Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis

by John A. J. Creswell

I have but little personal knowledge of Mr. Davis as a lawyer. It was never my good fortune to be associated with him in the trial of a cause; nor have I ever been present when he was so engaged. But at the time of his death he filled a high position at the bar, and was chosen to lead against the most distinguished of his brethren. On public and constitutional questions, as distinguished from those involving only private rights, he was a host, and in the argument of the cases which grew out of the adoption of the new constitution of Maryland he won golden laurels, and drew extraordinary encomiums even from his opponents in that angry litigation. He was thoroughly read in the decisions of the federal courts, and especially in those declaring and defining constitutional principles.

Possessed of a mind of remarkable power, scope, and activity; with an immense fund of precious information, ready to respond to any call he might make upon it, however sudden; wielding a system of logic formed in the severest school, and tried by long practice; gifted with a rare command of language and an eloquence well nigh superhuman; and withal graced with manners the most accomplished and refined, and a person unusually handsome, graceful, and attractive. Mr. Davis entered public life with almost unparalleled personal advantages. Having boldly presented himself before the most rigorous tribunal in the world, he proved himself worthy of its favor and attention. He soon rose to the front rank of debaters, and whenever he addressed the House all sides gave him a delighted audience.

I shall not attempt a review of the topics discussed in the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth Congresses. The day was fast coming when contests for the Speakership and battles over appropriation bills, ay, even the fierce struggle over Kansas, would sink into insignificance, and Mr. Davis, with that political prescience for which he was always remarkable, seemed to discern the first sign of the coming storm. The winds had been long sown, and now the whirlwind was to be reaped. The thirty-sixth Congress, which had opened so inauspiciously, and which his vote had saved from becoming a perpetuated bedlam, met for its second session on the 3d of December, 1860, with the clouds of civil war fast settling down upon the nation. In the hope that war might yet be averted, on the fourth day of the session, the celebrated committee of thirty-three was raised, with the lamented Corwin, of Ohio, as chairman, and Mr. Davis as the member from Maryland. When the committee reported, Mr. Davis sustained the majority report in an able speech, in which, after urging every argument in favor of the report, he boldly proclaimed his own views, and the duties of his State and country. In his speech of 7th February, 1861, he said:

"I do not wish to say one word which will exasperate the already too much inflamed state of the public mind; but I will say that the Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, must be enforced; and they who stand across the path of that enforcement must either destroy the power of the United States, or it will destroy them."

For such utterances only a small part of the people of his State was on that day prepared. Seduced by the wish, they still believed that the Union could be preserved by fair and mutual concessions. They were on their knees praying for peace, ignorant that bloody war had already girded on his sword. His language was then deemed too harsh and unconciliatory, and hundreds, I among the number, denounced him in unmeasured terms. Before the expiration of three months events had demonstrated his wisdom and our folly, and other paragraphs from that same speech became the fighting creed of the Union men of Maryland. He further said, on that occasion:

"But, sir, there is one State I can speak for, and that is the State of Maryland. Confident in the strength of this great government to protect every interest, grateful for almost a century of unalloyed blessings, she has fomented no agitation; she has done no act to disturb the public peace; she has rested in the consciousness that if there be wrong the Congress of the United States will remedy it; and that none exists which revolution would not aggravate.

"Mr. Speaker, I am here this day to speak, and I say that I do speak, for the people of Maryland, who are loyal to the United States; and that when my judgment is contested, I appeal to the people for its accuracy, and I am ready to maintain it before them.

"In Maryland we are dull, and cannot comprehend the right of secession. We do not recognize the right to make a revolution by a vote. We do not recognize the right of Maryland to repeal the Constitution of the United States, and if any convention there, called by whatever authority, under whatever auspices, undertake to inaugurate revolution in Maryland, their authority will be resisted and defied in arms on the soil of Maryland, in the name and by the authority of the Constitution of the United States."

In January, 1861, the ensign of the Republic, while covering a mission of mercy, was fired on by traitors. In February Jefferson Davis said, at Stevenson, Alabama, "We will carry war where it is easy to advance, where food for the sword and torch await our armies in the densely populated cities." In March the thirty-sixth Congress, after vainly passing conciliatory resolutions by the score, among other things recommending the repeal of all personal liberty bills, declaring that there was no authority outside of the States where slavery was recognized to interfere with slaves or slavery therein, and proposing by two-thirds votes of both houses an amendment of the Constitution prohibiting any future amendment giving Congress power over slavery in the States, adjourned amid general terror and distress.

Abraham Lincoln, having passed through the midst of his enemies, appeared at Washington in due time and delivered his inaugural, closing with these memorable words: