Nineteenth Century Burn

I am currently reading a book on some of the most colorful senators in the history of the United States.  Some of these men were fantastic orators, and their quick wit often seems to have displayed itself on the Senate floor in the form of some major burns on their opposing senators.

Thomas Hart Benton was the senator from Missouri in the mid-1800s.  He was a huge believer in the Union and of manifest destiny, and a tough son of a bitch to boot.  (One sentence describes, "True, he had not killed a man since his early days in St. Louis...")  As Missouri was a slave state, poor Benton became a fairly unpopular figure during negotiations for the Compromise of 1850, as he became frustrated with the requirements to only annex states in pairs of slave/free states (so as not to disrupt the balance in Congress), as he felt this was halting westward progress and was caving to sectional pettiness and not the greater good of the Union.

Blah blah, there's your history lesson.  Now time for the insults.

He had an intense rivalry with Senator Henry Foote of Mississippi, who threatened to tarnish Hart's name:

"I intend to write a small book in which l'affaire Benton would play a leading role."

To which Benton replied:

"Tell Foote that I shall write a very large book in which he will not figure at all!"

To which I replied:

"Ooooh!! BURN!"