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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Toombs, by Pleasant A. Stovall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Robert Toombs
+       Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage
+
+Author: Pleasant A. Stovall
+
+Release Date: July 16, 2008 [EBook #26069]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT TOOMBS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as
+faithfully as possible; please see detailed list of corrections at the
+end of the text (after the index).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT TOOMBS
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, AT THE AGE OF 75 YEARS.]
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT TOOMBS
+
+_STATESMAN, SPEAKER, SOLDIER, SAGE_
+
+HIS CAREER IN CONGRESS AND ON THE HUSTINGS--HIS WORK IN
+THE COURTS--HIS RECORD WITH THE ARMY--HIS LIFE AT HOME
+
+
+BY
+
+PLEASANT A. STOVALL
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The blood which mingled at Cowpens and at Eutaw
+    cannot be kept at enmity forever."--_Toombs._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
+ 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
+
+ Copyright, 1892,
+ BY CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Dedication.
+
+
+TO ROBERT TOOMBS DU BOSE, WHOSE INTEREST AND AID WERE INVALUABLE, AND
+WITHOUT WHOSE COÖPERATION THE BIOGRAPHY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PREPARED,
+THIS WORK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.
+
+      "There are courageous and honest men enough in both
+      sections to fight. There is no question of courage
+      involved. The people of both sections of this Union have
+      illustrated their courage on too many battlefields to be
+      questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities
+      shoulder to shoulder whenever their country has called upon
+      them; but that they may never come in contact with each
+      other in fratricidal war, should be the ardent wish of
+      every true man and honest patriot."--_Robert Toombs, Speech
+      in U. S. Senate_, 1856.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
+
+      I. Family, Boyhood, Life at College,                          1
+
+     II. At the Bar,                                               13
+
+    III. In the Legislature,                                       29
+
+     IV. Elected to Congress,                                      43
+
+      V. In the Lower House,                                       56
+
+     VI. The Compromise of 1850,                                   67
+
+    VII. The Georgia Platform,                                     83
+
+   VIII. The Campaign of 1852,                                     97
+
+     IX. Toombs in the Senate,                                    107
+
+      X. The "Know-nothing" Party,                                121
+
+     XI. Toombs in Boston,                                        129
+
+    XII. Buchanan's Administration,                               140
+
+   XIII. "On the Stump" in Georgia,                               144
+
+    XIV. The Campaign of 1856,                                    155
+
+     XV. John Brown's Raid,                                       169
+
+    XVI. The Charleston Convention,                               175
+
+   XVII. Toombs as a Legislator,                                  186
+
+  XVIII. Election of Lincoln,                                     199
+
+    XIX. Farewell to the Senate,                                  205
+
+     XX. Toombs and Secession,                                    209
+
+    XXI. Toombs as Premier of the Confederacy,                    222
+
+   XXII. Brigadier-General in Army of Northern Virginia,          236
+
+  XXIII. With the Georgia Militia,                                277
+
+   XXIV. Toombs as a Fugitive,                                    286
+
+    XXV. Without a Country,                                       308
+
+   XXVI. Commencing Life Anew,                                    315
+
+  XXVII. Days of Reconstruction,                                  324
+
+ XXVIII. His Last Public Service,                                 337
+
+   XXIX. Domestic Life of Toombs,                                 353
+
+    XXX. His Great Fault,                                         364
+
+   XXXI. His Last Days,                                           369
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+FAMILY, BOYHOOD, LIFE AT COLLEGE.
+
+
+Gabriel Toombs was one of General Braddock's soldiers who marched
+against Fort DuQuesne in 1755. He was a member of the sturdy Virginia
+line which protested against the dangerous tactics of the British
+martinet, and when the English regulars were ambushed and cut to pieces,
+Gabriel Toombs deployed with his men in the woods and picked off the
+savages with the steady aim and unerring skill of the frontiersman. Over
+one hundred years later Robert Toombs, his grandson, protested against
+the fruitless charge at Malvern Hill, and obliquing to the left with his
+brigade, protected his men and managed to cover the retreat of his
+division.
+
+This was a family of soldiers. They were found in the old country
+fighting Cromwell's army of the rebellion.
+
+Robert Toombs of Georgia was fond of tracing his lineage to the
+champions of the English king who defended their sovereign at Boscobel.
+But the American family was made up of lovers of liberty rather than
+defenders of the King. It was one of the anomalies in the life of the
+Georgia Toombs, who resisted all restraint and challenged authority in
+every form, that he should have located his ancestry among the sworn
+royalists of the seventeenth century.
+
+William Toombs, the great-grandfather of Robert, was the first of the
+English family to come to America, about 1650. He settled in Virginia.
+Gabriel, who fought with Braddock, was the son of William. Major Robert
+Toombs, the father of the Georgia statesman, commanded a Virginia
+regiment during the Revolution and rendered conspicuous service in
+Georgia against the British. Major Toombs came to Georgia in 1783 and
+received a rich tract of 3000 acres of land in Wilkes County. This was
+their share in the award to distinguished soldiers of "the Virginia
+line."
+
+"They fought for their estates like feudal barons," General Toombs used
+to say, when speaking of his ancestors, now sleeping in the red hills of
+Georgia. When he was asked after the civil war why he did not petition
+for relief of political disabilities, he declared that "no vote of
+Congress, no amnesty proclamation, shall rob me of the glory of
+outlawry. I shall not be the first of my name for three centuries to
+accept the stigma of a pardon."
+
+The elder Gabriel Toombs in 1795 made his last will and testament. He
+commended his soul to God who gave it, and blessed his Maker for the
+worldly goods that he was possessed of. Distributing his estate among
+his wife, Ann Toombs, and his six children, he expressly directed that
+his negroes and their increase must be appraised together; that they
+were not to be sold out of the family, and that they should be "used in
+a Christian-like manner." He divided up parcels of land in Greene and
+Wilkes counties among his sons, Robert Toombs and Dawson Gabriel Toombs,
+and his four daughters. Gabriel Toombs died in 1801.
+
+When Major Robert Toombs, the Virginia veteran, and son of Gabriel, came
+to Georgia to claim his award of land, he settled on Beaverdam Creek,
+five miles from the town of Washington. It is probable that he stopped
+in Columbia County, for he married Miss Sanders, of that county. She
+died, leaving no children, and Major Toombs went back to Virginia and
+married Miss Catlett. One son was born, and this lady died. Miss
+Catharine Huling was the third wife. The Hulings were also Virginians,
+and by this marriage six children were reared. Sarah, who finally became
+Mrs. Pope; James, who was killed by accident while hunting; Augustus,
+Robert, and Gabriel.
+
+Catharine Huling, the mother of Robert Toombs of Georgia, was a most
+excellent woman, of strong and exalted piety. She was of Welsh ancestry,
+a devout Methodist, and after accompanying her son to college, and
+seeing him married, prosperous, and distinguished, died in 1848, when he
+was a member of Congress. Mrs. Toombs gave generously of her own means,
+to family and friends. Robert Toombs proved to be a dutiful son. He
+visited his mother constantly, and carefully managed her property.
+Finally he induced her to move to Washington, so that he might be near
+her.
+
+Robert Toombs was the fifth child of Robert and Catharine Toombs. He was
+born in Wilkes County, about five miles from Washington, July 2, 1810.
+His brother Gabriel, who still lives, was three years his junior, and
+was throughout his life his close and confidential adviser and friend.
+
+Robert Toombs, in childhood, was a slender, active, mischievous lad, and
+it will be a surprise to those who remember his superb physical manhood,
+to hear that at school and college he bore the nickname of "Runt." He
+was marked for his energy and vivacity. He was not precocious. Nature
+gave no signs of her intentions in his youth. His development, physical
+and mental, was not rapid, but wholesome. He was fond of horseback
+riding, and the earliest glimpse we have of him is as a slender lad,
+with dark eyes and hair slightly touched with auburn, flying through the
+village, and sometimes carrying on his pony behind him his little
+brother to school.
+
+He was always in good health. He boasted that he never took medicine
+until he was thirty-four years old. His mother said that he grew up
+almost without her knowledge, so little trouble had he given her. He was
+a fine horseman. Possibly this practice had much to do with his good
+spirits and physical strength.
+
+In his younger days he rode sixty-five miles to Milledgeville, covering
+the distance in one day, and was fresh enough to attend a dance at
+night. He delighted in fox-hunting, although never a racer or in any
+sense a sporting man. During the earlier years of his career he
+practiced law in the saddle, as was the custom with the profession at
+that time, and never thought of riding to court on wheels until later in
+life. Throughout his active participation in the Civil War he rode his
+famous mare, "Gray Alice," and was a striking figure as, splendidly
+mounted and charged with enthusiasm, he plunged along the lines of the
+Army of Northern Virginia. In his long wandering from capture in 1865,
+he was in the saddle six months, riding to and from the wilds of
+northeast Georgia to the swamps of the Chattahoochee. There was
+something in his picturesque figure upon the horse which suggests John
+Randolph of Roanoke.
+
+His first training was at what was known as an "old field school,"
+taught by Welcome Fanning, a master of good attainments and a firm
+believer in the discipline of the rod. Afterward, Robert Toombs was
+drilled by a private tutor, Rev. Alexander Webster--an adjunct professor
+of the University of Georgia and a man of high repute as scholar and
+instructor. Mr. Webster was the friend and early preceptor of Alexander
+H. Stephens.
+
+Young Toombs was christened Robert Augustus, and carried his middle name
+until 1840, when he seems to have dropped it as a useless piece of
+furniture. There is a report that some of his political foes, playing
+upon his initials, saddled him with the sobriquet of "Rat." Having
+out-grown one nickname he was prepared to shed another.
+
+Young Toombs proved to be a great reader. Most of his learning developed
+in the Humanities; and a cultured visitor from Maryland who once stopped
+at his father's house declared that this boy of fourteen was better
+posted in history than anyone he had ever seen.
+
+It was about this time that Robert Toombs was fitted out for Franklin
+College--now the State University--located in Athens, Ga., forty miles
+from Washington.
+
+This institution, to which he was devotedly attached and of whose
+governing board he was a member at the time of his death, was chartered
+in 1785 by the State of Georgia. It was the early recipient of the deed
+of western lands, which the State subsequently purchased, assuming the
+perpetual endowment of the college. It has been to Georgia what
+Jefferson's school has proved to Virginia, the nursery of scholars and
+statesmen. Governor John Milledge had given the institution a home upon
+a beautiful hill overlooking the Oconee River, and this lovely spot they
+had named Athens. Here in 1824 young Robert Toombs repaired, animated
+with the feelings which move a college boy, except that his mother went
+with him and relieved him of the usual sense of loneliness which
+overtakes the student. Major Robert Toombs, his father, who was an
+indigo and tobacco planter, was reputed to be a wealthy man for those
+times, but it was the comfort of the early settler who had earned his
+demesne from the government rather than the wealth of the capitalist. He
+had enough to support his family in comfort. He died when Robert was
+five years old, and the latter selected as his guardian Thomas W. Cobb,
+of Greene County, a cousin of Governor Howell Cobb, a member of Congress
+himself and a man of high legal attainment.
+
+When Robert Toombs entered college that institution was under the
+Presidency of Moses Waddell, a born educator and strict disciplinarian.
+Three generations of this family have served the State as preceptors in
+Franklin College.
+
+It may well be imagined that the college had not at that time reached
+the dignity of a university, for an entry in President Waddell's diary
+was this: "Caught Jones chewing tobacco: whipped him for it." Those were
+the old days when boys were boys until they were twenty-one. There is no
+record to show that Robert Toombs in college was a close scholar. Later
+in life he became a hard student and laborious worker. But if these
+industrious habits were born to him in Athens there is no trace of them.
+That he was a reader of Shakespeare and history he gave ample evidence
+in his long career, but if the legends of his college town are to be
+trusted, he was more noted for outbreaks of mischief than for close
+application. Full of life and spirits, a healthy, impetuous boy, he was
+on good terms with his classmates, and took life easily. That was a time
+when students were required to get up at sunrise and attend prayers.
+
+One night, the story goes, the vigilant proctor actually found young
+Toombs playing cards with some of his friends. Fearing a reprimand,
+Toombs sought his guardian, who happened to be in Athens on a visit from
+his home in Greenesboro. It is not certain that young Toombs
+communicated the enormity of his offense, but he obtained leave to apply
+to Dr. Waddell for a letter of discharge. The learned but severe scholar
+had not received the proctor's report, and gave the young student a
+certificate of honorable dismissal.
+
+Later in the day the President met Toombs walking around the campus.
+
+"Robert Toombs," said he, "you took advantage of me early this morning.
+I did not then know that you had been caught at the card-table last
+evening."
+
+Toombs straightened up and informed the doctor that he was no longer
+addressing a student of his college, but a free-born American citizen.
+
+The halls of Athens are fragrant with these stories of Toombs. No man
+ever left so distinctive a stamp upon the place or gave such spicy
+flavor to its traditions.
+
+Among the college-mates of Robert Toombs at Athens were Stephen Olin,
+Robert Dougherty, and Daniel Chandler, the grandfather of the
+unfortunate Mrs. Maybrick of England, and the man whose chaste and
+convincing appeal for female education resulted in the establishment of
+Wesleyan Female College--the first seminary in the world for the higher
+culture of women.
+
+The closest of these companionships was that of George F. Pierce, a
+young man like Toombs, full of brains and energy--even then a striking
+and sparkling figure. The path of these men commenced at the door of
+their _alma mater_, and although their ways were widely divergent, the
+friends never parted. Two of the finest orators in Georgia, one left his
+impress as strongly upon the Church as did the other upon the State. One
+became bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the other a Whig
+senator. One day these men met, both in the zenith of power, when Toombs
+said: "Well, George, you are fighting the devil, and I am fighting the
+Democrats."
+
+Closer in friendship their hands clasped as age swept over their raven
+locks and stalwart shoulders. Bishop Pierce never hesitated to go to
+Robert Toombs when his churches or his schools needed money. Toombs
+would give to the Methodist itinerant as quickly as he would to the
+local priest. Whether he was subscribing for a Catholic Orphans' Home or
+a Methodist College he would remark, as he gave liberally and freely, "I
+always try to honor God Almighty's drafts."
+
+Pierce and Toombs had much in common--although the one was full of
+saintly fire and the other, at times, of defiant irreverence. It was
+Pierce whose visits Toombs most enjoyed at his own home, with whom he
+afterward talked of God and religion. The good bishop lived to bury the
+devoted Christian wife of the Georgia statesman, and finally, when the
+dross of worldliness was gone, to receive into the Methodist Church the
+bowed and weeping figure of the giant Toombs.
+
+When Robert Toombs became prominent in Georgia, there is a story that
+his State university, in order to win back his friendship, conferred
+upon him an honorary degree. Toombs is represented as having spurned it
+with characteristic scorn. "No," said he, "when I was unknown and
+friendless, you sent me out disgraced, and refused me a diploma. Now
+that I would honor the degree I do not want it."
+
+There is no record that the college ever conferred a degree upon Toombs
+at all. Later in life he was elected a trustee of this university, and
+each year his familiar figure was seen on the stage during commencement,
+or his wise counsel heard about the board. His attendance upon these
+duties was punctilious. He would leave the courthouse, the legislative
+halls, or Virginia Springs--wherever he happened to be--and repair to
+Athens the first week in August. Once or twice he delivered the annual
+address before the alumni; several times he secured appropriations for
+his _alma mater_ from the State. His visits to Athens were always
+occasions of honor. Young men flocked wherever his voice was heard,
+fascinated by his racy conversation. No "Disinherited Knight" ever
+returned to more certain conquest or more princely homage.
+
+There is a regular mythology about Toombs at his State university. The
+things he said would fill a volume of Sydney Smith, while the pranks he
+played would rival the record of Robin Hood. There is still standing in
+the college campus in Athens a noble tree, with the crown of a century
+upon it. Under its spreading branches the first college commencement was
+held one hundred years ago; under it the student Toombs once stood and
+addressed his classmates, and of all the men who have gone in and out
+beneath its shade, but one name has been found sturdy enough to link
+with this monument of a forgotten forest. The boys to this day call it
+"The Toombs Oak."
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, AGE 19, LAW STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF
+VIRGINIA, 1829.
+
+(_From a miniature painting._)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+AT THE BAR.
+
+
+After Robert Toombs left the University of Georgia, he entered Union
+College at Schenectady, N. Y., under the presidency of Dr. Eliphalet
+Knott. Here he finished his classical course and received his A. B.
+degree. This was in 1828, and in 1829 he repaired to the University of
+Virginia, where he studied law one year. In the Superior Court of Elbert
+County, Ga., holden on the 18th day of March, 1830, he was admitted to
+the bar. The license to practice recites that "Robert A. Toombs made his
+application for leave to practice and plead in the several courts of law
+and equity in this State, whereupon the said Robert A. Toombs, having
+given satisfactory evidence of good moral character, and having been
+examined in open court, and being found well acquainted and skilled in
+the laws, he was admitted by the court to all the privileges of an
+attorney, solicitor, and counsel in the several courts of law and equity
+in this State."
+
+The license is signed by William H. Crawford, Judge, Superior Court,
+Northern Circuit. Judge Crawford had served two terms in the United
+States Senate from Georgia. He had been Minister to Paris during the
+days of the first Napoleon. He had been Secretary of War and of the
+Treasury of the United States. In 1825 he received a flattering vote for
+President, when the Clay and Adams compact drove Jackson and Crawford to
+the rear. Bad health forced Mr. Crawford from the field of national
+politics, and in 1827, upon the death of Judge Dooly, Mr. Crawford was
+appointed Judge of the Northern Circuit. He held this position until his
+death in Elbert County, which occurred in 1834. Crawford was a friend
+and patron of young Toombs. The latter considered him the full peer of
+Webster and of Calhoun.
+
+Robert Toombs was married eight months after his admission to the bar.
+His career in his profession was not immediately successful. A newspaper
+writer recently said of him that "while his contemporaries were fighting
+stubbornly, with varying luck, Toombs took his honors without a
+struggle, as if by divine right." This was no more true of Toombs than
+it is true of other men. He seems to have reached excellence in law by
+slow degrees of toil. Hon. Frank Hardeman, Solicitor-General of the
+Northern Circuit, was one of the lawyers who examined Toombs for
+admission to the bar. He afterward declared that Robert Toombs, during
+the first four or five years of his practice, did not give high promise.
+His work in his office was spasmodic, and his style in court was too
+vehement and disconnected to make marked impression. But the exuberance
+or redundancy of youth soon passed, and he afterward reached a height in
+his profession never attained by a lawyer in Georgia.
+
+His work during the first seven years of his practice did not vary in
+emolument or incident from the routine of a country lawyer. In those
+days the bulk of legal business lay in the country, and the most
+prominent men of the profession made the circuit with their saddle-bags,
+and put up during court week at the village taverns. Slaves and land
+furnished the basis of litigation. Cities had not reached their size and
+importance, corporations had not grown to present magnitude, and the
+wealth and brains of the land were found in the rural districts. "The
+young lawyers of to-day," says Judge Reese of Georgia, "are far in
+advance of those during the days of Toombs, owing to the fact that
+questions and principles then in doubt, and which the lawyers had to dig
+out, have been long ago decided, nor were there any Supreme Court
+reports to render stable the body of our jurisprudence."
+
+The counties in which Robert Toombs practiced were Wilkes, Columbia,
+Oglethorpe, Elbert, Franklin, and Greene. The bar of the Northern
+Circuit was full of eminent men. Crawford presided over the courts and a
+delegation of rare strength pleaded before him. There were Charles J.
+Jenkins, Andrew J. Miller, and George W. Crawford of Richmond County;
+from Oglethorpe were George R. Gilmer and Joseph Henry Lumpkin; from
+Elbert, Thomas W. Thomas and Robert McMillan; from Greene, William C.
+Dawson, Francis H. Cone; from Clarke, Howell Cobb; from Taliaferro,
+Alexander H. Stephens. Across the river in Carolina dwelt Calhoun and
+McDuffie. As a prominent actor in those days remarked: "Giants seem to
+grow in groups. There are seed plats which foster them like the big
+trees of California, and they nourish and develop one another, and seem
+to put men on their mettle." Such a seed plat we notice within a radius
+of fifty miles of Washington, Ga., where lived a galaxy of men,
+illustrious in State and national affairs.
+
+In 1837 the great panic which swept over the country left a large amount
+of litigation in its path. Between that time and 1843, Lawyer Toombs did
+an immense practice. It is said that in one term of court in one county
+he returned two hundred cases and took judgment for $200,000. The
+largest part of his business was in Wilkes and Elbert, and his fees
+during a single session of the latter court often reached $5000. During
+these six years he devoted himself diligently and systematically to the
+practice of his profession, broken only by his annual attendance upon
+the General Assembly at Milledgeville. It was during this period that he
+developed his rare powers for business and his surpassing eloquence as
+an advocate. He made his fortune during these years, for after 1843, and
+until the opening of the war between the States, he was uninterruptedly
+a member of Congress.
+
+There was no important litigation in eastern or middle Georgia that did
+not enlist his services. He proved to be an ardent and tireless worker.
+He had grown into a manhood of splendid physique, and he spent the days
+and most of the nights in careful application. He never went into a case
+until after the most thorough preparation, where preparation was
+possible. But he had a wonderful memory and rare legal judgment. He was
+thoroughly grounded in the principles of law. He possessed, as well,
+some of that common sense which enabled him to see what the law ought to
+be, and above all else, he had the strongest intuitive perception of
+truth. He could strip a case of its toggery and go right to its vitals.
+He was bold, clean, fearless, and impetuous, and when convinced he had
+right on his side would fight through all the courts, with irresistible
+impulse. He was susceptible to argument, but seemed absolutely blind to
+fear.
+
+The brightest chapters of the life of Toombs are perhaps his courthouse
+appearances. There is no written record of his masterly performances,
+but the lawyers of his day attest that his jury speeches were even
+better than his political addresses.
+
+A keen observer of those days will tell you that Mr. Stephens would
+begin his talk to the jury with calmness and build upon his opening
+until he warmed up into eloquence; but that Mr. Toombs would plunge
+immediately into his fierce and impassioned oratory, and pour his
+torrent of wit, eloquence, logic, and satire upon judge and jury. He
+would seem to establish his case upon the right, and then defy them to
+disregard it.
+
+In spite of this vehement and overpowering method he possessed great
+practical gifts. He had the knack of unraveling accounts, and while not
+technically skilled in bookkeeping, had a general and accurate knowledge
+which gave him prestige, whether in intricate civil or criminal cases.
+He was a rash talker, but the safest of counselors, and practiced his
+profession with the greatest scruple. On one occasion he said to a
+client who had stated his case to him: "Yes, you can recover in this
+suit, but you ought not to do so. This is a case in which law and
+justice are on opposite sides."
+
+The client told him he would push the case, anyhow.
+
+"Then," replied Mr. Toombs, "you must hire someone else to assist you in
+your damned rascality."
+
+On one occasion a lawyer went to him and asked him what he should charge
+a client, in a case to which Mr. Toombs had just listened in the
+courthouse.
+
+"Well," said Toombs, "I should have charged a thousand dollars; but you
+ought to have five thousand, for you did a great many things I could not
+have done."
+
+Mr. Toombs was strict in all his engagements. His practice remained with
+him, even while he was in Congress, and his occasional return during the
+session of the Superior Court of the Northern Circuit gave rise at one
+time to some comment on the part of his opponents, the Democrats. The
+nominee of that party, on the stump, declared that the demands upon Mr.
+Toombs's legal talent in Georgia were too great to admit of his strict
+attendance to public business in Washington. When Mr. Toombs came to
+answer this point, he said: "You have heard what the gentleman says
+about my coming home to practice law. He promises, if elected to
+Congress, he will not leave his seat. I leave you to judge,
+fellow-citizens, whether your interest in Washington will be best
+protected by his continued presence or his occasional absence." This hit
+brought down the house. Mr. Toombs's addresses to the Supreme Court were
+models of solid argument. During the early days of the Supreme Court of
+Georgia, it was a migratory body; the law creating it tended to
+popularize it by providing that it should hold its sessions in the
+different towns in the State convenient to the lawyers. The court once
+met in the little schoolroom of the Lumpkin Law School in Athens. One of
+the earliest cases heard was a land claim from Hancock County, bristling
+with points and involving about $100,000 worth of property. A. H.
+Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Howell and Thomas Cobb were employed, but in
+this splendid fight of Titans, Justice Lumpkin declared that the finest
+legal arguments he ever heard were from the lips of Robert Toombs.
+
+Hon. A. H. Stephens said the best speech Mr. Toombs ever made was in a
+case in which he represented a poor girl who was suing her stepfather
+for cruel treatment. The defendant was a preacher, and the jury brought
+in a verdict for $4000, the maximum sum allowed, and petitioned the
+Judge to allow them to find damages in a heavier amount.
+
+One of the most celebrated causes Mr. Toombs was engaged in before the
+war was a railroad case heard in Marietta, Ga., in September, 1858.
+Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs were employed on one side, while Messrs.
+Pettigru and Memminger, of Charleston, giants of the Carolina bar, were
+ranged in opposition. The ordeal was a very trying one. The case
+occupied seven days. Mr. Toombs, always an early riser, generally
+commenced his preparation in this case at half-past five in the morning.
+The hearing of the facts continued in the courthouse until seven in the
+evening, and the nights were passed in consultation with counsel.
+Attendants upon this celebrated trial declared that Toombs's manner in
+the courtroom was indifferent. That, while other lawyers were busy
+taking notes, he seemed to sit a listless spectator, rolling his head
+from side to side, oblivious to evidence or proceeding. And yet, when
+his time came to conclude the argument, he arose with his kingly way,
+and so thorough was his mastery of the case, with its infinite detail,
+its broad principles, and intricate technicalities, that his argument
+was inspiring and profound. His memory seemed to have indelibly pictured
+the entire record of the seven days, and to have grouped in his mind the
+main argument of counsel. It was a wonderful display of retentiveness,
+acumen, learning, and power. On one occasion, while a member of the
+United States Senate, he came to Georgia to attend a session of the
+Supreme Court in Milledgeville. He writes his wife: "I have had a hard,
+close week's work. The lawyers very kindly gave way and allowed my cases
+to come on this week, which brought them very close together, and as I
+was but ill prepared for them, not having given them any attention last
+winter, and but little this spring, I have been pretty much speaking all
+day and studying all night." In March, 1856, Mr. Toombs wrote to his
+wife, whom he had left in Washington City, that the spring term of
+Wilkes court would be the most laborious and disagreeable he ever
+attended. Says he: "For the first time in my life, I have business in
+court of my own--that is, where I am a party. The Bank of the State of
+Georgia has given me a year's work on my own account. If I live I will
+make the last named party repent of it."
+
+At another time he wrote: "I had fine weather for Elbert, and a
+delightful trip. Everything went well in Elbert with my business." It
+usually did. There was no county in which he was more of an autocrat
+than in Elbert. He never failed to carry the county in politics, even
+when Elbert had a candidate of her own for Congress. His legal advice
+was eagerly sought, and he was more consulted than any other man in
+Georgia about public and private affairs. The reason of his phenomenal
+success as counsel was that, united with his learning and forensic
+power, he had a genius for detail. He was a natural financier. He used
+to tell President Davis, during the early days of the Confederacy, that
+four-fifths of war was business, and that he must "organize" victory.
+
+During the sessions of Elbert court his arguments swept the jury, his
+word was law outside. His talk was inspiring to the people. His rare and
+racy conversation drew crowds to his room every night, and to an
+occasional client, who would drop in upon his symposium to confer with
+him, he would say, with a move of his head, "Don't worry about that now.
+I know more about your business than you do, as I will show you at the
+proper time." His fees at Elbert were larger than at any other court
+except his own home in Wilkes. It was during the adjournment of court
+for dinner that he would be called out by his constituents to make one
+of his matchless political speeches. He never failed to move the crowds
+to cheers of delight.
+
+On one occasion he was at Roanoke, his plantation in Stewart County, Ga.
+He writes his wife: "I was sent for night before last to appear in
+Lumpkin to prosecute a case of murder: but as it appeared that the act
+was committed on account of a wrong to the slayer's marital rights, I
+declined to appear against him." Mr. Toombs was the embodiment of
+virtue, and the strictest defender of the sanctity of marriage on the
+part of man as well as woman. His whole life was a sermon of purity and
+devotion.
+
+Judge William M. Reese, who practiced law with Mr. Toombs, and was his
+partner from 1840 to 1843, gives this picture of Toombs at the bar: "A
+noble presence, a delivery which captivated his hearers by its intense
+earnestness: a thorough knowledge of his cases, a lightning-like
+perception of the weak and strong points of controversy; a power of
+expressing in original and striking language his strong convictions; a
+capacity and willingness to perform intellectual labor; a passion for
+the contest of the courthouse; a perfect fidelity and integrity in all
+business intrusted to him, with charming conversational powers--all
+contributed to an immense success in his profession. Such gifts, with a
+knowledge of business and the best uses of money, were soon rendered
+valuable in accumulating wealth."
+
+Although Mr. Toombs often appeared in courts to attend to business
+already in his charge, he gave out that he would not engage in any new
+causes which might interfere with his Congressional duties. The
+absorbing nature of public business from 1850 to 1867 withdrew him from
+the bar, and the records of the Supreme Court of Georgia have only about
+twenty-five cases argued by him in that time. Some of these were of
+commanding importance, and the opinions of the Justices handed down in
+that time bear impress of the conclusiveness of his reasoning and the
+power of his effort before that tribunal. Judge E. H. Pottle, who
+presided over the courts of the Northern Circuit during the later years
+of Toombs's practice, recalls a celebrated land case when Robert Toombs
+was associated against Francis H. Cone--himself a legal giant. Toombs's
+associate expected to make the argument, but Cone put up such a powerful
+speech that it was decided that Toombs must answer him. Toombs
+protested, declaring that he had been reading a newspaper, and not
+expecting to speak, had not followed Judge Cone. However, he laid down
+his paper and listened to Cone's conclusion, then got up and made an
+overmastering forensic effort which captured Court and crowd.
+
+The last appearance Toombs ever made in a criminal case was in the
+Eberhart case in Oglethorpe County, Ga., in 1877. He was then
+sixty-seven years of age, and not only was his speech fine, but his
+management of his case was superb. He had not worked on that side of the
+court for many years, but the presiding Judge, who watched him closely,
+declared that he never made a mistake or missed a point.
+
+It was during a preliminary hearing of this case that Toombs resorted to
+one of his brilliant and audacious motions, characteristic of him. The
+State wanted to divide the case and try the principals separately.
+Father and son were charged with murder. The defense objected, but was
+overruled by the Court. General Toombs then sprung the point that Judge
+Pottle was not qualified to preside, on the ground of a rumor that he
+had selected the men of the jury panel instead of drawing them. Toombs
+further argued that the Court was not competent to decide the question
+of fact. Judge Pottle vacated the bench and the clerk of court called
+Hon. Samuel H. Hardeman to preside. Toombs and Benjamin H. Hill, his
+assistant, contended that the clerk had no right to appoint a judge.
+Judge Hardeman sustained the point and promptly came down, when Judge
+Pottle resumed the bench and continued the case--just the result that
+Toombs wanted. This case attracted immense comment, and in the
+Constitution of 1877 a provision was made, growing out of this incident,
+providing for the appointment of judges _pro hac vice_.
+
+He was a bitter enemy to anything that smacked of monopoly, and during
+the anti-railroad agitation of 1879-80, he said: "If I was forty-five
+years old I would whip this fight." Still, he was an exceedingly just
+man. Linton Stephens, noted for his probity and honor, said he would
+rather trust Robert Toombs to decide a case in which he was interested
+than any man he ever saw.
+
+During the last five years of General Toombs's life he was seldom seen
+in the courtroom. He was sometimes employed in important causes, but his
+eyesight failed him, and his strength was visibly impaired. His
+addresses were rather disconnected. His old habit of covering his points
+in great leaps, leaving the intervening spaces unexplained, rendered it
+difficult to follow him. His mind still acted with power, and he seemed
+to presume that his hearers were as well up on his subject as he was.
+His manner was sometimes overbearing to the members of the bar, but no
+man was more open to reason or more sobered by reflection, and he was
+absolutely without malice. He was always recognized as an upright man,
+and he maintained, in spite of his infirmities, the respect and
+confidence of the bench and bar and of the people.
+
+Chief Justice Jackson said: "In the practice of law this lightning-like
+rapidity of thought distinguished Toombs. He saw through the case at a
+glance, and grasped the controlling point. Yielding minor hillocks, he
+seized and held the height that covered the field, and from that
+eminence shot after shot swept all before it. Concentrated fire was
+always his policy. A single sentence would win his case. A big thought,
+compressed into small compass, was fatal to his foe. It is the clear
+insight of a great mind only that shaped out truth in words few and
+simple. Brevity is power, wherever thought is strong. From Gaul Cæsar
+wrote '_Veni, vidi, vici._' Rome was electrified, and the message
+immortalized. Toombs said to this Court, 'May it please your
+Honor--Seizin, Marriage, Death, Dower,' and sat down. His case was won,
+the widow's heart leaped with joy, and the lawyer's argument lives
+forever."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN THE LEGISLATURE.
+
+
+When Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun were waging their "irrepressible
+conflict," the county of Wilkes in the State of Georgia was nursing
+discordant factions. Just across the river in Carolina lived the great
+Nullifier. The Virginia settlers of Wilkes sided with him, while scores
+of North Carolinians, who had come to live in the county, swore by "Old
+Hickory." This political difference gave rise to numerous feuds. The two
+elements maintained their identity for generations, and the divisions
+became social as well as political. The Virginians nursed their State
+pride. The sons of North Carolina, overshadowed by the Old Dominion,
+clung to the Union and accepted Andrew Jackson, their friend and
+neighbor, as oracle and leader. The earliest political division in
+Georgia was between the Clarke and Crawford factions. General John
+Clarke, a sturdy soldier of the Revolution, came from North Carolina,
+while William H. Crawford, a Virginian by birth and a Georgian by
+residence, led the Virginia element. The feud between Clarke and
+Crawford gave rise to numerous duels. Then came George M. Troup to
+reënforce the Crawford faction and defend States' Rights, even at the
+point of the sword. Troup and Clarke were rival candidates for Governor
+of Georgia in 1825, and the Toombs family ardently fought for Troup.
