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A Dictionary of American History
Contents:
Benton, Thomas Hart (1782-1858)
Benton, Thomas Hart (b. near Hillsboro, N.C., 14 March 1782; d. Washington, D.C., 10 April 1858) He settled in Tenn., where he opened a law practice in 1806, but left for Mo. after a bar room brawl in which he shot Andrew Jackson and was stabbed five times by Jackson’s friends. He was the first US senator to serve thirty consecutive years (1821–51). The antebellum era’s fourth-greatest orator (behind Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun), Benton was the voice of the west. He anticipated the first Homestead Act by proposing annual reductions in the price of public land to 25 cents per acre, until the national domain could be given away free. He was an expansionist who wanted to build national highways and railroads for moving American pioneers west, but opposed taking new territories by war. He became reconciled with Jackson, whom he supported on the Second Bank of the United States and Indian removal. Benton owned slaves, but his failure to defend slavery vigorously was unpopular in Mo. and he lost his Senate seat in 1851.
Contents:
Chicago: Thomas L. Purvis, "Benton, Thomas Hart (1782-1858)," A Dictionary of American History in A Dictionary of American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Reference, 1995), Original Sources, accessed March 29, 2023, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L4GQ27CIEW1TM4F.
MLA: Purvis, Thomas L. "Benton, Thomas Hart (1782-1858)." A Dictionary of American History, in A Dictionary of American History, Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell Reference, 1995, Original Sources. 29 Mar. 2023. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L4GQ27CIEW1TM4F.
Harvard: Purvis, TL, 'Benton, Thomas Hart (1782-1858)' in A Dictionary of American History. cited in 1995, A Dictionary of American History, Blackwell Reference, Cambridge, Mass.. Original Sources, retrieved 29 March 2023, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L4GQ27CIEW1TM4F.
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