death inflicted a blow from which he did not finally recover for many years. The winter following the death of his wife was spent in Havana and at Washington, and in the spring of 1836 he returned to Mississippi to take up with his brother, Joseph, the threads of a new life, the influence of which upon his future destiny has never been properly estimated. III. His Life at Briarfield Joseph Davis was in many respects a remarkable man. Educated for the bar, he abandoned the practice of law, after a successful career, when he was still a young man, and embarked in the business of cotton planting. He succeeded, acquired two large plantations known as "The Hurricane" and "Briarfield," and soon became a wealthy man. But he was something more than a rich cotton planter. He was a man of great strength and force of character, a student possessed of a vast fund of information, and a clear and logical reasoner. He read much and thought deeply, if not always correctly, along the lines of political government and economic science. Always refusing to take an active part in politics, it was, nevertheless, a subject in which he was deeply interested. He was partially in sympathy with the principles of the democratic party, but in that academic, strict and literal construction of the Constitution and upon the question of state rights he occupied a position far in advance of that political organization--a position even beyond that assumed by Mr. Calhoun in his advocacy of the doctrine of nullification. [Illustration: Jefferson Davis at Thirty-five]