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JEFFERSON DAVIS.

S the formal and responsible head of the rebellion, although not especially prominent in bringing it about, Jefferson Davis will occupy a marked ́position in the history of this eventful century. He was born June third, 1808, in a part of Christian County, Kentucky, which now forms Todd County. Shortly after his birth, his father, Samuel Davis, who was from Georgia and had served in the Revolution in the mounted forces of that State, removed with his family to Mississippi, and settled in Wilkinson County, near the town of Woodville. Here young Davis received an academical education, and at the proper age was sent to Transylvania College, Lexington, Kentucky, which he left in 1824 to enter the Military Academy at West-Point, from which he graduated in 1828, being the twenty-eighth in a class of fifty-three.

He was appointed brevet second lieutenant, and remained about seven years in the army, during which time he served as an infantry and staff-officer on the north-western frontier during the Black Hawk war of 1831-2. From this he was promoted to be first lieutenant of dragoons, and was employed in that capacity, in 1834, in operations against the Pawnees, Camanches, and other Indian tribes. In June, of the following year, he resigned his commission and returned to Mississippi, betaking himself to private life in the occupation of a cotton-planter. He continued in retirement till 1843, when he began to take an active interest in politics, upon the Democratic side, and in 1844 was chosen a Presidential elector upon the ticket of Polk and Dallas. The following year, he was nominated for Congress and elected in November, his opponent, Patrick W. Tompkins, being also a Kentuckian by birth. During this term in Congress he took a prominent part in discussions upon the tariff, the Oregon question, and particularly in the preparations for the war with Mexico. In July, 1846, while occupying his seat in the House of Representatives, the First regiment of Mississippi volunteers, enrolled for the war, organized by choosing him their Colonel, and he left Washington to place himself at their head. The regiment was already on the march for the Rio Grande, but he overtook it at New-Orleans, and led it to reënforce General Taylor, his father-in-law. In the month of September he was actively engaged in the attack and storming of Monterey, and was one of the commissioners for arranging the terms of capitulation. At Buena Vista, on the twenty-third of February, 1847, he bore a distinguished part. His regiment being attacked by a

superior force, maintained their ground for a long time unsupported, and Colonel Davis, although severely wounded, remained in his saddle until the close of the action, and was complimented for gallantry by the commander-in-chief in his des patches of March sixth. At the expiration of its term of enlistment, in July, 1847, the regiment returned home; and Davis, who accompanied it, was met at New-Orleans by a commission from President Polk as Brigadier-General of volunteers, but he declined this, on the ground that by the Constitution the militia appointments are reserved to the States, and that such appointments by the President are in violation of State rights. In the following month, he received from the Governor of Mississippi the appointment of United States Senator to fill a vacancy; and at the next session of the Legislature, January eleventh, 1848, he was unanimously reëlected for the remainder of the term, which expired March fourth, 1851. In 1850, he was reëlected for a full term, but being nominated for Governor by the Democratic party in opposition to Henry S. Foote, candidate of the Union party, he resigned his seat, but was beaten by a majority of nine hundred and ninety-nine-a proof of his popularity, for in the "Convention election," two months previous, his party was in a minority of over two thousand. Upon his defeat, he returned again to private life, in which he remained until the Presidential contest of 1852, when he took the stump in behalf of Pierce and King through the States of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana, and was rewarded by the appointment of Secretary of War. In 1856, he was again elected to the Senate, and in the following year took his seat for the term ending March fourth, 1863-a term which he did not complete.

In the Senate he took from the first a position among the prominent Southern leaders, being among the keenest and most sagacious of them all. In the Thirtieth Congress, July twenty-fourth, 1848, he voted for Clayton's Compromise Bill, which established territorial governments for Oregon, New-Mexico, and California, and submitted all questions relative to slavery therein to the decision of the Supreme Court. August tenth, the same subject being upon consideration in another form, he voted for Mr. Douglas's amendment, recognizing the Missouri Compromise line as rightfully extending to the Pacific. In the following Congress, he opposed Mr. Clay's compromise resolutions, and it was in reply to some remarks by him in opposition, January twenty-ninth, 1850, that Mr. Clay made his memorable declaration that no earthly power could induce him "to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either north or south of" the Missouri compromise line, of which line Mr. Davis had expressed himself thus: "I here assert that never will I take less than the Missouri Compromise line extended to the Pacific Ocean, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States, at the option of the owners." July twenty-third, he

moved to add to a bill enabling California to form a State Constitution the following: "And that all laws and usages existing in said territory at the date of its acquisition by the United States, which deny or obstruct the right of any citizen. of the United States to remove to, and reside in, said territory, with any species of property legally held in any of the States of the Union, be, and are hereby declared to be, null and void." This was lost by twenty-two to thirty-three. Throughout the long Kansas struggle, and down to the time of the breaking out of the war, he continued upon the same side of the absorbing questions of the day without being specially prominent. As Secretary of War, he proposed or carried out a revision of the army regulations; introduced the manufacture of the Minié ball; brought camels into the country; and carried on some explorations in the western part of the continent.

