Passion and Principle: John and Jessie Fremont, the Couple Whose Power, Politics, and Love Shaped Nineteenth-Century AmericaJohn Charles Frmont was the illegitimate child of a Virginia aristocrat and a working class French immigrant; Jessie Benton was the daughter of the most powerful pre Civil War U. S. senator, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and, her gender notwithstanding, had been groomed as much as any young man to be president. Senator Benton unwittingly brought the two together, never imagining that his daughter would fall in love with Frmont. Despite their