Presidential Candidates: / Containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860

by D. W. Bartlett

In the Senate he at once took a high position. He was made Chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate, a position he has held during his entire term of senatorial services, and which he has honored. In the long and excited debates of 1849-50, and 1850-51, Mr. Davis took a prominent part, and always what is termed an ultra-sectional position. He was the champion of the extreme South, and made some of the ablest speeches of the entire slavery debate.

In September, 1851, Mr. Davis was nominated by the Democrats of Mississippi, as their candidate for Governor. He at once resigned his seat in the Senate. He lost an election by a thousand votes—and retired to his plantation.

Upon the nomination of Franklin Pierce to the Presidency, he took the stump for him in several of the more doubtful southern States, and with great success. His popularity before the people as a speaker was great, and his success was in due proportion.

Mr. Pierce rewarded Mr. Davis for his eminent services in the campaign by the offer of the Secretaryship of War—an office which he was peculiarly qualified to fill. He was quite successful as Secretary of War, though his unfortunate quarrel with General Scott (about the merits of which we are incompetent to pronounce an opinion), damaged his popularity with a portion of his friends. When the Pierce administration went out, Mr. Davis was reëlected United States Senator, and he has latterly been looked upon as a Democratic leader in the Senate.

In his personal appearance in the Senate-room, Mr. Davis has few equals. Tall, upright, stern, and with the bearing of a prince, he at once commands the admiration of the stranger so far as his personal appearance is concerned. His military manners have followed him from the camp into the Senate. We say this in no offensive sense, though it is true that the senator often unintentionally offends by the quickness, the savageness, and the irritability of his style and speech. This is not intentional, and though it now and then gives offence, it at the same time gives great force to the sentiment which the senator may be uttering at the time. He has a peculiar voice, keyed high, yet musical, and his words come flowing out like so many cannon-balls with the force of gunpowder behind them.

The political position of Mr. Davis cannot be misunderstood. He is ultra-southern. Not a disunionist, at all events; but a disunionist in a certain event. He stands by the extreme southern men—occupies an extreme southern position for a man who claims yet to stand by the national Democratic party. His views upon the non-intervention doctrines of Mr. Douglas, we shall quote that we may not do him injustice. He is an enthusiastic and consistent advocate of utter free trade. Nothing short of absolute free trade will suit him or satisfy him. He is also opposed to the Homestead bill, and all like appropriations of the public lands. He is in favor of the acquisition of Cuba, but opposed the Senate resolution—proposed—giving Mr. Buchanan power to make war upon the southern republics when he should think the occasion demanded it.

If Mr. Davis' position be thought to be extremely southern, it must be remembered that he is an honest, upright man—much more so than some who clamor after office; and that such a man can be trusted generally, in spite of his prejudices, to deal fairly even with his opponents. An honest man, however ultra his position, if he have intellect, is safer to be trusted with a high office, than the mere twaddling politician, who will execute the party's bidding, however iniquitous it may be.

In the great "non-intervention debate" of the Senate, in February, 1859, Mr. Davis said:

"Now, the senator asks will you make a discrimination in the territories? I say yes, I would discriminate in the territories wherever it is needful to assert the right of a citizen: wherever it is proper to carry out the principle, the obligation, the clear intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. I have heard many a siren's song on this doctrine of non-intervention; a thing shadowy and fleeting, changing its color as often as the chameleon, which never meant anything fairly unless it was that Congress would not attempt to legislate on a subject over which they had no control; that they would not attempt to establish slavery anywhere nor to prohibit it anywhere; and such was the language of the compromise measures of 1850 when this doctrine was inaugurated. Since that, it has been woven into a delusive gauze, thrown over the public mind, and presented as an obligation of the Democratic party to stand still; withholding from an American citizen the protection he has a right to claim; to surrender their power; to do nothing; to prove faithless to the trust they hold at the hands of the people of the States. If the theory of the senator be correct, and if Congress has no power to legislate in any regard upon the subject, how did you pass the fugitive slave law? He repeats, again and again, that you have no power to legislate in regard to slavery either in the States or in the territories, and yet the fugitive slave law stands on the statute-book; and although he did not vote for it, he explained to the country why he did not, and expressed his regret that his absence had prevented him from recording his vote in favor of it.

"From the plain language of the Constitution, as I have read it, how is it possible for one still claiming to follow the path of the Constitution, to assert that Congress has no power to legislate in relation to the subject anywhere? He informs us, however, that by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the full power of the inhabitants of a territory to legislate on all subjects not inconsistent with the Constitution, was granted by Congress. If Congress attempted to make such a grant; if Congress thus attempted to rid themselves of a trust imposed upon them, they exceeded their authority. They could delegate no such power. The territorial legislature can be but an instrument, through which the Congress of the United States execute their trust in relation to the territories. Therefore it was, that notwithstanding the exact language of that bill which the senator has read, the Congress of the United States did assume, and did exercise, the power to repeal a law passed in that very territory of Kansas, which they clearly could not have done if they had surrendered all control over its legislation. Whether the senator voted for that report or not, I do not know; I presume he did; but whether he did or not, does not vary the question, except so far as it affects himself. The advocates of the Kansas-Nebraska bill were generally the men who most promptly claimed the repeal of those laws, because they said they were a violation of those rights which every American citizen possessed under the Constitution.