Judah P. Benjamin - Statesman Of The Lost Cause
Cód:
491_9781443723947
JUDAH P. BENJAMIN Statesman of the JCoft Cause by ROLLIN OSTERWEIS. Originally published in 1933. FOREWORD: How time changes all things and especially our opinions of men and measures. When I think what we were taught in the time of fierce passions after the Civil War, taught about the personal motives of Jefferson Davis and his associates, about the treachery of Andrew Johnson and the necessity and the justice of the reconstruction measures, and then think of the revision or reversal of these opinions which time has brought, it brings home the modesty which ought to characterize our present judgments and especially our judgments of men and their motives. It is a great thing that the passions of the Civil War have cooled and that we can study with charity and without bias the point of view and the springs of action of the great men of the time, both North and South. Of course, for us of the North the Southerners who first received due recognition were the warriors. For one thing they did brilliant fighting which all could understand. For another thing we think of the soldier as obeying orders and we relieve him in our minds of responsibility for the policies which we condemn. Thus our bitterness was reserved for the civilians, and boys of my time were taught to regard as a peculiarly wicked traitor that very conscientious and high minded gentleman who, with many mistakes and with fatal faults of temper and temperament, yet guided the Confederacy with single-minded devotion to duty as he saw it. The persecution of Davis by the North made him a martyr, and the memory of the man who through the second half of the Civil War was quite unpopular with the Southern people has become a symbol of the lost cause. The whirligig of time brings in its revenges. No such good fortune came to Judah P. Benjamin. He gave without stint of his enormous vitality and brilliant ability. Although his advice was sought on all subjects by his chief, to whom he was absolutely loyal, diplomac
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