+Young Toombs was but fifteen years of age, but politics had been burnt
+into his ardent soul. Wilkes had remained a Union county until this
+campaign, when the Troup and Toombs influence was too strong for the
+North Carolina faction. Wilkes, in fact, seemed to be a watershed in
+early politics. It was in close touch with Jackson and Calhoun, with
+Clarke and Crawford, and then with Clarke and Troup. On the one side the
+current from the mountain streams melted into the peaceful Savannah and
+merged into the Atlantic; on the other they swept into the Tennessee and
+hurried off to the Father of Waters.
+
+Robert Toombs cast his first vote for Andrew Jackson in 1832. He
+abandoned the Union Democratic-Republican party, however, after the
+proclamation and force bill of the Administration and joined the States'
+Rights Whigs. When young Toombs was elected to the General Assembly of
+Georgia in October, 1837, parties were sharply divided. The Democrats,
+sustained by the personal popularity of "Old Hickory," were still
+dominant in the State. The States' Rights Whigs, however, had a large
+following, and although not indorsing the doctrines of Calhoun, the
+party was still animated by the spirit of George M. Troup. This
+statesman, just retired from public life, had been borne from a sick-bed
+to the United States Senate Chamber to vote against the extreme measures
+of President Jackson. The Troup men claimed to be loyal to the
+Constitution of their country in all its defined grants, and conceded
+the right of the Chief Magistrate to execute the office so delegated,
+but they resisted what they believed to be a dangerous latitude of
+construction looking to consolidated power. Robert Toombs was not a
+disciple of Calhoun. While admiring the generalities and theories of the
+great Carolinian, the young Georgian was a more practical statesman. The
+States' Rights Whigs advocated a protective tariff and a national bank.
+They believed that the depreciation of the currency had caused the
+distress of the people in the panic of 1837, and no man in this stormy
+era more vigorously upbraided the pet-bank and sub-treasury system than
+Robert Toombs. He introduced a resolution in the legislature declaring
+that President Van Buren had used the patronage of the government to
+strengthen his own party; that he had repudiated the practices and
+principles of his patriotic antecedents, and "had sought out antiquated
+European systems for the collection, safe keeping, and distribution of
+public moneys--foreign to our habits, unsuited to our conditions,
+expensive and unsafe in operation." Mr. Toombs contended, with all the
+force that was in him, that a bank of the United States, properly
+regulated, was "the best, most proper and economical means for handling
+public moneys." Robert Toombs would not have waited until he was
+twenty-seven years of age before entering public life, had not the
+sentiment of his county been hostile to his party. Wilkes had been a
+Union county, but in 1837 it returned to the lower house two Democrats,
+and Robert A. Toombs, the only Whig. Nothing but his recognized ability
+induced the people to make an exception in his favor. Besides his
+reputation as an orator and advocate, Toombs had just returned from the
+Creek war, where he had commanded a company and served under General
+Winfield Scott in putting down the insurrection of Neahmatha, the Indian
+chief. He now brought to public life the new prestige of a soldier.
+After this, "Captain Toombs" was never defeated in his county. He was
+returned at the annual elections in 1839, 1840, 1842, and 1843--and
+succeeded in preserving at home an average Whig majority of 100 votes.
+He did not care for the State Senate, preferring the more populous body,
+then composed of 200 members. Parties in the State were very evenly
+balanced, but Mr. Toombs preserved, in the varying scale of politics, a
+prominent place in the house. He was made chairman of the Judiciary
+Committee by his political opponents. He served as a member of the
+Committee on Internal Improvements, as chairman of the all-important
+Committee on Banking, chairman of the Committee on State of the
+Republic, and in 1842 received the vote of the Whig minority in the
+house for Speaker. In 1840 the Whigs gained control of the government.
+The Harrison tidal wave swept their best men to the front in State and
+national councils. Charles J. Jenkins of Richmond was elected speaker of
+the house, and Mr. Toombs, as chairman of the Banking Committee, framed
+the bill which repealed the law authorizing the issue of bank bills to
+the amount of twice their capital stock. He went right to the marrow of
+honest banking and sound finance by providing for a fund to redeem the
+outstanding bills, and condemned the course of the State banks in
+flooding the State with irredeemable promises to pay.
+
+It was at this session of the General Assembly that Mr. Toombs displayed
+the skill and sagacity of a statesman in fearlessly exposing a seductive
+scheme for popular relief. He was called upon to confront public clamor
+and to fight in the face of fearful odds, but he did not falter.
+
+Just before the General Assembly of 1840 adjourned, Governor McDonald
+sent an urgent message to both houses calling upon them to frame some
+means for the speedy relief of the people. The situation in Georgia was
+very distressing. The rains and floods of that year had swept the crops
+from the fields, and there was much suffering among the planters. Coming
+upon the heel of the session, the Whig members of the legislature looked
+upon the message as a surprise, and rather regarded it as a shrewd
+political stroke. Mr. Toombs was equal to the emergency. He quickly put
+in a resolution asking the Governor himself to suggest some means of
+popular relief--throwing the burden of the problem back upon the
+executive. But Governor McDonald was armed. He drew his last weapon from
+his arsenal, and used it with formidable power. He sent in an elaborate
+message to the houses recommending that the State make a large loan and
+deposit the proceeds in bank, to be given out to the people on good
+security. The Senate committee, in evident sympathy with the scheme for
+relief, reported a bill authorizing the issue of two million six-year
+eight-per-cent. bonds to be loaned to private citizens, limiting each
+loan to one thousand dollars, and restricting the notes to three years,
+with eight per cent. interest.
+
+The report of the House Committee was prepared by Robert Toombs. It was
+the most admirable and statesmanlike document of that day. Mr. Toombs
+said that deliberation had resulted in the conviction that the measure
+suggested by His Excellency should not be adopted. While his committee
+was duly sensible of and deeply regretted the pecuniary embarrassment of
+many of their fellow-citizens, he felt constrained by a sense of public
+duty to declare that he deemed it unwise and impolitic to use the
+credit, and pledge the property and labor of the whole people, to supply
+the private wants of a portion only of the people. The use of the public
+credit, he went on to say, was one of the most important and delicate
+powers which a free people could confide in their representatives; it
+should be jealously guarded, sacredly protected, and cautiously used,
+even for the attainment of the noblest patriotic ends, and never for the
+benefit of one class of the community to the exclusion or injury of the
+rest, whether the demand grew out of real or supposed pecuniary
+difficulties. To relieve these difficulties by use of the public credit
+would be to substitute a public calamity for private misfortune, and
+would end in the certain necessity of imposing grievous burdens in the
+way of taxes upon the many for the benefit of the few. All experience,
+Mr. Toombs went on to declare, admonish us to expect such results from
+the proposed relief measures, to adopt which would be to violate some
+of the most sacred principles of the social compact. All free
+governments, deriving their just powers from, and being established for
+the benefit of, the governed, must necessarily have power over the
+property, and consequently the credit, of the governed to the extent of
+public use, and no further. And whenever government assumed the right to
+use the property or credit of the people for any other purpose, it
+abused a power essential for the perfection of its legislative duties in
+a manner destructive of the rights and interests of the governed, and
+ought to be sternly resisted by the people. The proposed measures, he
+contended, violated these admitted truths, asserted the untenable
+principle that governments should protect a portion of the people, in
+violation of the rights of the remainder, from the calamities consequent
+on unpropitious seasons and private misfortunes.
+
+He must have been an indifferent or careless spectator of similar
+financial schemes, Mr. Toombs declared, who could persuade himself that
+this plan of borrowing money, to lend again at the same rate of
+interest, could be performed without loss to the State. That loss must
+be supplied by taxation, and to that extent, at least, it will operate
+so as to legislate money from the pocket of one citizen to that of
+another. The committee declared that it knew of no mode of legislative
+relief except the interposition of unconstitutional, unwise, unjust, and
+oppressive legislation between debtor and creditor, which did not need
+their condemnation.
+
+The argument was exhaustive and convincing. Never were the powers of the
+State or the soundness of public credit more strongly set forth. The
+whole scheme of relief was abandoned, and the General Assembly
+adjourned.
+
+The relief measures, however, had a great effect upon the campaign.
+Rejected in the legislature under the rattling fire and withering
+sarcasm of Toombs, they were artfully used on the hustings. "McDonald
+and Relief" was the slogan. Men talked airily about "deliverance and
+liberty." Mr. Toombs declared that "humbuggery was reduced to an exact
+science and demonstrated by figures." The Act compelling the banks to
+make cash payments was represented as an unwise contraction of the
+currency and a great oppression to the people. Governor McDonald was
+consequently reëlected over William C. Dawson, the Whig nominee.
+
+Robert Toombs was not a candidate for reëlection in 1841. He worked hard
+at the polls for the Whig ticket, and although his candidate for
+Governor received a majority of one in Wilkes County, the Whigs were
+defeated for the legislature. When he returned to the Assembly in 1842
+he still found Governor McDonald and the Democrats supporting a central
+bank and the sub-treasury. They clamored to restore public finances to
+the old system. The Democrats held the legislature and elected to the
+United States Senate Walter T. Colquitt over Charles J. Jenkins.
+Although a member of the minority party, Mr. Toombs was appointed
+chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Here his high character and moral
+courage shone conspicuously. He proved a stone wall against the perfect
+flood of legislation designed for popular relief. To use his own words:
+"The calendar was strong with a heterogeneous collection of bills
+proposing stay-laws." He reported as "unwise, inexpedient, and
+injurious," proposed Acts "to protect unfortunate debtors"; "to redeem
+property in certain cases"; also a bill to "exempt from levy and sale
+certain classes of property." He held with Marshall the absolute
+inviolability of contracts; he believed in common honesty in public and
+private life; he was strict in all business obligations; he denounced
+the Homestead Act of 1868, and declared in his last days that there was
+"not a dirty shilling in his pocket." Mr. Toombs was nothing of the
+demagogue. He was highminded, fearless, and sincere, and it may be said
+of him what he afterward declared so often of Henry Clay, that "he would
+not flatter Neptune for his trident or Jove for his power to thunder."
+He was called upon at this session to fight the repeal of the law he had
+framed in 1840, to regulate the system of banking. He declared in
+eloquent terms that the State must restrict the issue of the banks and
+compel their payment in specie. The experiment of banking on public
+credit had failed, he said. It had brought loss to the government,
+distress to the people, and had sullied the good faith of Georgia.
+
+It was at this session of the legislature that the Democrats proposed a
+vote of censure upon John McPherson Berrien, United States Senator from
+Georgia, for his advocacy of a national bank. Mr. Toombs ardently
+defended Senator Berrien. He said that the State legislature was not the
+custodian of a senator's conscience, and held that the people of Georgia
+sanctioned the expediency and utility of a national bank. When the
+resolution of censure came up in the house, the Whigs refused to vote,
+and raised the point of "no quorum." Speaker _pro tem_. Wellborn, who
+presided, counted a quorum and declared the resolutions adopted. Mr.
+Toombs fired up at this unusual decision. He threw himself before the
+Speaker with impetuous appeal and called for a reversal of the decision.
+But it was a Democratic house, and the Speaker was sustained by a vote
+of 96 to 40.
+
+The craze for internal improvements now swept over the country. The
+Whigs were especially active, and we find resolutions adopted by the
+General Assembly, calling on the Federal Government to create ports of
+entry and to build government foundries and navy yards on the Southern
+seaboard. Mr. Toombs was chairman of the Committee of Internal
+Improvements, but his efforts were directed toward the completion of the
+Western and Atlantic Railroad. These enterprises had overshadowed the
+waterways, and the railway from Charleston, S. C., to Augusta, Ga., one
+of the very first in the country, had just been completed. Already a
+company had embarked upon the construction of the Georgia Railroad, and
+on May 21, 1837, the first locomotive ever put in motion on the soil of
+Georgia moved out from Augusta. A local paper described the event in
+sententious terms:
+
+      This locomotive started beautifully and majestically from
+      the depository and, following the impetus given, flew with
+      surprising velocity on the road which hereafter is to be
+      her natural element.
+
+The General Assembly decided that these rail lines should have an outlet
+to the West. This great road was finally built and operated from Atlanta
+to Chattanooga, and is still owned by the State, a monument to the
+sagacity and persistency of Toombs and his associates in 1840. The great
+possibilities of these iron highways opened the eyes of the statesmen
+of that day, Mr. Calhoun seemed to drop for a time his philosophical
+studies of States and slavery and to dream of railroads and commercial
+greatness. He proposed the connection of the Atlantic Ocean with the
+Mississippi River and the great West, through Cumberland Gap--a
+brilliant and feasible scheme. Governor Gilmer of Georgia declared in
+his message that these projected roads "would add new bonds to the
+Union." But King Cotton, with his millions in serfdom, issued his
+imperial decrees, and not even this great railroad development could
+keep down the tremendous tragedy of the century.
+
+One of the measures to which Mr. Toombs devoted great attention during
+his legislative term was the establishment of a State Supreme Court.
+This bill was several times defeated, but finally in 1843 passed the
+house by a vote of 88 to 86. It was the scene of many of his forensic
+triumphs. He also introduced, during the sessions of 1842 and 1843,
+bills to abolish suretyship in Georgia. This system had been severely
+abused. In the flush times men indorsed without stint, and then during
+the panic of 1837 "reaped the whirlwind." Fortunes were swept away,
+individual credit ruined, and families brought to beggary by this
+reckless system of surety. What a man seldom refused to do for another,
+Mr. Toombs strove to reach by law. But the system had become too firmly
+intrenched in the financial habits of the people. His bill, which he
+distinctly stated was to apply alone to future and not past contracts,
+only commanded a small minority of votes. It was looked upon as an
+abridgment of personal liberty. Mr. Toombs exerted all of his efforts in
+behalf of this bill, and it became quite an issue in Georgia. It is not
+a little strange that when Robert Toombs was dead, it was found that his
+own estate was involved by a series of indorsements which he had given
+in Atlanta to the Kimball House Company. Had he maintained the activity
+of his younger days, he would probably have turned this deal into a
+profitable investment. The complication was finally arranged, but his
+large property came near being swept away under the same system of
+surety he had striven to abolish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ELECTED TO CONGRESS.
+
+
+Entering public life about the same time, living a short distance apart,
+professing the same political principles, practicing in the same courts
+of law, were Alexander H. Stephens of Taliaferro and Robert Toombs of
+Wilkes. Entirely unlike in physical organism and mental make-up,
+differing entirely in origin and views of life, these two men were close
+personal friends, and throughout an eventful period of more than half a
+century, preserved an affectionate regard for each other.
+
+Mr. Stephens was delicate, sensitive, conservative, and sagacious, while
+Toombs was impetuous, overpowering, defiant, and masterful. Stephens was
+small, swarthy, fragile, while Toombs was leonine, full-blooded, and
+majestic. And yet in peace and war these two men walked hand in hand,
+and the last public appearance of Robert Toombs was when, bent and
+weeping, he bowed his gray head at the coffin and pronounced the funeral
+oration over Alexander Stephens.
+
+In the General Assembly of 1843, Robert Toombs was a member of the
+house, but his ability and power had marked him as a candidate for
+Congress, and Mr. Stephens had already been promoted from the State
+Senate to a seat in the national legislature at Washington. The law
+requiring the State to choose congressmen on the district plan had been
+passed, and the General Assembly was then engaged in laying off the
+counties into congressional districts. The bill, as first reported,
+included the counties of Wilkes and Taliaferro in the second district of
+Georgia. Here was a problem. Toombs and Stephens had been named as Whig
+candidates for the Clay campaign of 1844. To have them clash would have
+been to deprive the State of their talents in the national councils. It
+would be interesting to speculate as to what would have been the result
+had these two men been opposed. Stephens was naturally a Union man, and
+was no very ardent advocate of slavery. Toombs inherited the traditions
+of the Virginia landowners. It is not improbable that the firmness of
+the one would have been a foil for the fire of the other. History might
+have been written differently had not the conference committee in the
+Georgia Legislature in 1843 altered the schedule of districts, placing
+Taliaferro in the seventh and Wilkes in the eighth Congressional
+district. Both were safely Whig, and the future Vice-President and
+premier of the Southern Confederacy now prepared for the canvass which
+was to plunge them into their duties as members of the national
+Congress.
+
+Robert Toombs had already made his appearance in national politics in
+1840. Although still a member of the Georgia Legislature, he took a deep
+interest in the success of the Whig ticket for President. His power as a
+stump speaker was felt in eastern Georgia, where the people gathered at
+the "log cabin and hard cider" campaigns. The most daring feat of young
+Toombs, just thirty years old, was in crossing the Savannah River and
+meeting George McDuffie, the great Democrat of South Carolina, then in
+the zenith of his fame. An eye-witness of this contest between the
+champions of Van Buren and Harrison declared that McDuffie was
+"harnessed lightning" himself. He was a nervous, impassioned speaker.
+When the rash young Georgian crossed over to Willington, S. C., to meet
+the lion in his den, Toombs rode horseback, and it was noticed that his
+shirt front was stained with tobacco juice, and yet Toombs was a
+remarkably handsome man. "Genius sat upon his brow, and his eyes were as
+black as death and bigger than an ox's." His presence captivated even
+the idolators of McDuffie. His argument and invective, his overpowering
+eloquence, linger in the memory of old men now. McDuffie said of him: "I
+have heard John Randolph of Roanoke, and met Burgess of Rhode Island,
+but this wild Georgian is a Mirabeau."
+
+In 1844 Robert Toombs was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which
+nominated Henry Clay, and during this visit he made a speech in New York
+which attracted wide attention. It threatened to raise a storm about his
+head in Georgia. In his speech he arraigned Mr. Calhoun for writing his
+"sugar letter" to Louisiana, and for saying that he would protect sugar
+because it was the production of slave labor. Mr. Toombs declared: "If
+any discrimination is made between free and slave labor it ought to be
+in favor of free labor." "But," said he, "the Whigs of Georgia want no
+such partial protection as Mr. Calhoun offers; they want protection for
+all classes of labor and home industry. The Whigs protest against these
+efforts to prejudice the South against the North, or the North against
+the South. They have a common interest as well as a common history. The
+blood that was mingled at Yorktown and at Eutaw cannot be kept at enmity
+forever. The Whigs of Bunker Hill are the same as the Whigs of Georgia."
+Mr. Toombs was actually charged in this campaign with being an
+Abolitionist. He was accused of saying in a speech at Mallorysville,
+Ga., during the Harrison campaign, that slavery was "a moral and
+political evil." This was now brought up against him. Mr. Toombs
+admitted saying that slavery was a political evil. He wrote a ringing
+letter to his constituents, in which he declared that "the affected fear
+and pretended suspicion of a part of the Democratic press in relation to
+my views are well understood by the people. I have no language to
+express my scorn and contempt for the whole crew. I have no other reply
+to make to these common sewers of filth and falsehood. If I had as many
+arms as Briareus they would be too few to correct the misrepresentations
+of speeches I have made in the past six months."
+
+It was on the 3d of October, 1844, that Robert Toombs spoke at a
+memorable political meeting in Augusta, Ga. Augusta was in the heart of
+the district which he was contesting for Congress, and the Democrats, to
+strengthen their cause, brought over McDuffie from South Carolina. Large
+crowds were present in the shady yard surrounding the City Hall; seats
+had been constructed there, while back in the distance long trenches
+were dug, and savory meats were undergoing the famous process of
+barbecue. Speaking commenced at ten o'clock in the morning, and, with a
+short rest for dinner, there were seven hours of oratory. People seldom
+tired in those days of forensic meetings. Toombs was on his mettle. He
+denounced the Democrats for dragging the slavery question before the
+people to operate upon their fears. It was a bugbear everlastingly used
+to cover up the true question at issue. It was kept up to operate on
+the fears of the timid and the passions and prejudices of the
+unsuspecting.
+
+The young Whig then launched into a glowing defense of the National
+Bank. The Democrats had asked where was the authority to charter a bank?
+He would reply, "Where was the authority, in so many words, to build
+lighthouses? Democrats were very strict constructionists when it was
+necessary to accomplish their political purposes, but always found a way
+to get around these doubts when occasion required." He taunted McDuffie
+with having admitted that Congress had power to charter a bank.
+
+Mr. Toombs contended that a tariff, with the features of protection to
+American industry, had existed since the foundation of the government.
+This great system of "plunder" had been supported by Jefferson.
+Eloquently warming up under the Democratic charge that the tariff was a
+system of robbery, Mr. Toombs appealed to every Whig and Democrat as an
+American who boasted of this government as "a model to all nations of
+the earth; as the consummation of political wisdom; who asks the
+oppressed of all nations to come and place himself under its protection,
+because it upholds the weak against the strong and protects the poor
+against the rich, whether it has been going on in a system of plunder
+ever since it sprang into power." "It is not true," he said, "it is not
+true!"
+
+Turning with prophetic ken to his Augusta friends, he asked what would
+be the effect were the Savannah River turned through the beautiful
+plains of Augusta, and manufactures built up where the industrious could
+find employment. Hundreds of persons, he said, would be brought together
+to spin the raw cotton grown in the State, to consume the provisions
+which the farmers raised, thus diversifying their employment and
+increasing their profits. "Would any man tell me," shouted the orator,
+his eyes blazing, and his arms uplifted, "that this would impoverish the
+country--would make paupers of the people? To increase the places where
+the laborer may sell his labor would never make him a pauper. Be
+controlled," said he, "in the administration of government and in all
+other things, by the improvement of the age. Do not tie the living to
+the dead. Others may despise the lights of science or experience; they
+have a right, if they choose, to be governed by the dreams of economists
+who have rejected practical evidence. But no such consistency is mine. I
+will have none of it."
+
+McDuffie in his speech declared that all the plundering which England
+had been subjected to from the days of Hengist and Horsa could not equal
+the plundering which the people of the exporting States had sustained.
+
+Toombs answered that if a man must pay tax to sustain the government it
+was better he should pay it in such a way as to benefit his own
+countrymen than for the benefit of foreign manufacturers and foreign
+capitalists.
+
+Mr. Toombs alluded to a letter of James K. Polk to a Pennsylvania
+manufacturer, as leaning toward protection.
+
+McDuffie said that Polk's letter was "composed for that meridian."
+
+"Henry Clay does not need an interpreter," cried Toombs. "He is the same
+in the North as in the South. He would rather be right than President."
+
+"Dallas, the Democratic nominee for vice president, is a high-tariff
+man," said Toombs. "He voted for the tariff of 1832 and against the
+compromise measures. Although the sword was drawn to drink the blood of
+McDuffie's friends in Carolina, Dallas would still adhere to his pound
+of flesh."
+
+Toombs concluded his great reply to McDuffie: "We have lived under the
+present order of things for fifty years, and can continue to live under
+it for one thousand years to come, if the people of the South are but
+content to stand upon their rights as guaranteed in the Constitution,
+and not work confusion by listening to ambitious politicians: by taking
+as much pains to preserve a good understanding with our Northern
+brethren, the vast majority of whom are inclined to respect the
+limitations of the Constitution."
+
+This was perhaps the greatest political meeting Georgia ever held.
+Politics were at white heat. Toombs and McDuffie each spoke two hours.
+The campaign cry was for the Whigs: "Clay, Frelinghuysen, Toombs, and
+our glorious Union," and by the Democrats: "Polk, Dallas, Texas, and
+Oregon." It was Whig _vs._ Loco-foco. The Whig leaders of the South were
+Pettigru, Thompson, and Yeadon of South Carolina, Merriweather, Toombs,
+and Stephens, of Georgia, while the Democratic lights were McDuffie,
+Rhett, and Pickens of South Carolina, and Charlton, Cobb, Colquitt, and
+Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia.
+
+The campaign of 1844 was bitter in Georgia. The Whigs carried the burden
+of a protective tariff, while the memories of nullification and the
+Force bill were awakened by a ringing letter from George M. Troup,
+condemning the tariff in his vigorous style. This forced Mr. Toombs, in
+his letter accepting the congressional nomination, to review the subject
+in its relation to the States' Rights party in Georgia. "The tariff of
+1824," said he, "which was voted for by Andrew Jackson, carried the
+principle of protection further than any preceding one. Jackson was the
+avowed friend of the protective policy, yet he received the vote of
+Georgia, regardless of party. In 1828 the Harrisburg convention demanded
+additional protection, and this measure was carried through Congress by
+the leading men of the Democratic party. It created discontent in the
+South, and the Act of 1832 professed to modify the tariff--but this
+measure not proving satisfactory was 'nullified' by South Carolina.
+General Jackson then issued his proclamation which pronounced principles
+and issues utterly at war with the rights of the States, and subversive
+of the character of the government. The opponents of consolidating
+principles went into opposition. Delegates met in Milledgeville in 1833,
+adopted the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, denounced the sentiments
+of Jackson's proclamation, and affirmed the doctrine of States' Rights."
+
+"The Democratic party was then," said Toombs, "cheek by jowl with the
+whole tariff party in the United States, sustaining General Jackson, and
+stoutly maintaining that the leaders of that spirited little band in our
+sister State, whose talent shed a glory over their opposition, deserved
+a halter. They sustained John C. Forsythe in voting against the
+Compromise bill--that peace offering of the illustrious Henry Clay."
+
+Mr. Toombs declared in this campaign that the effect of a tariff on the
+productive industries of a country has been a disputed question among
+the wisest statesmen for centuries, and that these influences are
+subject to so many disturbing causes, both foreign and domestic, that
+they are incapable of being reduced to fixed principles. Mr. Toombs did
+not hesitate, however, to condemn "the theories of the South Carolina
+school of politics."
+
+Mr. Toombs opposed the acquisition of Texas. He did not believe the
+North would consent. "It matters not," he said, "that Mexico is weak,
+that the acquisition is easy. The question is just the same: Is it
+right, is it just, is it the policy of this country to enlarge its
+territory by conquest? The principle is condemned by the spirit of the
+age, by reason, and by revelation. A people who love justice and hate
+wrong and oppression cannot approve it. War in a just cause is a great
+calamity to any people, and can only be justified by the highest
+necessity. A people who go to war without just and sufficient cause,
+with no other motive than pride and love of glory, are enemies to the
+human race and deserve the execration of all mankind. What, then, must
+be the judgment of a war for plunder?" He denounced the whole thing as a
+land job, and declared that he would rather have "the Union without
+Texas than Texas without the Union."
+
+The Democratic opponent of Mr. Toombs in this canvass was Hon. Edward J.
+Black of Screven, who had been in Congress since 1838. The new district
+was safely Whig, but the young candidate had to fight the prestige of
+McDuffie and Troup and opposition from numberless sources. It was
+charged that he always voted in the Georgia Legislature to raise taxes.
+He retorted, "It is right to resort to taxation to pay the honest debt
+of a State. I did vote to raise taxes, and I glory in it. It was a duty
+I owed the State, and I would go to the last dollar to preserve her good
+name and honor."
+
+While Mr. Toombs was making a speech in this canvass a man in the
+audience charged him with having voted for the free banking law and
+against the poor-school fund. "The gentleman," said Mr. Toombs, "seems
+to find pleasure in reveling in my cast-off errors. I shall not disturb
+him."
+
+"How is this, Mr. Toombs," shouted a Democrat at another time, "here is
+a vote of yours in the house journal I do not like."
+
+"Well, my friend, there are several there that I do not like: now what
+are you going to do about it?"
+
+Especially was opposition bitter to Henry Clay. Cartoons were published
+from Northern papers, of Clay whipping a negro slave, with this
+inscription: "The Mill Boy of the _Slashes_." Pictures appeared in the
+Democratic papers of a human figure surmounted by a pistol, a bottle,
+and a deck of cards. To this a _résumé_ of Clay's misdeeds was appended:
+
+"In 1805 quarreled with Colonel Davis of Kentucky, which led to his
+first duel. In 1808 challenged Humphrey Marshall, and fired three times
+at his breast. In 1825 challenged the great John Randolph, and fired
+once at his breast. In 1838 he planned the Cilley duel, by which a
+murder was committed and a wife made a mourner. In 1841, when sixty-five
+years old, and gray-headed, is under a five thousand dollar bond to keep
+the peace. At twenty-nine he perjured himself to secure a seat in the
+United States Senate. In 1824, made the infamous bargain with Adams by
+which he sold out for a six thousand dollar office. He is well known as
+a gambler and Sabbath-breaker."
+
+But the eloquent Harry of the West had a large and devoted following. He
+visited Georgia in March of this year, and charmed the people by his
+eloquence and magnetism. Robert Toombs had met him at the social board
+and had been won by his superb mentality and fine manners. Women paid
+him the tribute of their presence wherever he spoke, and little children
+scattered flowers along his path. But the November election in Georgia,
+as elsewhere, was adverse to the party of Henry Clay. Toombs and
+Stephens were sent to Congress, but the electoral vote of Georgia was
+cast for Polk and Dallas, and the Whigs, who loved Clay as a father,
+regarded his defeat as a personal affliction as well as a public
+calamity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+IN THE LOWER HOUSE.
+
+
+Robert Toombs took his seat in the twenty-ninth Congress in December,
+1845. The Democrats organized the House by the election of John W. Davis
+of Indiana, Speaker. The House was made up of unusually strong men, who
+afterward became noted in national affairs. Hannibal Hamlin was with the
+Maine delegation; ex-President John Quincy Adams had been elected from
+Massachusetts with Robert C. Winthrop; Stephen A. Douglas was there from
+Illinois; David Wilmot from Pennsylvania; R. Barnwell Rhett and
+Armistead Burt from South Carolina; Geo. C. Droomgoole and Robert M. T.
+Hunter of Virginia, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, were members, as were
+Henry W. Hilliard and W. L. Yancey of Alabama, Jefferson Davis and Jacob
+Thompson of Mississippi, and John Slidell of Louisiana. Toombs,
+Stephens, and Cobb were the most prominent figures in the Georgia
+delegation.
+
+The topics uppermost in the public mind of that day were the Oregon
+question, Texas, and the ubiquitous tariff. It looked at one time as if
+war with Great Britain were unavoidable. President Polk occupied an
+extreme position, and declared in his message to Congress that our title
+to the whole of Oregon was clear. The boundary of the ceded territory
+was unsettled. The Democrats demanded the occupation of Oregon, with the
+campaign cry of "fifty-four forty or fight."
+
+Mr. Toombs did not accept President Polk's position. His first speech in
+the House was made January 12, 1846, and at once placed him in the front
+rank of orators and statesmen. He said that it was not clear to him that
+our title was exceptional up to 54°40'. Our claim to the territory north
+of the Columbia River was the Spanish title only, and this had been an
+inchoate right.
+
+Mr. Toombs wanted the question settled by reason. He impetuously
+declared that "neither the clamors within nor without this hall, nor the
+ten thousand British cannon, floating on every ship, or mounted on every
+island, shall influence my decision in a question like this." He was for
+peace--for honorable peace. "It is the mother of all the virtues and
+hopes of mankind." No man would go further than he to obtain honorable
+peace; but dishonorable peace was worse than war--it was the worst of
+all evil.
+
+War was the greatest and the most horrible of calamities. Even a war for
+liberty itself was rarely compensated by the consequences. "Yet the
+common judgment of mankind consigned to lasting infamy the people who
+would surrender their rights and freedom for the sake of a dishonest
+peace."
+
+"Let us," cried the speaker, turning to his Southern colleagues, "let us
+repress any unworthy sectional feeling which looks only to the
+attainment of sectional power."
+
+His conclusion was an apotheosis of Georgia as a Union State. He said:
+"Mr. Speaker, Georgia wants peace, but she would not for the sake of
+peace yield any of her own or the nation's rights. A new career of
+prosperity is now before her; new prospects, bright and fair, open to
+her vision and lie ready for her grasp, and she fully appreciates her
+position. She has at length begun to avail herself of her advantages by
+forming a great commercial line between the Atlantic and the West. She
+is embarking in enterprises of intense importance, and is beginning to
+provide manufactures for her unpaid laborers. She sees nothing but
+prosperity ahead, and peace is necessary in order to reveal it; but
+still, if war must come, if it has been decreed that Oregon must be
+consecrated to liberty in the blood of the brave and the sufferings of
+the free, Georgia will be found ready with her share of the offering,
+and, whatever may be her sacrifice, she will display a magnanimity as
+great as the occasion and as prolonged as the conflict."
+
+Mr. Toombs indorsed the conservative action of the Senate, which forced
+President Polk from his extreme position and established the parallel of
+49° as the northern boundary.
+
+The tariff bill of 1846 was framed, as President Polk expressed it, in
+the interest of lower duties, and it changed the basis of assessment
+from specific, or minimum duties, to duties _ad valorem_.
+
+Mr. Toombs made a most elaborate speech against this bill in July, 1846.
+If his Oregon speech had shown thorough familiarity with the force and
+effect of treaties and the laws of nations, his tariff speech proved him
+a student of fiscal matters and a master of finance. His genius, as
+Jefferson Davis afterward remarked, lay decidedly in this direction. Mr.
+Toombs announced in his tariff speech that the best of laws, especially
+tax laws, were but approximations of human justice. He entered into an
+elaborate argument to controvert the idea that low tariff meant
+increased revenue. The history of such legislation, he contended, had
+been that the highest tariff had raised the most money. Mr. Toombs
+combated the _ad valorem_ principle of levying duty upon imports.
+
+Mr. Toombs declared to his constituents in September, 1846, that the
+President had marched his army into Mexico without authority of law.
+"The conquest and dismemberment of Mexico, however brilliant may be the
+success of our arms," said he, "will not redound to the glory of our
+republic."
