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ORATION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 HENRY WINTER DAYIS 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. JOHN A. J. CRESWELL. 
 
 Delivered in the Hall of the House of Ecpresentatives, 
 Fehruary 22, 1866. 
 
 WASHINGTOX: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1866. 
 
 m 
 

 AUG 6 1908 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The death of Hon. Hekuy Winter Davis, for many years a distinguished 
 Representative of one of the Baltimore congressional districts, created a deep 
 sensation among those who had been associated with him in national legis- 
 lation, and they deemed it fitting to pay to his memory unusual honors. They 
 adopted resolutions expressive of their grief, and inviti.'d Hon. John A. J. 
 Creswell, a Senator of the United States from the State of Maryland, to deliver 
 an oration on his life and character, in the haU of the House of Eepresentatives, 
 on the 22d of February, a day the recurrence of which ever gives increased 
 warmth to patriotic emotions. 
 
 The hall of the House was filled by a distinguished audience to listen to the 
 oration. Before eleven o'clock the galleries were crowded in every part. The 
 flags above the Speaker's desk were draped in black, and other insignia of 
 mourning were exhibited. An excellent portrait of the late Hon. Henry 
 Winter Davis was visible through the folds of the national banner above the 
 Speaker's chair. As on the occasion of the oration on President Lincoln by 
 Hon. George Bancroft, the Marine baud occupied the ante-room of the 
 reporters' gallery, and discoursed appropriate music. 
 
 At twelve o'clock the senators entered, and the judges of the Supreme Court, 
 preceded by Chief Justice Chase. Of the Cabinet Secretary Stanton and Sec- 
 retary McCulloch were present. After prayer by the chaplain, the Declaration 
 of Independence was read by Hon. Edavaru McPherson, Clerk of the 
 House. After the reading of the Declaration, followed by the playing of a 
 dirge by the band, Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Kcpre- 
 scntatives, introduced the orator of the day, Hon. J. A. J. Creswell. 
 
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R E ]M A R K S 
 
 OF 
 
 HON, SCHUYLER COLFAX, 
 
 SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speakerof the House of Representatives, 
 said : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: The duty lias been devolved upon mc 
 of introducing to you the friend and fellow-member, here, of Henry 
 "Winter Davis, and I shall detain you but a moment from his 
 address, to which you will listen with saddened interest. 
 
 The world always appreciates and honors courage : the courage 
 of Christianity, which sustained inartys in the amphitheatre, at the 
 stake, and on the rack ; the courage of Patriotism, which inspired 
 milHons in our own land to realize the historic fable of Curtius, and 
 to fill up witli their own bodies, if need be, the yawning chasm 
 which imperiled the republic; the courage of Humanity, which is 
 witnessed in the pest-house and the hospital, at the death-bed of the 
 homeless and the prison-cell of the convict. But there is a courage 
 of Statesmen, besides ; and nobly was it illustrated by the statesman 
 whose national services we commemorate to-day. Inflexibly hostile 
 to oppression, whether of slaves on American soil or of republicans 
 struggling in jMexico against monarchical invasion, faithful always 
 to principle and liberty, championing always the cause of the down- 
 trodden, fearless as he was eloquent in his avowals, he was mourned 
 throughout a continent; and from the Patapsco to the Gulf the 
 blessings of those who had been ready to perish followed him to his 
 tomb. It is fitting, therefore, though dying a private citizen, that 
 the nation should render him such marked and unusual honors in 
 this hall, the scene of so many of his intellectual triumphs ; and I 
 have great pleasure in introducing to you, as the orator of the day, 
 Hon. J. A. J. Creswell, his colleague in the thirty-eighth Congress, 
 and now Senator from the State of Maryland. 
 
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 ORATION 
 
 OF 
 
 nON. JOHN A. J. CRESWELL. 
 
 My Countrymen: On tlie 22d day of February, 1732, 
 God gave to the world the highest tj'pe of humanity, in 
 the person of George Washington. Combining within 
 himself the better qualities of the soldier, sage, states- 
 man, and patriot, alike brave, wise, discreet, and incor- 
 ru|)til)le, the common consent of mankind has awarded 
 him the incomparable title of Father of his Country. 
 Among all nations and in every clime the richest 
 treasures of language have been exhausted in the effort 
 to transmit to posterity a faithful record of his deeds. 
 For him unfading laurels are secure, so long as letters 
 shall survive and history shall continue to be the guide 
 and teacher of civilized men. The whole human race 
 has become the self-appointed guardian of his fame, 
 and the name of Washington will l^e ever held, over all 
 the earth, to be synonymous \\'ith the highest perfection 
 attainable in public or private life, and coeternal with 
 that immortal love to which reason and revelation have 
 together toiled to elevate human aspirations — the love 
 of liberty, restrained and guarded by law. 
 
 But in the presence of the Onmipotcnt how insignifi- 
 cant is the proudest and the noblest of men! Even 
 Washington, who alone of his kind could fill that com- 
 prehensive epitome of General Henry Lee, so often on 
 our lips, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the 
 
hearts of his countrymen," was allowed no exemption 
 from the common lot of mortals. In the sixty-eighth 
 year of his age he, too, paid the debt of nature. 
 
 The dread announcement of his demise sped over 
 the land like a pestilence, burdening the very air with 
 mourning, and carrying inexpressible sorrow to every 
 household and every heart. The course of legislation 
 was stopped in mid career to give expression to the 
 grief of Congress, and by resolution, approved January 
 6, 1800, the 22d of February of that year was devoted 
 to national humiliation and lamentation. This is, then, 
 as well a day of sorrow as a day of rejoicing. 
 
 More recent calamities also remind us that death is 
 universal king. Just ten days ago our great historian 
 pronounced in this hall an impartial judgment upon the 
 earthly career of him who, as savior of his country, will 
 be counted as the compeer of Washington. Scarce 
 have the orator's lingering tones been mellowed into 
 silence, scarce has the glowing page whereon his words 
 were traced lost the impress of his passing hand, yet 
 we are again called into the presence of the Inexorable 
 to crown one more illustrious victim with sacrificial 
 flowers. Having taken up his lifeless body, as beautiful 
 as the dead Absalom, and laid it in the tomb with be- 
 coming solemnity, we have assembled in the sight of 
 the world to do deserved honor to the name and mem- 
 ory of Henry Winter Davis, a native of Annapolis, in 
 the State of Maryland, l)ut always proudly claiming to 
 be no less than a citizen of the United States of 
 America. 
 
 We have not convened in obedience to any formal 
 
custom, requiring us to assume an empty show of be- 
 reavement, in order that we may appear respectful to 
 the departed. We who knew Henry Winter Davis 
 are not content to clothe ourselves in the outward garb 
 of grief, and call the semblance of mourning a fitting 
 tribute to the gifted orator and statesman, so suddenly 
 snatched from our midst in the full glory of his mental 
 and bodily strength. We would do more than "bear 
 about the mockery of woe." Prompted by a genuine 
 affection, we desire to ignore all idle and merely con- 
 ventional ceremonies, and permit our stricken hearts to 
 speak their spontaneous sorrow. 
 
 Here, then, where he sat for eight years as a Repre- 
 sentative of the people; where friends have troojied 
 about him, and admiring crowds have paid homage to 
 his genius; where grave legislators have yielded them- 
 selves willing captives to his eloquence, and his wise 
 counsel has moulded, in no small degree, the law of a 
 great nation, let us, in dealing with what he has left us, 
 verify the saying of Bacon, "Death openeth the good 
 fame and extin<jjuisheth envy." Remendierino: that he 
 was a man of like })assions and equally fallible ^^"ith 
 ourselves, let us review his life in a spirit of generous 
 candor, applaud what is good, and try to i)rofit ])y it; 
 and if we lind aught of ill, let us, so far as justice and 
 truth will permit, cover it with the vail of charity and 
 bury it out of sight forever. So may our survivors do 
 for us. 
 
