The Life of Jefferson Davis

“The progress of the enemy was arrested. We crossed the difficult chasm before us, under a galling fire, and in good order renewed the attack upon the other side. The contest was severe – the destruction great upon both sides. We steadily advanced, and, as the distance diminished, the ratio of loss increased rapidly against the enemy; he yielded, and was driven back on his reserves. A plain now lay behind us – the enemy’s cavalry had passed around our right flank, which rested on the main ravine, and gone to our rear. The support I had expected to join us was nowhere to be seen. I therefore ordered the regiment to retire, and went in person to find the cavalry, which, after passing round our right, had been concealed by the inequality of the ground. I found them at the first point where the bank was practicable for horsemen, in the act of descending into the ravine – no doubt for the purpose of charging upon our rear. The nearest of our men ran quickly to my call, attacked this body, and dispersed it with some loss. I think their commander was among the killed.

“The regiment was formed again in line of battle behind the first ravine we had crossed; soon after which we were joined upon our left by Lieutenant Kilbourn, with a piece of light artillery, and Colonel Lane’s (the Third) regiment of Indiana volunteers… We had proceeded but a short distance when I saw a large body of cavalry debouche from his cover upon the left of the position from which we had retired, and advance rapidly upon us. The Mississippi regiment was filed to the right, and fronted in line across the plain; the Indiana regiment was formed on the bank of the ravine, in advance of our right flank, by which a reëntering angle was presented to the enemy. Whilst this preparation was being made, Sergeant-Major Miller, of our regiment, was sent to Captain Sherman for one or more pieces of artillery from his battery.

“The enemy, who was now seen to be a body of richly-caparisoned lancers, came forward rapidly, and in beautiful order – the files and ranks so closed as to look like a mass of men and horses. Perfect silence and the greatest steadiness prevailed in both lines of our troops, as they stood at shouldered arms waiting an attack. Confident of success, and anxious to obtain the full advantage of a cross-fire at a short distance, I repeatedly called to the men not to shoot.

“As the enemy approached, his speed regularly diminished, until, when, within eighty or a hundred yards, he had drawn up to a walk, and seemed about to halt. A few files fired without orders, and both lines then instantly poured in a volley so destructive that the mass yielded to the blow and the survivors fled… At this time, the enemy made his last attack upon the right, and I received the General’s order to march to that portion of the field. The broken character of the intervening ground concealed the scene of action from our view; but the heavy firing of musketry formed a sufficient guide for our course. After marching two or three hundred yards, we saw the enemy’s infantry advancing in three lines upon Captain Bragg’s battery; which, though entirely unsupported, resolutely held its position, and met the attack with a fire worthy the former achievements of that battery, and of the reputation of its present meritorious commander. We pressed on, climbed the rocky slope of the plain on which this combat occurred, reached its brow so as to take the enemy in flank and reverse when he was about one hundred yards from the battery. Our first fire – raking each of his lines, and opened close upon his flank – was eminently destructive. His right gave way, and he fled in confusion.

“In this, the last contest of the day, my regiment equaled – it was impossible to exceed – my expectations. Though worn down by many hours of fatigue and thirst, the ranks thinned by our heavy loss in the morning, they yet advanced upon the enemy with the alacrity and eagerness of men fresh to the combat. In every approbatory sense of these remarks I wish to be included a party of Colonel Bowles’ Indiana regiment, which served with us during the greater part of the day, under the immediate command of an officer from that regiment, whose gallantry attracted my particular attention, but whose name, I regret, is unknown to me. When hostile demonstrations had ceased, I retired to a tent upon the field for surgical aid, having been wounded by a musket ball when we first went into action… Every part of the action having been fought under the eye of the commanding General, the importance and manner of any service it was our fortune to render, will be best estimated by him. But in view of my own responsibility, it may be permitted me to say, in relation to our first attack upon the enemy, that I considered the necessity absolute and immediate. No one could have failed to perceive the hazard. The enemy, in greatly disproportionate numbers, was rapidly advancing. We saw no friendly troops coming to our support, and probably none except myself expected reinforcement. Under such circumstances, the men cheerfully, ardently entered into the conflict; and though we lost, in that single engagement, more than thirty killed and forty wounded, the regiment never faltered nor moved, except as it was ordered. Had the expected reinforcement arrived, we could have prevented the enemy’s cavalry from passing to our rear, results more decisive might have been obtained, and a part of our loss have been avoided…

“I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant.

    “JEFFERSON DAVIS,
    “Colonel Mississippi Rifles.
    “Major W. W. S. Bliss, Assistant Adjutant-General.”

