See the attitude of the Charleston Mercury as given by Jones, Diary, II, 15; also Mrs. Davis, Memoirs, II, 412. About this time Stephens wrote, “Our President is aiming at the obtainment of power inconsistent with public safety.” Life of Stephens, 441. Scarcely an issue of the Examiner appeared without strictures on the administration. The following may be considered a fair example:
“Had the people dreamed that Davis would carry all his chronic antipathies, his bitter prejudices, his puerile partialities, and his doting favoritisms into the President's chair, they never would have allowed him to fill it. . . . Mr. Davis has alienated the hearts of the people by his stubborn follies, and the injustice he has heaped upon those whom they regarded as their ablest generals and truest friends. . . . God forbid that our fair and beloved land should be ruined by our own mal-administration, or that our people should lack the proper energy and independence to teach their executive that he is their servant, not their master—their instrument, not their dictator.”—Examiner, August 5, 1863, quoted in Writings of J. M. Daniel, 107-109. See also Ibid., 95-96.
