fusion of the 
 Whigs and anti-Benton Democrats. 
 
 Colonel Benton came back to Washington and commenced 
 the preparation of his Thirty Years' \'iew, the most valuable 
 political treatise known in our history. 
 
 In 1852 he was elected to the National House of Repre- 
 sentatives from St. Louis, the only district in the State that 
 had a Free Soil majority. At the end of two years he was 
 defeated by a Knownothing candidate, and again went liack 
 to his literary labor. 
 
 In 1856, when there were three candidates for the Presidency, 
 his own son-in-law being the candidate of the Republican party, 
 Benton declared himself for Buchanan and liecame an inde- 
 pendent Democratic candidate for governor of Missouri. He 
 was the third candidate in the race. Trusten Polk, the regular 
 Democratic candidate, was elected to this body, and Colonel 
 Benton returned again to Washington City for the purpose of 
 finishing his Thirty Years' \'iew and commencing the prepara- 
 tion of his digest of debates of Congress from the beginning of 
 
90 Address of Mr. I 'est on the jlcceptancc of the 
 
 the Government down to that time. He also prepared a severe 
 attack, in the shape of a pamphlet, against the Supreme Court 
 for its decision in the Dred vScott case. 
 
 But his race for governor in 1856 closed his political career 
 forever. He died here in 1858 and was buried in Bellefontaine 
 Cemetery, in the city of St. I,ouis, where he had lived, the 
 funeral being attended by over 40,000 people from all parts 
 of Missouri and the adjacent States. 
 
 It has been often asked, Mr. President, whether Benton was 
 the equal of his three contemporaries, 'Clay, Webster, and Cal- 
 houn. He was not the equal of Mr. Clay as an orator; he was 
 not the equal of Mr. Webster as a lawyer; he was not the equal 
 of ]\Ir. Calhoun as a close, analytical debater and disputant; but 
 he was the superior of any of the three as a valuable, all around 
 legislator. His industry was unparalleled, his honesty above 
 question, his courage, moralh^ and physically, equal to that 
 of any man who ever lived upon this earth. 
 
 Benton was not a Southern Democrat; he was a National 
 Democrat. He appreciated more thoroughly than any man of 
 his era the possibilities of that vast country west of the Mis.sis- 
 sippi, destined to become the seat of empire upon this continent. 
 I heard him at a little town on the Missouri River, standing 
 with his right arm extended, declare, with the air and tones 
 of an ancient prophet, "There is the East; there is the road 
 to India," and upon his bronze statue in Forest Park in St. 
 Louis to-da}- upon the pedestal are engraved these prophetic 
 words. He declared, and men laughed at him when he said it, 
 that this continent would be bound together by bands of iron 
 which would carry our produce to the Pacific .slope to feed the 
 iinnunerable millions in Asia and the Orient. 
 
Sfa/urs ot' Tlio))ias If. Ihiiloii and h'riDicis P. lUair 
 
 ULAIK, JR. 
 
 91 
 
 Benton's political mantle fell logically and inevitably upon 
 the shoulders of his protege, Frank P. Blaik, Jr. 
 
 Blair was the son of Benton's old friend Francis Preston 
 Blair, who died here some years ago at Silver Springs, almost 
 in sight of this city. When Duff Green, who was the original 
 editor of the old Globe, the organ of the Democrats at Wash- 
 ington, had differences of opinion with General Jackson as 
 President, the Administration looked around for a younger man 
 of great ability and experience in journalism to take Green's 
 place. 
 
 Preston Blair, as he was termed, was then part owner and 
 chief editor of the old Argus, of PVankfort, Ky., the birthplace 
 of young I-^kank Blair. It was what was called in the new 
 and old court struggle in Kentucky the new court organ. But 
 Jackson and Benton, who had then become great friends, sent 
 for Preston Blair and made him the chief editor of the Globe. 
 It was but natural that Colonel Benton should ask his old 
 friend to send his youngest boy, wdio had been raised in Wash- 
 ington, to the city of St. Louis to become the protege of Ben- 
 ton. And so Frank Blair, as he was called in Mis.souri, 
 became a member of the vSt. Louis Ijar, and, thoroughly imbued 
 with the political prejudices and opinions of his father and 
 Benton and Jackson, became the leader of the Benton Democ- 
 racy in that city. 
 
 After the death of Benton, in 1858, Blair became a member 
 of the National House of Representatives for the district where 
 Benton had been defeated. He knew the people of Missouri 
 and Kentucky well and that all their prejudices and opinions 
 were in behalf of the South. He knew that the State govern- 
 ment, all the State officers from the governor down, and all the 
 
92 Address of Mr. Vest on the Acceptance of the 
 
 legislature, with but very few exceptions, were devoted to the 
 South. He knew that the Missourians were a martial people, 
 trained to the saddle and the use of arms from boyhood, and he 
 was certain that unless ^'igorous measures were immediately 
 taken to prevent the State from organizing it would throw its 
 vast military power with the side of the Confederate States. 
 
 Bi,AiR immediately and secretly commenced the organization 
 of seven regiments of Germans in the city of St. Louis, a 
 people trained as soldiers in the Fatherland, devoted to the 
 Union, and opposed to slavery. He became, having had some 
 experience in the Mexican war, colonel of the first regiment, 
 and, member of the National House of Representatives as he 
 was, when I^incoln was elected, he hastened to Washington 
 and informed Lincoln of the situation in ^Missouri; that the 
 United States arsenal was filled with munitions of war and arms 
 and must be seized or it would be taken and used to arm the 
 militia of the State. He asked for an officer educated at West 
 Point to take command of the arsenal and of the Federal forces 
 in Missouri. 
 
 Lincoln, a citizen of Illinois and familiar with Missouri 
 politics, appreciated what Bi,air said and immediately sent 
 Nathaniel Lyon, of Connecticut, a West Pointer, to take charge 
 of the troops already organized and drilled by Blair in St. 
 Louis. Lyon fell on Bloody Hill at the battle of vSpringfield, 
 as it is called by the F'ederals, and the battle of Oak Hill, 
 as it is called by the Confederates. He fell in a last desperate 
 charge. If he had lived, his fame would have rivaled that of 
 any man in the civil war. So soon as Blaik had conferred 
 with Lyon, the latter adopted the plan of campaign which 
 Blair suggested. The State government, devoted to the 
 Confederacy, had formed a camp of instruction in the \-icinity 
 of St. Louis, com])osed of young men, ardent advocates of the 
 Southern cause. 
 
S/a//frs of Thomas If. Ih-)iti>ii aiic/ /•yaun's [\ lUair. 93 
 
 On a bright morning, without premonition, Blair and Lyon 
 surrounded these 1,200 State mihtia with 6,000 Germans, 
 armed and drilled, captured Iheni, l)n)ke up the camp, and 
 started to the city with thc-ir prisoners. The people of vSt. 
 lyouis, taken l)y surprise and greatly excited, surrounded the 
 captors and the captured. A German captain, aggravated and 
 incensed by the jeers and insults of the crowd, ordered his men 
 to fire upon the inoffensive and unarmed people. More than 
 40 were killed and wounded — men, women, and children — and 
 in a few hours the State was aflame with indignation. 
 
 Blair, although he was not anticipating what was called 
 the massacre, was immediately prepared for action against the 
 consequences. He knew that the railroad, the only railroad 
 running west from St. lyouis, would be destroyed by the State 
 government, but he seized five steamboats lying at the wharf, 
 put crews upon them, went up the river with his German regi- 
 ments, captured Jefferson City, the capital, dispersed the State 
 government, overwhelmed the few hundred militia, iniarmed 
 and undisciplined, who met him at Booneville, and, in my 
 judgment, caused Missouri to di\-ide her forces in the war 
 between the North and the South instead of going solidly to 
 the Confederate cause, as but for him would have been the 
 case. 
 
 I say here now to-day, deliberatel}-, from my personal knowl- 
 edge of affairs then in the vState, that but for Frank Blair 
 Missouri would have given her solid strength to the South- 
 ern cause. I do not choose to conjecture what would have 
 been the result. Southern Illinois, Kentucky, and Maryland, 
 as all the world knows, sympathized with the South, and 
 the result of the war might have been different but for the 
 wonderful fearlessness and i^romptitude with which Blair 
 acted. As it was, the men of Missouri at heart in sympathy 
 with the South were unable to reach the Confederate armies 
 
94 Address of Mr. Vest on the Acceptance of the 
 
 except at the risk of their lives. Blair, believing that the 
 State was entirely safe to the Union, as he informed Lincoln, 
 then took his regiment — the first regiment — and joined the 
 Army of the Cumberland. He rose to the rank of major- 
 general and commanded a corps at the close of the war. 
 
 When he came back to Missouri the attitude of affairs had 
 changed entirely. The Girondists, under the leadership of 
 Hamilton R. Gamble, had disappeared, and the Jacobins, under 
 the leadership of Charles D. Drake, were in possession of the 
 State. The Drake constitution had been enacted — the most 
 drastic, the most cruel, the most outrageous enactment ever 
 known in a civilized country. No man could practice law, 
 teach school, preach the gospel, act as trustee, hold any office 
 of honor, tru.st, or profit, or vote at any election, unless he 
 swore he had never sympathized with the cause of the Con- 
 federacy or any person fighting for it. The father who had 
 given a drink of water or a crust of bread to his son who 
 belonged to the Confederate forces was ostracised and put 
 under the ban of the law. 
 
 The intelligence, virtue, and property of the State were 
 driven away from the polls, and ignorance, crime, and vice 
 took complete control. Old obsolete railroad charters, passed 
 years before, giving county courts the right to subscribe for the 
 construction of railroads without a vote of the people, were 
 revived. Millions of dollars of fraudulent bonds were issued by 
 bought county courts. Nearly $20,000,000 of these bonds were 
 hurried out of the State, sold to pretended bona fide buyers, 
 and, under the decisions of the vSupreme Court of the United 
 States, they became commercial paper negotiated before ma- 
 turity for a valuable consideration to innocent purchasers. 
 
 Blair came back and went to the polls, dressed in his major- 
 general's uniform, and demanded the right to vote without 
 
Statues of Th 01)1 as II. Bcntoti and Francis P. Blair. 95 
 
 taking the oath. It was denied, and he immediately com- 
 menced suit against the election oi^cials. Pending that suit, a 
 Catholic priest named Cummings, who had instituted a similar 
 proceeding, had his case adjudicated by the vSui)reme Court, 
 and it was decided that the Drake constitution violated that of 
 the United States and was a bill of attainder and ex post facto 
 law. General Blair, not satisfied, attacked the Drake party 
 throughout the Commonwealth, and canvassed it from one end 
 to the other, denouncing the men who were perpetrating these 
 iniquities upon the people of the State. He was nominated in 
 1868 upon the ticket with Seymour for the Vice- Presidency, 
 but defeated. He was then elected to the Missouri legislature, 
 and before he had fairly taken his seat Drake was made by 
 Grant chief justice of the Court of Claims, and Blair was 
 elected to fill out his unexpired term. At the end of that term 
 his health was completely shattered, and he was defeated for 
 reelection simpl}' upon the ground that he was phj'sicallj' 
 unable to discharge his Senatorial duties. 
 
 He had more personal friends than any public man who ever 
 lived in Mis.souri. He had bitter enemies, like all men of 
 positive convictions will always have, but even his enemies 
 never doubted Frank Blair's sincerity, and always respected 
 hira because he was open, fair, fearless, honest, and true to his 
 convictions. 
 
 Mr. President, these men sleep together in Mis.souri soil 
 almost side by side, and .so long as this Capitol shall .stand or 
 this nation exi.st their statues will be eloquent although .silent 
 pledges of Missouri's eternal allegiance to an eternal Union. 
 
96 Address of Mr. Cockrell on the Acceptance 0/ the 
 
 Address of Mr. Cockrell, of Missourl 
 
 THOMAS HART BENTOX. 
 
 Mr. President, it is exceedingly appropriate that the State 
 of Missouri should provide and furnish the marble statues of 
 Thomas Hart Benton and Francis Preston Blair as the 
 two deceased persons who have been citizens thereof and illus- 
 trious for historic renown and for distinguished civic services. 
 
 Benton was Missouri's great Senator and benefactor, and 
 upon his death Blair became his successor in accomplishing 
 many measures dear to him. 
 
 Parentage and environments in youth to manhood have great 
 influence in developing the elements of character. 
 
 Benton was born near Hillsboro, in Orange County, N. C, 
 on March 14, 1782. 
 
 His father was Col. Jesse Benton, a lawyer of high standing 
 and distinction, who was the private secretary of Governor 
 Try on, the last royal governor of North Carolina. His mother 
 was Ann Gooch, of Hanover County, Va. 
 
 He was a cousin of the wife of Henry Clay, born Lucretia 
 Hart, and was often, by an easy mistake, quoted as a relative 
 of Mr. Clay. Benton in his autobiography says: 
 
 He lost his father before he was 8 years of age and fell under the care 
 of a mother still yovmg and charged with a numerous family, all of tender 
 age, and devoted herself to them. 
 
 She was a woman of reading and observation — solid reading and ob.ser- 
 vation of the men of the Revolution brought together by course of hospi- 
 tality of that time, in which the houses of friends and not taverns were 
 the universal stopping places. 
 
 Thomas was the oldest son, and at the age of 10 and 12 was reading 
 solid books with his mother and studying the great examples of history 
 and receiving encouragement to emulate these examples. 
 
Sfafiirs of Thovias H. Boitoti and Francis P. Blair. 97 
 
 His father's library, among others, contained the famous State trials in 
 the large folios of that time, and here he got a foundation of British his- 
 tory in reading the treason and other trials with which these volumes 
 abound. She was also a pious and religious woman, cultivating the 
 moral and religious education of her children and connected all her life 
 with the Christian Church, first as a member of the English Episcopalian, 
 and when removal to the great West — then in the wilderness — had broken 
 that connection, then in the Methodist Episcopalian, in which she died. 
 All the minor virtues, as well as the greater, were cherished by her, and 
 her house, the resort of the eminent men of the time, was the abode of 
 teniperance, modesty, and decorum. A pack of cards was never seen in 
 her house. 
 
 From such a mother all the children received the impress of future 
 character, and she lived to see the fruits of her pious and liberal cares — 
 living a widow above fifty years — and to see her eldest son half through 
 his Senatorial career and taking his place among the historic men of 
 the country, for which she had begun so early to train him. These 
 details deserve to be noted, though small in themselves, as showing how 
 much the after life of the man may depend upon the early cares and 
 guidance of a mother. 
 
 He was richlj' endowed by inheritance from father and 
 mother with a robust, healthful body, capable of the greatest 
 possible labors and endurance, and a .strong, active, gra.sping, 
 and retentive mind, capable of long, continuous, laborious work 
 and of holding and storing away information and facts, knowl- 
 edge for use as occasion offered. 
 
 His scholastic education was limited. He attended a gram- 
 mar school, and was then a student at Chapel Hill, the Univers- 
 ity of North Carolina, but did not finish his course of study, 
 his mother removing to Tennessee, where his father had 
 acqtiired 40,000 acres of land. 
 
 The family settled tipon a choice 3,000-acre tract in West 
 Harpeth, 25 miles .south of Nashville, the care and manage- 
 ment of which fell upon him. It was the outside settlement 
 between civilization and the great Southern Indian tribes, 
 which spread to the Gulf of Mexico, and their great trail led 
 through it. Lands were lea.sed to .settlers, and a colony was 
 S. Doc. 456 7 
 
98 Address of Mr. Cockrell on the Acceptance of the 
 
 soon formed. A log schoolhoit.se, ineetinghon.se, and mills 
 were erected. 
 
 While his scholastic edncation had cea.sed, his studies had 
 not. ' ' History and geograph}^ were what he considered his 
 light reading; national law, the civil law, the common law, 
 and, finally, the law itself, as u.sually read by .students, con.sti- 
 tuted his studies. And all this reading and study was carried 
 on during the active personal exertions which he gave to the 
 opening of the farm and to the ameliorations upon it which 
 comfort exacted. 
 
 He was licensed to practice law by the three .superior court 
 judges, began the practice, and was .successful. He was promi- 
 nent politically, was the friend of General Jackson, and was 
 soon elected to the general a.s.sembly of the State and there 
 began his career as a true reformer, and was the author of 
 the judicial-reform act, substituting the circuit for the .superior 
 court system, and of a humane law giving to slaves the same 
 right to trial by jury as the white man had under the same 
 accu.sation. 
 
 Resuming his practice, war was declared by Congress on 
 June 18, 1S12, to "exist between the United Kingdom of 
 Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof, and 
 the United States of America and their Territories. 
 
 Volunteers were called for to descend the rivers to New Or- 
 leans to meet the British. Three Tennessee regiments were 
 quickly formed, and "Thomas H. Benton was appointed 
 colonel of the Second Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, Decem- 
 ber u), 18 1 2, and .served as of that grade until April 20, 18 13." 
 
 On the fir.st indications of the war he had been appointed 
 aid-de-camp to General Jackson, commanding the Tennessee 
 militia, and was active and energetic in organizing the regi- 
 ments. 
 
Sfafiirs of T/ion/as If. Bento)i and Francis P. Blair. 99 
 
 The volunteers descended to the Lower Mississippi; the 
 British did not then come, and they returned to Tennessee 
 and were teniporarih' disbanded. 
 
 Cohnicl Benton came to Washini^ton and was apjwinted 
 Heutenant-colonel of the Thirt>--ninth Rej^inient United vStates 
 Infantry, to rank from June 18, 1813, and proceeded to Canada 
 for service. 
 
 The treaty of peace was sif:^ned at Ghent on the 24th day 
 of December, 18 14, was ratified and confirmed by the vSenate 
 on the 17th day of Febrtiary, 18 15, and was ijroclaimed by 
 President IMadi.son on the i8th day of February, 18 15. Under 
 the act of March 3, 18 15, for the redtiction of the Army to a 
 peace basis, Benton was discharged as Heutenant-colonel on 
 the 15th day of June, 1815, with three months' extra pay. 
 
 He at once made St. Louis his home and recommenced his 
 profession with success, mingling actively in discu.ssing polit- 
 ical and public questions and advocating the admission of the 
 Territory of Missouri as a State in the Union. Congress, by 
 act of March 6, 1820, authorized the inhabitants of that por- 
 tion of the Missouri Territory therein described ' ' to form for 
 themselves a constitution and vState government, and to assume 
 such name as they shall deem proper," for admission into 
 the Union upon an equal footing with the original States, 
 fixed the first Monday of May, 1820, and the two next suc- 
 ceeding days for the election of representatives to iorm a con- 
 vention, and the second Monday of Jtme, 1820, for the meeting 
 of the convention; and by section 8 prohibited slaA-ery in all 
 that territory ceded by France north of 36° 30' north latitude, 
 which was called the " Mi.s,souri Compromi.se" and adopted 
 after a prolonged and bitter controversy. 
 
 The representatives to the convention were elected on the 
 first Monday of May and the two succeeding days, lieing the 
 
lOO Address of Mr. Cock re II on the Acceptance of the 
 
 first, second, and third days, and met at St. Louis, Mo., on the 
 second Monday in June, being the 12th day of June, 1820, and 
 completed their labors on July 19, 1820, and passed an ordi- 
 nance declaring the assent of Missouri to the five conditions 
 and provisions of the enabling act of March 6, 1820, contained 
 in the sixth section of said act, and transmitted to Congress a 
 true and attested copy of such constitution. 
 
 The constitution so adopted on July 19, 1820, required the 
 president of the convention to issue writs of election to the 
 sheriffs directing elections to be held on the fourth Monday — 
 the 28th day — of August, 1820, for the election of a governor, 
 heutenant-governor, Representative in Congress, State senators 
 and representatives, and county ofl&cers. 
 
 It required the general assembly to meet in St. Louis on the 
 third Monday — the i8th day — of September, 1820, and on the 
 first Monday in November, 1821, and on the first Monday of 
 November, 1822, and thereafter every two years. 
 
 Section 26 of the constitution, referring to the general assem- 
 bly, declared: 
 
 It shall be their duty as soon as may be to pass such laws as mav be 
 necessary to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and set- 
 tling in this State under any pretext whatever. 
 
 The election for State and other officers was held on August 
 28, 1820, and the first general assembly met in St. Louis on 
 September 18, 1820, and the governor and lieutenant-governor 
 elected were duly inaugurated and entered upon their dtities, 
 and the senate and house of representatives were duly organ- 
 ized and proceeded with their bttsiness, and on October 2, 1820, 
 elected David Barton and Thomas Hart Bentox Senators 
 from that State, Benton being elected by i majority. The 
 whole machinery of State and county governments was com- 
 pleted and put in operation before the State was admitted into 
 the Union. 
 
S/ir/ui's of Thomas II. Bcutou a /id Francis P. Blair. loi 
 
 On November 14, 1820, the day after Congress convened, the 
 President of the United States sent to the Senate a copy of the 
 constitution so adopted. 
 
 On motion of Senator Smith, it was ordered that "a com- 
 mittee be appointed to inquire whether any, and if any what, 
 legislatiA-e measures may be necessary for admitting the State 
 of Missouri into the Union," and a committee of three was 
 appointed, and the copy of the constitution was referred to the 
 committee and ordered printed. On November 16, 1820, in 
 the Hou.se of Representatives. Mr. Scott, who was the Delegate 
 in Congress from the Territory of Missouri elected to the Six- 
 teenth Congress and had been elected the Representative to the 
 Seventeenth Congress, beginning March 4, i«2i, presented a 
 manuscript attested copy of the constitution to the House, 
 and it was referred to a select committee of three. 
 
 A long and heated controversy arose in the House and in 
 the Senate over the clau.se in the constitution which I have 
 quoted. 
 
 Man>- measures were proposed and di.scussed from time to 
 time. 
 
 Finally, on the 22d day of February, 182 1, Mr. Clay moved 
 
 the adoption by the House of a resolution, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That a committee be appointed on the part of this House, 
 jointly with such committee as may be appointed on the part of the 
 Senate, to consider and report to the Senate and House, respectively, 
 whether it be expedient or not to make provision for the admission of 
 Missouri into the Union on the same footing as the original States, and 
 for the due execution of the laws of the United States within Missouri; 
 and if not, whether any other, and what, provision adapted to her actual 
 condition ought to be made by law. 
 
 This resolution was pas.sed by the House on the same da>- by 
 yeas 10 1 and nays 55. 
 
 Mr. Clay moved that the committee consist of 23 members, 
 to be elected by ballot, which was agreed to. 
 
 On February 23 a ballot was had, and 17 members were 
 
I02 Address of Mr. Cockrcll on the Acceptance of the 
 
 elected on the first ballot. Mr. Clay then moved the rescind- 
 ing of the order as to the selection of the remaining 6 members, 
 which was agreed to, and the 6 remaining members were 
 appointed b}^ the Speaker. 
 
 On February 24 the resolution of the House was reported 
 to the Senate, taken up, and passed b}' yeas 29, nays 7, and a 
 committee of 7 appointed on the part of the Senate. 
 
 On February 26 Mr. Cla3\ from the joint committee, reported 
 to the House a joint resolution, which was read the first and 
 second times and laid on the table; and afterwards, on same 
 day, considered and passed by yeas 109 and nays 50. 
 
 On February 27 the resolution was reported to the Senate 
 and read twice by unanimous consent, and was ordered read a 
 third time by yeas 26, nays 15. 
 
