ich I live, there was
an earnest desire on the part of conservative Democrats and liberal
Republicans, to elect the Hon. David Davis to the Presidency.
He had been a Whig in early life, brought up in the school of
Webster and Clay, and was later the devoted personal and political
friend of Mr. Lincoln. An earnest Union man during the war, he
had at its close favored the prompt restoration to the Southern
people of all their rights under the Constitution. As a judge
of the Supreme Court, he had rendered a decision in which human
life was involved, in which he had declared the supremacy of the
Federal Constitution _in war as well as in peace._ Believing that
he would prove an acceptable candidate, I had gladly joined the
movement to secure his nomination at the now historic convention
which met at Cincinnati in May, 1872. For many weeks prior to the
meeting of that convention, there was little talked of in
central Illinois but the nomination of Judge Davis for President.
Morning, noon, and night, "Davis, Davis, Davis," was the burden of
our song.

He did not, as is well known, receive the nomination, that honor, of
course, passing to a distinguished Democratic statesman of New York.

Two or three days before I was to leave my home for the Cincinnati
convention, an old Democratic friend from an adjoining county came
into my office. He was an old-timer in very truth. He was born
in Tennessee, had when a mere boy fought under Jackson at Talladega,
Tallapoosa, and New Orleans, had voted for him three times for
the Presidency, and expected to join him when he died. He had
lived in Illinois since the "big snow," and his party loyalty was
a proverb.

As I shook hands with him when he came into my office, he laid
aside his saddle-bags, stood his rifle in the corner, took off his
blanket overcoat, and seating himself by the fire, inquired how my
"folks" all were. The answer being satisfactory, and the fact
ascertained by me that his own "folks" were well, he asked.

"Mr. Stevenson, who are you fur fur President?"

Unhesitatingly and earnestly I replied, "Davis."

A shade, as of disappointment, appeared for a moment upon his
countenance, but instantly recovering himself, he said, "Well,
if they nominate him, we will give him the usual majority in our
precinct, but don't you think, Mr. Stevenson, _it is a leetle airly
to bring old Jeff out?"_

XXVI
A STATESMAN OF A PAST ERA

ZEBULON B. VANCE, THE IDOLIZED GO