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
"MR. FESSENDEN. I speak of it only in an intellectual point of view.
[Laughter.]
"MR. DAVIS. Then, sir, the Senator was in a Pickwickian sense when he
began; there were no threats, no intimidations, and he is just where
he would have been if he had said nothing." [Laughter.]...
While the Kansas question was pending in Congress, a sketch of Mr. Davis,
in connection with two other prominent Southern Senators, which appeared
in the correspondence of a leading journal, was extensively copied in the
newspapers of the day. We extract that portion which relates specially to
Mr. Davis. The portrait is from the pen of one who had no sympathy with
his political views:
DAVIS, HUNTER, AND TOOMBS, THE SOUTHERN TRIUMVIRATE.
[Correspondence of the Missouri Democrat.]
"WASHINGTON CITY, January 21.
"Yesterday, when Hale was speaking, the right side of the chamber was
empty, (as it generally is during the delivery of an antislavery
speech,) with the exception of a group of three who sat near the
centre of the vacant space. This remarkable group, which wore the air
if not the ensigns of power, authority, and public care, was composed
of Senators Davis, Hunter, and Toombs. They were engaged in an earnest
colloquy, which, however, was foreign to the argument Hale was
elaborating; for though the connection of their words was broken
before it reached the gallery, their voices were distinctly audible,
and gave signs of their abstraction. They were thinking aloud. If they
had met together, under the supervision of some artist gifted with the
faculty of illustrating history and character by attitude and
expression, who designed to paint them, in fresco, on the walls of the
new Senate chamber, the combination could not have been more
appropriately arranged than chance arranged it on this occasion.
Toombs sits among the opposition on the left, Hunter and Davis on the
right; and the fact that the two first came to Davis' seat--the one
gravitating to it from a remote, the other from a near point--may be
held to indicate which of the three is the preponderating body in the
system, if preponderance there be; and whose figure should occupy the
foreground of the picture if any precedence is to be accorded. Davis
sat erect and composed; Hunter, listening, rested his head on his
hand; and Toombs, inclining forward, was speaking vehemently. Their
respective attitudes were no bad illustration of their individuality.
Davis impressed the spectator, who observed the easy but authoritative
bearing with which he put aside or assented to Toomb's suggestions,
with the notion of some slight superiority, some hardly-acknowledged
leadership; and Hunter's attentiveness and impassibility were
characteristic of his nature, for his profundity of intellect wears
the guise of stolidity, and his continuous industry that of inertia;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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