Jefferson Davis

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The Senate made Davis chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. When his term expired, he was elected to the same seat (by the Mississippi legislature, as the Constitution mandated at the time). He hadn't served a year when he resigned (in September 1851) to run for the governorship of Mississippi on the issue of the Compromise of 1850, which Davis opposed. This election bid was unsuccessful, as he was defeated by Henry Stuart Foote by 999 votes.

Related Topics:
1851 - Governor - Henry Stuart Foote

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Left without political office, Davis continued his political activity. He took part in a convention on states' rights, held at Jackson, Mississippi in January 1852. In the weeks leading up to the U.S. presidential election, 1852, he campaigned in a number of Southern states for Democratic candidates Franklin Pierce and William R. King.

Related Topics:
Jackson, Mississippi - 1852 - U.S. presidential election, 1852 - Franklin Pierce - William R. King

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Pierce won the election and made Davis his Secretary of War. In this capacity, Davis gave to Congress four annual reports (in December of each year), as well as an elaborate one (submitted in February 22 1855) on various routes for the proposed Transcontinental Railroad. The Pierce administration expired in 1857. The president lost the Democratic nomination, which went instead to James Buchanan. Davis's term was to end with Pierce's, so he ran successfully for the Senate, and re-entered it on March 4, 1857.

Related Topics:
Secretary of War - February 22 - 1855 - Transcontinental Railroad - 1857 - James Buchanan - March 4

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His renewed service in the Senate was interrupted by an illness that threatened him with the loss of his left eye. Still nominally serving in the Senate, Davis spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine. On the Fourth of July, he delivered an anti-secessionist speech on board a ship near Boston. He again urged the preservation of the Union on October 11 in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and returned to the Senate soon after.

Related Topics:
Eye - 1858 - Portland, Maine - Fourth of July - Secession - Boston - October 11 - Faneuil Hall

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On February 2, 1860, as secessionist clamor in the South grew ever louder, Davis submitted six resolutions in an attempt to consolidate opinion regarding states' rights, and to further his own position on the issue. Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery, won the presidency that November. Matters came to a head, and South Carolina seceded from the Union.

Related Topics:
February 2 - 1860 - Resolution - Abraham Lincoln - Slavery - South Carolina

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Though an opponent of secession in principle, Davis upheld it in practice on January 10, 1861. On the 21st of that month, he announced the secession of Mississippi, delivered a farewell address, and resigned from the Senate.

Related Topics:
January 10 - 1861

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