CHAPTER VII.

THOMAS H. BENTON,

THE MAGISTERIAL.

ABOUT ten years since, a sketch of THOMAS HART BENTON was presented to the public through the medium of the Democratic Review. From that work we extract the subjoined biographical remarks, preparatory to a yet more particular survey of the mental and oratorical character of our distinguished countryman.

"On the seventeenth of January, 1837, at the close of the long debate which had taken place in the Senate of the United States, on the famous expunging resolution,' shortly before the vote was to be taken, of which the issue had not been left doubtful by the previous imperative decision of public opinion, Col. Benton, of Missouri, rose in his place, and, addressing himself to the Vice President in the chair, in the course of a brief, but emphatic speech, referring back to the scene which had been enacted on the same spot three eventful years before, on the adoption of Mr. Clay's memorable resolution of condemnation of the late President for the removal of the deposites, and to his own prophecy, then fearlessly hazarded, that that resolution should be 'ex