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He also advocated for what became the Gadsden Purchase. He ended the manufacture of smoothbore muskets, shifted production to more accurate rifles and worked to develop the tactics that go with them. He oversaw the building of public works in Washington, D.C., including numerous federal buildings and the Washington Aqueduct, and was on the board of the newly created Smithsonian Institution, which he saw
as a national center of learning for all citizens. Perhaps one of Davis’s most lasting and unknown legacies may be as the visionary advocate to expand the United States Capitol from a small, cramped, statehouse-like building into a majestic seat of government. When the Secretary of the Interior asked Davis to send him a U.S. Army engineer to lead the construction, Davis induced Pierce to transfer the Capitol project from Interior to his own department, and then named U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Capt. Montgomery C. Meigs as engineer-in-charge.
For the next four years, Davis fought all challenges and kept the money flowing towards the project. Davis, Meigs, and architect Thomas U. Walter planned a newly expanded building that would have to last a millennium and hired Italian immigrant Constantino Brumidi to paint frescoes for the ceilings and walls and to decorate the rooms in an ornate style. When congressional skeptics complained that the interior design was too opulent for a republic like the United States, Davis ignored them
and provided whatever funds that Meigs and Walter requested. Eventually Davis lost much of his influence over the Capitol project when Pierce left the presidency in 1857. As a result, Davis ran for Senate once more, was elected, and re-entered it on March 4, 1857.
When South Carolina withdrew from the Union in December 1860, Davis still opposed secession while still being a vocal proponent of slavery. He was among those who believed that the newly elected president, Abraham Lincoln, would coerce the South and that the result would be disastrous.
Davis resigned his Senate seat and left Washington on January 21, 1861. One month later, the Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Alabama, selected Davis to become the provisional President of the Confederacy. He was inaugurated for a six-year term as president on February 22. Davis’ appointment was largely political.
Diamond Drill from December 23rd, 1905
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