The vote stood 22 for, and 59 against, repassing the bill. Ibid., V, 303. The popular discontent in Richmond was about evenly divided at this time against Davis and the members of Congress. Largely owing to the President's physical condition, he was unable to participate in the social affairs of the Capital and this led to the charge that he was becoming inaccessible (Mrs. Davis, Memoirs, II, 161; A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, I, 184). In the Richmond Examiner of March 14 Daniels wrote, “There is a feeling of resentment, deep-seated and widely pervading the best class of the community against Government . . . ; and there are high officers in this goodly city who fancy they are popular in the land, but whose names are held in execration by the staunch classes which control public opinion.” Daniel, however, was not partial in his sarcasm. On May 4 he dealt with Congress as follows, “Never . . . was there a deliberative assembly intrusted with the high responsibilities of legislation in a momentous crisis less gifted with commanding talent, or signalized by initiative power than the Confederate Congress” (Writings of J. M. Daniel, 75, 77). Jones wrote in his never failing diary to similar effect, “Never did such little men rule such a great people. Our rulers are like children or drunken men riding docile horses that absolutely keep the rider from falling off. . . . There is no rule for anything, and no stability in any policy.” Davis, though master of Congress, by some was regarded as only a “small specimen of a statesman and no military chieftain at all.”—A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, I, 174, 178. For further details concerning the secrecy of Congress, character of its proceedings, and popular ridicule of its members, see Callahan, Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy, Ch. II, passim, and quotations.
