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"His men – though volunteers – showed a steadiness which equalled anything that might have been expected of veteran troops; and they were handled in so masterly a way, that, if the glory of that day were to be assigned to any one corps rather than any other, they would probably bear away the palm. Every one remembers the proud appeal of Colonel Davis to another regiment of volunteers, who were finding the fire rather warm, to 'Stay and re-form behind that wall' – pointing to his Mississippians. Throughout the war, he and his brave riflemen loom up at intervals whenever the fire grows hot or the emergency grave, and never without good effect. They were armed with a peculiar rifle, now best known as the Mississippi rifle, chosen by their colonel himself; it was scarcely less deadly than the Minié. Their colonel set the example of intrepidity and recklessness of personal injury: at Buena Vista he was badly wounded at an early part of the action; but he sat his horse steadily till the day was won, and refused even to delegate a portion of his duties to his subordinate officers."

The term of service for which his regiment was enlisted having expired, his medical advisers insisted upon his going home and curing himself of his wounds. He did not stay long, however; for that very year – in the late autumn – he was appointed United States Senator by the Governor of Mississippi to fill a vacancy, and when the legislature of the State came together, it elected him to the same high office for the ensuing six years.

In the Senate he at once took a high position. He was made Chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate, a position he has held during his entire term of senatorial services, and which he has honored. In the long and excited debates of 1849-50, and 1850-51, Mr. Davis took a prominent part, and always what is termed an ultra-sectional position. He was the champion of the extreme South, and made some of the ablest speeches of the entire slavery debate.

In September, 1851, Mr. Davis was nominated by the Democrats of Mississippi, as their candidate for Governor. He at once resigned his seat in the Senate. He lost an election by a thousand votes – and retired to his plantation.

Upon the nomination of Franklin Pierce to the Presidency, he took the stump for him in several of the more doubtful southern States, and with great success. His popularity before the people as a speaker was great, and his success was in due proportion.

Mr. Pierce rewarded Mr. Davis for his eminent services in the campaign by the offer of the Secretaryship of War – an office which he was peculiarly qualified to fill. He was quite successful as Secretary of War, though his unfortunate quarrel with General Scott (about the merits of which we are incompetent to pronounce an opinion), damaged his popularity with a portion of his friends. When the Pierce administration went out, Mr. Davis was reëlected United States Senator, and he has latterly been looked upon as a Democratic leader in the Senate.

In his personal appearance in the Senate-room, Mr. Davis has few equals. Tall, upright, stern, and with the bearing of a prince, he at once commands the admiration of the stranger so far as his personal appearance is concerned. His military manners have followed him from the camp into the Senate. We say this in no offensive sense, though it is true that the senator often unintentionally offends by the quickness, the savageness, and the irritability of his style and speech. This is not intentional, and though it now and then gives offence, it at the same time gives great force to the sentiment which the senator may be uttering at the time. He has a peculiar voice, keyed high, yet musical, and his words come flowing out like so many cannon-balls with the force of gunpowder behind them.

The political position of Mr. Davis cannot be misunderstood. He is ultra-southern. Not a disunionist, at all events; but a disunionist in a certain event. He stands by the extreme southern men – occupies an extreme southern position for a man who claims yet to stand by the national Democratic party. His views upon the non-intervention doctrines of Mr. Douglas, we shall quote that we may not do him injustice. He is an enthusiastic and consistent advocate of utter free trade. Nothing short of absolute free trade will suit him or satisfy him. He is also opposed to the Homestead bill, and all like appropriations of the public lands. He is in favor of the acquisition of Cuba, but opposed the Senate resolution – proposed – giving Mr. Buchanan power to make war upon the southern republics when he should think the occasion demanded it.

If Mr. Davis' position be thought to be extremely southern, it must be remembered that he is an honest, upright man – much more so than some who clamor after office; and that such a man can be trusted generally, in spite of his prejudices, to deal fairly even with his opponents. An honest man, however ultra his position, if he have intellect, is safer to be trusted with a high office, than the mere twaddling politician, who will execute the party's bidding, however iniquitous it may be.

In the great "non-intervention debate" of the Senate, in February, 1859, Mr. Davis said:

"Now, the senator asks will you make a discrimination in the territories? I say yes, I would discriminate in the territories wherever it is needful to assert the right of a citizen: wherever it is proper to carry out the principle, the obligation, the clear intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. I have heard many a siren's song on this doctrine of non-intervention; a thing shadowy and fleeting, changing its color as often as the chameleon, which never meant anything fairly unless it was that Congress would not attempt to legislate on a subject over which they had no control; that they would not attempt to establish slavery anywhere nor to prohibit it anywhere; and such was the language of the compromise measures of 1850 when this doctrine was inaugurated. Since that, it has been woven into a delusive gauze, thrown over the public mind, and presented as an obligation of the Democratic party to stand still; withholding from an American citizen the protection he has a right to claim; to surrender their power; to do nothing; to prove faithless to the trust they hold at the hands of the people of the States. If the theory of the senator be correct, and if Congress has no power to legislate in any regard upon the subject, how did you pass the fugitive slave law? He repeats, again and again, that you have no power to legislate in regard to slavery either in the States or in the territories, and yet the fugitive slave law stands on the statute-book; and although he did not vote for it, he explained to the country why he did not, and expressed his regret that his absence had prevented him from recording his vote in favor of it.

