Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/77

Organization of Post- Office Department of Con fdcracy 67 This brief sketch is given so that the large outHnes of Judge Reagan's life may be discerned, and his preparedness for higher duties properly estimated. We shall find that those habits of mind engendered by his early contact with the sharp facets of life were the. guiding ones of his career. Judge Reagan did not reach Montgomery, Alabama — where were to assemble on February 4 the delegates of the seceded states — until after the organization had been completed, and the President and Vice-president of the Confederacy elected. And al- most sinister is the warning note in his first interview with Presi- dent Davis. The Judge writes : I called on the President and in the course of our conversation I said to him, that if I had been present at the election I should not have voted for him. I explained, however, that my objection was not based on the ground of distrusting his fitness for the high office, but because I preferred him at the head of the army. This post he admitted would have been more agreeable to him. Furthermore, I added that I should not have voted for Mr. Stephens, because it was the first time I had known in history of a people embarking in a revolution and selecting as one of their leaders a person known to be opposed to it. Not disturbed by the Judge's frank expression of his views. President Davis, on March 6, tendered him the portfolio of Post- master-General. Reagan's surprise was complete, and his answer no less complete — he declined the honor. A second tender was also declined. This indeed seemed a post so thankless and so beset with difficulties that a respectable incumbent could not be found. Already in the press of organizing his Cabinet President Davis had offered the role to Mr. Ellet of Mississippi, who had been eight vears a conspicuous member of Congress ; and to Col- onel Wirt Adams, a prominent citizen of the same state. These gentlemen had e.xcused themselves on the ground of insuperable difiiculties ; and so had Mr. Reagan. But after this second declina- tion, other forces were brought to bear on the unwilling judge. General T. X. 'aA of Texas and the Honorable J. L. ]I. Curry of Alabama called on him and requested that he should accompany them to see the President. Once in the executive office, it was an easy matter to bring up the subject of the Post-Office Department, and presto he was urged by these gentlemen and by Mr. Davis to accept the appointment. His objection was that our people under the Government of the United States, had been accustomed to regular postal facilities ; that when the service under that Government lapsed, it would require considerable time to re- establish a regular postal system, and that in the meantime dissatisfac-