The reputation earned by Colonel Davis at Buena Vista could not fail to provoke the assaults of envy. An effort, equally unwarranted and unsuccessful, has since been made to deprive him of a portion of his merited fame of having conceived and executed a movement decisive of the battle. It has been pretended, in disparagement of the strategy of Colonel Davis, that his celebrated V movement (for so it is, and will always be known) had not the merit of originality, and besides was forced upon him by the circumstances in which he was placed, and especially by the conformation of the ground, which would not admit of a different disposition of his troops. Such a judgment is merely hypercritical. There is no account in military history, from the campaigns of Cæsar to those of Napoleon, of such a tactical conception, unless we include a slightly-analogous case at Waterloo. The movement in the latter engagement, however, differs essentially from that executed by Davis at Buena Vista. A party of Hanoverian cavalry, assailed by French huzzars, at the intersection of two roads, by forming a salient, repulsed their assailants almost as effectually as did the reëntrant angle of the Mississippians at Buena Vista. As to the second criticism, it is certainly a novel accusation against an officer, that he should, by a quick appreciation of his situation, avail himself of the only possible means by which he could not only extricate his own command from imminent peril of destruction, but also avert a blow delivered at the safety of the entire army.

In a lecture on “The Expatriated Irish in Europe and America,” delivered in Boston, February 11, 1858, the Hon. Caleb Cushing thus alludes to this subject: “In another of the dramatic incidents of that field, a man of Celtic race (Jefferson Davis) at the head of the Rifles of Mississippi, had ventured to do that of which there is, perhaps, but one other example in the military history of modern times. In the desperate conflicts of the Crimea, at the battle of Inkermann, in one of those desperate charges, there was a British officer who ventured to receive the charge of the enemy without the precaution of having his men formed in a hollow square. They were drawn up in two lines, meeting at a point like an open fan, and received the charge of the Russians at the muzzle of their guns, and repelled it. Sir Colin Campbell, for this feat of arms, among others, was selected as the man to retrieve the fallen fortunes of England in India. He did, however, but imitate what Jefferson Davis had previously done in Mexico, who, in that trying hour, when, with one last desperate effort to break the line of the American army, the cavalry of Mexico was concentrated in one charge against the American line; then, I say, Jefferson Davis commanded his men to form in two lines, extended as I have shown, and receive that charge of the Mexican horse, with a plunging fire from the right and left from the Mississippi Rifles, which repelled, and repelled for the last time, the charge of the hosts of Mexico.”

These puerile criticisms, however, were unavailing against the concurrent testimony of Taylor, Quitman, and Lane, and the grateful plaudits of the army, to shake the popular judgment, which rarely fails, in the end, to discriminate between the false glare of cheaply-earned glory and the just renown of true heroism.

The term of enlistment of his regiment having expired, Colonel Davis, in July, 1847, just twelve months after the resignation of his seat in the House of Representatives, returned to the United States. His progress toward his home was attended by a series of congratulatory receptions, the people every-where assembling en masse to do honor to the “Hero of Buena Vista.” Mississippi extended a triumphant greeting to her soldier-statesman, who, resigning the civic trust which she had confided to his keeping, had carried her flag in triumph amid the thunders of battle and the wastes of carnage, carving the name of Mississippi in an inscription of enduring renown.

During his journey homeward, there occurred a most impressive illustration of that strict devotion to principle which, above all other considerations, is the real solution of every act of his life, public and private. While in New Orleans, Colonel Davis was offered, by President Polk, a commission as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, an honor which he unhesitatingly declined, on the ground that no such commission could be conferred by Federal authority, either by appointment of the President or by act of Congress. As an advocate of States’ Rights, he could not countenance, even for the gratification of his own ambition, a plain infraction of the rights of the States, to which respectively, the Constitution reserves the appointment of officers of the militia.[9 - This Constitutional question was again raised by Mr. Davis, while President of the Confederacy, and his action with reference to similar legislation by the Confederate Congress, was in entire accordance with the reason assigned for declining Mr. Polk’s appointment.] The soldier’s pride in deserved promotion for distinguished services, could not induce the statesman to forego his convictions of Constitutional right. The declination of this high distinction was entirely consistent with his opinions previously entertained and expressed. Before he resigned his seat in the House of Representatives, the bill authorizing such appointments by the President was introduced, and rapidly pressed to its passage. Mr. Davis detected the Constitutional infraction which it involved, and opposed it. He designed to address the House, but was suddenly called away from Washington, and before leaving had an understanding with the Chairman of the Committee from which the bill had come, that it would not be called up before the ensuing Monday. On his return, however, he found that the friends of the measure had forced its passage on the previous Saturday.

This is but one in a thousand evidences of an incorruptible loyalty to his convictions, which would dare face all opposition and has braved all reproach. It is an attribute of true greatness in the character of Jefferson Davis, which not even his enemies have called in question, to which candor must ever accord the tribute of infinite admiration.

