In 1844 Judge Dargan was elected to the state senate from Mobile, which position he held just a year, when he resigned to enter into a congressional race against Honorable William D. Dunn, one of the most popular and polished men of the district. In their combats on the stump the difference between the two candidates was most novel. Dunn was neat and tidy of dress, polished in manner, and elegant of diction, while Dargan was indifferent alike to all these, and rather prided himself on their absence from his being. The advantage lay on the side of Dargan from the fact that in spite of his rough and uncouth exterior he was a forceful speaker, and commanded the attention and confidence of the most thoughtful, while his disregard for dress and apparent contempt for polish won the plaudits of the rustic population. In debate he was Dunn's equal, if not his superior, while the difference between them otherwise made him the successful competitor. One session in the National Congress seemed to gratify his ambition, for at its expiration he declined a renomination. Soon after his retirement from congress he was elected by the legislature to the supreme bench of the state, and two years later, on the retirement of Judge Collier from the chief justiceship, Judge Dargan was elected to succeed him. After serving three years in this function he resigned and resumed private practice of the law in Mobile. Here Judge Dargan was profitably engaged in the practice of the law when the war began, and in 1861 he was chosen to represent Mobile in the constitutional convention. No sphere could have been better suited to his taste and qualifications, and he was ranked one of the foremost members of that body. Judge Dargan's career in the public service closed with his membership in the Confederate Congress, where he served for two years only, and declined further service in that capacity. It was while he was a member of the Congress of the Confederacy that Governor Foote of Tennessee, a member of the same body, took occasion to reflect seriously on Judge Dargan in the course of some remarks on the floor, when Dargan promptly sprang to his feet, seized Foote in the collar, with his right hand upraised, as though he would strike him. But before violence was demonstrated, the matter was adjusted and the incident closed. This led to an animadversion on the part of E. A. Pollard, in one of his works on the Civil War, on Judge Dargan, whom Pollard accused of raising a bowie knife with the view of stabbing Governor Foote. This reckless writer was descanting at length on the inferior type of manhood in the Confederate Congress, and made the statement just given in substantiation of his charge. The truth is that Judge Dargan was at his desk writing when Governor Foote assailed him in the speech, and when he arose he still held the pen in his fingers.