Thus the bolt was launched at the Missouri senator, who, from his prestige of Jacksonism, his robust patriotism, his indomitable will, and his great abilities, was regarded as the most formidable if not the only enemy standing in the way of meditated treason.  It was not doubted that the blow would be fatal.  Benton was in one sense the father of the doctrine of legislative instructions.  In his persistent and famous efforts to ‘expunge’ the resolutions of censure on Gen. Jackson that had been placed in the Senate journal, Benton had found it necessary to revolutionize the sentiments or change the composition of the Senate.  Whigs were representing democratic States, and Democrats refused to vote for a resolution expunging any part of the record of the Senate’s proceedings.  To meet and overcome this resistance, Benton introduced the dogma that a senator was bound to obey the instructions of the legislature of his State.  He succeeded, by his great influence in his party, and by the aid of the democratic administration, in having the dogma adopted, and it became an accepted rule in the democratic party.  Resolutions were now invoked and obtained from State legislatures instructing their senators to vote for the ‘Expunging Resolutions,’ or resign.  Some obeyed; some resigned.  Benton carried his point; but it was at the sacrifice of the spirit of that part of the Constitution which gave to United States senators a term of six years, for the purpose of protecting the Senate from frequent fluctuations of popular feeling, and securing steadiness in legislation.  Benton was the apostle of this unwise and destructive innovation upon the constitutional tenure of senators.  He was doomed to be a conspicuous victim of his own error.  When the ‘Jackson resolutions’ were passed by the legislature of Missouri, instructing Benton to endorse measures that led to nullification and disunion, he saw the dilemma in which he was placed, and did the best he could to extricate himself.  He presented the resolutions from his seat in the Senate; denounced their treasonable character, and declared his purpose to appeal from the legislature to the people of Missouri.

On the adjournment of Congress, Benton returned to Missouri and commenced a canvass in vindication of his own cause, and in opposition to the democratic majority of the legislature that passed the Jackson resolutions, which has had few if any parallels in the history of the government for heat and bitterness.  The senator did not return to argue and convert, but to fulminate and destroy.  He appointed times and places for public speaking in the most populous counties of the State, and where the opposition to him had grown boldest.  He allowed no ’division of time’ to opponents wishing to controvert the positions assumed in his speeches.  On the contrary, he treated every interruption, whether for inquiry or retort, on the part of any one opposed to him, as an insult, and proceeded to pour upon the head of