 The subject of this address was bora on the IGth of 
 Aui^ust, 1817. 
 
 Ilis father. Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, of the Protestant 
 
Episcopal church, was president of St. John's College 
 at Annapolis, Maryland, and rector of St. Ann's parish 
 He was of imposing person, and great dignity and force 
 of character. He was, moreover, a man of genius, and 
 of varied and profound learning, eminently versed in 
 mathematics and natural sciences, abounding in class- 
 ical lore, endowed with a vast memory, and gifted with 
 a concise, clear, and graceful style; rich and fluent in 
 conversation, but without the least pretension to oratory 
 and wholly incapable of extempore speaking. He was 
 removed from the presidency of St. John's hy a board 
 of democratic trustees because of his federal politics; 
 and, years afterward, he gave his son his only lesson in 
 politics at the end of a letter, addressed to him \\hen 
 at Kenyon College, in this laconic sentence: "My son, 
 beware of the follies of Jacksonism." 
 
 His mother was Jane Brown Winter, a woman of 
 elegant accomplishments and of great sweetness of 
 disposition and purity of life. It miglit be truthfully 
 said of her, that she was an exemplar for all who knew 
 her. She had only two children, Henry Winter, and 
 Jane, who married Rev. Edward Syle. 
 
 The education of Henry Winter began very early, 
 at home, under the care of his aunt, Elizabeth Brown 
 Winter, who entertained the most rigid and exacting 
 opinions in regard to the training of children, but who 
 \\'as withal a noble woman. He once playfully said, "I 
 could read before I was four years old, though much 
 against my will." When his father was removed from 
 St. John's, he went to Wilmington, Delaware, but some 
 time elapsed before he became settled there. Mean- 
 
 m 
 
wliile, Henry Winter remained with his aunt in Alex- 
 an(h-ia, Virginia. He afterward went to Wihnington, 
 and was there instructed under his Other's supervision. 
 In 1827 his father returned to Maryland and settled in 
 Anne Arundel county. 
 
 After reaching Anne Arundel, Henry Winter became 
 so much devoted to out-door life that he gave small 
 promise of scholarly proficiency. He affected the 
 sportsman, and became a devoted disciple of Nimrod; 
 accompanied always by one of his father's slaves he 
 roamed the country with a huge old fowling-piece on 
 his shoulder, burning powder in abundance, but doing 
 little damage otherwise. While here he saw much of 
 slaves and slavery, and what he saw impressed him pro- 
 foundly, and laid the foundation for those opinions which 
 he so heroically and constantly defended in all his after- 
 life. Referring to this period, he said long afterward, 
 " My familiar association with the slaves while a boy 
 gave me great insight into their feehngs and views. 
 They spoke with freedom before a boy what they would 
 have repressed before a man. They were far from 
 indifferent to their condition; they felt wronged and 
 siirhcd for freedom. They were attached to my flither 
 and loved me, yet they habitually spoke of the day when 
 God would deliver them." 
 
 He subsequently went to Alexandria, and was sent 
 to school at Howard, near the Theological Seminary, 
 and from Howard he went to Kenyon College, in Ohio, 
 in the foil of 1833. 
 
 Kenyon was then in the first year of the presidency 
 of Bishop Mcllvaine. It was the centre of vast forests, 
 
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broken only l)y occasional clearings, excepting along 
 the lines of the National road, and the Ohio river and 
 its navigable tributaries. In this wilderness of nature, 
 but garden of letters, he remained, at first in the gram- 
 mar school, and then in the college, until the 6th of 
 September, 1837; when at twenty years of age he 
 took his degree and diploma, decorated with one of the 
 honorary orations of his class, on the great day of coin- 
 mencement. His subject was "Scholastic Philosophy." 
 At the end of the Freshman year, a change in the 
 college terms gave him a vacation of three months. In- 
 stead of spending it in idleness, as he might have done, 
 and as most boys would have done, he availed himself 
 of this interval to pursue and complete the studies of 
 the Sophomore year, to which he had already given 
 some attention in his spare moments. At the opening 
 of the next session he passed the examination for the 
 Junior class. Fortunately I have liis own testimony 
 and opinion as to this exploit, and I give them in his 
 own language: 
 
 "It was a pretty sharp trial of resolution and dogged diligence, 
 but it saved me a year of college, and indurated my powers of study 
 and mental culture into a habit, and perhaps enabled me to stay 
 long enough to graduate. I do not recommend the example to those 
 who are independently situated, for learning must fall like the 
 rain in such gentle showers as to sink in if it is to be fruitful ; 
 when poured on the richest soil in torrents, it not only runs off 
 Avithout strengthening vegetation, but washes away the soil itself." 
 
 His college life was laborious and successful. The 
 regular studies were prosecuted with diligence, and from 
 them he derived great profit, not merely in knowledge, 
 but in what is of vastly more account, the habit and 
 
power of mental labor. These studies were wrought 
 into his mind and made part of the intellectual sub- 
 stance by the vigorous colUsions of the societies in 
 which he delighted. For these mimic conflicts he pre- 
 pared assiduously, not in writing, but always with a 
 carefully deduced logical analysis and arrangement of 
 the thoughts to be developed in the order of argument, 
 with a brief note of any cpiotation, or image, or illus- 
 tration, on the margin at the appropriate place. From 
 that brief he spoke. And this was his only method of 
 preparation for all the great conflicts in which he took 
 part in after life. He never w^rote out his speeches 
 beforehand. 
 
 Speaking of his feelings at the end of his college 
 life, he sadly said: 
 
 "My father's death had embittered the last days of the year 
 183G, and left me without a counsellor. I knew something of books, 
 nothing of men, and I went forth like Adam among the wild beasts 
 of the unknown wilderness of the world. Mj father had dedicated 
 me to the ministry, but the day had gone when such dedications 
 determined the lives of young men. Theology as a grave topic of 
 historic and metaphysical investigation I delighti.'d to pursue, but for 
 the ministry I had no calling. I would have been idle if I could, 
 for I had no ambition, but I had no fortune and I could not beg or 
 starve." 
 
 All who were acquainted with his temperament can 
 well imagine what a gloomy prospect the future pre- 
 sented to him, when its contemplation wrung from his 
 stoical taciturnity that touching confession. 
 
 The truth is, that from the time he entered college 
 he was continually crami)ed for want of money. The 
 negroes ate everything that was produced on the iarm 
 
 U- 
 
ill Aline Arundel, a gastronomic feat vvliich they could 
 easily accomplish, without ever having cause to com- 
 plain of a surfeit. His aunt, herself in limited circum- 
 stances, by a careful husbandry of her means, mannged 
 to keep him at college. Kenyon was then a manual- 
 labor institution, and the boys were required to -sweep 
 their own rooms, make their own beds and fires, bring 
 their own water, black their own boots, if they ever 
 were blacked, and take an occasional turn at grubbing 
 in the fields or working on the roads. There was no 
 royal road to learning known at Kenyon in those days. 
 Through all this Henry Winter Davis passed, bearing 
 his part manfully ; and knowing how heavily he taxed 
 the slender purse of his aunt, he denied himself with 
 such rigor that he succeeded, incredible as it may ap- 
 pear, in bringing his total expenses, including boarding 
 and tuition, within the sum of eighty dollars pfer annum. 
 His father left an estate consisting only of some 
 slaves, which were equally apportioned between him- 
 self and sister. Frequent applications were made to 
 purchase his slaves, but he never could be induced to 
 sell them, although the proceeds would have enabled 
 him to pursue his studies with ease and comfort. He 
 rather sought and obtained a tutorship, and for two 
 years he devoted to law and letters only the time he 
 could rescue from its drudgery. In a letter, written in 
 April, 1839, replying to the request of a relative who 
 offered to purchase his slave Sallie, subject to the pro- 
 visions of his father's will, which manumitted her if she 
 would go to Liberia, he said: "But if she is under my 
 control." (he did not know that she had been set to his 
 
 m 
 
share,) "I will not consent to the ^a/^?,. though he wishes 
 to purchase her subject to the will." And so Sallie 
 was not sold, and Henry Winter Davis, the tutor, toiled 
 on and waited. He never woidd hold any of his slaves 
 under his authority, never would accept a cent of their 
 wages, and tendered each and all of them a deed of 
 absolute manumission whenever the law would allow. 
 Tell me, was that man sincere in his opposition to 
 slavery? How many of those who have since charged 
 him with being selfish and reckless in his advocacy of 
 emancipation would have shown equal devotion to prin- 
 ciple? Not one; not one. Ah! the man who works 
 and suffers for his opinions' sake places his own flesh 
 and blood in pledge for his integrity. 
 
