Henry S. Foote on Henry Clay

I have only to add that had there been one such man in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 1860-'61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war. Had Mr. Clay himself been then living, the same high toned patriotism and consummate statesmanship which had been so efficiently instrumental in 1819, in 1832, and in 1850, in preserving the Republic from the horrors of civil butchery, and from the yet greater evils sure to result from disunion, whenever that shall be effected, would have been seen to achieve a still grander triumph of principle over the embodied factionists of that period, from whose ill counsels such unmeasured evils have been seen to flow.

Henry Stuart Foote, Casket of Reminiscences (1874).

Preston Brooks In the News!

It turns out that Mitch McConnell has a pretty dry sense of humor, and a pretty good sense of history. From his email today (emphasis added):

The plain language of the Senate precedent, the manual that governs Senate procedure, is that unanimous consent of all members was required before the Senator from Vermont could withdraw his amendment while it was being read.

Earlier today, the majority somehow convinced the parliamentarian to break with the long standing precedent and practice of the Senate in the reading of the bill.

Senate procedure states clearly, and I quote: under Rule 15, paragraph 1, and Senate precedents, an amendment shall be read by the clerk before it is up for consideration or before the same shall be debated unless a request to waive the reading is granted.

It goes on to state that, quote, "the reading of which may not be dispensed with, except by unanimous consent, and if the request is denied, the amendment must be read and further interruptions are not in order."

You may have heard that the majority cites an example in 1992 where the chair made a mistake and allowed something similar to happen. But one mistake does not a precedent make.

For example, there is precedent for a Senator being beaten with a cane here in the Senate. If mistakes were the rule, the caning of Senators would be in order. Fortunately for all of us, it is not.

It’s now clear the majority is willing to do anything to jam through a 2000-page bill before the American people or any of us has had a chance to read it—including changing the rules in the middle of the game.

To which Glenn Reynolds adds, "I dunno, the caning of Senators is looking better and better . . . ."

To which I add, "There's also a precedent for brandishing firearms on the Senate floor."

About the illustration:

A dramatic portrayal, clearly biased toward the northern point of view, of an incident in Congress which inflamed sectional passions in 1856. The artist recreates the May 22 attack and severe beating of Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina. Brooks's actions were provoked by Sumner's insulting public remarks against his cousin, Senator Andrew Pickens Butler, and against Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas, delivered in the Senate two days earlier. The print shows an enraged Brooks (right) standing over the seated Sumner in the Senate chamber, about to land on him a heavy blow of his cane. The unsuspecting Sumner sits writing at his desk. At left is another group. Brooks's fellow South Carolinian Representative Lawrence M. Keitt stands in the center, raising his own cane menacingly to stay possible intervention by the other legislators present. Clearly no help for Sumner is forthcoming. Behind Keitt's back, concealed in his left hand, Keitt holds a pistol. In the foreground are Georgia senator Robert Toombs (far left) and Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas (hands in pockets) looking vindicated by the event. Behind them elderly Kentucky senator John J. Crittenden is restrained by a fifth, unidentified man. Above the scene is a quote from Henry Ward Beecher's May 31 speech at a Sumner rally in New York, where he proclaimed, "The symbol of the North is the pen; the symbol of the South is the bludgeon." David Tatham attributes the print to the Bufford shop, and suggests that the Library's copy of the print, the only known example, may have been a trial impression, and that the print may not actually have been released. The attribution to Homer was first made by Milton Kaplan.

Henry Clay Inadvertently Names the Omnibus

Having mentioned omnibuses recently, I thought I’d turn to another sort of omnibus – the bill incorporating the principal provisions of Henry Clay’s proposals to resolve the Crisis of 1850.

Clay’s proposals, which he first described in a speech to the Senate on Tuesday January 29, 1850, encompassed eight resolutions. Holman Hamilton describes them:

His first resolution called for admitting California as a state. The second specified territorial governments for New Mexico and Deseret [Utah] without any slavery restriction or condition. The third and fourth were designed to reduce Texas’ area and to pay her debt, but the amount of the payment was purposely left unspecified. The fifth and sixth resolutions denied the expediency of abolishing slavery in the District [of Columbia] while providing for termination of the slave trade there. In the seventh, the Kentuckian advocated a more effective fugitive [slave] law. The last and eighth resolution was a simple assertion that Congress had no power to obstruct the slave trade of the southern states.

