Later Life
In 1851, Benton was denied a sixth term by the Missouri legislature; the polarization of the slavery issue made it impossible for a moderate and unionist to hold that state's senatorial seat. In 1852 he successfully ran for the United States House of Representatives, but his opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise led to his defeat in 1854. He ran for Governor of Missouri in 1856, but lost to Trusten Polk. The same year his son-in-law, John C. Frémont, ran for President on the Republican Party ticket, but Benton was a party loyalist to the end, and voted Democratic, the Democratic candidate that year being James Buchanan.
He published his autobiography, Thirty Years' View, in 1854, and died in Washington D.C. two years later. His descendants have continued to be prominent in Missouri life; his great-nephew, also Thomas Hart Benton, was a 20th-century painter.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Hart Benton (politician)
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“Unable to create a meaningful life for itself, the personality takes its own revenge: from the lower depths comes a regressive form of spontaneity: raw animality forms a counterpoise to the meaningless stimuli and the vicarious life to which the ordinary man is conditioned. Getting spiritual nourishment from this chaos of events, sensations, and devious interpretations is the equivalent of trying to pick through a garbage pile for food.”
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