 Notwithstanding his irksome and exacting duties, he 
 kept his eye steadily on the University of Virginia, and 
 read, without assistance, a large part of its course. He 
 delighted especially in the pungent pages of Tacitus 
 and the glowing and brilliant, dignified and elevated 
 epic, of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 
 These were fiivorites which never lost their charm for 
 him. When recently on a visit at my house, he stated 
 in conversation that he often exercised himself in trans- 
 lating from the former, and in transferring the thoughts 
 of the latter into his own language, and he contended 
 that the task had dispelled the popular error that 
 Gibbon's style is swollen and declamatory; for he 
 alleged that every effort at condensation had proved a 
 tiulure, and that at the end of his labors the page he 
 had attempted to compress had always expanded to the 
 
eye, wlien relieved of the weighty and stringent fetters 
 in which the gigantic genius of Gibbon had bound it. 
 
 About this time — the only period when doubts beset 
 him — he was tempted by a very advantageous offer to 
 settle in Mississippi, lie determined to accept; but 
 some kind spirit interposed to prevent the despatch of 
 the final letter, and he remained in Alexandria. At 
 last his aunt — second mother as she was — sold some 
 land and dedicated the proceeds to his legal studies. 
 He arrived at the University of Virginia in October, 
 1839. 
 
 From that moment he entered actively and unre- 
 mittingly on his course of intellectual training. While 
 a l)oy he had become familiar, under the guidance of 
 his father, with the classics of Addison, Johnson, Swifl, 
 Cowper, and Pope, and he now ])lunged into the 
 domain of history. He had begun at Kenyon to make 
 flanking forays into the fields of historic investigation 
 which lay so invitingly on each side of the regular 
 march of his college course. As he acquired more 
 information and confidence, these forays became more 
 extensive and profitable. It was then the transition 
 period from the shallow though graceful pages of 
 Gillies, Rollin, Russcl, and Tytler, and the rabbinical 
 agglomerations of Shuckford and Prideaux to the 
 modern school of free, profound, and laborious investi- 
 gation, which has reared immortal monuments to its 
 memory in the works of Hallam, Macaulay, Grote, 
 Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Nicbuhr, Bun sen, Schlosser, 
 Thiers, and their fellows. But of the last-named none 
 except Niebuhr's History of Rome and Hallam's Middle 
 
Ages were accessible to him in the liackwoods of Ohio. 
 Cousin's Course of the History of Modern Philosophy 
 was just glittering in the horizon, and Gibbon shone 
 alone as the morning star of the day of historic research, 
 which he had heralded so long. The French Ilevt)lu- 
 tion he had seen only as presented in Burke's brilliant 
 vituperation and Scott's Tory diatribe. A republican 
 picture of the great repui)lican revolution, the fountain 
 of all that is now tolerable in Europe, had not then 
 been 2)resented on any authentic and comprehensive 
 page. 
 
 Not only these, but all historical works of value 
 which the English, French, and German languages can 
 furnish, with an immense amount of other intellectual 
 pabulum, were eagerly gathered, consumed with vora- 
 cious appetite, and thoroughly digested. Supplied at 
 last with the required means, he braced himself for a 
 systematic curriculum of law, and pursued it with 
 marked constancy and success. While at the univer- 
 sity he also took up the German and French languages 
 and mastered them, and he perfected his scholarship in 
 Latin and Greek. Until his death he read all these 
 languages with great facility and accuracy, and he 
 always kept his Greek Testament lying on his table for 
 easy reference. 
 
 After a thorough course at the university, Mr. Davis 
 entered upon the practice of the law in Alexandria, 
 Mi'ginia. He began his profession without much to 
 cheer him; l)ut he was not the man to abandon a pur- 
 suit for lack of courage. His ability and industry 
 attracted attention, and before long he had acquired a 
 
respectable practice, which thenceforth protected liiiii 
 from all annoyances of a pecuniary nature. He toiled 
 with unwearied assiduity, never appearing in the trial 
 of a cause without the most elaborate and exhaustive 
 preparation, and soon became known to his professional 
 brethren as a valuable ally and a formidable foe. 
 His natural aj^titude for public affairs made itself 
 manifest in due time, and • some articles which he 
 prepared on munici])al and State politics gave him 
 great reputation. He also published a series of news- 
 paper essays, wherein he dared to question the divinity 
 of slavery; and these, though at the time thought to be 
 not beyond the limits of free discussion, were cited 
 against him long after as evidence that he was a heretic 
 in pro-slavery Virginia and Maryland. 
 
 On the 30th of October, 1845, lie married Miss Con- 
 stance T. Gardiner, daughter of William C. Gardiner, 
 Esq., a most accomplished and charming young lady, as 
 beautiful and as fragile as a flower. She lived to 
 gladden his heart for but a few years, and then, 
 
 "Like a lily drooping, 
 Slie bowed her head and died." 
 
 In 1850 he came to Baltimore, and immediately a 
 high position, professional, social, and political, was 
 awarded him. His forensic efforts at once commanded 
 attention and enforced respect. The young men of 
 most ability and promise gathered about him, and made 
 him the centre of their chosen circle. He became a 
 prominent member of the whig party, and was every- 
 where known as the brilliant orator and successful con- 
 
 1- 
 
trovertist of the Scott campaign of 1852. The whig 
 party, worn out by its many gallant but unsuccessful 
 battles, was ultimately gathered to its fathers, and Mr. 
 Davis led off in the American movement. He was 
 elected successively to the thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth, and 
 thirty-sixth Congresses by the American party from 
 the fourth district of Maryland. He supported with 
 great ability and zeal Mr. Fillmore for the Presidency 
 in 1856, and in 1860 accepted John Bell as the candi- 
 date of his party, though he clearly divined and plainly 
 aimounced that the great battle was really between 
 Abraham Lincoln, as the representative of the national 
 sentiment on the one hand, and secession and disunion, 
 ill all their shades and phases, on the other. To his 
 seat in the thirty-eighth Congress he was elected by 
 the Unconditional Union party. 
 
