Work Text:
INT. SENATE LIBRARY - NIGHT
THOMAS HART BENTON splays back on a sofa. He faces a fireplace, which he is separated from by a large rug. BENTON’s eyes narrow as he cranes his neck, toes stretching torward the light.
Beside him is DANIEL WEBSTER on a wooden chair. He is reading a book, a wine glass in hand. Amber shadows shield his face, it is impossible to see his smile, or anything really, save for the obsidian glint of his eyes. He sighs, closing his book with a thump.
WEBSTER
So this is it.
Benton, tell me, before this country gets torn to scraps before its full century of freedom: is it still no?
BENTON
...I do not understand.
WEBSTER
(He takes a chug of wine from his glass, sinking heavily into his chair. Webster’s fingers bookmark a page in his book, balancing it on his leg.)
Is it still a negative, as to how you actually met Mr. Wentworth. You didn’t coincidentally rush out when he left Senator Calhoun's quarters. What were you doing there, lingering thief-like. And a bottle of wine and an autograph, truly? That was enough for his emotions to be confused?
BENTON
(With an annoyed sigh.)
I was there to prevent calamity, sir. I don't understand this infatuation men like you and Mr. Dyer and even good Wentworth have with him. I found myself there, sir, to protect innocent men like him from being tricked into delusion.
WEBSTER
I’m sure you do, I'm sure you were. Ah, the good honorable Mr. Benton, saving the poor masses from being swept afloat by the tide that is secession. Ah, hypocrite. You linger outside Senator Calhoun's rooms, whenever it is that he has some paramour in there with him.
BENTON
Paramour? Only to stop his devilish intentions towards other men, sir. Seducing them to the ways of traitorous thought.
WEBSTER
Such strong language. And against your own ally. And this suspicion, it shows itself now?
BENTON
Consider the political tensions we are now enveloped. The environment and sectionalism, perpetrated most strongly by Mr. Calhoun and his friends. There is no reason at all, sir, for me not to be concerned at every jump and whisper.
WEBSTER
You take advantage of his popularity. You side with this declared devil against the Union.
BENTON
It is politics. I hold him, sir, wrangle him like the snake he is. At arm's length, to be taken seriously, but in no way indulged any time of day.
WEBSTER
Then you accuse us of indulging his devilish tendencies?
BENTON
(Benton repeated, louder, clearer. )
I do not understand this infatuation you have.
WEBSTER
(Choking.)
I?
BENTON
Sir, I am only concerned.
WEBSTER
Concern! Be concerned not for me, not even for Woodward. He needs no robber jumping on him at midnight to understand the wariness he ought to have
BENTON
- Mr. John C. Calhoun is the devil. The very devil, I tell, and you know, sir, a liar, absorber and disseminater of evils - a tumor, an unreasonably malignant tumor, sir, a blight on this country. President Jackson should have killed him when he had the chance, and now he is like the serpent of old. Cut off his head and still, sir, that poison of his spreads and sinks into every crevice of the Union.
WEBSTER
Andrew Jackson is no longer President, but do go on. I adore your attempts as poetics, how you save your romantic language solely for these moments of anger. Tell me more about this unfathomable Satan you've conjured in your head, whose conniving words seduce the pure young things of this nation into folly and evils. How he coos radicalism and extremity into their hearts, places unfathomable stubbornness and iron will into their brains. You act as if he is manipulative and all powerful.
BENTON
You are right. He is pathetic, tossed from grace, all chances of higher ambition thwarted and crippled. (Huffing).
By no means should he have any iota of control over the public consciousness, sir, and yet-
WEBSTER
- And yet he is here; he has the control; he holds the reins; he will not disappear quietly into the good night?
BENTON
- why indulge him so? He will continue to poison the roots of our nation, he will tear it apart. Why then, sir, is he still given leeway? Why is he allowed to stay and agonize us rest in this wrathful rampage against his own country? Why is he fawned and why do such men - men who perfectly rationally see his despicable beliefs and nature - refuse to end their obsession? Sir, what is the allure, their especial fascination?