+
+The Whigs approached the Presidential campaign of 1848 with every chance
+of success. They still hoped that the Sage of Ashland might be the
+nominee. George W. Crawford, ex-Governor of Georgia, and afterward
+member of the Taylor Cabinet, perceiving that the drift in the West was
+against Mr. Clay, offered a resolution in the Whig convention that
+"whatever may have been our personal preferences, we feel that in
+yielding them at the present time, we are only pursuing Mr. Clay's own
+illustrious example." Mr. Toombs stated to his constituents that Clay
+could not be nominated because Ohio had declared that no man who had
+opposed the Wilmot Proviso could get the vote of that State. The Whigs,
+who had opposed the Mexican war, now reaped its benefits by nominating
+one of its heroes to the Presidency, and Zachary Taylor of Louisiana
+became at once a popular candidate. Millard Fillmore of New York was
+named for vice president, and "Rough and Ready" clubs were soon
+organized in every part of Georgia. The venerable William H. Crawford
+headed the Whig electoral ticket in Georgia, while Toombs, Stephens, and
+Thomas W. Thomas led the campaign.
+
+The issue of the campaign in Georgia was the Clayton compromise which
+the Georgia senators had sustained, but which Stephens and Toombs had
+defeated in the House. This compromise proposed that all questions
+concerning slavery in the governments of the ceded territory be referred
+to the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Toombs declared that the
+Mexican law prohibiting slavery was still valid and would so remain;
+that Congress and not the courts must change this law.
+
+The Clayton compromise, Mr. Toombs said, was only intended as "the
+Euthanasia of States' Rights. When our rights are clear, security for
+them should be free from all ambiguity. We ought never to surrender
+territory, until it shall be wrested from us as we have wrested it from
+Mexico. Such a surrender would degrade and demoralize our section and
+disable us for effective resistance against future aggression. It is far
+better that this new acquisition should be the grave of the republic
+than of the rights and honor of the South--and, from present
+indications, to this complexion it must come at last."
+
+Mr. Toombs demanded that what was recognized by law as property in the
+slaveholding States should be recognized in the Mexican territory. "This
+boon," he pleaded, "may be worthless, but its surrender involves our
+honor. We can permit no discrimination against our section or our
+institutions in dividing out the common property of the republic. Their
+rights are not to be abandoned, or bartered away in presidential
+elections."
+
+So Toombs and Stephens were central figures in this national campaign.
+It was during this canvass that Mr. Stephens became embroiled with Judge
+Francis H. Cone, a prominent lawyer of Georgia and a near neighbor. Mr.
+Stephens heard that Judge Cone had denounced him as a traitor for moving
+to table the Clayton compromise. Stephens had retorted sharply that if
+Cone had said this he would slap his face. After some correspondence the
+two men met in Atlanta, September 4, 1848. The trouble was renewed;
+Judge Cone denounced Mr. Stephens, who rapped him over the shoulders
+with a whalebone cane. Mr. Stephens was a fragile man, and Judge Cone,
+with strong physique, closed in and forced him to the floor. During the
+scuffle Mr. Stephens was cut in six places. His life for a while was
+despaired of. Upon his recovery he was received with wild enthusiasm by
+the Whigs, who cheered his pluck and regarded his return to the canvass
+as an omen of victory.
+
+Shortly afterward he wrote to Mrs. Toombs, thanking her for her interest
+and solicitude during his illness. He managed to write with his left
+hand, as he could not use his right. "I hope," he says, "I will be able
+to take the stump again next week for old Zach. I think Mr. Toombs has
+had the weight of the canvass long enough, and though he has done
+gallant service, this but inspires me with the wish to lend all aid in
+my power. I think we shall yet be able to save the State. My faith is as
+strong as Mr. Preston's which, you know, was enough to move mountains. I
+got a letter the other day from Mr. C----, who gives it as his opinion
+that Ohio would go for General Taylor. If so, he will be elected. And
+you know how I shall hail such a result."
+
+During Mr. Stephens' illness Mr. Toombs canvassed many of the counties
+in the Stephens district. Both men were reëlected to Congress, and
+Zachary Taylor received the electoral vote of Georgia over Lewis Cass of
+Michigan, and was elected President of the United States.
+
+The Democrats, who put out a candidate this year against Mr. Toombs,
+issued an address which was evidently not inspired by the able and
+deserving gentleman who bore their standard, but was intended as a sharp
+rebuke to Mr. Toombs. It is interesting as showing how he was regarded
+by his friends, the enemy.
+
+"Of an age when life's illusions have vanished," they said of the
+Democratic candidate, "he has no selfish aspirations, no vaulting
+ambition to carry him astray: no vanity to lead where it is glory enough
+to follow." They accorded to Mr. Toombs "a very showy cast of
+talent--better suited to the displays of the stump than the grave
+discussions of the legislative hall. His eloquence has that sort of
+splendor mixed with the false and true which is calculated to dazzle the
+multitude. He would rather win the applause of groundlings by some silly
+tale than gain the intelligent by the most triumphant course of
+reasoning." Mr. Toombs carried every county in the district and was
+returned to Congress by 1681 majority.
+
+When Mr. Toombs returned to Washington he had commanded national
+prominence. He had not only carried his State for Zachary Taylor, but
+his speech in New York, during a critical period of the canvass, had
+turned the tide for the Whig candidate in the country. Toombs and
+Stephens naturally stood very near the administration. They soon had
+reason to see, however, that the Taylor Cabinet was not attentive to
+Southern counsels.
+
+During the fight over the compromise measure in Congress the Northern
+papers printed sensational accounts of a rupture between President
+Taylor and Messrs. Toombs and Stephens. According to this account the
+Georgia congressmen called on the President and expressed strong
+disapprobation of his stand upon the bill to organize the Territory of
+New Mexico. It was said that they even threatened to side with his
+opponents to censure him upon his action in the case of Secretary
+Crawford and the Golphin claim. The President, the article recited, was
+very much troubled over this interview and remained despondent for
+several days. He took his bed and never rallied, dying on the 9th of
+July, 1850. Mr. Stephens published a card, promptly denying this
+sensation. He said that neither he nor his colleague Mr. Toombs had
+visited the President at all during or previous to his last illness, and
+that no such scene had occurred.
+
+Toombs and Stephens, in fact, were warm personal friends of George W.
+Crawford, who was Secretary of War in Taylor's Cabinet. He had served
+with them in the General Assembly of Georgia and had twice been Governor
+of their State. The Golphin claim, of which Governor Crawford had been
+agent, had been collected from the Secretary of the Treasury while
+Governor Crawford was in the Cabinet, but President Taylor had decided
+that as Governor Crawford was at the head of an entirely different
+department of the government, he had been guilty of no impropriety.
+After the death of President Taylor, Governor Crawford returned to
+Augusta and was tendered a public dinner by his fellow-citizens,
+irrespective of party. He delivered an eloquent and feeling address. He
+made an extensive tour abroad, then lived in retirement in Richmond
+County, enjoying the respect and confidence of his neighbors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.
+
+
+No legislative body ever assembled with more momentous measures before
+it than the thirty-first Congress of the United States. An immense area
+of unsettled public domain had been wrested from Mexico. The Territories
+of California, Utah, and New Mexico, amounting to several hundred
+thousand square miles, remained undisposed of. They comprised what Mr.
+Calhoun had termed the "Forbidden Fruit," and the trouble which
+beclouded their annexation threatened to surpass the storms of conquest.
+
+Congress felt that it was absolutely without light to guide it. It had
+declined to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean.
+Henry Clay had pronounced such division of public domain between the
+sections a "Utopian dream," and Zachary Taylor had condemned the
+principle in the only message he ever delivered to Congress. What Mr.
+Lincoln afterward embodied in his famous expression that the Union could
+never exist "half slave, half free," had been actually anticipated. The
+whole territorial question came up as a new problem. But if the crisis
+was now momentous the body of statesmen which considered it was a great
+one. The men and the hour seemed to meet in that supreme moment. The
+Senate consisted of sixty members, and for the last time that great trio
+of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster met upon its floor. Commencing their
+careers a generation before; with eventful lives and illustrious
+performance, they lingered one moment in this arena before passing
+forever from the scenes of their earthly efforts. All three had given up
+ambition for the Presidency, none of them had commenced to break in
+mental power, and each one was animated by patriotism to serve and save
+his country. William H. Seward had entered the Senate from New York;
+James M. Mason and Robert M. T. Hunter represented Virginia; Wm. C.
+Dawson had joined Mr. Berrien from Georgia; Salmon P. Chase appeared
+from Ohio; Jefferson Davis and Henry S. Foote illustrated Mississippi;
+Stephen A. Douglas had been promoted from the House in Illinois, and
+Samuel Houston was there from Texas. The House was unusually strong and
+divided with the Senate the stormy scenes and surpassing struggles over
+the compromise measures of 1850. It was the time of breaking up of party
+lines, and many believed that the hour of disunion had arrived.
+
+The Whig caucus, which assembled to nominate a candidate for Speaker of
+the House, sustained a serious split. Robert Toombs offered a resolution
+that Congress should place no restriction upon slavery in the
+Territories. The Northern Whigs scouted the idea and Toombs led the
+Southern members out of the meeting. The organization of the House was
+delayed three weeks, and finally, under a plurality resolution, the
+Democrats elected Howell Cobb of Georgia Speaker over Robert C. Winthrop
+of Massachusetts. In the midst of these stormy scenes Mr. Toombs forced
+the fighting. He declared with impetuous manner that he believed the
+interests of his people were in danger and he was unwilling to surrender
+the great power of the Speaker's chair without security for the future.
+
+"It seems," he said, "that we are to be intimidated by eulogies of the
+Union and denunciations of those who are not ready to sacrifice national
+honor, essential interests, and constitutional rights upon its altar.
+Sir, I have as much attachment to the Union of these States, under the
+Constitution of our fathers, as any freeman ought to have. I am ready to
+concede and sacrifice for it whatever a just and honorable man ought to
+sacrifice. I will do no more. I have not heeded the expression of those
+who did not understand or desired to misrepresent my conduct or opinions
+in relation to these questions, which, in my judgment, so vitally
+affect it. The time has come when I shall not only utter them, but make
+them the basis of my political actions here. I do not then hesitate to
+avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the
+living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the
+Territories purchased by the common blood and treasure of the people,
+and to abolish slavery in the District, thereby attempting to fix a
+national degradation upon half the States of this confederacy, I am for
+disunion, and if my physical courage be equal to the maintenance of my
+convictions of right and duty I will devote all I am and all I have on
+earth to its consummation.
+
+"Give me securities that the power of organization which you seek will
+not be used to the injury of my constituents; then you can have my
+coöperation, but not till then. Grant them, and you prevent the
+disgraceful scenes of the last twenty-four hours and restore
+tranquillity to the country. Refuse them, and, as far as I am concerned,
+let discord reign forever."
+
+This speech fell like a clap of thunder. The Wilmot Proviso waved like a
+black flag over the heads of Southern men. No one had spoken outright
+until Mr. Toombs in his bold, dashing, Mirabeau style accepted the issue
+in the words just given. The House was filled with storms of applause
+and jeers, and, as can be imagined, Mr. Toombs' speech did not soothe
+the bitterness or alter the determination of either side.
+
+On the 22d of December a conference was held by Whigs and Democrats, the
+Southern Whigs excepted, and a resolution reported that the person
+receiving the largest number of votes for Speaker, on a certain ballot,
+should be declared elected, provided this number should be the majority
+of a quorum, but not a majority of the House. Mr. Stanton of Tennessee
+offered this "plurality resolution."
+
+Mr. Toombs sprang to his feet and declared that the House, until it
+organized, could not pass this or any other rule.
+
+Members stood up and called Mr. Toombs to order, claiming that there was
+already a question pending. Mr. Stanton contended that he had the floor.
+
+Toombs called out: "You may cry 'order,' gentlemen, until the heavens
+fall; you cannot take this place from me. I have the right to protest
+against this transaction. It is not with you to say whether this right
+shall be yielded or when it shall be yielded."
+
+Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania: "I call the gentleman to order."
+
+Mr. Toombs: "I say that by the law of 1789 this House, until a Speaker
+is elected and gentlemen have taken the oath of office, has no right to
+adopt any rules whatever."
+
+(Loud cries of "order.")
+
+Mr. Toombs: "Gentlemen may amuse themselves crying 'order.'"
+
+(Calls of "order.")
+
+Mr. Toombs: "But I have the right and I intend to maintain the right
+to----"
+
+Mr. Vandyke called upon the clerk to put the preceding question. "Let us
+see," he said, "whether the gentleman will disregard the order of this
+House."
+
+Mr. Toombs: "I have the floor, and the clerk cannot put the question."
+
+"The House," he said, "has no right. Gentlemen may cry 'order' and
+interrupt me. It is mere brute force, attempting by the power of lungs
+to put me down."
+
+Confusion increased. Members called out to encourage Mr. Toombs, and
+others to put him down. In the midst of this babel he continued to
+speak, his black hair thrown back, his face flushed, and his eyes
+blazing like suns. His deep voice could be heard above the shouts like a
+lion's roar. Members shouted to the clerk to call the roll for the yeas
+and nays.
+
+Toombs continued: "If you seek by violating the common law of
+parliament, the laws of the land, and the Constitution of the United
+States, to put me down ["order, order, call the roll"], you will find it
+a vain and futile attempt. ["Order."] I am sure I am indebted to the
+ignorance of my character on the part of those who are thus disgracing
+themselves ["order, order"], if they suppose any such efforts as they
+are now making will succeed in driving me from the position which I have
+assumed. I stand upon the Constitution of my country, upon the liberty
+of speech which you have treacherously violated, and upon the rights of
+my constituents, and your fiendish yells may be well raised to drown an
+argument which you tremble to hear. You claim and have exercised the
+power to prevent all debate upon any and every subject, yet you have not
+as yet shown your right to sit here at all. I will not presume that you
+have any such right ["order, order"]. I will not suppose that the
+American people have elected such agents to represent them. I therefore
+demand that they shall comply with the Act of 1789 before I shall be
+bound to submit to their authority." (Loud cries of "order.")
+
+The Act to which Mr. Toombs referred recited that the oath must be
+administered by the Speaker to all the members present, and to the
+clerk, previous to entering on any other business. This he tried to
+read, but cries of "order" drowned his voice.
+
+Throwing aside his manual Mr. Toombs walked further out into the aisle
+and assumed a yet more defiant position.
+
+"You refuse," he said, "to hear either the Constitution or the law.
+Perhaps you do well to listen to neither; they all speak a voice of
+condemnation to your reckless proceedings. But if you will not hear them
+the country will. Every freeman from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore
+shall hear them, and every honest man shall consider them. You cannot
+stifle the voice that shall reach their ears. The electric spark shall
+proclaim to the freemen of this republic that an American Congress,
+having conceived the purpose to violate the Constitution and the laws to
+conceal their enormities, have disgraced the record of their proceedings
+by placing upon it a resolution that their representatives shall not be
+heard in their defense, and finding this illegal resolution inadequate
+to secure so vile an end, have resorted to brutish yells and cries to
+stifle the words of those they cannot intimidate."
+
+The clerk continued to call the roll, and Mr. Toombs with splendid
+audacity turned upon him. Pointing his finger at the _locum tenens_, he
+cried with scorn: "I ask by what authority that man stands there and
+calls these names. By what authority does HE interfere with the rights
+of a member of this House. [The clerk continued to call.] He is an
+intruder, and how dares he to interrupt members in the exercise of
+their constitutional rights. Gentlemen, has the sense of shame departed
+with your sense of right, that you permit a creature, an interloper, in
+no wise connected with you, to stand at that desk and interrupt your
+order?"
+
+Mr. Toombs continued, amid these boisterous scenes, his alternate rôle
+of argument, of appeal, of denunciation. He contended that a power
+delegated to the House must be used by a majority of the House. He
+concluded:
+
+"I therefore demand of you before the country, in the name of the
+Constitution and the people, to repeal your illegal rule, reject the one
+on your table, and proceed to the discharge of your high duties, which
+the people have confided to you, according to the unvarying precedents
+of your people and the law of the land."
+
+This performance was denounced by Northern restrictionists as menacing
+and insolent. Mr. Stephens, in his "War Between the States," contended
+that it should rather be considered in the light of a wonderful
+exhibition of physical as well as intellectual prowess--in this, that a
+single man should have been able, thus successfully, to speak to a
+tumultuous crowd and, by declamatory denunciations combined with solid
+argument, to silence an infuriated assembly.
+
+The noise during the delivery of this speech gradually ceased. The
+clerk stopped calling the roll, all interruptions were suspended and
+"every eye," says Mr. Stephens, "was fixed upon the speaker." It was a
+picture worthy of ranking with Lamartine's great speech to the
+revolutionists in France.
+
+On the 29th of February Mr. Toombs addressed the House upon the general
+territorial question. He said:
+
+"We had our institutions when you sought our allegiance. We were content
+with them then, and we are content with them now. We have not sought to
+thrust them upon you, nor to interfere with yours. If you believe what
+you say, that yours are so much the best to promote the happiness and
+good government of society, why do you fear our equal competition with
+you in the Territories? We only ask that our common government shall
+protect us both, equally, until the Territories shall be admitted as
+States into the Union, then to leave their citizens free to adopt any
+domestic policy in reference to this subject which in their judgment may
+best promote their interest and their happiness. The demand is just.
+Grant it, and you place your prosperity and ours upon a solid
+foundation; you perpetuate the Union so necessary to your prosperity;
+you solve the problem of republican government. If it be demonstrated
+that the Constitution is powerless for our protection, it will then be
+not only the right but the duty of the slaveholding States to resume the
+powers which they have conferred upon this government and to seek new
+safeguards for their future protection.... We took the Constitution and
+the Union together. We will have both or we will have neither. This cry
+of Union is the masked battery behind which the rights of the South are
+to be assaulted. Let the South mark the man who is for the Union at
+every hazard and to the last extremity; when the day of her peril comes
+he will be the imitator of that character, the base Judas, who for
+thirty pieces of silver threw away a pearl richer than all his tribe."
+
+On the 15th of June, 1850, while the compromise measures were shifting
+from House to House, the question was put to some of the advocates of
+the admission of California, whether they would under any circumstances
+admit a slave State into the Union. They declined to say.
+
+Mr. Toombs arose and declared that the South did not deny the right of a
+people framing a State constitution to admit or exclude slavery. The
+South had uniformly maintained this right.
+
+"The evidence is complete," he said. "The North repudiated this
+principle."
+
+"I intend to drag off the mask before the consummation of the act. We do
+not oppose California on account of the antislavery clause in her
+constitution. It was her right, and I am not even prepared to say she
+acted unwisely in its exercise--that is her business: but I stand upon
+the great principle that the South has the right to an equal
+participation in the Territories of the United States. I claim the right
+for her to enter them with all her property and security to enjoy it.
+She will divide with you if you wish it: but the right to enter all, or
+divide, I will never surrender. In my judgment this right, involving, as
+it does, political equality, is worth a dozen such Unions as we have,
+even if each were a thousand times more valuable than this. I speak not
+for others, but for myself. Deprive us of this right, and appropriate
+this common property to yourselves; it is then your government, not
+mine. Then I am its enemy, and I will then, if I can, bring my children
+and my constituents to the altar of liberty, and like Hamilcar, I will
+swear them to eternal hostility to your foul domination. Give us our
+just rights, and we are ready, as ever heretofore, to stand by the
+Union, every part of it, and its every interest. Refuse it, and, for
+one, I will strike for independence."
+
+Mr. Stephens declared that this speech produced the greatest sensation
+he had ever seen in the House. "It created a perfect commotion."
+
+These heated arguments of Mr. Toombs were delivered under the menace of
+the Wilmot Proviso, or slavery restriction. When this principle was
+abandoned and the compromise measures passed, Mr. Toombs uttered, as we
+shall see, far different sentiments.
+
+In the Senate Mr. Clay, the Great Pacificator, had introduced his
+compromise resolutions to admit California under the government already
+formed, prohibiting slavery; to organize territorial governments for
+Utah and New Mexico without slavery restrictions; to pass a
+fugitive-slave law, and to abolish the slave trade in the District of
+Columbia. On the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster delivered his great
+Union speech, in which for the first time he took strong grounds against
+congressional restriction in the Territories. It created a profound
+sensation. It was on the 4th of March that Senator Mason read for Mr.
+Calhoun the last speech that the latter ever prepared. It was a
+memorable moment when the great Carolinian, with the stamp of death
+already upon him, reiterated his love for the Union under the
+Constitution, but declared, with the prescience of a seer, that the only
+danger threatening the government arose from its centralizing tendency.
+It was "the sunset of life which gave him mystical lore."
+
+Debate continued through the spring and summer with increasing
+bitterness. On the 31st of July Mr. Clay's "Omnibus Bill," as it was
+called, "went to pieces," but the Senate took up the separate
+propositions, passed them, and transmitted them to the House.
+
+Here the great sectional contest was renewed. Mr. Toombs offered an
+amendment that the Constitution of the United States, and such statutes
+thereof as may not be locally inapplicable, and the common law, as it
+existed in the British colonies of America until July 4, 1776, shall be
+the exclusive laws of said Territory upon the subject of African
+slavery, until altered by the proper authority. This was rejected by the
+House. On September 6 the Texas and New Mexico bill, with the Boyd
+amendment, passed by a vote of 108 to 97--and the anti-restrictionists,
+as Mr. Stephens said, won the day at last. This was the great compromise
+of that year, and the point established was that, since the principle of
+division of territory between the North and South had been abandoned,
+the principle of congressional restriction should also be abandoned, and
+that all new States, whether north or south of 36° 30', should be
+admitted into the Union "either with or without slavery as their
+constitution might prescribe at the time of their admission."
+
+During this memorable contest Mr. Toombs was in active consultation with
+Northern statesmen, trying to effect the compromise. He insisted that
+there should be no congressional exclusion of slavery from the public
+domain, but that in organizing territorial governments the people should
+be allowed to authorize or restrict, as they pleased. Until these
+principles were settled, however, he would fight the admission of
+California. Into this conference Mr. Stephens and Howell Cobb were
+admitted, and at a meeting at the house of the latter an agreement was
+reached between the three Georgians and the representatives from
+Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois, that California should be admitted: that
+the Territories should be organized without restriction, and that their
+joint efforts should be used to bring this about as well as to defeat
+any attempt to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Here was the
+essence of the compromise, built upon the great measures of Henry Clay,
+and finally ripening into the legislation of that session. Here was the
+agreement of that compact which formed the great "Constitutional Union
+Party" in Georgia, and which erected a bulwark against disunion, not
+only in Georgia, but on the whole Southern seaboard. The disunion
+movement failed in 1850. "At the head of the States which had the merit
+of stopping it," said Thomas H. Benton, "was Georgia, the greatest of
+the South Atlantic States." And that Georgia stood steadfast in her
+place, and declined every overture for secession, was because of the
+united prestige and splendid abilities of Howell Cobb, Alexander H.
+Stephens, and Robert Toombs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During this stormy session Mr. Toombs' heart continually yearned for
+home. He was a model husband and a remarkable domestic character. The
+fiery scenes of the forum did not ween him from his family. On the 29th
+of August, 1850, he wrote to his wife:
+
+      We have before us the whole of the territorial questions,
+      and shall probably pass or reject them in a few days or at
+      most in a week. I am greatly in hopes that we will not pass
+      over them without final action of some sort, and if we can
+      get rid of them I shall have nothing to prevent my coming
+      home at the time appointed. I begin to be more anxious to
+      see you than to save the republic. Such is a sweet woman's
+      fascination for men's hearts. The old Roman Antony threw
+      away an empire rather than abandon his lovely Cleopatra,
+      and the world has called him a fool for it. I begin to
+      think that he was the wiser man, and that the world was
+      well lost for love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE GEORGIA PLATFORM.
+
+
+When Mr. Toombs came home in the fall of 1850 he found the State in
+upheaval. Disunion sentiment was rife. He was confronted by garbled
+extracts of his speeches in Congress, and made to pose as the champion
+of immediate secession. He had aided in perfecting the great compromise
+and was resolved that Georgia should take her stand firmly and
+unequivocally for the Union and the Constitution. Governor Towns had
+issued a call for a State convention; Mr. Toombs took prompt issue with
+the spirit and purpose of the call. He declared that the legislature had
+endangered the honor of the State and that the Governor had put the
+people in a defile. "We must either repudiate this policy, or arm," he
+said. "I favor the former measure."
+
+Mr. Toombs issued a ringing address to the people. It bore date of
+October 9, 1850. He proclaimed that "the first act of legislative
+hostility was the first act of Southern resistance." He urged the South
+to stand by the Constitution and the laws in good faith, until wrong was
+consummated or the act of exclusion placed upon the statute books.
+
+Mr. Toombs said that the South had not secured its full rights. "But the
+fugitive-slave law which I demanded was granted. The abolition of
+slavery in the District of Columbia and proscription in the Territories
+were defeated, crushed, and abandoned. We have firmly established great
+and important principles. The South has compromised no right,
+surrendered no principle, and lost not an inch of ground in this great
+contest. I did not hesitate to accept these acts, but gave them my ready
+support."
+
+Addressing himself to the disunionists he said: "They have abandoned
+their errors, but not their object. Being bent upon the ruin of the
+republic they use truth or error for its accomplishment, as best suits
+the exigencies of the hour. If these people are honest in their
+convictions, they may find abundant consolation in the fact that the
+principle is neither conceded, compromised, nor endangered by these
+bills. It is strengthened, not weakened by them, and will survive their
+present zeal and future apostasy."
+
+Mr. Toombs called on all men of integrity, intellect, and courage to
+come into the service of the State and prove their devotion to the
+Constitution and the Union. "With no memory of past differences," he
+said, "careless of the future, I am ready to unite with any portion or
+all my countrymen in defense of the integrity of the republic."
+
+Mr. Toombs took the stump, and his words rang out like an alarm bell.
+Men speak to-day of his activity and earnestness in that great campaign,
+as with "rapid and prompt perception, clear, close reasoning, cutting
+eloquence, and unsparing hand he rasped the follies of disunion and
+secession." A prominent journal of that day, speaking of his speech in
+Burke County, Ga., declared that "his manly eloquence has shaken and
+shivered to the base the pedestal upon which the monument of American
+ruin was to be erected."
+
+In November of that year a convention of delegates from Southern States
+was held at Nashville. Ex-Governor Charles J. McDonald represented
+Georgia. That meeting protested against the admission of California with
+slavery restriction; charged that the policy of Congress had been to
+exclude the Southern States from the Territories, and plainly asserted
+that the powers of the sovereign States could be resumed by the States
+separately. On November 3 the election of delegates to the Georgia
+convention was held. Toombs had already turned the tide. A great
+majority of Union men were chosen. Whigs and Democrats united to save
+the State. Toombs stood convicted before many of his old followers of
+"unsoundness on the slavery question"--but he was performing his
+greatest public work.
+
+Among the delegates elected by the people to the Georgia convention,
+which met at Milledgeville, December 10, 1850, were Toombs and Stephens
+and many of the best men in the State.
+
+The work of the distinguished body was memorable. They adopted the
+celebrated "Georgia Platform," whose utterances were talismanic. Charles
+J. Jenkins reported the resolutions. They recited, first, that Georgia
+held the American Union secondary in importance to the rights and
+principles it was bound to perpetuate. That as the thirteen original
+colonies found union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of
+this day will yield somewhat in the conflict of opinion and policy, to
+preserve the Union. That Georgia had maturely considered the action of
+Congress (embracing the compromise measures) and--while she does not
+wholly approve it--will abide by it as a permanent adjustment of this
+sectional controversy. That the State would in future resist, even to
+the disruption of the Union, any act prohibiting slavery in the
+Territories, or a refusal to admit a slave State. The fifth plank
+declared for a faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave bill.
+
+Upon this platform the Union men selected Howell Cobb as their candidate
+for Governor. The Southern Rights men selected Charles J. McDonald.
+This party claimed that the South was degraded by the compromise
+measures. Their platform was based upon the Virginia and Kentucky
+resolution. It asserted the right of secession and maintained the
+constitutionality and necessity of intervention by Congress in favor of
+admitting slavery into the Territories. The distinct doctrine of the
+compromise measures was non-intervention.
+
+Howell Cobb was a born leader of men. Personally he was the most popular
+man in the State. Entering public life at an early age he had been a
+congressman at twenty-eight. He had been leader of the Southern party,
+and was chosen Speaker, as we have seen, in 1849, when only thirty-four
+years old. He had been known as a strong friend of the Union, and some
+of the extreme States' Rights men called him a "consolidationist."
+
+In his letter accepting the nomination for Governor, he alluded to the
+long-cherished doctrine of non-intervention. The Wilmot Proviso had been
+withdrawn and the Union saved. The people had been awarded the right to
+determine for themselves in the Territories whether or not slavery was
+to be a part of their social system.
+
+No man was so tireless or conspicuous in this campaign as Mr. Toombs.
+Although expressing a desire that someone else should go to Congress
+from his district, he accepted a renomination to assert his principles.
+He did not, however, confine his work to his district. He traveled from
+one end of the State to the other. He recognized that party organization
+in Georgia had been over-thrown and party lines shattered in every State
+in the Union. He boldly declared that a continuance of the Union was not
+incompatible with the rights of every State. He asserted that the
+animating spirit of his opponents, the States' Rights party, was
+hostility to the Union. Some of the members still submitted to the
+humiliation of raising the cry of "the Union," he said, but it was a
+"masked battery," from which the very Union was to be assailed. Mr.
+Toombs announced on the stump that "the good sense, the firmness, the
+patriotism of the people, would shield the Union from assault of our own
+people. They will maintain it as long as it deserves to be maintained."
+
+Mr. Toombs admitted that the antislavery sentiment of the North had
+become more violent from its defeat on the compromise measures.
+
+"What did this party demand, and what did it get?" he asked on the
+stump. "It was driven from every position it assumed. It demanded the
+express prohibition of slavery, the Wilmot Proviso, in the Territories.
+It lost it. It demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of
+Columbia, and the slave trade between the States. It lost both. It
+demanded the affirmance of the oft-repeated declaration that there
+should be no more slave States admitted into the Union. Congress
+enacted that States hereafter coming into the Union should be admitted
+with or without slavery, as such States might determine for themselves.
+It demanded a trial by jury for fugitives at the place of arrest. It
+lost this also. Its acknowledged exponent is the Free-Soil party. The
+Whig party has succumbed to it. It is thoroughly denationalized and
+desectionalized, and will never make another national contest. We are
+indebted to the defeat of the policy of these men for the existence of
+the government to-day. The Democratic party of the North, though
+prostrated, is not yet destroyed. Our true policy is to compel both
+parties to purge themselves of this dangerous element. If either will,
+to sustain it. If neither will, then we expect to preserve the Union. We
+must overthrow both parties and rally the sound men to a common
+standard. This is the only policy which can preserve both our rights and
+the Union."
+
+On the 1st of August, 1851, Mr. Toombs spoke in Elberton. He was in the
+full tide of his manhood, an orator without equal; a statesman without
+fear or reproach. Personally, he was a splendid picture, full of health
+and vitality. He had been prosperous in his affairs. He was prominent in
+public life and overbore all opposition. His powers were in their prime.
+In his speech to his constituents he mentioned the fact that his
+opponents had criticised the manner in which he traveled (alluding to
+his fine horses and servants). He wanted the people to know that the
+money was his, and that he made $5000 a year in Elbert alone. "Who would
+say that he had not earned his money? He had a right to spend it as he
+chose. Perish such demagogy--such senseless stuff." The people cheered
+him to the echo for his candor and audacity.
+
+"What presumption," he said, "for the States' Rights men to nominate
+McDonald for Governor--a man who supported Jackson's Force bill--a man
+who had grown gray in federalism? He was the man brought to teach the
+people of Elbert States' Rights. It would be a curious subject of
+inquiry to find out when this neophyte had changed, and by what process
+the change had been wrought."
+
+Toombs was alluded to by the correspondents as "Richard, the
+Lion-hearted," with strong arm and ponderous battle-ax, as he went about
+winning victories. Stephens, no less effective and influential, seemed
+to be the great Saladin with well-tempered Damascus blade--so skillful
+as to sever the finest down. The people were in continued uproar as
+Toombs moved from place to place.
+
+In Jefferson County, Mr. Toombs denied that the South had yielded any
+demand she ever made, or had sacrificed any principle she ever held. He
+cried that "opposition to Toombs and Stephens seemed to be the
+principle of political faith on the other side." Toombs declared that
+Stephens "carried more brains and more soul for the least flesh of any
+man God Almighty ever made."
+
+Mr. Toombs repeated that if the slaveholders had lost the right to carry
+slavery into California, they had lost it upon sound principle. The
+right of each State to prescribe its own institutions is a right above
+slavery. Slavery is only an incident to this right. This principle lies
+at the foundation of all good government. He had always held it and
+would always hold it:
+
+    Till wrapped in flames the realms of ether glow,
+    And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below.
+
+He deeply sympathized with those Southern Rights men who denounced the
+Union they professed to love.
+
+Speaking of the sudden change of some of his opponents in political
+principles, Toombs declared they "would profess any opinion to gain
+votes. It had been the belief of Crawford that if a man changed politics
+after thirty he was a rascal."
+
+In Marietta Mr. Toombs addressed an enthusiastic crowd. A journalist
+said of him: "He is my _beau idéal_ of a statesman. Frank, honest, bold,
+and eloquent, he never fails to make a deep impression. Many of the
+fire-eaters (for they _will_ go to hear him) looked as if they would
+make their escape from his withering and scathing rebuke." Toombs
+derided the States' Rights men for declaring that they were friends of
+the Union under which they declared they were "degraded and oppressed."
+The greatest stumbling-block to Toombs' triumphant tour was to be
+presented with bits of his own speeches delivered during the excitement
+of the last Congress.
+
+He had said in one of these impassioned outbursts: "He who counts the
+danger of defending his own home is already degraded. The people who
+count the cost of maintaining their political rights are ready for
+slavery."
