In the long post-graduate course which he took in private under his brother, he was preparing for public life without being aware of it, as it seems to me.
He had now but one acquisition to make—to think on his legs and tell his thoughts at the same time. Extempore speakers are generally made. But Davis was a born one. He did not have that experience at the bar and in the State legislature which has been the beginning of so many famous American orators. The democrats of his county nominated him for the legislature in 1843, and his first experience in public speaking was in a stump-debate immediately afterwards with the redoubtable S. S. Prentiss, Davis then being thirty-five years old. The debate consumed most of the day. The disputants had each fifteen minutes at a time. The result of the campaign was in favor of Prentiss. As Davis, a democrat, was merely leading a forlorn hope in a county overwhelmingly whig, that was to be expected. But the pluck, readiness, and power which he exhibited in this, his maiden effort, pitted as he was against the ablest speaker of the State, astounded the auditors, and it seemed even to the whigs that the raw debater while nominally losing had really triumphed.
The next experience he had is thus narrated by Mr. Knight: “Mr. Davis took a conspicuous part in the presidential campaign of 1844, and was chosen as one of the Polk electors. Before this campaign he was but slightly known beyond his own county, but at its conclusion his popularity had become so great that there was a general demand in the ranks of his party that he should become a candidate for congress in the following year.”
He had to receive just one more lesson as a speaker. In 1845 Calhoun was coming to Natchez. Davis was selected to welcome him with a speech. He made careful preparation, which his wife, whom he had lately married, took down at his dictation. But when Calhoun had come, after a moment or two of slowness in the exordium, Davis gave up trying to recite from memory, and delivered with grace and effect an unpremeditated speech of taking appropriateness.[126]
What Mrs. Davis says of him as a speaker is so just and in such good taste, that I quote it:
“From that day forth no speech was ever written for delivery. Dates and names were jotted down on two or three inches of paper, and these sufficed. Mr. Davis’s speeches never read as they were delivered; he spoke fast, and thoughts crowded each other closely; a certain magnetism of manner and the exceeding beauty and charm of his voice moved the multitude, and there were apparently no inattentive or indifferent listeners. He had one power that I have never seen excelled; while speaking he took in the individuality of the crowd, and seeing doubt or a lack of coincidence with him in their faces, he answered ... with arguments addressed to the case in their minds. He was never tiresome, because, as he said, he gave close attention to the necessity of stopping when he was done.
Only so much of his eloquence has survived as was indifferently reported. The spirit of the graceful periods was lost. He was a parenthetical speaker, which was a defect in a written oration, but it did not, when uttered, impair the quality of his speeches, but rather added a charm when accentuated by his voice and commended by his gracious manner. At first his style was ornate, and poetry and fiction were pressed from his crowded memory into service; but it was soon changed into a plain and stronger cast of what he considered to be, and doubtless was, the higher kind of oratory. His extempore addresses are models of grace and ready command of language.”[127]
He took his seat in the United States house of representatives in December, 1845, he and Toombs, who was two years younger, beginning their congressional careers together. Davis made a very creditable speech on the Oregon question early in February, 1846. He was a modest member, but he did all the duties of his place with praiseworthy diligence.
Although he was a thoroughgoing anti-tariff democrat and Webster a pro-tariff whig leader, he could not be induced to join in the effort to make political capital for his own party by blackening the name of Webster. The minority report of the committee which investigated the conduct of Webster, as secretary of state, was really made by Davis, who was one of the committee. The stand taken by the latter, and the true presentation which he made, at last got the whole committee to adopt his report substantially. Webster was greatly pleased with it.
Early in May, 1846, Taylor had won his first victories. On the 29th Davis, supporting joint resolutions of thanks to the general and his army, made reply to what he deemed were unwarranted reflections upon West Point. He emphasized Taylor’s operations as proving the high value of military education. He asked Sawyer of Ohio, who had disparaged the Academy, if the latter believed that a blacksmith or tailor could have done such good work. Thus, without knowing it, he trod upon the toes of two members of the house; for Sawyer had been a blacksmith, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, a tailor. Sawyer took it good-humoredly, but Johnson, the next day, passionately defended tailors, and used language very offensive to Davis, implying that the latter belonged to “an illegitimate, swaggering, bastard, scrub aristocracy.” To this the latter, justly indignant, rejoined with cutting severity. There was never any love lost between the two afterwards. When President Lincoln was murdered Johnson, succeeding him, committed the unspeakable folly of offering by proclamation $100,000 reward for the arrest of Davis as accessory. When Davis, having been captured, was told of the proclamation he said to General Wilson—hoping his words would be reported to Johnson—that there was one man in the United States who knew the charge was false; this was the man who had signed the proclamation; “for,” said Davis, “he at least knew that I preferred Lincoln to himself.”