 On Februar}' 28 .the resolution was read the third time in the 
 Senate, and passed by yeas 28, nays 14, and was approved by 
 the President March 2, 182 1, and is as follows: 
 
 RESOLUTION providing for the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union on 
 a certain condition. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
 of America in Congress assemblid, That Missouri shall be admitted into 
 this Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects 
 whatever upon the fundamental condition that the fourth clause of the 
 twentj^-sixth section of the third article of the constitution, submitted on 
 the part of said State- to Congress, shall never be construed to authorize 
 the passage of any law, and that no law shall be passed in conformity 
 thereto, by which any citizen of either of the States in this Union shall be 
 excluded from the enjoyment of any of the privileges and immunities to 
 which such citizen is entitled under the Constitution of the United States: 
 Provided, That the legislature of the said State, by a solemn public act, 
 shall declare the assent of the said State to the said fundamental condition, 
 and shall transmit to the President of the United States on or before the 
 fourth Monday in November next an authentic copy of the said act; upon 
 the receipt whereof the President, by proclamation, shall announce the 
 fact; whereupon, and without any further proceeding on the part of Con- 
 gress, the admission of the said Slate into this Union shall l)e considered as 
 complete. 
 
Sfafid's of TJiomas fl. Ben /on and Francis P. Blair. 103 
 
 The governor ot" Missouri called the general assembly in s])e- 
 cial session on June 4, 1821, which passed "A solemn public 
 act, declaring the assent of this State to the fundamental condi- 
 tion contained in a resolution passed by the Congress of the 
 Ignited vStates providing for the admission of the vState (jf 
 Missouri into the l^nion on a certain condition," which was 
 approved June 26, 1821, and transmitted to the President. 
 
 On August 10, 182 1, President Monroe issued his proclama- 
 tion announcing the fact, and Missouri was on that day a vState 
 in the Union. 
 
 The Seventeenth Congress, March 4, 182 1, to March 3, 1823, 
 began its first session on Decemljer 3, 182 1. 
 
 The credentials of Barton and Bentox were dated Octol^er 9, 
 
 1820, certified their election on October 2, and were for the 
 first time presented to the Senate — Barton's on December 3, 
 
 182 1, and Benton's on December 6, 1821 — were read, and the 
 oath administered to each on said days, respectively, when each 
 took his seat. 
 
 On December 6, 1821, on motion of Senator Parrott, the 
 Senate proceeded to ascertain the classes in wdiicli the Senators 
 from Missouri should be inserted. Barton drew No. 2, and was 
 assigned to class 3, expiring March 3, 1825; and Benton drew 
 No. 3, and was assigned to class i, expiring March 3, 1827. 
 
 While they were elected October 2, 1820, before the State 
 was admitted into the Union, on August 10, 1821, and their 
 credentials never presented to the Senate till December 3 and 
 6, 1821, and no oath previously administered to them, and no 
 record in the Journals of the Senate of their names or presence, 
 the records of the Secretary of the Senate, dated March 3, 182 1, 
 and signed by John Gaillard, President pro tempore, show that 
 they were certified to have attended. Barton from November 
 14, 1820, and Benton from November 18, 1820, each, to March 
 
I04 Address of Mr. CockrcU on the Acceptance of the 
 
 3, 182 1, and were paid their regular per diem salary and mile- 
 age, just as other Senators were. Colonel Benton was suc- 
 cessive!}' reelected for four more terms, and ser\'ed continuously 
 to March 3, 185 1, through the Seventeenth to the Thirty-first 
 Congress, both inclusive, fifteen Congresses. 
 
 The sixteenth general assembly of Missouri met December 
 30, 1850. and sat in joint convention to choose a United States 
 Senator on January 10, 1S51, and from day to day till the 22d, 
 when, after a protracted and fierce contest, on the fortieth 
 ballot, Henry S. Geyer, a distinguished lawyer and Whig, was 
 elected by 80 votes to 55 for Benton, 18 for B. F. Striugfellow, 
 and 4 scattering. 
 
 In 1852 he was elected a Representative from St. Louis to 
 the Thirty-third Congress, March 4, 1853, to March 3, 1855, 
 and was defeated for reelection to the Thirty-fourth Congress. 
 Mr. Benton served in the Seventeenth Congress on Commit- 
 tees on Engrossed Bills, Public I,ands, Indian Affairs, and 
 Military Affairs; in the Eighteenth Congress, on Engrossed 
 Bills, Indian Affairs, and Military Affairs; in the Nineteenth, 
 Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Congresses, on 
 Indian Affairs and Mihtary Affairs; in the Twenty-third, 
 Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, and Twenty-sixth Congresses, 
 on :\Iilitary Affairs only; in the Twenty-seventh and Twenty- 
 eighth Congresses, on Military Affairs and Indian Affairs; in 
 the Twenty-ninth Congress, on Military Affairs and Finance; 
 in the Thirtieth Congress, on Military Affairs and Foreign 
 Relations, and in the Thirty-first Congress, on Foreign Rela- 
 tions only; served twenty-eight years on Military Affairs and 
 sixteen years on Indian Affairs. 
 
 In the Thirty-third Congress, in the House, 1 853-1 855, Mr. 
 Benton was appointed on the Committee on Military Affairs. 
 
 According to the records. Senator Benton did not introduce 
 
Statues of Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair. 105 
 
 many bills. In fact, durin.u: his term coniparativcly tew l)ills 
 were presented. 
 
 In the Twentieth Congress, 1827-1829, there were presented 
 in the vSenate 175 bills of a public nature, 73 private bills, and 
 3 joint resolutions; and in the House, 256 public bills, 206 
 private bills, and 26 joint resolutions; 126 public acts, 100 
 private acts, and 9 joint resolutions were passed. 
 
 In the Thirtieth Congress, 1847- 1849, there were presented 
 in the Senate 275 public bills, 227 private bills, 71 joint resolu- 
 tions, and 9 private pension bills; and in the House, 449 public 
 bills, 382 private bills, 65 joint resolutions, and 4 jirivate 
 pension bills. 
 
 In the Forty-fifth Congress, 1877-1879, there were presented 
 in the Senate 995 public bills, 870 private bills, 72 joint reso- 
 lutions, and 195 private pen.sion bills; and in the Hotise, 2,710 
 pttblic bills, 3,899 private bills, 250 joint resolutions, and 1,319 
 private pension bills; 254 public, 443 private, and 211 private 
 pension acts were passed. 
 
 In the Fifty-fifth Congress, 1897-1899, there were presented 
 in the Senate 1,597 public bills, 3,997 private bills, 261 joint 
 resolutions, and 1,876 private pen.sion bills; and in the House, 
 2,563 public bills, 9,660 private bills, 385 joint resolutions, and 
 3,768 private pension bills; 449 public, 884 private, and 684 
 private pension acts were passed. 
 
 From 1820 to 1850 Senators had much more time to devote 
 to the investigation and discussion of pending measures, and 
 much less committee work, than in recent years. During his 
 entire term Senator Benton was punctual in attending the 
 sessions of the Senate, and took an active and conspicuous part 
 in its proceedings. In his discussions of pending questions, 
 his thorough investigation, familiarity with the facts, and clear 
 conception of the influences and the effects, present and future, 
 were made manifest. He exhausted the information and facts 
 touching the subjects he discussed. 
 
io6 Address of Mr. Cockrell on tJie Acceptance of tJic 
 
 When he entered the Senate salt was subject to a tariff tax 
 of 20 cents per bushel of 56 pounds, and the public lands, by the 
 act of April 24, 1820, had been reduced to $1.25 per acre, cash. 
 
 The question of the occupation and settlement of the Oregon 
 Territory on the Columbia River was pending and received his 
 earnest support. He urged the planting of an American colony 
 at the mouth of that river, claiming, with great foresight, that 
 it would result in the accomplishment of Mr. Jefferson's idea of 
 a commercial communication with Asia through the heart of 
 our continent, and that his efforts in that behalf were " nothing 
 but the fruits of the seed planted in his mind l)y the i)hilosophic 
 hand of Mr. Jefferson, that man of large and useful ideas, that 
 .statesman who could conceive measures useful to all mankind 
 and in all time to come." 
 
 He opposed the Oregon Joint Occupation Convention with 
 England almost alone, but eighteen years later had the pleas- 
 ure and honor of almost unanimous .support. 
 
 He oppo.sed, by many speeches at different times, the tariff 
 tax on imported salt, neither di.scouraged nor dismayed, and 
 finally succeeded in having it placed on the free list in the 
 tariff law of July 30, 1846. 
 
 He oppo.sed the Government leasing the mineral and saline 
 lands, and succeeded in having those in Missouri made subject 
 to entry, as other lands. 
 
 He strongly opposed the Panama mission, proposed by 
 President Adams, and the confirmation of the nominees. On 
 motion of Mr. Van Buren, the Senate "Resolved to debate 
 the question with open doors, unless, in the opinion of the 
 President, the pul)lication of documents necessary to be referred 
 to in debate .should be prejudicial to existing negotiations." 
 
 A copy of the resolution was sent to the President for his 
 opinion on that point. He declined to give it, and left it to 
 
S//r/urs o/'riio))ias If. Bciilo)i a i/d Francis /\ JUair. 107 
 
 the Senate to decide for itself " the question of an unexampled 
 departure from its own usag^es and upon the motives of which, 
 not hcini; himself informed, he did not feel himself com])etent 
 to decide." 
 
 A heated and intemperate discussion followed, which (piickly 
 cooled off and died out completely. 
 
 vSenator Benton maintained with his characteristic firmness 
 the old policy of the United States to avoid entanglincj alliances 
 and interference with the affairs of other nations, so strongly 
 impressed upon the country by Washington, Jefferson, and 
 others. 
 
 When President Jackson, in his first annual message in 1829, 
 raised the question of the con.stitutionalit>- and expediency of 
 the law creating the Bank of the United States, whose charter 
 would expire in 1836, Mr. Benton began an unrelenting oppo- 
 sition to its recharter and continued it till success was achieved 
 after a prolonged discus.sion re.sulting in much bitterness of 
 feeling and in other questions equally exasperating, including 
 the resolution of 'censure of President Jackson and the rem{)\-al 
 of the deposits from the bank. 
 
 The resolution of the Senate condenniing President Jackson 
 for removing the deposits of the Treasury from the bank was 
 presented December 26, 1833, was changed twice, and finally 
 read, '' Reso/vrd, That the Pre.sident. in the late executive pro- 
 ceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon 
 himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution 
 and laws, but in derogation of both," and was pas.sed March 
 28, 1834, by yeas 26, nays 20. 
 
 On April 15, 1834, President Jack.son .sent to the Senate his 
 protest against the resolution, which was read in the Senate, 
 and the Senate refused to allow it to be entered upon the 
 records of its Journal. 
 
io8 Address of Mr. Cockrell on the Acceptance of the 
 
 When the protest was read, Senator Benton gave notice of 
 his intention to move an expunging resolution against the 
 sentence of the Senate. 
 
 On April 21, 1834, the President sent to the Senate a message 
 explanatory of the proper meaning of his protest. 
 
 Mr. Benton, in execution of his unswerving determination, 
 presented his expunging resolution time after time, and argued 
 it in three or more set speeches, and fiuall}-, on March 16, 1837, 
 secured its passage by 3'eas 24 and nays 19 — 5 absent. He 
 opposed the passage of the law of June 23, 1836, "An act to 
 regulate deposits of the public money," distributing the surplus 
 money in the Treasur}- to the States. 
 
 He favored the law establishing branches of the mint at 
 New Orleans, La., Dahlonega, Ga., and Charlotte, N. C, and 
 the coinage law of Januarj- 18, 1837, fixing the standard for 
 both gold and silver coins at nine-tenths fine and one-tenth 
 alloy, which was supplementary to the "Act of April 2, 1792, 
 establishing a mint and regulating the coins of the United 
 States," our first coinage law, and gave to both gold and silver 
 free and unlimited coinage into full legal-tender money, inde- 
 pendently of all nations, at the ratio of 15.988 of silver to i of 
 gold, practically 16 to i, thus reducing the quantity of gold in 
 the dollar and leaving the quantit}' of 412)^ grains of silver to 
 the dollar unchanged. He and his colleague, Senator Linn, 
 distinguished and able, secured the pas.sage of the act of June 7, 
 1836, "An act to extend the western boundary of the State of 
 Missouri to the Missouri River," on the extinguishment of the 
 Indian title and the consent of Missouri. And that magnificent 
 country, comprising six rich and populous counties in north- 
 western Missouri, became a part of Missouri by the President's 
 proclamation of March 28, 1837. He opposed the bill to repeal 
 or rescind the Treasury circular known as the ' ' specie circu- 
 lar," issued under President Jackson, requiring gold and silver 
 coins in payment for public lands, which was passed and vetoed. 
 