CHAPTER IV

MR. DAVIS IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, FIRST BY EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENT, AND SUBSEQUENTLY BY UNANIMOUS CHOICE OF THE LEGISLATURE OF HIS STATE – POPULAR ADMIRATION NOT LESS FOR HIS CIVIC TALENTS THAN HIS MILITARY SERVICES – FEATURES OF HIS PUBLIC CAREER – HIS CHARACTER AND CONDUCT AS A SENATOR – AS AN ORATOR AND PARLIAMENTARY LEADER – HIS INTREPIDITY – AN INCIDENT WITH HENRY CLAY – DAVIS THE LEADER OF THE STATES’ RIGHTS PARTY IN CONGRESS – THE AGITATION OF 1850 – DAVIS OPPOSES THE COMPROMISE – FOLLY OF THE SOUTH IN ASSENTING TO THAT SETTLEMENT – DAVIS NOT A DISUNIONIST IN 1850, NOR A REBEL IN 1861 – HIS CONCEPTION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT – LOGICAL ABSURDITY OF CLAY’S POSITION EXPOSED BY DAVIS – THE IDEAL UNION OF THE LATTER – WHY HE OPPOSED THE COMPROMISE – THE NEW MEXICO BILL – DAVIS’ GROWING FAME AT THIS PERIOD – HIS FREQUENT ENCOUNTERS WITH CLAY, AND WARM FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THEM – SIGNAL TRIUMPH OF THE UNION SENTIMENT, AND ACQUIESCENCE OF THE SOUTH

Within less than two months from his return to Mississippi, Colonel Davis was appointed by the Governor of the State to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate occasioned by the death of General Speight. At a subsequent session of the Legislature, the selection of the Governor was confirmed by his unanimous election for the residue of the unexpired term. Seldom has there been a tender of public honor more deserved by the recipient, and more cheerfully accorded by the constituent body. It was the grateful tribute of popular appreciation to the hero who had risked his life for the glory of his country, and the worthy recognition of abilities which had been proven adequate to the responsibilities of the highest civic trust. Doubtless Colonel Davis owed much of the signal unanimity and enthusiasm which accompanied this expression of popular favor to his brilliant services in Mexico. The military passion is strong in the human breast, and the sentiment of homage to prowess, illustrated on the battle-field and in the face of danger, is one of the few chivalrous instincts which survive the influence of the sordid vices and vulgarisms of human nature. In all ages men have declaimed and reasoned against the expediency of confiding civil authority to the keeping of soldiers, and have cautioned the masses against the risk of entrusting the public liberties to the stern and dictatorial will educated in the rugged discipline and habits of the camp. Yet the masses, in all time, will continue their awards of distinction to martial exploits with a fervor not characteristic of their recognition of any other public service.

But the tribute had a higher motive, if possible, than the generous impulse of gratitude to the “Hero of Buena Vista,” in the universal conviction of his eminent fitness for the position. His service in the House of Representatives, brief as it was, had designated him, months before his Mexican laurels had been earned, as a man, not only of mark, but of promise; of decided and progressive intellectual power; of pronounced mental and moral individuality.

Of all the public men of America, Jefferson Davis is the least indebted for his long and noble career of distinction to adventitious influences or merely temporary popular impulses. The sources of his strength have been the elements of his character and the resources of his genius. Never hoping to stumble upon success, by a stolid indifference amid the fluctuations of fortune, nor engaged in the role of the trimmer, who adjusts his conduct conformably with every turn of the popular current, his hopes of success have rested upon the merits of principle alone. He has succeeded in all things where success was possible, and failed, at last, in contradiction of every lesson of previous experience, with the light of all history pleading his vindication, and to the disappointment of the nearly unanimous judgment of disinterested mankind.

A peculiar feature in the public career of Mr. Davis was its steady and consecutive development. He has accepted service, always and only, in obedience to the concurrent confidence of his fellow-citizens in his peculiar qualifications for the emergency. From the beginning he gave the promise of those high capacities which the fervid eulogy of Grattan accorded to Chatham – to “strike a blow in the world that should resound through its history.” His first election to Congress was the spontaneous acknowledgment of the profound impression produced by his earliest intellectual efforts. The consummate triumph of his genius and valor at Buena Vista did not exceed the anticipations of his friends, who knew the ardor and assiduity of his devotion to his cherished science, and now in the noble arena of the American Senate his star was still to be in the ascendant.