+
+In Lexington he was accused of having said that if the people understood
+this slavery question as well as he did "they would not remain in the
+Union five minutes." This provoked a bitter controversy. Mr. Toombs
+denied the remark, and declared he was willing to respond personally and
+publicly to the author.
+
+As the campaign became more heated, Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb redoubled
+their efforts and drew their lines more closely. This combination was
+invincible. It was evident that they would carry the State, but some of
+the prominent men in Georgia were ruled out under what was thought to be
+the bitter spirit of the canvass. One of these was Charles J. Jenkins,
+and the other, John McPherson Berrien. The former had drawn the
+celebrated Georgia Platform, and was devoted to the Union. The latter
+was United States Senator from Georgia, and, as his successor was to be
+chosen by the legislature soon to be elected, there was much curiosity
+to find out his real position in this canvass. Mr. Jenkins declared that
+he considered Mr. Berrien "as good a Union man and as safe a
+representative of the party as any within its ranks." Berrien acquiesced
+in but did not eulogize the compromise measures. He did not oppose or
+favor the State convention of 1850. When he submitted to the Senate the
+Georgia Platform, he declared that he did not surrender the privileges
+of a free choice. He supported McDonald for Governor against Cobb, and
+it was soon evident that he was not in full sympathy with the winning
+party.
+
+The Constitutional Union men won a signal victory. Howell Cobb was
+elected Governor by a large majority over Charles J. McDonald, who had
+been twice Governor and who was one of the strongest men in Georgia.
+Robert Toombs was reëlected to Congress over Robert McMillen of Elbert,
+and Mr. Stephens defeated D. W. Lewis of Hancock.
+
+The legislature convened in November, 1851. It was largely made up of
+Union men. Judge Berrien was not a candidate for reëlection to the
+United States Senate. He wrote a letter in which he reviewed his course
+during the campaign. He said:
+
+      "I asserted in terms which even cavilers could not
+      misunderstand nor any honest man doubt, my devotion to the
+      Union, my unfaltering determination to maintain by all
+      constitutional means, and with undiminished zeal, the equal
+      rights of the South, and my acquiescence in the compromise
+      measures. Satisfied that such declarations, in the excited
+      state of feeling, would not meet the exactions of either
+      party in a contest peculiarly bitter, and unable to
+      sacrifice for the purpose of victory the dictates of
+      conscience or the convictions of judgment, I expressed a
+      willingness to retire."
+
+On the 10th of November Robert Toombs was elected United States Senator.
+In the caucus he secured 73 votes, and in the open Assembly next day he
+received 120 votes, scattering, 50.
+
+Never was reward more swift or signal to the master-mind of a campaign.
+If he had been the leader of the extreme Southern wing in Congress, he
+had shown his willingness to accept a compromise and go before the
+people in defense of the Union.
+
+He was charged with having aroused the Secession storm. If he had
+unwittingly done so in Congress in order to carry his point, he proved
+himself powerful in stopping it at home. What some of his critics had
+said of him was true: "The rashest of talkers, he was the safest of
+counselors." Certain it is that at a moment of national peril he
+repelled the charge of being an "irreconcilable," and proved to be one
+of the stanchest supporters of the Union.
+
+In Milledgeville, during the turmoil attending the election of United
+States Senator in November, 1851 Mr. Toombs wrote to his wife as
+follows:
+
+      Since I wrote you last I have been in the midst of an
+      exciting political contest with constantly varying aspects.
+      The friends of Judge Berrien are moving every possible
+      spring to compass my defeat, but as yet I have constantly
+      held the advantage over them. They started Mr. Jenkins and
+      kept him up, under considerable excitement, until he came
+      to town yesterday and instantly withdrew his name. To-day
+      they have started a new batch of candidates: Judge Hill,
+      Hines Holt, Warren, Charlton, and others, all of whom they
+      seek to combine. I think I can beat the whole combination,
+      though it is too close to be comfortable. It is impossible
+      to give an idea of every varying scene, but as I have
+      staked my political fortunes on success, if I am defeated
+      in this conflict my political race is over, and perhaps I
+      feel too little interest in the result for success.
+
+      Dawson is at home sick; Stephens is not here; so I am
+      standing very much on my own hand, breasting the conflict
+      alone. So I shall have the consolation of knowing that, if
+      I succeed, the victory will be all my own. The contest will
+      be decided by Monday next, and perhaps sooner.... As soon
+      as it is over I shall leave here and shall be at home at
+      furthest to-day week. If I were not complicated in this
+      business, nothing would induce me to go into it. There are
+      so many unpleasant things connected with it, which will at
+      least serve as lessons for the future, whatever may be the
+      result. You can see from this letter how deeply I am
+      immersed in this contest, yet I am getting so impatient to
+      come home that even defeat would be better than this
+      eternal annoyance.
+
+        TOOMBS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF 1852.
+
+
+In this first struggle between Secession and the Union Georgia had taken
+the lead, but Georgia had not been the only State involved. The fight
+was waged just as fiercely in Mississippi, when Henry S. Foote, the
+Union candidate, was elected Governor over Jefferson Davis. But the
+Georgia Platform was the corner-stone of the Southern victory. Her
+action gave peace and quiet to the whole Union, and the success of the
+triumvirate that year offered assurance of strength and security to the
+country. The national parties were quick to align themselves on this
+platform. The Democratic convention, which assembled in Baltimore June
+1, declared that "the party would abide by and adhere to a faithful
+execution of the Acts known as the Compromise Measures, settled by the
+last Congress." The Whig convention, which met also at Baltimore, June
+16, proclaimed that "the series of Acts of the thirty-first Congress,
+known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, the Act known as the
+Fugitive-slave law included, are received and acquiesced in by the Whig
+party of the United States as a settlement in principle and substance
+of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace."
+
+"The truth is," said Mr. Stephens in his "War Between the States," "an
+overwhelming majority of the people, North as well as South, was in
+favor of maintaining these principles."
+
+Under these conditions the presidential campaign of 1852 was opened. The
+Southern Whigs did not, as a body, accept the Baltimore nominee, General
+Winfield Scott. They claimed that he had refused to express any direct
+approval of the platform relating to the compromise. Mr. Toombs demanded
+that his candidate plant himself unequivocally upon this platform. He
+noticed that the opponents of the Fugitive-slave law were strong for
+Scott. Feeling in the South was still running high. Some extremists held
+that no Northern man was fit to be trusted. Mr. Toombs declared that
+there were good and true men at the North and that he would "hold party
+associations with no others."
+
+In a speech to his own townspeople in Washington, Ga., during this
+presidential campaign, Mr. Toombs declared that he had not changed one
+iota, but was ready now to support the men who would plant themselves on
+the broad principles of the Constitution and the country. He said
+General Scott had no claims whatever upon the people. He spoke of him as
+a great general, and alluded in glowing terms to his achievements in
+arms against the Mexicans and Indians. But General Scott, he believed,
+was a Free-Soil candidate. He would be in favor of annexing Canada, but
+no more slave territory. Mr. Toombs alluded to the Democratic candidate
+for President, General Franklin Pierce, as a very consistent man in all
+his senatorial career, and believed he was the safest man on the slavery
+question north of Mason and Dixon's line. He preferred Pierce to Scott,
+but said he would not vote for either. The contest was "between a big
+general and a little general."
+
+Mr. Toombs launched into a magnificent tribute to Daniel Webster as a
+statesman and friend of the Constitution. It was Webster who had stayed
+the flood of abolition and killed the Wilmot Proviso; who had dared, in
+the face of the North, and in defiance of his constituents, to boldly
+defend the rights of the South and exclaim, "O God, I will be just!"
+
+This allusion of Mr. Toombs rang throughout the State. Its significance
+lay in the fact that the Whigs of Georgia, in convention assembled, had
+nominated Daniel Webster for President and Charles J. Jenkins for
+vice-president of the United States. Without chance of national success,
+this ticket was received with strong expression of indorsement. Since
+his celebrated "4th of March" speech, in the Senate, Mr. Webster had
+been a favorite in the South. He had abandoned the Wilmot Proviso and
+accepted the Fugitive-slave law to conciliate the sections, and the
+addition of his great name to seal the Compromise of 1850 was regarded
+in the South as an act of patriotism reached by few men in the country's
+history. His speech had made a profound impression. "The friends of the
+Union under the Constitution were strengthened in their hopes, and
+inspired with renewed energies by its high and lofty sentiments."
+Commanding always the respect and admiration of the Southern people Mr.
+Webster now took the place in their affections just made vacant by the
+death of Henry Clay. Mr. Webster must have put aside all political
+ambition when he made this peaceful concession. His new-found strength
+in the South did not add to his popularity in the North. When the Whig
+convention of 1852 met in Baltimore, Mr. Webster was Secretary of State
+under President Fillmore. He had added fresh luster to his name by his
+latest services to the nation. But the prestige of his life and labors
+did not override the passions of the hour, and Winfield Scott was
+nominated for the Presidency. This broke the last tie which held the
+Southern Whigs in national allegiance. Circumstances were forcing them
+into the Democratic party, but they made a final stand under the name
+of Daniel Webster.
+
+To Mr. Toombs, the regard of the Whigs of Georgia for Mr. Webster was
+especially gratifying. He had lived next door to the great Massachusetts
+statesman during his residence in Washington, and had seen him often in
+the privacy of his home. He had consulted closely with him during the
+exciting days of the compromise measures, and was advised by Mr. Webster
+about the Whig platform at Baltimore. He recognized the surpassing
+greatness of the man, and when he sounded the praises of Webster it came
+straight from an honest heart.
+
+Charles J. Jenkins, a native of Beaufort, S. C., had studied law with
+Senator Berrien and practiced in Augusta. His nomination to second place
+on the Webster ticket was a pledge of the high favor of the Whigs. Mr.
+Jenkins was five years the senior of Mr. Toombs; had served with him in
+the State Legislature and, like Toombs, had been allied with the Troup
+party in Georgia. Mr. Jenkins had been three times Speaker of the lower
+branch of the General Assembly, and in 1842 had received the entire Whig
+vote for United States Senator. Upon the resignation of McKennon of
+Pennsylvania, President Fillmore had, through Mr. Toombs, offered the
+Interior Department to Mr. Jenkins. This position, however, was
+declined because of pressing duties in the courts.
+
+In the senatorial election of 1851 Mr. Jenkins would have been a
+formidable candidate for United States Senator again, had not his strong
+friendship both for Senator Berrien and Mr. Toombs dictated his
+declining the use of his name. He was a man of high ability and pure
+character.
+
+Georgia became a national battle-ground during this campaign. Besides
+the regular Whig and Democratic and the Webster tickets, there was an
+extreme faction of States' Rights men, who would not accept any of these
+candidates. They called on George M. Troup, then living in retirement in
+Montgomery County. He wrote a ringing letter accepting the nomination of
+the "Southern Rights" party for President. He was seventy-two years old,
+but his cherished principles, which he had proclaimed in the face of
+Adams and Jackson, were now repeated for the people of another
+generation.
+
+The gallant body of Union Whigs were destined to deep affliction. On the
+24th of October, 1852, ten days before the national election, Daniel
+Webster died. The land was filled with lamentation, for there was no
+North, no South, in this sorrow.
+
+The State of Georgia, which in 1848 had voted for Taylor, now turned
+about and voted for Pierce and King. On November 2d the South Carolina
+Legislature also cast 135 votes for the Pierce electors. General Scott
+carried but four States in the Union, caused, as Mr. Stephens and Mr.
+Toombs thought, by his refusal to indorse the Compromise of 1850.
+
+On July 3, 1852, Mr. Toombs, then a member of the House, submitted an
+elaborate statement of his political position. He made the point that
+presidents, as then put forward, were not real representatives of the
+country or even of a party. From the beginning of the government up to
+1836 the presidency had been filled by ripe statesmen and tried
+patriots. _All_ were excluded from competition except those who had
+great experience in public affairs, and who had commended themselves to
+the people by wisdom, virtue, and high services. Such men had no need of
+hired biographers and venal letter-writers to inform the people who they
+were. They needed no interpreters of letters to the public, cunningly
+devised to mystify what they pretended to elucidate. National
+conventions, Mr. Toombs contended, were contrivances to secure popular
+support to those who were not entitled to public confidence.
+
+Mr. Toombs was an enemy to mere convention. All party machinery, all
+irregular organizations, which are unknown to the Constitution, he
+regarded as dangerous to public liberty. He had noticed that this
+machinery had been deadly to the great men of the nation and productive
+only of mediocrity. Obedience to them, he contended, was infidelity to
+popular rights. "This system," said he, "has produced none of those
+illustrious men who have become so distinguished in their country's
+history; none of those political lights which have shone so brilliantly
+on this Western continent for half a century. Nearly all of them have
+departed from us. Who is to take the place of the distinguished
+Carolinian?" he asked. "He was the handiwork of God himself and of the
+people--not party machinery. Who is to fill the place of the great
+Kentuckian? When worthily filled, it will not be by these nurseries of
+faction.
+
+"The friends of the Compromise," said Mr. Toombs, "demand no sectional
+candidate. They were willing to accept the great New England statesman,
+notwithstanding they may point to disagreements with him in the past. He
+has thrown the weight of his mighty intellect into the scales of
+concord, in the darkest and most perilous hour of the conflict. And
+Southern Whigs would have struggled with pride and energy to have seen
+the greatest intellect of the age preside over the greatest republic of
+the world. He was defeated in convention by the enemies of the
+compromise measure, because he was its friend. And this was the true
+reason of his exclusion. It is a sufficient reason for the friends of
+the measure, North and South, to oppose and defeat General Scott's
+nomination. My action shall respond to my convictions."
+
+Mr. Toombs had seen Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, one by one, retired
+before Van Buren, Harrison, and Scott. Was it any wonder that, in
+breaking away from the old Whig party, he should denounce the system
+which had blighted its brightest men and which, in his opinion, had
+retired the greatest statesman in the world before an issue of sectional
+prejudice? Mr. Toombs never again gave allegiance to conventions or
+obeyed the dictates of party caucuses. From 1854 to 1860 he was a
+Democrat. After the war he acted mainly with the party which sympathized
+with the South. But his great power made him independent. He did not
+hesitate to criticise Pierce or Buchanan, or to upbraid Jefferson Davis,
+the head of the Southern Confederacy. He repudiated the nomination of
+Horace Greeley by his party. He called a meeting in his own room in an
+Atlanta hotel in 1872, and put A. H. Stephens before the people for
+Congress. In 1878, when the organized Democracy of Georgia antagonized
+Dr. William H. Felton for Congress in the seventh Georgia district, Mr
+Toombs wrote a letter to the press, in which he declared that party
+conventions were merely advisory. "When their action becomes
+authoritative, they are usurpers. They deprive the people of free
+elections. Let their actions be approved or disapproved by the elections
+of the people." He supported Mr. Stephens, who did not hesitate to "tote
+his own skillet," when occasion required. Toombs' independence was
+lordly. He believed in the utmost freedom in public affairs. Machinery
+was as hateful to him as to Thomas Jefferson. He was "the prince of
+innovation; the foe to all convention." No less than of Burke, it was
+said of him that "born for the universe, he did not surrender to party,"
+but General Longstreet declared of Robert Toombs that he needed only
+discipline to make him a great military genius. This was the radical
+flaw in his make-up. How near he came to the ideal of a statesman
+posterity must judge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+TOOMBS IN THE SENATE.
+
+
+When Robert Toombs entered the Senate of the United States, in 1853, the
+_personnel_ of that body had changed since the great debates on the
+compromise measures. Calhoun had died before the compromise was
+effected, and only a short time after his last address had been read to
+the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia. Clay survived his last greatest
+work but two years, and on the 29th of June, 1852, was no more. Daniel
+Webster lived only four months longer than Mr. Clay. Among the new
+leaders in that body were Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, William M.
+Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Charles Sumner of
+Massachusetts. To this list may be added the familiar names of Thompson
+of Mississippi, Bayard of Delaware, Toucey of Connecticut, Slidell of
+Louisiana, Achison of Missouri, Bell of Tennessee, and Cass of Michigan.
+
+The third great sectional fight on the Territories came up on the report
+to organize a government for that tract of public domain lying in the
+Louisiana cession, known as Kansas and Nebraska. In doing this, Mr.
+Douglas, as chairman of the Committee on Territories, adopted the same
+principle on the slavery question as had been settled in the Utah and
+New Mexico bills of 1850.
+
+The words of the Nebraska bill were that "said Territory, or any portion
+of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery as
+their constitutions may prescribe at the time of their admission." Mr.
+Douglas claimed that the question of congressional interference was an
+"exploded doctrine"; that the Missouri Compromise bill had been ignored
+by North and South; that the Wilmot Proviso had been rejected
+altogether; and that the principles of 1850 had superseded the
+principles of 1820. The committee sought to avoid the perils of slavery
+agitation for all time, they claimed, by withdrawing the question of
+slavery from the halls of Congress and from national politics. "Let the
+new States and Territories," they said, "settle this matter for
+themselves." Mr. Sumner of Massachusetts took the lead in opposing the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill. He declared that the bill violated the principles
+of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in all that
+territory ceded by France and lying north of 36° 30'. He and his friends
+held that this was a "sacred compact," and this territory could not be
+controlled by the same principles as the land secured from Mexico.
+
+The second bill drawn by Mr. Douglas, which provided for the
+establishment of two territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska,
+instead of one, expressly repealed the Missouri Compromise as being
+inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress. Here,
+then, the contest waged anew.
+
+One of the first speeches made by Senator Toombs was on the 23d of
+February, 1854, on the Kansas-Nebraska bill.
+
+Douglas was in charge of the Territorial bills, and his readiness in
+debate, his sinewy intellect, his tact and shrewdness, had gained for
+him the name of "Little Giant." Seward, Chase, and Sumner had been
+elected from their States as "independent Democrats" by the
+Abolitionists, who held the balance of power in New York, Ohio, and
+Massachusetts. Mr. Toombs was more than willing to measure swords with
+the champions of free soil. He declared that he would address himself to
+the consideration of the Kansas-Nebraska bill "with a heart filled with
+gratitude to the Disposer of human events, that after the conflicts of
+more than a third of a century this great question has found its
+solution, not in temporary expedients for allaying sectional discord,
+but in the true principles of the Constitution and upon the broad
+foundation of justice and right, which forms the only true basis of
+fraternity and of national concord."
+
+Mr. Toombs repudiated the libel cast by Mr. Sumner upon Northern men who
+"dared to exercise the rights of freemen" and differ from the
+Abolitionists upon this question. "It appears," said he, "from the
+speeches of the senator from Massachusetts, that all such are white
+slaves, whose manhood has been debased and enervated by the irresistible
+attractions of slave power." He declared that the men who talked about
+"solemn compact" in this connection were men whom "no oaths can bind and
+no covenants restrain." They called the Missouri Compromise a compact,
+yet showed their willingness to violate it.
+
+"In all governments," said Mr. Toombs, "the acquisitions of the state
+belong rightfully to the people. Much more strongly does this principle
+apply to a purely popular government. Therefore, any exercise of power
+to injure or destroy those who have equal rights of enjoyment is
+arbitrary, unauthorized by the contract, and despotic."
+
+"You have no power to strike from the meanest Indian trapper, the basest
+trader or camp-follower, as the senator from New York styled these
+people, their equal privileges, this sovereignty of right, which is the
+birthright of every American citizen. This sovereignty may--nay, it
+must--remain in abeyance until society becomes sufficiently strong and
+stable to be entitled to its full exercise, as sovereignty does not
+belong to the general government, and its exercise is a marked
+usurpation."
+
+"The power and duty, then, of this government over the inchoate society
+of the Territories, is simply to protect this equality of right of
+persons and property of all the members of society until the period
+shall arrive when this dormant sovereignty shall spring into active
+existence and exercise all the powers of a free, sovereign, and
+independent State. Then it can mold, according to its own sovereign will
+and pleasure, its own institutions, with the single restriction that
+they must be republican."
+
+"Justice," said Mr. Toombs, "is the highest expediency, the supremest
+wisdom. Applying that test to the principles of this measure, I say that
+no fair man in any portion of the country can come to any other
+conclusion than that it establishes between the people of this Union,
+who are bound together under a common Constitution, a firm, a permanent,
+a lasting bond of harmony.
+
+"What is it that we of the South ask? Do we make any unjust or unequal
+demands on the North? None. Do we ask what we are not willing on our
+side to grant to them? Not at all. We say to them 'Gentlemen, here is
+our common territory. Whether it be ceded by old States, whether it be
+acquired by the common treasure, or was the fruits of successful war to
+which we rallied, and in which we all fought, we ask you to recognize
+this great principle of the revolution: let such as desire, go there,
+enjoy their property, take with them their flocks and herds, their
+men-servants and maid-servants, if they desire to take them there; and
+when the appropriate time comes for the exercise of the dormant
+sovereignty of the people, let them fix the character of their
+institutions for themselves.'"
+
+Senator Toombs ridiculed the idea of the "thunder of popular
+indignation." "If even this were true, it should in no wise control the
+actions of American senators. But it is not real but melodramatic
+thunder--nothing but phosphorus and sheet-iron."
+
+Senator Toombs admitted that the North had the power to reject the
+principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. They had a majority in the House
+and Senate. Aristides had said, "True, you can do it; you have got the
+power; but, Athenians, it is unjust."
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM GEORGIA, 1855.]
+
+Senator Toombs was a bold man. When he adopted a line of argument, he
+was willing to follow wherever its conclusions led. He did not
+hesitate, in this speech, to admit that "if you yield to the people the
+right to mold their institutions, the establishment of polygamy may
+result legitimately therefrom." This point had been made in debate to
+fight the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Said Senator Toombs:
+"It is just what they have a right to do. When the people of Utah make
+their organic law for admission to the Union, they have a right to
+approximate, as nearly as they please, the domestic manners of the
+Patriarchs. Connecticut may establish polygamy to-morrow. The people of
+Massachusetts may do the same. How did they become possessed of greater
+rights, in this or any other respect, than the people of Utah? The right
+in both cases has the same foundation--the sovereignty of the people."
+
+Senator Toombs adverted to the fact that Henry Clay had denied that he
+framed the Missouri Compromise; that it did not originate in the House,
+of which he was a member; that he did not even know if he voted for it.
+Senator Toombs held the Act of 1820 to be no compact--binding upon no
+man of honor; but, on the contrary, a plain and palpable violation of
+the Constitution and the common rights of the citizens, and ought to be
+immediately abrogated and repealed. He declared that it had been
+rejected by the North when passed, and rejected when Arkansas was
+admitted, when Oregon was formed, when California was received as a
+State. If the Kansas bill was settled upon sound and honest principles,
+he maintained that it should be applied to territory ceded from France
+just as elsewhere. He contended that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was
+not a compromise in any sense of the term, but an unconstitutional
+usurpation of power. "When we look into the Constitution, we find no
+antislavery power planted in that instrument. On the contrary, we find
+that it amply provides for the perpetuity and not for the extinction of
+slavery."
+
+Senator Toombs closed his first speech in the Senate with these words:
+"The senator from New York asks where and when the application of these
+principles will stop. He wishes not to be deceived in the future, and
+asks us whether, when we bring the Chinese and other distant nations
+under our flag, we are to apply these principles to them? For one, I
+answer yes; that wherever the flag of the Union shall float, this
+republican principle will follow it, even if it should gather under its
+ample folds the freemen of every portion of the universe."
+
+The Kansas-Nebraska bill reopened the whole question of slavery. In the
+North, it was a firebrand. Mr. Buchanan, in his book, written after his
+retirement from the presidency, said that the South was for the first
+time the aggressor in this legislation. Mr. Fillmore declared that the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise was "the Pandora Box of Evil." Mr.
+Douglas was reviled by his opponents and burned in effigy at the North.
+His leadership in this fight was ascribed to his overweening ambition to
+reach the presidency. The clergymen of New England and of Chicago
+flooded the Senate with petitions crying against this "intrigue." On May
+26, 1854, at one o'clock in the morning, the bill passed the Senate by a
+vote of 31 to 13. The "nays" were Messrs. Allen, Bell, Chase, Clayton,
+Fish, Foote, Gillet, Hamlin, James, Seward, Sumner, Wade, and Walker.
+
+The enactment of this measure into a law did not settle the question. It
+resulted in a strife in the Territories themselves. For two years Kansas
+was in a state of civil war. The Emigrant Aid Societies of New England
+raised large sums of money to send to the Territories Free-Soil settlers
+and other agitators. A counter-stream of agitators set in from Missouri,
+in sympathy with the slavery men, and the result was a long series of
+bloody disorders. In February, 1856, Mr. Toombs made a speech upon the
+message of the President in regard to the lawless condition of Kansas.
+The Governor informed President Pierce that the laws were obstructed
+and openly resisted by bodies of armed men; that prisoners were rescued
+from the sheriffs, peaceable inhabitants murdered, and houses burned.
+Another authority informed the President that an overwhelming force was
+crossing the border for the avowed purpose of invading Kansas and
+butchering the unoffending Free-State citizens. One side claimed
+protection from insurrection within, the other from invasion without.
+
+As to the Emigrant Aid Societies, Mr. Toombs said, "Whatever be their
+policy, whatever their tendency to produce strife, if they simply aid
+emigrants from Massachusetts to go to Kansas to become citizens of that
+Territory, I am prepared to say that they violate no law; they have a
+right to do it, and every attempt to prevent their doing so violates the
+law and ought not to be sustained. But if they send persons there
+furnished with arms, with the intent to offer forcible resistance to the
+constituted authorities, they are guilty of the highest crime known to
+civil society, and are amenable to its penalties. I shall not undertake
+to decide upon their conduct. The facts are not before me, and I
+therefore pass it by."
+
+Mr. Toombs thought it would be difficult to imagine a case calling more
+loudly for the intervention of Federal power. Mr. Toombs favored the
+supremacy of the law in the Territories at any cost. "If traitors seek
+to disturb the peace of the country, I desire that it shall be no
+sectional contest. I do not see the end of that. I prefer that the
+conflict shall be between the Federal Government and the lawless. I can
+see the end of that. The law will triumph and the evil stop."
+
+"We who pass this Kansas-Nebraska bill, both at the North and South,
+intend to maintain its principles. We do not intend to be driven from
+them by clamor nor by assault. We intend that the actual _bona fide_
+settlers of Kansas shall be protected in the full exercise of all the
+rights of freemen; that, unawed and uncontrolled, they shall freely and
+of their own will legislate for themselves, to every extent allowed by
+the Constitution, while they have a territorial government; and when
+they shall be in a condition to come into the Union and may desire it,
+that they shall come into the Union with whatever republican
+constitution they may prefer and adopt for themselves; that in the
+exercise of their rights they shall be protected from insurrection from
+within and invasion from without."
+
+In answer to Senator Hale of New Hampshire, Senator Toombs agreed that
+the Territory of Kansas would certainly be a free State. Such, he
+thought would be its future destiny. "The senator from New Hampshire,"
+he said, "was unable to comprehend the principles of the bill. The
+friends of the Kansas bill, North and South, supported the bill because
+it was right, and left the future to those who were affected by it. The
+policy of the Kansas bill wrongs no man, no section of our common
+country. We have never asked the government to carry by force, or in any
+way, slavery anywhere. We only demand that the inhabitants of the
+Territories shall decide the question for themselves without the
+interference of the government or the intermeddling of those who have no
+right to decide."
+
+Mr. Toombs and Senator Hale of New Hampshire seem to have been pitted
+squarely against each other in this great debate.
+
+In 1854, during the progress of the Kansas debate, Mr. Toombs occupied
+Mr. Hale's desk, and alluded to the taunts which Mr. Hale had heaped
+upon the heads of senators who had sustained the compromise measures of
+1850. He had predicted that they would be driven from their seats; that
+the mighty North would drive them from their benches. The distinguished
+senator from Michigan, Mr. Cass, was the especial object of these
+assaults. "But the result," said Mr. Toombs, looking about him, "is that
+the gentleman who made these declarations is not here."
+
+In 1856, however, Mr. Hale was returned to the Senate and met Mr.
+Toombs in the Kansas debate, and the discussion was continued with the
+same acrimony.
+
+"Let there be no legislative aggression on either side," continued Mr.
+Toombs. "If the senator from New Hampshire is sincere, he will stand
+there. The common property is open to the common enjoyment of all. Let
+it remain so."
+
+Mr. Toombs charged Senator Hale with saying that the North had always
+been practically in a minority in the Senate, because the South bought
+up as many Northern men as it wanted. "Sir, I stand here to-day in
+behalf of the North to repel the accusation."
+
+Mr. Hale: "Who made it?"
+
+Mr. Toombs: "You said it. I have it before me in your printed speech. I
+heard it delivered, and you are correctly reported."
+
+In a letter to Mr. B. F. Hallet of Boston, in 1856, Mr. Toombs denied
+saying that he would "call the roll of his slaves at the base of Bunker
+Hill Monument." He charged Senator Hale with misrepresenting him to this
+extent.
+
+No man was oftener misquoted by word of mouth or in public print. As
+bold as he was in speech and as free to speak out what was in his mind,
+he once remarked to an intimate friend, Dr. Steiner of Augusta, that he
+rarely ever saw his name in print that it was not attached to a lie.
+
+We are not left to tradition or the dictum of political opponents to
+know how seriously Mr. Toombs regarded the question of war between the
+North and South. In this same debate with Senator Hale, Mr. Toombs said:
+"He told us the North would fight. I believe that nobody ever doubted
+that any portion of the United States would fight on a proper occasion.
+Sir, if there shall ever be civil war in this country, when honest men
+shall set about cutting each other's throats, those who are least to be
+depended upon in a fight will be the people who set them at it. There
+are courageous and honest men enough in both sections to fight.... No,
+sir, there is no question of courage involved. The people of both
+sections of the Union have illustrated their courage on too many
+battlefields to be questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities,
+shoulder to shoulder, whenever their country has called upon them; but
+that they may never come in contact with each other in fratricidal war,
+should be the ardent wish and earnest desire of every true man and
+honest patriot."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE "KNOW-NOTHING" PARTY.
+
+
+In the fall of 1854 the elections were generally adverse to the
+Democrats. The slavery agitation at the North, intensified by the
+passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resulted in a large number of
+Free-Soil candidates and "anti-Nebraska" Whigs being elected to the
+House. In the West and South, the "Know-nothing" movement had arisen as
+in a single night, and with secrecy and strength had asserted itself on
+election day. The consequence was that the Democratic majority in the
+House which had been elected with Franklin Pierce now disappeared. The
+years of 1854-55 were full of uncertainty in Georgia. The old-line
+Whigs, who had broken away from their party associates upon the
+nomination of General Scott for President, had not yet gone into full
+affiliation with the Democrats. Many of these men joined the "American
+party," which had arisen out of antagonism to the large foreign
+population flowing into the States and Territories. This party put out
+candidates for Congress and the State offices in Georgia.
+
+To Alexander H. Stephens, more than to any other man, was due the honor
+of breaking up the Know-nothing movement in Georgia. Amazed at the
+rapidity with which this party organized and the completeness with which
+it worked; repudiating the principles which it held and the
+proscriptions which it enforced, Alexander Stephens announced, early in
+the day, that he would not be a candidate for reëlection to Congress. He
+declared, in a letter, that, from the secrecy of the order, he was
+unable to know what they were doing, and, as political principles should
+come out in the open sunlight for inspection, he could not submit his
+candidacy to any such concern. He did not hesitate to condemn the
+practices and creed of the American party in public. Prominent leaders
+in his district who recognized his ability made it known that they were
+willing to support him, if he would not be so severe in his
+denunciations. Mr. Stephens promptly replied that the crisis required
+the knife, not the poultice. However, he did run for Congress and scored
+the secret order on every stump in the district. He declared, in a
+speech in Augusta, that he "was not afraid of anything on the earth,
+above the earth, or below the earth, except to do wrong." Mr. Stephens
+was elected. Religious fanaticism and race prejudice received a death
+blow in Georgia. "It writhed in pain, and died among its worshipers."
+
+Mr. Toombs had already made himself felt in this campaign. He was in the
+shadow of a domestic affliction. His youngest daughter died in February
+of that year. This occurrence brought him to decide upon a trip abroad,
+which he had long anticipated, but which his busy and eventful life had
+not allowed him to enjoy.
+
+In April, 1855, he wrote his wife:
+
+      I feel more and more anxious to get abroad and out of this
+      country; to be relieved of the thousand harassments of
+      business, and look for a great deal of pleasure in our
+      quiet and uninterrupted strolling over the hills and plains
+      of Europe, where nobody knows us and nobody can harass me
+      with business or their troubles. I wish I could, like our
+      darling child, thank God there was rest in Heaven.
+
+Just before he left the State, he attended the Supreme Court of Georgia,
+at Milledgeville. At that time he wrote his wife:
+
+      I have had a hard, close week's work. The lawyers very
+      kindly gave way and allowed my cases to come this week,
+      which brought them very close together, and, as I am but
+      ill prepared for them, not having given them any attention
+      last winter, and but little this spring, I have been pretty
+      much speaking all day and studying all night--and that
+      without the benefit of "specks," which I am beginning to
+      need.
+
+      All the old Whigs here have joined the Know-nothings, and
+      keep very shy of me, as I have spoken not softly of the
+      miserable wretches who expect to govern a great country
+      like this with imbecility, if they can only cover it with
+      secrecy. I have been greatly beset not to go to Europe this
+      summer, as the political campaign is likely to be hot. I
+      shall go, and the rather that I may avoid such an event,
+      and take that leisure and repose with my family in foreign
+      countries which I seem to be totally incapable of getting
+      at home.
+
+Mr. Toombs left no doubt as to how he regarded the American party. In a
+speech on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he had declared that the country
+could assimilate the foreigners from Europe and the Chinamen from Asia,
+and gather under the ample folds of the American flag every nation on
+earth.
+
+It is related that in the early part of Mr. Toombs' political career he
+was accused of having subscribed to build a Catholic church in Georgia.