Stafucs of Thomas H. Denton and Francis P. Blair. 109 
 
 He favored the establishment of the iiulepeudeut treasuries 
 for the deposit of pubhc funds and the cHvorcement of the Gov- 
 ernment from the banks. He opposed the law of September 4, 
 1 84 1, for the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of public 
 land, and the bills to charter a national bank vetoed by Presi- 
 dent Tyler, and the assumption by the United States of the 
 debts of the States. He opposed the Texas annexation treaty 
 and favored the recognition of the independence of Texas and 
 the taxation of bank-note circulation. 
 
 True and faithful to the policy of settling Oregon Territory 
 with Americans, he favored the Oregon land-donation act of 
 September 27, 1850, and was an earnest advocate of a railroad 
 to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 On February 7, 1849, Senator Bentox asked leave to intro- 
 duce ' " A bill to provide for the location and construction of a 
 central national road from the Pacific Ocean to the Missi.ssippi 
 River, with a branch of .said road to the Columbia River," and 
 in explanation said: 
 
 When we acquired Louisiana Mr. Jefferson revived this idea of estab- 
 lishing an inland communication between the two sides of the continent, 
 and for that purpose the well-known expedition of Lewis and Clarke was 
 sent out by him. * * * About thirty years ago I began to turn my 
 attention to this subject. * * * I followed the idea of Mr. Jefferson, 
 La Salle, and others, and attempted to revive attention to their plans. 
 * * * I then expressed the confident belief that this route would cer- 
 tainly be established immediately with the aid of the American Govern- 
 ment, and eventually, even without that aid, by the progress of events 
 and the force of circuni-stances. * * * 
 
 I go for a national highway from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and I 
 go against all schemes of individuals or of companies, and especially those 
 who come here and ask of the Congress of the United Slates to give them- 
 selves and their assigns the means of making a road and taxing the people 
 for the use of it. * * * I propose to reserve ground for all sorts of 
 roads, railway, plank, macadamized. More than that, room for a track 
 by magnetic power, according to the idea stated, I believe, by Professor 
 Henry, and, to me, plausibly pursued by Professor Page, of the Patent 
 Office, if that idea ripens into practicability, and who can undertake to 
 say that any idea will not become practicable in the present age ? * * * 
 
no Address of Mr. Cockrcll oji the Acceptance of the 
 
 An American road to India through the heart of our country will revive 
 upon its line all the wonders of which we have read and eclipse them. 
 The western wilderness from the Pacific to the Mississippi will start into 
 life under its touch. A long line of cities will grow up. Existing cities 
 will take a new start. The state of the world calls for a new road to 
 India, and it is our destiny to give it, the last and greatest. Let us act 
 up to the greatness of the occasion and show ourselves worthy of the 
 extraordinary circumstances in which we are placed by securing, while 
 we can, an American road to India — central and national — for ourselves 
 and our posterity, now and hereafter, for thousands of 3-ears to come. 
 
 lie advocated the right of preemption to settlers tipon the 
 pubhc lands, to induce their occupation \yy individuals, and the 
 graduation of the minimum price of $1.25 per acre to $1 for all 
 lands in the market undisposed of for ten years, 75 cents per 
 acre for all in market fifteen years, and so on down to 12^ 
 cents per acre. 
 
 The graduation act was pa.s.sed August 4, 1854, 'while he was 
 a member of the House, and the homestead law was passed 
 May 20. 1862. 
 
 During his illustrious career his most prominent character- 
 istics were his devotion to the Union of the States and his 
 burning antipathy to nullification, secession, and any and every 
 other measure that might endanger the Union, and to the 
 recharter of the United States Bank and to the charter of a 
 national bank under President Tyler. He favored the main- 
 tenance of the "Missouri Compromise" of 1820, and aggres- 
 sively opposed its repeal, holding that all mea.sitres in that 
 direction were ' ' fire brands, ' ' calculated to increase and eml)itter 
 sectional prejudices, which might lead to disiuiion. 
 
 The friend and defender of President Jackson, he full\- sus- 
 tained him in his firm and luiwavering course in regard to the 
 "Nullification ordinance" pa.ssed by the State convention of 
 South Carolina on November 24, 1832. Again.st this nullifi- 
 cation ordinance President Jack.son issued his celebrated and 
 jiatriolic proclamation of December 10, 1832, and his message 
 
S/,r///<s of 'f/iofuas II. Boifoii and I-ra)nis /'. lUai)\ i 1 1 
 
 to Congress of January i6, 1833, both of wliirli toiind in Mr. 
 Bkn'Tox an ardent and able supporter. 
 
 During the discussion of these and Mr. Calhoun's nulHfica- 
 tion resohition Mr. Hi':nT()X formed the conchi.sion that Mr. 
 Calhoun's ulterior object was the dissolution of the Union, and 
 was ever thereafter on the alert for any movement in that direc- 
 tion and ready to combat it. 
 
 On January 15, 1849, State Senator C. F. Jack.son reported 
 to the .senate of the general as.sembly of Missouri ' ' resolutions 
 on the sul^ject of slavery," known as the "Jack.son resolu- 
 tions," denying any right "on the part of Congress to legislate 
 on the .subject so as to affect the institution of .slavery in the 
 vStates, in the District of Columbia, or in the Territories," and 
 asserting " the right to prohibit slavery in any Territory belongs 
 exclu.sively to the people thereof and can only be exercised by 
 them in forming their constitution for a State government or in 
 their sovereign capacity as an independent State," and "that 
 in the event of the pa.s.sage of any act of Congress conflicting 
 with the principles herein expres.sed, Missouri will be found in 
 hearty cooperation with the slaveholding States in such meas- 
 ures as may be found necessary for our mutual protection 
 against the encroachments of Northern fanaticism," and "that 
 our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives 
 be requested, to act in conformity to the foregoing resolutions." 
 
 They were passed by the .senate January 26, 1849 — yeas, 23; 
 na>s, 6 — and by the hou.se March 6 — yeas, 53; nays 27— after 
 warm and protracted debate in each body. 
 
 Senator Benton'.s fifth term was to expire on March 3, 1851, 
 and he was a candidate for reelection. 
 
 The resolutions were in direct conflict with the opinions of 
 Colonel Benton, ofttimes expressed during his .service, and 
 were advocated by many of those who were well-known oppo- 
 nents of Bf.xtox, and then called anti-BENTON Democrats. A 
 
112 Address of Mr. Cockrcll on the Acceptance of the 
 
 resolution was then passed requiring a copy of the resolutions to 
 be transmitted to the executive of each State and to each of the 
 Senators and Representatives from Missouri, and was approved 
 March lo, 1849. 
 
 They were presented to the vSenate of the United States by 
 Senator Atchison, of Missouri, on January' 3, 1850, and read 
 by the Secretary and ordered printed. 
 
 When read. Senator Benton addressed the Senate, strongly 
 opposing the principles and policies therein expressed. He 
 said: 
 
 This is the proper time for me to say what I believe to be the fact, that 
 these resolutions do not express the sentiments of the people of ^Missouri. 
 They are a law-abiding and a Union-loving people, and have no idea of 
 entering into combinations to resist or to intimidate the legislation of 
 Congress. The general assembly has mistaken the sentiment of the State 
 in adopting these resolutions, and many members who voted for them, and 
 the governor who signed them, have since disavowed and repudiated them. 
 
 Senator Atchison said: 
 
 I have but one word to say, and that is merely to express an opinion 
 that the people of the State of INIissouri, when the time arrives, will prove 
 to all mankind that every sentiment contained in these resolutions, from 
 first to last, will be sustained by them. 
 
 I quote from the History of Missouri, by Col. William F. 
 
 Switzler, one the oldest and most prominent newspaper editors 
 
 of the State, then actively in politics and a Whig, who. in 
 
 writing of the excitement over the passage of the resolutions, 
 
 says: 
 
 The popular ferment was much increased by the subsequent course of 
 Colonel Benton. He opposed the resolutions, appealed from the legisla- 
 ture to the people, and on the 26th of May, 1849, in the hall of the house 
 at Jefferson City, opened a canvass against them which set the State 
 ablaze. He maintained that the spirit of nullification and disunion, of 
 insubordination to law, and of trea.son lurked in the Jack.son resolutions, 
 esj)ecially in the fifth; that they were a mere copy of the Calhoun resolu- 
 tions offered in the United States Senate February 19, 1847, and denounced 
 by him at the time as firebrands and intended for disunion and electioneer- 
 ing purposes. 
 
S/aliu's of T/ioiiins 11. lieu Inn an,/ Francis P. IHair. 113 
 
 ric could see no diflVrciKV l.t-lwceii Uk-iii hut in W\k.- linu- conU-niplatcd 
 for dissolving the Union. Mr. Calhoun's temling "directly" and the Jack- 
 son Missouri resolutions " ultiuiately " to that point. He maintained they 
 were in conflict with the :\Iissouri Compromise of 1S20 and with the reso- 
 lutions passed by the Mi.ssouri legislature February 15. 1S47, wherein it 
 was declared that "the peace, permanency, and welfare of our National 
 Union depend upon a strict adherence to the letter and spirit" of that 
 compromise, also instructing our vSenators and Representatives in Ccju- 
 gress on all questions which may come before them in relation to the 
 organization of new Territories or States to vote in accordance with its 
 provisions. He denounced them as entertaining the covert purpose of 
 ultimately dissolving the National Union and of misleading the people of 
 Missouri into cooperation with the slaveholding States for that purpose. 
 
 During his extensive canvass of the State in 1849 he deHvered 
 inan\- able and exhaustive speeches, often interspersed with 
 bitter denunciations and withering sarcasm, being master of 
 both. 
 
 The result was a division of the Democratic party, which for 
 thirty years had loyally supported him, into two factions, usually 
 called Benton and anti-Benton Democrats, and his defeat for 
 reelection. 
 
 After his service in the House of Representatives, March 4, 
 1853, to March 3, 1855, and his defeat for reelection in 1854, 
 he was the candidate of his wing of the Democratic party for 
 governor in 1856, and was defeated l)y Trusten Polk, of the 
 anti-Benton wing. This was his last political campaign. 
 
 He was a close, laborious, and constant student from boy- 
 hood to his death, and acquired and possessed a greater fund of 
 information and knowledge, general and historical, than any 
 statesman of our country, from which he drew largely in his 
 discussions of all questions. 
 
 Apace with his increasing years he grew in knowledge and 
 foresight and in his uncomiiromising devotion to what he hon- 
 estly believed to ])e the very best interests of our connnon 
 country and the toiling millions of our people, and was the 
 friend of the people. P.elieving he was right, he never stopped 
 S. Doc. 456 8 
 
114 Address of Air. Cockrcll on the Acceptance of the 
 
 to count the strength of the opposition, but moved to the attack 
 with unyielding determination and renewed force. General 
 Blair was selected to deliver the address at the unveiling of 
 the Benton statue in vSt. Louis, and said of Mr. Bextox: 
 
 He not onlv admired and Ijelieved in our form of j^overnmenl, ijul he 
 was of that Democratic school which insisted on restraining the Govern- 
 ment in the exercise of its powers to a strict and literal interpretation of 
 the Constitution, not only because they believed the framers of the Gov- 
 ernment were wise and saj^acious men and knew how to employ language 
 to describe the powers which the)- sought to confer on the Govennnent, 
 but they were upon principle opposed to a strong government, and sought 
 in every way to limit its powers and to make each of the different branches 
 a check upon the others. They were profoundly convinced that ' ' the world 
 was governed too much," and that the best government was .that which 
 least intermeddled with the affairs of the citizens. There never lived a 
 man with more instinctive patriotism than Benton. He was a man of 
 strong, sometimes of unruly, passions, but his paramount passion was love 
 of countr}-. 
 
