The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1910-03-10
recall with great deal of feeling Whit.

The 0Adde1t are these, IT mgus hoSo oeen.
/ THE CASE OF BENTON.
"Here is another case. If l were to
PROFOUND the question of who was the
first senator from Missouri, everyone
would say Thomas H. Benton. II were
to PROFOUND another question and ask
who was the most popular man in Mis-
souri, in the first twenty-five years OF its
history, should be told, Thomas II. Ben
ton. Neither answer is correct. He
was not the first senator. He was the
second senator He never was popular.
The people of Missouri had an intense
pride in his great ability and great pa
triotism Let us see what happened in
his case. The most remarkable transac-
ton that ever took place in America l
think took place in respect to him. The
first Legislature elected Senator Barton
unanimously. Then there was dead
lock for about three or four weeks on the
election of the other senator, for of
course the new State was to elect two
senators. The legislators finally invited
Barton to select his senatorial partner.
He picked Benton, but Benton was so
unpopular that it took three weeks after
Barton picked him to get him elected,
and he was elected by only one majority.
1t came about in this way: They were
holding the sessions of the Legislature
on the ground floor of a hotel. One
member was upstairs sick in bed, bound
to die, and everybody knew it. He was
representative from my county named
Daniel Rails. There was also man in
the Legislature named Marie LIE Due,
who had sworn that he would not vote for
Benton, that he would rather cut his
right arm off at the shoulder than do SO.
There Were a whole lot of French land
claims out there, and so they came to
this man LIE Due and persuaded him that
Benton as attorney represented the land
claims, and that if he voted for Benton
the claims would be allowed, and if he
did not they would not be- At sunup on
Sunday morning he agreed to vote for
Benton.
ONE VOTE SAVED THE UNION.
eff Daniel Rails lived until Monday
noon, Benton would be elected. Every
body in St. Louis, the capital then, was
on the qui vive all day Sunday, to know
whether Daniel would live until Monday
noon. He did live, and four Negroes
carried him down on mattress into that
lower chamber, and the last thing he did
was to vote for Benton for senator, and
that launched Benton on that career of
thirty years in the Senate. They then
carried Rails back upstairs, and he was
dead in an hour. That Legislature cut a
county out of my county, and called it
. Rails in his honor. Now, what effect did
that one vote for Benton have? The
speeches of Thomas H. Benton made in
Missouri from the 26th day of May, lS4e,
when he took his appeal to the people
from the resolution of the Legislature
instructing him, down to the close of the
polls in 1856, during which time he ran
for the Senate three times, for the House
OF Representatives twice, for governor
once-he had to double up to do it, and
was elected to the House once-I say the
speeches that he made during those years
kept Missouri from seeding in 1861, and
if Missouri had seeded, Kentucky would
have seeded, and the Southern Confed-
eracy would have been an independent,
tiourishing nation today. So the one vote
IN the Missouri Legislature that sent
Thomas Hart Benton to the United
States Senate, in my judgment, saved
the Union at last.
THE ADMISSION OF KENTUCKY,
''Let US take another case of what one
vote will do. Kentucky came into the
Union as slave State by one vote in the
Constitutional Convention. Henry Clay
and old Humphrey Marshall fought a
duel about it and shot each other through
the calf of the leg. Missouri before the
beginning of the Civil War was nothing
but Kentucky colony. If Kentucky
had come in as free State, Missouri
would have come in as free State, and
my judgment is there never would have
been any Civil War in that event to vex
and bedevil the people of the United
States.
$50, when l get time, after l have
served my period in Congress-or any
other position that l may be called to
when | retire to the shades of private
life, if | live long enough, I intend to
write book entitled The Curiosities of
American History and What One Vote
VII 10. w. E. B.