+The charge was repeated secretly from ear to ear until it came to his
+friends. It was on the eve of an election in Wilkes County, and a
+delegation, in spite of the lateness of the hour, went to Mr. Toombs'
+residence, awoke him, and asked for an authoritative denial of what they
+considered a damaging charge. Mr. Toombs listened to the delegation, and
+then declared with emphasis, not free from profanity, that it was so. "I
+have responded to their calls just as I have those of other
+denominations. You can tell the people that the distribution of my
+money is none of their business."
+
+This bold and prompt reply did not prevent his reëlection to the
+legislature the next day.
+
+No man was more liberal in matters of religion and conscience than Mr.
+Toombs. In 1851 he wrote his wife in reply to a letter informing him
+that his daughter wanted to join the Methodist Church:
+
+      I am content if she desires, and you wish it. My opinions
+      about revivals, to which you refer, have been long formed
+      and much strengthened by my experience in the world, but I
+      am not at all desirous that they should be the rule of
+      anybody's conduct but my own. I have therefore endeavored
+      to stand upon the Protestant principle in matters of
+      conscience, of judging for myself and allowing others to do
+      the same. The Judge of the Earth will do right at the final
+      hearing.
+
+On June 6, 1855, Mr. Toombs set sail from New York, in company with his
+wife and daughter, and Mr. W. F. Alexander, his son-at-law. In ten days,
+after a smooth trip, he landed in Liverpool, with just enough roughness
+off the coast of Ireland to show old Neptune in his element. Mr. Toombs
+was in the very prime of a vigorous life. He had accumulated a
+competency at the law, was in fine physical condition, and had a mind
+broad, sensitive, and retentive. He could stand any amount of
+travel--this man who rode his circuits on his horse, and who endured the
+wearing trips from Georgia to the national capital. He remarked at the
+outset of his European trip that he had more money than time, so he
+secured special conveyances at every available place, and pushed his
+journey to all points of interest. From London he went to Paris, Lyons,
+Marseilles, thence to the Mediterranean, where he passed the Fourth of
+July plowing his way to Naples, sleeping on deck to escape the stuffy
+stateroom of the little steamer, and catching all the cinders from the
+smokestack. Embarking at Naples, he went to Rome, where he was entranced
+to see the historic spots of the Eternal City. Rome had for him more
+charms than Paris. Crossing the Alps, he went to Geneva, and striking
+the Rhine, he proceeded by boat to Amsterdam, thence to Brussels, where
+he walked over the field of Waterloo. Leaving his family in Paris, he
+crossed to England and made a tour alone through Ireland and Scotland.
+
+As an American senator, Robert Toombs bore letters of introduction to
+prominent people in Europe. His reputation was international, his
+acquaintance with the diplomatists of the Old World was extensive, and
+his knowledge of the history and government of the different countries
+was complete. But he did not seek notoriety in his trip abroad. He
+presented none of his letters. He preferred to travel among the people,
+and at night, like Jean Valjean, he loved to see the _bourgeois_ in
+their gardens and at their ease, in order to study their habits and
+condition. He took great interest in the laborers. On one occasion he
+got down from his _diligence_ to ask a man, who was drawing water from a
+well to irrigate the land, how much he was paid for this slow and
+cumbersome process. He was astonished to hear that it was but twelve
+cents a day.
+
+Mr. Toombs spoke the French language; he studied the people, and no man
+was a better judge of human nature. He said when he returned that the
+Southern slave was better treated and was a better laborer than most of
+the peasants whom he had seen.
+
+His conversation during his European trip was bright and racy. He never
+fagged in body or mind. He never became a trifler or a tease. He was not
+a man who cared for his personal comforts or appetites. Occasionally he
+would abuse the hotels as being far behind the American hostelry. Now
+and then he would jest with his guide or indulge in bright raillery over
+the Italian peddler with the inevitable cigarette. He made it a rule to
+smoke a cigar in every country, to test the tobacco, and also to sample
+the wine of every nation. He drank but little at that time, never
+touching ardent spirits in any way. Good-humor, good health, and
+happiness followed him as he made the circuit of the Continent.
+
+Just three months were passed by him in the Old World. He arrived in New
+York in September, 1855, where telegrams awaited him, summoning him to a
+desperate campaign in Georgia.
+
+The contest in Georgia that year was sharp. The American party elected
+several members of Congress, but their candidate for Governor, Judge
+Andrews, was defeated by Herschel V. Johnson. The latter was one of the
+strongest Democrats in Georgia. He had, in 1853, been elected Governor
+over so able a man as Charles J. Jenkins.
+
+Mr. Toombs plunged at once into the canvass and proceeded, in his own
+vigorous way, to fight the Know-nothings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TOOMBS IN BOSTON.
+
+
+In 1856, Mr. Toombs visited Boston, and delivered a lecture upon
+slavery. It was a bold move, and many of his friends advised against it.
+They did not see what good would come from the appearance of an extreme
+Southern man in the heart of abolitionism, carrying his doctrines to the
+very citadel of antislavery. But Toombs, with dramatic determination,
+decided to accept. Several Southern statesmen had been invited to appear
+before Boston audiences, but prudence had kept them from complying.
+
+On the evening of the 24th of January, Mr. Toombs ascended the stage at
+Tremont Temple. A large audience greeted him. There was great curiosity
+to see the Southern leader. They admired the splendid audacity of this
+man in coming to the place where Garrison had inveighed against slavery
+and had denounced the Constitution as a "league with Hell and a covenant
+with the Devil"; where Wendell Phillips had exerted his matchless
+oratory, and where Charles Sumner had built up his reputation as an
+unflagging enemy of Southern propagandism. Mr. Toombs was in good trim
+for this supreme effort. Inspired by the significance of his mission, he
+seemed possessed of unusual strength. His fine eye lighted with his
+theme, and his brow seemed stamped with confidence rather than defiance.
+His long, black hair was brushed from his forehead, and his deep voice
+filled the historic hall. He was indeed a fine specimen of a man--a Saul
+among his fellows. Possibly he was moved by the thought that he stood
+where Webster had pleaded for the Union, for concession, and for harmony
+six years before, when the people for the first time had turned from him
+and when Fanueil Hall had been closed against him.
+
+Senator Toombs was attended upon the stage by William and Nathan
+Appleton, whose guest he was. Their presence was a guarantee that the
+speaker should receive a respectful hearing. It was noticed at the
+outset that he had abandoned his fervid style of speaking. He delivered
+his address from notes in a calm and deliberate manner. He never
+prepared a speech with so much care. His discourse was so logical and
+profound, his bearing so dignified and impressive, that his hearers were
+reminded of Webster.
+
+It was evident early in the evening that his lecture would produce a
+powerful effect. To many of his hearers his views were novel and fresh,
+as they had never heard the Southern side of this great question. "With
+the exception of Sam Houston," said a New York paper, "Mr. Toombs is the
+only Southern man who has had the pluck to go into the antislavery camp
+and talk aloud of the Constitution. Other Southern men, not afraid to
+face Boston, have been afraid to face opinion at home."
+
+In referring to the clause of the Constitution providing for the return
+of fugitive slaves, Mr. Toombs was greeted by a hiss. The speaker turned
+in the direction of the noise and said, "I did not put that clause
+there. I am only giving the history of the action of your own John
+Adams; of your fathers and mine. You may hiss them if you choose." The
+effect was electrical. The hiss was drowned in a storm of applause. The
+readiness and good-nature of the retort swept Boston off her feet, and
+for one moment prejudice was forgotten.
+
+The New York _Express_ declared that the speaker was earnest and
+deliberate, presenting his argument with great power, and his lecture of
+an hour and a half was, for the most part, listened to with respect and
+attention. There was some conduct in the audience at the close which the
+Boston _Journal_ was forced to denounce as "ungentlemanly." Three
+cheers, not unmixed with dissent, were given to the distinguished
+speaker. Someone called out, "When will Charles Sumner be allowed to
+speak in the South?"
+
+The New York _Express_ declared that "if Toombs and other hotheads would
+lecture in Syracuse, Oswego, Ashtabula, and other points of 'Africa,'
+they would do a good deal of good in educating the innocents and
+becoming themselves educated and freed from fire, froth, fury, and
+folly."
+
+This lecture of Mr. Toombs at Boston will live as the most lucid defense
+of slavery in law and in practice ever delivered. Slavery has fallen and
+mankind has made up its verdict; but this address will still be read
+with interest.
+
+He did not hesitate to say that Congress had no right to limit,
+restrain, or impair slavery; but, on the contrary, was bound to protect
+it. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, slavery was a fact.
+The Declaration did not emancipate a single slave; neither did the
+Articles of Confederation. The Constitution recognized slavery. Every
+clause relative to slavery was intended to strengthen and protect it.
+Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. The clause
+giving Congress power to make regulations for the Territories did not
+confer general jurisdiction. It was not proper nor just to prohibit
+slavery in the Territories. Penning the negro up in the old States would
+only make him wretched and miserable, and would not strike a single
+fetter from his limbs. Mr. Toombs simply asked that the common territory
+be left open to the common enjoyment of all the people of the United
+States; that they should be protected in their persons and property by
+the general government, until its authority be superseded by a State
+constitution, when the character of their democratic institutions was to
+be determined by the freemen thereof. "This," he said, "is justice. This
+is constitutional equity." Mr. Toombs contended that the compromise
+measures of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 were made to
+conform to this policy. "I trust--I believe," he continued, "that when
+the transient passions of the day shall have subsided, and reason shall
+have resumed her dominion, it will be approved, even applauded, by the
+collective body of the people."
+
+Upon the second branch of his theme, Mr. Toombs contended that so long
+as the African and Caucasian races co-exist in the same society, the
+subordination of the African is the normal and proper condition, the one
+which promotes the highest interests and greatest happiness of both
+races. The superiority of the white man over the black, he argued, was
+not transient or artificial. The Crown had introduced slavery among the
+American colonists. The question was not whether it was just to tear the
+African away from bondage in his own country and place him here.
+England had settled that for us. When the colonies became free they
+found seven hundred thousand slaves among them. Our fathers had to
+accept the conditions and frame governments to cover it. They
+incorporated no Utopian theories in their system. They did not so much
+concern themselves about what rights man might possibly have in a state
+of nature, as what rights he ought to have in a state of society. The
+lecturer maintained that under this system, the African in the
+slaveholding States is found in a better position than he has ever
+attained in any other age or country, whether in bondage or freedom. The
+great body of this race had been slaves in foreign lands and slaves in
+their native land. In the Eastern Hemisphere the African had always been
+in a servile condition. In Hayti and Jamaica experiments had been tried
+of freeing them, under the auspices of France and England. Miseries had
+resulted and ruin overwhelmed the islands. "Fanaticism may palliate, but
+could not conceal the utter prostration of the race." The best specimens
+of the race were to be found in the Southern States, in closest contact
+with slavery. The North does not want the negro, does not encourage his
+immigration. The great fact of the inferiority of the race is admitted
+everywhere in our country.
+
+"Our political system gives the slave great and valuable rights. His
+life is protected; his person secured from assault against all others
+except his master, and his master's power in this respect is placed
+under salutary legal restriction." He gets a home, ample clothing and
+food, and is exempted from excessive labor. When no longer capable of
+labor, from age or disease, he is a legal charge upon his master. The
+Southern slave, he said, is a larger consumer of animal food than any
+population in Europe, and larger than any laboring population in the
+United States, and their natural increase is equal to that of any other
+people. Interest and humanity coöperate in harmony for the well-being of
+slave labor. Labor is not deprived of its wages. Free labor is paid in
+money, the representative of products; slave labor in the products
+themselves. The agricultural and unskilled laborers of England fail to
+earn the comforts of the Southern slave. The compensation of labor in
+the Old World has been reduced to a point scarcely adequate to the
+continuation of the race.
+
+"One-half the lands of the cotton States is annually planted in food
+crops. This half is consumed by the laborers and animals. The tenant in
+the North does not realize so much."
+
+Mr. Toombs believed that the Southern men were awakening to the
+conviction that the slave should be taught to read and write, as being
+of more use to himself, his master, and society. He realized that the
+laws should protect marriage and other domestic ties, forbidding the
+separation of families, and stated that some of the slaveholding States
+had already adopted partial legislation for the removal of these evils.
+But the necessities of life and the roving spirit of the white people
+produced an infinitely greater amount of separation in families than
+ever happened to the colored race. "The injustice and despotism of
+England toward Ireland has produced more separation of Irish families
+and sundered more domestic ties within the last ten years than African
+slavery has effected since its introduction into the United States."
+England keeps 100,000 soldiers, a large navy, and innumerable police to
+secure obedience to her social institutions, and physical force is the
+only guarantee of her social order, the only cement of her gigantic
+empire. The laws restrain the abuses and punish the crimes of the slave
+system. Slavery is impossible in England and Europe, because wages have
+gone down to a point where they are barely sufficient to support the
+laborer and his family. Capital could not afford to own labor. Slavery
+ceased in England in obedience to this law, and not from any regard to
+liberty and humanity.
+
+Senator Toombs declared that the condition of the African might not be
+permanent among us. He might find his exodus in the unvarying law of
+population. Increase of population may supply to slavery its euthanasia
+in the general prostration of all labor. The emancipation of the negro
+in the West Indies had not made him a more useful or productive member
+of society. The slave States, with one-half the white population, and
+between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 slaves, furnish three-fifths of the
+annual product of the republic. In this relation, the labor of the
+country is united with and protected by its capital, directed by the
+educated and intelligent.
+
+Senator Toombs combated the idea that slavery debased and enervated the
+white man. To the Hebrew race were committed the orders of the Most
+High. Slaveholding priests ministered at their altars. Greece and Rome
+afforded the highest forms of civilization. Domestic slavery neither
+enfeebles nor deteriorates a race. Burke had declared that the people of
+the Southern colonies of America were much more strongly, and with a
+higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty that those to the
+Northward. Such were our Gothic ancestors; such were the Poles; such
+will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves. In such a
+people the haughtiness of domination combines itself with the spirit of
+freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
+
+Senator Toombs declared that, in the great agitation which for thirty
+years had shaken the national government to its foundation and burst
+the bonds of Christian unity among the churches, the slaveholding States
+have scarcely felt the shock. Stability, progress, order, peace,
+content, prosperity reign through our borders. Not a single soldier is
+to be found in our domain to overawe or protect society. Mr. Toombs
+pictured the progress of the Southern churches, schools and colleges
+multiplying. None of these improvements had been aided by the Federal
+Government. "We have neither sought from it protection for our private
+interests nor appropriations for our public improvements. They have been
+effected by the unaided individual efforts of an enlightened, moral, and
+energetic people. Such is our social system and such our condition under
+it. We submit it to the judgment of mankind, with the firm conviction
+that the adoption of no other, under such circumstances, would have
+exhibited the individual man, bond or free, in a higher development or
+society in a happier civilization."
+
+Mr. Toombs carried his principles into practice. He owned and operated
+several large plantations in Georgia, and managed others as agent or
+executor. He had the care of, possibly, a thousand slaves. His old
+family servants idolized him. Freedom did not alter the tender bond of
+affection. They clung to him, and many of them remained with him and
+ministered to his family to the day of his death. The old plantation
+negroes never failed to receive his bounty or good will. During the
+sale of a plantation of an insolvent estate Mr. Toombs, who was
+executor, wrote to his wife, "The slaves sold well. There were few
+instances of the separation of families." He looked after the welfare of
+all his dependents. While he was in the army, his faithful servants took
+care of his wife and little grandchildren, and during his long exile
+from his native land they looked after his interests and watched for his
+return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION.
+
+
+The great contest of 1856 was coming on. A President was to be chosen.
+The relations of the sections were more strained every day. The
+elections of 1854 had emboldened the antislavery men to form the
+Republican party, and to put out, as their candidate, John C. Frémont,
+"pioneer and pathfinder," who had saved California to the Union. Frémont
+was not a statesman, but a hero of the kind who dazzled men, and was
+thought to be especially available as a presidential candidate. "Free
+soil, Free men, Frémont" was the cry, and it was evident that the
+Abolitionists had swept all the wavering Whigs into their lines and
+would make a determined fight. The American party nominated Millard
+Fillmore, and the Democracy, with a wealth of material and a
+non-sectional following, wheeled into line. President Pierce was willing
+to succeed himself. Stephen A. Douglas, who had rushed into the
+convention of 1852 with such reckless dash to put aside "the old fogies"
+of the party, was an avowed candidate. His championship of the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill had made him a favorite in the South, although it
+injured his chances at the North. It is not a little remarkable that
+Douglas, whose candidacy had the effect of setting aside Buchanan for
+Pierce in 1852, should afterward have been the means of turning down
+Pierce for Buchanan.
+
+James Buchanan of Pennsylvania had just returned from London, where he
+had served with dignity as American Minister. Free from recent
+animosities, he entered the field, fresh and full of prestige. He was
+nominated for President on the fifth day of the Democratic Convention,
+Georgia casting her vote for him. The Cincinnati platform adopted this
+plank:
+
+"_Resolved_: That we recognize the right of the people of the
+Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally
+and fairly expressed will of a majority of the actual residents, and
+whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a
+Constitution, either with or without domestic slavery, and to be
+admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with all the
+other States."
+
+Among the causes contributing to the current bitterness was the assault
+made upon Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, by Preston S.
+Brooks, a representative from South Carolina. This happened in May,
+1856, while Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk, after the Senate had
+adjourned. Mr. Brooks took exception to some remarks printed in Mr.
+Sumner's speech, entitled "The Crime against Kansas." In this speech,
+the senator had referred, in rather caustic terms, to Senator Butler of
+South Carolina. The latter was a kinsman of Mr. Brooks. The weapon used
+by Mr. Brooks was a gutta-percha cane, and Senator Sumner, who was a
+large, powerful man, in his effort to rise from his seat, forced his
+desk from its hinges and fell heavily to the floor. The assault created
+an immense sensation. It was associated in the heated minds at the North
+with the "slavery aggressions of the South." At the South, it was
+generally excused as the resentment of an impetuous young man to an
+insult offered an elderly kinsman. Northern men denounced the assault in
+unmeasured terms on the floor of the House and Senate. The affair led to
+several challenges between the representatives of both sections.
+Congressman Brooks resigned his seat, but was immediately reëlected.
+
+When Senator Sumner made his statement of the attack, he said that,
+after he was taken from the floor, he saw his assailant standing between
+Senator Douglas and Senator Toombs. This led to the assertion by some
+parties that the attack was premeditated, and that the senator from
+Illinois and the senator from Georgia, who were strong political
+antagonists of Mr. Sumner, were aiding and abetting it. Both senators
+denied this from their places.
+
+The political activity was not confined to the North. There was a large
+element in Georgia which disapproved of the Kansas-Nebraska bill as an
+unwise concession on the part of the South. This class, combined with
+the American party, presented an active front against the party led by
+Senator Toombs. No contest was ever waged more vigorously in Georgia.
+New blood and new issues were infused into the fight. Mr. Toombs was at
+the maximum of his greatness. He took redoubled interest in the campaign
+in that the legislature to be chosen in 1857 was to elect his successor
+to the Senate, and because the principles in this national contest were
+taking shape for a State campaign the following year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"ON THE STUMP" IN GEORGIA.
+
+
+Among the young men on the stump that year was Benjamin H. Hill. He had
+come up from the plow-handles in Jasper County. Working his way to an
+education, he had graduated at the State University in 1845, with the
+first honors of his class. He was at this time barely more than thirty
+years of age, but he had won distinction at the bar and served his
+county in the State Senate. He was known for his aggressive, ringing
+eloquence, and a clear, searching style which had made him something
+more than local reputation. It was understood that he was the choice of
+the American party for Governor, and it was assumed that he would win
+his spurs in the national campaign. He did not hesitate to go into the
+thickest of the fight. He challenged Toombs and Stephens in their
+strongholds; on the 22d of October meeting Mr. Stephens at his
+stamping-ground in Lexington, Oglethorpe County, and the next day
+confronting Mr. Toombs at his home in Washington, Ga. There was a charm
+in the very audacity of this young Georgian. The man who would beard
+"the Douglas in his hall" was a curiosity to the people, for since the
+leadership of Toombs was established in 1844, no one, probably, had
+assumed to cross swords with him before his home people. The fact that
+young Hill had rather frustrated Mr. Stephens, in their first meeting,
+gave him fresh impetus for his clash with Toombs. People flocked to
+Washington by thousands. A large part of the audience which had cheered
+Ben Hill in Oglethorpe followed him to Wilkes.
+
+The speaking took place in Andrews' Grove, a noble cluster of oaks near
+the town, and by breakfast-time the place was filled with carriages and
+wagons. The red hills leading to Washington were alive with farmers and
+their wives and children, wheeling into the grove to hear the noble
+veteran and the brilliant young stranger debate upon current topics. Old
+and young men were there, and babies in arms. It was before the days of
+a universal press. People took their politics from the stump. They were
+trained in the great object-lessons of public life. The humble farmer
+knew all about the Missouri Compromise and the Nebraska bill. What they
+had learned was thorough. Every man was a politician.
+
+Ben Hill opened the discussion. He had the advantage of being a new and
+untried man, while Toombs and Stephens had spread their records upon
+the pages of hundreds of speeches. In those days of compromises and new
+departures, it was easy for a quick, bright fellow to make capital out
+of the apparent inconsistencies of public men. Hill was a master of
+repartee. He pictured Toombs' change from Whig to Democrat. He made a
+daring onslaught upon Toombs. Hill's bump of reverence was not large,
+and the way he handled this great statesman was a surprise. He did not
+hesitate to call him "Bobuel," and to try to convict him out of his own
+mouth of error.
+
+Toombs sat back with his fine features lit with scorn. His facial
+expression was a rare part of his strength. He seemed to repel with his
+look the impudence of this fearless young statesman. Hill saw the effect
+of his own audacity, and "plied his blows like wintry rain." A keen
+observer of this dramatic by-play declares that the pose of these two
+men reminded him of Landseer's picture of "Dignity and Impudence."
+
+Hill declared that Toombs had been in Congress, "sleeping over our
+rights." Toombs retorted, "I have been protecting your rights and your
+children's rights in spite of yourselves."
+
+Hill charged that Toombs had tried to dodge the issues of this campaign.
+Toombs, when he answered this part, cried out to the people impetuously:
+"Did I dodge the question, when in the presence of two thousand people,
+in the City of Augusta, and as I was about to travel in foreign lands,
+I denounced the secret midnight organization which was being fastened
+upon the freemen of the South? An organization whose chief measure was
+to prescribe a religious test in this land of liberty, and raise up a
+barrier to the entrance of the sons of the Old World, whose gallant
+sires aided us in achieving our independence?
+
+"Did I dodge, when, just before putting my foot on shipboard, I wrote a
+letter to my beloved South, warning them against this insidious
+organization creeping into their midst, piloted by dark lanterns to
+midnight lodges? Did I dodge, when, hearing, as I traveled, that this
+deadly order had taken hold and fastened its fangs in my State, I
+suspended my travels and took the first ship that bore me back to my
+native shores, and, raised my cry against these revolutionary measures?
+
+"Did I dodge, when, as soon as landing in Georgia, I traveled all night
+and spoke all next day against these blighting measures? If this be
+called dodging, I admit that I dodged, and the gentleman can make the
+most of it."
+
+Mr. Hill declared that the Kansas-Nebraska bill embodied the principles
+of "squatter sovereignty" and alien suffrage. The bill was not identical
+with the Utah and New Mexico bill, as Toombs and Stephens had alleged.
+The restrictive provisions of the Utah bill would prohibit this
+Territorial Legislature from excluding slavery. It could not do that
+until it became a State, while the Kansas bill allowed a majority of the
+actual residents to determine whether slavery should or should not
+exist, even prior to its admission as a State. He denounced the Kansas
+bill as a cheat, a swindle, and a surrender of our dearest rights. As to
+the National Convention, Mr. Hill declared that the South may have
+framed the platform, but the North secured the candidate. Mr. Hill,
+relative to territorial questions, recognized the right of native born
+and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in
+any Territory, to frame a constitution and laws and to regulate their
+social and domestic affairs in their own way. The American party
+proposed to extend the term required for naturalization and to bar the
+foreigners from holding office. Mr. Hill had strong sympathizers in the
+extreme Southern Rights' men, who were on hand in abundance.
+
+Mr. Toombs replied with great dignity and warmth. He said that the
+Nebraska bill was a reiteration of the true intent of the compromise
+measures of 1850; that whoever opposed the Kansas bill was opposed to
+the South. It was a touchstone for fixing party affiliations. It only
+carried out the Georgia platform protesting against Congressional
+prohibition of slavery in the Territories. He paid high tribute to
+Douglas as a patriot and friend to the South. "Whoever condemned
+Douglas needed watching himself." Mr. Toombs charged that the
+representatives of the Know-nothing party had voted for the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill, and now claimed ignorance of its provisions. He
+denied that either he or Mr. Stephens had declared that the Kansas bill
+was identical with the Utah bill. Mr. Hill insisted that they had said
+so. Affirmance and denial became heated, and talk of holding each other
+"personally responsible" was indulged in, but pretty soon the debate
+went back into the political grooves. Mr. Toombs denied that the bill
+was a "Pandora's box of evil," or that its passage was violative of the
+good faith of the South. This part of his argument, of course, was
+directed to meet Northern criticism. "The North," Mr. Toombs said, "had
+tried, by the Wilmot Proviso, to legislate the South out of the right of
+equal enjoyment of the Territories. The South had endeavored to take the
+question of these rights out of Congress, to establish the doctrine of
+non-intervention." This doctrine triumphed in 1850 and, despite the
+assertion of his opponent, was reaffirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
+This Act of 1854 was the great measure of justice and equality to the
+South.
+
+Mr. Toombs ridiculed the assertion of Millard Fillmore that the repeal
+of the Missouri Compromise was a violation of a sacred compact.
+"Fillmore," said Mr. Toombs, "is an amiable, clever sort of fellow, not
+to be trusted upon the great questions now before the country. He had
+withheld action upon the compromise measures of 1850 until his
+attorney-general told him that he must sign them."
+
+Someone reminded Toombs that he had supported Fillmore for vice
+president in 1848. He replied, "Yes, and I said then, that if Fillmore
+was at the head of the ticket, I would not support it." Several persons
+in the audience declared that they had heard him say it. "I am glad to
+know," said he, "that, since my opponents address you people as if you
+had no sense, you, at least, have shown that you have memories."
+
+Turning to the crowd who had cheered the opposition speaker, Mr. Toombs
+said: "For those of you who have yelled so long and lustily, when your
+dearest rights were assailed, I can but feel the profoundest
+commiseration. Should you continue in your wild strife against the
+experience of the past, I look to a kind Providence and to wise men to
+protect you from yourselves."
+
+In regard to aliens in America, Mr. Toombs said: "I go for giving them
+all--the oppressed of all nations--a place of refuge, and say even to
+the paupers and criminals; 'We will forgive you for the past and try you
+for the future.' You may start in your railroad and go to Memphis, and
+then, follow the setting sun day by day, and week by week, until you
+find him setting in the Pacific Ocean, and all the time you are passing
+over fertile lands where industry and thrift may meet appropriate
+rewards, and the blessings of liberty and peace find a resting-place in
+the bosom of freedom."
+
+Mr. Hill said that Toombs was a turncoat. He had been a Whig, and now he
+abused the Whigs. Mr. Toombs told the people that he came not to abuse
+the Democrats or Whigs, but with the weapon of truth and the shield of
+the Constitution to aid in preserving the Union and maintaining the
+rights of the South. He did not appear before the people to carry
+majorities, but to promote their constitutional rights.
+
+Mr. Toombs was charged with being a disunionist. He said he stood upon
+the Georgia platform of 1850, and leaning upon that faithful support, "I
+will say, that should Frémont be elected, I will not stand and wait for
+fire, but will call upon my countrymen to take to that to which they
+will be driven--the sword. If that be disunion, I am a disunionist. If
+that be treason, make the most of it. You see the traitor before you."
+
+Opinion as to the result of the debate at Washington was divided. Good
+judges thought that Mr. Hill relied too much on the _ad captandum_
+argument, and did not meet the points of Mr. Toombs; but there are men
+living in Washington who heard the great contest and who delight to tell
+how the young warrior from Troup charged right into the enemy's camp,
+and rode away with the laurels of the day.
+
+Buchanan was elected President in November. He carried nineteen States,
+Georgia among them. Buchanan and Breckenridge received 174 electoral
+votes and 1,838,169 popular votes.
+
+Frémont carried eleven States and 114 electoral votes, receiving
+1,341,264 popular votes. Fillmore carried Maryland with 8 electoral
+votes. His vote through the country amounted to 874,534.
+
+Mr. Toombs, while a member of Congress, became possessed of a large
+tract of land in Texas. It was known as the Peter's Colony Grant, which
+had never been settled. The lands, he was informed by a competent
+surveyor, were valuable and free to settlers. They comprised about
+90,000 acres in Northern Texas, on the clear fork of the Trinity, in the
+neighborhood of Dallas and Fort Worth. Mr. Toombs had a clear head and
+keen perception for business. His temperament was restless and fiery.
+His life had been spent at the bar and in the forum. His gifts of
+oratory were remarkable. It was a strange combination which added shrewd
+business sense, but he had it in an eminent degree. He was a princely
+liver, but a careful financier. He saw that this part of Texas must
+some day bloom into an empire, and fifty years ago he gave $30,000 for
+this tract of land. As Texas commenced to fill up the squatters occupied
+some of the most valuable parts of the country and refused to be
+removed. These desperate fellows declared that they did not believe
+there was any such man as Toombs, the reputed owner of the land; they
+had never seen him, and certainly they would not consent to be
+dispossessed of their holdings.
+
+It was in 1857 that Senator Toombs, accompanied by a few of his friends,
+decided to make a trip to Texas and view his large landed possessions.
+For hundreds of miles he traveled on horseback over the plains of Texas,
+sleeping at night in a buffalo robe. He was warned by his agents that he
+had a very desperate set of men to deal with. But Toombs was pretty
+determined himself. He summoned the squatters to a parley at Fort Worth,
+then, a mere spot in the wilderness. The men came in squads, mounted on
+their mustangs, and bearing over their saddles long squirrel rifles.
+They were ready for a shrewd bargain or a sharp vendetta. Senator Toombs
+and his small coterie were armed; and standing against a tree, the
+landlord confronted his tenants or trespassers, he hardly knew which. He
+spoke firmly and pointedly, and pretty soon convinced the settlers that
+they were dealing with no ordinary man. He said he was willing to allow
+each squatter a certain sum for betterments, if they would move off his
+land, or, if they preferred to stay, he would sell the tract to each man
+at wild-land prices; but, failing in this, they must move away, as he
+had the power to put them out, and would certainly use it. There was a
+good deal of murmuring and caucussing among the men, but they concluded
+that there was a man named Toombs, and that he meant what he said. The
+matter was settled in a business way, and Senator Toombs rode back over
+the prairies, richer by a hundred thousand dollars. These lands were
+immensely valuable during the latter part of his life. They formed the
+bulk of his fortune when the war closed; and during his stay in Paris,
+an exile from his country, in 1866, he used to say that he consumed, in
+his personal expenses, an acre of dirt a day. The land was then worth
+about five dollars an acre.
+
+It was while he was returning home from his Texas trip that the postman
+met him on the plains and delivered a letter from Georgia. This was in
+July, 1857. The letter announced that the Democratic State Convention in
+Georgia had adjourned, after nominating for Governor Joseph E. Brown.
+Senator Toombs read the letter and, looking up in a dazed way, asked,
+"And who in the devil is Joe Brown?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856.
+
+
+There was a good deal of significance in the inquiry. There was a hot
+campaign ahead. The opposition party, made up of Know-nothings and
+old-line Whigs, had nominated Benjamin H. Hill for Governor. Senator
+Toombs knew that it would require a strong man to beat him. Besides the
+Governor, a legislature was to be chosen which was to elect a successor
+to Senator Toombs in the Senate. He was personally interested in seeing
+that the Democratic party, with which he had been in full accord since
+the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, had a strong leader in the
+State. All the way home he was puzzling in his brain about "Joe Brown."
+
+About the time that he returned, he was informed that Hill and Brown had
+met at Glen Spring, near Athens. A large crowd had attended the opening
+discussion. Howell Cobb wrote to Senator Toombs that he had better take
+charge of the campaign himself, as he doubted the ability of Judge Brown
+to handle "Hill of Troup."
+
+Joseph E. Brown had come up from the people. He was a native of Pickens,
+S. C., of old Scotch-Irish stock that had produced Calhoun and Andrew
+Jackson. The late Henry W. Grady, in a bright fancy sketch, once
+declared that the ancestors of Joseph E. Brown lived in Ireland, and
+that "For seven generations, the ancestors of Joe Brown have been
+restless, aggressive rebels--for a longer time the Toombses have been
+dauntless and intolerant followers of the King. At the siege of
+Londonderry, Margaret and James Brown were within the walls, starving
+and fighting for William and Mary; and I have no doubt there were
+hard-riding Toombses outside the walls, charging in the name of the
+peevish and unhappy James. Certain it is that forty years before, the
+direct ancestors of Robert Toombs, in their estate, were hiding the good
+King Charles in the oak at Boscobel, where, I have no doubt, the father
+and uncle of the Londonderry Brown, with cropped hair and severe mien,
+were proguing about the place with their pikes, searching every bush in
+the name of Cromwell and the psalm-singers. From these initial points
+sprang the two strains of blood--the one affluent, impetuous, prodigal,
+the other slow, resolute, forceful. From these ancestors came the two
+men--the one superb, ruddy, fashioned with incomparable grace and
+fullness--the other pale, thoughtful, angular, stripped down to brain
+and sinew. From these opposing theories came the two types: the one
+patrician, imperious, swift in action, and brooking no stay; the other
+democratic, sagacious, jealous of rights, and submitting to no
+opposition. The one for the king, the other for the people."
