Compare the last speeches of each in the senate. Toombs's justification of secession is with argument and appeal to conscience that the greatest men cannot, and only cosmic forces, the fates, the directors of evolution, can answer. Davis's does satisfy the conscience of the typical southerner, and in the tone preserved from beginning to end is a marvel of propriety. The pathos of his leave-taking melted the sternest hearts on the other side. It was especially in his freedom from offensive words and the gentlemanly self-restraint of his manner that Davis showed as decidedly superior to the other. In the speech of Toombs last noticed there are some harsh and heated words that I would blot into complete oblivion if I could. There is not a single line in the other that I can find fault with. I will here parallel them in another place that is strikingly illustrative. Some years after the war the people of Mississippi wanted to send Davis back to the United States senate. To this end the legislature memorialized him to apply for the removal of his disability. He replied that repentance ought always to precede asking for pardon, and that he had not yet repented. One day about the same time a sympathizing southerner asked Toombs if the yankees had pardoned him yet. He scowled his darkest, and thundered, "No. And God damn 'em, I haven't pardoned them." Of course the average man or woman will cordially approve the decorum of Davis's reply, and on reflection will censure the other. Davis was completely representative of the real chivalry of the south; and from the Mexican war on, this was more and more recognized in the section. When he was made president of the confederacy the great majority of the people approved. He is such a gentleman; so conscientious; so attentive to his public duties; and then his military education and experience make him far superior to Lincoln--this was said by the general. Thus were his disqualifications for the place concealed from the people of the south. His chief defect was that not being a successful business man, he was not a practical statesman. On this point we have already said enough. His own judgment upon himself was that he ought to command the armies of the confederacy. To the very last he believed he had the extreme of military ability. During the gloomy days that set in after Gettysburg he often exclaimed, "If I could take one wing and Lee the other, I think we could between us wrest a victory from those people."[131] But he did not have extraordinary military capacity, as appears from the facts which I will now tell.