United States Senate
Foote was elected by the Mississippi legislature as a Democrat to the United States Senate, where he played a key role in securing the Compromise of 1850. During Senate debates over the projected compromise resolutions, Thomas Hart Benton refused to support the compromise and became enraged by Foote's verbal attacks. According to the historian James Coleman, during heated Senate debates over the projected compromise resolutions, Foote drew a pistol on Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Other members wrestled Foote to the floor; they took the gun away and locked it in a drawer. The incident created a brouhaha that prompted an investigation by a Senate committee.
Foote served in the Senate from March 4, 1847, until January 8, 1852, when he resigned to become governor after defeating Jefferson Davis in the election of 1851. Foote was elected on a Unionist platform at a time of increasing sectional tension. It was the last Unionist ticket in Mississippi. Because of Foote's distress with rising anti-Union fervor in Mississippi, in 1854 after his term as governor, he moved to California.
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