WEBSTER
Could it be that the idea of appreciation for a man divorced of politics is beyond Senator Benton's understanding?
BENTON
Not for a man so connected to the hideous institution, sir.
WEBSTER
Good Lord, Benton, you can say its name. Slavery. It will not kill you, not yet. As a practitioner yourself, do yourself a favor and do not hide under euphemisms. And as a practitioner yourself, do the rest of us a favor and not act like you abhor the practice of slavery when in truth, you only despise the idea of the rest of the nation discussing it.
BENTON
Answer me, Webster.
WEBSTER
Was it not Senator Benton who said himself - the Cast iIon Man, no matter his politics - the purest man that had ever walked the earth?
BENTON
So in contrast, sir, to his soiled public persona.
WEBSTER
Yet you acknowledge his unfailing graciousness - and therein is your answer.
BENTON
'Unfailing graciousness.' Graciousness is not in his personality.
WEBSTER
You know his personality so well. Yes. He seems to be under the faulty mistaken impression that he is a martyr, a victimized and oppressed thing standing up for a terrorized South.
BENTON
He is blind and deaf.
WEBSTER
He is wrong. He will cross a street to avoid a single admirer, a city to avoid a crowd, and leave his own country to escape the men and women who'd love him much more if he'd simply utilize his name for a better cause. He will devote hours speaking politics with his followers and strangers, leave them with a deep set admiration for him both intellectual and personal, and come out imagining himself still to be a pariah. Is he taking it in? And there you have it don't you? Perhaps it is fascination. Perhaps we are too kind.
BENTON
We are not mean enough.
WEBSTER
And your solution? It is too late to hang him. You benefit, from it all.
BENTON
It should be easy to dismiss a madman.
WEBSTER
He is no madman.
BENTON
Then he is a fanatic.
WEBSTER
He is on your side. You complain?
BENTON
I reserve the right to.
WEBSTER
Please. Take pity, Benton - the man is dying.
BENTON
Why do you insist on having a personal friendship with someone who wishes to tear apart a country for his own ego? Dislike you as I do, sir, and I dislike you quite a bit, you are at least a Unionist.
WEBSTER
The good man sees himself as a Unionist as well, Benton. He hardly sees himself a treasonist - why, I've no doubt he sees himself as the Constitution's defender. And why not make amends - why stay so stubborn? I've been more than pushy enough to get you two to reconcile myself. Yet you hold your nose up at the idea. Should I push you on another doomed naval ship, set it on sail, and then on fire for you to see the light once more?
BENTON
It matters not what he sees himself as sir, he is at the end of the day still working to take the Union to the grave with him. I have no pity, no sympathy, no will to reconcile.
WEBSTER
Then perhaps it is no more than that there is appeal to his assurance of righteousness, his demeanor, his polite response and reply to every question and demand.
BENTON
You speak so admiringly, it makes me sick.
WEBSTER
( A chortling laugh, Webster's head whips backwards like a man already drunk. )
Forgive me, Benton. I had forgotten: you are allergic to passion.
BENTON
I am allergic to effusions on subjects that deserve no such thing.
WEBSTER
Your bitterness is temporary.
BENTON
Then so too is my admirations.
WEBSTER
But do you understand now? Are you still confused?
BENTON
(Bluntly.)
No, sir.
WEBSTER
(Coughing heavily, a sloshing sound as wine splashes over the glass.)
Hrm - ough, Christ. Benton-
BENTON
...A napkin, sir?
WEBSTER
(Sighing, wiping up.)
Yes, thank you. Thank you. My, I am old. A beautiful piece this is, the texture is beautiful. Indulgence is your nature.
BENTON
It is my nature when I wish it.
WEBSTER
Poor USS Princeton. That must have truly changed you. A shame I wasn't on it- not that I wish to die of course - but let us circle back. Come on, did you? Will you? Do you?
BENTON
I linger not outside the housings of my colleagues. I am not that sort.
