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388 Missouri Historical Review
THE SLAVERY ISSUE AND THE POLITICAL
DECLINE OF THOMAS HART BENTON,
1846-1856
BY BENJAMIN C MERKEL1
The slavery issue was more intimately associated with
the political decline of Thomas Hart Benton than history has
recorded. The position of the great statesman upon the
bondage question is comprehensible after a close consideration of his public acts over the long course of his political
career. However, his attitude towards slavery during the
five years following 1846 was of crucial importance to his
political fortunes. After 1851, Benton was engaged for
another half decade in his final losing struggle to maintain
his grip upon the Missouri electorate. At the close of this
period, he disappeared forever from the realm of public
affairs.
In the early years, Benton was decidedly proslavery,
with an inclination to temporize upon the issue, but after
1840 he took a firm position against the extension of negro
servitude into the territories. The temporary cessation
of the controversy over slavery immediately after the adoption of Missouri's first constitution may be attributed in
part to the wording of that document so that it discouraged
any discussion of the question; for this arrangement Benton
assumed responsibility.2 Fifteen years later he was still
governed by the policy of "letting sleeping dogs lie." In
Congress on January 7, 1836, Benton spoke of the abolitionists as "incendiaries" and "agitators."3 In the same
speech he declared in the senate that the reception or the
rejection of abolitionist petitions was a question of expediency;
members of Congress should so vote that the public mind
would be quieted.4
iBENjAMiN c. merkel, a native of St. Clair county, Illinois, is principal of
the high school at Crystal City, Missouri. He received a B. Ed. degree from
the Southern Illinois State Normal university in 1928, an M. A. degree from
Washington university in 1932, and a Ph. D. from the same institution in 1939.
2Benton, Thomas H., Thirty Years' View, Vol. I, pp. 8-9. Benton made
this claim even though he was not a delegate to the constitutional convention.
^Register of Debates, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 85, 87.
*Ibid., p. 88.
Object Description
| Title | Missouri Historical Review, Volume 38 Issue 4, July 1944 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Month | July |
| Year | 1944 |
| Publisher | The State Historical Society of Missouri |
| Publisher-Electronic | The State Historical Society of Missouri |
| Rights | Copyright The State Historical Society of Missouri, 2008 |
| ISSN | 0026-6581 |