+
+Young Joe Brown had taught school, studied law, finally completing his
+course at Yale College. He was admitted to the bar in 1845. In 1849 he
+was elected as a Democrat to the State Senate by Cherokee County. In
+1851 he had been a Southern Rights' man, voting for McDonald against
+Cobb, the Union candidate for Governor. In 1852 he was Democratic
+elector for Pierce. In 1855 he was elected by the people judge of the
+Blue Ridge Circuit. He was very strong in North Georgia. The convention
+which selected him as the candidate for Governor met in Milledgeville,
+June 24, 1857. The Democrats had no lack of eminent men. There were
+candidates enough. James Gardner, the brilliant and incisive editor of
+the Augusta _Constitutionalist_, led the ballot, but Brown was finally
+brought in as a compromise man. His nomination was a surprise.
+
+When Senator Toombs met the young nominee, by appointment, to talk over
+the campaign, he found that he was full of good sense and sagacity. He
+joined him in his canvass, lending his own name and prestige to the
+Democratic meetings. But he found much shrewdness and homely wisdom
+about Joseph E. Brown, and he became convinced that he was able to make
+his way to the favor of the people without outside aid. The Democratic
+nominee proved his ability to stand before the luminous oratory of Ben
+Hill himself. Brown had courage, clearness, and tact, with growing
+ability and confidence. He soon developed the full strength of the
+Democratic party, which, in Georgia, was overwhelming. Joseph E. Brown
+was elected Governor, and the last vestige of the American party went
+down in 1857. The legislature was overwhelmingly Democratic.
+
+On the 6th of November, 1857, Mr. Toombs wrote from Milledgeville to his
+wife, pending the election of United States Senator:
+
+      I got here Wednesday and found the usual turmoil and
+      excitement. Governor McDonald is here and has been trying
+      hard to beat me, but I find very unexpected and gratifying
+      unanimity in my favor. The party met this evening and
+      nominated me by acclamation, with but two or three
+      dissenting votes, and they speak of bringing on the
+      election to-morrow. I am very anxious to see you, and am
+      tired of wandering about in excited crowds; but I suppose
+      after to-morrow I will have peace, so far as I am
+      concerned, for the next six years. I think I shall be
+      entitled to exemption from the actual duties of future
+      campaigns to stay at home with you.
+
+He was reëlected to the United States Senate for the term beginning
+March 4, 1857.
+
+When President Buchanan was inaugurated, he announced that a case was
+pending in the Supreme Court upon the occupation of the Territories. By
+this decision he would abide. The day after the inauguration the
+decision was announced. It was the celebrated Dred Scott case. It fell
+like a bomb into the antislavery camp. The great question involved was
+whether it was competent for Congress, directly or indirectly, to
+exclude slavery from the Territories of the United States. The Supreme
+Court decided that it was not. Six judges out of eight made this
+decision. The opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.
+
+This decision added to the fury of the storm. It was announced that the
+Chief Justice had announced the doctrine that "negroes had no rights
+that a white man was bound to respect"; a sentiment so atrocious that
+this official repelled it with indignation. Efforts were made to bury
+the Chief Justice in obloquy.
+
+The struggle over the admission of Kansas into the Union was prolonged
+in Congress. But the situation in Kansas became warmer every year. The
+Eastern immigrant societies were met by inroads of Missouri and Southern
+settlers. A state of civil war virtually obtained in 1856-57, and
+throughout Buchanan's administration there was a sharp skirmish of new
+settlers and a sharp maneuver of parties for position. The Georgia
+State Democratic Convention of 1857 demanded the removal of Robert J.
+Walker, who had been appointed Governor of Kansas. He was a Southern
+man, but was regarded as favoring the antislavery party in its efforts
+to organize the Territory. The truth was, as Senator Toombs had clearly
+foreseen and expressed in his speech in the Senate in 1856, Kansas was
+destined to be a free State, and amid the violence of the agitation,
+confined to no one side, was marching steadily toward this destiny. The
+administration favored the admission of Kansas with the Lecompton
+Constitution, which was decidedly favorable to the proslavery men.
+Senator Douglas opposed this plan. He had become committed to the policy
+of squatter sovereignty during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill in
+1854. He contended that the settlers of a Territory could determine the
+character of their institutions, a position which the Buchanan party
+denounced as inconsistent with Democratic principles. Mr. Douglas
+indorsed the Dred Scott decision, but maintained his position on popular
+sovereignty. He became at once unpopular with the rank and file of the
+Southern Democracy, with whom he had long been a favorite. He was also
+estranged from the administration, and it was evident that he would have
+no easy matter to be reëlected United States Senator. This election came
+off in the fall of 1858. It was clear to him that, to maintain his
+prominence in politics, he must carry Illinois. Unless he could save his
+own State his chance for President was gone. So he went into this
+memorable canvass with his own party divided and a determined opponent
+in the person of Abraham Lincoln. The young Republican party in Illinois
+had been gathering strength with each new phase of the slavery question.
+
+The joint debate between Douglas and Lincoln was memorable. As a
+dexterous debater, Douglas had no equal in the Union. He was strong on
+the stump and incomparable in a popular assembly. Without grace or
+imagination, he was yet a plausible, versatile man, quick and ingenious,
+resolute and ready, with a rare faculty for convincing men. He was small
+and sinewy, with smooth face, bright eye, and broad brow, and his
+neighbors called him the "Little Giant." He could be specious, even
+fallacious; he employed an _ad captandum_ kind of oratory, which was
+taking with a crowd and confusing to an adversary. The man who met him
+in these debates was a tall, impressive personage, rough, original, but
+direct and thoroughly sincere. In many points he was the opposite of
+Douglas.
+
+He was rather an ill-ordered growth of the early West, a man who had
+toiled and suffered from his youth up. He was full of sharp corners and
+rough edges, and his nature was a strange mixture of patience and
+melancholy. As Mr. Stephens said, he regarded slavery "in the light of a
+religious mysticism," and believed that his mission to beat it down was
+God-ordained. And yet he was a statesman, a public man of breadth and
+prominence, a speaker of force and persuasion. He had the robust courage
+of a pioneer and the high purpose of a reformer. It was in this debate
+that Mr. Lincoln, at Freeport, Ill., asked Mr. Douglas that memorable
+question, on the stump: "Can the people of a Territory, in any lawful
+way, exclude slavery from their limits, prior to the formation of a
+State constitution?" Mr. Douglas promptly answered, "Yes." This was his
+doctrine of popular sovereignty. But the answer cost him the Democratic
+nomination to the Presidency. The theory that a mass of settlers,
+squatting in a Territory, could fix and determine the character of the
+Territory's domestic institutions, was repugnant to a large portion of
+the Southern people. They claimed that under the Dred Scott decision,
+slavery already existed in the Territories, and must be protected by the
+Constitution; and that it was not competent for the people to determine
+for themselves the question of slavery or no slavery, until they formed
+a constitution for admission into the Union as a State.
+
+The election in Illinois, in the fall of 1858, gave Stephen A. Douglas a
+majority of eight in the General Assembly over Abraham Lincoln, and
+Douglas was reëlected for the new term. In this contest he had been
+opposed by the Buchanan Democrats, who cast over 8000 votes in Illinois.
+
+In the Senate, the debate on popular sovereignty was renewed. This time
+Jefferson Davis, a senator from Mississippi, attacked this position as
+incompatible with the Constitution and the laws. Mr. Davis was a
+skillful debater. His mind was singularly graceful and refined. He was
+eloquent, logical, and courageous. His career as soldier and statesman,
+as War Minister under Pierce, and as senator for Mississippi, made him a
+prominent figure. He was cultured, classical, and well rounded, equipped
+by leisure and long study for the career before him. He had vanquished
+Sergeant S. Prentiss in public discussion over the national bank, and
+contested, inch by inch, the domination of Henry S. Foote in
+Mississippi. His career in the Mexican war had been a notable one.
+Allied to Zachary Taylor by marriage, a West Pointer by training, a
+Southern planter by occupation, he was a typical defender of slavery as
+it existed. Davis was as slender and frail as Douglas was compact and
+sinewy. Like Lincoln, his mind grasped great principles, while Douglas
+was fighting for points and expedients.
+
+Douglas declared that the territorial settler could determine whether
+slavery should exist, by his influence in providing or withholding
+police power; although he denied the constitutional right to legislate
+slavery out of the Territories, yet he believed the "popular sovereign"
+could, by means of "unfriendly legislation," bar out the Southern
+settler with his slaves. It was not difficult for Mr. Davis to impale
+him upon this plea.
+
+Senator Douglas had saved his seat in the Senate, but his position in
+the Democratic party was weakened. The Lecompton Constitution passed the
+Senate in spite of Douglas's steady opposition.
+
+Senator Toombs took no part in the subtleties of the Douglas-Davis
+debate. He listened to the refinements of that discussion with decided
+convictions of his own, but with clear appreciation of the fact that
+every point scored against Douglas was cleaving the Democratic party in
+twain. Mr. Toombs favored the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution,
+but when it was rejected by the House, he promptly accepted the English
+compromise, to refer the matter back to the people. Mr. Toombs had
+always been partial to Douglas. In the campaign of 1856 he declared, in
+Georgia, that "the man who condemned Senator Douglas needed watching
+himself." He viewed with some pain the Douglas departure over popular
+sovereignty; indeed he once declared that had he not been called away
+from the Senate for quite a time in 1856, Mr. Douglas would never have
+gone off on this tangent. When asked if Douglas were really a great
+man, Senator Toombs, in 1860, answered with characteristic heartiness
+and exaggeration, "There has been but one greater, and he, the Apostle
+Paul."
+
+It was very evident that the people of the South would demand new
+guarantees for the protection of slavery against the dogma of popular
+sovereignty. The platform of the Cincinnati convention, upon which
+Buchanan had been elected, must be recast. The platform had declared
+that immigrants to any part of the public domain were to settle the
+question of slavery for themselves. The new plank, which President
+Buchanan framed, was that the government of a Territory was provisional
+and temporary, and during its existence, all citizens of the United
+States had an equal right to settle with their property in the
+Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being
+destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation. The
+two last words contained the gist of the resolution, which was aimed at
+Senator Douglas. However right as an abstract principle, Mr. Stephens
+declared that this was a departure from the doctrine of
+non-intervention.
+
+It was at this time that Senator Toombs made one of the most important
+speeches of his life. This was delivered in Augusta, Ga., September 8,
+1859, during an exciting campaign. Governor Brown was a candidate for
+reëlection, and a strong opposition party had developed in Georgia,
+representing the extreme Southern sentiment.
+
+Senator Toombs said that the opposition to the Kansas bill had continued
+because it was said to recognize the right of the people of a Territory,
+through the Territorial legislature, to establish or prohibit slavery.
+"When we condemned and abrogated Congressional intervention against us,"
+said he, "that was a great point gained. Congress had actually excluded
+us from the Territories for thirty years. The people of a Territory had
+in no instance attempted such an iniquity. I considered it wise,
+prudent, and politic to settle the question against our common enemy,
+Congress, even if I left it unsettled as to our known friends, the
+people of the Territories. We could not settle the question of the power
+of the people over slavery while in a territorial condition, because
+Democrats differed on that point. We, therefore, declared in the Kansas
+bill that we left the people of the Territories perfectly free to form
+and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only
+to the Constitution of the United States. We decided to refer the
+question to the Supreme Court. It has gone there and been decided in our
+favor. The Southern friends of the measure repudiate the principle of
+squatter sovereignty. I stand its steady and uncompromising adversary.
+The doctrine of Douglas has not a leg to stand upon. Yet I do not
+belong to those who denounce him. The organization of the Democratic
+party leaves this an open question, and Mr. Douglas is at full liberty
+to take either side he may choose, and if he maintains his ground of
+neither making nor accepting new tests of political soundness, I shall
+consider him a political friend, and will accept him as the
+representative of the party, whatever it may tender him. I do not
+hesitate to tell you that, with his errors, I prefer him and would
+support him to-morrow against any opposition leader in America.
+
+"We are told," said Mr. Toombs, "that we must put a new plank in the
+platform of the Democratic party, and demand the affirmance of the duty
+of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, where such Territory may
+fail to discharge this duty. I reply, I do not think it is wise to do
+the thing proposed, and the inducement would not help the proposition.
+While I have already asserted full and complete power of Congress to do
+this, I think, with Mr. Madison, that it should be prudently and
+carefully exercised, and it ought not to be exercised until the occasion
+is imperative. There has been no occasion, from 1789 to this hour,
+calling for it, and I am more than willing that the Territorial settlers
+shall continue to govern themselves in their own way, so long as they
+respect the rights of all the people. I will not insult them by
+supposing them capable of disregarding the Constitution of the United
+States, or by assuming that they are incapable of honest
+self-government.
+
+"No; I shall prescribe no new test of party fealty to Northern
+Democrats, those men who have hitherto stood with honor and fidelity
+upon their engagements. They have maintained the truth to their own
+hurt. They have displayed a patriotism, a magnanimity rarely equaled in
+the world's history, and I shall endeavor, in sunshine and in storm,
+with your approbation if I can get it, without it if I must, to stand by
+them with fidelity equal to their great deserts. If you will stand with
+me, we shall conquer faction in the North and South, and shall save the
+country from the curse of being ruled by the combination now calling
+itself the opposition. We shall leave this country to our children as we
+found it--united, strong, prosperous and happy."
+
+This was a memorable speech, strong, sincere, and conservative, and had
+a marked effect. It was intended, not only to influence the canvass then
+pending, but to have an effect in controlling the National convention to
+be held six months later. It was copied far and wide, and the success of
+the State candidates whom Mr. Toombs supported showed that its
+statesmanlike utterances were adopted overwhelmingly in Georgia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+JOHN BROWN'S RAID.
+
+
+But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new
+Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep
+statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong
+and weak alike. It has been asserted, and with truth, that disunion was
+precipitated by the people, not by the politicians--by the North as well
+as by the South.
+
+The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which
+would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray
+of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was
+captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers
+and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E.
+Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair
+created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this
+movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The
+criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the
+North. The man, who under normal conditions of society would have been
+sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and
+mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his
+honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States passed
+strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern
+press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's
+body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his
+grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.
+
+What the Dred Scott decision had wrought at the North, the Ossawatomie
+raid awoke at the South. The main features of Buchanan's administration
+to hasten the "irrepressible conflict" were the well-weighed words of
+the Chief Justice and the wild invasion of a border ruffian. Strange
+paradox, but such were the influences at work in those disordered times.
+Men lost their moorings, and political parties abandoned settled
+policies. Events crowded with remorseless impact upon certain civil
+strife.
+
+Under this new condition of things Mr. Toombs made his great "door-sill"
+speech in the United States Senate, on the 24th of January, 1860. It was
+upon the resolution offered by Senator Douglas calling for a measure of
+protection of each State and Territory against invasion by the
+authorities and inhabitants of every other State and Territory. Senator
+Toombs declared that the resolution opened up a new page in the history
+of our country. It was a step in the right direction. He feared that the
+disease lay too deep for the remedy. Heretofore the people of the United
+States could grapple and surmount all difficulties, foreign and
+domestic. A spirit of nationality, a common interest, a common danger,
+carried the country through revolutions. Now all this has changed. The
+feeling of loyalty and common destiny is rapidly passing away. Hostility
+to the compact of the Union, to the tie which binds us together, finds
+utterance in the tongues of millions of our countrymen, animates their
+bosoms, and leads to the habitual disregard of the plainest duties and
+obligations. Large bodies of men now feel and know that party success
+involves danger; that the result may bring us face to face with
+revolution.
+
+"The fundamental principles of our Union are assailed, invaded, and
+threatened with destruction; our ancient rights and liberties are in
+danger; the peace and tranquillity of our homes have been invaded by
+lawless violence, and their further invasion is imminent; the instinct
+of self-preservation arms society to their defense."
+
+Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle introduced into our
+Constitution. ["]It was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. The New
+England Confederation adopted it in 1643. The Supreme Judicial tribunal
+of Prussia affirmed it as the public law of Europe as late as 1855. It
+was acknowledged to be a sound principle of public law in the days of
+Pericles, and its violation by one of the States of Greece was the chief
+cause of the Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for twenty-one
+years. The Megareans had given refuge to the revolted slaves of Athens."
+
+"I say," he continued, "the bargain is broken--broken by the States
+whose policy I have reviewed; broken by the Republican party, which did
+the work in their legislatures and elsewhere. Their hands are soiled
+with the blood of the compact. They cannot be permitted to minister at
+its altar. Their representatives on this floor mock at constitutional
+obligations; jeer at oaths. They have lost their shame with their
+virtue.... In the name of the people, I repeat, I demand the bond. In
+the name of every true and honest man at the North as well as the South,
+I demand the resumption of your plighted faith. Upon these terms I have
+ever been willing to let the Union stand, but upon no other.
+
+"Who is responsible for the murder, treason, and arson of John Brown? I
+have never known of his acts being approved or palliated by any other
+person than a Republican. Thousands of them have done it and are now
+doing it. In charging this dark catalogue of crime against this
+organization, I would not be unjust. I have no doubt that thousands of
+persons belonging to that organization throughout the North, loathe and
+despise John Brown's raid; but it is equally true that there are other
+thousands in the same organization who do approve it. They tell us that
+they condemn his acts, but admire his heroism. I think the Republican
+party must be pressed for a hero. The 'Newgate Calendar' can furnish
+them with a dozen such saints. To 'die game' and not to 'peach' are
+sometimes useful, if not heroic, virtues in an accomplice. The thousands
+of blind Republicans who do openly approve the treason, murder, and
+arson of John Brown, get no condemnation from their party for such acts.
+They are its main defenders and propagandists all over the North, and,
+therefore, the party is in moral complicity with the criminal himself.
+No society can long exist in peace under these injuries, because we are
+in virtual civil war; hence, I denounce their authors, the Republican
+party, as enemies of the Constitution and enemies of my country.
+
+"It is vain, in face of these injuries, to talk of peace, fraternity,
+and common country. There is no peace; there is no fraternity; there is
+no common country; all of us know it.
+
+"Sir, I have but little more to add--nothing for myself. I feel that I
+have no need to pledge my poor services to this great cause, to my
+country. My State has spoken for herself. Nine years ago a convention of
+her people met and declared that her connection with this government
+depended upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave law. I was a
+member of that convention, and I stood then and stand now pledged to its
+action. I have faithfully labored to arrest these calamities; I will yet
+labor until this last contingency happens, faithfully, honestly, and to
+the best of my ability. When that time comes, freemen of Georgia, redeem
+your pledges! I am ready to redeem mine. Your honor is involved, your
+faith is plighted. I know you feel a stain as a wound. Your peace, your
+social system, your friends are involved. Never permit this Federal
+Government to pass into the traitors' hands of the black Republican
+party. It has already declared war against you and your institutions. It
+every day commits acts of war against you; it has already compelled you
+to arm for your defense. Listen to no vain babbling; to no treacherous
+jargon about 'overt acts'; they have already been committed. Defend
+yourselves! The enemy is at your door; wait not to meet him at your
+hearthstone; meet him at the door-sill, and drive him from the Temple of
+Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.
+
+
+It was an unfortunate time for the meeting of the Democratic National
+Convention. The hope that the party which had so often brought harmony
+from discord could unite upon the soil of an extreme Southern State was
+destined to be broken. The body met in Charleston on April 23, 1860. The
+place was worthy of the assemblage. For the first time in the party
+history, its convention had met south of Cincinnati or Baltimore.
+Redolent with the beauties of spring and the tint of historic interest,
+Charleston, with its memories of Moultrie, inspired feelings of
+patriotic pride. If it suggested the obstruction of Calhoun, it recalled
+the Revolutionary glory of Marion and Rutledge, and the bold challenge
+of Hayne to Webster, that if there be one State in the Union which could
+challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, ardent, and zealous
+devotion to the Union, that State was South Carolina.
+
+It was a memorable meeting. The convention was presided over by Caleb
+Cushing of Massachusetts, the devoted friend of Daniel Webster, and
+Attorney-General under Franklin Pierce. In its ranks were Henry B. Payne
+of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and James A. Bayard of
+Delaware. These men were towers of strength in the North. They were the
+men to whom Robert Toombs had appealed in the Senate, when he turned
+from his fiery imprecation and, lowering his great voice, declared, with
+tenderness and pride, "I have no word of invocation to those who stand
+to-day in the ranks of Northern Democracy, but to remember and emulate
+their past history. From the beginning of this controversy they have
+stood firmly by the Constitution. No body of men in the world's history
+ever exhibited higher or nobler devotion to principle under such adverse
+circumstances.... Amid the opprobrious epithets, the gibes and jeers of
+the enemies of the Constitution; worse than this, amid words of distrust
+and reproach even from men of the South, these great-hearted patriots
+have marched steadily in the path of duty.... The union of all these
+elements may yet secure to our country peace and safety. But if this
+cannot be done, safety and peace are incompatible in the Union. Amid
+treachery and desertion at home, and injustice from without, amid
+disaster and defeat, they have risen superior to fortune, and stand
+to-day with their banners all tattered and soiled in the humble service
+of the whole country. No matter what fortune may betide us in the
+future, while life lasts, I have a hand that will succor and a heart
+ready to embrace the humblest soldier of this noble band."
+
+At that time there were thirty-three States in the Union. The committee
+on platform consisted of one from each State. The delegates from
+California and Oregon, voting with the South, gave them seventeen votes
+in committee. The resolutions were quickly framed, with the exception of
+the one on slavery. Here was the deadlock. The majority plank declared
+that the right to settle in the Territories with slaves "was not to be
+destroyed nor impaired by Territorial legislation." The minority
+proposed once more to leave the question to the Supreme Court. The
+compromise was not accepted. The two reports came before the convention,
+and, the Douglas men being in the majority on the floor, the minority,
+or squatter-sovereignty report, was adopted by a vote of 165 to 138.
+Here came the crisis. The delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida,
+Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and a part of Delaware, withdrew from the
+convention. Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama led this movement. He was
+a man of courage and decision, with unrivaled powers of oratory. He had
+been a member of Congress, and his influence in the South was large. So
+far back as June 15, 1858, he had written a famous letter to James M.
+Slaughter that "no national party can save us; no sectional party can
+ever do it; but if we would do as our fathers did, organize committees
+of safety all over the cotton States--and it is only to them that we can
+hope for any effectual movement--we shall fire the Southern heart,
+instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and, by one
+concerted action, we can precipitate the cotton States into a
+revolution." This was called the "Scarlet Letter," and was widely
+scattered and read.
+
+The seceding delegates organized a second assemblage over which the Hon.
+James A. Bayard presided. The Douglas men were left in control of the
+first convention, but could not secure the two-thirds vote necessary for
+his nomination. More than fifty ballots were taken, the full strength of
+the Illinois candidate being 152. On the 3d of May the convention
+adjourned to meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June, when it was hoped a
+spirit of compromise might be inspired by the seriousness of the
+situation.
+
+On the night of the break in that body Mr. Yancey made a speech in
+Charleston, when in prophetic words he declared, "Perhaps even now the
+pen of the historian is nibbed to inscribe the history of a new
+revolution."
+
+The seceding delegates called for a convention to be held in Richmond,
+Va., on the second Monday in June.
+
+When the seven States had withdrawn from the convention, the Georgia
+delegation was split up. A majority left the convention, a small
+minority remained. This action created great excitement in Georgia. The
+Democratic executive committee called a State convention to meet in
+Milledgeville on June 4. A committee of prominent citizens, headed by
+Hon. J. J. Gresham of Macon, addressed letters to public men asking
+their views in this alarming situation. Howell Cobb indorsed the
+seceders; he was opposed to Douglas. Alexander H. Stephens thought
+Georgia should appoint delegates to the Baltimore convention, withdraw
+the demand for a new plank in the Cincinnati platform, abide by the
+doctrine of non-intervention, and nominate a good man for President. "If
+we must quarrel with the North," said he, "let us base it on the
+aggressive acts of our enemies and not on the supposed shortcomings of
+our friends."
+
+Hon. Robert Toombs did not come South during the Charleston convention.
+He watched from his post in the Senate the great struggle between the
+Democratic factions. On May 10, he wrote, in reply to the letter of the
+Macon committee:
+
+      Perhaps the time may not have come for the attainment of
+      the full measure of our constitutional rights; it may not
+      have been prudent on the part of the representatives of the
+      seventeen States to have sanctioned and presented as much
+      truth on the slavery issue as is contained in what is
+      commonly called the majority platform; but when it was thus
+      sanctioned, approved, and presented to the convention, it
+      was well to stand by and defend it, especially against the
+      platform of the minority. The seceding delegates did this
+      with manly firmness, and I approve their action.
+
+Mr. Toombs advised, however, that the seceding delegates ought to meet
+with the convention at Baltimore and endeavor to obtain such a
+satisfactory adjustment of difficulties as could be secured. "This
+course requires no sacrifice of principles." This plan had been proposed
+by the delegates from New York to the delegates from the Southern
+States. "The proposed Richmond convention, if it shall be found
+necessary to hold it," he said, "can be held after, as well as before
+the Baltimore convention, and I think with clearer lights for its
+guidance."
+
+"It is sometimes wise," said Mr. Toombs, "to accept a part of our just
+rights, if we can have the residue unimpaired and uncompromised, but
+nothing can justify a voluntary surrender of principle, indispensable to
+the safety and honor of the State.
+
+"It is true we are surrounded with danger, but I do not concur in the
+opinion that the danger to the Union is even one of our greatest perils.
+The greatest danger, to-day, is that the Union will survive the
+Constitution. The body of your enemies in the North, who hate the
+Constitution, and daily trample it under their feet, profess an ardent
+attachment to the Union, and I doubt not, feel such attachment for a
+Union unrestrained by a Constitution. Do not mistake your real danger!
+The Union has more friends than you have, and will last, at least, as
+long as its continuance will be compatible with your safety."
+
+Prior to the reassembling of the Democratic convention, the resolutions
+introduced by the Hon. Jefferson Davis, containing the Southern
+exposition of principles, came up in the Senate. Mr. Toombs had opposed
+the policy of introducing those resolutions, but as they were then
+before the country, he said they should be met. He ridiculed the idea of
+popular sovereignty. He declared that Congress should protect slavery in
+the Territories. The Federal Government, he claimed, did protect its
+citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad, everywhere except
+on the soil of our own territory, acquired by common blood and treasure.
+
+This speech of Senator Toombs marked an epoch in his career. It
+separated him entirely from Stephen A. Douglas, to whom he had been
+closely allied, in spite, as he said, of Douglas having wandered after
+strange gods. Douglas absented himself from the Senate when Toombs
+spoke. For the first time in twenty years, Toombs and Stephens took
+divergent paths. They were called in Georgia the "Siamese twins." From
+the election of Harrison to the Democratic split in 1860, they had been
+personal friends and firm political allies. Mr. Stephens was for Douglas
+and the Union; Mr. Toombs feared lest "the Union survive the
+Constitution."
+
+The Democratic party in Georgia met on June 4, and parted on the lines
+of the Charleston division. The Union element in Georgia was led by
+Herschel V. Johnson, a man of power and influence. He had been Governor
+of the State, was a man of learning, profound in thought and candid in
+expression. His wife was a niece of President Polk. His state papers
+were models of clear and classical expression. Governor Johnson was,
+however, better fitted for the bench or the Cabinet than for a public
+leader.
+
+Both wings of the Georgia convention appointed delegates to the
+Baltimore convention. That body admitted the delegation which had
+seceded from the Charleston convention. As the seceding delegates from
+the other States were rejected, the Georgia delegates refused to go in.
+Missouri was the only Southern State which was represented entirely in
+the body, composed of 190 delegates. Massachusetts withdrew and Caleb
+Cushing resigned the chair. Stephen A. Douglas was nominated for
+President of the United States. Governor Fitzpatrick of Alabama declined
+the vice presidency, and Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was chosen for
+vice president. The seceders immediately organized a national
+convention, Mr. Cushing presiding. It was composed of 210 delegates. The
+majority or anti-Douglas platform of the Charleston convention was
+adopted. John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky was nominated for President,
+and Joseph C. Lane of Oregon for vice president. Mr. Breckenridge was at
+that time vice president of the United States, and Mr. Lane was a
+senator. Meanwhile, a Constitutional Union party had been formed in
+Georgia, and had elected delegates to a convention of that party in
+Baltimore. This body nominated for President and vice president, John
+Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Mr. Bell had been
+United States Senator at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska
+bill, in 1854, and had been arraigned by Mr. Toombs for opposing the
+party policy. He was one of the thirteen who voted against it in the
+Senate.
+
+The contest in Georgia waged with much vigor. Robert Toombs supported
+Breckenridge. He was a delegate to the Democratic State convention which
+put out a Breckenridge and Lane electoral ticket. He cut out the
+business of that convention, and declared that the Constitution and
+equality of the States was the only bond of everlasting union. Mr.
+Stephens headed the Douglas ticket. Senator Douglas himself came to
+Georgia and spoke during the campaign. The Bell and Everett ticket was
+championed by Benjamin H. Hill. The vote in Georgia was: Breckenridge,
+51,893; Douglas, 11,580; Bell, 42,855.
+
+Of these three Georgians, so strikingly arrayed against each other in
+this critical campaign, Mr. Vincent, a gifted Texan, thus wrote with
+dramatic power: "Hill, Stephens, Toombs--all eloquent, all imbued with
+the same lofty patriotism. They differed widely in their methods; their
+opinions were irreconcilable, their policies often diametrically
+opposite. Hill was quick, powerful, but unpersistent; Stephens, slow,
+forcible and compromising; Toombs, instantaneous, overwhelming, and
+unyielding. Hill carried the crowd with a whirlwind of eloquence;
+Stephens first convinced, then moved them with accelerating force;
+Toombs swept them with a hurricane of thought and magnetic example.
+Hill's eloquence was in flights, always rising and finally sublime;
+Stephens' was argumentative with an elegant smoothness, often flowing in
+sweeping, majestic waves; Toombs' was an engulfing stream of impetuous
+force, with the roar of thunder. Hill was receptive, elastic, and full
+of the future; Stephens was philosophical, adaptable, and full of the
+past; Toombs was inexhaustible, original, inflexible, and full of the
+now. It was Hill's special forte to close a campaign; Stephens' to
+manage it; Toombs' to originate it. In politics as in war, he sought,
+with the suddenness of an electric flash, to combat, vanquish, and slay.
+Hill's eloquence exceeded his judgment; Stephens' judgment was superior
+to his oratorical power; in Toombs these were equipollent. Hill
+considered expediency; Stephens, policy; Toombs, principle always; Hill
+would perhaps flatter, Stephens temporize, Toombs neither--never. At
+times Hill would resort to the arts of the dialectician; Stephens would
+quibble over the niceties of construction; Toombs relied on the
+impregnability of his position, the depth of his thought, the vigor of
+his reasoning. Hill discussed with opponents; Stephens debated with
+them; Toombs ignored them. Hill refuted and vanquished his adversaries;
+Stephens persuaded and led them; Toombs magnetized them, and they
+followed him. Their enemies said that Hill was treacherous in politics;
+Stephens selfishly ambitious; and that Toombs loaned like a prince and
+collected like a Shylock.
+
+"In those days Georgia did not put pygmies on pedestals. Hill will be
+remembered by his 'Notes on the Situation'; Stephens by his 'War between
+the States'; Toombs had no circumstantial superiority. He is immortal,
+as the people are eternal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TOOMBS AS A LEGISLATOR.
+
+
+Georgia had taken a leading hand in the momentous events. Alexander H.
+Stephens had been prominently mentioned for President; so had Howell
+Cobb. When Senator Toombs had attacked the doctrine of Mr. Douglas, the
+followers of the latter charged that Mr. Toombs had deserted his old
+ally, and was himself making a bid for the presidency. Especially was
+this the case, they urged, as Mr. Toombs had recommended the seceding
+delegates to go back to the Baltimore convention, and endeavor to effect
+an honorable adjustment. The Augusta _Chronicle and Sentinel_, a leading
+Union organ, took up the charge and asked: "What of it? He is certainly
+as much entitled to it as any citizen in the republic. Were he elected,
+he would be such a President as the country needs, giving no countenance
+to corruption or fraud, but, with a will of his own, setting aside all
+dictation and acting as President of all the people. We doubt if there
+is a man that could arouse such a furor in his behalf, North or South,
+as Robert Toombs."
+
+Close friends of Mr. Toombs at that time believed he was not without his
+ambition to occupy the Executive chair. Never an office-seeker, he had
+gone easily to the front rank of national politics and had won his
+honors in Georgia in a kingly way. He realized, however, that he was not
+politic enough to gain support from Northern States. His convictions
+were overmastering passions; his speech was fervid and fearless; and his
+bold, imperturbable expression had placed him in a fierce white light,
+which barred him from the promotion of party conventions. While his
+enemies were accusing him of a desire to destroy the Union and embroil
+the sections, Robert Toombs was probably cherishing in his heart a vague
+hope that one day he might be called to the presidency of a common
+country.
+
+Senator Toombs was very active in attending to his public duties. He was
+interested in every species of legislation. His remarks upon the
+different matters of national business exhibited versatility, study, and
+interest in everything that affected the public welfare. Those who
+believe him to have been a conspirator, using his high position to
+overthrow the government, have only to look over the debates in Congress
+to see how active and conscientious were his efforts to promote every
+real interest of the Union.
+
+In the United States Senate, on July 31, 1854, Mr. Toombs gave an
+elaborate exposition of his views upon the policy of internal
+improvements. He said he had maintained opposition to this system as a
+fundamental principle. Since he entered public life, he had sustained
+President Polk's veto of the River and Harbor bill in 1847. He believed
+that Congress had no constitutional power to begin or carry on a general
+system of internal improvements. He wanted to know where this power of
+the Constitution could be found. Madison and Jefferson had opposed this
+system. Monroe, Jackson, and Clay had yielded to the popular pressure
+and sanctioned it. "Instead of leaving the taxes or the money in the
+pockets of the people," he said, "you have spent nine months in
+endeavoring to squander and arranging to have more to squander in the
+next Congress. I should like to use a polite term," said he, "for I am a
+good-natured man, but I think it is corruption.
