2o6 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
balance of my life in peace and quiet in any decent cor- ner of a free country." ^^ But such disclaimers do not count for much.
Stephens, who liked Toombs and disliked Davis, but who was not usually much blinded by his feelings, would have preferred to see the former at the head of the Government. " Thrift follows him, unthrift Davis. Had Toombs been made President — that he was not, was only an accident — it is my conviction that the whole scheme of action, nay, the results would have been changed. . . . The object sought would have been one less objectionable to the North. It would, after two years of war, have been gained by a special treaty because it was strictly constitutional. But Davis, Davis — I knov/ not why he was elected president of the Confederacy, except that he never succeeded in anything he under-
In spite of Stephens's weighty authority, I cannot im- agine Toombs succeeding at the head of a great govern- ment. Impetuous tempers are, indeed, sometimes sobered by responsibility ; yet is it possible that one so utterly un- trained to obey should ever have been able to command ? The president of the Confederacy required a tact in deal- ing with difficult situations and difficult characters, a tolerance of opinion contrary to his own, a breadth of human understanding and sympathy, such as were hardly to be found in Lee and Washington, and such as are certainly not indicated in Toombs. Those who are in-
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