File:Statesmen (1904) (14595257150).jpg

Identifier: statesmen00inbroo (find matches)
Title: Statesmen
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Brooks, Noah, 1830-1903
Subjects: Clay, Henry, 1777-1852 Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852 Calhoun, John C. (John Caldwell), 1782-1850 Benton, Thomas Hart, 1782-1858 Seward, William Henry, 1801-1872 Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873 Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Sumner, Charles, 1811-1874 Tilden, Samuel J. (Samuel Jones), 1814-1886 Blaine, James Gillespie, 1830-1893 Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881 Cleveland, Grover, 1837-1908 Statesmen
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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in North Carolina, and hismother, early left a widow, took her young broodof children to a tract of land owned by her hus-band, twenty-five miles south of Nashville. Onthis land the family plantation was laid out, andin due course of time Widow Bentons tractbecame Bentontown, a name under which it isknown to this day. Here Thomas Hart Bentonwas reared under the tender care and firm man-agement of his mother, a woman of the highesttype. In the library left by his father the ladfound a goodly array of the best books of thatperiod. These he studied with a devouringeagerness, and he has said in his autobiographythat his knowledge of English history was largelydrawn from the voluminous State Trials whichformed a part of this library. Bentons educa-tion does not appear to have been at any timedirected by any other guidance than his owntastes and notions of what was desirable, exceptwhen, later on, under the encouragement of olderfriends, he mastered the intricacies of the law ^ ^^S^: K AiM^
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a M 0 o C >, </) rt pg X THOMAS II. BENTON 97 and was admitted to the bar. Of his mother hesays in his autobiography: All the minor virt-ues, as well as the greater, were cherisherl byher, and her house, the resort of the eminentmen of the time, was the abode of temperance,modesty, decorum; a pack of cards was neverseen in her house. From such a mother all thechildren received the impress of future character,and she lived to see the fruit* of her pious andliberal cares—living as a widow above fifty years—and to see her eldest son half through hisSenatorial career and taking his place among thehistoric men of the country, for which she hadbegun so early to train him. These details de-serve to be noted, though small in themselves, asshowing how much the after life of the man maydepend upon the early care and guidance of amother. Benton lived a temperate and abste-mious life; he was a total abstainer from hisyouth, never used tobacco, never played a gameof chance, and did not a

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