At the first session of the Thirtieth Congress, Jefferson Davis took his seat as a Senator of the United States from the State of Mississippi. The entire period of his connection with the Senate, from 1847 to 1851, and from 1857 to 1861, scarcely comprises eight years; but those were years pregnant with the fate of a nation, and in their brief progress he stood in that august body the equal of giant intellects, and grappled, with the power and skill of a master, the great ideas and events of those momentous days. Mr. Davis could safely trust, whatever of ambition he may cherish for the distinguished consideration of posterity, to a faithful record of his service in the Senate. His senatorial fame is a beautiful harmony of the most pronounced and attractive features of the best parliamentary models. He was as intrepid and defiant as Chatham, but as scholarly as Brougham; as elegant and perspicuous in diction as Canning, and often as profound and philosophical in his comprehension of general principles as Burke; when roused by a sense of injury, or by the force of his earnest conviction, as much the incarnation of fervor and zeal as Grattan, but, like Fox, subtle, ready, and always armed cap a pie for the quick encounters of debate.

Among all the eminent associates of Mr. Davis in that body, there were very few who possessed his peculiar qualifications for its most distinguished honors. His character, no less than his demeanor, may be aptly termed senatorial, and his bearing was always attuned to his noble conception of the Senate as an august assemblage of the embassadors of sovereign States. He carried to the Senate the loftiest sense of the dignity and responsibility of his trust, and convictions upon political questions, which were the result of the most thorough and elaborate investigation. Never for one instant varying from the principles of his creed, he never doubted as to the course of duty; profound, accurate in information, there was no question pertaining to the science of government or its administration that he did not illuminate with a light, clear, powerful, and original.

It has been remarked of Mr. Davis’ style as a speaker, that it is “orderly rather than ornate,” and the remark is correct so far as it relates to the mere statement of the conditions of the discussion. For mere rhetorical glitter, Mr. Davis’ speeches afford but poor models, but for clear logic and convincing argument, apt illustration, bold and original imagery, and genuine pathos, they are unsurpassed by any ever delivered in the American Senate. Though the Senate was, undoubtedly, his appropriate arena as an orator, and though it may well be doubted whether he was rivaled in senatorial eloquence by any contemporary, Mr. Davis is hardly less gifted in the attributes of popular eloquence. Upon great occasions he will move a large crowd with an irresistible power. As a popular orator, he does not seek to sway and toss the will with violent and passionate emotion, but his eloquence is more a triumph of argument aided by an enlistment of passion and persuasion to reason and conviction. He has less of the characteristics of Mirabeau, than of that higher type of eloquence, of which Cicero, Burke, and George Canning were representatives, and which is pervaded by passion, subordinated to the severer tribunal of intellect. It was the privilege of the writer, on repeated occasions, during the late war, to witness the triumph of Mr. Davis’ eloquence over a popular assemblage. Usually the theme and the occasion were worthy of the orator, and difficult indeed would it be to realize a nobler vision of the majesty of intellect. To a current of thought, perennial and inexhaustible, compact, logical and irresistible, was added a fire that threw its warmth into the coldest bosom, and infused a glow of light into the very core of the subject. His voice, flexible and articulate, reaching any compass that was requisite, attitude and gestures, all conspired to give power and expression to his language, and the hearer was impressed as though in the presence of the very transfiguration of eloquence. The printed efforts of Mr. Davis will not only live as memorials of parliamentary and popular eloquence, but as invaluable stores of information to the political and historical student. They epitomize some of the most important periods of American history, and embrace the amplest discussion of an extended range of subjects pertaining to almost every science.

The development in Mr. Davis of the high and rare qualities, requisite to parliamentary leadership, was rapid and decisive. His nature instinctively aspires to influence and power, and under no circumstances could it rest contented in an attitude of inferiority. Independence, originality, and intrepidity, added to earnest and intelligent conviction; unwavering devotion to principle and purpose; a will stern and inexorable, and a disposition frank, courteous, and generous, are features of character which rarely fail to make a representative man. After the death of Mr. Calhoun, he was incomparably the ablest exponent of States’ Rights principles, and even during the life of that great publicist, Mr. Davis, almost equally with him, shared the labors and responsibilities of leadership. His personal courage is of that knightly order, which in an age of chivalry would have sought the trophies of the tourney, and his moral heroism fixed him immovably upon the solid rock of principle, indifferent to the inconvenience of being in a minority and in no dread of the storms of popular passion. His faith in his principles was no less earnest than his confidence in his ability to triumphantly defend them. In the midst of the agitation and excitement of 1850, Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, whose brilliant but erring genius so long and fatally led estray, from the correct understanding of the vital issue at stake between the North and the South, a numerous party of noble and true-hearted Southern gentlemen, furnished the occasion of an impressive illustration of this quality. Turning, in debate, to the Mississippi Senator, he notified the latter of his purpose, at some future day, to debate with him elaborately, an important question of principle. “Now is the moment,” was the reply of the intrepid Davis, ever eager to champion his beloved and imperiled South, equally against her avowed enemies, and the not less fatal policy of those who were but too willing to compromise upon an issue vital to her rights and dignity. And what a shock of arms might then have been witnessed, could Clay have dispelled thirty years of his ripe three-score and ten! Each would have found a foeman worthy of his steel. In answer to this bold defiance, Clay, like Hotspur, would have rushed to the charge, with visor up and lance couchant; and Davis, another Saladin, no less frank than his adversary, but far more dexterous, would have met him with a flash of that Damascus scymetar, whose first blow severed the neck of the foeman.