The “Omnibus Bill” that emerged more than three months later encompassed the first four of Clay’s resolutions:

On Wednesday, May 8, a packed Senate finally heard Clay read the report. The Committee of Thirteen’s main recommendation consisted of the so-called “Omnibus Bill.” This not only provided for California statehood and for the two territorial governments but also offered solutions for the Texas boundary and debt questions. Kept separate were a fugitive slave measure and another limiting the District slave trade.

So how, then, did the Omnibus get its name?

On Wednesday February 13, 1850, Senator Henry S. Foote, Democrat of Mississippi, had introduced a resolution proposing to refer to a special committee “the various propositions now before the Senate relating to [California], in connection with the question of domestic slavery, in all its various bearings.”

When the issue resurfaced the next day in a slightly altered form (now the proposal was to send all matter to the Committee on Territories), Henry Clay objected:

I do not think it would be right to embrace in a general motion the question of the admission of California and all the other subjects which are treated of by the resolutions upon the table – the subject, for example, of the establishment of territorial governments, the subject of the establishment of a boundary line for Texas, and the proposition to compensate Texas for the surrender of territory. I say, sir, I do not think it would be right to confound or to combine all these subjects, and to throw them before one committee to be acted on together.

Foote, in response, expressed “unbounded astonishment” at Clay’s position. It was Clay himself who had just recently taken “the lead in urging upon this body and the country consideration of a general scheme of pacification and compromise.” Everyone understood, Foote asserted, that it had been Clay’s intention to refer all matters to a single committee, which would issue a bill covering all issues.

Foote went on at length. The thrust of his objection was that, if the California bill were referred to the Committee on Territories, and other proposals to another committee or committees, the South would be prejudiced. The Territories Committee was clearly stacked and would certainly report a bill to admit California as a free state, while other proposals friendlier to the South would get watered down or buried.

Clay then rose. Referring to Foote’s speech in a humorous aside, he inadvertently gave the future “omnibus” its name:

I do not know that I should have risen at all had not the worthy Senator from Mississippi made a sort of omnibus speech, in which he introduced all sorts of things and every kind of passenger, and myself among the number. [Laughter]

“It was thus,” Holman Hamilton reports, “on Clay’s initiative, that the word 'omnibus' was incorporated into standard 1850 congressional language."

"The permanence of the system depends on keeping the prices high"

If the price of slaves comes down, then the permanency of the institution comes down. Why? Because every man values his property in proportion to its actual intrinsic worth. . . . Would you be willing to shoulder your musket in vindication of slaveholding rights -- would you be willing to fight for them and risk your domestic peace and happiness if your slaves were only worth five dollars apiece? Why, every man sees that that is an absurdity. Therefore, the permanence of the system depends on keeping the prices high.

Henry S. Foote, quoted in Debow's Review, Vol. 27, Issue 2 (August 1859), p. 219.

"I mean . . . to protect myself, cost what it may"

Some time ago, I devoted several posts to the events of April 17, 1850, when Henry S. Foote drew a pistol on Thomas Hart Benton on the floor of the Senate. John C. Waugh points out that there was protracted run-up to the incident, which may explain why Senator Foote had that pistol with him.
“There was no man Foote detested more than Thomas Benton.” During the session, Foote had been riding Benton for months, comparing him at one point to “that degenerate Roman Senator,” Catiline.



On March 26, 1850, Foote escalated his rhetoric. He accused Benton of having “certain stains which have most hideously blemished his honor” and, as I read the passage, in effect dared Benton to challenge him to a duel:

I beg Senators to believe me when I assure them, that I never bring accusations against any man, whether he be a public or private individual, which I do not believe myself able to establish by irrefragable evidence, and in maintaining which, I do not feel myself responsible in every way whatever to him who chances to be assailed.

