In all this never was Mr. Saunders in the least daunted nor was his masked power the least exposed. His coolness was equalled only by the vigor of his opponent. In nothing passive but always forceful and brave, he lent mightiness of strength by a serenity that challenged the admiration of the sturdiest opponent. In the gage and stress of conflict his thought flowed without the least break in its coherency and without the slightest disconcertedness. His equable temper never forsook him. To each contest he would bring the same tranquil poise and it was maintained throughout. Without hesitation he would face unblinking the severe ordeals to which he was subjected in the stormy legislative days when he moved a giant among the giants of Alabama. To be a legislator in those days meant much, for the people filled the seats of legislation with their choicest spirits.
Mr. Saunders was not of a bantering mien, but he relied on the strength of his logic into which he quietly injected a personal conviction so overpowering that it would seem that no position could be more impregnable, and thus it would look till it came to fall under the iconoclastic manipulation of his formidable opponent. To be able to have those days of partisan tempest reproduced in type would be to thrill thousands at this late time.
As chairman of the judiciary committee in the house, the service rendered by Mr. Saunders was fundamental to the interests of the state. Nor was any one more profoundly interested in the educational affairs of the state as was shown by his share in the establishment of the state university on a solider basis, of the board of trustees of which institution he was a prominent member. Mr. Saunders would have graced a higher station in the affairs of statecraft than that which he held, and in a wider orbit would have afforded an easier play of his strength. Dropping out of politics for a short while, he became a commission merchant in Mobile, but in 1845 he was appointed to the post of the port of Mobile, by President Polk, and after an expiration of his term of office he was on the electoral ticket in the campaign which resulted in the election of Pierce and King. Wealthy and hospitable, his was a typical southern home of the long ago.