his only ground for ranking himself with the victor of Second
Manassas. Davis was also unfortunate in lacking the power to
overcome men and sweep them along with him--the power Lee showed
so conspicuously. Nor was Davis averse to sharp reproof of the
highest officials when he thought them in the wrong. He once
wrote to Joseph E. Johnston that a letter of his contained
"arguments and statements utterly unfounded" and "insinuations as
unfounded as they were unbecoming."

Davis was not always wise in his choice of men. His confidence in
Bragg, who was long his chief military adviser, is not sustained
by the military critics of a later age. His Cabinet, though not
the contemptible body caricatured by the malice of Pollard, was
not equal to the occasion. Of the three men who held the office
of Secretary of State, Toombs and Hunter had little if any
qualification for such a post, while the third, Benjamin, is the
sphinx of Confederate history.

In a way, Judah P. Benjamin is one of the most interesting men in
American politics. By descent a Jew, born in the West Indies, he
spent his boyhood mainly at Charleston and his college days at
Yale. He went to New Orleans to begin his illustrious career as a
lawyer, and from Louisiana entered politics. The facile keenness
of his intellect is beyond dispute. He had the Jewish clarity of
thought, the wonderful Jewish detachment in matters of pure mind.
But he was also an American of the middle of the century. His
quick and responsive nature--a nature that enemies might call
simulative--caught and reflected the characteristics of that
singular and highly rhetorical age. He lives in tradition as the
man of the constant smile, and yet there is no one in history