The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1908-06-13
In Memory OF jefferson Davis.

address of DR.. Z. G. Gordon, given
at Memorial and Anniversary cere-
monies conducted by Sterling Price
Chapter, Lexington, Mo-, and pub
lished by request.l
It would be a grateful task to pre-
sent to you on this centennial ami
versary of President Davis birthday
a full account of his career, and an
estimate of his noble civic and mill
tary virtues. But there is no time
for so important an undertaking;
nor am l prepared to enter upon it.
1 must be content to state and to n
swer a single question touching his
career; a question about which every
thoughtful and fair-minded citizen
should be concerned.
The question is this: Why is it,
after IS years and more have elapsed
since his death, after f~orty-odd years
have passed since the close of the
Confederate war; why is it, that Mr..
Davis does not fully share in the hon.
ors which even Northern people are
disposed to heap upon the heroic
soldiers who fought for the independ-
ence of the South? Why is it that it
is still common for some Northern
speakers and writer's to belittle Mr..
Davis, and that so few are found to
do him justice?
Mr.. Davis wal a man of stainless
private life. He had molly served
his country both in peace and
At the head of his gallant Mississippi
plans he saved the honor of the United
States arms on the bloody field of
Buena Vista. As Secretary of War
he did as much to promote the eff
cheney of the army of the United
States as Mr.. Roosevelt, subsequent
ly, did to promote the efficiency of
its navy. AS United States Senator,
while he strenuously maintained the
doctrine of the paramount sovereign
ty of the States as against the SOW
ereignty of the Federal government,
he was by no means an extreme seces-
sionist. He opposed the Douglas
doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty-a
doctrine which taught that a few
struggling Settlers in a territory
might do what it was alleged the
Federal Government itself had no
authority to do. When Massachus-
etts proposed to nullify a national
fugitive slave law, he fully accorded
to that state the right to secede from
the Union, if it was not satisfied to re.
main in it, and boldly declared on the
floor of the Senate that he would not
vote a dollar to compel her to remain.
When, finally, the issue was made.
and he had 10 choose between his
sovereign state, his country, and the
Federal Government, which he rightly
regarded as the agent of his state
and country, he did only what thous-
ands of other men did. He was loyal
to his sovereign rather than to the
agent of that sovereign. Why, then,
should he be singled out to suffer vi
cautiously for all his people?
In answer TO this question l remark
that the basal facts on his side are
that he had served the Confederate
State as a civilian; and, as a civilian,
he was not protected from Northern
malice by the terms under which the
Confederate armies surrendered.
It is interesting to recall that Mr..
Lincoln did not share in this malice,
and that he desired Mr.. Davis and 9TH
er prominent officers of the Confeder-
ate Government to escape arrestat the
hands Of the Federal authorities. Mr..
Lincoln was shrewd enough to know
that no impartial tribunal would con-
Wet Mr.. Davis, or any other Confed-
crate officer, of treason. He knew, he
had been made to know, that he and
his government had been dealing nei-
ther with couspiracynor rebellion; but
with a nation in arms; a government
no lesseonscientiously convinced than
his, and much more outspoxen than
he dared to be. He knew, he was obIi-
ged to know that his g%overnmsnt had
~"