BIRTH—EDUCATION—AT WEST POINT—IN THE ARMY—RETIREMENT—POLITICAL TRAINING IN AMERICA—MR. DAVIS NOT EDUCATED FOR POLITICAL LIFE AFTER THE AMERICAN MODEL—BEGINS HIS POLITICAL CAREER BY A SPEECH AT THE MISSISSIPPI DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION—A GLANCE PROSPECTIVELY AT HIS FUTURE PARTY ASSOCIATIONS—HIS CONSISTENT ATTACHMENT TO STATES’ RIGHTS PRINCIPLES—A SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE QUESTION OF STATES’ RIGHTS—MR. CALHOUN NOT THE AUTHOR OF THAT PRINCIPLE—HIS VINDICATION FROM THE CHARGE OF DISUNIONISM—MR. DAVIS THE SUCCESSOR OF MR. CALHOUN AS THE STATES’ RIGHTS LEADER.

Jefferson Davis was born on the third day of June, 1808, in that portion of Christian County, Kentucky, which, by subsequent act of the Legislature, was made Todd County. His father, Samuel Davis, a planter, during the Revolutionary war served as an officer in the mounted force of Georgia, an organization of local troops. Subsequently to the Revolution Samuel Davis removed to Kentucky, and continued to reside in that state until a few years after the birth of his son Jefferson, when he removed with his family to the neighborhood of Woodville, Wilkinson County, in the then territory of Mississippi. At the period of his father’s removal to Mississippi, Jefferson was a child of tender years. After having enjoyed the benefits of a partial academic training at home, he was sent, at an earlier age than is usual, to Transylvania University, Kentucky, where he remained until he reached the age of sixteen. In 1824 he was appointed, by President Monroe, a cadet at the West Point Military Academy.

Among his contemporaries at the academy were Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, Leonidas Polk, John B. Magruder, and others who have since earned distinction. Ordinary merit could not have commanded in such an association of talent and character the position which Davis held as a cadet. A fellow-cadet thus speaks of him: “Jefferson Davis was distinguished in the corps for his manly bearing, his high-toned and lofty character. His figure was very soldier-like and rather robust; his step springy, resembling the tread of an Indian ‘brave’ on the war-path.” He graduated in June, 1828, receiving the customary appointment of Brevet Second Lieutenant, which is conferred upon the graduates of the academy. Assigned to the infantry, he served with such fidelity in that branch of the service, and with such especial distinction as a staff officer on the North-western frontier in 1831-32, that he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant and Adjutant of a new regiment of dragoons in March, 1833.

About this period the Indians, on various portions of the frontier, stimulated by dissatisfaction with the course of the Government concerning certain claims and guarantees, which had been accorded them in previous treaties, were excessively annoying, and the Government was forced to resort to energetic military measures to suppress them. Lieutenant Davis had ample opportunity for the exhibition of his high soldierly qualities, cool courage, and admirable self-possession, in the Black Hawk war, during which he was frequently employed in duties of an important and dangerous character. During the captivity of Black Hawk, that famous Indian chieftain and warrior is said to have conceived a very strong attachment for Lieutenant Davis, whose gallantry and pleasing amenities of bearing greatly impressed the captive enemy. After his transfer to the dragoons, Lieutenant Davis saw two years of very active service in the various expeditions against the Pawnees, Camanches, and other Indian tribes, and accompanied the first expedition which successfully penetrated the strongholds of the savages, and conquered a peace by reducing them to subjection.

Though attached to the profession of arms, for which he has on repeated occasions, during his subsequent life, evinced an almost passionate fondness and a most unusual aptitude, Lieutenant Davis resigned his commission in June, 1835, and returning to Mississippi devoted his attention to the cultivation of cotton and to the assiduous pursuit of letters. Not long after his resignation, he had married the daughter of Col. Zachary Taylor, under whose eye he was destined, in a few years, to win such immortal renown upon the fields of Mexico. Living upon his plantation in great seclusion, he devoted himself with zeal and enthusiasm to those studies which were to qualify him for the eminent position in politics and statesmanship which he had resolved to assume. In that retirement were sown the seed, whose abundant fruits were seen in those splendid specimens of senatorial and popular eloquence, at once models of taste and exhibitions of intellectual power; in the pure, terse, and elegant English of his matchless state papers, which will forever be the delight of scholars and the study of statesmen, and in that elevated and enlightened statesmanship, which scorning the low ambition of demagogues and striving always for the ends of patriotism and principle, illumines, for more than a score of years, the legislative history of the Union.

