He had now but one acquisition to make--to think on his legs and tell his thoughts at the same time. Extempore speakers are generally made. But Davis was a born one. He did not have that experience at the bar and in the State legislature which has been the beginning of so many famous American orators. The democrats of his county nominated him for the legislature in 1843, and his first experience in public speaking was in a stump-debate immediately afterwards with the redoubtable S. S. Prentiss, Davis then being thirty-five years old. The debate consumed most of the day. The disputants had each fifteen minutes at a time. The result of the campaign was in favor of Prentiss. As Davis, a democrat, was merely leading a forlorn hope in a county overwhelmingly whig, that was to be expected. But the pluck, readiness, and power which he exhibited in this, his maiden effort, pitted as he was against the ablest speaker of the State, astounded the auditors, and it seemed even to the whigs that the raw debater while nominally losing had really triumphed. The next experience he had is thus narrated by Mr. Knight: "Mr. Davis took a conspicuous part in the presidential campaign of 1844, and was chosen as one of the Polk electors. Before this campaign he was but slightly known beyond his own county, but at its conclusion his popularity had become so great that there was a general demand in the ranks of his party that he should become a candidate for congress in the following year." He had to receive just one more lesson as a speaker. In 1845 Calhoun was coming to Natchez. Davis was selected to welcome him with a speech. He made careful preparation, which his wife, whom he had lately married, took down at his dictation. But when Calhoun had come, after a moment or two of slowness in the exordium, Davis gave up trying to recite from memory, and delivered with grace and effect an unpremeditated speech of taking appropriateness.[126] What Mrs. Davis says of him as a speaker is so just and in such good taste, that I quote it: "From that day forth no speech was ever written for delivery. Dates and names were jotted down on two or three inches of paper, and these sufficed. Mr. Davis's speeches never read as they were delivered; he spoke fast, and thoughts crowded each other closely; a certain magnetism of manner and the exceeding beauty and charm of his voice moved the multitude, and there were apparently no inattentive or indifferent listeners. He had one power that I have never seen excelled; while speaking he took in the individuality of the crowd, and seeing doubt or a lack of coincidence with him in their faces, he answered ... with arguments addressed to the case in their minds. He was never tiresome, because, as he said, he gave close attention to the necessity of stopping when he was done.