"From the plain language of the Constitution, as I have read it, how is it possible for one still claiming to follow the path of the Constitution, to assert that Congress has no power to legislate in relation to the subject anywhere? He informs us, however, that by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the full power of the inhabitants of a territory to legislate on all subjects not inconsistent with the Constitution, was granted by Congress. If Congress attempted to make such a grant; if Congress thus attempted to rid themselves of a trust imposed upon them, they exceeded their authority. They could delegate no such power. The territorial legislature can be but an instrument, through which the Congress of the United States execute their trust in relation to the territories. Therefore it was, that notwithstanding the exact language of that bill which the senator has read, the Congress of the United States did assume, and did exercise, the power to repeal a law passed in that very territory of Kansas, which they clearly could not have done if they had surrendered all control over its legislation. Whether the senator voted for that report or not, I do not know; I presume he did; but whether he did or not, does not vary the question, except so far as it affects himself. The advocates of the Kansas-Nebraska bill were generally the men who most promptly claimed the repeal of those laws, because they said they were a violation of those rights which every American citizen possessed under the Constitution.

"But the senator says territorial laws can only be set aside by an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. If so, then they have a power not derived from Congress; they are not the instruments of Congress. But in the course of the senator's remarks, and quite inconsistent with this position, he announced that they possessed no power save that which they derived from the organic act and the Constitution. They can derive no power from the Constitution save as territories of the United States, over which the States have given the power of a trustee to the Congress; and being the delegate of the Congress, they have such powers as Congress has thought proper to give, provided they do not exceed such powers as the Congress possesses. How, then, does the Senator claim that they have a power to legislate which Congress cannot revise; and yet no power to legislate at all save that which they derive from their organic act?

"My friend from Alabama presented a question to the senator from Illinois, which he did not answer. It was, whether a law pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court was still to remain in force within the territory, Congress failing to provide any remedy which would restore the right violated by that unconstitutional act? The senator answers me from his seat, 'clearly not.' Then I ask him, what is the remedy? The law is pronounced unconstitutional, and yet the right which it has violated is not restored; the protection which is required is not granted; the law which deprived him of the protection, though it may be declared unconstitutional, is not replaced by any which will give him the adequate protection to hold his property. Then what is the benefit he derives from the decision of the Supreme Court? The decision of the Supreme Court is binding upon the Congress; but this squatter-sovereignty legislation, seeming to be outside of the Constitution, outside of the legislation of the Federal Government, erects itself into an attitude that seems to me quite inappropriate.

"I concede to the Congress the power, through the instrumentality of a territorial legislature, to legislate upon such subjects as Congress itself has the right to make laws for; no more than that. More than that the senator cannot claim, unless he can show to us that philosophical problem of getting more out of a tub than it contains; its contents being measured, to find something more which can be taken out of it. If he will not – and I suppose he will not – contend that Congress can delegate more power than it possesses, how does he get the power in the territorial legislature to pass laws which will interfere with the rights of a citizen choosing to migrate to a territory? It is the common property of the people of the States. Every citizen has a right to go there, and to carry with him whatever property is recognized by the Constitution; the common law of the States forming the Union. Congress has no power to prohibit it; is bound to see that it is fully enjoyed. Then, I ask the senator, where does he derive the power for the territorial legislature to do it? for he has planted himself now on the ground that they derive their authority from the organic act."

At a subsequent stage of the debate, the subjoined colloquy occurred between Mr. Pugh, of Ohio, who had the floor, and Mr. Davis:

"Mr. Davis. – With the permission of the senator from Ohio, I will ask him whether he understood the senator from Virginia to assert that the Constitution of the United States would give the right to carry this property into the limits of a State where it is prohibited?

"Mr. Pugh. – No, sir; but I say that this proposition is nothing, unless it goes to that extent.

"Mr. Davis. – In the absence of my friend from Virginia, I would say that his theory, I believe, agrees with mine; and certainly does not go to that extent. It is that the Constitution makes it property throughout the United States. It can, therefore, be taken and held wherever the sovereign power of a State has not prohibited it. When it reaches the territory of a sovereign State where its introduction is inhibited, it there stops; except for the reserved right to recover a fugitive, and for the right of transit, which belongs to every citizen of the United States. That is the decision of the Supreme Court.

