Rhode Island American And Providence Gazette

Col. Benton.—This gentleman's re-election to the U. S. Senate, which was so confidently vouched by the Richmond Enquirer and other mouth pieces of the opposition, as a matter settled beyond doubt or controversy, is put we understand into no little jeopardy by the appearance of a new and very troublesome competitor. Letters have been received in Washington from well informed gentlemen in Missouri which speak of Col. Benton's re-election as exceedingly doubtful. Mr. Bates an able and popular candidate, who was lately elected to Congress in the place of Mr. Scott, it is thought by these writers, will probably succeed him. As the opinions of Mr. Bates in favour of the Administration were avowed very frankly during his recent canvass—and his friends now support him as the Administration candidate, it will be a new and decisive expression of the sentiments of Missouri, if he should succeed in this contest as is confidently expected. Under any other circumstances we should regret the probability of Col. Benton's being distanced. Though visionary perhaps in many of his projects, and little to be trusted as a political leader, he is a man nevertheless of no ordinary power, and possessed of a mass of political information, the result of an industry the most extraordinary and unwearied. No man in this country, we will venture to say, devotes more hours to assiduous study, than the Senator from Missouri or condenses in his speeches a larger amount of valuable information on every variety of topics which he introduces for discussion. His style of speaking also is striking and peculiar resembling perhaps more the harangue of a General at the head of his army, than the address of a statesman to a deliberative body. With all these qualifications however, for shining in public, Col. Benton is a rash and unsafe politician, and his conduct in the Senate, since Mr. Adams election, has been so ridiculously subservient to Mr. Randolph's opinions that if he meets with a defeat, he will have richly deserved it.