+
+"In this bill you offer me seventy thousand dollars for the Savannah
+river. Ships were sunk in that river for the common defense of the
+country during the Revolutionary War. You are bound to abate your
+nuisance at common law. You might offer me this Capitol full of gold,
+and I would scorn the gift just less than the giver. You ought to have
+removed these obstructions long ago. When we come and ask of you this
+act of justice, you tell me to go with you into your internal
+improvement bill and take pot-luck with you."
+
+Mr. Toombs claimed that the power given to Congress to regulate
+commerce, simply meant to prescribe the rules by which commerce could be
+carried on, and nothing else. "The people of Maryland," he said, "had
+never asked that the harbor of Baltimore should be cleaned at the
+expense of the people of Georgia. They did not ask that other people
+should pay their burdens. They came here and asked the privilege of
+taxing their own commerce for their own benefit, and we granted it. I
+hold it to be a fundamental principle in all governments, and especially
+in all free governments, that you should not put burdens on the people
+whenever you can discriminate and put them on those who enjoy the
+benefits. You started with that principle with your post-office
+establishments.
+
+"Senators, is it just? I tell you, as God lives, it is not just, and you
+ought not to do it. There is manhood in the people of the Mississippi
+Valley. Let them levy tonnage duties for their own rivers and ports and
+put up their own lighthouses, and charge the people who use them for the
+benefits conferred. Let the honest farmer who makes his hay, who gathers
+his cheese, who raises his meal in Vermont, be not taxed to increase
+your magnificent improvements of nature and your already gigantic
+wealth. Senators, it is unjust."
+
+During the session of Congress of 1856-57, Senator Toombs again
+arraigned the whole system of internal improvements. He carefully
+differentiated between building a lighthouse and clearing out a harbor
+by the Federal Government. He said in course of the debate: "Where
+lighthouses are necessary for the protection of your navy, I admit the
+power to make them; but it must be where they are necessary, and not
+merely for the benefit and facilitation of commerce. Foreign and
+domestic commerce ought to be charged, as in England and France, for the
+benefit they receive. I would make the shipowners, the common carriers
+of this country, who are constantly using the power of this government
+to make money out of the products of honest industry and agriculture,
+submit to this rule.
+
+"The power to found a navy is found in the only fountain of power in
+this country, the Constitution. The defense of one is the defense of
+all. The destruction of nationality is the destruction of the life of
+all.
+
+"I say if you take away the property of one man and give it to a
+thousand, or if you take away the property of a million and give it to
+nineteen millions, you do not create national wealth by transferring it
+from the pockets of honest industry to other people's pockets. This is
+my principle. It is immovable. The more commerce there is on the
+Mississippi the more they are able and competent to pay the expenses of
+transporting it, and I only ask that they shall do it."
+
+Mr. Toombs sustained the veto of President Pierce of the Mississippi
+River bill.
+
+In July, 1856, he said that he had for eleven years maintained the
+vetoes of Mr. Polk. "I have perceived that this mischief is widespread,
+this corruption greater, this tendency to the destruction of the country
+is more dangerous. The tendency to place the whole government under the
+money power of the nation is greater and greater. The danger may be all
+of my imagination; but whether that be so, or whether I see in a bolder
+light the evil that will grow by letting this sluice from the public
+treasury and making it run by the will of the majority, I deem it so
+important that it may be worth an empire. We are called on, upon the
+idea of everybody helping everybody's bill, to vote for them all. There
+certainly can be no greater abandonment of public principle than is here
+presented."
+
+Senator Toombs, while a member of the Georgia Legislature, opposed the
+omnibus bill, granting State aid to railroads, and one of the first
+devices to fall under his criticism was a scheme to build a road to his
+own town. He was by nature progressive. He championed the cause of the
+State railroad of Georgia. In general terms he believed that the States
+and the people should carry out works of internal improvement. It is
+said that the first office ever held by Mr. Toombs was that of
+commissioner of the town of Washington, Ga. The election hinged upon a
+question of public improvement, the question being "ditch or no ditch";
+Toombs was elected commissioner, and the ditch was dug.
+
+He was nothing of a demagogue. He did not attempt to belittle the public
+service. He championed the provision for higher pay for the United
+States Judges, and for increasing the stipend of army officers, although
+he denounced the system of double rations as vicious. He did not
+hesitate to hit an unnecessary expense in every shape. All overflowing
+pension grabs found in him a deadly enemy. In December, 1856, while
+speaking on the subject of claims, he said: "In 1828, when half a
+century had passed over the heads of the men who fought your battles,
+when their generation was gone, when Tories and jobbers could not be
+distinguished from the really meritorious, the agents came here and
+attempted to intimidate public men." He alluded to pension agents as men
+who prowl about and make fortunes by peddling in the pretended
+patriotism and sufferings of their fathers.
+
+"It is," said he, "a poor pretext for an honorable man to come and tell
+the government, 'My ancestor fought for his own and the public liberty;
+he did not choose to be a slave to a foreign despotism; but with
+manliness, and honor, and patriotism, he fought during the war; now pay
+me for this. I want to be paid in hard dollars for the honor, and
+chivalry, and patriotism of my ancestor.' I tell you, Mr. President, it
+is not good money; it is bad money; it is dishonorable to the memory of
+those who fought your battles."
+
+In February, 1857, the electoral vote for President was counted by the
+two Houses of Congress. The vote of the State of Wisconsin (five
+ballots) had been cast on a day other than that fixed by the States for
+the meeting of the Electoral College. If counted, it gave Frémont 114
+votes; if omitted, Frémont would have 109.
+
+In the debate which followed, Senator Toombs discussed very closely a
+point which has since been the subject of sharp contention. He said:
+"The duty of counting the vote for President devolves on the Senate and
+House of Representatives. They must act in their separate capacities;
+but they alone can determine it, and not the President of the Senate and
+the tellers of the two Houses. It is a high privilege, a dangerous one
+to the liberties and Constitution of this country. The Senate and House
+must determine the votes to be counted, and the President of the Senate
+can only announce those to be votes which are thus decided by competent
+authority, and any attempt of the presiding officer to declare what
+votes he may deem to be legal, or to decide which are the votes, no
+matter whether it affects the result or not, or even to say that the
+question shall not be decided, however highly I respect the chair, I
+submit is not a power given to the presiding officer by the Constitution
+and the laws."
+
+In 1850 Senator Toombs found it necessary to oppose an appropriation for
+an experiment with the Atlantic cable. He was not prepared to say that
+the experiment would not be successful, but he boldly declared, despite
+the importance of the work and the high character of the men who were
+supporting it, that there was no power in the Federal Constitution for
+such an appropriation. Because the government establishes post roads, it
+could not be inferred that the government had the power to aid in
+transmitting intelligence to all quarters of the globe. He did not
+believe in going beyond the constitutional guarantees. He declared of
+these questions, as he had in the debate upon the Kansas bill, that in
+hunting for power and authority he knew but one place to go--to the
+Constitution. When he did not find it there, he could not find it
+anywhere.
+
+Senator Toombs favored the purchase of Cuba, because he considered it
+advantageous to the republic. "I will accept Canada as readily, if it
+can be honestly and fairly done," he said. "I will accept Central
+America and such part of Mexico as, in my judgment, would be
+advantageous to the republic."
+
+The question of the slave population of Cuba should not come into this
+discussion, he declared. "I will not trammel the great constitutional
+power of the Executive to deal with foreign nations, with our internal
+questions; and I will not manacle my country, I will not handcuff the
+energies of this mighty republic, by tying up our foreign diplomacy with
+our internal dissensions. At least to the rest of the world, let us
+present ourselves as one people, one nation." He spurned the idea that
+he wanted Cuba to strengthen the slave power in Congress. He said, "Some
+may think we go for it because by this means we shall have one more
+slave State in the Union. I know that the senator from New York (Mr.
+Seward) at the last session alluded to the comparative number of
+slaveholding and non-slaveholding States; but I never considered that my
+rights lay there; I never considered that I held my rights of property
+by the votes of senators. It is too feeble a tenure. If I did, I have
+shown by my votes that I have not feared them. Whenever any State,
+Minnesota or Oregon, or any other, came, no matter from where, if she
+came on principles which were sufficient in my judgment to justify her
+admission into this great family of nations, I never refused her the
+right hand of fellowship. I did not inquire whether you had seventeen or
+eighteen free States. If you had fifty, it would not alter my vote. The
+idea of getting one slave State would have no effect on me. But Cuba has
+fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of
+Mexico, and then the Carribean Sea, a _mare clausum_. Probably younger
+men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float
+there except by permission of the United States of America. That is my
+policy. I rose more with a view to declare my policy for the future;
+that development, that progress throughout the tropics was the true,
+fixed, unalterable policy of the nation, no matter what may be the
+consequences with reference to European powers."
+
+Mr. Toombs believed that much bad legislation resulted from trusting too
+much to committees. He rarely failed to question such reports, and never
+voted unless he thoroughly understood the subject. He thought this whole
+machinery was a means of "transferring the legislation of the country
+from those into whose hands the Constitution had placed it to
+irresponsible parties." He said it was a common newspaper idea that
+Congress was wasting time in debating details. His opinion was that
+nine-tenths of the time the best thing to be done in public legislation
+was to do nothing. He thought Congress was breaking down the government
+by its own weight in "pensioning all the vagrants brought here. All that
+a man has to do is to make affidavit and get a pension."
+
+In 1859 he refused to vote to appropriate $500,000 for the improvement
+of Buffalo harbor, because he held he had no right to spend the money of
+the whole Union for a particular locality; for this reason he voted to
+abolish the mint at Dahlonega, in his own State.
+
+Mr. Toombs opposed the policy of buying the outstanding debt at a
+premium. He criticised Senator Simon Cameron for asking that the
+government give employment to 50,000 laborers out of work. He said,
+"Sir, government cannot do it and never did do it. There never was a
+government in the world which did not ruin the people they attempted to
+benefit by such a course. Governments do not regulate wages."
+
+Senator Toombs contended that the Postal Department stood on a different
+footing from the army and navy. Postal service, he thought, was no part
+of the national duty. "It is of no more importance to the people of the
+United States that this government should carry my letters than that it
+should carry my cotton." He claimed that he had some old-fashioned
+ideas, but they were innate. "I do not think it right, before God, for
+me to make another man pay my expenses."
+
+In discussing the financial report, he said, "You have as much time to
+appropriate money intelligently as you have to give it lavishly. While
+there is a general cry for retrenchment, when any practical movement is
+made, the answer always is that this is not the right time or the right
+place. I am afraid we shall never find the right time, or the right
+place, until the popular revolution becomes strong enough to send here
+men who will do the public business better than we have done it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ELECTION OF LINCOLN.
+
+
+In the election of November, 1860, Mr. Lincoln received 1,857,610 votes,
+and the combined opposition 2,787,780 votes, the successful candidate
+being in a minority of nearly a million votes. The new House of
+Representatives was Democratic, and the Senate had not been won over to
+the antislavery party. But the trend of Northern politics was
+unmistakably toward the extinction of slavery. As Mr. Lincoln said in
+his letter to Mr. Stephens: "You think slavery is right and ought to be
+extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. There,
+I suppose, is the rub." Mr. Buchanan's message to Congress was full of
+conservative counsel, but the Northern pressure was too strong. His
+Cabinet was soon dissolved, and the places of Southern men were taken by
+Northern representatives, whose influence was not assuring to Southern
+people.
+
+Just before his departure for Congress Mr. Toombs, in response to an
+invitation, wrote a conservative letter to his constituents in Danburg,
+Wilkes County, Ga. It bore date of December 13, 1860. The General
+Assembly of Georgia had unanimously passed a resolution calling for a
+State convention to meet on January 16, 1861. Mr. Toombs took the ground
+that separation, sooner or later, was inevitable. The time when the
+remedy was to be applied was the point of difference. He opposed delay
+longer than March 4, but declared that he would certainly yield that
+point "to earnest and honest men who are with me in principle but are
+more hopeful of redress from the aggressors than I am. To go beyond
+March 4, we should require such preliminary measures to be taken as
+would, with reasonable certainty, lead to adequate redress, and in the
+meantime, we should take care that the delay gives no advantage to the
+adversary." Mr. Toombs declared that he believed the policy of Mr.
+Lincoln was to ultimately abolish slavery in the States, by driving
+slavery out of the Territories, by abrogating Fugitive-slave laws, and
+by protecting those who stole slaves and incited insurrections. The only
+way to remedy these evils, in the Union, was by such constitutional
+amendments as can be neither resisted nor evaded. "If the Republican
+party votes for the amendments, we may postpone final action. This will
+be putting planks where they are good for something. A cartload of new
+planks in the party platform will not redress one wrong nor protect one
+right."
+
+As strong and unmistakable as this letter seemed, the great body of the
+people of Georgia did not think it sufficiently aggressive. Secession
+now amounted to a furor. It was not the work of leaders, but the spirit
+which pervaded the ranks of the people, who clamored because events did
+not move fast enough. The "minute-men" declared Mr. Toombs' letter was a
+backdown. They called him a traitor, and wanted to vote him a tin sword.
+
+Congress, upon reassembling, devoted itself to measures of compromise.
+The situation was one of the deepest gravity. In the House a committee
+of thirty-three was raised, and in the Senate a committee of thirteen,
+to look into the situation. But there was no Henry Clay to interpose,
+with tact and broad statesmanship, at the supreme moment.
+
+Twice before in our history, the "Great Pacificator" had proven equal to
+a desperate emergency. Adjusting the tariff in 1832 when South Carolina
+threatened nullification, he had kept the peace between Calhoun and
+Jackson. Proposing his omnibus bill in 1850, he had silenced all calls
+for disunion by the territorial concession. Equally lacking was the
+example of Webster to face the prejudices of the North and calm the
+apprehensions of the South. Perhaps it was because these men had
+postponed the conflict then that it reappeared now with irrepressible
+power.
+
+The House Committee reported propositions to amend the Fugitive-slave
+laws, and accepted Mr. Toombs' demand that a law should be enacted by
+which all offenses against slave property, by persons fleeing to other
+States, should be tried where the offense was committed.
+
+Mr. Toombs was a member of the committee of thirteen in the Senate. The
+five Southern members submitted the Crittenden Compromise, demanding six
+amendments to the Constitution. These recognized slavery south of the
+old Missouri line, prohibited interference by Congress with slavery in
+the District of Columbia, or with transportation of slaves from one
+State to another, and provided for the payment for fugitive slaves in
+cases where the marshal was prevented from arresting said fugitive. The
+sixth amendment guaranteed the permanence of these provisions.
+
+The House adopted the report of the committee of thirty-three. In the
+Senate a resolution was adopted declaring that the provisions of the
+Constitution were already ample for the preservation of the Union; that
+it needed to be obeyed rather than amended. This, upon a test vote of
+twenty-five to twenty-three, was substituted for the Crittenden
+Compromise. Mr. Toombs and five other Democratic members refused to
+vote, as they appropriately declared that no measure could be of value
+to the South, unless it had the support of Republican senators from the
+North. They sat still and waited to see whether those senators offered
+any guarantees. The twenty-five votes showed that the Republicans were
+not in a conciliatory mood. This, in the opinion of Senator Toombs, was
+conclusive that the best interests of the South lay in immediate
+separation.
+
+Once convinced that this was the proper course, Senator Toombs bent all
+his powers to bring about that result. He saw that if the Southern
+States must secede, the quicker they did so the better. If the North
+cared to recall them, a vigorous policy would react more promptly upon
+the Republicans. He did not go into this movement with foreboding or
+half-heartedness. There was no mawkish sentiment--no melancholy in his
+make-up. His convictions mastered him, and his energy moved him to
+redoubled effort. On the 22d of December he sent his famous telegram to
+his "fellow-citizens of Georgia." He recited that his resolutions had
+been treated with derision and contempt by the Republican members of the
+committee of thirteen. The amendments proposed by Mr. Crittenden had
+"each and all of them been voted against unanimously by the Republican
+members of the committee." These members had also declared that they had
+no guarantees to offer. He believed that the House Committee only sought
+to amuse the South with delusive hope, "until your election, in order
+that you may defeat the friends of secession. If you are deceived by
+them it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly.
+It has been decided against you, and now I tell you upon the faith of a
+true man, that all further looking to the North for security for your
+constitutional rights in the Union, ought to be instantly abandoned. It
+is fraught with nothing but menace to yourselves and your party.
+Secession by the 4th of March next should be thundered forth from the
+ballot-box by the united voice of Georgia. Such a voice will be your
+best guaranty for liberty, security, tranquillity, and glory."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+FAREWELL TO THE SENATE.
+
+
+On the 7th of January, 1861, Robert Toombs delivered his farewell speech
+to the United States Senate. It received profound attention. It was full
+of brief sentences and bristling points. In epigrammatic power, it was
+the strongest summary of the demands of the South. As Mr. Blaine said,
+it was the only speech made by a congressman from the seceding States
+which specified the grievances of the South and which named the
+conditions upon which the States would stay in the Union. Other Senators
+regarded secession as a fixed fact. Mr. Toombs declared what, in his
+opinion, would prevent it. And yet, as he stood at his desk, where for
+seven years he had been a recognized leader, his earnestness and
+deliberation revealed a man whose hand did not hesitate to lead a revolt
+and whose heart did not fail in the face of a certain revolution. He
+acted up to his own words, repeated a short while later: "He who dallies
+is a dastard; he who doubts is damned."
+
+This speech was bold, succinct, definite. "Senators," said Mr. Toombs,
+"my countrymen have demanded no new government. They have demanded no
+new Constitution. The discontented States have demanded nothing but
+clear, distinct, constitutional rights, rights older than the
+Constitution. What do these rebels demand? First, that the people of the
+United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the
+Territories with whatever property (including slaves) they may possess.
+Second, that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection
+from the government as any other property (leaving the State the right
+to prohibit, protect, or abolish slavery within its limits). Third, that
+persons committing crimes against slave property in one State and flying
+to another shall be given up. Fourth, that fugitive slaves shall be
+surrendered. Fifth, that Congress shall pass laws for the punishment of
+all persons who shall aid and abet invasion and insurrection in any
+other State."
+
+He said: "We demand these five propositions. Are they not right? Are
+they not just? We will pause and consider them; but, mark me, we will
+not let you decide the questions for us. I have little care to dispute
+remedies with you unless you propose to redress our wrongs.
+
+"But no matter what may be our grievances, the honorable senator from
+Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden) says we cannot secede. Well, what can we do?
+We cannot revolutionize. He will say that is treason. What can we do?
+Submit? They say they are the strongest and they will hang us. Very
+well! I suppose we are to be thankful for that boon. We will take that
+risk. We will stand by the right; we will take the Constitution; we will
+defend it with the sword, with the halter around our necks. Will that
+satisfy the honorable senator from Kentucky? You cannot intimidate my
+constituents by talking to them of treason.
+
+"You will not regard confederate obligations; you will not regard
+constitutional obligations; you will not regard your oaths. What, then,
+am I to do? Am I a freeman? Is my State a free State? We are freemen; we
+have rights; I have stated them. We have wrongs; I have recounted them.
+I have demonstrated that the party now coming into power has declared us
+outlaws, and is determined to exclude thousands of millions of our
+property from the common territory; that it has declared us under the
+ban of the Union, and out of the protection of the laws of the United
+States everywhere. They have refused to protect us from invasion and
+insurrection by the Federal power, and the Constitution denies to us, in
+the Union, the right to raise fleets and armies for our own defense. All
+these charges I have proven by the record; and I put them before the
+civilized world and demand the judgment of to-day, of to-morrow, of
+distant ages, and of Heaven itself upon the justice of these causes. I
+am content, whatever it be, to peril all in so holy a cause. We have
+appealed, time and again, for these constitutional rights. You have
+refused them. We appeal again. Restore us those rights as we had them;
+as your Court adjudges them to be; just as our people have said they
+are. Redress these flagrant wrongs--seen of all men--and it will restore
+fraternity, and unity, and peace to us all. Refuse them, and what then?
+We shall then ask you, 'Let us depart in peace.' Refuse that, and you
+present us war. We accept it, and, inscribing upon our banners the
+glorious words, 'Liberty and Equality,' we will trust to the blood of
+the brave and the God of battles for security and tranquillity."
+
+This speech created wide attention. It closed the career of Robert
+Toombs as a member of the national councils. For sixteen years he had
+served in the two Houses in Washington, holding his rank among the first
+men in the country.
+
+He was then fifty-one years old, full of strength and confidence. His
+leadership among Southern men was undisputed; his participation in
+public business had been long and honorable; upon matters of home and
+foreign policy his word had been law in the Senate; his influence had
+been preponderating.
+
+[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF GENERAL TOOMBS, WASHINGTON, GA.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TOOMBS AND SECESSION.
+
+
+On the 16th of January, the State Sovereignty convention met in
+Milledgeville, Ga. The election had taken place shortly after the
+delivery of Senator Toombs' farewell address, and Georgia had answered
+to his call in the election of delegates by giving a vote of 50,243 in
+favor of secession, and 39,123 against it. The convention was presided
+over by George W. Crawford, who had lived in retirement since the death
+of President Taylor in 1850, and who was called on to lend his prestige
+and influence in favor of the rights of his State. The convention went
+into secret session, and when the doors were opened, Hon. Eugenius A.
+Nisbet of Bibb offered a resolution, "That in the opinion of this
+convention, it is the right and duty of Georgia to secede from the
+Union." On the passage of this, the yeas were 165 and the noes 130. Mr.
+Toombs voted "yes," and Messrs. Hill, Johnson, and Stephens, "no." Next
+day the committee of seventeen, through Judge Nisbet, reported the
+Ordinance of Secession. It was short and pointed; it simply declared
+that the people of the State of Georgia, in convention assembled,
+repealed the ordinance of 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United
+States was ratified and adopted. The Union was declared dissolved, so
+far as the State of Georgia was concerned, and the State to be in full
+possession of all those rights of sovereignty that belonged to a free
+and independent State. On the passage of this ordinance, the yeas were
+208, and the noes, 89. Messrs. Toombs and Hill "yes," and Mr. Stephens
+"no." At 2.15 P. M. on the 19th of January, a signal gun was fired, and
+the "Stars and Stripes" lowered from the State Capitol. One moment
+later, the white colonial flag of Georgia fluttered to the winds, and
+the State was in uproar. The news flashed to the utmost corners of the
+commonwealth. Guns were fired, bells rung, and men were beside
+themselves. The night only intensified this carnival of joy. There were
+some men who shook their heads and doubted the wisdom of this step, and
+there were women and little children who regarded these demonstrations
+with awe. They did not comprehend what was meant by "going out of the
+Union," and by some inscrutable instinct feared the result of such an
+act. The old Union sentiment was, perhaps, stronger in Georgia than in
+any other Southern State. Georgia was the youngest of the thirteen
+States, the last of the commonwealth to come into the national compact.
+Her charter from the Crown had originally barred slavery from her
+limits, but the success of the institution in Carolina, the progress of
+other States in subduing land and in cultivating indigo and tobacco in
+the Southern savannas, rendered white labor unavailable, and left
+Georgia a laggard in the work of the younger colonies. Finally, slaves
+were admitted, and commerce and agriculture seemed to thrive. But if the
+State had preserved its original charter restrictions, it is not certain
+that, even then, the Union sentiment would have prevailed. As Senator
+Toombs had declared: "The question of slavery moves not the people of
+Georgia one-half so much as the fact that you insult their rights as a
+community. Abolitionists are right when they say that there are
+thousands and tens of thousands of people in Georgia who do not own
+slaves. A very large portion of the people of Georgia own none of them.
+In the mountains there are but a few of them; but no part of our people
+is more loyal to race and country than our bold and hardy mountain
+population, and every flash of the electric wire brings me cheering news
+from our mountain-tops and our valleys that these sons of Georgia are
+excelled by none of their countrymen in loyalty to their rights, the
+honor and glory of the commonwealth. They say, and well say, this is our
+question: we want no negro equality; no negro citizenship; we want no
+mongrel race to degrade our own, and, as one man, they would meet you
+upon the border with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other.
+They will tell you, 'When we choose to abolish this thing (slavery), it
+must be done under our direction, according to our will. Our own, our
+native land shall determine this question, and not the Abolitionists of
+the North.' That is the spirit of our freemen."
+
+The spirit of the people was plainly manifested by the zeal and ardor of
+Thomas R. R. Cobb. He was a young man who went into the secession
+movement with lofty enthusiasm. He had all the ardor and religious
+fervor of a crusader. He had never held public office, and had taken no
+hand in politics until the time came for Georgia to secede. He was the
+younger brother of Howell Cobb. He declared that what Mr. Stephens said
+was the determining sentiment of the hour, that "Georgia could make
+better terms out of the Union than in it." The greater part of the
+people was fired with this fervor, which they felt to be patriotic.
+Gray-bearded men vied with the hot blood of youth, and a venerable
+citizen of Augusta, illuminating his residence from dome to cellar,
+blazoned with candles this device upon his gateway--"Georgia, right or
+wrong--Georgia!" Never was a movement so general, so spontaneous. Those
+who charged the leaders of that day with precipitating their States into
+revolution upon a wild dream of power, did not know the spirit and the
+temper of the people who composed that movement. Northern men who had
+moved South and engaged in business, as a general thing, stood shoulder
+to shoulder with their Southern brethren, and went out with the
+companies that first responded to the call to war. The South sacrificed
+much, in a material point of view, in going into civil conflict. In the
+decade between 1850 and 1860, the wealth of the South had increased
+three billions of dollars, and Georgia alone had shown a growth measured
+by two hundred millions. Her aggregate wealth at the time she passed the
+Ordinance of Secession was six hundred and seventy-two millions, double
+what it is to-day. In one year her increase was sixty-two millions.
+Business of all kinds was prospering. But her people did not count the
+cost when they considered that their rights were invaded. Georgia was
+the fifth State to secede. South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and
+Florida had preceded her. Of the six States which formed the Provisional
+Government, Georgia had relatively a smaller number of slaves than any,
+and her State debt was only a little more than two and a half millions
+of dollars. Her voting population was barely 100,000, but she furnished,
+when the test came, 120,000 soldiers to the Confederate army.
+
+As a contemporary print of those times remarked, "The Secession
+convention of Georgia was not divided upon the subject of rights or
+wrongs, but of remedies." Senator Toombs declared that the convention
+had sovereign powers, "limited only by God and the right." This policy
+opened the way to changing the great seal and adopting a new flag. Mr.
+Toombs was made chairman of the committee on Foreign Relations and
+became at once Prime Minister of the young Republic. He offered a
+resolution providing that a congress of seceded States be called to meet
+in Montgomery on the 4th of February. He admonished the convention that,
+as it had destroyed one government, it was its pressing duty to build up
+another. It was at his request that commissioners were appointed from
+Georgia to the other States in the South. Mr. Toombs also introduced a
+resolution, which was unanimously adopted, "That the Convention highly
+approves the energetic and patriotic conduct of Governor Brown in
+seizing Fort Pulaski."
+
+The Ordinance of Secession was, on the 31st of January, signed by all
+the members of the convention, in the open air, in the Capitol grounds.
+The scene was solemn and impressive. Six delegates entered their
+protests, but pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
+honor" in defense of Georgia against coercion and invasion.
+
+When the time came for the election of delegates to the Provisional
+Congress at Montgomery, Robert Toombs was unanimously selected as the
+first deputy from the State at large. His colleague, Howell Cobb, was
+chosen on the third ballot. The district selected Francis S. Bartow,
+Martin J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. R.
+Cobb, A. H. Kennan, and A. H. Stephens.
+
+The address to the people of Georgia adopted by this convention, was
+written by Mr. Toombs. It recited that "our people are still attached to
+the Union from habit, national tradition, and aversion to change." The
+address alluded to our "Northern Confederates" and declared that the
+issue had been "deliberately forced by the North and deliberately
+accepted by the South. We refuse to submit to the verdict of the North,
+and in vindication we offer the Constitution of our country. The people
+of Georgia have always been willing to stand by this compact; but they
+know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands." The report
+charged that the North had outlawed three thousand millions of our
+property, put it under a ban, and would subject us, not only to a loss
+of our property, but to destruction of our homes and firesides. It
+concludes: "To avoid these evils, we withdraw the powers that our
+fathers delegated to the government of the United States, and henceforth
+seek new safeguards for our liberty, security, and tranquillity."
+
+On the 4th of February, 1861, forty-two delegates met at Montgomery,
+Ala. The States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
+and South Carolina were represented. Howell Cobb of Georgia was chosen
+President of the Provisional Congress. Mr. Stephens said it was the most
+intellectual body of men he had ever seen. One of the first duties of
+this convention was to elect a President and vice president of the new
+Confederacy. All eyes were turned to Robert Toombs. It was by common
+consent agreed that Georgia, owing to her commanding position, her
+prominence in the movement, and her wealth of great men, should furnish
+the President. Toombs towered even above the members of that convention.
+Bold, imperious, and brainy, he had guided the revolution without haste
+or heat, and his conservative course in the Georgia convention had
+silenced those critics who had called him "the genius of the
+revolution," but denied to him the constructive power to build upon the
+ruins he had made. He had, in the choice of delegates to the Provisional
+Congress, boldly advocated the election of Mr. Stephens from his own
+district, although the latter was a Union man and, at that time, was not
+on good terms with Toombs. Toombs declared that Alexander Stephens was a
+patriot notwithstanding his views against secession. He had secured the
+recommitment of a dangerous resolution upon slavery which, he declared,
+would injure the South by the announcement of an ultra policy. He had
+written a very conservative letter to Senator Crittenden. He had been a
+prominent Secessionist, and had contemplated the movement as unavoidable
+when men were talking with bated breath. But in the opening of the
+revolution, he had proven a safe counselor. Mr. Toombs was approached,
+and announced that he would accept the presidency if it were offered
+with unanimity. He was surprised to learn that the delegates from four
+States had agreed on Jefferson Davis. When this report was confirmed,
+Mr. Toombs, ignorant of the real cause of this sudden change of
+sentiment, forbade further canvass of his own claims, and cordially
+seconded the nomination of Mr. Davis. Mr. Toombs was a man of rare
+magnanimity. He was absolutely without envy or resentment, and turning
+to Mr. Stephens, pressed him to accept second place on the ticket. The
+announcement of a Georgian for vice president effectually disposed of
+his own chance for the presidency. The fact was that Mr. Toombs was the
+first choice of Georgia, as he was thought to be of Florida, Carolina,
+and Louisiana. Jefferson Davis had not been presented by Mississippi. He
+had been selected by that State as the commander-in-chief of the
+military forces and himself preferred a military station. He was not in
+Montgomery when his nomination was confirmed. A messenger had to be
+dispatched to inform him of his election as President of the Confederate
+States of America.
+
+The sudden selection of Mr. Davis by four States probably carries a bit
+of secret history. Old party antagonisms arose at the last moment to
+confront the candidacy of Mr. Toombs. Toombs had summarily left the Whig
+party in 1850, to join the great Constitutional Union movement.
+Jefferson Davis had always been a States' Rights Democrat, and had been
+defeated for Governor of Mississippi by the Constitutional Union party.
+Thus it would seem that, at the eleventh hour, party lines were drawn
+against Robert Toombs, and his boast that he had saved the Union in 1850
+probably cost him the presidency of the new republic. There was a story,
+credited in some quarters, that Mr. Toombs' convivial conduct at a
+dinner party in Montgomery estranged from him some of the more
+conservative delegates, who did not realize that a man like Toombs had
+versatile and reserved powers, and that Toombs at the banquet board was
+another sort of a man from Toombs in a deliberative body.
+
+At all events, the recognized leader of the Confederacy was set aside,
+and with rare unanimity the election of officers was accepted with
+unselfish patriotism.
+
+At that time a curious and remarkable incident in the life of Mr. Toombs
+was related. Within thirty days he had performed journeys to the extent
+of fifteen hundred miles, largely by private conveyance, and during that
+brief period he served under four distinct governments: as senator in
+the Congress of the United States, as delegate from his native county
+(Wilkes) to the convention of the sovereign republic of Georgia, as
+deputy from his State to the Congress of seceding States, which
+instituted a Provisional Government, and finally in the permanent
+government which he aided in framing for the Confederate States of
+America.
+
+In the perfection of a permanent government and the new-molding of a
+Constitution, Mr. Toombs was now diligently engaged. The principal
+changes brought about by him may be briefly recalled. It was specified,
+in order to cut off lobby agents, that Congress should grant no extra
+compensation to any contractor after the service was rendered. This item
+originated with Mr. Toombs, who had noted the abuses in the Federal
+Government. Congress was authorized to grant to the principal officer of
+each of the executive departments a seat upon the floor of either house,
+without a vote, but with the privilege of discussing any measure
+relating to his department. This was an old idea of Mr. Toombs, and
+during his visit abroad, he had attended sessions of the British
+Parliament in company with Mr. Buchanan, then Minister to England. He
+had been impressed with the value of the presence in Parliament of the
+Ministers themselves. During a debate in the United States Senate in
+1859, Mr. Toombs had said: "My own opinion is that it would be a great
+improvement on our system if the Cabinet officers should be on the floor
+of both Houses, and should participate in the debate; I have no doubt
+that we should thus get rid of one of the greatest difficulties in our
+Constitution."