That would have been a bold ambition that could demand a formal tender of leadership from the brilliant array of gallant gentlemen, ripe scholars, distinguished orators and statesmen, who, for twenty years before the war, were the valiant champions in Congress of the principles and aspirations of the South. Yet few will deny the preëminence of Mr. Davis, in the eye of the country and the world, among States’ Rights leaders. Equally with Mr. Calhoun, as the leader of a great intellectual movement, he stamped his impress upon the enduring tablets of time.

Like Mr. Calhoun, too, Mr. Davis gave little evidence of capacity or taste for mere party tactics. Neither would have performed the duties of drill-sergeant, in local organizations, for the purposes of a political canvass, so well as hundreds of men of far lighter calibre and less stability. Happily, both sought and found a more congenial field of action.

The unexpired term, for which Mr. Davis had been elected in 1847, ended in 1851, and, though he was immediately reëlected, in consequence of his subsequent resignation his first service in the Senate ended with the term for which he had first been elected. A recurrence to the records of Congress will exhibit the eventful nature of this period, especially in its conclusion. In the earlier portion of his senatorial service, Mr. Davis participated conspicuously in debate and in the general business of legislation. Here, as in the House of Representatives, his views upon military affairs were always received with marked respect, and no measure looking to the improvement of the army failed to receive his cordial coöperation.

The extensive conquests of the army in Mexico, and the necessity of maintaining the authority of the Federal Government in the conquered country until the objects of the war could be consummated, created considerable embarrassment. Upon this subject Mr. Davis spoke frequently and intelligently. His sagacity indicated a policy equally protective of the advantages which the valor of the army had achieved, and humane to the conquered. In a debate with Mr. John Bell, in February, 1848, he defined himself as favoring such a military occupation as would “prevent the General Government of Mexico, against which this war had been directed, from reëstablishing its power and again concentrating the scattered fragments of its army to renew active hostilities against us.” He disclaimed the motive, in this policy, of territorial acquisition, and earnestly deprecated interference with the political institutions of the Mexicans. The estimate entertained by the Senate, of his judgment and information upon military subjects, was indicated by his almost unanimous election, (thirty-two for Mr. Davis, and five for all others,) during the session of the Thirty-first Congress, as Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. His speeches on the subject of offering congratulations to the French people upon their recent successful political revolution, resulting in the establishment of a republican form of government, the proposed organization of the territorial government of Oregon, upon various subjects of practical and scientific interest, and his incidental discussions of the subject of slavery, were able, eloquent, and characteristic.

The session of Congress in 1849 and 1850 brought with it a most angry and menacing renewal of sectional agitation. Previous events and innumerable indications of popular sentiment had clearly revealed to candid minds, every-where, that the increasing sectional preponderance of the North, and its growing hostility to slavery, portended results utterly ruinous to the rights and institutions of the South. To the South it was literally a question of vitality, to secure some competent check upon the aggressive strength of the North. To maintain any thing like a sectional balance, the South must necessarily secure to her institutions, at least, a fair share of the common domain to be hereafter created into States. The immense territorial acquisitions resulting from the Mexican war were now the subjects of controversy. After a contest, protracted through several months, and eliciting the most violent exhibitions of sectional feeling, a plan of adjustment, under the auspices chiefly of Henry Clay, whose fatal gift was to preserve, for a time, the peace of the country by the concession of the most precious and vital rights of his section to an insolent and insatiate fanaticism, was finally reached. This settlement, known, by way of distinction, as the “Compromise of 1850,” averting for the time the dangers of disunion and civil war, met the approval of the advocates of expediency, but was opposed, with heroic pertinacity, by Mr. Davis and his associates of the States’ Rights party. They saw the hollowness of its pretended justice, its utter worthlessness as a guarantee to the South, and sought to defeat it – first in Congress, and afterwards by the popular voice. But the sentiment of attachment to the Union triumphed over every consideration of interest, principle, even security, and the snare succeeded. Again the South receded, again received the stone instead of the asked-for loaf, and again did she compromise her most sacred rights and dearest interests, receiving, in return, the reluctant and insincere guarantee of the recovery of her stolen slaves.

The folly of the South in assenting to this adjustment is now obvious to the dullest understanding, and subsequent events were swift to vindicate the wisdom, patriotism, and foresight of Mr. Davis and those who sustained him in opposition to the much-vaunted Union-saving compromise. Yet, they were no more disunionists in 1850 than rebels and traitors in 1861. The charge of disunionism was freely iterated against them, and not without effect, even in their own section, where the sentimental attachment to the Union was stronger, just as its sacrifices in behalf of the Union were greater, than those of the North. Jefferson Davis never was a disunionist, not even in his subsequent approval of secession, in the sense of a wanton and treasonable disposition to sever the bonds of that association of co-equal sovereignties which the founders of the Federal Government bequeathed to their posterity.

