BENTON.
BERDAN.
east, and there is India,'" men thought nim
crazy, but a bronze statue of the senator was
erected on an eminence in Lafayette Park, St.
Louis, Mo., on whose high jsedestal is inscribed
those prophetic words. Benton became during
Jackson's administration one of the most conspicu-
ous pubUc men in the country. Dviring the politi-
cal agitation caused by President Jackson's de-
termination to overthrow the United States bank.
Senator Benton was one of the strongest and
most persistent defenders of the measure for
placing the currency of the country on a metallic
basis, and from the financial jsolicy enunciated
in his speeches at the time he received his
sobriquet of "Old Bullion." Speaking on the
transfer of the government from the hands of the
old Federal or revolutionary leaders and the pla-
cing it in the hands of the plain people, Benton
characterized it, as " saving the country from the
deplorable conditions in which the enlightened
classes had sunk it." He opposed Senator
Samuel A. Footers resolution to limit the sales of
public lands to such lands as were in the market,
which he claimed brought the east against the
west. This debate gave rise to the nullification
announcement by Senator Hayne of South Caro-
lina and the reply of Daniel Webster. He moved
the famous " expunging resolutions," by which
the vote of censure against General Jackson was
struck from the journal of the senate, and opposed
the spoils system born of the Jackson administra-
tion. He participated in the discussion over the
Oregon boundary, the annexation of Texas, and
other important matters which came before the
country. Upon the bill for the settlement of the
Oregon boundary he said: "I grant that she
(England) will take offence, but that is not the
question with me. Has she a right to take
offence? That is my question! And this being
decided in the negative, I neither fear nor calcu-
late consequences. ' ' When Calhoun proposed the
division of the treasury surplus between the
states, Senator Benton opposed the measure and
defeated it. He caused the removal of the
Cherokee Indians from Georgia and Alabama to
the Indian territory in 1836, and supported the
petition offered by the Quakers for the aboUtion
of slavery in the District of Columbia. Colonel
Benton was responsible for President Polk's
acceptance of latitude 49° north as the Oregon
line, instead of latitude 54° 40', and thus the
United States relinquished territory which would
now make its Pacific coast possessions continuous
to Alaska. He prevailed upon President Polk to
vigorously prosecute the Mexican war, and the
president proposed to make him Heutenant-
general of the army to carry out the policy he
advocated, but subsequently relinquished the
idea. He labored for the maintaining of the
Union from the beginning to the end of his
career. Not his southern birth, nor his repre-
sentation of a southern state, nor his slave-holding
interests jjrevailed to carry him into the secession
current. He opposed the state-rights coterie
from nullification days down to the compromise
of 1850, and it was his opposition to Calhoun's
resolutions that cost him his seat in the senate.
Benton and Calhoun were the bitterest of enemies
after the nullification episode. Calhoun, on one
occasion when Benton had violently opposed him,
remarked that he had expected Benton's support
" as a representative of a slave-holding state. ' '
Benton replied that he " had no right to expect
any such thing." '"Then," said Mr. Callaoun,
'• I shall know where to find that gentleman
hereafter." To which Mr. Benton replied: "I
shall be found in the right place, on the side of
my country and the Union." In 1852 he was
elected a representative to the 33d U. S. Congress,
where he at first supported the administration of
President Pierce ; but, when the Calhoun party
obtained the ascendency he withdrew his support,
and made a memorable speech in opposition to
the Kansas-Nebraska bill. In 1854 he was again
a candidate for Congress, but failed of an election,
and in 1856 he was defeated in the race for the
governorship of Missouri. In the presidential
election of 1856 he opposed the candidacy of his
son-in-law, John C. Fremont, and supported
Buchanan, fearing the election of Fremont would
be fatal to the permanence of the Union. In 1856
he retired to private life, and devoted himself to
literary work. He completed his " Thirty Years'
View ; or, a History of the Workings of the Ameri-
can Government from 1830 to 1850," the first vol-
ume of which had been published in 1854. Hav-
ing finished this work, he commenced abridging
and revising the debates in Congress from the
foundation of the government up to the year
1856. He lived long enough to finish the work as
far as to the conclusion of the great compromise
debate of 1850, in which he, with Clay, Calhoun,
Webster and Seward, had taken a conspicuous
part. The last pages were dictated in whispers
after he had lost the power of speaking aloud, and
the work was published in fifteen volimies. He
was the author of "An Examination of the Dred
Scott Case." He died in Washington, D. C,
April 10, 1858.
BERDAN, Hiram, inventor, was born at Ply- mouth, Mich., in 1823. His father was an exten- sive landowner and stock raiser near Rochester, N. Y., who sent him to Hobart college, where he made remarkable progress in mathematics and spent his leisure time in the construction of in- genious machinery. He entered a machine shop in Rochester as an apprentice. His creative power here displayed itself, and before he was