The period of Mr. Davis’ retirement is embraced within the interval of his withdrawal from the army, in 1835, and the beginning of his active participation in the local politics of Mississippi, in 1843, a term of eight years. The diligent application with which he was employed daring these years of seclusion constituted a most fortunate preparation for the distinguished career upon which he at once entered. There is not, in the whole range of American biography, an instance of more thorough preparation, of more ample intellectual discipline, and elaborate education for political life.

The trade of politics is an avocation familiar to Americans, and in the more ordinary maneuvers of party tactics, in that lower species of political strategy which, in our party vocabulary, is aptly termed “wire-pulling,” our politicians may boast an eminence in their class not surpassed in the most corrupt ages of the most profligate political establishments which have ever existed. Statesmanship, in that broad and elevated conception which suggests the noblest models among those who have adorned and illustrated the science of government, combining those higher attributes of administrative capacity which are realized equally in a pure, sound, and just polity, and in a free, prosperous, and contented community, is a subject utterly unexplored by American politicians at the outset of their career, and is comparatively an after-thought with those intrusted with the most responsible duties of state.

The political training of Mr. Davis was pursued upon a basis very different from the American model. It has been more akin to the English method, under which the faculties and the tastes are first cultivated, and the mind qualified by all the light which theory and previous example afford for the practical labors which are before it. The tastes and habits formed during those eight years of retirement have adhered to Mr. Davis in his subsequent life. When not engrossed by the absorbing cares of state, he has, with rare enthusiasm and satisfaction, resorted to those refining pleasures which are accessible only to intellects which have known the elevating influences of culture.

Emerging from his seclusion in 1843, when the initiatory measures of party organization were in course of preparation for the gubernatorial canvass of that year and the Presidential campaign of the next, he immediately assumed a prominent position among the leaders of the Democratic party in Mississippi. At this time, probably, no state in the Union, of equal population, excelled Mississippi in the number and distinction of her brilliant politicians. Especially was this true of Vicksburg, and of the general neighborhood in which Mr. Davis resided.[3] The genius of Seargent S. Prentiss was then in its meridian splendor, and his reputation and popularity were coËxtensive with the Union. Besides Prentiss were Foote, Thompson, Claiborne, Gholson, Brown, and many others, all comparatively young men, who have since achieved professional or political distinction. The appearance of Mr. Davis was soon recognized as the addition of a star of no unworthy effulgence to this brilliant galaxy.

The Democratic State Convention, held for the purpose of organization for the gubernatorial canvass, and for the appointment of delegates to the National Convention, assembled at Jackson in the summer of 1843. From the meeting of this convention, which Mr. Davis attended as a delegate, may be dated the beginning of his political life. In the course of its deliberations he delivered his first public address, which immediately attracted toward him much attention, and a most partial consideration by his party associates. The occasion is interesting from this circumstance, and as indicating that consistent political bias which, beginning in early manhood, constituted the controlling inspiration of a long career of eminent public service. The undoubted preference of the convention, as of an overwhelming majority of the masses of the Southern Democracy, was for Mr. Van Buren, and its entire action in the selection of delegates, and formal expressions of feeling, was in accordance with this well-ascertained preference. To a proposition instructing the delegates to the National Convention, to support the nomination of Mr. Van Buren so long as there was a reasonable hope of his selection by the party, Mr. Davis proposed an amendment instructing the delegates to support Mr. Calhoun as the second choice of the Democracy of Mississippi, in the event of such a contingency as should render clearly hopeless the choice of Mr. Van Buren. In response to an inquiry from an acquaintance if his amendment was meant in good faith, and did not contemplate detriment to the interests of Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Davis rose and addressed the convention in explanation of his purpose, and in terms of such earnest and appropriate eulogy of Mr. Calhoun and his principles as to elicit the most enthusiastic commendation.

