Territory to the Congress of the United States. After a residence among you of several years, during which time I have been principally engaged in the public service, nothing could contribute more to my gratification than the sanction of the enlightened representatives of that community whose welfare has, in part, been committed to my care and management.

"The task assigned me is indeed an arduous one: various reflections lead to a conviction that it may become still more important and difficult, and I almost despair of meeting the just expectations of the people whose interest I am deputed to represent; but whatever of talents, whatever of information or industry I may possess, shall not fail to be called forth in promoting the advancement of our common prosperity and independence.

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Accept, gentlemen, for yourselves and both Houses of the General Assembly, my warmest acknowledgments for the high confidence you have conferred on me, and the assurances of my best wishes for your individual happiness.

"GEO. POINDEXTER."

The course of Mr. Poindexter as the representative of the Territory in the Congress of the United States was marked at once with the utmost fidelity to the interest of his constituents, and with an ability that attracted the admiration of that body and the attention of the country; and to him was due, for the most part, that legislation, both at home and in Congress, which was so favorable to the progress of the Territory and the development of its resources; to the establishment of a healthy jurisprudence, and the advancement of every interest.

On the expiration of his career in Congress as the delegate from the Mississippi Territory, Mr. Poindexter resumed his practice of law, but in 1813 he was commissioned by the President of the United States as one of the judges of the Superior Court of the Territory; and, in 1817, we find him an active and leading member of the convention for the organization of the State Government. He was chairman of the committee appointed to draft a form of government and constitution for the new State, and to him we are, in a great measure, indebted for

that admirable charter under which our State was launched upon its brilliant career of sovereignty.

On the organization of the State Government in 1817, Mr. Poindexter was again chosen as the representative of his people in the national Congress, to which, returning with a riper experience in the art of government, he entered upon a career as remarkable as it was brilliant and admirable.

In 1819, he delivered in the House of Representatives his celebrated speech on the Seminole War. This speech was evoked by the introduction of a resolution censuring General Jackson for causing the execution of the noted incendiaries and instigators of the war, Arbuthnot and Ambrister; for his seizure of the Spanish posts of St. Marks and Pensacola and Fortress Barancas, which acts were alleged to have been done in violation of the law of nations and the express commands of the President of the United States.

Mr. Poindexter, after a comprehensive review of the nature, origin, and progress of the war, and a most masterly and eloquent vindication of the conduct of General Jackson, closed this speech with a peroration which fell like a thunderbolt upon the enemies of the noble old chief, and like an electric spark upon the patriotic spirit of the country. The conduct of General Jackson was vindicated and approved, and the machinations of his opponents brought to confusion and shame. This speech was highly commended by the press of the period. It stamped Mr. Poindexter as one of the most accomplished and eloquent orators in the national House of Representatives, and gave him a just title to that splendid fee of fame which he afterward enjoyed. This speech is introduced in full in connection with this sketch.

In November, 1819, and before the expiration of his term in the national House of Representatives, Mr. Poindexter was elected Governor of Mississippi, and entered upon the duties of that office on the 5th of January, 1820. In his message of that date to the Legislature he said: "There can be nothing more dear to the heart of the patriot than the prosperity, the honor, and glory of his country; and no reward for sacrifice incurred in the discharge of duties necessary to the attainment of these

great objects is more precious than the smiles of an approving conscience and the unbought plaudits of an enlightened people. To merit the former is the full measure of my ambition, and to receive the latter is a solace which consummates all my wishes."

At the expiration of his term as Governor of the State, Mr Poindexter again retired to private life and devoted himself to the practice of his profession; but while he was yet Governor, the Legislature passed an act authorizing and requesting him to revise and amend the statutes of the State. This duty he performed in a most able and satisfactory manner, and in 1822, his code was completed, and established as the law of the State; and the Legislature, by a joint resolution of June 29th of that year, tendered to him the gratitude of the State for the fidelity and ability with which he had accomplished the task, and presented him with an elegant copy of the Encyclopædia.

