in a legislative body;
but the sergeant-at-arms at last restored order, when Mr. Clay
suggested that both parties should voluntarily enter into bonds to
keep the peace, upon which Benton instantly rose and said: "I'll
rot in jail, sir, before I will do it! No, sir! I'll rot in jail
first. I'll rot, sir!" and he poured forth a fresh torrent of
bitter words upon the man who was then so well known throughout
the Northern States as "Hangman Foote."* Benton was not only a
man of tremendous passion, but unrivalled as a hater. Nor did his
hatred spend itself entirely upon injustice and meanness. It was
largely personal and unreasoning. He was pre-eminently unforgiving.
He hated Calhoun with a real vengeance, styling him "John Cataline
Calhoun," and branding him as a "coward cur that sneaked to his
kennel when the Master of the Hermitage blew his bugle horn." He
seemed to relent a little, however, when he saw the life of the
great Carolinian rapidly ebbing away, and on one occasion declared
that, "When God lays his hand on a man, I take mine off." His wit
was sometimes as pungent as his invective. In his famous speech
on the Compromise measures, he gave Mr. Clay a telling hit by
comparing the boasted panacea of his "Omnibus Bill," or "five old
bills tacked together," to "old Dr. Jacob Townsend's sarsaparilla,"
and contrasting it with the alleged worthlessness of the same
measures when separately proposed, which he likened to "young Dr.
Samuel Townsend's" extract from the same vegetable. "Sarsaparilla"
was thus more widely advertised than ever before, but it aided the
triumph of the "young Dr.," and the defeat of Mr. Clay's pet scheme.

[* So named because of his declaration in the Senate the year
before, that if John P. Hale would come to Mississippi he would be
hung to "one of the tallest trees of the forest," and that he
(Foote) would himself "assist in the operation."]

The sudden death of Gen. Taylor, July 9, 1850, produced a very
profound impression. The shock to the people of the Northern States
was felt the more keenly because of the peculiarly threatening
aspect of public affairs, and of the unexpectedly manly course of
the President in withstanding the imperious and insolent demands
of the extreme men of his own section. Millard Fillmore then stood
well before the country, and was quite as emphatically committed
to the growing anti-slavery sentiment of the Free States as Gov.
Seward himself; but he was