And now, sir, I will formally announce, that there are certain stains which have most hideously blemished the character of the honorable Senator from Missouri, since the days of his early manhood; that the unfavorable anticipations, awakened by the dawn of his career, have been quite strikingly realized by the meridian of development through which the honorable Senator has now passed; that there are incidents in his history, of somewhat recent occurrence, which might well relieve any man of honor from the obligation to recognize him as a fitting antagonist; yet it is, notwithstanding, true, that if the Senator from Missouri will deign to acknowledge himself responsible to the laws of honor, he shall have a very early opportunity of proving his prowess in contest with one over whom I hold perfect control; or, if he feels in the least degree aggrieved at anything which has fallen from me, now or formerly, he shall, on demanding it, have full redress accorded him, according to the said laws of honor.

I do not denounce him as a coward – such language is unfitted for this audience – but if he wishes to patch up his reputation for courage, now greatly on the wane, he will certainly have an opportunity of doing so whenever he makes known his desire in the premises. At present, he is shielded by his age, his open disavowal of the obligatory force of the laws of honor, and his Senatorial privileges.

Benton was understandably outraged. However – and despite his reference to the “the cudgel” -- what is most surprising is that Benton did not attack Foote then and there, or at least directly threaten to do so:

Is a Senator to be blackguarded here in the discharge of his duty, and the culprit go unpunished? Is language to be used here which would not be permitted to be used in the lowest pot-house, tavern, or oyster cellar, and for the use of which he would be turned out of any tavern by a decent landlord?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator is called to order.

Mr. BENTON. If such things are to go on, and he is to persist in such blackguardism here, in a place where the cudgel cannot be applied to him, we must have the public indignation brought upon him, until the public sentiment shall make him behave with the propriety due to the Senate.

The next day, March 26, 1850, Benton was less restrained. In the morning, Benton read reports of Foote’s speech in the newspapers, and those reports apparently set him off again. When the Senate convened, Benton gained the floor. Quoting from Foote’s speech, as reported in the press, he denounced Foote’s accusations as a pack of lies. And this time he indicated that he would “resist” and “protect myself” against any further insults (emphasis added):

“At present he is shielded by his age, his open disavowal of the obligatory force of the laws of honor, and his Senatorial privileges.” Shielded by his age! by his age! Sir, let any person insult me where an appropriate chastisement can be employed, and inflicted upon blackguardism, and he will find out whether I am not young enough to resist; he will find out my age without consulting any calendar at all.

* * *

“His Senatorial privileges!” Sir, I claim no Senatorial privileges – I claim no privilege of attacking any person on this floor – I claim no privilege of insulting anybody here. I have never done it in the thirty years I have been here; I have never begun to insult any one; but if it is begun with me, although I may bear with insults a long time, yet, when once I take notice of it, there shall be an end, one way or the other. And if the Senate does not know that it is a Senate – if this Senate does not protect itself from scenes which would disgrace the veriest brothel – if this Senate permits language to be used here which cannot be used in the filthiest brothel in the Five Points, or in the suburbs of the city – if they permit such language to be used here, and to be used here with respect to me, I mean from this time forth to protect myself, cost what it may.

In the aftermath of the pistol-pulling incident on April 17, Foote protested that he had armed himself because he feared for his own safety. Foote’s reference to a “cudgel” suggests that he was referring back to Benton’s use of the term on March 26 (although admittedly March 26 was not “the other day” as of April 17, and Benton had not “menaced” him with a cudgel):

Mr. FOOTE. I am perfectly cool, and I feel the gravity of the occasion as deeply as others. . . . I have never threatened a human being with personal attacks in my life, and of course I have never executed a threat of that kind in my life. I have never worn arms to make an attack on any person, and have never worn arms at all in the Senate except when menaced, as I was the other day in the Senate with a cudgel. My friends urged upon me that, being diminutive in size and quite feeble in health, I should at least wear arms for my own defence. It was a novel thing to me, for I am not in the habit of doing it, and I put on arms, supposing it possible that I might be attacked after what had occurred, simply for the purpose of defending myself.

Foote surely provoked Benton on purpose on March 26, and Benton’s reactions were predictable and understandable. But even so, under the circumstances, Foote’s fears may not have been unreasonable.

"He then jumped on top of one of the desks"

I was looking around for other information about the confrontation between Senators Thomas Hart Benton and Henry S. Foote when I stumbled across a wonderful account by Issac Bassett. Bassett’s life story is itself remarkable: he was appointed as a page in the Senate in 1831, at the age of twelve. He then remained in the Senate in a series of posts – messenger, assistant doorkeeper – for over sixty years, until his death in 1895.