So favorable was the impression which Mr. Davis made upon his party, and so rapid his progress as a popular speaker, that in the Presidential campaign of 1844, the Democracy conferred upon him the distinction of a place upon its electoral ticket. In this canvass he acquired great reputation, and established himself immovably in the confidence and admiration of the people of Mississippi.This seems an appropriate point from which to glance prospectively at the political principles and party associations of Mr. Davis in his after career. Until its virtual dissolution at Charleston, in 1860, he was an earnest and consistent member of the Democratic party. To those who are familiar with the party nomenclature of the country, no inconsistency with this assertion will appear involved in the statement, that he has also been an ardent disciple of the doctrine of States’ Rights. The Democratic party and the States’ Rights party were indeed identical, when a profession of political faith in this country was significant of something ennobling upon the score of principle, something higher than a mere aspiration for the spoils of office. When, in subsequent years, to the large majority of its leaders, the chief significance of a party triumph, consisted in its being the occasion of a new division of the spoils, many of the most eminent statesmen of the South became in a measure indifferent to its success. Its prurient aspiration for the rewards of place provoked the sarcasm of Mr. Calhoun, that it “was held together by the cohesive power of the public plunder,” and the still more caustic satire of John Randolph, of Roanoke, that it had “seven principles: five loaves and two fishes.”

Nevertheless, in its spirit thoroughly national, catholic in all its impulses, for many years shaping its policy in harmony with the protection of Southern institutions, and with few features of sectionalism in its organization, it worthily commanded the preference of a large majority of the Southern people. To this organization Mr. Davis adhered until the inception of the late conflict, supporting its Presidential nominations, in the main favoring such public measures as were incorporated in the policy of the party, and he was, for several years prior to the war, by no means the least prominent of those named in connection with its choice for the Presidency in 1860.

It is no part of the task which has been undertaken in these pages to sketch the mutations of political parties, or to trace the historical order and significance of events, save in their immediate and indispensable connection with our appropriate subject. So closely identified, however, has been the public life of Mr. Davis with the question of States’ Rights, so ardent has been his profession of that faith, and so able and zealous was he in its advocacy and practice, that his life virtually becomes an epitome of the most important incidents in the development of this great historical question. His earliest appearance upon the arena of politics was at a period when the various issues which were submitted to the arbitrament of arms in the late war began to assume a practical shape of most portentous aspect. The address which first challenged public attention, and that extensive interest which has rarely been withdrawn since, was an emphatic indorsement of the political philosophy of Mr. Calhoun and a glowing panegyric upon the character and principles of that immortal statesman and expounder. Unreservedly committing himself, then, he has steadfastly held to the States’ Rights creed, as the basis of his political faith and the guide of his public conduct.

If it be true that the decision of the sword only establishes facts, and does not determine questions of principle, then the principle of States’ Rights will be commemorated as something more valuable, than as the mere pretext upon which a few agitators inaugurated an unjustifiable revolt for the overthrow of the Government of the Union. Nothing is more likely than that many who recently rejoiced at its suppression by physical force, may mourn its departure as of that one vital inspiration, which alone could have averted the decay of the public liberties. Practically a “dead letter” now in the partizan slang of the demagogues who rule the hour, since its prostration by military power in the service of the antipodal principle of consolidation, it will live forever as the motive and occasion of a struggle, unparalleled in its heroism and sacrifices in behalf of constitutional liberty.

There is little ground for wonder at the total ignorance and persistent misconception in the mind of Europe, at the commencement of the war, of the motives and purposes of the Confederates in seeking a dissolution of the Union, when we consider the limited information and perverted views of the Northern people and politicians respecting the nature of the Federal Government and the intentions of its authors. Naturally enough, perhaps, the North, seeing in the Union the source of its marvelous material prosperity, and with an astute appreciation of its ability, by its rapidly-growing numerical majority, to pervert the Government to any purpose of sectional aggression agreeable to its ambition or interests, refused to tolerate, as either rational or honest, any theory that contemplated disunion as possible in any contingency. In their willful ignorance and misapprehension most Northern orators and writers denounced the doctrines of States’ Rights as new inventions—as innovations upon the faith of the fathers of the Republic—and professed to regard the most enlightened and patriotic statesmen of the South, the pupils and followers of illustrious Virginians and Carolinians of the Revolutionary era, as agitators, conspirators, and plotters of treason against the Union. Upon the score of antiquity, States’ Rights principles have a claim to respectability—not for a moment to be compared with the wretched devices of expediency or the hybrid products of political atheism, to which the brazen audacity and hypocrisy of the times apply the misnomer of “principles.”

