She was stimulated by the social life with intelligent people and was known for making "unorthodox observations". Among them were that "slaves were human beings with their frailties" and that "everyone was a 'half breed' of one kind or another." She referred to herself as one because of her strong family connections in both North and South.[11] The Davises lived in Washington, DC for most of the next fifteen years before the American Civil War, which gave Varina Howell Davis a broader outlook than many Southerners.