 He devoted to his country the best and ablest efforts of his 
 Hfe. 
 
 His untiring industr>' and close application enabled him to 
 complete the two volumes of Thirty Years in the Ignited vStates 
 Senate, styled by him "The Thirty Years' View," and .sixteen 
 volumes of the Abridgment of the Debates in Congress, from 
 1789 to 1856, both of which are invaluable publications and 
 will be read and referred to by students and statesmen in 
 coming ages. He was strictly temperate in all his habil.s — a 
 splendid exemplar for the young men of our country. 
 
 In his autobiographical .sketch in ' ' The Thirty Years' 
 
 X'iew," referring to his entrance in the Senate, he writes: 
 
 From that time his life was in the public eye and the bare enumeration 
 of the measures of which he was the author and the prime mover would 
 be almost a hi.story of Congress legislation. The enumeration is unneces- 
 .sary here, the long list is known throughout the length and breadth of 
 the land — repeated with the familiarity of household words from the 
 great cities on the .seaboard to the lonely cabins on the frontier— and 
 .studied by the little boys, wlio feel an honorable ambition beginning to 
 stir within their bosoms and a laudable desire to learn something of the 
 hi.story of their countr)-. 
 
S/a/urs ofThouias 11. /h-/ifon and Frai/a's P. lUair. T15 
 
 These expressions of self-adulation may be overlooked in a 
 statesman of his iniblemished character for intei;rity. his 
 ackno\vled,s;ed abilities and attainments, and his useful, patri- 
 otic, and illustrious career; while in men of smaller caliber they 
 would bL'ConiL- ridiculous and justly offensive. 
 
 Great as he was, strong-willed and ambitious, he could not 
 in his younger days divest himself of the influence of his envi- 
 ronments and restrain his anger. He was indjued with a fear- 
 lessness and courage, j^lnsical and moral, never questioned, 
 and became involved in jK-rsonal difficulties about wdiich I 
 (juote from his autobiography. 
 
 While ill the early part of life at Nashville and at vSt. Louis duels and 
 affrays were common, and the young BenTON had his share of them. 
 A very violent affray between himself and brother on one side and 
 General Jackson and some friends on the other, in which severe pistol 
 and dagger wounds were given, but fortunately without loss of life; and 
 the only use for which that violent collision now finds a reference is in its 
 total oblivion by the parties and the cordiality with which they acted 
 together for the public good in their subsequent long and intimate career. 
 A duel at St. Louis ended fatally, of which Colonel BexTox has not been 
 heard to speak except among intimate friends and to tell of the pang 
 which went through his heart when he saw the young man fall, and 
 would have given the world to see him restored to life. As the proof of 
 the manner in which he looks upon all these scenes and his desire to 
 bury all remembrance of them forever he has had all the papers burned 
 which relate to them, that no future curiosity or industry should bring to 
 light what he wishes had never happened. 
 
 Colonel Bextox was married, after becoming Senator, to Elizabeth, 
 daughter of Col. James McDowell, of Rockbridge County, Va., and of 
 Sarah, his wife, born vSarah Preston. 
 
 Of his wife he says: 
 
 She was a woman of singular merit, judgment, elevation of character, 
 and regard for every social duty, crowned by a life-long connection with 
 the church in which she was bred— the Presbyterian Old School. Mrs. 
 Benton died in 1854, having been struck with paralysis in 1844, and from 
 that time her hu.sband was never known Uj go to any place of festivity or 
 anmsement. 
 
ii6 Address of Mr. CockfcII oti tJic Acceptance of the 
 
 Of his devotion to his wife I quote from General Blair's 
 address: 
 
 I trust that I may not be thought to tread on ground too holy in 
 alluding to the gentle care, the touching solicitude, with which he 
 guarded the last feeble pulses of life in her who was the pride and glory 
 of his young ambition, the sweet ornament of his mature fame, and best 
 love of his ripened age. 
 
 Full of years, full of honors, this illustrious statesman, on 
 April lo, 1858, in this city, passed away from the earthly 
 scenes of his combats and triumphs to life immortal, mourned 
 b5' a nation. 
 
 FRANCIS PRESTON BLAIR. 
 
 Mr. President, it is eminently proper that the statue of Blair 
 should .stand by the side of Benton's. Blair was his most 
 trusted friend and delivered the address on the occasion of the 
 unveiling of the .statue erected to his memory in St. I^ouis. 
 
 Francis Preston Blair was born in Lexington, Ky., on 
 the 19th day of February, 182 1, and bore his father's honored 
 name. 
 
 When he was 9 years old his father removed from Lexington, 
 Ky., to this cit}' to a.ssume editorial control of the Globe news- 
 paper, the organ of President Jackson's Administration. He 
 attended Chapel Hill College, North Carolina, and afterwards 
 graduated from Princeton College, .studied law in this city, and 
 then returned to Kentucky and continued his studies in the 
 office of Louis Marshall. His health failing, he \isited his 
 brother, Montgomery Blair, in St. Loui.s — afterwards Postma.s- 
 ter-General under President Lincoln — and then returned to 
 Kentucky and graduated from Transylvania L^niversit)- law 
 school. He then opened a law office in St. Louis and there 
 ever after made his home. 
 
 His health again failing, he made a trip to the Rocky Moini- 
 tains, and in 1845 accompanied Bent and St. Vrain to their 
 
S/a/iu's o/ Tlioii/as II. nnito>i and FraJicis P. li/a/'r. wj 
 
 post ill New Mexico, now Colorado, and was tliere when the 
 war with Mexico l)e>^an and took an active ]"iart in the niihtary 
 operations nnder Gen. vSte]ilien W. Kearnw 
 
 On Ati^^nst 22, 1846, General Kearny issued his remarkal)le 
 proclamation, after having taken possession of the cajiital — 
 Santa Fe — of the Department of New Mexico on Aui,mst iS. 
 
 On September 22, iS4(), he i)u])lished an "Organic law for 
 the Territory of New Mexico, compiled under the direction of 
 General Kearny," and on the same day wrote to the Adjutant- 
 General, saying: 
 
 I take great pleasure in stating that I am entirely indebted for these 
 laws to Col. A. W. Doniphan, of the First Regiment of Missouri ^Mounted 
 Volunteers, who received much assistance from Private Willard P. Hall, 
 of his regiment. 
 
 On the same day he appointed a governor and other officers, 
 among them "Francis P. Blair, to l)e United States district 
 attorney.'" 
 
 If he ever accepted the appointment, he only held it for a 
 few days, as Hugh N. Smith was appointed to that position on 
 October i, 1846, and claims to have acted for two years and 
 four months, although the offices of United States district 
 attorney and marshal "were considered as abolished by in- 
 structions from the War Department bearing date January 
 II. 1847." 
 
 In 1S47 he returned and resumed the practice of his pro- 
 fession, and married Miss Apolline Alexander, of Woodford 
 County, Ky., on September 8, 1847. 
 
 In 1852 he w-as elected a representative from St. Louis in the 
 Seventeenth general assembly of Missouri, and was reelected in 
 1S54, and was again elected in 1S70. 
 
 In 1856 he was elected a Repre.sentative in Congress as a 
 Republican, and was in 1858 a candidate for reelection and 
 was defeated b\- J. R. Barrett, Democrat, and contested Mr. 
 Barrett's election, and was given the .seat June 8, i860, by yeas 
 
ii8 Address of Mr. CockrcU on tlie Acceptance of the 
 
 93, nays 91, and served until that session of the Thirty-sixth 
 Congress adjourned, June 25, i860. FeeHno- hiniseU" vindi- 
 cated, he resigned his seat for the remainder of the term — 
 the last session of the Thirty-sixth Congress. 
 
 In the summer of i860, in the election for the remainder of 
 the term in the Thirty-sixth Congress and for the full term in 
 the Thirty-.seventh Congress, he was defeated by Mr. Barrett 
 for the short term and elected by a large majority over Mr. 
 Barrett for the term in the Thirty-seventh Congress, and was 
 reelected to the Thirty-eighth Congress, March 4, 1863, to 
 March 3, 1865. His election was contested by Mr. Samuel 
 Knox, who was on June 10, 1864, declared entitled to the 
 seat by yeas 70, nays 53, and was sworn in and seated June 
 15. This contest was pending in the House from the begin- 
 ning of the session. 
 
 When the session began Blair was a major-general of vol- 
 unteers in the field, commanding a corps, and about the last 
 days of October, 1863, his brother, Hon. Montgomery Blair, 
 con.sulted President Lincoln as to his wishes whether General 
 Blair should take his .seat in Congress or remain in the field. 
 
 On November 2, 1863, President Lincoln wrote Hon. Mont- 
 gomery Blair: 
 
 • My wish, then, is compounded of what I believe will be best for the 
 country and best for him, and it is that he will come here, put his military 
 commission in my hands, take his seat, go into caucus with our friends, 
 abide the nominations, help elect the nominees, and thus aid to organize 
 a House of Representatives which will really support the Government in 
 the war. If the result shall be the election of himself as vSpeaker, let him 
 serve in that position ; if not, let him retake his commission and return to 
 the Army. * * * He is rising in military skill and usefulness. His 
 recent appointment to the command of a corps by one so competent to 
 judge as General Sherman proves this. In that line he can serve both the 
 country and himself more profitably than he could as a member of Con- 
 gress upon the floor. The foregoing is what I would say if Frank Rl.\ir 
 were my brother instead of yours. 
 
Sfa/itcs of Thomas II. Boitoii tDui Traucis P. Blaif. 119 
 
 General Blair, on January i. 1864, tendered his resijj^naticjn 
 as a major-general, United States Volunteers, which was ac- 
 cepted January i:;, 1864. 
 
 On March 15, 1864, President Lincoln suggested to Lieuten- 
 ant-General Grant the assignment of General Blair to tlie 
 command of a corps. On March 30 General Grant telegraphed 
 General Sherman: "Gen. F. P. Blair will be assigned to the 
 Seventeent.h Corps, and not the P'ifteenth. '" On .April 9, 
 General Grant telegraphed General Halleck, chief of staff, to 
 ascertain if General Blair was to be .sent to General Sherman. 
 
 On Ai)ril 20 General Blair wrote to Pre.sident Lincoln re- 
 ([uesting assignment to the conunand of the Seventeenth Corjis, 
 and on the 21st the President referred the same to " Honorable 
 Secretary of War: Please have General Halleck make the 
 proper order in this case. ' ' 
 
 On April 23 General Blair wrote the Secretary of War: 
 
 I respectfully request to withdraw my re.signation as major-general of 
 the United States Volunteers, tendered on the 12th day of January, 1864. 
 
 And President Lincoln wrote the Secretary of War April 23: 
 
 According to our understanding with Maj. Gen. Fr.\xk P. Bl.\ir at the 
 time he took his seat in Congress last winter, he now asks to withdraw his 
 resignation as major-general, then tendered, and be sent to the field. Let 
 this be done. Let the order sending him be such as shown me to-day by 
 the Adjutant-General, only dropping from it the names of Maguire and 
 Tompkins. 
 
 The order assigning him to the Seventeenth Army Corps was 
 made that day. 
 
 The records of the War Department show ' ' that Frank P. 
 Blair was mustered into .service to take effect April 26, 1861. 
 as colonel First Missouri Militia, to serve three years. This 
 regiment was reorganized as the First Missouri Infantry \'olun- 
 teers, and Colonel Blair was mu.stered into service with the 
 regiment upon its reorganization, June 26, 1861, to take effect 
 
I20 Address of Mr. Cockrell on the Acceptance of tJic 
 
 June 12, 1 86 1, to serve three years. After this muster into 
 service as colonel for three years, he repaired to Washington, 
 D. C, and took his seat as a member of Congress from the 
 State of Missouri July 4, 1861, and served as chairman of the 
 Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives. It 
 does not appear that he thereafter rejoined his regiment, the 
 designation of which was changed September or October, 1861, 
 to the First Regiment Missouri Light Artillery. 
 
