Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/636

 004 The Southern leaders. [i86i- statesman or financier, though he devoted himself with energy and self-effacement to the hopeless task of winning independence for the South. Elected to his office in order to carry out the views of the extreme secessionists, he lacked the hearty support of the more moderate advocates of Southern rights, such as his own Vice-President, and aroused the bitter opposition of a small party in the Congress, a prominent spokesman of which was Henry S. Foote, representative from Tennessee, formerly, like Davis, a United States senator from Mississippi, and in 1852 the successful opponent to Davis in his candidacy for the governorship of that State. As head of a government that had necessarily to become a military despotism, despite the theory of State sovereignty upon which it was avowedly based, Davis aroused the active hostility of various State governments in the person of their governors. After the war he was indicted for treason, but the case was "nolled" in 1868. He died in 1889. Alexander H. Stephens, like Davis, brought to his office an intimate acquaintance with the Federal government, having represented Georgia in Congress at Washington from 1843 to 1859. Before and after his election to the Vice-Presidency he differed with Davis on the fundamental question of States rights. In the Confederate government he played an unimportant part, except for the sanction, if not en- couragement, that he gave to the Georgia peace party, which became prominent in 1864, and demanded a speedy termination of the war, even at the cost of Southern autonomy. After the war Stephens again appeared in the political field, first in the United States Congress, then as Governor of Georgia. In Davis' Cabinet, Judah P. Benjamin and Robert Toombs were men of distinction. Both had been members of the United States Congress, and were uncompromising champions of the Southern cause. Benjamin held various Confederate Cabinet positions, and was Secretary of State during three years. Toombs was the President's choice for the Treasury portfolio; but Davis yielded to South Carolina's claims for recognition, and offered Toombs the Secretaryship of State, which he held till his appointment to a military command. The Secretary of the Treasury, C. G. Memminger, was quite unknown in national politics. He had had some experience in public matters as a member of the South Carolina legislature, but brought to his important office a very slight acquaintance with financial questions, and small ability to diagnose the difficulties which confronted the Confederate Treasury, and to suggest proper remedies. Memminger's successor, George A. Trenholm of Charleston, to whom he yielded his office in July, 1864, was of a different stamp, a keen and active cotton-merchant, who had been on intimate terms with the Treasury Department owing to his interest and success in blockade-running. Among other members of the Cabinet may be mentioned the two leading Secretaries of War,