r as soldier and statesman,
as War Minister under Pierce, and as senator for Mississippi, made him a
prominent figure. He was cultured, classical, and well rounded, equipped
by leisure and long study for the career before him. He had vanquished
Sergeant S. Prentiss in public discussion over the national bank, and
contested, inch by inch, the domination of Henry S. Foote in
Mississippi. His career in the Mexican war had been a notable one.
Allied to Zachary Taylor by marriage, a West Pointer by training, a
Southern planter by occupation, he was a typical defender of slavery as
it existed. Davis was as slender and frail as Douglas was compact and
sinewy. Like Lincoln, his mind grasped great principles, while Douglas
was fighting for points and expedients.

Douglas declared that the territorial settler could determine whether
slavery should exist, by his influence in providing or withholding
police power; although he denied the constitutional right to legislate
slavery out of the Territories, yet he believed the "popular sovereign"
could, by means of "unfriendly legislation," bar out the Southern
settler with his slaves. It was not difficult for Mr. Davis to impale
him upon this plea.

Senator Douglas had saved his seat in the Senate, but his position in
the Democratic party was weakened. The Lecompton Constitution passed the
Senate in spite of Douglas's steady opposition.

Senator Toombs took no part in the subtleties of the Douglas-Davis
debate. He listened to the refinements of that discussion with decided
convictions of his own, but with clear appreciation of the fact that
every point scored against Douglas was cleaving the Democratic party in
twain. Mr. Toombs favored the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution,
but when it was rejected by the House, he promptly accepted the English
compromise, to refer the matter back to the people. Mr. Toombs had
always been partial to Douglas. In the campaign of 1856 he declared, in
Georgia, that "the man who condemned Senator Douglas needed watching
himself." He viewed with some pain the Douglas departure over popular
sovereignty; indeed he once declared that had he not been called away
from the Senate for quite a time in 1856, Mr. Douglas would never have
gone off on this tangent. When asked if Douglas were really a great
man, Senator Toombs, in 1860, answered with characteristic heartiness
and exaggeration, "There has been but one greater, and he, the Apostle
Paul."

It was