 "On July 4, 1862, the Secretary of War authorized him 
 to organize a brigade of volunteers, and he was appointed 
 brigadier-general of volunteers August 7, 1862, and accepted 
 the appointment August 21, 1862. He was commissioned 
 major-general of volunteers March 13, 1863, to rank from 
 November 29, 1862, and accepted the conunission April 6, 
 1863, and was honorably discharged the service, to take effect 
 November i, 1865, in orders dated October 28, 1865, upon 
 tender of his resignation. 
 
 "During the period of his service as brigadier-general and 
 major-general of volunteers he was in command of the First 
 Brigade, Fourth Division, Right Wing, Thirteenth Army Corps, 
 of the First Brigade, First Division, Fifteenth Army Corps, of 
 the Seventeenth Army Corps, and of the Department of ]Mis- 
 souri, participating in the siege of Vicksbiirg and of Atlanta 
 and in vSherman's march to the sea. A leave of al)scnce was 
 granted him September 15, 1864, and during the remainder of 
 September and the month of October, 1864, he was engaged in 
 organizing the defenses of the city of St. Louis, Mo." 
 
 March 14, 1866, he was nominated b}' President Johnson for 
 collector of internal revenue. First Mi.s.souri di.strict, and his 
 nomination referred to committee March 16, 1866, and reported 
 favorably by Senator Fessenden April 10, and rejected May 4, 
 1866 — yeas 8, nays 21. 
 
S/.7///rs of Thovias //. Hen ton and Fnmcis P. lUair. I2i 
 
 On March 25, 1867, President Johnson sent his nomination 
 for minister to Austria to the vSenate, vice Edj^ar Cowan, 
 rejected. vSenator vSnnnier on the same day rejiorted the 
 nomination adversely, and it was rejected March 28— yeas 5, 
 nays 35. 
 
 He was afterwards appointed a connnissioner of the Pacific 
 Raihoad, of the construction of which he had always been an 
 able and earnest advocate. At the national Democratic con- 
 vention at New York, in the summer of 1868, he was nomi- 
 nated for Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with 
 Governor Horatio Seymour for President, and was defeated. 
 Elected to the general assembly of Mi.s.souri in 1870, which met 
 in 1 87 1, he was in the same month elected to fill the vacancy 
 in the United States Senate caused by the resignation on 
 December 13, 1870, to take effect on December 19, 1870, of 
 Senator Charles D. Drake, to accept an api)ointment to the 
 Court of Claims. 
 
 He was sworn in and took his seat in the Senate on January 
 25, 187 1, for the unexpired term ending March 3, 1873. He 
 participated actively in behalf of Horace Greeley for President 
 and B. Gratz Brown for Vice-President in the campaign of 
 1872. 
 
 On November 16, 1872, he was stricken down by paralysis, 
 from which he never recovered. 
 
 Largely, if not entirely, owing to his stricken condition he 
 w^as defeated for reelection to the Senate in January, 1873. 
 
 There were three distictively marked periods in the life of 
 General Blair which make him illustrious for historic renown 
 and for distinguished civic .services. 
 
 The first period extends to the beginning of the civil war, 
 the second to the close of that war, and the third to his death. 
 
 He was a Southern man by birth, famil\- connection, and 
 
122 Address of Mr. Cockrcll on tlic Acceptance of the 
 
 residence; the j-oung friend of President Jackson, during whose 
 Administration he was of the susceptible and formative age, 
 and imbibed largely of his views on national and ])()litical ques- 
 tions. He was the friend of, and unfaltering in his devotion 
 to, the principles and policies of Benton, whose mantle fell 
 upon his shoulders — a Democrat of the Jackson, Benton, and 
 Van Buren .school. 
 
 In 184S, when the " Wilmot proviso" agitated the country, 
 he took a decided .stand in favor of the free-.soil movement and 
 against the nominees of the Democratic party for President and 
 Vice-President, opposed the extension of slavery, and argued 
 and labored to remove slavery from Missouri. 
 
 He warmly espou.sed the cause of Benton in his appeal from 
 the Jackson resolutions to the people, and in 1852 was elected to 
 the legi.slature on the Benton ticket. In 1856 he was elected 
 to Congress as a Republican from a slave State. 
 
 He fearlessly maintained his opposition to slavery extension 
 and advocacy of removing slavery from Missouri, notwithstand- 
 ing the censure and obloquy attached to such a course in a slave 
 State, and establi.shed a high character for moral courage and 
 great ability. 
 
 His greatest prescience and force of character were made 
 manifest when the lowering clotids of civil war portended a dis- 
 .solution of the Union. Equally with Jack.son and Bknton, 
 uncompromising in his devotion to the Union and in oji]X)sition 
 to nullification or secession, he foresaw plainly that war was 
 inevitable and began preparations in advance of ho.stilities and 
 organized the "Wideawakes" in St. Louis, and other forces. 
 He was the soul, the will, the controlling power of the Union 
 men in Mi.ssouri, determined at all hazards and all risks that 
 Mis,souri .should stand by the Union. 
 
 Believing that the vState administration, under C.o\-ernor 
 
S fa furs of Thomas II. Boifon aiicf I-yancis P. Blair. 123 
 
 Claiborne F. Jackson, who had, as a State senator, reported 
 the Jackson resohitions, was ainiini^^ to lead Missouri into 
 cooperation willi the sececHni;- Stales, and hax'inj;- llie (.unfi- 
 dence ot President Lincoln, he delerniined to drixx- the admin- 
 istration from the vState, and, as the adviser and coleader with 
 General Lyon, the United States Army officer placed in com- 
 mand throu<5^h his influence, had United vStates forces marched 
 into Missouri from .St. T^cjuis, as the center, and from Leaven- 
 worth, K.ans., on the west, and quickly occu])ied the railroads 
 and the Missoiui River. He 10 a greater extent tlian any 
 other man held Missouri in allegiance to the Union and caused 
 her to contibute to the Union armies 108,773 soldiers (a greater 
 number than an\- of the States except Xew York, Penns\l\-a- 
 nia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and INIassacluisetts), as brave and 
 fearless as those from any vState and surpassed by none. 
 
 Not only this, but by the heroic movements he in.spired 
 Missouri was prevented from cooperation with the .seceding 
 States to the full extent of the sympathy of her people. 
 
 During the four long, weary years of that war of the wars of 
 all the ages, when the citizen soldiers met each other in fierce 
 combat, wnth father against .son, brother again.st brother, neigh- 
 bor again.st neighbor, and friend again.st friend, all true to their 
 honest convictions, Blair never said ' ' go, ' ' but always ' ' come. " 
 
 He di.splayed remarkable military abilities and skill, and 
 justly ro.se to the highest rank in the volunteer .service, sur- 
 passed by none and equaled only by one — Maj. Gen. John A. 
 Logan. 
 
 With the clo.se of the war began the third marked epoch in 
 General Blair's illustrious career, during which he di.splayed 
 a moral courage and heroism equal to if not greater than that 
 displayed at the beginning of the war. 
 
 A State convention as.sembled in Jefler.son City September i , 
 1863, and passed resolutions requesting Governor Gamble and 
 
124 Address of Mr. Cockrcll on the Acceptance of the 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor Hall to vacate their positions and urging 
 the President to remove General Schofield from the command 
 of the department, and appointed a committee of seventy to 
 present their grievances to the President. 
 
 The committee presented their address to the President on 
 September 30, 1863, and four supplementary addresses on 
 October 3. The President replied on Octol^er 5. The 
 demands, as epitomized !)>• the President in his reply, were: 
 
 First. That General Schofield should be relieved and General Butler be 
 appointed as commander of the military department of Missouri. 
 
 Second. That the sj-stem of enrolled militia in Missouri should be 
 broken up and national forces substituted for it. 
 
 Third. That at elections persons might not be allowed to vole who 
 were not entitled by law to do so. 
 
 The President's reply shows clearh" the conditions then and 
 -sulxsequently existing in Missouri. He said: 
 
 We are in civil war. In such cases there always is a main question; 
 Ijut in this case that question is a perplexing compound — Union and 
 slavery. It thus becomes a question not of two sides merel}-, but of at 
 least four sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing 
 of those who are again.st it. Thus, those who are for the Union wUJi but 
 not zait/iout s\a\ery, those for it without but not zviih, those for it wil/i or 
 without but prefer it luith, and those for it with or witlwut but prefer it 
 tvii/iout. Among these, again, is a subdivision of those who are for 
 gradual but not for itniiiediafe, and those who are for i in mediate but 
 not ior gradual extinction of slavery. 
 
 It is eas3' to conceive that all these shades of opinion, and even more, 
 may be sincerely entertained by honest and truthful men. Yet all being 
 for the Union, by reason of these differences each will prefer a different 
 way of sustaining the Union. At once sincerity is questioned and motives 
 assailed. Actual war coming, blood grows hot and blood is spilled. 
 Thought is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception breeds 
 and thrives. Confidence dies, and universal suspicion reigns. Each man 
 feels an impulse to kill his neighbor lest he be killed by him. Revenge 
 and retaliation follow. And all this, as before .said, may be among honest 
 men only. But this is not all. Every. foul bird comes abroad, and every 
 dirty reptile ri.ses up. These add crime to confusion. Strong measures, 
 deemed indispensable but harsh at best, such men make worse by malad- 
 ministration. JNIurders for old grudges and nuirders for i)eir proceed 
 
S/n/itcs of yyiOD/as II. Boil on and IliDicis I\ Hlair. 125 
 
 uinlcr any cloak that will hcsl cover for Uu- occasion. Tlicsi- causes 
 amply account for what has occurred in Missouri, without ascrihinj^ it to 
 the weakness or wickedness of any j^eneral. 
 
 The President refused the first and second demands and con- 
 curred in the third. The iMtterness and contentions among the 
 Union men, cHvided into Conservatives and Radicals, stihse- 
 (juentlN- called Democrats and Rei)ul)licans, increased. So, also, 
 l)et\veen the Union and Southern men. On January 6, 1865, a 
 State constitutional convention assemliled in St. Louis, adopted 
 an ordinance abolishing slavery in Mis.souri, which as a prac- 
 tical fact had cea.sed to exist for .some time previous, and 
 adopted a con.stitution to be submitted to a vote of the people 
 on Jtine 6, 1865, for adoption or rejection, which was adopted 
 by 43,670 votes for to 41,808 again.st it; majority, 1,862. The 
 convention adjourned April 10, 1S65. 
 
 This constitution by proclamation of the governor took effect 
 July 4, 1S65, was called the Drake constitution, from Hon. 
 Charles D. Drake, vice-president of the convention, and its 
 reputed author. 
 
 It contained the most stringent and proscriptive provisions 
 in regard to the test oaths required of voters — persons capable 
 of holding any office or position of honor, trust, or profit, State, 
 corporate, nuuiicipal, institutional, or fiduciary, and of attor- 
 neys, and teachers in our schools, male and female, and even 
 ministers of the gospel of peace and good will. 
 
 General Blair took a bold and fearless stand against such 
 measures and all proscription, refused to take the oath in order 
 to vote, and brought suit in the courts to test his right. With 
 General Blaik the Union was the main qtiestion. When the 
 Union arms had triumphed, an indi.s.soluble Union of inde- 
 structible States had been secured, secession with slavery and 
 all opposition to the Union had been forever buried in the 
 
126 Address of Mr. Cockrcll on the Acceptaiice of the 
 
 grave of the dead Confederacy beyond resurrection, and our 
 old flag waved in honor, glory, and power from ocean to 
 ocean, and from the Lalces to the Gulf, every tongue con- 
 fessing and ever}- knee bowing to its peaceful and rightful 
 sway. General Blair l)elieved that humanity, Christianit>-, 
 the wisest statesmanship, as well as the very best interests 
 of our common country, demanded peace, reconciliation, and 
 fraternity, that the wounds and bruises of the war might be 
 healed, its wastes and devastations repaired, and our people. 
 North and South, East and West, become one people, citizens 
 of our common country in fact as in law, with like sympathies, 
 feelings, aspirations, interests, and rights. He did not believe 
 that proscription was the proper method to such ends. 
 