 Since the adjournment of the thirty-eighth Congress 
 he has been profoundly concerned in the momentous 
 public questions now pressing for adjustment, and he 
 (lid not fail on several fitting occasions to give his views 
 at length to the public. Nevertheless, he frequently 
 alluded to his earnest desire to retreat for awhile from 
 the perplexing annoyances of public life. He had 
 determined upon a long visit to Europe in the coming 
 spring, and had almost concluded the purcha«:e of a 
 delightful count ry-seat, where he hoped to recruit his 
 weary brain for years to come from the exhaustless 
 riches of nature. AYhen the thirty-ninth Congress 
 met, and he read of his old companions in the work of 
 legislation again gathering in their halls and committee- 
 rooms. I think, for at least a dav or two, he felt a 
 
longing to be among them. During the second week 
 of the session he again entered this hall, but only 
 as a spectator. The greeting he received — so general, 
 spontaneous, and cordial — from gentlemen on both sides 
 of the House, touched his heart most sensibly. Tlie 
 crowd that gathered about him was go great that the 
 ])arty w^as obliged to retire to one of the larger ante- 
 rooms for fear of interrupting the public business. A 
 (lelightfid interview among old friends was the reward. 
 He was charmed with liis reception, and mentioned it 
 to me with intense satisfaction. Little did you, gentle- 
 men, then think that between you and a beloved friend 
 the curtain that shrouds eternity was so soon to l)e 
 interposed. His sickness was of about a week's dura- 
 lion. Until the morning of the day . preceding his 
 death, his friends never doubted his recovery. Later 
 in the day very unfavorable symptoms appeared, and all 
 then realized his danger. In the evening his wife 
 spoke to him of a visit, for one day, which he had 
 projected, to his old friend, Mrs. S. F. Du Pont, when 
 he replied, in the last words he ever uttered, "It shows 
 the folly of making plans even for a day." He con- 
 tinued to fail rapidly in strength until two o'clock on 
 the afternoon of Saturday, the 30th of December, when 
 Henry Winter Davis, in the forty-ninth year of his 
 age, appeared l)efore his God. His death confirmed 
 the opinion of Sir Thomas Browne, who declared, 
 "Marshaling all the horrors of death, and contemplating 
 the extremities thereof, I find not anything therein able 
 to daunt the courage of a man, much less a icell-resolved 
 
Christian^ He passed away so quietly that no one 
 knew the moment of his departure. His ^\'as — 
 
 "A death, life gleep; 
 A gentle wafting to immortal life." 
 
 Mr. Davis left a widow, ^Mrs. Nancy Davis, a daughter 
 of John B. Morris, Esq., of Baltimore, and two little 
 girls, who were the idols of his heart. He was married 
 a second time on the 2Gth of January, 1857. His 
 nearest surviving collateral relation is the Hon. David 
 Davis, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, who is his only cousin — german. To all 
 these afflicted hearts may God be most gracious. 
 
 Thus has the country lost one of the most able, 
 elo([uent, and fearless of its defenders. Called from 
 this life at an age when most men are just l)eginning to 
 command the respect and confidence of their fellows, 
 he has left, nevertheless, a fame as wide as our vast 
 country. He died nineteen years younger than AVash- 
 ington and eight years younger than Lincoln. At forty- 
 eight years of age AVashington had not seen the glories 
 of Yorktown even in a vision, nor had Lincoln dreamed 
 of the presidential chair ; and if they had died at that 
 age they would liave been comparatively uidviiown in 
 history. Douljtless God would have raised up other 
 leaders, if they had been wanting, to conduct the great 
 American colunm, which He has chosen to be the body- 
 guard of human rights and hopes, onward among the 
 nations and the c(Mituries ; Init iu that event the Tith 
 and 2'_M days of February would not ])e. as they now 
 are. held sacred in our calendar. 
 
22 ORATION OX THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 Mr. Davis had gathered into his house the hterary 
 treasures of four languages, and had reveled in spirit 
 with the wise men of the ages. He had conned his 
 hooks as jealously as a miner peering for gold, and had 
 not left a panful of earth unwashed, lie had collected 
 the ])urest ore of truth and the richest gems of thought, 
 until he was aljle to crown himself with knowledge. 
 Blessed with a felicitous power of analysis and a pro- 
 digious memory, he ransacked history, ancient and 
 modern, sacred and profane ; science, pure, empirical, 
 and nieta])hysical; the arts, mechanical and liheral; the 
 professions, law, divinity, and medicine ; poetry and the 
 miscellanies of literature; and in all these great depart- 
 ments of iuunan lore he moved as easily as most men 
 do in their particular province. Plis habit was not only 
 to read but to reread the best of his books frequently, 
 and he was continually supi)lying himself with better 
 editions of his favorites. In current, playful conversation 
 with iriends he quoted right and left, in l^rief and at 
 length, from the classics, ancient and modern, and from 
 the drama, tragic and comic. In his speeches, on the 
 contrary, he quoted but little, and only when he seemed 
 to run upon a thought already expressed by some one 
 else with singular force and appositeness. He was the 
 l)est scholar I ever met for his years and active life, and 
 was surpassed by very few, excepting mere book-worms. 
 He has for many years been engaged in collecting 
 extracts from newspapers, containing the leading facts 
 and public documents of the day; Init he never common- 
 placed from books. His thesaurus was his head. 
 
 I have but little personal knowledge of Mr. Davis as a 
 
lawyer. It was never my good fortune to be associated 
 with him in the trial of a cause ; nor have I ever heen 
 present w^hen he was so engaged. But at the time of 
 his death he filled a high position at the bar, and was 
 chosen to lead against the most distinguished of his 
 brethren. On public and constitutional questions, as 
 distinguished from those involving only private rights, 
 he was a host, and in the argument of the cases which 
 grew out of the adoption of the new constitution of 
 Maryland he won golden laurels, and drew extraordinary 
 encomiums even from his opponents in that angry 
 litigation. He was thoroughly read in the decisions of 
 the federal courts, and especially in those declaring 
 and defining constitutional principles. 
 
 Possessed of a mind of remarkable power, scope, and 
 activity; with an immense fund of precious information, 
 ready to respond to any call he might make upon it, 
 however sudden; wielding a system of logic formed in 
 the severest school, and tried by long practice ; gifted 
 with a rare command of language and an eloquence well 
 nigh superhuman ; and withal graced with manners the 
 most accomplished and refined, and a person unusually 
 handsome, graceful, and attractive. Mr. Davis entered 
 pul)lic life with almost unparalleled personal advantages. 
 Having boldly presented himself before the most rigorous 
 tribunal in the world, he proved himself worthy of its 
 favor and attention. He soon rose to the front rank of 
 debaters, and whenever he addressed the House all sides 
 gave him a dehghted audience. 
 
 I shall not attempt a review of the topics discussed 
 in Ihc thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth Congresses. The 
 
 m 
 
day was flist coming when contests for the Speakership 
 and battles over appropriation bills, ay, even the fierce 
 struggle over Kansas, would sink into insignificance, 
 and Mr. Davis, with that political prescience for w hich 
 he was always remarkable, seemed to discern the first 
 sign of the coming storm. The winds had been long 
 sown, and now the whirlwind was to be reaped. The 
 thirty-sixth Congress, which had opened so inauspi- 
 ciously, and which his vote had saved from becoming a 
 perpetuated l)edlam, met for its second session on the 
 3d of December, 18G0, with the clouds of civil war fast 
 settling down upon the nation. In the hope that war 
 might yet be averted, on the fourth day of the session, 
 the celebrated committee of thirty-three was raised, 
 with the lamented Corwin, of Ohio, as chairman, and 
 Mr. Davis as the member from Maryland. When the 
 committee reported, Mr. Davis sustained the majority 
 report in an able speech, in which, after urging every 
 argument in favor of the report, he boldly proclaimed 
 his own views, and the duties of his State and country. 
 In his speech of 7th February, 1861, he said: 
 
 " I do not wish to say one word which will exasperate the already 
 too much inflamed state of the public mind ; but I will say that the 
 Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance 
 thereof, must he enforced; and they who stand across the path of that 
 enforcement must either destroy the fewer of the United States, or 
 it will destroy them." 
 
