Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/117

Rh liually in East Hampton. His father was a farmer, slioernaker, and tanner. Henry was prepared for college at Clinton academy, and was graduated at Yale in 1796, when he accepted a tutorship in Will- iams, which he held till January, 1798, going hi that year to Somers, Conn., in order to study theology with Dr. Charles Backus. In July of the following year he was licensed to preach by the Association of Tolland county, and shortly afterward appointed tutor in Yale, where he remained until 1808. In 1806 he was called to the professorship of Greek in Union, and, after spending three years there, be- came president of Middlebury, and was ordained at the same time. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by Union, and the Greek professorship again offered him, which he declined. He was ap- pointed president of Hamilton college, where he remained until his resignation in 1833. He was active in establishing the theological seminary at Auburn, and the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. After his resignation, Dr. Davis published a " Narrative of the Embarrass- ments and Decline of Hamilton College " (1833). He also published many sermons and addresses. — His son, Thomas T., lawyer, b. in Middlebury, Vt., 22 Aug., 1810; d. in Syracuse, N. Y., 2 May, 1872, was graduated at Hamilton college in 1831. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Syra- cuse in 1833. He was counsel for the principal manufacturing establishments of that city, and took an active interest in railroad and mining en- terprises. In 1862 he was elected to congress, and re-elected in 1864. After that date he resided in Syracuse, devoting himself to his law practice.

DAVIS, Henry Winter, statesman, b. in An- napolis, Md., 16 Aug., 1817 ; d. in Baltimore, 30 Dec, 1865. His father. Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, of the Protestant Episcopal church, was the president of St. John's col- lege, at Annapo- lis, and rector of St. Ann's parish. He lost both offi- ces on account of his Federal poli- tics, and removed to Wilmington, Del., leaving his son with Eliza- beth Brown Win- ter, an aunt, who possessed a noble character, and was rigid in her sys- tem of training children. The boy afterward went to Wilmington, and was instructed un- der his father's supervision. In 1827 the family returned to Maryland and settled in Anne Arundel county. Here Henry Winter be- came much attached to field-sports, and gave little promise of scholai'ly attainments. He roamed about the country, always attended by one of his father's slaves, with an old fowling-piece upon his shoulder, burning much powder and returning with a small amount of game. The insight into slavery that he thus gained affected him strongly. He said, in after years : " My familiar association with the slaves, while a boy, gave me great insight into their feelings and views. They spoke with freedom be- fore a boy what they would have repressed before ii man. They were far from indifferent to their condition ; they felt wronged, and sighed for freedom. They were attached to my father, and loved me, yet they habitually spoke of the day when God would deliver them." He was educated in Alexandria, and at Kenyon college, where he was graduated in 1837. His father died in that year, leaving a few slaves to be divided between himself and his sister, but he would not allow them to be sold, although he might have pursued his studies with ease and comfort. Rather- than do this he ob- tained a tutorship, and, notwithstanding these arduous tasks, read the course of law in the Uni- versity of Virginia, which he entered in 1839. The expenses of his legal studies were defrayed with the proceeds of some land that his aunt had sold for the purpose. He began practice in Alex- andria, Va., but first attained celebrity in the Episcopal convention of Maryland by his defence of Dr. H. V. D. Johns against the accusation of Bishop Whittingham for having violated the canon of the Episcopal church in consenting to officiate in the Methodist Episcopal church. In 1850 he removed to Baltimore, where he held a high so- cial and professional position. He was a promi- nent whig, and known as the brilliant orator and controversialist of the Scott canvass in 1852. He was elected a member of congress for the 3d dis- trict of Maryland (part of Baltimore) in 1854, and re-elected in 1856, serving on the committee of ways and means. After the dissolution of the whig- party he joined the American or Know-nothing party. He was re-elected to congress in 1858, and in 1859 voted for Mr. Pennington, the republican candidate for speaker, thus drawing upon himself much abuse and reproach. The legislature of Maryland " decorated him with its censure," as he expressed it on the floor of the house ; but he de- clared to his constituents that, if they would not allow their representative to exercise his jjrivate judgment as to what were the best interests of the state, " You may send a slave to congress, but you can not send me." After the attack on the 6th Massachusetts regiment in Baltimore in 1861, Mr. Davis pulilishcd a card announcing himself as an "uncondilioruu union" candidate for con- gress, and conducted his canvass almost alone, amid a storm of reproach and abuse, being defeat- ed, but receiving about 6,000 votes. When Mr. Lincoln was nominated in 1860, Mr. Davis was offered the nomination for vice-president, but de- clined it ; and when the question of his appoint- ment to the cabinet was agitated, he urged the selection of John A. Gilmer in his stead. He was again in congress in 1863-'5, and served as chair- man of the committee on foreign affairs. Although representing a slave state, Mr. Davis was conspicu- ous for unswerving fidelity to the Union and ad- vocacy of emancipation. He heartily supported the administration, but deprecated the assumption of extraordinary powers by the executive, and de- nounced congress as cowardly for not authorizing by statute what it expected that department to do. He early favoi-ed the enlistment of negroes in the army, and said, " The best deed of emancipation is a musket on the shoulder." In the summer of 1865 he made a speech in Chicago in favor of negro suffrage. Mr. Davis was denounced by politicians as impractical. He used to say that he who com- promised a moral principle was a scoundrel, but that he who would not compromise a political measure was a fool. Mr. Davis possessed an un- usually fine library, and was gifted with a good memory and a brilliant mind, which was united with many personal advantages. Inheriting force and scholarship from his father, he had received