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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 Excerpt: ...for a policy of retaliation. He had a weak sentimentalism in his character which made him the prey of all artful petitioners; a man who wept easily, whose tears laid shallow, who was readily moved by appeals to mercy at variance with justice. He was accessible to all emotional influences. If I ever had a point to make on President Davis, said a Richmond politician, I always got his pastor, Dr. Minnigerode, to see him. A character so shallow and hesitating was not that to furnish those firm and severe measures in a state of war, where there is no place for the tender emotions, and where the man of iron is the type of wisdom and of courage. It is true that we have heretofore written of the courage of Mr. Davis, in a certain sense--as exhibited on the field of Manassas and elsewhere--and we are not disposed to detract anything from that tribute. But the President of the Confederate States appears to us a striking example of that character, which those experienced in the world sometimes meet with, of persons physically brave, ready in a certain exaltation of spirits to put their lives at a pin's fee, and yet so utterly and woefully defective in moral courage, that the meanest temptations make them their victims, aud the most unworthy weaknesses display them to the world. Mr. Davis was not a man who shirked physical dangers; and yet we find him the picture of shrinking timidity on every appeal to moral courage, a man who wore around his Administration a belt of preachers and women, who had no mind of his own, unless to display it in obstinacy to those who bluntly advised him, or to surrender it in weak acquiescences to those who ingeniously cajoled him. He had pluck, combativeness; he might have fought on any trial of physical hardi...

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