"Mr. Pugh. – I repeat my assertion: if the Constitution of the United States gives this form of property its peculiar protection, as gentlemen assert, and the right to carry it, it is carried into every State over the constitution and laws of the State; for the Constitution of the United States is supreme above the constitutions and laws of the States; and it means that, or it means nothing. There is no distinction; there can be none made; and my colleague put the very question which proved the fallacy of the whole proposition. But senators say there is no sovereignty in the territories. I agree to that; but why do we deceive ourselves about words? There is no such language as sovereignty in the Constitution of the United States. Senators say it requires a power of sovereignty to exclude slavery, and the senator from Mississippi has just now spoken of the sovereignty of the State which excludes slavery. He says it requires sovereign power to exclude slavery. Well, how is that sovereignty to be expressed?

"Mr. Davis. – When a State, being a sovereign, by its organic law excludes that species of property, the act is final. There is no sovereignty in the Constitution, as the senator states, and why? Because the Constitution is a compact between sovereigns creating an agent with delegated powers; and sovereignty is an indivisible thing. They gave functions of sovereignty from their plenary power. Sovereignty remained with the people of the States.

"Mr. Pugh. – Then I understand the senator that the sovereignty can only speak through a constitution, and that it is in the constitution of a State only that the power to admit or exclude slavery is to be exercised. Why, sir, until the year 1820 not a State of this Union, in her constitution, either admitted or excluded slavery, and I do not believe Virginia did until 1850 or 1851. None of the States did it until Missouri when she came into the Union, and she put it into her constitution, not upon the idea that that was peculiarly the place, but for the express purpose of disarming her legislature. It was an ordinary legislative power, nothing else in the world; known and recognized as such and admitted as such by every State in the Union. New York abolished slavery by law, Pennsylvania abolished slavery by law, and in the States where the institution continued, it was fostered, protected, and recognized by ordinary acts of legislation.

"Mr. Davis. – I am sorry to interrupt the senator again, and I believe this will be the last time. The first instance he will find was that of Massachusetts, who, in her bill of rights, at the Revolutionary era, made a declaration which her supreme court held to be the abolition of slavery; and I think he will find that it has generally been acted on in that way; but he has not the right to assume anything more than I stated. I stated a mode."

JAMES L. ORR

Col. Orr is of Irish extraction, his ancestors on the paternal and maternal side coming originally from Ireland. His grandfather, a native of North Carolina, was a Revolutionary soldier. Christopher Orr, his father, was a country merchant of considerable means, and who expended them liberally upon the education of his children. James L. Orr was born May 12, 1822, at Craytonville, Anderson District, South Carolina. He began his education at a common school, but was soon sent to the Anderson Academy, at the same time, however, assisting his father in keeping his books. When he was eighteen years old, he was sent to the University of Virginia, where his proficiency in his studies was so great, that he attracted the attention of his tutors, who predicted a promising career for the young student. In 1841, he left college and spent two years in pursuing a course of general reading, of the greatest importance to him in after life.

In 1843, he studied law, was admitted to the bar. He began the practice of law at home, in Anderson, the same year establishing a village newspaper and editing it. It was called the "Anderson Gazette." In 1844, when but twenty-two years of age, his neighbors and friends elected him to the State Legislature, where he began his political career in a quiet, unostentatious manner. Still, he took a very decided position – one which gave an indication of his future policy. It was this: he delivered a speech in opposition to the doctrine of nullification, in reference to the tariff of 1812. He also took democratic ground in favor of the election of Presidential electors of the people. They were then, and are now in South Carolina, elected by the legislature.

In 1848, Mr. Orr became a candidate for Congress. His chief opponent was a Democrat, a lawyer of wealth and talents, and of course the contest was simply one of personal popularity, as both gentlemen held the same political sentiments. After a very lively contest, Mr. Orr was elected by 700 majority over his Democratic competitor. He entered Congress at a time when the country was convulsed with the slavery question, and though such men as Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Cass, and the like, were in Congress, he very soon attracted the attention of the experienced legislators of that time. Not by egotistic speeches, forcing himself, as some men do, upon the attention of Congress and the country, but by delivering, at judicious times, speeches which were full of solid ability. While he was a firm defender of slavery and what are called "the constitutional rights of the South," he condemned the agitation of the question of slavery, and arrayed himself against the ultraists of his section of the country. Col. Orr's constituents were so well pleased with his conduct that they have left him in it till he was, in December, 1857, elected speaker of the House of Representatives.