His action, at all times, has been thoroughly consistent with his declared opinions, and with the earnest attachment to the Union, avowed in his congressional speeches and in his public addresses every-where. In 1850 and in 1861 his course was the logical sequence of his opinions, maintained and asserted from his introduction to public life. To save the Union, upon the only basis upon which it could rest as a guarantee of liberty, – the basis of absolute equality among the States; to blend Federal power and States’ Rights, was the grand, paramount object to which all his aspirations and all his investigations of political science were directed. Repudiating the power of a State to nullify an act of Congress, and yet not surrender its normal relations as a member of the Union, he always asserted the right of secession, in the last resort, as an original, inherent, and vital attribute of State Sovereignty. The Federal Government, to his mind, was a mere agent of the States, created by them for a few general and intestate purposes, but having in it no principle subversive of the paramount sovereignty of the States. Rapidly extending its power by enactments of Congress and judicial constructions, he foresaw, and sought to counteract, its tendency to obliterate all State individuality, and ultimately absorb into its own keeping the liberties of the people. With dread and indignation, he contemplated its progress towards that monstrum horrendum, a consolidated democracy – the Union of to-day, in which we see that the will of the majority is the sole measure of its powers.

Such was his consistency, and such his sagacity, as vindicated in the light of subsequent events, and patent to the eyes of the world to-day. Who can now doubt which was the better and more logical theory? Clay said: “I owe allegiance to two sovereignties, and only two: one is to the sovereignty of this Union, and the other is to the sovereignty of the State of Kentucky.” Thus he held to the paradox of an imperium in imperio, that obvious absurdity in our system of government, a divided sovereignty. In his ardent Unionism, the great exponent of expediency disavowed allegiance to the South, though still holding to his allegiance to Kentucky. But suppose Kentucky asserts her sovereignty, and chooses to unite with the South, what, then, becomes of State Sovereignty and State allegiance? Just here was the hiatus in Clay’s logic, and, closely pressed by Davis, he emphatically declared his first allegiance to the Union as the supreme authority; and the State Sovereignty of Clay’s conception was seen to be as intangible and unreal as the “baseless fabric of a vision.”

Far more fair in its semblance, noble in its proportions, and beautiful in its harmonies, was the ideal of Davis. In his speech on the compromise measures, July 31, 1850, he said:

“Give to each section of the Union justice; give to every citizen of the United States his rights as guaranteed by the Constitution; leave this Confederacy to rest upon that basis from which it arose – the fraternal feelings of the people – and I, for one, have no fear of its perpetuity; none that it will not survive beyond the limits of human speculation, expanding and hardening with the lapse of time, to extend its blessings to ages unnumbered, and a people innumerable; to include within its empire all the useful products of the earth, and exemplify the capacity of a confederacy, with general, well-defined powers, to extend illimitably without impairing its harmony or its strength.”

The grounds of Mr. Davis’ opposition to the so-called “Compromise” programme of Mr. Clay were far otherwise than a factious and impracticable hostility to an amicable adjustment of sectional differences. He conscientiously doubted the disposition of the North to abstain from all future interference with Southern institutions, and he detected and exposed the utter want of efficacy of the compromise measures as an assurance of protection against future aggression. He abhorred the substitution of expediency for principle; could see no compromise where one side simply surrendered what the other had no right to demand, and correctly estimated this settlement, like those which had preceded it, as but an invitation to still more intolerable exactions by an implacable sectional majority. While discussing, in private conversation with Mr. Clay, the merits of Mr. Webster’s memorable speech of the 7th of March, 1850, a few days after its delivery, he briefly, but sufficiently defined his position. “Come,” said Mr. Clay, “my young friend; join us in these measures of pacification. Let us rally Congress and the people to their support, and they will assure to the country thirty years of peace. By that time” (turning to John M. Berrien, who was a party to the conversation) “you and I will be under the sod, and my young friend may then have trouble again.” “No,” said Davis, “I can not consent to transfer to posterity a question which is as much ours as theirs, when it is evident that the sectional inequality, as it will be greater then than now, will render hopeless the attainment of justice.”

