Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). * * * * * [Illustration: frontispiece] [Illustration: Thomas H. Benton] THIRTY YEARS' VIEW; OR, A HISTORY OF THE WORKING OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT FOR THIRTY YEARS, FROM 1820 TO 1850. CHIEFLY TAKEN FROM THE CONGRESS DEBATES, THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF GENERAL JACKSON AND THE SPEECHES OF EX-SENATOR BENTON, WITH HIS ACTUAL VIEW OF MEN AND AFFAIRS: WITH HISTORICAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, AND SOME NOTICES OF EMINENT DECEASED COTEMPORARIES: BY A SENATOR OF THIRTY YEARS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN. 1883. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by D. APPLETON & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. AUTO-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. [The outlines of the life of the lately deceased Thomas H. Benton, which are contained in the following pages, were prepared by the author and subject of them whilst he was suffering excruciating pain from the disease that, a few weeks later, closed his earthly career. They were not intended for a Biography, properly so called, but rather to present some salient points of character and some chief incidents of life, and in respect of them, at least, to govern subsequent Biographies.]