 He warmly supported General Grant's intercession in behalf 
 of General Lee and other paroled Confederate officers and 
 soldiers on the ground that their paroles, so long as they 
 obeyed the laws, protected them from arrest and trial. 
 
 General Blair's efforts to restore to the proscribed people of 
 Missouri equal rights of citizenship were equally as heroic and 
 fearless as were his efforts to preserve the integrity of the Union 
 and to overthrow all opposition to it. 
 
 So inten.se and embittered were the feelings of the extreme 
 radical element in many counties that freedom of public dis- 
 cussion did not exist, and public meetings were broken up and 
 threats made that no Democrat should address them. 
 
 General Blaik, in the early summer of 1866, made a series 
 of .speeches in many different counties in Mis.souri. At many 
 places efforts were made to break up his meetings and prevent 
 him speaking and even to take him from the stand. He never 
 quailed nor flinched, but boldly and defiantly denounced those 
 creating the disturbances in the bitterest and mo.st withering 
 terms, and never failed to speak as long as he chose and to .say 
 
S/(7//u's of TJiomas II. Ben Ion and Francis P. P,lair. 127 
 
 whatever he iileased, and l)y these efTorts reiiuned every hin- 
 drance to the utmost freedom of jnibHc discussion ever there- 
 after. I refer to these incidents in his ilhistrious hfe to show 
 his heroic and conra^eous nature and his uncompromising^ 
 devotion to what he l)eHeved to be ri.<;ht, and not to revive the 
 dead embers of hate and bitterness engendered b\- tliat fratri- 
 cidal war. for "anathema maranatha" be to him who would 
 rekindle the dead eml)ers of hate and sectional animosities. 
 
 In addressing a large public audience in Memjihis, Tenn., on 
 September 20, 1866, General Blair said: 
 
 The utmost freedom of public discussion is the rock upon which all 
 true liberty is founded. If that great bulwark is overthrown, or if public 
 speakers seek only to express such views as are in accordance with public 
 sentiment, the way is thrown wide open to the destruction of every guar- 
 anty of freedom. Hence I regard it as unworthy of myself and especially 
 dishonoring to you to attempt an apology for anything I may advance 
 because it may not meet your concurrence. 
 
 General Bl.-\iR was a dutiful son, a loving, faithful husband, 
 a kind and affectionate father, a true, .steadfast friend, generous 
 to a fault and often to his pecuniary loss, genial and attractive 
 in his per.sonality, forceful and impressive as a speaker, per- 
 .sonally and officially honest and incorruptible, without even 
 the suspicion of a stain upon his integrity. 
 
 He was open, frank, bold, and aggressive in the ex]^ression 
 of his views and the advocacy of his principles, whether popular 
 or obnoxious at the time, and yet .so tempered them with geni- 
 ality and magnanimity that few could keep from admiring liim 
 and few indeed were his personal enemies. 
 
 The good people of Missouri have erected a pure standard 
 bronze statue of General Blair in Forest Park, St. Louis, of 
 heroic size, to perpetuate the remend^rance and appreciation of 
 his great abilities and his distinguished services to our connnon 
 country and to his adopted State. 
 
128 Address of Mi'-. Cocky ell on the Acceptance of the 
 
 I quote from the address of Rev. Dr. T. M. Post on the occa- 
 sion of the unveihng of that statue: 
 
 Happy is it when, from an heroic grave, there is an outlook to the land 
 immortal, and loyalty to country is consummated in loyalty to God —happy 
 for our personal love and for our hope for our country. We believe a 
 truth from a higher world came to our friend in that solemn, serene, and 
 utterly real realm that la}-, through months and seasons, before the open 
 gates of the Everlasting; that in those solemn hours when time's shadows 
 flee away and its pomp and pride are but pageants of a passing dream voices 
 came to him from out eternit}- and the Highest revealed Himself, and 
 that the lesson and confession of allegiance to the Eternal One came in 
 to correct and consummate the utterances of his life. That lesson and 
 confession are among the things that shall not pass away. The heroic 
 form typed by yonder statue years ago crumbled into dust, the bronze 
 and the granite shall in time follow; but this last utterance is above and 
 beyond change, a truth and a force which, we trust, shall blend with the 
 destinies of this nation forever. 
 
S/a/nc's of Thomas II. Benton and Francis P. Blair. 129 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. HOAR, OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 Mr President, it is hardly necessary, after the wonderfully 
 eloquent and ample tribute in memory of these two sons of 
 Missouri, that atn- other ^•oice should be heard. I have been 
 asked, however, because, as I suppose, I represent in part that 
 section of the Union farthest in situation and farthest in opunon 
 fron. the people whom Bexton loved and served, to say a few 
 words in support of the resolution, and especially with reference 
 
 to him. .. , 1 t 
 
 The statute of 1862 which sets apart the beautiful chamber 
 in the Capitol as a gallery for the statues of famous citizens 
 leaves the selection to the absolute discretion of the States. 
 But the whole country approves the choice of Missouri. 
 
 The whole country remembers freshly the great career, the 
 chivalrous character, the dauntless spirit of Blair. But when 
 the fi-ure of Benton is unveiled the genius of Missoun- 
 rather"" the genius of the We.st-has come. He is to stand 
 among his peers, the representative, the embodiment, of a 
 great history. He remembered the men of the Revolution. 
 He was born before the war of the Revolution ended. He 
 lived to greet Charles Sumner when he came into the Senate, 
 to survive all the great leaders of the time before the war. and 
 to see the sure signs of the coming conflict of arms between 
 freedom and slavery. 
 
 Missouri did well that she waited nearly half a century after 
 his death before electing him to the greater and perpetual 
 Senate, which is to sit forever in yonder chamber. It would 
 be well if this example were always followed. No party spirit, 
 no influence of friendship, no mere personal gratitude, no tem- 
 porary or fleeting popularity has influenced the choice. We 
 S. Doc. 456 9 
 
130 Address of Mr. Hoar on the Acceptance of the 
 
 know now what manner of man Missouri, by her dehberate 
 choice, delighteth to honor and what manner of man the Amer- 
 ican people dehght to honor. 
 
 Thomas H. Benton was a sturdy and courageous champion. 
 He iniderstood, as no other man ever understood, the interest 
 of the great West. He is, beyond all question, without com- 
 petitor or rival down to this moment, the foremost statesman 
 of the States beyond the Mississippi. From 1820 to 1850 he 
 was one of the four great leaders of the Senate. If in some 
 special quality he was surpassed by each of the great trium- 
 virate — Webster, Clay, Calhoun — yet neither of these men. 
 perhaps not all together, exerted so powerful an influence upon 
 the action of the Senate or of the people during that time. He 
 was industrious, wasting no moment of time; earnest and inde- 
 fatigable, pressing like a steel spring upon the armor of his 
 opponent; trying every joint; sure to find the weak .spot; 
 untiring; courageous, never shrinking or flinching from the 
 face of any antagonist; unselfish, striving for the public good 
 as he understood it; loving his people, loving his State and 
 section and country, with a supreme and most disinterested love. 
 
 The statesman or the student of history to-day can investi- 
 gate few subjects which interested the people during the first 
 seventy years of our history under the Constitution without 
 coming upon the work of Benton. By three or four things, 
 however, he is specially known to his countr5anen and will 
 keep his place in their undying memory. One is his passionate 
 personal attachment and devotion to Andrew Jackson. Another 
 is his belief in a money of intrinsic value, gold and silver, and 
 his utter detestation and contempt for any substitute of paper 
 or credit. Another is his attachment to the union of the 
 States, an attachment which no party feeling, no. feeling as a 
 Southern man, ever for a moment weakened or impaired. 
 
Sfa/iu'S ofTho))ias H. Benton and Francis P. Blair. 131 
 
 Another was his brave resistance in his early hfe to the threat 
 intellectual champions who were arrayed against him in the 
 Senate; and a resistance, braver still, in his old age, to the 
 currents of popular delirium which swept away his own vState 
 and his own party into the attempt to extend slavery, and what 
 he deemed a wicked and unconstitutional war against Mexico. 
 He was eminently a man of the people. He liked popular 
 applause. He was a man of intense party spirit. Yet he was 
 able to stand alone. He had his foibles, to which his distin- 
 guished successor [Mr. Vest] has so well alluded; but, after 
 all, there was never an American citizen to whom that tribute 
 of the Latin poet, often quoted, but which we may well repeat, 
 would better apply: 
 
 ' ' Justam ac tenacem propositi virum 
 Non civivim ardor prava jitbentium 
 J Non vultus instantis tyranni 
 
 jVIente quatit solida, neque Auster, 
 Dux iiiquieti turbidus Hadriie, 
 Nee Fulminantis magna nianus Jovis; 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinae." 
 
 ' ' Integer vitae scelerisque purus. ' ' 
 
 " Cui Pudor, et Justitise soror, 
 Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas 
 Quando ulluni inveniet pareni?" 
 
 He loved Missouri. He loved the West. He loved the 
 South. From his coming into public life — indeed, from his 
 first coming to manhood — there was scarcely a pulsation of 
 the popular Western heart which he did not share. Yet when 
 the time came for him to choose between office, party, his State, 
 popularity, the love of old friends and companions, influence, 
 power, the master passions of his soul, as it seemed, on the one 
 hand, and freedom and country upon the other, he did not 
 
132 Address of Mr. Hoar on the Acceptance of the 
 
 hesitate in the choice. His latest biographer, Governor Roose- 
 velt, describes the conditions that confronted Benton when the 
 decline of his life came on. Benton had resisted what to most 
 men in a republic is irresistible — the pa.s.sions excited by a great 
 war, the stirring and excited appeals to the love of the flag, the 
 Anglo-Saxon greed for empire, as well as the spirit of a party 
 of which he had been, for more than a generation, the greate.st 
 leader in the State of which he was the brightest ornament and 
 foremost citizen. 
 
 Governor Roosevelt, writing in 1895, a little more than four 
 years ago, described the public feeling which Mr. Benton had 
 to encounter, and gives due praise to the loft\' and noble 
 courage with which he encountered it. He sa^-s: 
 
 The man of the West 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 Ij-ing to the west and southwest; he would have done so in the 
 case of French Louisiana 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 neigh- 
 boring territory was ver\' characteristic of the West and was at the root 
 of the doctrine of "manifest destiny." 
 
 Governor Roosevelt goes on: 
 
 The general feeling in the West upon this last subject afterwards 
 crystallized into what became known as the "manifest destiu}- " 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. 
 
 Governor Roosevelt states Mr. Benton's doctrine upon this 
 
 question, and the doctrine oF the conscience and moralitx- of cue 
 
 American people of that day, as follows: 
 
 Of course no one would wish to see these, or any other settled communi- 
 ties, 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 pos.session of thickly settled dis- 
 tricts, which, if conquered, will for centuries remain alien and ho.stilc to 
 the conquerors; we, wiser in our generation, have seized the waste soli- 
 tudes that lay near us, the limitless forests and never-ending plains, and 
 
Sta flics of Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair. 133 
 
 the valleys of the s^reat, lonely rivers, and have thrust our own sons into 
 them to take possession; and a score of years after each conquest we see 
 the conciuered land teeniintf with a people that is one with ourselves. 
 
 Governor Roosevelt states this issue between imperialism, or, 
 
 as he terms it, "the piratical way of looking at neighboring 
 
 territory by statesmen of easy international morality," on the 
 
 one side, and Reptiblicanism on the other, as represented by 
 
 Mr. Clav on the one hand and Mr. Polk on the other. He 
 
 Almost every good element in the country stood behind Clay; the vast 
 majority of intelligent, high-minded, upright men supported him. 
 
 He adds: 
 
 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 for all the evils 
 attendant thereon, including among them the bloody and unrighteous 
 war with Mexico. 
 
