Historical June 1984 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
It might have been called bizarre.
It was the last day of September 1820.
The newly elected House and Senate of Missouri were meeting in joint session to elect the first two United States senators from Missouri.
The first choice had been made easily: David Barton was elected almost unanimously.
The second senator was problematic—the Chouteaus and their faction wanted Thomas Hart Benton, but he had powerful enemies.
In 1817 on Bloody Island, Benton had killed Charles Lucas in a duel. Judge John B. C. Lucas, Charles’ father, had never forgiven the man.
A formidable power in early St. Louis, Judge Lucas was opposed totally to Benton and all he stood for. Benton had earned the respect of most of the original French of St. Louis in adopting a land policy position which strengthened their claims to thousands of acres across the West.
The one Frenchman opposed to him, however, was Marie Philip Leduc (pronounced “Ladue,” and whence came the name for the suburb). August Chouteau decided he and his friends would talk Leduc into voting for Benton even though he did not like the man. Leduc’s opposition went back to the land questions which Amos Stoddard voiced in 1804. Captain Amos Stoddard represented both the French and the United States when Upper Louisiana was turned over to the United States in March 1804.
While he was serving as acting military and political leader of Upper Louisiana until a proper government could be established, Stoddard realized the last surveyor and the last Spanish lieutenant governor stationed in St. Louis had not been altogether honest in how they distributed land grants; names and permits had been forged or modified illegally. Stoddard sent this information to Congress. Leduc had been the secretary to the Lt. Governor, Don Carlos DeLassus, and he was implicated in many of the funny paper grants of the period 1800 to 1803. Thomas Hart Benton had made some political hay out of all that, and seemed to excuse many of the other French by accusing Leduc—or at least that is what the latter thought.
In any case, Leduc would not vote for Benton. Chouteau and his minions argued and chided Leduc the entire night of September 29 before the final vote on September 30. Early in the morning, Leduc finally gave in and went along with the French bloc.
One problem remained: they needed all members present and voting in order to capitalize on the majority given them by Leduc’s vote.
The problem was Daniel Rails—he was dying in his hotel room.
The Missouri Hotel in St. Louis was where that first legislature met in September 1820. Formerly on the corner of First and Morgan Streets, it was torn down shortly after the Civil War for Christian Peper to build the first building of his tobacco warehouse operation.
The building Peper built is now called Rader Place and is known for its main tenant, the Spaghetti Factory.
In any case, Rails had taken deathly ill shortly after the session started on September 18.
On the morning of the big election, he lay dying in his bed.
When the voting started at 9 a.m. sharp, Chouteau sent four of his largest servants to Rail’s room.
They took the four corners of his bed and carried him and his bed into the meeting hall.
When his name was called Rails managed to raise his hand for Benton.
After voting, he was carried back to his room where he shortly died.
The combined assembly named Rails County in honor of his last act.
Without that vote Benton would not have been elected to the Senate, the Missouri Assembly would have remained deadlocked, and a good deal of American history would have changed dramatically.
Without question, Thomas Hart Benton was the mastermind behind the major policies of Andrew Jackson and instrumental in preparing and steering through Congress virtually all the major legislation which framed the Westward Movement of the nineteenth century.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June 1984.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: 1820 election narrative, land-grant allegations and counterfactual interpretation retained as author’s historical account; not independently verified.
Original source: SD_Times1984_06.pdf, printed page(s) 9; PDF page(s) 9.