The noticeable portion of his life, however, begun soon after the Presidential election of 1860. On December twentieth, of that year, he asked to be excused from serving on Mr. Powell's committee of thirteen to whom was referred so much of the President's Message as related to the disturbed condition of the country, but afterward consented to serve. On the twenty-first of January he took part in the most memorable scene of the winter. In company with the Senators from Alabama and Florida, he took leave of the Senate with a speech, in which he gave his opinion that by the secession of his State his connection with that body was terminated, and reäffirmed the doctrine of the right of secession, which he had long before maintained. The confederate Congress at Montgomery, Alabama, chose him President under the Provisional Constitution on the ninth of February, the day after its adoption, and on the sixteenth of the month he arrived at Montgomery and accepted the office in a brief address, prophesying peace, but threatening that the enemies of the South would be made to "smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel." On the second day following, he was inaugurated, delivering a brief inaugural of a general nature. On the seventeenth of April, two days after the first proclamation of President Lincoln, Davis responded by a proclamation authorizing privateering, and followed up this line of action by addressing to Mr. Lincoln, on the sixth of July, a letter relative to the prisoners taken on the privateer Savannah, proposing an exchange and threatening retaliation. Still deprecating the idea of war, on the twenty-fifth of May he wrote to the Maryland Commissioners, who had been appointed to urge the cessation of hostilities in order to negotiate, asserting his desire for peace, and his conviction of the right of each State to assume its own control. August fourteenth, he issued a proclamation, warning all persons of fourteen years and upward, owning allegiance to the United States, to leave the Confederacy within forty days or be treated as alien enemies. On the sixth of November, he was chosen permanent President without opposition, and assumed office under this election on the twentysecond of February, 1862. February twenty-eighth, he vetoed a bill prohibiting

the slave-trade, on the ground of the inconsistency of a certain proviso with the Constitution. On the twenty-first of May, he renewed the repudiation scheme of Mississippi upon a large scale, by approving an act providing that all persons owing debts to parties in the North should pay the same into the confederate Treasury. Shortly after his inauguration, he gave the first hint toward conscription, in a special message, suggesting "some simple and general system for exercising the power for raising armies," and recommending a law declaring that all persons between eighteen and thirty-five years, rightfully subject to military duty, be held to be in the service of the confederate States. December twenty-third, 1862, he issued a proclamation on account of the hanging of the rebel Mumford, at NewOrleans, by General Butler, for having torn down the United States flag, in which he pronounced Butler an outlaw, who should be immediately hanged upon capture, and that, until he had been punished for his crimes, no commissioned officer taken captive should be released on parole. He further ordered that all commissioned officers serving under Butler be held as outlaws, and reserved for execution when captured, and that all negroes taken in arms be delivered to the authorities of their respective States.

The influence and position of Mr. Davis as President of the Southern Confederacy are not to be traced chiefly in his messages and proclamations, which have been numerous. These have been characterized by a certain specious ability, especially remarkable in his first messages, which were obviously planned for effect abroad. His message on the seizure of Slidell and Mason, dated November eighteenth, 1861, and his public addresses during the first year of the war were careful attempts at securing the foreign aid which was at first the principal hope of the rebellion. But his later messages are more bitter and desponding in tone. The direction of the military operations on the part of the rebels have been his in general plan, and in his message of February twenty-fifth, 1862, he confesses, after the fall of Fort Donelson, that "events have demonstrated that the government had attempted more than it had power to achieve;" in other words, that his own plan of defending the whole rebel domain was a failure.

His health has been feeble, and he has nearly or quite lost the use of one eye; but he has succeeded in holding the reins with a strong hand. The policy of the Confederacy has been his policy, and its men also his men. And, as his opponents in the Richmond Congress openly charge, he has retained his personal favorites in service long after they had ignominiously failed, and has never visited the army but disaster has followed him. The task, however, has been gigantic on both sides of the line, and for a man who should combine the traits of shrewdness, plausibility, foresight, and self-will, with some military experience and prestige, it is difficult to see how the rebels could have chosen better, even if they did not choose well.

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