 The worthy biographer qttotes, with emphatic approbation, 
 
 Benton's indignant denunciation, when the Mexican war was 
 
 approaching, of the want of manliness in our treatment of a 
 
 weak republic. He says: 
 
 Would we take 2,000 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 marched 
 upon the Rio Grande? Because Great Britain is powerful and Mexico is 
 weak, a reason which may fail in policy as much as in morals. 
 
 Mr. Benton himself adds upon this subject: 
 
 I am against all disguise and artifice, against all pretexts, and espe- 
 cially weak and groundless pretexts, discreditable to ourselves and offen- 
 sive to others; too thin and shallow not to be seen through by every 
 beholder, and merely invented to cover unworthy purposes. 
 
 Governor Roo.sevelt speaks of this period of Benton's life 
 
 with zealous and eloquent approbation. He says: 
 
 He had now entered on what may be fairly 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 battled for 
 the losing side, although by so doing he jeopardized and eventually ruined 
 
134 Addj^ess of Mr. Hoar on the Acceptance of the 
 
 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. Indeed, he was 
 one of those natures that show better in defeat than in victory. 
 
 Mr. Benton's opposition to the Mexican war was followed 
 
 by his opposition after it ended to any form of the extension 
 
 of slavery, which he declared he deemed an evil and " would 
 
 neither adopt it nor impose it on others." 
 
 \\'hen the fugitive-slave act of 1S50 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 a United States Senator. He had risen 
 and grown steadih- 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. * * * He alwaj's rose to meet a really great emergency; he 
 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 
 beginning. 
 
 This is the character, Mr. President, which the great State of 
 Missouri, speaking through her governor and honored Senators, 
 gives to the American people to-da}', in this time of her sober 
 second thought, as the best she has to offer. If it be the best 
 she have to offer, no other State surely has anything better. 
 We are lively to receive nothing better from any quarter. Cer- 
 tainly Massachusetts feels herself and her great children of the 
 days of the Puritan and the days of the Revolution honored by 
 the companionship. Sam Adams, if need lie, will draw a 
 thought more nigh to John Winthrop to make room for him. 
 Webster will greet his old antagonist. The marble lips of 
 Charles Sumner, whom Benton welcomed in the Senate in 
 1 85 1, will return the greeting now from yonder stately ante- 
 chamber. The old strifes are forgotten. The old differences 
 have vanished. But the love of liberty, the love of justice, the 
 love of national honor, the spirit that prizes liberty and justice 
 and honor above gain or trade or empire — the spirit of this 
 great statesman of the West — abides and shall abide forever 
 inore. 
 
Sta/ucs of Thomas //. Doiton and Francis P. Blair. 135 
 
 ADDRESS OF Mr. ELKINS, OF WEST VIRGINIA. 
 
 Mr. President, reared and educated in Missouri, I feel a deep 
 interest in everything which concerns that great Common- 
 wealth. Added to this, because of my father's great loyalty 
 to and admiration for Mr. Benton I wear his honored name. 
 I feel, partly for this reason and others, that I can not allow 
 this occasion which helps perpetuate his fame to pass without 
 a word from me. 
 
 I will have but little to say about his life and public ser\-ices, 
 because they have been dwelt upon in the elot[uent speeches of 
 the honored vSenators from Missouri just pronounced in the 
 Senate. 
 
 No man ever dominated a political party more than Mr. 
 Benton did the Democratic party of the State of Missouri 
 from 1820 to 1850. His hold was so great on the Democrats 
 of that State during this period that he hardly asked to be 
 reelected to his high oflQce — his party thrust his election upon 
 him. Once in two or three years he made what might be 
 called Benton's triumphal progress through the vState, and 
 told the multitudes who came out to greet him and hear him 
 speak what "I, Thomas H. Benton," had done as their 
 pubhc ser\-ant in the Senate of the United States for the 
 State of Missouri and the whole country. 
 
 Benton's greatest weakness was his vanity and egoti.sm, so 
 seldom united with genuine ability and merit. But in Benton 
 this weakness was pardonable and forgotten, becau.se it laid 
 alongside so much merit and virtue, such great integrity, loy- 
 alty, and unselfi.sh devotion to his country and its 1:)est interests. 
 Listening to his speeches on the hustings and remembering 
 the great services he had rendered his State and the country, 
 
136 Address of Mr. Elkins on the Acceptance 0/ the 
 
 people forgot his vanity, although he constantly referred to 
 himself and what he had accomplished. In his "Thirty Years' 
 View" — the best political history of that period ever written — 
 he never fails to make mention of what Mr. Bentox did and 
 give him the fullest credit. 
 
 He was not the equal of Cla}' as an orator, nor of Webster as 
 a constitutional lawyer, but he was greater than either in being 
 a many-sided statesman, in understanding the wants and needs 
 of the whole country, especially those of the West. Xo states- 
 man during his time or since has had as clear a conception of 
 the possibilities of the great West beyond the Mississippi River, 
 and especially that part which came to us by the treaty of 
 Guadalupe-Hidalgo, as Benton. It is a historic fact that 
 Webster denounced as worthless the vast territory that came 
 to us through this treaty. He said it never would be useful, 
 could not su.stain population, and would be a burden to the 
 General Government; while Benton foresaw and foretold in 
 the most accurate way its future. Webster's vision did not 
 extend much beyond the Mi.ssissippi; he could not see as far as 
 the shores of the Pacific. 
 
 Benton not onlj- saw the Pacific, advocated a Pacific rail- 
 road, and said it would be built one day, but he saw with an 
 unerring eye the road to the Orient, the commerce of the Pacific 
 and our trade with Asia, which is just beginning. The mighty 
 events that are .so rapidly crowding upon us are verifying his 
 prophecies as to the possibilities of trade and commerce with 
 the islands of the Pacific and the Orient. Xo American states- 
 man ever advocated and proposed .so man}- public measures 
 that were beneficial and affected the welfare and destiny of the 
 whole country as Benton. 
 
 He was the be.st-informed man of his time on questions grow- 
 ing out of the public lands, Indian affairs, and mines. This 
 
S/(J/iWS of Thomas II. Iniitoii and Francis P. lUair. 137 
 
 was not altoi^ether due to his ability and persevering industry, 
 hut he enjoyetl the advantage over other statesmen of livinj^ 
 beyond the Mississippi and learned lessons of wisdom from the 
 trappers, miners, and pathfinders of the Rocky Mountains who 
 made frequent visits to St. Louis from the West as far as 
 Oregon. He was acquainted with all these daring and adven- 
 turous spirits, among them the Asters, who told him of the 
 wealth of the Rocky Mountains and the climate and soil of the 
 Pacific coast, now occupied by prosperous States. He not only 
 understood the West, but favored all measures looking to its 
 development. 
 
 Twenty years after Bkntox's proj^hecy that a Pacific rail- 
 road would be built across the continent uniting the two oceans, 
 even General vSherman doubted that it would ever be accom- 
 plished, and, with all his knowledge of the West, said a Pacific 
 railroad was impracticable. 
 
 Though a Southern man, Benton persistently opposed the 
 extension of slavery into the Territories, and in the early talks 
 about secession and the mutterings of discontent on the part of 
 slaveholders and nullifiers and threats of the dissolution of tlie 
 Union, Benton stood like a stone wall against all these evil 
 and pernicious things. 
 
 He was the la.st link t)etween the makers of the Constitution 
 and the present era; he reached from Jefferson to Sunmer. 
 An incessant worker, tireless and persistent, he never gave up 
 a purpose when adopted after mature consideration. He was 
 so sensitive in the discharge of his public duties that he would 
 not appoint a relative to office, no matter how great his merit 
 and qualifications. 
 
 When elected to the Senate he was the leading lawyer of St. 
 Louis, and engaged in the heaviest litigation in the State, 
 notably that growing out of the i)ul)lic lands and grants of land 
 S. Doc. 456 10 
 
138 Address of Mr. El kins on the Acceptance of the 
 
 made by France, which was the most important and paid the 
 best fees. After his election to the Senate he called .his clients 
 together and gave up all his land cases, stating that their 
 interests might conflict with those of the General Government 
 and his duty as a Senator. He did this when to have con- 
 tinued as attorney would have made him a rich man for those 
 times. He not onlj- gave up these cases, but refused to name 
 any lawyer to take charge of them. 
 
 Benton stood for sound money and the faithful performance 
 of all national obligations. He favored a liberal distribution 
 of the public lands and selling them to actual settlers at a very 
 low price. Although tltis policy was .strongh' oppo.sed by the 
 Eastern States, yet after a struggle covering many 3'ears he 
 secured its adoption. He was the author of the preemption 
 system. 
 
 When he was the leader of the Jacksonian Democrats in the 
 Senate he opposed the spoils system and favored the merit 
 sj^stem. 
 
 As a Senator Benton never could be swerved from his 
 public duty as he understood it. He lived up to his convic- 
 tions and voted according to the lights before him and his best 
 judgment, without regard to the conseqtiences to himself. 
 With him personal appeals again.st duty fell upon deaf ears. 
 His patriotism was as broad as the Union and knew^ no .section. 
 While he stood for the whole country, he always supported and 
 defended the We.st and Western interests. Better than any 
 statesman of his time he luiderstood the grandeur, power, and 
 glory of the great Republic, its pos.sibilities, certain progress, 
 growth, and expansion in trade and commerce. 
 
 He mastered nearly all the economical and political problems 
 that affected in any way the Union and the whole country. 
 He had but little regard for foreign things and foreign coiui- 
 tries, and ignored their claims everywhere and whenever in 
 
Sfa flics of Thomas II. lion ion and Francis P. Blair. 139 
 
 conflict with those of the I'nited vStatcs. l{si)eciall>- was he 
 opposed to the pretensions and claims of Great Britain, and 
 constantly fought British influence on this continent. His 
 Americanism was intense, and his love of the Union, with its 
 manifold blessings and splendid future, so clear tcj his vision, 
 was his grand passion. 
 
 In a .service in the Senate of thirty years, covering most 
 exciting times, his integrity was never questioned. Honesty of 
 purpose characterized all of his official acts. He was satisfied 
 to be a Senator of the United States and never tried to be 
 President. He knew that many leading statesmen had been 
 dwarfed and enfeebled by i:)andering to popular favor to reach 
 the Presidency. This dementia never reached Bentox; there- 
 fore he was always able to act up to his convictions and follow 
 his best judgment on all public questions. His public life and 
 ser\'ices, his rectitude and .singleness of purpo.se, his un.selfish- 
 ness, as well as his perseverance and industry, furnish an 
 example and pattern worthy of imitation. Taking Benton all 
 in all during his thirty years' .service in the Senate, he was the 
 most important factor in the general legislation of the country. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, alike honorable and creditable to the 
 intelligence and fairness of the people of Missouri, tliat, though 
 a slave-holding State and favoring strongly the cause of the 
 South in the civil war, its legislature should have voted that 
 Benton and Blair, with their splendid records and achieve- 
 ments in favor of the Union and against .secession and the 
 extension of .slavery, were of all other statesmen most de.ser\'- 
 ing to have a place in the Hall of great and famous men in the 
 nation's Capitol. 
 
140 S/a flics of TlioDias //. Benton and f ran as P. Blair. 
 
 C.EN. FKAXCIS P. BLAIR 
 
 Was both a soldier and a statesman; his name and fame sheds 
 hister on the history of Missouri. His services in behalf of the 
 Union can never be forgotten. Through his abilit>- and prompt 
 action as an officer of the Army the first year of the war Mis- 
 souri was saved to Federal control and authority during the' 
 entire war. 
 
 For his splendid services in behalf of his vState and country, 
 both in peace and war, he deserves a place by the side of 
 Bkxton. 
 
 .Mr. CocKKKLi.. Mr. President, I move the adoption of the 
 concurrent resolution of the House of Representatives. 
 
 The President pro tempore. The question is on agreeing 
 to the concurrent resolution of the Hou.se of Representatives. 
 
 The resolution was unanimoush- agreed to. 
 
 O