A strange fatality destined all three of these great men to
despair. Yancey, who was perhaps most directly answerable of the
three for the existence of the Confederacy, lost influence almost
from the moment when his dream became established. Davis was
partly responsible, for he promptly sent him out of the country
on the bootless English mission. Thereafter, until his death in
1863, Yancey was a waning, overshadowed figure, steadily lapsing
into the background. It may be that those critics are right who
say he was only an agitator. The day of the mere agitator was
gone. Yancey passed rapidly into futile but bitter antagonism to
Davis. In this attitude he was soon to be matched by Rhett.

The discontent of the Rhett faction because their leader was not
given the portfolio of the State Department found immediate
voice. But the conclusion drawn by some that Rhett's subsequent
course sprang from personal vindictiveness is trifling. He was
too large a personality, too well defined an intellect, to be
thus explained. Very probably Davis made his first great blunder
in failing to propitiate the Rhett faction. And yet few things
are more certain than that the two men, the two factions which
they symbolized, could not have formed a permanent alliance. Had
Rhett entered the Cabinet he could not have remained in it
consistently for any considerable time. The measures in which,
presently, the Administration showed its hand were measures in
which Rhett could not acquiesce. From the start he was
predestined to his eventual position--the great, unavailing
genius of the opposition.

As to the comparative ignoring of these leaders of secession by