he amplified on the subject, predicting that "North America is on the eve of being divided into a number of independent Governments, with rival, if not conflicting, interests," 21 is distinctly in the nature of a dream.
A dream also, the dim vision of a Jewish prophet, and clung to with a Jewish prophet's obstinacy, is his ever-recurring hope of European recognition, which should free the South and end the war. Here, again, it seems to me that Cavour would either have put the thing through or early seen its hopelessness. Even Benjamin's own foreign agent declares that failure should have been foreseen and accepted at a very early stage. 22 But Benjamin would not foresee, would not accept. Up to the very last months he believed that recognition must come, that Europe could not be so foolish as to neglect its own interest. And long after the war he told Russell, in London, that "though I have done with politics, thank God! I consider your government made a frightful mistake which
Of a similar character, though even more general in the South and less persistent in Benjamin, was the delusion as to the supremacy of cotton.
If, then, Benjamin was not a statesman of a high order or of large and commanding ideas, how was it that he so long held such a prominent place in the Confederate Government? The answer is simple and two good reasons furnish more than the solution of the difficulty.
In the first place, Benjamin was an admirable man of