His clear, penetrating glance discovered, under the guise of a friendly and pacific purpose, the insidious presence so mischievous to Southern interests, just as George Mason, more than fifty years before, had seen the “poison under the wing of the Federal Constitution.” While the bill for the organization of the Territory of New Mexico was pending, the vigilance and sagacity of Mr. Davis elicited the most flattering commendation from his Southern associates. In this bill there was a general grant, in loose and ambiguous phraseology, of legislative power, with a reservation that no law should be passed “in respect to African slavery.” Strangely enough, this provision, though obviously involving an inhibition against the enactment of laws for the protection of Southern property, escaped general detection. Mr. Davis promptly exposed its purpose, and offered an amendment, striking out the restraint against legislation “in respect to African slavery,” and prohibiting the enactment of any law interfering “with those rights of property growing out of the institution of African slavery as it exists in any of the States of this Union.” To meet the concurrence of other Senators, the amendment was variously modified, until, as explained by Mr. Davis, it embodied “the general proposition that the Territorial Legislature should not be prevented from passing the laws necessary for the protection of the rights of property of every kind which might be legally and constitutionally held in that territory.” It is needless to say that so just a proposition, affording equal protection to Southern with Northern institutions, was defeated.

While there was little in Mr. Clay’s plan of pacification to recommend it to Southern support, beyond the merely temporary staving off of a dissolution of the Union and civil war, it embodied propositions utterly incompatible with the security of the South. Mr. Davis especially and persistently combated its provision for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the concession that slavery did not legally exist in the newly-acquired territory. His position upon the general issues involved can not be more clearly and forcibly stated than in his own language:

“But, sir, we are called upon to receive this as a measure of compromise! – as a measure in which we of the minority are to receive something. A measure of compromise! I look upon it as a modest mode of taking that, the claim to which has been more boldly asserted by others; and that I may be understood upon this question, and that my position may go forth to the country in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the Senator from Kentucky, I here assert that never will I take less than the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, with specific right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States, at the option of the owners. I can never consent to give additional power to a majority to commit further aggression upon the minority in this Union; and I will never consent to any proposition which will have such a tendency without a full guarantee or counteracting measure is connected with it.”

The parliamentary annals of the Union embrace no period more prolific of grand intellectual efforts than the debates incident to this gigantic struggle. The prominence of Mr. Davis, with his extreme ardor in behalf of the rights and interests of his section, brought him constantly into conflict with the most eminent leaders of both the great political parties, who had cordially agreed to ignore all minor issues and unite in the paramount purpose of saving the Union. Cass, Douglas, Bright, Dickinson, and King, earnestly coöperated with Clay, Webster, and other Whig champions, in the advocacy of the measures of compromise. That Davis, younger in years and experience than most of these distinguished men, amply sustained his honorable and responsible role as the foremost champion of the South, contemporary public opinion and the Congressional records give abundant testimony. The great compromise chieftain, between whom and Davis occurred such obstinate and protracted encounters in debate, delighted to testify his respect for the talents and intrepidity of his “young friend,” which was his habitual salutation to Davis. Despite the pronounced antagonism between them, on all measures of public policy, and their comparatively brief acquaintance, Mr. Clay repeatedly evinced, in a most touching manner, his warm regard for one who had been the companion-in-arms and cherished friend of a noble son,[10 - Henry Clay, Jr., a graduate of West Point, and at the time of his death, Lieutenant-Colonel of volunteers. He fell at Buena Vista.] who lost his life on the same field, upon which Davis won such deathless distinction. “My poor boy,” were his words to the latter, upon his return from Mexico, “usually occupied about one-half of his letters home in praising you.” A still more touching incident, illustrative of his friendly regard, at the moment not understood by those present, occurred, in the heat of discussion during the exciting period, which we have had under consideration. Replying to Davis, said Mr. Clay: “My friend from Mississippi – and I trust that he will permit me to call him my friend, for between us there is a tie, the nature of which we both well understand.” At this moment the utterance of the aged statesman became tremulous with emotion, and, bowing his head, his eyes were seen to fill with tears. This friendship was warmly reciprocated by Mr. Davis, and its recollections are among those the most highly-cherished of his public life.

With the defeat of those who had opposed the compromise, terminated, for the present, Southern resistance in Congress, though it did not for an instant check Northern aggression. Yet many prominent public characters at the South, and, as the sequel demonstrated, indorsed by popular sentiment, avowed themselves fully satisfied with a mere show of triumph and pretense of justice – a few paltry concessions, not worth the parchment upon which they were written. In the meantime, upon another arena, Mr. Davis entered upon a gallant struggle, in opposition to a policy from which he foresaw and predicted a fruitful yield of disaster in the future.