Bassett’s recollection of events on April 17, 1850 includes additional details not found in the Congressional Globe account (emphasis added):

Mr. Benton rose from his seat, threw his chair violently from him [and] made for Mr. Foote. Down the passage he was stopped by Senator Dodge and several other senators. He then jumped on top of one of the desks and laid open his breast and said, “Let him fire! Stand out of the way and let the assassin fire.” In the meantime Mr. Foote had reached the aisle in front of the secretary’s table. Mr. Foote drew his pistol as soon as Mr. Benton made a move towards him. Mr. Foote remained standing in the same position he had taken with his pistol in his hand. My impression was that it was a horse pistol. I was standing very near him. It was certainly a very long one. Mr. Dickinson a senator from New York, asked him to give up the pistol which he did. Mr. Dickinson then locked it up in his desk. Soon after both senators resumed their seats.

Although unrelated, I can’t help pointing out this story, because it features Vice President Fillmore:

In olden times it was fashionable for senators to take snuff. It was the custom to keep a box of snuff on the vice president’s table. The senators would step up to the vice president’s table and take a pinch of snuff. It seemed to be a part of the senatorial dignity but soon after Mr. Fillmore was vice president, during the morning hour, when so many senators rise to offer petitions, the senators annoyed him so much that he called me up to him and said, “Bassett I want you to take this snuff box away from this table. I cannot understand what is going on in the Senate on account of the conversation of senators who come here to get a pinch of snuff. You must get some other place for it.” I suggested that on each side of the Senate there be placed a snuff box. “That is just the thing, go and have it done.” It has been done ever since. On each side of the Chamber there is secured to the walls a comely black snuff box.

For those interested, the summary of the illustration at the top is as follows:

Senators Thomas Hart Benton and Henry S. Foote are paired here in a facetious farewell scene, as Benton departs the "Shop of the Senate." In reality Benton lost his Senate seat in a January 1851 election, largely because of his refusal to honor the Missouri Resolutions on Slavery (also known as the Jackson-Napton Resolutions of 1849). He charged that the resolutions were engineered by John C. Calhoun, Foote, and a few other Senate foes. Benton's term ended on March 3. In the center stands Benton dressed as a ragged Irishman, a stock character common in Yankee theatre productions of the New York stage at the time. He smokes a cigar, and stands near a mangy donkey which is laden with saddle, pack, and whip, a bundle marked "Life & Times of Thos H. Benton [bound] for California" at his feet. His California destination has several possible explanations. It may be an oblique allusion to Benton's antislavery stance, as Benton was embroiled in the dispute during his last Senate term, on the admission of California to the Union as a free state. He was also a prominent advocate of a transcontinental railroad. Also likely is the artist's association of the recent California Gold Rush with Benton's career-long bullionist ideology. Benton looks left and shakes the hand of Foote, who is dressed as a New York fireman or street tough, with a visored cap and boots. Foote: "So, yer goin ter leave us, ha Benton? well if I had my Pocket Hankercher about me I'de cry." Benton: "Thank yer Foote! any other time will do, the fact is I won't work in no Shop where the Boss is all the time a findin fault with me work, & the Fellers in the Shop is all the time a Laughin at me." At the far left Calhoun and two others watch from a window with the sign "Cabinet Work." Weitenkampf dates the print 1850. But it is unlikely that it appeared long before the March 3, 1851, expiration of Benton's term in the Senate.

"There was not any danger on foot at all"

The cartoon/illustration that prompted this series of posts, A Scene in Uncle Sam’s Senate, shows Henry Clay punning on the incident, “It’s a ridiculous matter, I apprehend there is no danger on foot.” In fact, Henry Clay did not speak the words – another, less well-known senator did.

The Congressional Globe shows where the cartoonist got the idea. As order was being restored shortly after Senator Foote pulled a pistol on Benton, Senator John P. Hale of Vermont demanded an investigation of the incident. Hale, an adamant Free Soiler and opponent of the Omnibus, presumably hoped that an investigation would distract the Senate and tend to make compromise less likely.