 For such utterances only a small part of the people 
 of his State was on that day prepared. Seduced by the 
 wish, they still believed that the Union could be pre- 
 served by fiiir and mutual concessions. They were on 
 
their knees praying for peace, ignorant that bloody wai* 
 had ah'eady girded on his sword. His language was 
 then deemed too harsh and unconciliatoiy, and hundreds, 
 I among the number, denomiced him in unmeasured 
 terms. Before the expiration of three months events 
 had demonstrated his wisdom and our folly, and other 
 paragraphs from that same speech became the lighting 
 creed of the Union men of Maryland. He further said, 
 on that occasion : 
 
 " But, sir, there is one State I can speak for, and that is the State 
 of Maryland. Confident in the strength of this great government 
 to protect every interest, grateful for almost a century of unalloyed 
 blessings, she has fomented no agitation ; she has done no act to dis- 
 turb the public peace ; she has rested in the consciousness that if 
 there be wrong the Congress of the United States will remedy it ; 
 and that none exists which revolution would not aggravate. 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, I am here this day to speak, and I say that I do 
 speak, for the people of Maryland, who are loyal to the United 
 States; and that when my judgment is contested, I appeal to the 
 people for its accuracy, and I am ready to maintain it before them. 
 
 " In jMaryland we are dull, and cannot comprehend the right of 
 secession. We do not i-ecognizc the right to make a revolution by 
 a vote. We do not recognize the right of Maryland to repeal the 
 Constitution of the United States, and if any convention there, called 
 by whatever authority, under whatever auspices, undertake to inau- 
 gurate revolution in Maryland, their authority will be resisted and 
 defied in arms on the soil of Maryland, in the name and by the 
 authority of the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 In January, 1861, the ensign of the Republic, while 
 covering a mission of mercy, was fired on by traitors. 
 In February Jefferson Davis said, at Stevenson, Ala- 
 l)ama, " We will carry war where it is easy to advance, 
 where food for the sword and torch await our armies in 
 the densely populated cities." In March the thirty- 
 
sixth Congress, after vainly passing conciliatory resolu- 
 tions by the score, among other things recommending 
 the repeal of all personal liberty bills, declaring that 
 there was no authority outside of the States where 
 slavery was recognized to interfere with slaves or slavery 
 therein, and proposing by two-thirds votes otboth houses 
 an amendment of the Constitution prohibiting any future 
 amendment giving Congress power over slavery in the 
 States, adjourned amid general terror and distress. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, having passed through the midst 
 of his enemies, appeared at Washington in due time 
 and delivered his inaugural, closing with these memo- 
 rable words : 
 
 " In your handa, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in 
 mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will 
 not assail you. 
 
 " You can bave no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. 
 You can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, 
 while I shall have the most solemn one to ' preserve, protect, and 
 defend' it. 
 
 " I am loth to close. "VVe are not enemies, but friends. We must 
 not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not 
 break, our bonds of aflfection. 
 
 " The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
 field and patriot grave to every living hearth and hearth-stone all over 
 this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again 
 touched, as surely as they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 
 
 Words which, if human hearts do not harden into 
 
 stone, through the long ages yet to come, 
 
 "Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
 The deep damnation of his taking off." 
 
 The appeal was spurned ; and, in the face of its al- 
 most godlike gentleness, they who already gloried in 
 
their anticipated saturnalia of blood inluiinanly and 
 fidsely stigmatized it as a declaration of war. The long- 
 patient North, slow to anger, in its agony still cried, 
 •'My brother; oh, my brother!" It remained for that 
 linal, ineradicable infamy of Sumter to arouse the nation 
 to arms i At last, to murder at one l)low the hopes 
 we had nui'sed so tenderly, they impiously dragged in 
 the dnst the glorious symbol of our national life and 
 majesty, heaping dishonor ujion it, and, like the sneering 
 devil at the crucifixion, crying out, " Come and deliver 
 thyself!" and then no man, with the heart of a man, 
 who loved his country and feared his God, dared longer 
 delay to prepare for that great struggle which was des- 
 tined to rock the earth. 
 
 Poor Maryland ! cursed with slavery, doubly cursed 
 \\ith traitors! Mr. Davis had said that Maryland was 
 loyal to the United States, and had pledged himself to 
 maintain that position before the people. The time 
 soon came for him to redeem his pledge. On the morn- 
 ing of the 15th of A})ril the President issued his pro- 
 clamation calling a special session of Congress, which 
 made an extra election necessary in Maryland. Before 
 the sun of that day had gone down, this card was pro- 
 mulgated : 
 
 To the voters of the fourth congressional district of Maryland : 
 
 1 liert'by announce myself as a candidate for the House of Rep- 
 resentatives of the 37tli Congress of tlie United States of America, 
 upon the basis of the unconditional maintenance of the Union. 
 
 Should my fellow-citizens of like views manifest their preference 
 for a different candidate on that basis, it is not my purpose to em- 
 barrass them. 
 
 II. WINTER DAVIS. 
 April 15, 1861. 
 
But (lark days were coniiiit^ tor Baltimore. A mob, 
 systematically organized in complicity with the rebels 
 at Richmond and Harper's Ferry, seized and kept in 
 subjection an nnsus})ecting and unarmed population from 
 the 19th to the 24tli of April. For six days murder 
 and treason held joint sway ; and at the conclusion of 
 their tragedy of horrid barbarities they gave the farce 
 of holding an election for members of the house of 
 delegates. 
 
 To show the spirit that moved Mr. Davis under 
 this ordeal, I cite from his letter, written on the 28th, 
 to Hon. AVilliam 11. Seward, the I'ollowing: 
 
 " I have been trying to collect the persons appointed scattered by 
 the storm, and to compel them to take their offices or to decline. 
 
 " I have sought men of undoubted courage and capacity for the 
 places vacated. 
 
 *' We must show the secessionists that we are not friglitened, but 
 are resolved to maintain the government in the exercise of all its 
 functions in Maryland. 
 
 '' We have organized a guard, who will accompany the officers and 
 hold the public buildings against all the secessionists in Maryland. 
 
 " A great reaction has set in. If we now act promptly the day is 
 ours and the State is safe." 
 
 These matters being adjusted, he immediately took 
 the field for Congress on his platform against Mr. Henry 
 May, conservative Union, and in the face of an opposi- 
 tion which few men have dared to encounter, he carried 
 on, unremittingly from that time until the election on 
 the 13tli of June, the most brilliant campaign against 
 open traitors, doubters, and dodgers, that unrivalled 
 eloquence, courage, and activity could achieve. Every- 
 where, day and night, in sunshine and storm, in the 
 
Miarket-liouses, at (lie street corners, and in the public 
 halls, his voice rang out clear, loud, and detiaut for the 
 "unconditional maintenance" of the Union. He was 
 defeated, but he sanctified the name of unconditional 
 union in the vocabulary of every true Marylander. He 
 gathered but 6,000 votes out of 14,000, yet the result 
 was a triumph which gave him the real fruits of vic- 
 tory; and he exclaimed to a friend, with laudable pride, 
 " With six thousand of the workingmen of Baltimore 
 on my side, won in such a contest, I defy them to take 
 the State out of the Union." Though not elected, he 
 never ceased his efforts. AVith us it was a struggle for 
 iiomcs, hearths, and lives. He said at Brooklyn : 
 
 " You sec the conflagration from a distance ; it blisters me at my 
 side. You can survive the integrity of the nation; we in Maryland 
 would live on the side of a gulf, perpetually tending to plunge into 
 its depths. It is for us life and liberty; it is for you greatness, 
 strength, and prosperity." 
 
 Nothing appalled him; nothing deterred him. He 
 said, at Baltimore, in 1861 : 
 
 " The ^Var Department has been taught by the nnsfortune at Bull 
 liun, which has broken no power nor any spirit, which bowed no 
 State nor made any heart falter, which was felt as a humiliation that 
 has brought forth wisdom." 
 