CHAPTER V

OPPOSITION TO THE COMPROMISE IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND MISSISSIPPI – DAVIS A CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR – HIS DEFEAT REALLY A PERSONAL TRIUMPH – IN RETIREMENT, SUPPORTS GENERAL PIERCE’S ELECTION – DECLINES AN APPOINTMENT IN PIERCE’S CABINET, BUT SUBSEQUENTLY ACCEPTS SECRETARYSHIP OF WAR – REMARKABLE UNITY OF PIERCE’S ADMINISTRATION, AND HIGH CHARACTER OF THE EXECUTIVE – DAVIS AS SECRETARY OF WAR – KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL AND THE EXCITEMENT WHICH FOLLOWED – DAVIS AGAIN ELECTED TO THE SENATE – SPEECHES AT PASS CHRISTIAN AND OTHER POINTS WHILE ON HIS WAY TO WASHINGTON

But, though the battle had been fought and won in Congress, and it was evident, at an early date, that the weight of great names in favor of the Compromise, aided by the ever-timid counsels of capital and commerce, would command for that measure the overwhelming support of the country, the States’ Rights men were resolved upon a test of popular sentiment. Accordingly, in South Carolina and Mississippi, States at all times the most advanced in Southern feeling, the opponents of the Compromise organized, as did its friends also. The issue, though substantially the same, was presented in a somewhat different form in these two States.

In South Carolina, where public sentiment was always singularly unanimous, upon all questions affecting the honor and interests of the South, and in entire accord as to the mode and measure of redress for the grievances of the States, the propriety of resistance was a foregone conclusion. The only question was, whether South Carolina should act separately, or await the coöperation of other Southern States. The party of coöperation triumphed in the election of members to a State convention, by the decisive popular majority of seven thousand votes.

In Mississippi the issue was one of resistance or acquiescence. The States’ Rights, or resistance party, embraced four-fifths of the Democracy of the State and a small accession of States’ Rights Whigs; while the Union, or Compromise party, was composed of the Clay Whigs and a fraction of the Democracy.

The Legislature provided an election for members of a State convention to consider the subject of Federal aggressions, to be held in September, 1851, and, in the ensuing November the regular election of Governor occurred. Much interest centred upon the gubernatorial contest, and the State was for months previous to the election the scene of great excitement. General John A. Quitman, one of the most distinguished officers of the army, during the Mexican war, a man of the loftiest character, a reliable statesman, and sterling patriot, was nominated by the States’ Rights Convention. Mr. Henry S. Foote, then a Senator from Mississippi, and an active supporter of the Compromise measures, was the candidate of the Union party. While an exceedingly animated canvass between these candidates was still in progress, the election for members of the convention resulted in an aggregate majority of seven thousand five hundred votes for the Union candidates. General Quitman, disappointed by such an unexpected and decisive exhibition of public sentiment, and viewing it as the forerunner of the result of the gubernatorial election in November, withdrew from the contest.

Mr. Davis, who had already been elected for a second term to the Senate, was now looked to as almost the sole dependence of the States’ Rights men, and they summoned him to take the field as the adversary of Mr. Foote. There was little inducement, had he consulted selfish considerations, to relinquish a high position, already secured, and become the leader of a forlorn hope. Though greatly enfeebled in health, and at that time an acute sufferer, he accepted the nomination. His sense of duty and devotion to his principles triumphed even over his physical infirmities, and, resigning his seat in the Senate, he entered upon the canvass.

The result was, as had been foreseen, the defeat of Mr. Davis. Mr. Foote, a man of more than average ability, and of varied and extensive attainments, whose excessive garrulity and total want of discretion disqualified him for usefulness as a member of a legislative body, or for any practical end of statesmanship, was, nevertheless, an adroit party tactician. With great dexterity he had conducted the canvass with General Quitman, by skillfully evading the real issue, introducing side questions, and thus breaking the force of the plain and statesman-like arguments of his more open and less dexterous adversary. When Mr. Davis entered the field, under all the disadvantages to which we have alluded, the election of Foote was almost universally conceded. Had the canvass lasted a few weeks, however, the result, in all probability, would have been different. The popularity of Mr. Davis was indicated by the paltry majority (nine hundred and ninety-nine votes) given against him, as compared with the Union majority at the election in September, for members of the convention. Under all the circumstances, his friends rightly viewed it as a personal triumph, and he emerged from the contest with increased reputation and public regard.

The results of these appeals to popular judgment were scarcely less decisive, in favor of the Compromise, than had been its congressional victory. It was evident that the Southern people were yet far from being ready for organized and practical resistance, and were not likely to be, until some flagrant outrage should arouse their resentment.

Mr. Davis was now in retirement, and, though abiding the decision of Mississippi, he was yet avowedly determined to devote his energies to the efficient organization of the States’ Rights party for future struggles. Yet nothing was farther from his purpose than a factious agitation. His aim was to secure for the States’ Rights principle a moral and numerical support in the ranks of the Democracy, which should enable its friends to wield an appropriate influence upon the policy of that party. He contemplated no organization outside of the Democracy, for the promotion of disunionism per se; and, in the Presidential canvass of 1852, separated himself from many of his closest personal and political friends, who had nominated the Presidential ticket of Troup and Quitman, upon the distinctive platform of States’ Rights and separation.