These circumstances left the party to find such leadership as it could in Congress, and the leadership it found was a triangular fight--Benton, Cass and Calhoun. Benton had remarkable powers and seldom failed to be a Democrat, a Senator and a patriot, but he was egotistical, moody, overbearing, passionate; he despised Cass, he more than hated Calhoun, and he treated his fellow-Democrats in general as minions. Cass, a courtier and somewhat a scholar, lacked parliamentary experience, drew more timidity than courage from his Presidential hopes, and possessed no political convictions to reinforce his talents. Calhoun's high character, rare intellectual strength and frank, affable manners made him personally the most influential man at the capital; but his judgment was erratic, and he aimed to stand aloof, with a following of about four Senators, as a balance-of-power faction. He was intensely narrow, too. For him there seemed to be only one region in the world; only one state in the south, and only one public man there. Cass was loyal to the administration, Benton helpful but domineering, and Calhoun unfriendly. Not a very firm tripod, this, to support a government engaged in war. With almost all the Democrats, politics--that is to say, offices--held the stage, and country occupied the background. Dissatisfaction with Polk's appointments increased the confusion. Indeed, a "passion" for getting jobs invaded the sacred halls of legislation, and the President found not less than twenty men voting against his measures to avenge personal disappointments.[34.24] [THE WHIGS IN CONGRESS] Whig harmony and efficiency were happily not impaired by these allurements of the fleshpots, for the Executive did not belong to their party; but their numberless inconsistencies proved most embarrassing, and the necessity of satisfying public sentiment, and throwing the responsibility upon the administration, by voting supplies for hostilities they denounced, weakened them. No absurdities, however, were too glaring, no contradictions too thorny for what they termed their "patriotic sublimity" to ignore or surmount. They denounced the war enough to incriminate themselves when they supported it, and they supported it enough to stultify themselves when they condemned it. Combining the views of several groups, one discovered a line of policy truly remarkable: the attack upon Mexico was unconstitutional and wicked, but it should be carried on; so let us halt, send an embassy, and proffer again the negotiations that Mexico has repeatedly and recently spurned.[34.25]