With temporary tranquillity restored, Mr. Davis soon afterward resigned his seat in the Senate to become a candidate for governor of his state—a contest in which he was defeated by a small plurality. He retired once more to Briarfield, and there is little doubt that he at that time intended to abandon public life. However, in 1853, he yielded to the insistence of President Pierce, and reluctantly accepted the portfolio of war in his cabinet.

Only a brief summary is possible, but if we may judge by the reforms inaugurated, the work accomplished during the four following years, Jefferson Davis must be considered one of our greatest secretaries of war. The antiquated army regulations were revised and placed upon a modern basis, the medical corps was reorganized and made more efficient, tactics were modernized, the rifled musket and the minie ball were adopted, the army was increased and at every session he persistently urged upon Congress the wisdom of a pension system and a law for the retirement of officers, substantially as they exist at present.

But more enduring and farther reaching in beneficent results were those great public works originated or completed under his administration, prominently among which may be mentioned the magnificent aqueduct which still supplies Washington with an abundance of pure water; the completion of the work on the Capitol, which had dragged for years; and the founding of the Smithsonian Institute, of which he was, perhaps, the most zealous advocate and efficient regent.

Transcontinental railways appealed to him as a public necessity. He therefore had two surveys made and collected the facts concerning climate, topography and the natural resources of the country, which demonstrated the feasibility of the vast undertaking, which was subsequently completed along the lines and according to the plans that he recommended.

From his induction into office he set at naught the spoils system of Jackson, and may very justly be regarded as a pioneer of civil service reform, for he altogether disregarded politics in his appointments, and when remonstrated with by the leaders of his party, informed them that he was not appointing Whigs or Democrats, but servants of the government who, in his opinion, were best qualified for the duties to be performed. The same principle he adhered to in matters of the greatest moment, as he demonstrated in the Kansas troubles. A state of civil war prevailed between the advocates and opponents of slavery, and it could not be doubted where his own sympathies were in the controversy. From the nature of the case, the commander of federal troops in Kansas must be armed with practically dictatory powers. The selection remained altogether with himself, and he sent thither Colonel Sumner, an avowed abolitionist, but an officer whose honor, ability and judgment recommended him as the best man for the difficult duty.

How the absurd story ever originated that Mr. Davis used the power of his great office to weaken the North and prepare the South for warlike operations, is inconceivable to the honest investigator of even ordinary diligence. No arms or munitions of war could have been removed from one arsenal to another or from factory to fort without an order from the Secretary of War. Those orders are still on record, and not one of them lends color to a theory which seems to have been adopted as a fact by Dr. Draper, upon no better proof than that afforded by heresay evidence of the most biased kind. In fact, arsenals in the South were continuously drawn upon to supply the Western forts during his term of office, and at its close, while all defenses and stores were in better condition than ever before, those south of the Potomac were relatively weaker than in 1853.

Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War

Other less serious charges are equally baseless, and the historian who would try Mr. Davis upon the common rules of evidence must conclude that his administration was not only free from dishonor but was characterized by high ability and unquestioned patriotism—a verdict strengthened by the fact that contemporaneous partisan criticism furnished nothing to question such a conclusion.