before Congress for a period of four months, and was
finally forced through to the utter destruction of good faith
between the sections. More than forty Democratic representatives
from the North flatly defied party discipline and voted against
the repeal. The Democratic representatives from the slave States
were consolidated in its favor, with the exception of John Millson,
an able member from Virginia, and the venerable Thomas H. Benton
of Missouri.

REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

After Colonel Benton's thirty years' service in the Senate had
terminated, the city of St. Louis sent him to the House in the autumn
of 1852. He had entered the Senate when Missouri came into the
Union as the result of the Compromise of 1820. He had remained
there until after the Compromise of 1850 was adopted. He denounced
the proceeding of Douglas with unsparing severity, and gave his
best efforts, but in vain, to defeat the bill. He pointed out the
fact that the original Compromise had been forced upon the North
by the South, and that the present proposition to repeal it had
been initiated "without a memorial, without a petition, without a
request from any human being. It was simply and only a contrivance
of political leaders, who were using the institution of slavery as
a weapon, and rushing the country forward to excitements and
conflicts in which there was no profit to either section, and
possibly great harm to both." Colonel Benton belonged to a class
of Southern Democrats who were passing away,--of whom he, indeed,
was the last in conspicuous stature. He represented the Democracy
of Andrew Jackson and of Nathaniel Macon,--not the Democracy of
Mr. Calhoun. He placed the value of the Union above the value of
slavery, and was a relentless foe to all who plotted against the
integrity of the government. But his day was past, his power was
broken, his influence was gone. Even in his own State he had been
beaten, and David R. Atchison installed as leader of the Democratic
party. His efforts were vain, his protest unheard; and amid the
sorrow and gloom of thinking men, and the riotous rejoicings of
those who could not measure the evil of their work, the Douglas
Bill was passed. On the thirtieth of May, 1854, the wise and
patriotic Compromise of March 6, 1820, was declared to be at an
end, and the advocates and the opponents of slavery were invited
to a trial of strength on the pub