The Life of Jefferson DavisAlfriend, Frank H. (Frank Heath)
History
The Life of Jefferson Davis
Alfriend, Frank H. (Frank Heath)
Confederate States of America; Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
A striking feature of these two speeches, as, indeed, of all Mr. Davis'
Congressional speeches, is the strong and outspoken _national_ feeling
which pervades them. It is a part of the history of these times, that
while Jefferson Davis eloquently avowed a noble and generous sympathy with
his heroic compatriots in Mexico, a prominent Northern politician bespoke
for the American army, "a welcome with bloody hands to hospitable graves."
When, a few months afterwards, the names of Jefferson Davis and his
Mississippi Rifles were baptized in blood amid those frowning redoubts at
Monterey, and when, upon the ensanguined plain of Buena Vista, he fell
stricken in the very moment of victory, just as his genius and the valor
of his comrades had broken that last, furious onset of the Mexican
lancers, New England and her leaders stood indifferent spectators of the
scene.[5] Yet the same New England bounded eagerly to the conquest and
spoliation of their countrymen, and the same leaders clamored valiantly
for the humiliation, for the blood even, of Jefferson Davis, _as a traitor
and a rebel. Quosque tandem._
An interesting sequel of this speech was the debate, which it occasioned
two days afterwards, between Mr. Davis and Andrew Johnson, now President
of the United States. Mr. Johnson, who boasts so proudly of his plebeian
origin, and is yet said to be morbidly sensitive of the slightest allusion
to it by others, excepted to Mr. Davis' reference to the "tailor and
blacksmith," warmly eulogized those callings and mechanical avocations in
general, and took occasion to expatiate extensively upon the virtue and
intelligence of the masses. Mr. Davis, whose language is clearly not
susceptible of any interpretation disparaging to "blacksmiths and
tailors," disclaimed the imputation, saying that he had designed merely to
illustrate his argument, that the profession of arms, to be understood,
must be studied, and that a mechanic could no more fill the place of an
educated soldier, than could the latter supply the qualifications of the
former. Mr. Johnson, however, was resolved to seize the opportunity for a
panegyric upon the populace, and no explanations could avail. The _Globe_
reports this debate as, "in all its stages, not being of an entirely
pleasant nature."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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