eminent lawyer and a prominent Senator, was, beyond all question, the ablest of Mr. Davis' Cabinet. He was a man of marvelous intellectual resources, an orator, a lawyer, and gifted, to an unexampled degree, in the varied attributes, entering into the _savior faire_ of politics and diplomacy. Mr. Benjamin continued the trusted counselor of President Davis during the whole period of his authority. Mr. Mallory, of Florida, was the Secretary of the Navy--a gentleman of excellent sense, unpretending manners, who probably conducted his department as successfully as was possible, with the limited naval resources of the South. The Post-office Department was given to Mr. Reagan, of Texas, noted for his fidelity, industry, and good sense. The Cabinet of President Davis was destined to many changes in the progress of subsequent events. Of those originally appointed, Messrs. Benjamin, Mallory, and Reagan continued their connection with the Confederate Government during the entire period of its existence. The brief experiment of Confederate independence was fruitful in illustrations of the important truth that political distinction achieved in the ordinary struggles of parties, in times of profound peace, is not the sure guarantee of the possession of those especial and peculiar qualifications which befit the circumstances of revolution. That President Davis, in the selection of some of his advisers, was at fault, is to be ascribed rather to the novelty and necessities of the public situation than to errors of his judgment. Not only must public sentiment respecting men be to some extent consulted, but the test of experience must, necessarily, after all, determine the question of fitness, where all were untried. Jefferson Davis now occupied a position in the highest sense historical. It was plain that his name was destined to be indelibly associated with a series of incidents forming a most thrilling and instructive episode in political history. As the exponent of a theory of constitutional principles never asserted, and unknown save through the inspiration of the genius of American Liberty, and as the head of a Government whose birth and destiny must enter conspicuously into all future questions of popular government, he stood, in a double sense, the central figure in a most striking phase of the drama of human progress. Splendid as had been American history until that day, it was now to contribute, still more generously, to the illumination of the great truths of political science.