of the State in this way failed to be united, and a majority was elected
to the legislature opposed to Benton. He was defeated of a re-election
to the Senate by Henry S. Geyer, a pro-slavery Whig, and supporter of
the Jackson resolutions, after having filled a seat in that august body
for a longer time consecutively than any other senator ever did. Thus
was removed from the halls of Congress the most sagacious and formidable
enemy that the disunion propagandists ever encountered. Their career in
Congress and in the control of the federal government was thenceforth
unchecked. The cords of loyalty in Missouri were snapped in Benton's
fall, and that State swung off into the strongly-sweeping current of
secessionism. The city of St. Louis remained firm a while, and returned
Benton twice to the House; but his energies were exhausted now in
defensive war; and the truculent and triumphant slave power dominating,
the State at last succeeded, through the coercion of commercial
interests, in defeating him even in the citadel of loyalty. He tried
once more to breast the tide that had borne down his fortunes. He became
a candidate for governor in 1856; but, though he disclaimed anti-slavery
sentiments, and supported James Buchanan for President against Fremont,
his son-in-law, he was defeated by Trusten Polk, who soon passed from
the gubernatorial chair to Benton's seat in the United States Senate,
from which he was, in course of time, to be expelled. Benton retired to
private life, only to labor more assiduously in compiling historical
evidences against the fast ripening treason of the times.

The Missouri senator was no longer in the way of the Southern oligarchs.
A shaft feathered by his own hands--the doctrine of instructions--had
slain him.

But yet another obstacle remained. The Missouri Compromise lifted a
barrier to the expansion of the Calhoun idea of free government, having