When the compromise measures were passed, South Carolina for a time seemed to favor a secession from the Union. A Constitutional Convention had been called and a large majority of the delegates were pledged to favor secession. Col. Orr, however, come out very boldly and eloquently against their policy. A General Convention of the disaffected people was held in Charleston, in 1851, and Col. Orr attended as a delegate from the Anderson District. In the Convention he took strong ground against disunion, and introduced resolutions embodying his opinions on that subject. But out of 450 members, only 30 came to his support. But Col. Orr was undaunted by the majority of numbers against him. He appealed to the people by voice and pen, and as the result he and a companion in his disunion views were elected to the proposed Southern Congress over two secession candidates. An apparent admirer of Col. Orr, speaking of this contest, says:

"That the crisis was one full of alarm and danger must be admitted even by those furthest from the scene, and most disposed to deny both the right and power of a State to secede; and that Mr. Orr, in the very opening of a brilliant political career, hazarded his future hopes and prospects to a sense of right and duty, entitles him to the regard of every true lover of the Union. His triumph was highly honorable to himself, and fixed him more firmly than ever in the esteem and affections of his constituents."

The same writer remarks:

"The Congressional career of Mr. Orr, which a want of space prevents us from noticing more in detail, has been both a brilliant and a useful one. Always sustaining his positions with eloquence and force of argument, and exhibiting great fairness in debate, he has commanded attention, and exercised a powerful influence over the questions of the day. His habits of thorough investigation and analysis, and his tenacious adherence to his convictions of right, have frequently placed him at the head of important committees; and his reports are among the ablest in our legislative records. As chairman of the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, during the discussion of the most important and exciting measures, he displayed so much promptness, firmness, and intelligence in his decisions that he won the confidence and respect of men of all parties; and at the commencement of last Congress he was almost unanimously selected by the Democrats as their candidate for Speaker. His party was, however, in the minority, and his election failed. When the present session of Congress opened, Mr. Orr was nominated, without opposition, and elected its presiding officer. So far he has justified the expectations of his friends and of the party which placed him in the chair. In the fulfillment of the duties of his present position Mr. Orr will doubtless add honorably to the reputation he now enjoys. He is too wise a man not to perceive that while fidelity to party was the best ladder for him to rise to his present height, impartial neutrality will now serve his fame and ambition better."

Upon the whole, Mr. Orr made an admirable Speaker to the Thirty-fifth Congress. If he was not always rigidly impartial, the exceptional cases were rare, and when he was swerved from the straight line of duty by his sectional prejudices.

In November, 1855, to go back a little – Col. Orr published a letter in reference to the duty of South Carolina toward the Democratic party of the North. The people of that State were then, as they seem almost always to be, in a state of high excitement on the slavery question. Many leading politicians counselled secession and non-action in reference to the Presidential canvass. But Col. Orr took different ground. In his letter to Hon. C. W. Dudley, dated Anderson, Nov. 23, 1855, he said:

"A convention is merely a method of finding out what the popular opinion is, and giving to it a more conspicuous and imposing expression. It has been steadily and uniformly pursued by the Democracy of all the States (except our own) for fifteen years or more, and the selection of delegates, manner of voting and nominating, has been defined by a usage well understood and acquiesced in, as if regulated by law. Hence, we know that such a convention will assemble in Cincinnati in May next, and that it will nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency – adopt a platform of principles – and it is nearly certain that the nominees will receive the votes of the Democratic party of every State in the Union. Shall the Democracy of this State send delegates? It is our privilege to be represented there, and at the present time I believe it to be a high and solemn duty to meet our political allies, and to aid, by our presence and councils, in selecting suitable nominees and constructing a platform, which will secure our rights and uphold the Constitution.

"There has never been a time since the convention policy was adopted – if, indeed, there has been such a time since the government was inaugurated – when the success of the Democratic party in the electoral college was so vitally important as now. If that party should be defeated in the election before the people, every patriot's mind must be filled with gloomy forebodings of the future. The indications now are, that the opposition to the Democratic party, made up of Know Nothings, Abolitionists, and Fusionist, will run two or more candidates: if the Democracy fail to secure a majority in the electoral college over all elements of opposition, then the election must be made, according to the Constitution, by the House of Representatives. Can we safely trust the election of our rights to that body? The House is now elected, and we know that a decided majority of the House are members of the Know Nothing, Fusion and Whig parties; and if the election be devolved on them, the Democratic party will be certainly defeated, and perhaps a Fusionist promoted to the Presidency. Are the people of South Carolina so indifferent to their relations to the Federal Government, that they will quietly look on and see such an administration as we have had since the 4th of March, '53 – an administration that has faithfully and fearlessly maintained the Constitution in its purity – supplanted by Know Nothingism or Black Republicanism? That is the issue to be decided in the next presidential election, and that, too, in the electoral college; for if we fail there, then we know now with absolute certainty that we must be defeated before the House. Was it, then, ever so important before that the Convention should be filled with discreet, patriotic men; that there should be the fullest representation of every man devoted to the Democratic faith, and opposed to Fusion and Know Nothingism; that they should commune freely together, and nominate a candidate who will command the confidence of the entire party.