 He also said, speaking of the rebels, and foretelling 
 
 his own fate, if they succeeded in Maryland : 
 
 " They have inaugurated an era of confiscations, proscriptions, 
 and exiles. Read their acts of greedy confi.?cation, their law of 
 proscriptions by the thousands. Behold the flying exiles from the 
 unfriendly soil of Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri." 
 
 And so he worked on, never al)ating one jot of his 
 uncompromising devotion to the Union, like a second 
 
Peter the Hermit, preaching a cause, as he believed, 
 truly represented by insignia as sacred as the Cross, and 
 for which no sacrifice, not even death, was too great. 
 
 But his crowning glory was his leadership of th(^ 
 emancipation movement. Tlie rebels, notwithstanding 
 " My Maryland's" bloody welcome at South Mountain 
 and Antietam, claimed that she must belong to their 
 confederacy because of the homogeneousness of her 
 institutions. They contended that the fetters of slavery 
 formed a chain that stretched across the Potomac, and 
 held in bondage not only 87,000 slaves, but 600,000 
 white people also. Their constant theme was " the de- 
 liverance" of Maryland. We resolved to break that last 
 tie, and to take position unalterably on the side of the 
 Union and freedom, and thus to deal the final blow to 
 the cause and support of rebelHon. We organized our 
 little band, almost ridiculous from its want of numbers, 
 early in 1863. A Sibley tent would have held our 
 whole army. Our enemies laughed us to scorn, and 
 the politicians would not accept our help on any teniis, 
 l)ut denied us as earnestly as Peter denied his Lord. 
 Mr. Davis was our acknowledged leader, and it was in 
 the heat and f"ury of the contest which followed that 
 our hearts were welded into permanent friendship. He 
 was the platform maker, and he announced it in a few 
 lines : 
 
 " A hearty support of the entire policy of the national administra- 
 tion, including immediate emancipation I y constitutional means." 
 
 It was very shoi-f, but it covered all the ground. 
 The campaign opened by the publication of an address, 
 written by Mr. Davis, to the people of Maryland, which, 
 
I venture to say, is unsurpassed by any state paper pub- 
 lished in this age of able state papers for the warmth 
 and vigor of its diction, and the lucidity and conclusive- 
 ness of its argumentation. It is a pamphlet of twenty 
 pages, glowing throughout with the unmistakable marks 
 of his genius and patriotism, and closing with these 
 words of stirring cheer : 
 
 " We do not doubt the resvilt, and expect, freed from the trammels 
 which now bind her, to see Maryland, at no distant day, rapidly 
 advancing in a course of unexampled prosperity with her sister free 
 States of the 'undivided and indivisible Republic." 
 
 Mr. Davis was ubiquitous. He was the life and soul 
 of the whole contest. He arranged the order of battle, 
 dictated the correspondence, wrote the important articles 
 for the newspapers, and addressed all the concerted 
 meetings. In short, neither his voice nor his pen rested 
 in all the time of our travail. He would have no com- 
 promise ; but rejected all overtures of the enemy short 
 of unconditional surrender. On the Eastern Shore he 
 spoke with irresistible power at Elkton, Easton, Salis- 
 bury, and Snow Hill, at each of the three last-named 
 towns with a crowd of wondering "American citizens of 
 African descent" listening to him from afar, and looking 
 u])()n him as if they believed him to be the seraph 
 Alxliek His last appointment, in extreme southern 
 Maryhind, he filled on Friday, after which, bidding me a 
 cordial God-speed, he descended from the stand, sprang 
 into an open wagon awaiting him, travelled eighty miles 
 throuiili a raw night-air, reached Cambridge by daylight, 
 and then crossed the Cliesapcake, sixty miles, in time 
 to close the campaign with one of his ringing speeches 
 
ill Monument square, Baltimore, on Saturday night. In 
 this, our first contest, we were completely victorious. 
 
 But we had yet a weary way before us. The legisla- 
 ture had then to pass a law calling a convention. Tliat 
 law had to be approved by a majority ol" the people. 
 Members of the convention had then to be elected in 
 all parts of the State, and the Constitution which they 
 ado])ted had to be carried by a majority of the popular 
 vote, lie allowed himself no reprieve from labor until 
 all this had been accomplished. And when the rest of 
 us, worn out by incessant toil, gladly sought rest, he 
 went 1)efore the court of appeals to maintain every- 
 thing that hiid been done against all comers, and did so 
 triumphantly. 
 
 Let free Maryland never forget the debt of eternal 
 gratitude she owes to Henry Winter Davis. 
 
 If oratory means the power of presenting thoughts 
 by public and sustained speech to an audience in the 
 manner best adapted to win a fiivorable decision of the 
 question at issue, then Mr. Davis assuredly occupied 
 the highest position as an orator. He always held his 
 hearers in rapt attention until he closed, and then they 
 linirered about to discuss with one another what they 
 had heard. I have seen a promiscuous assembly, made 
 up of friends and opponents, remain exposed to a beat- 
 ing rain for two hours rather than forego hearing him. 
 Those who had heard him most frequently were always 
 ready to make the greatest effort to hear him again. 
 Even his bitterest enemies have been known to stand 
 shivering on the street corners for a whole evening, 
 charmed by his marvelous tongue. His stump efforts 
 
never fell below his high standard. He never con- 
 descended to a mere attempt to amuse. He always 
 spoke to instruct, to convince, and to persuade through 
 the higher and better avenues to favor. I never heard 
 him deliver a speech that was not worthy of being 
 printed and preserved. As a stump orator he was 
 unapproachable, in my estimation, and I say that with 
 a clear recollection of having heard, when a boy, that 
 wonder of Yankee birth and southern development, S. 
 S. Prentiss. 
 
 Mr. Davis's ripe scholarship promptly tendered to his 
 thought the happiest illustrations and the most appro- 
 priate forms of expression. His brain had beco7ne 
 a teeming cornucopia, whence flowed in exhaustless 
 profusion the most beautiful flowers and the most sub- 
 stantial fruits; and yet he never indulged in excessive 
 ornamentation. His taste was almost austerely chaste. 
 His style was perspicuous, energetic, concise, and withal 
 highly ele<):ant. He never loaded his sentences with 
 meretricious finery, or high-sounding, supernumerary 
 words. When he did use the jewelry of rhetoric, he 
 would quietly set a metaphor in his page or throw a 
 comparison into his speech which would serve to light 
 up with startling distinctness the cdlossal proportions 
 of his argument. Of humor he had none; but his wit 
 and sarcasm at times would ghtter like the brandished 
 ci meter of Saladin, and, descending, would cut as keenly. 
 The pathetic he never attempted; but when angered by 
 a malicious assault his invective was consuming, and his 
 epithets would wound like pellets of lead. Although 
 
gallant to the graces oi' expression, lie always compelled 
 hi 8 rhetoric to act as handmaid to his dialectics. 
 
 Style may sometimes be an exotic; but when it is, it 
 is sure to partake more and more, as years increase, ot" 
 the peculiarities of the soil wherein it is nurtured. But 
 the style of Mr. Davis was indigenous and strongly 
 marked ])y his individuality. Although he doubtless 
 admired, and perhaps imitated, the condensation and 
 dignity of Gi))bon, yet it is certain that lie carefully 
 avoided the monotonous stateliness and the elal)orate 
 and ostentatious art of that most erudite historian. I 
 look in vain for his model in the skeptical Gilibon, the 
 cynical Bolingbroke, or the gorgeous Burke. These 
 were all to him intellectual giants; but giants of false 
 belief and practice. Not even from Tacitus, upon whom 
 he looked with the greatest favor, could he have acquired 
 his burning and impressive diction. 
 