In response, freshman Senator Solon Borland, Democrat of Arkansas, then rose. Borland took the position that the incident was “a very ridiculous affair” that warranted no further attention. In the process of his brief speech, Senator Borland, consciously or unconsciously, included in his remarks a pun on Senator Foote’s name, which the cartoonist later transferred, with only minor alteration, to Senator Clay’s lips:

Mr. BORLAND. So far from thinking it so serious a matter that the Senate are called upon to take notice of it, I think it a very ridiculous affair, of which the Senate should rather feel ashamed, and say as little about as possible. I am a young member of the Senate, and one perhaps of the least experience, but to my mind there was not any danger on foot at all.

"So help me God, such alone was my intention"

Before reading the Congressional Globe description of the events that took place on April 17, 1850, I had assumed that Senator Henry S. Foote was the aggressor. After all, southerner legislators tended to be proud and violent when insulted or challenged – just look at what Rep. Preston Brooks did a few years later to Charles Sumner. Foote himself was not a stranger to dueling and violence. In this case, he had pulled out a pistol on the Senate floor and threatened another Senator with it! What excuse could there be for that?

A pretty good one, it turns out. “Old Bullion” Benton was a bear of a man, had a history of violence, and was known as a crack shot. In 1813, before he became Andrew Jackson’s fast friend and political ally, Benton and his brother Jesse were involved in a wild melee in downtown Nashville with Jackson and others that involved guns, knives, swords and knuckles. In the brawl, Jesse shot and nearly killed Andrew Jackson himself.

Four years later, Benton fought two duels with a lawyer by the name of Charles Lucas. In the first match, Benton shot Lucas in the neck, and rumors circulated that Benton had deliberately set the rules to take advantage of his superior marksmanship. In the second, Benton shot Lucas dead.

The slightly-built Foote might well have been alarmed when he saw Benton striding down the aisle toward him. The description of Foote’s actions by the Congressional Globe reporter makes clear that Foote was retreating down the aisle, away from Benton. The fact that Foote later disputed the term “retreating” only highlights the fact that that was exactly what he was doing.

Turning to Benton, it is noteworthy that he did not deny that he had been advancing menacingly on Foote. His entire defense was that he had no gun:

Mr. BENTON. We are not going to get off in this way. A pistol has been brought here to assassinate me. The scoundrel had no reason to think I was armed, for I carry nothing of the kind, sir.

***

Mr. BENTON. Nothing of the kind, sir. It is a false imputation. I carry nothing of the kind, and no assassin has a right to draw a pistol on me.

SEVERAL SENATORS. “Order,” “order.”

Mr. BENTON. It is a mere pretext of the assassin. Will the Senate take notice of it, or shall I be forced to take notice of it by going and getting a weapon myself. A pistol has been brought here and drawn upon me by an assassin.

***

Mr. BENTON. I have done nothing upon God Almighty’s earth to authorize any man to charge me with a breach of the peace, and I will rot in jail before I will give a promise admitting that the charge is true. I regret nothing. It is lying and cowardly to undertake to impute to me the bearing of arms here, in order to justify the use of them upon me. I have done nothing, and I will rot in jail before I will give a promise which admits, by implication, that I have been guilty of a breach of the peace.

The theatricality of Benton’s oratory as soon as he saw the gun (“I have no pistols!” “Let him fire!” etc.) suggests that he knew he was in little danger and immediately had the presence of mind to milk the scene for everything it was worth. Is it unfair to wonder whether Benton advanced on Foote knowing that Foote had a weapon and hoping that Foote would reach for it?

Finally, Foote’s repeated apologies ring true. Here was no defiant southerner proudly defending his conduct, but a somewhat shaken man trying to explain a panicked reaction (paragraph break added):

Mr. FOOTE. If my presenting a pistol here has been understood as anything except the necessary means of self-defense, after threats of personal chastisement, it is doing me a wrong. I saw him advancing towards me, and I took it for granted he was armed; for had I thought otherwise, I should have stopped to meet him in that narrow alley. But I supposed that he was armed, and therefore I determined to take ground where I could meet him more fairly, and I drew out the pistol and was ready to fire it in self-defense.