In November, 1830, he was again called from his professional vocation, and elected by the Legislature of Mississippi to a seat in the United States Senate. In this position he manifested those increased abilities which experience engenders, and to the exercise of which this enlarged sphere gave plentiful scope. Mr. Poindexter had an exalted idea of American liberty, of the rights of the States, and of the people. He was extremely jealous of the least exercise of unwarranted power by Congress, or by either branch of the General Government. He was a strict constructionist of the Constitution and spirit of our Government, and though he had so ably and vehemently defended General Jackson in the House of Representatives ten years before, yet, when on the occasion of a resolution of censure, in 1834, President Jackson sent to the Senate his memorable protest, and which, as Mr. Poindexter conceived, was not couched in the language of courtesy and respect, he immediately assailed it as a breach of privilege.

He said: "I will not dignify this paper by considering it in the light of an Executive message: it is no such thing. I regard it simply as a paper with the signature of Andrew Jackson; and should the Senate refuse to receive it, it will not be the first paper with the same signature which has been refused a hearing in this body, on the ground of the abusive and vitu

perative language which it contained. This effort to denounce and overawe the deliberations of the Senate may properly be regarded as capping the climax of that systematic plan of operations which has for several years been in progress, designed to bring this body into disrepute among the people, and thereby remove the only existing barrier to the arbitrary encroachments and usurpations of Executive power."

Mr. Poindexter retired from the Senate in 1836, now full of years, and crowned with the laurels of a brilliant, useful, and exemplary life.

We have traced this remarkable man through his long and eminent career of public benefaction; let us now notice some of those traits of character that achieved for him so much

success.

Mr. Poindexter was a profound lawyer, notwithstanding his varied and almost constant public services: his early preparation, his genius, and assiduity, had enabled him to acquire a mastery of the science of jurisprudence. He was an impressive and eloquent speaker, but his eloquence was more like a torrent that sweeps everything before it, than that Ciceronian gentleness that glides upon the waves of conciliation. Mr. Poindexter was fond of the argumentum ad hominem; he did not depend so much upon the fickle wand of suasion as upon the rod of reason he gained the citadel of conviction by storm, direct, and full in front, rather than by the crouching manoeuvres and circuitous paths of allurement. He possessed a keen sense of honor, and was open and generous in all his dealings; punctilious in the discharge of his public duties, and resolute in the prosecution of every undertaking. He was all that Horace meant by his "justus et tenax propositi vir.”

But, above all, was his lofty spirit of patriotism. He was proud of his country, and loved his adopted State with an ardor that aroused his genius and kindled the fires of his soul. While he lacked, perhaps, that gloss and meteoric flash which characterized the eloquence of Curran and Prentiss, he possessed in a high degree that steady glow of genius and that power of aptness and elegance which gave lustre to the discourses of Pitt and Webster.

Mr. Poindexter was engaged at the bar in most of the noted cases of his time in the Territory, and always fully met the apprehensions of his opponents and the expectations of his friends, with increased distinction.

It fell to his lot, in the early part of his career, to prosecute the famous Aaron Burr, who, while making his first descent to New Orleans, was arrested at Natchez and subjected to a judicial examination in the neighboring town of Washington, then the seat of the Territorial Government. Mr. Poindexter conducted this prosecution with energy and ability; but Mr. Burr had many powerful friends in the vicinity-men of wealth and influence--who came to his rescue, and in consequence, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of Mr. Poindexter, he was acquitted. But, no doubt, the distinguished prisoner was no less surprised than chagrined to find his plans penetrated by the eye of scrutiny, and disclosed by the tongue of eloquence, on the part of a young Territorial lawyer on the banks of the Mississippi.

Mr. Poindexter was a stanch advocate of popular education he fully comprehended and appreciated the fact that a people to be free must have a knowledge of their rights and the duties they owe to society. In his message to the Legislature in 1820, he said:

"Before the august and overwhelming tribunal of a nation of freemen, whose minds have been reared and nurtured into full maturity under the benign influence of institutions recognizing the unrestrained toleration of religious and political opinions, and embracing the wide range of human rights, limited only by the condition of society, tyranny and bigotry stand appalled, and sink beneath the weight of reason.

"Our forms of government rest on the virtue and intelligence of the people, without which they will tumble into one general heap of irretrievable ruins.

"The avenues to education and knowledge ought to be made. accessible to every youth, without distinction of rank. From the humble cottage surrounded by penury and want the brightest luminaries of intellect and virtue often burst forth, and the hero or the statesman is seen, rising from obscurity, to add