Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/716

712 DAVIS June 30, 1835, and having married the daugh- ter of Zachary Taylor, afterward president of the United States, hut at that time a colonel in the army, he returned to Mississippi, and hecame a cotton planter. For several years he lived in retirement, occupied chiefly with study. In 1843 he hegan to take an active part in politics on the democratic side, and in 1844 was one of the presidential electors of Mississippi to vote for Polk and Dallas. In 1845 he was elected a representative in congress, and took his seat in December of that year. He hore a conspicuous part in the discussions of the session on the tariff, on the Oregon question, on military affairs, and particularly on the preparations for war against Mexico, and on the organization of volunteer militia when called into the service of the United States. In his speech on the Oregon question, Feb. 6, 1846, he said : " From sire to son has descended the love of union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of Moultrie and Plattsburgh, of Chip- pewa and Erie, of Bowyer and Guilford, of New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Grouped together, they form a monument to the com- mon glory of our common country ; and where is the southern man who would wish that that monument were less by one of the northern names that constitute the mass?" While he was- in congress, in July, 1846, the first regi- ment of Mississippi volunteers, then enrolled for service in Mexico, elected him their colonel. Overtaking the regiment at New Orleans on its way to the seat of war, he led it to reen- force the army of Gen. Taylor on the Kio Grande. He was actively engaged in the at- tack and storming of Monterey in September, 1846 ; was one of the commissioners for ar- ranging the terms of the capitulation of that city ; and distinguished himself in the battle of Buena Vista, Feb. 23, 1847, where his regiment, attacked by an immensely superior force, maintained their ground for a long time unsupported, while the colonel, though se- verely wounded, remained in the saddle until the close of the action. At the expiration of the term of its enlistment, in July, 1847", the Mississippi regiment was ordered home; and while on his return he received at New Or- leans a commission from President Polk as brigadier general of volunteers, which he de- clined accepting, on the ground that the con- stitution reserves to the states respectively the appointment of the officers of the militia, and that consequently their appointment by the fed- eral executive is a violation of the rights of the states. In August, 1847, he was appointed by the governor of Mississippi United States senator to fill a vacancy, and at the ensuing session of the state legislature, Jan. 11, 1848, was unanimously elected to the same office for the residue of the term, which expired March 4, 1851. In 1850 he was reflected for the ensuing full term. In the senate he was chosen chairman of the committee on military affairs, and took a prominent part in the debates on the slavery question, in defence of the institu- tions and policy of the slave states, and was a zealous advocate of the doctrine of state rights. In September, 1851, he was nominated for governor of Mississippi by the democratic party, in opposition to Henry S. Foote, the candidate of the Union party. He resigned his seat in the senate on accepting the nomi- nation, and was beaten in the election by a majority of 999 votes; a marked indication of his personal popularity in his own state, for at the "convention election," two months be- fore, the Union party had a majority of 7,500. After his defeat he remained in retirement until the presidential contest of 1852, when he delivered speeches in behalf of Gen. Pierce in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana. In 1853 he was appointed by President Pierce secretary of war, which post he held till the inauguration of President Buchanan in 1857. His adminis- tration of the war department was marked by ability and energy, and was highly popular with the army. He proposed or carried into effect, among other measures, the revision of the army regulations; the introduction of camels into America ; the introduction of the light infantry or rifle system of tactics; the manufacture of rifled muskets and pistols and the use of the Minie" ball ; the addition of four regiments to the army ; the augmentation of the seacoast and frontier defences; and the system of explorations in the western part of the continent for geographical purposes, and for determining the best route for a railroad to the Pacific ocean. On his retirement from the war department he reentered the senate for the term ending March 4, 1863. In the 35th congress he was conspicuous in the discussions on the French spoliation bill, which he opposed, and on the Pacific railroad, for the southern route of which he was a zealous advocate. He was also prominent in the contest growing out of the Lecompton constitution for Kan- sas, in which he opposed Mr. Douglas, and in the settlement of which by the Kansas con- ference bill he took a chief part, declaring in a letter to the people of his state that the pas- sage of that bill was " the triumph of all for which we contended." In the 36th congress, which met in December, 1859, he was the rec- ognized leader of the democrats in the senate. His name for years had been frequently men- tioned as a candidate of the democratic party for the presidency. In the summer of 1858 he made a tour of the eastern states, and in October addressed a democratic meeting in Boston, and a few days later a similar meeting in New York. In reply to an invitation to attend a festival in Boston in January, 1859, to celebrate the birthday of Daniel Webster, he wrote a letter expressing strong Union sen- timent, and concluding thus : " I send you my cordial greetings to the friends of the constitu- tion, and ask to be enrolled among those whose