I have never sought any man’s life, nor gone in quest of any man with a view of taking his life. No, sir, never. My life has been a defensive one from my boyhood. I mention it, not from the imputations that have been thrown out here, but that all the Senators present and the American public, who may hear of this thing, may be witnesses of the fact, that whilst I was making a perfectly parliamentary speech, threatening language was used, menacing gestures indulged in, and an advance made towards me, with the view, as I supposed, of putting violent designs into effect. I therefore retreated a few steps [notice that Foote admitted that he “retreated”], with a view to get elbow room to act in my own defence, and not to shoot him. So help me God, such alone was my intention.

A few minutes later, Foote added the following:

Mr. FOOTE. I am perfectly cool, and I feel the gravity of the occasion as deeply as others. . . . I have never threatened a human being with personal attacks in my life, and of course I have never executed a threat of that kind in my life. I have never worn arms to make an attack on any person, and have never worn arms at all in the Senate except when menaced, as I was the other day in the Senate with a cudgel. My friends urged upon me that, being diminutive in size and quite feeble in health, I should at least wear arms for my own defence. It was a novel thing to me, for I am not in the habit of doing it, and I put on arms, supposing it possible that I might be attacked after what had occurred, simply for the purpose of defending myself.

Although it is impossible to be sure, on balance I credit Senator Foote’s explanation. Even if he did not think that Benton was armed, he pretty clearly was afraid that Benton was going to beat him to a pulp. At the very least, it is clear that Foote was no Preston Brooks, and this incident was no prelude to the Caning of Sumner.

"Stand out of the way, and let the assassin fire!"

Inspired by the description Ed Darrell found explaining the illustration “Uncle Sam’s Senate,” I found and read the relevant portions of the Congressional Globe for April 17, 1850.

What is most surprising about the confrontation between Democratic Senators Henry S. Foote of Mississippi, and Thomas Hart “Old Bullion” Benton of Missouri on April 17, 1850 is that it seems to have come out of nowhere; the immediate provocation was slight, indeed.

By way of background, earlier in the year Whig Senator Henry Clay had succumbed to pressure from Senator Foote to package Clay’s proposed compromise measures into a single bill. Clay pushed through a proposal to refer the measures to a select Committee of Thirteen, which would draft what would become known as the Omnibus.

Although from a slave state, Benton, a Democrat, detested the pro-slavery radicals. He also detested the Omnibus plan. He therefore proposed an amendment that would give “instructions” to the Committee. One series of instructions basically directed the Committee not to include anything relating to California in any bill the Committee drafted. This, of course, would rob the Committee of a principal reason for its creation: any set of compromise measures had to include a provision or provisions dealing with that state.

Compounding the felony, Benton proposed another set of instructions that effectively barred the Committee from proposing any legislation concerning slavery. Everyone understood that these instructions, if enacted, killed the entire enterprise, and made a mockery of it in the bargain:

Provided, That nothing in this instruction shall be construed to take into consideration anything that relates to either of the four following subjects:
1. The abolition of slavery within the States.
2. The suppression of the slave trade between the States.
3. The abolition of slavery within the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, and navy-yards of the United States.
4. Abolition of slavery within the District of Columbia.
And provided further, That said committee shall not take into consideration any question in relation to the subject of domestic slavery in the United States, which shall not be specifically referred to it by order of the Senate.

There then followed a colloquy on the procedural propriety of the amendment. It appears that Senator Benton had previously offered a similar amendment, presumably when the formation of the Committee was originally debated. The Senate had rejected that earlier amendment.

Senator Joseph R. Underwood, Whig of Kentucky, now presented a “point of order. I think it is out of order to propose these points of instruction, when the Senate have already decided that they will not instruct the committee.” The point of order was referred to Vice President Millard Fillmore, sitting as President of the Senate.

I have seen summaries of the proceedings that state that the Vice President ruled Benton out of order. The Congressional Globe indicates otherwise. The Vice President seems to have ruled that Benton’s earlier amendment was similar to, but not identical to, his present amendment. Therefore, he was not out of order. However, he also ruled that the full Senate had the power to consider the question and decide otherwise. “[T]he question that presents itself is, whether inconsistencies are questions of order . . .. The Chair is of the opinion that the amendment is in order, but it is for the Senate to decide.”