WEBSTER
(In a fluid motion, Webster's hand reaches down to set his heavy book onto the floor with a thunk, wine glass balanced over its cover.)
No, no. Good man, you will do no such thing. And so, clearly I was seeing things from my shaky and unreliable eyes.
BENTON
( Smiling tautly. )
I do not understand you either, sir.
WEBSTER
Truly? Is everything a mystery to you?
BENTON
You are confounding, in the way you stick that man, Henry Clay. Coming along with him like a dog ever wanting of mutiny. Desperate to drag him off his pedestal.
WEBSTER
He has not been on his pedestal for some time.
BENTON
And still, you find yourself unable to replace him, sir. Would you prefer to have that unacknowledgable sectional infatuation given to Mr. Calhoun, or that unbridled love that Mr. Clay is recipent of, sir, than this suspension between national attraction and unserious affection you have been given?
WEBSTER
I will admit. I do not understand the people. Am I not meritable by my own terms? Am I not charismatic? Am I not respectable enough, to be voted upon? Why am I so often dismissed?
BENTON
Harrison, sir.
WEBSTER
Bah.
BENTON
You still dream.
WEBSTER
I am getting old.
BENTON
(He does not say anything, only stretching himself further, loosening tensions from his bones. Rustling sounds.)
WEBSTER
(He folds up the scented napkin Benton had given him. It smells of chamomile and apples, scented perfumes.)
Your cousin plans my ruin.
BENTON
(Benton doesn't correct the practicalities of Webster's words. Cousin-in-law. But he does refute the essence.)
So he is. So? I’m sure he’d rather listen to the most hateful insults from you, than the most profound effusions of his grandeur from myself.
WEBSTER
Only to reply with insults of his own…And that is the crux, Benton. What shall I do about it, but to let him complete his orchestration of my demise? Bow myself to the executioner's sword, wielded by a man who will slaughter countless victims of slavery, and cleanse himself of the blood by saying: 'I have done this for the Union, and this justifies all'?
BENTON
He will not kill you.
WEBSTER
Nay, I shall die from suicide, I will bend to his justification. And he shall be the one to assist me - or the one to force my hand. In what way, Benton, and do give your worldly wisdom upon this humble creature - do you think I can escape this orbit?
BENTON
I am of the opinion, sir, that for all your lamentations, you would prefer to die suffocated in it, still entrapped, than to escape with dignity.
WEBSTER
I shall choose death. Unfortunately, unmistakably, yet willingly. Are you happy, Benton?
BENTON
Sir, you choose to be burned in effigy.
WEBSTER
All of my belongings and houses and personage has been burned up and burning before and for a while now, Benton. Read it up, mark it down in your memoirs.
BENTON
You side with him.
WEBSTER
And you side with him.
BENTON
I pity your fall.
WEBSTER
All this talk! You hate him for his fanatical rampaging over the slavery question, over his treason, and yet here you are, opposing what is an attempt to undo all that division that he has stirred.
BENTON
Your compromise saves no one. You and Clay and Calhoun have doomed us all; some more than others; and now you shall doom yourself.
WEBSTER
(With a laugh, suddenly knocking the wine bottle over as he lifts one leg to cross over the other.)
It is no benefit to point and shout hypocrite now, is there? We ought to have been connected like this sooner, Senator Benton, it is a pity it took Princeton to explode for you to consider in your sentimentality to make amends. I am too old to spar like this. Imagine the banter we could have had in the '30s.
BENTON
I imagine no such thing.
WEBSTER
Of course. You dream of nothing so you can be disappointed in nothing. Even now, your benign apprehension, your disconnected disgust and dispassionate anger, how admirable, how enviable. How fun.
BENTON
The poor man speaks nonsense, now.
WEBSTER
(He gives a final snort, head flopping over his armchair to be close enough to Benton's legs as to lean into his lap.)
Do not hold this against me, Senator Benton, this is not a show of weakness. This will change nothing in my downward spiral unto hell, in a vain attempt to spare you of it. But here, I will admit: there is still a part of me that hopes your opposition shall win.