Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis | Page 4

account, the habit
and power of mental labor. These studies were wrought into his mind
and made part of the intellectual substance by the vigorous collisions of
the societies in which he delighted. For these mimic conflicts he
prepared assiduously, not in writing, but always with a carefully
deduced logical analysis and arrangement of the thoughts to be
developed in the order of argument, with a brief note of any quotation,
or image, or illustration, on the margin at the appropriate place. From
that brief he spoke. And this was his only method of preparation for all
the great conflicts in which he took part in after life. He never wrote out
his speeches beforehand.
Speaking of his feelings at the end of his college life, he sadly said:

"My father's death had embittered the last days of the year 1836, and
left me without a counsellor. I knew something of books, nothing of
men, and I went forth like Adam among the wild beasts of the unknown
wilderness of the world. My father had dedicated me to the ministry,
but the day had gone when such dedications determined the lives of
young men. Theology as a grave topic of historic and metaphysical
investigation I delighted to pursue, but for the ministry I had no calling.
I would have been idle if I could, for I had no ambition, but I had no
fortune and I could not beg or starve."
All who were acquainted with his temperament can well imagine what
a gloomy prospect the future presented to him, when its contemplation
wrung from his stoical taciturnity that touching confession.
The truth is, that from the time he entered college he was continually
cramped for want of money. The negroes ate everything that was
produced on the farm in Anne Arundel, a gastronomic feat which they
could easily accomplish, without ever having cause to complain of a
surfeit. His aunt, herself in limited circumstances, by a careful
husbandry of her means, managed to keep him at college. Kenyon was
then a manual-labor institution, and the boys were required to sweep
their own rooms, make their own beds and fires, bring their own water,
black their own boots, if they ever were blacked, and take an occasional
turn at grubbing in the fields or working on the roads. There was no
royal road to learning known at Kenyon in those days. Through all this
Henry Winter Davis passed, bearing his part manfully; and knowing
how heavily he taxed the slender purse of his aunt, he denied himself
with such rigor that he succeeded, incredible as it may appear, in
bringing his total expenses, including boarding and tuition, within the
sum of eighty dollars per annum.
His father left an estate consisting only of some slaves, which were
equally apportioned between himself and sister. Frequent applications
were made to purchase his slaves, but he never could be induced to sell
them, although the proceeds would have enabled him to pursue his
studies with ease and comfort. He rather sought and obtained a
tutorship, and for two years he devoted to law and letters only the time

he could rescue from its drudgery. In a letter, written in April, 1839,
replying to the request of a relative who offered to purchase his slave
Sallie, subject to the provisions of his father's will, which manumitted
her if she would go to Liberia, he said: "But if she is under my control."
(he did not know that she had been set to his share,) "I will not consent
to the sale, though he wishes to purchase her subject to the will." And
so Sallie was not sold, and Henry Winter Davis, the tutor, toiled on and
waited. He never would hold any of his slaves under his authority,
never would accept a cent of their wages, and tendered each and all of
them a deed of absolute manumission whenever the law would allow.
Tell me, was that man sincere in his opposition to slavery? How many
of those who have since charged him with being selfish and reckless in
his advocacy of emancipation would have shown equal devotion to
principle? Not one; not one. Ah! the man who works and suffers for his
opinions' sake places his own flesh and blood in pledge for his
integrity.
Notwithstanding his irksome and exacting duties, he kept his eye
steadily on the University of Virginia, and read, without assistance, a
large part of its course. He delighted especially in the pungent pages of
Tacitus and the glowing and brilliant, dignified and elevated epic of the
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. These were favorites which
never lost their charm for him. When recently on a visit at my house, he
stated in conversation that he often exercised himself