This speech—one of the most eloquent he has ever made—was received by his audience with unbounded enthusiasm, and was approvingly noticed by the press of both sections.
At Mississippi City he delivered an address in explanation of his personal course, and in vindication of the administration of which he had lately been a member. He had obeyed the will of Mississippi, respecting the legislation of 1850, though against his convictions, and, in the present disorders in Kansas, he saw the fruits of the unwise substitution of expediency for principle. Of President Pierce he could speak only in terms of eulogy, defended his vetoes of bills “for internal improvements and eleemosynary purposes,” depicting, in passages of rare and fervent eloquence, his heroic adherence to the Constitution, elevated patriotism, and distinguished virtues. Contrasting the conduct of the Fillmore and Pierce administrations concerning the Cuban question, he avowed his belief that Cuba would then be in possession of the United States had Congress sustained General Pierce in his prompt and decided suggestions as to the Black Warrior difficulty.
Mr. Davis expressed his approbation of the course pursued by the late administration with reference to Nicaragua. “Unlawful expeditions” should be suppressed, though he should rejoice at the establishment of American institutions in Central America, and maintained the right of the United States to a paramount influence in the affairs of the continent, with which European interference should be, at all times, promptly checked.
When the Thirty-fifth Congress assembled in December, 1857, the Kansas question had already developed a difficult and critical phase. The rock upon which Mr. Buchanan’s administration was to split had been encountered, and the wedge prepared, with which the Democratic party was destined to be torn asunder.
CHAPTER VI.
RETURN OF MR. DAVIS TO THE SENATE—OPENING EVENTS OF MR. BUCHANAN’S ADMINISTRATION—TRUE INTERPRETATION OF THE LEGISLATION OF 1854—SENATOR DOUGLAS THE INSTRUMENT OF DISORGANIZATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY—HIS ANTECEDENTS AND CHARACTER—AN ACCOMPLISHED DEMAGOGUE—DAVIS AND DOUGLAS CONTRASTED—BOTH REPRESENTATIVES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE SECTIONS—DOUGLAS AMBITION—HIS COUP D’ETAT, AND ITS RESULTS—THE KANSAS QUESTION—DOUGLAS’ TRIUMPHS OVER THE SOUTH AND THE UNITY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LOST—“SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY”—PROPERLY CHARACTERIZED—DAVIS’ COURSE IN THE KANSAS STRUGGLE—DEBATE WITH SENATOR FESSENDEN—PEN-AND-INK SKETCH OF MR. DAVIS AT THIS PERIOD—TRUE SIGNIFICANCE OF POLITICAL EVENTS TO THE SOUTH—SHE RIGHTLY INTERPRETS THEM—MR. DAVIS’ COURSE SUBSEQUENT TO THE KANSAS IMBROGLIO—HIS DEBATES WITH DOUGLAS—TWO DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF PARLIAMENTARY SPEAKING—DAVIS THE LEADER OF THE REGULAR DEMOCRACY IN THE THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS—HIS RESOLUTIONS—HIS CONSISTENCY—COURSE AS TO GENERAL LEGISLATION—VISITS THE NORTH—SPEAKS IN PORTLAND, BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND OTHER PLACES—REPLY TO AN INVITATION TO ATTEND THE WEBSTER BIRTH-DAY FESTIVAL—MR. SEWARD’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE “IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT”—MR. DAVIS BEFORE MISSISSIPPI DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION—PROGRESS OF DISUNION—DISSOLUTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY—SPEECHES OF MR. DAVIS AT PORTLAND AND IN SENATE.
Mr. Davis returned to the Senate at a period marked by agitation, no less menacing to the Union than that which had so seriously threatened it in 1850. His health at this time was exceedingly infirm, and for several months he was so much prostrated by his protracted sufferings, that a proper regard for the suggestions of prudence would have justified his entire abstinence from the labors and excitements of this stormy period. Again and again, however, did his heroic devotion carry him from his sick bed to the capitol, to engage in the death-struggle of the South, with her leagued enemies, for safety in the Union, which she was still loath to abandon, even under the pressure of intolerable wrong. Frequently, with attenuated frame and bandaged eyes, he was to be seen in the Senate, at moments critical in the fierce sectional conflict; and at the final struggle upon the Kansas question, not even the earnest admonitions of his physician, that to leave his chamber would probably be followed by the most dangerous results, were availing to induce his absence from the scene.
The opening events of the first session of the Thirty-fifth Congress, (the first incidental to the administration of Mr. Buchanan,) were far from being auspicious of the continued unity of the Democratic party, which, for several years past, the intelligence of the country had correctly appreciated as an essential condition to the preservation of the Union.