Editing Jefferson Davis (section)

===Senator===
[[File:Jefferson Davis 1847.jpg|thumb|right|[[Daguerrotype]] of [[United States House of Representatives|Representative]] Davis of the [[29th U.S. Congress]] ({{circa}} 1846)|alt=man looking forward]]
Davis took his seat in December 1847 and was made a regent of the [[Smithsonian Institution]].{{sfn|Davis|1991|pp=172–173}} The [[Mississippi state legislature]] confirmed his appointment as [[senator]] in January 1848.{{sfn|Cooper|2000|p=183}} He quickly established himself as an advocate of expanding slavery into the [[Western territories]]. He argued that because the territories were the common property of all the United States and lacked state sovereignty to ban slavery, slave owners had the equal right to settle them as any other citizens.{{sfn|Cooper|2000|pp=170–171}} Davis tried to amend the [[Oregon Bill of 1848|Oregon Bill]] to allow settlers to bring their slaves into [[Oregon Territory]].{{sfnm|Davis|1991|1p=178|Eaton|1977|2p=68|Waite|2016|3pp=536–539}} He opposed ratifying the [[Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo]], which ended the Mexican–American War, claiming that [[Nicholas Trist]], who negotiated the treaty, had done so as a private citizen and not a government representative.{{sfn|Eisenhower|1990|pp=365–366}} Instead, he advocated negotiating a new treaty ceding additional land to the United States,{{sfn|Eaton|1977|p=65}} and opposed the application of the [[Wilmot Proviso]] to the treaty,{{sfn|Davis|1991|pp=165–166}} which would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico.{{sfn|Davis|1991|pp=186}}

During the 1848 presidential election, Davis chose not to campaign against Zachary Taylor, who was the [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig candidate]]. After the Senate session following Taylor's inauguration ended in March 1849, Davis returned to [[Brierfield Plantation]].{{sfn|Davis|1991|pp=184–185}} He was reelected by the state legislature for another six-year term in the Senate. Around this time, he was approached by the Venezuelan adventurer [[Narciso López]] to lead a [[filibuster (military)|filibuster]] expedition to liberate Cuba from Spain. He turned down the offer, saying it was inconsistent with his duty as a senator.{{sfn|Davis|1991|p=197}}

When Calhoun died in the spring of 1850, Davis became the senatorial spokesperson for the South.{{sfn|Davis|1991|pp=205–206}} The Congress debated [[Henry Clay]]'s resolutions, which sought to address the sectional and territorial problems of the nation{{sfn|Cooper|2000|pp=188–189}} and became the basis for the [[Compromise of 1850]].{{sfn|Eaton|1977|pp=75–76}} Davis was against the resolutions because he felt they would put the South at a political disadvantage.{{sfn|Cooper|2000|p=189}} He opposed the admission of California as a free state without its first becoming a territory, asserting that a territorial government would give slaveowners the opportunity to colonize the region. He also tried to extend the [[Missouri Compromise Line]] to allow slavery to expand to the Pacific Ocean.{{sfn|Cooper|2000|pp=191–192}} He stated that not allowing slavery into the new territories denied the political equality of Southerners,{{sfn|Cooper|2008|pp=92–93}} and threatened to undermine the balance of power between Northern and Southern states in the Senate.{{sfn|Eaton|1977|p=71}}

In the autumn of 1851, Davis was nominated to run for governor of Mississippi against [[Henry Stuart Foote]], who had favored the Compromise of 1850. He accepted the nomination and resigned from the Senate, but Foote won the election by a slim margin. Davis turned down a reappointment to his Senate seat by outgoing Governor [[James Whitfield (Mississippi politician)|James Whitfield]],{{sfn|Davis|1991|pp=214–217}} settling in Brierfield for the next fifteen months.{{sfn|Eaton|1977|pp=79–80}} He remained politically active, attending the Democratic convention in January 1852 and campaigning for Democratic candidates [[Franklin Pierce]] and [[William R. King]] during the [[1852 United States presidential election|presidential election of 1852]].{{sfn|Cooper|2000|pp=241–242}}