Henry Clay then took the Vice President up on his invitation by melodramatically “appealing” the Vice President’s ruling to the full Senate:

Mr. CLAY. I rise to perform the painful duty of appealing from the decision of the Chair, and I ask the yeas and nays on the question. I do not mean to take up time. My opinion is, that when the Senate has decided that it will not do a given thing, it is out of order for that thing to be proposed to be done, and it is within the province of the Chair to decide it to be out of order.

At that point, Senator Benton rose to deliver a bitter objection. The Vice President’s ruling, and Clay’s appeal, had shifted the question from the proposed amendment itself to the procedural question whether the proposed amendment was out of order. Benton angrily complained that the Vice President’s ruling improperly threatened to cut off debate, contrary to Senate rules and tradition.

In the course of his speech, however, Benton (not unexpectedly) shifted to a defense of the substance of his proposed amendment. In the process, he characterized his amendment as an attempt to expose southern radicals as flim-flam artists (to enhance readability, I have added paragraph breaks):

Sir, I intend by these amendments to cut at the root of all that agitation, and to cut up the whole address of the southern members, by which the country was thrown into a flame. I mean to show that there was no foundation for any such thing; that is, I mean to offer a proposition upon which the votes will show that there has been a cry of “wolf,” when there was no wolf; that the country has been alarmed without reason, and against reason; that there is no design in the Congress of the United States to encroach upon the rights of the South, nor to aggress upon the South, nor to oppress them upon the subject of their institutions.

I propose, sir, to give the Senate an opportunity of showing that all this alarm has been without foundation; and I further propose to give to the people of the United States the highest declaration that can be given upon earth, that they have been disturbed about nothing; and when we come to that part of the question, we will see whether they are abstractions or not; and if these are abstractions, then the country has been alarmed about abstractions.

At this point, Senator Foote began to respond, but yielded the floor to Senator Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina. As one might expect, Senator Butler did not accept Senator Benton’s assertion that the south was crying wolf; the dangers were real:

Sir, the Senator [from Missouri] must see as plainly as I do, that there is a danger – that this thing has progressed to such lengths, that it will be but a feeble palliative to quiet it, to offer a resolution which merely declares that Congress has no right to interfere with slavery in the States; that the South and the whole country is in no danger; and that all of the agitation is caused by the Southern Address.

Then Senator Foote at last took the floor. Foote’s speech strikes me as exceedingly odd. First, Senator Benton’s provocation was not all that great. Yes, his speech accused southern radicals of crying wolf, but neither its tone nor substance was outrageous in the context of the overheated rhetoric of 1850. Moreover, Foote was not a die hard radical. After all, it was he, together with Henry Clay, who was pushing the Omnibus. I can only conclude that, precisely because Foote was something of a moderate, he felt he had to protect himself against claims by southern hard-liners that he was not being sufficiently vigorous in defense of southern rights.

Senator Foote began calmly enough, emphasizing his moderation:

Mr. FOOTE. The Senate will bear witness to the fact that I have endeavored to avoid discussion and controversy on this question. I have believed, and yet believe, that, the time has come when all true patriots should unite in the pure spirit of fraternal conciliation and compromise for the settlement of these questions; and that they should feel it their bounden and imperious duty to do all in their power to quiet excitement, and save the Republic from that danger which all of us do know has environed it for the last six or eight months.

After the jab at Benton in the last clause (“that danger which all of us do know has [existed]”), Foote began to warm to his topic. Benton had defamed him personally and, even worse, he had besmirched the sainted John Calhoun, still warm in his grave! Foote wrapped himself in the flag (as it were) of Calhoun’s “holy” Southern Address (paragraph breaks added):

I repeat, that I did not come here this morning in the expectation of saying a word; and especially would I not be heard referring to anything emanating from a certain quarter, after what has occurred here, but for what I conceive to be a direct attack upon myself and others with whom I am proud to stand associated.

We all know the history of the Southern Address, and the world knows its history. It is the history of the action of a band of patriots, worthy of the highest laudation, and who will be held in veneration when their calumniators, no matter who they may be, will be objects of general loathing and contempt.