They are, in fact, older than the Union, and antedate, not only the present Constitution, but even the famous Articles of Confederation, under which our forefathers fought through the first Revolution. The Congress which adopted the Declaration of Independence emphatically negatived a proposition looking to consolidation, offered by New Hampshire on the 15th of June, 1776, that the Thirteen Colonies be declared a “free and independent State,” and expressly affirmed their separate sovereignty by declaring them to be “free and independent States.” The declaration of the Articles of Confederation was still more explicit—that “each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.” The Convention of 1787 clearly designed the present Constitution to be the instrument of a closer association of the States than had been effected by the Articles of Confederation, but the proof is exceedingly meager of any general desire that it should establish a consolidated nationality.

At this early period the antagonism of the two schools of American politics was plainly discernible. The conflict of faith is easily indicated. The advocates of States’ Rights regarded the Union as a compact between the States—something more than a mere league formed for purposes of mutual safety, but still a strictly voluntary association of Sovereignties, in which certain general powers were specifically delegated to the Union; and all others not so delegated were reserved by the States in their separate characters. The advocates of Consolidation considered the Union a National Government—in other words, a centralized power—to which the several States occupied the relation of separate provinces.

The famous resolutions of ’98, adopted respectively by the Virginia and Kentucky Legislatures, were the formal declarations of principles upon which the States’ Rights party was distinctly organized under Mr. Jefferson, whom it successfully supported for the Presidency against the elder Adams at the expiration of the term of the latter. With the progress of time the practical significance of these opposing principles became more and more apparent, and their respective followers strove, with constantly-increasing energy, to make their party creed paramount in the policy of the Government. A majority of the Northern people embraced the idea of a perpetual Union, whose authority was supreme over all the States, and regulated by the will of a numerical majority, which majority, it should be observed, they had already secured, and were yearly increasing in an enormous ratio. The South, in the course of years, with even more unanimity, clung to the idea of State Sovereignty, and the interpretation of the Government as one of limited powers, as its shield and bulwark against the Northern majority in the collision which it was foreseen the aggressive spirit of the latter would eventually occasion.

A common and totally erroneous impression of the Northern mind is that John C. Calhoun invented the idea of State Sovereignty for selfish and unpatriotic designs, and as the pretext of a morbid hatred to the Union. That eminent statesman and sincere patriot never asserted any claim to the paternity of the faith which he professed. It is true that, in a certain sense, he was the founder of the States’ Rights party as it existed in his day, and which survived him to make a last unsuccessful struggle to save first the Union, and, failing in that, to rescue the imperiled liberties of the South. During the eventful life of Mr. Calhoun the question of the relative powers of the Federal and State Governments assumed a more practical bearing than before, and his far-reaching sagacity was illustrated in his efforts to avert the impending evils of consolidation. He was the authoritative exponent and revered leader of the votaries of those principles which he advocated, but did not originate or invent, and sought to apply as the legitimate and safe solution of the circumstances by which he was surrounded.

Equally absurd and unfounded with the pretense, asserted at the North, of the novelty of the idea of State Sovereignty and its incompatibility with the spirit of the Constitution, was the charge so persistently iterated against Mr. Calhoun and his followers, of disunionism; of a restless, morbid discontent, which sought continually revenge for imaginary wrongs in a dissolution of the Union. To the contrary we have the irrefutable arguments of Mr. Calhoun himself in favor of the superior efficacy of the States’ Rights interpretation, as an agency for the preservation of the Union as it was designed to exist by its authors. So far from having an anarchical or disorganizing tendency, he, on all occasions, maintained that his theory was “the only solid foundation of our system and the Union itself.”

To this faith the public life of Jefferson Davis has been dedicated. For more than twenty years he sought to illustrate it in the realization of a splendid but barren vision of a time-honored and time-strengthened Union, consecrated in the common affections and joint aspirations of a people, now, alas! united only in name.

During the period of their public service together, Mr. Davis received a large share of the confidence and regard of Mr. Calhoun, and when the death of the latter deprived the South of the counsels of an illustrious public servant, Mr. Davis, though comparatively a young man, stood foremost as heir to the mantle of the great apostle of States’ Rights.[4]