 Henry Winter Davis was a man of faith, and 
 believed in Christ and his fellow-man. His heart and 
 mind were both nourished into their full dimensions 
 under the fostering influences of our free institutions; 
 so that, being reared a freeman, he thought and spake 
 as became a freeman. No other land could iiave pro- 
 duced such dauntless courage and such heroic devotion 
 to honest conviction in a public man; and even our land 
 has produced but few men of his stamp and ability. 
 His implicit faith in God's eternal justice, and his grand 
 moral courage, imparted to him his proselyting zeal, and 
 gave him that amazing, kindling power which enabled 
 him to light the fires of enthusiasm wherever he touched 
 the public mind. 
 
OF HENRY WINTER DAVIS. 35 
 
 To show his power in extemporaneous debate, as 
 well as his determined patriotism, I will introduce a 
 passage from his speech of April 11, 1864, delivered in 
 the House of Representatives. You will remember 
 that the end of the rebellion had not then appeared- 
 Grant, with his invincible legions, had not started to exe- 
 cute that greatest military movement of modern times, 
 by which, after months of bloody j^ersistence, hurling 
 themselves continually against what seemed the frowning 
 front of destiny, they finally drove the enemy from his 
 strongholds, made Fortune herself captive, and, binding 
 her to their standards, held her there until the surrender 
 of every rebel in anus closed the war amid the exultant 
 plaudits of men and angels. Our hopes had not then 
 grown into victory, and we looked forward anxiously to 
 the terril)le march from the Rappahannock to Rich- 
 mond. Thinking that perhaps our army stood appalled 
 before the great duty required of it, and that the people 
 might be diverted from their purpose to crush the 
 rebellion when they saw that it could only be accom- 
 plished at the cost of an ocean of human blood, a call 
 was made on the floor of the American Congress for a 
 recognition of the southern confederacy. Speaking for 
 the nation, Mr. Davis said: 
 
 " But, Mr, Speaker, if it be said that a time may come wbeu the 
 question of recognizing the southern confederacy will have to be 
 answered, I admit it. * * * * When the people, exhausted 
 by taxation, weary of sacrifices, drained of blood, betrayed by their 
 rulers, deluded by demagogues into believing that peace is the way 
 to union, and submission the path to victory, shall throw down their 
 arms before the advancing foe ; Avhen vast chasms across every 
 State shall make it apparent to every eye, when too late to remedy 
 
 -ii 
 
it, that division from the south is anarchy at the north, and that 
 peace without union is the end of the Republic; then the indepen- 
 dence of the south will be an accomplished fact, and gentlemen may, 
 without treason to the dead Republic, rise in this migratory house, 
 wherever it may then be in America, and declare themselves for 
 recognizing their masters at the south rather than exterminating 
 them. Until that day, in the name of the American nation ; in the 
 name of every house in the land where there is one dead for the holy 
 cause; in the name of those who stand before us in the ranks of 
 battle ; in the name of the liberty our ancestors have confided to us, 
 I devote to eternal execration the name of him who shall propose to 
 destroy this blessed land rather than its enemies. 
 
 " But until that time arrive it is the judgment of the American 
 people there shall be no compromise ; that ruin to ourselves or ruin 
 to the southern rebels are the only alternatives. It is only by reso- 
 lutions of this kind that nations can rise above great dangers and 
 overcome them in crises like this. It was only by turning France 
 into a camp, resolved that Europe might exterminate but should not 
 subjugate her, that France is the leading empire of Europe to-day. 
 It is by such a resolve that the American people, coercing a reluctant 
 government to draw the sword and stake the national existence on 
 the integrity of the Republic, are now anything but the fragments of 
 a nation before the world, the scorn and hiss of every petty tyrant. 
 It is because the people of the United States, rising to the height of 
 the occasion, dedicated this generation to the sword, and pouring out 
 the blood of their children as of no account, and vowing before high 
 Heaven that there should be no end to this conflict but ruin absolute 
 or absolute ti'iumph, that we now are what we are ; that the banner 
 of the Republic, still pointing onward, floats proudly in the face of 
 the enemy; that vast regions are reduced to obedience to the laws, 
 and that a great host in armed array now presses with steady step 
 into the da>k regions of the rebellion. It is only by the earnest and 
 abiding resolution of the people that, whatever shall be our fate, it 
 shall be grand as the American nation, worthy of that Republic which 
 first trod the path of empire and made no peace but under the banners 
 of victory, that the American people will survive in history. And 
 that will save us. We shall succeed, and not fail. I have an abiding 
 confidence in the firmness, the patience, the endurance of the Ameri- 
 
 « 
 
can people; and, having vowed to stand in history on the great 
 resolve to accept of nothing but victory or ruin, victory is ours. 
 And if with such heroic resolve we fall, we fall with honor, and 
 transmit the name of liberty, committed to our keeping, untarnished, 
 to go down to future generations. The historian of our decline and 
 fall, contemplating the ruins of the last great Republic, and drawing 
 from its fate lessons of wisdom on the waywardness of men, shall 
 drop a tear as he records with sorrow the vain heroism of that people 
 who dedicated and sacrificed themselves to the cause of freedom, and 
 by their example will keep alive her worship in the hearts of men 
 till happier generations shall learn to walk in her paths. Yes, sir, if 
 we must fall, let our last hours be stained by no weakness. If we 
 must fall, let us stand amid the crash of the falling Republic and be 
 buried in its ruins, so that history may take note that men lived in 
 the middle of the nineteenth century worthy of a better fate, but 
 chastised by God for the sins of their forefathers. Let the ruins of 
 the Republic remain to testify to the latest generations our greatness 
 and our heroism. And let Liberty, crownless and childless, sit upon 
 these ruins, crying aloud in a sad wail to the nations of the world, 
 ' 1 nursed and brought up children and they have rebelled against 
 
 me. 
 
 Mr. Davis's most striking characteristics were liis de- 
 votion to principle and his indomitable courage. There 
 never was a moment when he could l3e truthfidly charged 
 with trimming or insincerity. His views were always 
 clearly avowed and fearlessly maintained. He hated 
 slavery, and he did not attempt to conceal it. He 
 remembered the lessons of his youth, and his heart 
 rebelled against the injustice of the system. His antip- 
 athy was deeply grounded in his convictions, and he 
 could not be dissuaded, nor frightened, nor diiven from 
 expressing it. 
 
 He was not a great captain, nor a mighty ruler; he 
 was only one of the people, but, nevertheless, a hero. \ 
 
 \ 
 
Born under the flag of a nation which claimed for its 
 cardinal principle of government, that all men are 
 created free, yet held in abject slavery four millions of 
 human beings ; which erected altars to the living God, 
 yet denied to creatures, formed in the image of God 
 and charged with the custody of immortal souls, the 
 common rights of humanity; he declared that the 
 hateful inconsistency should cease to defile the prayers 
 of Christians and stultify the advocates of freedom. 
 No dreamer was he, no mere theorist, but a worker, 
 and a strong one, who did well the work committed to 
 him. He entered upon his self-imposed task when 
 surrounded by slaves and slave-owners. He stood face 
 to face with, the iniquitous superstition, and to their 
 teeth defied its w^orshipers. To make proselytes he 
 had to conquer prejudices, correct traditions, elevate 
 duty above interest, and induce men who had been the 
 propagandists of slavery to become its destroyers. 
 Think you his work was easy? Count the long years 
 of his unequal strife; gather from the winds, which 
 scattered them, the curses of his foes ; suffer under all 
 the annoyances and in-sults which malice and falsehood 
 can invent, and you will then understand how much of 
 heart and hope, of courage and self-relying zeal, were 
 required to make him what he was, and to qualify him 
 to do what he did. And what did he ? When the 
 rough hand of war had stripped off the pretexts w^hicli 
 enveloped the rebellion, and it became evident that 
 slavery had struck at the life of the Republic, unmind- 
 ful of consequences to himself, he, among the first, 
 arraigned the real traitor and demanded the penalty of 
 
