Senator Thomas Hart Benton was a towering figure in Missouri politics. Elected in 1821, he was their first senator and served in Washington, DC, for more than thirty years. Like Andrew Jackson, with whom he had a long and complicated relationship, Benton came out of the developing western section of the young American Republic. The foremost Democratic leader in the Senate, he claimed to represent the rights of "the common man" against "monied interests" of the East. "Benton and the people," the Missourian was fond of saying, "are one and the same"—a bit of bombast that reveals a good deal about this seasoned politician who was himself a mass of contradictions. He possessed an enormous ego and a touchy sense of personal honor that led to violent results on several occasions. Yet this conflation of "the people" and their tribune raises questions not addressed in earlier biographies of Benton.
Mueller provides a fascinating portrait of Senator Benton. His political character, while viewed as flawed by contemporary standards, is balanced by his unconditional devotion to his particular vision. Mueller evaluates Benton's career in light of his attitudes toward slavery, Indian removal, and the Mexican borderlands, among other topics, and reveals Benton's importance to a new generation of readers. He offers a more authentic portrait of the man than has heretofore been presented by either his detractors or his admirers.
Eugene H. Berwanger's study of anti-slavery sentiment in the antebellum West is as resoundingly important now, in a new paperback edition, as when first published in 1967. In The Frontier against Slavery, Berwanger attributes the social and political climates of the states and territories Ohio River Valley pioneers settled before 1860 to racial prejudice.
Drawing from newspaper accounts, political speeches, correspondence, and legal documents, Berwanger reveals that the whites-only sentiments of the pioneers, rather than humanitarian concern for African Americans, limited the expansion of slavery. This whites-only prejudice shaped laws in the majority of western states and territories that excluded all African Americans, enslaved or free, from citizenship, evidencing the deep-rooted discrimination of political leaders and pioneers.
Senator Thomas Hart Benton was a towering figure in Missouri politics. Elected in 1821, he was their first senator and served in Washington, DC, for more than thirty years. Like Andrew Jackson, with whom he had a long and complicated relationship, Benton came out of the developing western section of the young American Republic. The foremost Democratic leader in the Senate, he claimed to represent the rights of "the common man" against "monied interests" of the East. "Benton and the people," the Missourian was fond of saying, "are one and the same"—a bit of bombast that reveals a good deal about this seasoned politician who was himself a mass of contradictions. He possessed an enormous ego and a touchy sense of personal honor that led to violent results on several occasions. Yet this conflation of "the people" and their tribune raises questions not addressed in earlier biographies of Benton.
Mueller provides a fascinating portrait of Senator Benton. His political character, while viewed as flawed by contemporary standards, is balanced by his unconditional devotion to his particular vision. Mueller evaluates Benton's career in light of his attitudes toward slavery, Indian removal, and the Mexican borderlands, among other topics, and reveals Benton's importance to a new generation of readers. He offers a more authentic portrait of the man than has heretofore been presented by either his detractors or his admirers.
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