remarked, for "a man to speak gracefully of himself," I shall yet have to incur the hazard of being accused by some of unbecoming egotism in undertaking to narrate occurrences of great dignity and importance, in which, though always acting a very subordinate part, I had necessarily, to some extent, an official participation. Hoping that what I shall now attempt to impart will at least receive a liberal interpretation, I shall proceed to the task before me.

As would be naturally expected, I shall essay, as a preliminary proceeding, to describe, in as concise a manner as I can, and with as much impartiality, I trust, as if he had lived a thousand years ago, the personage whom the accidents of public life had now given me for a senatorial colleague. Mr. Davis was born, as I have repeatedly heard from his own lips, in the State of Kentucky, where he was afterward in part educated. His boyish days were spent chiefly in the State of Mississippi, whence he was sent, in due season, to West Point, as a cadet of that institution. On graduating there, he joined the regular army, as is usual in such cases, and I saw him first in the city of Vicksburg, more than thirty years ago, as Lieutenant Davis. He was then a young man of modest and pleasing aspect and manners, but gave slight indications of any abilities likely to lead to future distinction. He married, left the army, and settled himself on a plantation of respectable dimensions in the southern part of the County of Warren, some twenty miles from the city of Vicksburg, where he has constantly resided since, until he became President of the Confederate States. I saw him rarely after his retirement, being myself a good deal

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engaged at this period in professional and other pursuits; but I have learned that Mr. Davis lived a very secluded and studious life for a series of years, until about the year 1843 he visited the city of Jackson as delegate to a Democratic Convention; during the session of which body I met him once more, and heard from his lips a formal and elaborate eulogy upon Mr. Calhoun's character and principles, which impressed the Convention very favorably indeed. In 1844, Mr. Davis and myself, as Democratic co-electoral candidates upon the Polk and Dallas presi dential ticket, traversed the State of Mississippi together, and addressed in connection numerous large popular assemblages, by whom, in general, he was most kindly and respectfully received, and attentively listened to. He was afterward nominated for Congress, and elected to a seat in the House of Representatives, which he occupied for several months of one session only, having been chosen, in his absence at Washington, colonel of a new volunteer regiment which had been a short time before raised in Mississippi for the Mexican War, which was then in progress. The regiment which Mr. Davis commanded as colonel won much éclat both at Monterey and Buenavista, at the latter of which places he was severely wounded in the foot, and, returning home on a visit, Governor A. G. Brown, with general popular approval, appointed him to the seat in the United States Senate from the State of Mississippi, which had recently become vacant by reason of the decease of General Speight. Mr. Davis and myself journeyed to Washington City together in the autumn of 1847, and arrived there several days before the session of Congress commenced. Very soon

' after taking our seats as senators from the same state, it became apparent that serious incompatibilities, both of taste and temper, as well as exceedingly conflicting views of men and measures, forbade all reasonable hope of our being able to harmonize as would have been every way so desirable. My opinion of Mr. Davis then was pretty much as it is at present, and may be expressed in a few words. He is, in the ordinary sense of those terms, a high-minded and well-bred man. In domestic life, I do not doubt that he is amiable and exemplary. In his temper, as displayed on public occasions, he is arbitrary and exacting His personal ambition is most intense and exorbitant. He is overtenacious alike in his public resolves and in his personal partialities and prejudices. He doubtless always intends to do right, but is often in gross error, both as to men and to affairs. His disposition, naturally irritable and unquiet, has been much sharpened and embittered of late years by long-continued and severe nervous disease, and by numerous disappointments. His intellect is certainly above mediocrity, both in strength and activity, and his general literary attainments are respectable; but it will be admitted by all who have approached him nearly, and who are themselves competent to judge, that his mind is not at all remarkable either for comprehensive force or for a rich fecundity of ideas. With the particular branches of science belonging to a strictly military education he is more than ordinarily familiar; in other departments of learning he is decidedly deficient. As a party tactician, he is astute, subtle, and plausible; but he is sadly deficient in judgment, in a politic turn for conciliation, and in the exercise of a liberal allowance for

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trivial differences of opinion. His public course is about as consistent as could be well expected among politicians more solicitous of obeying party obligations and securing personal advancement, than of maintaining principles and promoting the public welfare. Upon the whole, those who have judged him capable of originating a grand revolutionary movement, and of conducting it forward to success, are as much in error as are those, if there be any, who suppose him capable of such cold-blooded and cruel. atrocities as those which have been of late so trippingly attributed to him.

One of the most agreeable reminiscences of my past public life is the first interview which occurred in Washington City about this time between the Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson and myself. I saw this gentleman first in the spring of 1847. When we met a few months afterward, and just before the assemblage of the Congress of 1847, '8, Mr. Dickinson did me the honor of submitting to my consideration the following resolutions, which he informed me he had previously laid before General Cass, then the acknowledged leader of the Democratic party in Congress, and I learned from him also that this gentleman had heartily endorsed the same:

"Resolved, That true policy requires the government of the United States to strengthen its political relations upon this continent by the annexation of such contiguous territory as may conduce to that end, and can be justly obtained; and that neither in such acquisition, nor in the territorial organization thereof, can any conditions be constitutionally imposed, or institutions be provided for or established inconsistent with the rights of the people thereof

to form a free sovereign state, with the powers and privileges of the original members of the confederacy.

"Resolved, That in organizing a territorial government for territory belonging to the United States, the principles of self-government upon which our federative system rests will be best promoted, the true spirit and meaning of the Constitution be observed, and the confederacy strengthened, by leaving all matters connected with the domestic policy therein to the Legislature chosen by the people thereof."

It will be found, on examination, that these resolutions state, in very clear and unambiguous language, the great and salutary principle of popular sovereignty and non-intervention, as it has been denominated, which was afterward embodied in the Democratic presidential platform of 1848, and which was afterward retained therein, without material modification, so long as the strength of that party was maintained, and it was yet able successfully to ward off the assailment of sectional factionists and preserve the peace of the republic. It will be hereafter seen that this same principle constituted the leading feature of the compromise measures of 1850, and imparted to them their chief value. I read the resolutions with attention, and stated to Mr. Dickinson my warm approval of them, when he told me that he had made up his mind at some early day to offer them for adoption in the Senate, which he accordingly did some two weeks thereafter, when a curious and somewhat characteristic scene occurred. Mr. Dickinson's resolutions having been presented, were then lying on the clerk's table ready to be printed, after which that gentleman, as he had already announced,