On the adjournment of Congress, Benton returned to Missouri and commenced a canvass in vindication of his own cause, and in opposition to the democratic majority of the legislature that passed the Jackson resolutions, which has had few if any parallels in the history of the government for heat and bitterness. The senator did not return to argue and convert, but to fulminate and destroy. He appointed times and places for public speaking in the most populous counties of the State, and where the opposition to him had grown boldest. He allowed no 'division of time' to opponents wishing to controvert the positions assumed in his speeches. On the contrary, he treated every interruption, whether for inquiry or retort, on the part of any one opposed to him, as an insult, and proceeded to pour upon the head of the offender a torrent of denunciation and abuse, unmeasured and appalling. The extraordinary course adopted by Benton in urging his 'appeal,' excited astonishment and indignation among the democratic partisans that had, in many cases, thoughtlessly become arrayed against him.[A] They might have yielded to expostulation; they were stung to resentment by unsparing vilification. The rumor of Benton's manner preceded him through the State, after the first signal manifestations of his ruthless spirit; and he was warned not to appear at some of the appointments he had made, else his life would pay the forfeit of his personal assaults. These threats only made the Missouri lion more fierce and untamable. He filled all his appointments, bearing everywhere the same front, often surrounded by enraged enemies armed and thirsting for his blood, but ever denunciatory and defiant, and returned to St. Louis, still boiling with inexhaustible choler, to await the judgment of the State upon his appeal. He failed. The pro-slavery sentiment of the people had been too thoroughly evoked in the controversy, and too many valuable party leaders had been needlessly driven from his support by unsparing invective. An artful and apparently honest appeal to the right of legislative instructions,--an enlargement of popular rights which Benton himself had conferred upon them,--and--the unfailing weapon of Southern demagogues against their opponents--the charge that Benton had joined the 'Abolitionists,' and was seeking to betray 'the rights of the South,' worked the overthrow of the hitherto invincible senator. The Whigs of Missouri, though agreeing mainly with Benton in the principles involved in this contest, had received nothing at his hands, throughout his long career, but defeat and total exclusion from all offices and honors, State and National. This class of politicians were too glad of the prospective division of his party and the downfall of his power, to be willing to re-assert their principles through a support of Benton. The loyal Union sentiments of the State in this way failed to be united, and a majority was elected to the legislature opposed to Benton.