Who is the author of the Southern Address? He is known to the world. The late illustrious Senator from South Carolina, whose decease a nation now mourns, and over whose untimely death every good man in all Christian countries, at the present time, is now lamenting – is the author, and the sole author, of that address. In our presence here to-day, in the hearing of the friends of that distinguished statesman associated with him in that holy work, that address is denounced with great appearance of deliberation, as fraught with mischief, and as having supplied food for agitation and excitement which has involved our institutions in dangers . . ..

After continuing in this mode a while longer, Foote then began to confront more directly the source of this infamy:

Those who were associated with and sanctioned that address, are charged with being agitators. And by whom? With whom does such an accusation as this originate? I shall not be personal, after the lesson I have already received here. I intend to be, in a parliamentary sense, perfectly decorous in all things. But by whom is this extraordinary denunciation hurled against all those individuals who subscribed this address? By a gentleman long denominated the oldest member of the Senate – the father of the Senate. By a gentleman who, on a late occasion –

At this juncture, however, Foote broke off his speech, for “the father of the Senate” was at that moment charging – or at least advancing menacingly – down the aisle toward him. Then Foote pulled a pistol, and all hell broke loose.

At this point, the Congressional Globe includes a rare description of events in the Senate chamber:

[Here Mr. FOOTE, who occupies a seat on the outer circle, in front of the Vice President’s chair, retreated backwards down the aisle, towards the chair of the Vice President, with a pistol in his hand. Mr. BENTON, a moment before, having suddenly risen from his seat and advanced by the aisle, outside the bar, towards him, following him into the aisle down which the Senator from Mississippi had retreated. In a moment almost every Senator was on his feet, and calls to “order,” demands for the Sergeant-at-Arms; requests that Senators would take their seats, from the Chair and from individual Senators, were repeatedly made.

Senator Benton clearly recognized a golden opportunity when he saw one, and drew on every ounce of his prodigious theatrical abilities (paragraph break added):

Mr. BENTON was followed and arrested by Mr. [Henry] DODGE, [Democrat] of Wisconsin, and, in the confusion and excitement which prevailed, he was heard to exclaim, from time to time, “I have no pistols!” “Let him fire!” “Stand out of the way!” “I have no pistols!” “I disdain to carry arms!” “Stand out of the way, and let the assassin fire!”

While making these exclamations, Mr. BENTON was brought back to his seat; but, breaking away from Mr. DODGE, of Wisconsin, who sought forcibly to detain him, he advanced again towards Mr. FOOTE, who stood near the Vice President’s chair, on the right-hand side, surrounded by a number of Senators, and others not members of the Senate. Mr. [Daniel S.] DICKINSON [Hardshell Hunker Democrat, New York] took the pistol from the hand of Mr. FOOTE, and locked it up in his desk, and Mr. FOOTE, on the advice of Mr. BUTLER, returned to his seat.]

The next day, apparently after reviewing the reporter’s description of events, Senator Foote sent the reporter “A CARD” to correct “one or two slight inaccuracies” in the description. What is most interesting is that, while Foote wanted to make clear that he was not the aggressor, he also went to great lengths to deny that he “retreated.” The implication seems clear that he was worried that southerners would brand him a coward if they perceived that he had retreated when presented with the onrushing Benton (paragraph breaks added):

Now, as to the “retreat” spoken of, it was simply a movement in a line – which made something like a right angle with the one along which the Senator from Missouri was advancing, I simply glided towards the alley leading from the Secretary’s chair to the door, intending to take a defensive attitude, and then await any assault which might be made. I could not have done otherwise, without, in a certain event, endangering the lives of unoffending persons.

You seem to represent myself as being pursued by my antagonist down a narrow alley. If you allude to the alley along which I walked in order to take my defensive attitude alluded to, you are in error, as the person alluded to did not even reach my seat, nor even get something like half-way from his seat to mine. The fact is, that I neither retreated from, nor advanced upon, the Senator referred to. I simply advanced to a convenient position for purposes of defense.

You say “Mr. DICKINSON took the pistol from the hand of Mr. FOOTE.” This is true, but I would add, that it was cheerfully surrendered on application being made for it, and upon seeing that I was no longer in danger of being assaulted. I regret that I have deemed it necessary to make this explanation, but I did not know how to avoid it.