(Iciill). 'I'll!' (It'iiiiiiciiitioiis fliat fell upon liim like a 
 cloud u r;i]»|)((l liiiii in a iiiaiilk' ot" honor, and mom 
 Initlitully than llu' LTicat lioiiiaii orator ho could have 
 cxclaiiiH'd, " Ei^o hoc (tninio scDiju'rlui, lit invnUdm 
 I irtiite parlain, gloruim von invidicnn putare?ny 
 
 This man, so stern and inflcxihlc in the execution of 
 ;i purpose, so riirorous in his demands of other men in 
 heliidf of a principle, so ijidillercnt to [)referment and 
 all hase objects of pursuit, had a iiionitor to whom he 
 always iravc an open ear and a prompt assent. It was 
 no demon like that whicdi attended Socrates, no witch 
 like that invoked hy Saul, no liend like that to which 
 I'^aust resi<;ned himself A vision of light and lite and 
 heauty fhtted ever palpahly before him. and wooed him 
 to the perpetual service of the good and true The 
 nu'iiiory ot" a j)ious and bcdoved mother permeated his 
 u hole moral l)einL^ and kept warm within him the ten- 
 dcrest alfection. Jlear liow he wrote ol" her: 
 
 '• My inittlicr was ;i lady of graccl'ul and simple manners, fair 
 coiu|tKxii)n, Idui- vy^'^, and aulturn liair. with a rich and exquisite 
 voice, that still thrill.s my memory with the echo of its vanished 
 music. She was highly educated for her day. wlitu Annapolis was 
 the focu.s of intellect and fashion for .Mar\ land, and its fruits shone 
 through her conversation, and colored and comi)leted lier natural 
 eloquencr, which my father used to say would have made her an 
 1 rator, if it iiad not heen thrown away on a woman. She was the 
 incarnatiun of all that is I'hristi.iu in life and hope, in charity and 
 thought, ready for every good work, herself the example of all she 
 taught." 
 
 It was the force of lier precept and example that 
 tunned the man, and supplied him with his shield and 
 buckler. His private life was spotles.s. His habits 
 
were regular and abstemious, and his practice in close 
 conformity with the Episcopal church, of which he was 
 a member. He invariably attended divine service on 
 Sunday, and confined himself for the remainder of the 
 day to a course of religious reading. If from his father 
 he drew a courage and a fierce determination before 
 which his enemies fled in confusion, from his mother 
 he inhei'ited those milder qualities that won for him 
 friends as true and devoted as man ever possessed. 
 Some have said he was hard and dictatorial. They 
 had seen him only when a high resolve had fired his 
 breast, and w^hen the gleam of battle had lighted his 
 countenance. His friends saw deeper, and knew that 
 beneath the exterior he assumed in his struggles with 
 the world there beat a heart as pure and unsullied, as 
 confiding and as gentle, as ever sanctified the domestic 
 circle, or made loved ones happy. His heart reminded 
 me of a spring among the hills of the Susquehanna, to 
 which I often resorted in my youth ; aronnd a part of 
 it we boys had built a stone wall to protect it from out- 
 rage, while on the side next home we left open a path, 
 easily traveled by familiar feet, and leading straight to 
 the sweet and perennial waters within. 
 
 He lived to hear the salvos that announced, after 
 more than two centuries of bondage, the redemption of 
 his native State. He lived to vote for that grand act of 
 enfranchisement that wiped from the escutcheon of the 
 nation the leprous stain of slavery, and to know that the 
 Constitution of the United States no longer recognized 
 and protected property in man He lived to witness 
 the triumph of his country in its desperate struggle 
 
 miM 
 
witli treason, ami 1o behold all its enemies, either wan- 
 derers, like Cain, over the earth, or siii)})liants ii)r mercy 
 at licr feet. II(> lived to catch the first glimpse of the 
 CDniini; irlory ollliat new era of progress that matchless 
 valor iiad won through the blood and carnage of a thou- 
 sand battle-fields. lie lived, through all the storm of 
 war, to see, at last, America rejuvenated, rescued from 
 the grasp of despotism, and rise victorious, with her 
 garments purified and her brow radiant with the un- 
 sullied light of liberty. He lived to greet the return 
 of •' meek-eyed peace," and then he gently laid his head 
 upon her bosom, and breathed out there his noble spirit. 
 
 The sword may rust in its scabbard, and so let it; 
 but free men, with free thought and free speech, will 
 wage unceasing war until truth shall be enthroned and 
 sit emi)ress of the world. AVould to God that he had 
 l»een spared to complete a life of three score and ten 
 years, tor the sake of his country and posterity. When 
 1 think nf tlie good he would have accomplished had 
 he survived for twenty years, I can say, in the language 
 ol" Fislier Ames, '* My heart, penetrated with the remem- 
 brance nf tiie man, grows liquid as 1 speak, and I could 
 pdur it out like water." 
 
 At the portals ot" his toml) we may l)id farewell to 
 the faithful Christian, in the full assurance that a blessed 
 lite awjiits him beyond the grave. Serenely and trust- 
 lullv he has passed from our siijht and <;one down into 
 
 • I O O 
 
 the dark waters. 
 
 "So .-^iiiks tlic (lay-gitar in the oceau bed. 
 And yt't anon ivpair-s his drooping head, 
 And trick.>» hi;* hfams, and with now-.«pangled ore 
 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky." 
 
 •&. 
 
From this hall, where as scholar, statesman, and 
 orator he shone so brightly, he has disappeared forever. 
 Never again will he, answ^ering to the roU-eall from this 
 desk, respond for his country and the rights of man. 
 No more shall we hear his fervid eloquence in the day 
 of imminent peril, invoking us, who hold the mighty 
 power of peace' and war, to dedicate ourselves, if need 
 be, to the sword, but to accept no end of the conflict 
 save that of absolute triumph for our country. He has 
 gone to answer the great roll-call above, where the 
 " brazen throat of war" is voiceless in the presence of 
 the Prince of Peace. Let us habitually turn to his 
 recorded words, and gather wisdom as from the testa- 
 ment of a departed sage ; and since we were witnesses 
 of his tireless devotion to the cause of human freedom, 
 let us direct that on the monument which loving hearts 
 and willing hands will soon erect over his remains, there 
 shall be deeply engraved the figure of a bursthig shackle, 
 as. the emblem of the faith in w^iich he lived and died. 
 
 For the Christian, scholar, statesman, and orator, all 
 good men are mourners ; but what shall I say of that 
 grief which none can share — the grief of sincere friend- 
 ship I 
 
 Oh, my friend ! comforted by the belief that you, 
 while living, deemed me worthy to be your companion, 
 and loaded me with the proofs of your esteem, I shall 
 fondly treasure, during my remaining years, the recol- 
 lection of your smile and counsel. Lost to me is the 
 strong arm whereon I have so often leaned ; but in that 
 path which in time past we trod most joyfully together, 
 I shall continue, as God shall give me to see my duty, 
 
r 
 
 OF HKNKY WINTtlt DAVIS. 
 
 43 
 
 with unfaltcrinjjf thoiiirli pcrhajjs with unskilful steps, 
 riglit onward to the enil. 
 
 A(linirin«^ his brilliant intellect and varied aecjuire- 
 nients, his invincible courage and unswerving fortitude, 
 j glorying in his good works and fair renown, but, more 
 than all. loving (he man, I shall endeavor to assuage the 
 bitterness of grief by ai)plying to him those words of , 
 proud, though tearful, satisfaction, from which the faith- 
 ful Tacitus drew consolation tor th(^ loss of that nobh; 
 Konian whom he delighted to honor: 
 
 " Quidquid ox Agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati sumu3, manot 
 maiiriiiniuKpiu t.;»t, iu auimid bomiuum, iu iftcrnitate tcmponiru, faiua 
 nrum."