+
+Mr. Toombs also incorporated into the organic law a prohibition of the
+payment of bounties and of the internal improvement system. There was a
+tax upon navigation for harbors, buoys, and beacons, but this was
+adjusted upon the Toombs principle of taxing the interest for which the
+burden was levied. Mr. Toombs was made chairman of the Finance Committee
+of the Provisional Congress. This appointment was received with general
+satisfaction. His long legislative experience, his genius for finance,
+and his executive power, fitted him for this position. To provide ways
+and means for the new nation which was, as yet, without resources or a
+system of taxation, involved no little difficulty. It was important that
+the young Confederacy should exhibit resources sufficient to equip her
+armies and maintain herself before she could sue for independence or
+foreign recognition. It was for these admitted qualities of Mr. Toombs
+for details and management, that President Davis preferred him to take
+the position of Secretary of the Treasury. Next to the presidency this
+was his real place, but it was suggested that a man like Toombs deserved
+the first position in the new Cabinet. A telegram from President Davis,
+offering him the portfolio of Secretary of State, reached Mr. Toombs in
+Augusta. He at first declined, but being urged by Mr. Stephens, finally
+consented to serve. The Cabinet was then made up as follows. Robert
+Toombs of Georgia, Secretary of State; C. G. Memminger of South
+Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; L. P. Walker of Alabama, Secretary
+of War; J. H. Reagan of Texas, Postmaster-General; J. P. Benjamin of
+Louisiana, Attorney-General; S. B. Mallory of Florida, Secretary of the
+Navy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+TOOMBS AS PREMIER OF THE CONFEDERACY.
+
+
+One of the first acts of the new Confederate Government was to send
+three commissioners to Washington. John Forsyth of Alabama, Martin J.
+Crawford of Georgia, and A. B. Roman of Louisiana, were intrusted by the
+Secretary of State, Mr. Toombs, with a speedy adjustment of questions
+growing out of the political revolution, upon such terms of amity and
+good will as would guarantee the future welfare of the two sections. Mr.
+Toombs instructed Mr. Crawford, whom he had especially persuaded to take
+this delicate mission, that he should pertinaciously demand the
+evacuation of Fort Sumter and the maintenance of the status elsewhere.
+
+Secretary Seward declined to receive the commissioners in any diplomatic
+capacity, or even to see them personally. He acknowledged the receipt of
+their communication and caused the commissioners to be notified,
+pointedly, that he hoped they would not press him to reply at that time.
+Mr. Seward was represented as strongly disposed in favor of peace, and
+the Confederate Government was semi-officially informed that Fort
+Sumter would probably be evacuated in a short time, and all immediate
+danger of conflict avoided. There is no doubt that such were Mr.
+Seward's intentions. He had cordially agreed with General Winfield Scott
+that the possession of Fort Sumter amounted to little in a strategical
+way, and that the peace-loving people, North and South, should not be
+driven into the war party by premature shock over the provisioning of a
+fort that no Federal force could have held for a week. Mr. Lincoln's
+Cabinet took this position and, by a vote of five to two, favored the
+abandonment of Sumter. The commissioners were apprised of this feeling,
+and in a dispatch to Secretary Toombs, on the 20th of March, declared
+that there was no change in the status. "If there is any faith in man,"
+they wrote, "we may rely on the assurances we have as to the status.
+Time is essential to the principal issue of this mission. In the present
+posture of affairs, precipitation is war."
+
+On the 26th of March the commissioners, having heard nothing more, asked
+the Confederate Secretary whether they should delay longer or demand an
+answer at once. Secretary Toombs wired them to wait a reasonable time
+and then ask for instructions. He gave them the views of President
+Davis, who believed that the counsels of Mr. Seward would prevail in
+Washington. "So long as the United States neither declares war nor
+establishes peace, it affords the Confederate States the advantage of
+both positions, and enables them to make all necessary arrangements for
+public defense and the solidification of government more safely,
+cheaply, and expeditiously than if the attitude of the United States was
+more definite and decided."
+
+Meanwhile new pressure was brought to bear on President Lincoln. On the
+2d of April, the commissioners, who kept up pretty well with the
+situation, telegraphed Secretary Toombs: "The war party presses on the
+President; he vibrates to that side." The rumor was given that the
+President had conferred with an engineer in regard to Fort Sumter.
+"Watch at all points." Three days later they telegraphed that the
+movement of troops and the preparation of vessels of war were continued
+with great activity. "The statement that the armament is intended for
+San Domingo," they said, "may be a mere ruse." "Have no confidence in
+this administration. We say, be ever on your guard.... Glad to hear you
+are ready. The notice promised us may come at the last moment, if the
+fleet be intended for our waters."
+
+On the 6th of April Governor Pickens of South Carolina was informed that
+the President had decided to supply Fort Sumter with provisions, and on
+the 10th, Hon. Levi P. Walker, Secretary of War at Montgomery, notified
+General Beauregard, then in command of the Confederate forces at
+Charleston, to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, and, if refused, to
+proceed to reduce it.
+
+There is no doubt that the Lincoln Cabinet reversed its position about
+Sumter. The pressure of New England and the West became too strong. What
+Sumter lacked in military importance, it made up in political
+significance. The Lincoln Government had already been taunted with
+weakness by the people who had placed it in office. Mr. Lincoln decided,
+against the better judgment of Mr. Seward, to make the issue in
+Charleston Harbor.
+
+Seward's mind was of finer and more reflective cast than Mr. Lincoln's.
+He had all the points of a diplomatist, ingenuity, subtlety, adroitness.
+He was temporizing over the natural antipathy of the North to war and
+the probable transient nature of the secession feeling in the South. At
+that very moment he was assuring England and France that "the
+conservative element in the South, which was kept under the surface by
+the violent pressure of secession, will emerge with irresistible force."
+He believed "that the evils and hardships produced by secession would
+become intolerably grievous to the Southern States."
+
+Mr. Lincoln was not temporizing at all. He was looking the crisis in the
+face. What he wanted was support at the North, not at the South. He was
+willing to force the fighting at Sumter, knowing that the mere act of
+the Confederates in firing upon the flag would bring to his aid a united
+North.
+
+Secretary Toombs was one man in the Montgomery Cabinet who was not
+deceived by Seward's sophistries. He knew the temper of Mr. Lincoln
+better than Mr. Seward did. He appreciated the feeling at the North, and
+gave his counsel in the Davis Cabinet against the immediate assault upon
+Sumter. There was a secret session of the Cabinet in Montgomery. Toombs
+was pacing the floor during the discussion over Sumter, his hands behind
+him, and his face wearing that heavy, dreamy look when in repose. Facing
+about, he turned upon the President and opposed the attack. "Mr.
+President," he said, "at this time, it is suicide, murder, and will lose
+us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest
+which extends from mountains to ocean, and legions, now quiet, will
+swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the
+wrong; it is fatal." He clung to the idea expressed in his dispatches to
+the commissioners, that "So long as the United States neither declares
+war nor establishes peace, the Confederate States have the advantage of
+both conditions." But just as President Lincoln overruled Secretary
+Seward, so President Davis overruled Secretary Toombs.
+
+No event in American history was more portentous than the first gun
+fired from Fort Johnson at 1.30 o'clock in the morning of April 12,
+1861. As the shell wound its graceful curve into the air and fell into
+the water at the base of Sumter, the Civil War was an accomplished fact.
+Major Anderson replied with his barbette guns from the fort. He had but
+little more than 100 men, and early in the engagement was forced to rely
+entirely upon his casemate ordinance. The Confederate forces numbered
+about five thousand, with thirty guns and seventeen mortars, and served
+their guns from the batteries on Mount Pleasant, Cummings Point, and the
+floating battery. Fort Sumter was built on an artificial island at the
+mouth of Charleston Harbor, and was about three and a half miles from
+the city. It had cost the government one million dollars, and had not
+been entirely completed at the time of the bombardment.
+
+The excitement in Charleston at the opening gun was very great. People
+rushed from their beds to the water-front, and men and women watched the
+great duel through their glasses. The South had gone into the war with
+all the fervor of conviction. The gunners in Moultrie and on Morris
+Island would leap to the ramparts and watch the effect of their shots,
+and jump back to their guns with a cheer. There was all the pomp and
+sound, but few of the terrors of war. On the morning of the second day
+the quarters in the fort caught fire and the whole place was wrapped in
+flames and smoke, but Major Anderson's men won the admiration of their
+enemies by standing by their guns and returning the fire at regular
+intervals. The battle lasted thirty-two hours; more than fifty tons of
+cannon-balls and eight tons of powder were expended from weapons the
+most destructive then known to warfare; not a life was lost on either
+side. Sumter and Moultrie were both badly damaged. Major Anderson
+surrendered on Saturday, April 13.
+
+The London _Times_ treated this remarkable event in humorous style. The
+proceedings at Charleston were likened to a cricket match or a regatta
+in England. The ladies turned out to view the contest. A good shot from
+Fort Sumter was as much applauded as a good shot from Fort Moultrie.
+When the American flag was shot away, General Beauregard sent Major
+Anderson another to fight under. When the fort was found to be on fire,
+the polite enemy, who had with such intense energy labored to excite the
+conflagration, offered equally energetic assistance to put it out. The
+only indignation felt throughout the affair was at the conduct of the
+Northern flotilla, which kept outside and took no part in the fray. The
+Southerners resented this as an act of treachery toward their favorite
+enemy, Major Anderson. "Altogether," says the _Times_, "nothing can be
+more free from the furious hatreds, which are distinctive of civil
+warfare, than this bloodless conflict has been." Another London paper
+remarked "No one was hurt. And so ended the first, and, we trust, the
+last engagement of the American Civil War."
+
+Mr. Toombs' prediction, that the attack upon Fort Sumter would "open a
+hornet's nest" in the North, was sustained. The effect of the assault at
+that time and the lowering of the national flag to the forces of the
+Confederacy acted, as Mr. Blaine has stated, "as an inspiration,
+consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all differences." In fact it
+brought matters to a crisis all around, and prepared the two sections
+for the great drama of the War.
+
+An important part of the work of Secretary Toombs was the selection of a
+commission to proceed to Europe and present the Confederate position to
+England and France, in order to secure recognition of the new nation.
+Mr. William L. Yancey was placed at the head of this commission, and
+with him were associated Mr. A. D. Mason of Virginia, and Mr. A. P. Rost
+of Louisiana. The first month of the term of the Confederate Secretary
+of State was occupied in the issue of letters of marque. On the 19th of
+April President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports, and
+declared that privateers with letters of marque from the Southern
+Confederacy should be treated as pirates. This gave Secretary Toombs a
+strong point in dealing with foreign powers. The new government had been
+organized with promptness and ability. Great energy was shown in getting
+the civil and military branches equipped. The Southern position had been
+presented with great strength abroad, and France and England were not
+slow in framing proclamations recognizing the Confederate States as
+belligerents. Next to immediate recognition as a separate nationality,
+this step was significant, and was the first triumph of the diplomacy of
+Secretary Toombs over Secretary Seward. Then came the demand from the
+foreign powers that the blockade must be effectual, imposing a heavy
+burden upon the Northern States. Lord Lyons, acting in Washington in
+concert with the French Government, declared that "Her Majesty's
+Government would consider a decree closing the ports of the South,
+actually in possession of the Confederate States, as null and void, and
+they would not submit to measures on the high seas pursuant to such a
+decree." Mr Seward bitterly complained that Great Britain "did not
+sympathize with this government." The British Minister accordingly
+charged the British Consul at Charleston with the task of obtaining from
+the Confederate Government securities concerning the proper treatment
+of neutrals. He asked the accession of the Lincoln government and of the
+Davis government to the Declaration of Paris of 1856, which had adopted
+as articles of maritime law that privateering be abolished; that the
+neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of
+war; that neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are
+not liable to capture under the enemy's flag; that a blockade, in order
+to be binding, must be effectual, that is, must be maintained by a force
+sufficient to prevent access to the coast of the enemy. These
+conditions, except the first, were accepted by the Confederate
+Government.
+
+The Southern Confederacy thus became parties, as Mr. Blaine says, to "an
+international compact"; and when, a few months later, Mr. Seward offered
+to waive the point made by Secretary Marcy many years before, and accept
+the four articles of the Paris convention, he found himself blocked,
+because the Confederate States had not accepted the first article,
+abolishing privateering, and her privateers must, therefore, be
+recognized. It was by these privateers that great damage was inflicted
+upon American shipping.
+
+The Confederate States had no regular navy, and but few vessels; they
+were an agricultural community, not a commercial or a ship-building
+people. Quite a number of vessels were put in commission under letters
+of marque, and these reached the high seas by running the blockade. Many
+prizes were taken and run into Southern ports. Later on steamers were
+fitted out and sent to sea under command of experienced officers. This
+naval militia captured millions of the enemy's property, and produced a
+great sensation at the North. A Southern agent was sent abroad by the
+naval department to get ships and supplies. "In three years' time," says
+Mr. Blaine, "fifteen millions of property had been destroyed by Southern
+privateers, given to the flames, or sunk beneath the waters. The
+shipping of the United States was reduced one-half, and the commercial
+flag of the Union fluttered with terror in every wind that blew, from
+the whale fisheries of the Arctic to the Southern Cross."
+
+On the 21st of May, the Confederate Congress, after providing for the
+disposition of these naval prizes, and the treatment of prisoners of war
+brought into Southern ports, adjourned to meet on the 20th of July in
+the City of Richmond, now selected as the permanent seat of Government
+of the Confederacy.
+
+The powers of Europe never recognized the Confederate States as a
+separate nation. The leaders of the English Government were, no doubt,
+inclined to this step, but the rank and file of the Liberal party, under
+the leadership of John Bright, refused to sanction such a course toward
+a government whose corner stone was slavery. Mr. Seward ingeniously
+pressed the point that Southern success meant a slave oligarchy around
+the Gulf of Mexico. Russia remained the strong ally of the Northern
+States. England, with the Crimean War fresh upon her hands, hesitated
+before engaging Russia again or imperiling India in the East. France
+could not afford to take the step without the aid of England. Secretary
+Toombs dispatched a Minister to Mexico to look into the interesting
+tumult then going on. Louis Napoleon was filled with his desire of
+establishing Maximilian in Mexico, but his movement did not succeed.
+Maximilian was defeated and executed, and Napoleon found himself too
+much engaged with the House of Hohenzollern in Germany to follow any new
+or original policy in America.
+
+Carlyle declared with dyspeptic acrimony that the Civil War was the
+foulest chimney of the century, and should be allowed to burn out.
+
+Secretary Toombs had issued credentials to commissioners to the
+unseceded Southern States. On the 17th of April Virginia seceded; on the
+28th of May North Carolina went out of the Union; these were followed by
+Tennessee and Arkansas. The border States of Kentucky and Missouri did
+not formally secede, but indignantly declined to furnish troops in
+response to Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. They appointed delegates to a
+Peace Congress to meet in Washington.
+
+The tedious routine of the State Department did not suit the restless
+spirit of Robert Toombs. He had established relations abroad as
+belligerents, and had placed the new government in touch with its
+Southern neighbors. His dispatches were remarkable for brevity,
+clearness, and boldness; his public papers are models of nervous style,
+but he longed for a more active field in the revolution. He chafed under
+red-tape and convention. Toombs charged the new administration with too
+much caution and timidity. He declared that ninety per cent of war was
+business, and that the South must organize victory rather than trust
+entirety to fighting. He urged the government to send over cotton to
+England and buy arms and ships forthwith. "Joe Brown," he impatiently
+declared, "had more guns than the whole Confederacy. No new government,"
+said he, "ever started with such unlimited credit." Mr. Toombs believed
+that the financial part of the Confederacy was a failure. "We could have
+whipped the fight," said he, in his impetuous way, "in the first sixty
+days. The contest was haphazard from the first, and nothing but
+miraculous valor kept it going." Mr. Toombs said that had he been
+President of the Confederacy, he would have mortgaged every pound of
+cotton to France and England at a price that would have remunerated the
+planters, and in consideration of which he would have secured the aid of
+the armies and navies of both countries.
+
+But Robert Toombs concluded that his place was in the field, not in the
+Cabinet. Too many prominent men, he explained, were seeking bombproof
+positions. He received a commission as brigadier general, and on the
+21st of July, 1861, joined Generals Beauregard and Johnston at Manassas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+BRIGADIER GENERAL IN ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.
+
+
+When Robert Toombs resigned the Cabinet and took the field, he still
+held the seat, as was his prerogative, in the Confederate Congress. This
+body, like the British Parliament, sat in chairs, without desks. One
+morning Congress was discussing the Produce Loan. By this measure,
+invitations were given for contributions of cotton and other crops in
+the way of a loan. By the terms of the act these articles were to be
+sold and the proceeds turned over to the Secretary of the Treasury, who
+was to issue eight per cent bonds for them. This was an extraordinary
+measure, and never really amounted to much. Colonel A. R. Lamar, at one
+time Secretary of the Provisional Congress, relates that during this
+debate General Toombs walked into the hall. "He was faultlessly attired
+in a black suit with a military cloak thrown over one shoulder and a
+military hat in his left hand. He made a rattling speech against the
+measure. Drawing himself up, he said: "Mr. Speaker, we have been told
+that Cotton is King, that he will find his way to the vaults of the
+bankers of the Old World; that he can march up to the thrones of mighty
+potentates, and drag from the arsenals of armed nations the dogs of war;
+that he can open our closed ports, and fly our young flag upon all the
+seas. And yet, before the first autumnal frost has blighted a leaf upon
+his coronet, he comes to this hall a trembling mendicant, and says,
+'Give me drink, Titinius, or I perish.'" The effect was magical; Colonel
+Lamar, in commenting upon this dramatic incident, sums up the whole
+character of Robert Toombs:
+
+"He was cautious and safe in counsel, while wild and exasperating in
+speech."
+
+When Mr. Toombs was once asked by an Englishman, where were the files of
+the State Department, he answered that "He carried the archives in his
+hat." When he resigned the position of Secretary of State, Hon. Robert
+M. T. Hunter of Virginia was appointed in his stead. General William M.
+Browne had been Assistant Secretary under Mr. Toombs. He was an
+Englishman, who came to this country during Buchanan's administration
+and edited a Democratic paper in Washington. When General Toombs joined
+the Army his staff was made up as follows; D. M. DuBose, Adjutant
+General; R. J. Moses, Commissary General; W. F. Alexander, Quartermaster
+Major; DeRosset Lamar, Aid-de-camp.
+
+General Toombs' entry into the field, just after the first battle of
+Manassas, found the army of the Confederacy flushed with victory, but
+badly scattered after the first serious engagement of the war. General
+Johnston had declared that even after the decisive advantage at Bull
+Run, pursuit was not to be thought of, for his troops were almost as
+much disorganized by victory as the Federals by their defeat. Many
+soldiers, supposing the war was over, had actually gone home. "Our men,"
+said General Johnston, "had in a larger degree the instincts of personal
+liberty than those of the North, and it was found very difficult to
+subordinate their personal wills to the needs of military discipline."
+
+The battle of Manassas had a powerful effect upon the Northern mind. The
+Lincoln Cabinet was seized with fear for the safety of Washington. New
+troops were summoned to that city, and the materials for a magnificent
+army were placed in the hands of General McClellan, who had succeeded
+McDowell, the luckless victim of Manassas. More than one hundred
+thousand men were now massed in front of Washington, while Joseph E.
+Johnston, with fifty-four thousand, advanced his outposts to
+Centreville, and at Munson's Hill Toombs' brigade was in sight of the
+national capital. His troops could easily watch the workmen building one
+of the wings of the Capitol, and the victorious Confederates, with
+prestige in their ranks, were actually flaunting their flag in the face
+of Mr. Lincoln. This movement, we are told by good generals, was of no
+military value, but it kept the Northern administration in a white heat.
+It confused the Union commanders by crossing their counsels with popular
+clamor and political pressure, and it crippled McClellan when he finally
+moved down the Chesapeake to the peninsula, by detaining a large part of
+his force to pacify the authorities in Washington.
+
+When McClellan and Mr. Lincoln were disputing over their change of base,
+the military situation was suddenly shifted by the evacuation of
+Manassas by the Confederate army, and its retirement first behind the
+Rappahannock, then along the Rapidan. Johnston, it seems, wanted to be
+nearer his base, and on the 8th of March skillfully managed his
+withdrawal, so that the enemy had no idea of his movements. General
+Toombs' brigade started in retreat from Centreville. He did not relish
+this movement. He writes home from Culpepper:
+
+      This has been a sad and destructive business. We were
+      ordered to send off all our heavy baggage, but so badly did
+      they manage that none of it was sent back, and every
+      particle of that baggage, blankets, and every imaginable
+      useful article, was burned up to prevent its falling into
+      the hands of the enemy. My brigade must have lost half a
+      million of property and all the rest were in the same
+      condition. Millions of stores with guns and ammunition were
+      destroyed. Never was any business worse managed. The enemy
+      had no more idea of attacking us in Centreville than they
+      had of attacking the Peaks of Otter. Of course, when we
+      retreated, they sent marauding parties in our trail to
+      watch our retreat and take possession of the country, and
+      now the whole of the beautiful Counties of Loudon,
+      Fauquier, Prince William, Fairfax, and the Lord only knows
+      how many more, are in the possession of the enemy. It was a
+      sad, distressing sight, all the way along, and one that
+      frequently drew tears from my eyes. I do not know what it
+      means, but I would rather have fought ten battles than thus
+      to have abandoned these poor people. We have got to fight
+      somewhere, and if I had my way, I would fight them on the
+      first inch of our soil they invaded, and never cease to
+      fight them as long as I could rally men to defend their
+      homes. The great body of the army is now in the
+      neighborhood, and I suppose we shall abandon these people
+      and retreat back toward Richmond.... My command is in
+      excellent condition. A few broke down on the way, but I
+      managed to have them taken care of there and lost none of
+      them on the march.
+
+One of the great features of General Toombs' control of his brigade was
+the excellent care he took of his men. He never allowed them to be
+imposed upon by the officers or by other commands.
+
+This letter betrays the impatience of General Toombs over any
+mismanagement. He was the soul of business, and as the transportation
+facilities at Manassas were meager, he chafed under the heavy loss to
+which his brigade was subjected in this retreat. With impetuous ardor he
+calls for resistance, not retreat. He did not approve of the "Fabian
+policy" of Joseph E. Johnston. As General Longstreet afterward remarked,
+"Toombs chafed at the delays of the commanders in their preparations for
+battle. His general idea was that the troops went out to fight, and he
+thought that they should be allowed to go at it at once." Near Orange
+Court House, he wrote to his wife on the 19th of March, 1862, "I know
+not what is to become of this country. Davis' incompetency is more
+apparent as our danger increases. Our only hope is Providence."
+
+In January, 1862, the General Assembly of Georgia elected Robert Toombs
+a member of the Confederate States Senate. Benjamin H. Hill was to be
+his colleague. But General Toombs had a different conception of his
+duty. He realized that he had been prominent in shaping the events that
+had led to the Civil War, and he did not shirk the sharpest
+responsibility. He felt that his duty was in the field. He had condemned
+the rush for civil offices and what he called "bombproof positions," and
+he wished at least to lead the way to active duty by remaining with his
+army.
+
+Two months later an effort was made by some of his friends to have him
+appointed Secretary of War. This would have brought him in close contact
+with the army, which he was anxious to serve. The parties behind this
+movement believed that the great abilities of Mr. Toombs should not be
+hidden behind the command of a brigade. He would have made an ideal war
+minister. His genius for details and his ability to manage affairs and
+plan campaigns would have overmatched Edwin M. Stanton. But Mr. Toombs
+promptly cut off this movement in his behalf.
+
+On 22d March, 1862, he wrote to his wife from Orange Court House, Va.:
+
+      I thought I had been very explicit on that point. I would
+      not be Mr. Davis' chief clerk. His Secretary of War can
+      never be anything else. I told my friends in Richmond to
+      spare me the necessity of declining if they found it in
+      contemplation. I have not heard that they had any occasion
+      to interfere.... So far as I am concerned, Mr. Davis will
+      never give me a chance for personal distinction. He thinks
+      I pant for it, poor fool. I want nothing but the defeat of
+      the public enemy and to retire with you for the balance of
+      my life in peace and quiet in any decent corner of a free
+      country. It may be his injustice will drive me from the
+      army, but I shall not quit it until after a great victory,
+      in which I shall have the opportunity of doing something
+      for the country. The day after such an event I shall
+      retire, if I live through it. I have grievances enough now
+      to quit, but I shall bide my time. I get along very well
+      with the army. I have not seen Johnston but once; he was
+      polite and clever. George W. Smith I see every day. He is a
+      first-rate gentleman and a good officer. I hear from
+      Stephens constantly, but from nobody else in Richmond....
+      You say you pray for me daily. I need it. Put it in your
+      prayers that if it be the will of God that I shall fall, a
+      sacrifice in this great conflict, that I may meet it as
+      becomes a gentleman.
+
+An instance of General Toombs' impatience under red-tape rules may be
+recalled. A member of his brigade was taken ill, and he secured for him
+entrance into the hospital of Richmond. The hospital was crowded;
+regulations were stringent, and under some technical ruling his sick
+soldier was shipped back to his brigade. Toombs was fired with
+indignation. He proceeded to sift the affair to the bottom, and was told
+that General Johnston had fixed the rules. This did not deter him.
+Riding up to the commander's tent and securing admission, he proceeded
+to upbraid the general as only Toombs could do. When he returned to his
+headquarters he narrated the circumstance to Dr. Henry H. Steiner, his
+brigade surgeon and lifelong friend. Dr. Steiner, who had been a surgeon
+in the regular army, and had served in the Mexican war, was a better
+tactical officer than Toombs. He was himself fearless and upright, but
+full of tact and discretion. "General," said Dr. Steiner, "you have been
+too rash; you will be arrested." Toombs replied that he thought so, too.
+He held himself in anticipation for two or three days, but he was not
+disturbed. When he was finally summoned to General Johnston's tent, it
+was to consult over a plan of movement, and it was noticed that Toombs
+was the only brigadier in counsel. General Johnston subsequently
+remarked that Toombs was the biggest brained man in the Confederacy. The
+boldness and clearness of the impetuous Georgian had captured the grim
+hero of Manassas, who forgave the affront in the face of the
+overmastering mind of the man.
+
+General McClellan reached Fortress Monroe, April 2, 1862, and commenced
+his march up the peninsula. The country is low and flat, and the season
+was unusually wet and dismal. The objective point was Richmond,
+seventy-five miles away, and the first obstruction met by the Federal
+army was at Yorktown. The defense adopted by General Magruder was a
+series of dams extending along the Warwick River, which stretched across
+the peninsula from the York to the James River, a distance of thirteen
+miles. The fords along the Warwick had been destroyed by dams defended
+by redoubts, and the invader and defender were stationed in dense
+swamps. At dam No. 1 Toombs' troops were often under fire. They fought
+with spirit. Each detachment was on duty defending the dam forty-eight
+hours, and between long exposure in the trenches, the frequent alarms,
+and sharp sorties, the service was very exhausting. It was only possible
+to change troops at night. On the 16th of April Toombs writes:
+
+      One of my regiments, the 17th Georgia, had a skirmish day
+      before yesterday. They acted splendidly, charging the
+      Yankees, and driving them from the rifle-pits, killing,
+      wounding, and taking prisoners over one hundred of the
+      enemy. I lost but two killed and a few wounded.
+
+At the siege of Yorktown in the early part of May, 1862, General Toombs
+commanded a division consisting of his own and Semmes' brigades. He had
+2357 men in his own and 2342 in Semmes' brigade, making about 4700
+troops in line. During this siege General Magruder reports that General
+Toombs supported Cobb's brigade, and promptly and energetically led the
+remainder of his command under fire, arriving just before the enemy
+ceased their attack, and in time to share its danger. General Magruder
+had only 11,000 men under him in the peninsula, and General Huger but
+8000, to oppose McClellan's march with 80,000. Johnston and Lee both
+pronounced the peninsula untenable, and on the 4th of May Yorktown was
+evacuated.
+
+After the retreat from the peninsula, General Johnston concentrated his
+entire army behind the Chickahominy River, sixteen miles from Richmond.
+On the 12th of May General Toombs writes home that his command near the
+Chickahominy was "resting easily after a disagreeable march from
+Yorktown. I hear that there is great consternation in Richmond.... The
+loss of New Orleans gives us a terrible blow, and, followed by Norfolk,
+makes it necessary for us to strike a decisive blow somewhere." On 19th
+of May, 1862, he writes home from the camp near Richmond:
+
+      We seem to have come up here to defend this city. You ask
+      me my opinion of the present state of the country. It is
+      bad enough. The utter incompetency of Mr. Davis and his
+      West Point generals have brought us to the verge of ruin.
+      If McClellan is unwise enough to fight us here, we shall
+      whip and drive him out of Virginia.... As to Richmond, it
+      will never be taken while this army is here.
+
+General Toombs' estimate of the army and of the futility of an attack
+from McClellan was justified when, after the 26th of June, the Army of
+the Potomac, almost in sight of the spires of Richmond, was forced to
+reel back, in the deadly clinch of a seven days' combat, to the James
+River. The Confederate army changed its position from one of retreat to
+a brilliant and aggressive policy, and the subtle tactics of Johnston
+gave way to the bold strokes of Lee. The South was thrilled with
+victory.
+
+General Toombs frequently referred to the incompetency of Mr. Davis. The
+letters which have just been quoted were written to his wife, and were
+not made public then, but he did not hesitate to express his opinion
+openly. Jefferson Davis and Mr. Toombs had some differences while the
+former was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce and Mr. Toombs was in
+the Senate. Mr. Toombs believed that President Davis was too partial to
+West Point, at which school Mr. Davis had been trained, and that in his
+management of the army he showed the tenacity of a martinet rather than
+the breadth of a statesman.
+
+In February, 1859, the Army Appropriation bill had come up before the
+United States Senate. Mr. Toombs attacked, and Mr. Davis defended the
+whole system. Mr. Toombs contended that the compensation of army
+officers was too great. It was more than the same talent could command
+in any other walk of life. It was upon a wrong basis. "You take a boy of
+sixteen and send him to West Point, and when he comes out you give him
+$1400 a year. In the course of a few years you carry him up to $3000,
+$6000, or $8000. Take the general employment of the youths of the
+country who are educated at the different colleges for all civil
+purposes. You may have the highest amount of genius and intellect, and
+you get nothing like such average there. It will take them many years to
+make that much money." Mr. Toombs declared that a brigadier general's
+commission was higher than that of a United States Senator. "I think,"
+said he, "it requires as great qualifications to govern this country as
+it does to be a brigadier general." Officers had increased far beyond
+the wants of the country. Members of Congress appoint cadets for the
+different districts; "they are generally associated in some way, as
+brothers, sons, or cousins, with the governing power." He thought a
+salary of $600 or $900 for the West Point graduates enough. According
+to the way army commissions were valued in England, the commission of a
+lieutenant who graduated at West Point could not be worth less than
+$50,000. The pay of a captain was higher than that of a judge. That
+position required the highest ability and integrity, and the average
+salary of a judge was but $2000, without traveling expenses. Mr. Toombs
+contended that West Point men seldom reflected any opinions but those of
+the government which employed them. They seldom sympathized with the
+people, and he wanted a government of the people. "You take a boy to
+West Point," he said, "give him quarters, and fuel, and clothes, and
+maintain him, and you say he has rendered service. When the citizens of
+this country send their sons to college they pay their expenses or work
+their way through; but when a boy is carried to West Point he is taken
+care of; a house is provided for him; clothes are provided for him;
+instructors are provided for him, and that is called being in service. I
+lay down the proposition that the true theory of wages, if you employ
+these people to keep the peace, is exactly the same--a constable's
+pay--you ought to pay them what they can be had for."
+
+Mr. Davis held that army officers were constantly tempted to resign by
+offers of higher pay. It was the training of these men in the service,
+not for the service, it was their attachment for the country which made
+them so valuable. It was better to instruct men for officers' places and
+then appoint them, than to appoint them and then instruct them. He
+thought appointments were free from partisan selection. A soldier's
+devotion was as broad as the continent. A West Point cadet is a warrant
+officer; he goes there to serve the government as it may direct. It
+directs him to stay there until he has sufficient elementary instruction
+to properly discharge the duties of an officer.
+
+The debate showed the views of the two men, and indicated the
+differences which, from points of public policy, soon deepened into
+personal dislike. On the 30th of May, Toombs wrote from the army, "Davis
+is polite and formal; so am I."
+
+In the latter part of 1862 it was evident that the two armies must meet
+and contend for the mastery in Virginia. The day before the seven days'
+fighting commenced, Dr. Steiner said to General Toombs, his intimate
+friend: "General, I have a favor to ask of you. Keep your mind unclouded
+during these important operations." Dr. Steiner knew that during the
+heat and excitement of battle, temptation was great among soldiers to
+take ardent spirits, a practice that had grown somewhat upon General
+Toombs during his service in the field, and which at times deprived him
+of his best powers. "Why, doctor, I gladly promise," said the great
+Georgian. Nor did he, during the week, take a glass of any sort of
+liquor.
+
+General Toombs' brigade was the First Brigade, First Division, Army of
+Northern Virginia, and during the campaign of the peninsula, was in
+Magruder's division. On June 15, 1862, Toombs occupied the most exposed
+position, which was held for nine days. Magruder recommended relief for
+his troops, which had been suffering from lack of rest and care. Just
+before the seven days' fight Toombs' brigade was placed in D. R. Jones'
+division and Magruder commanded his own, Jones', and McLaw's divisions,
+holding about 13,000 men. Toombs' brigade was composed of the 1st, 15th,
+17th, and 20th Georgia regiments.
+
+On the 26th of June Toombs' brigade was posted upon the east of
+Garnett's House, on Golding's farm, just in front of the enemy. Both
+sides threw up breastworks so near that neither could advance its picket
+line. "Just before dark," says Dr. Steiner, "Mr. Toombs received orders
+to charge the enemy, firing having been heard on the left. The position
+was a dangerous one. A charge at that time of the evening was perilous.
+Just in front lay a deep gulch--Labor-in-Vain Ravine--which was alive
+with the enemy, and the charge must be through an unprotected field of
+wheat and clover. General Toombs was astonished at the order. His first
+instructions had been to put himself near Garnett House, to hold his
+position and to take advantage of any retreat of the enemy. He doubted
+the authenticity of the order, and sent word that he would not obey
+unless in writing. Pretty soon written instructions were returned and
+General Toombs prepared for what he believed to be a forlorn hope. He
+advanced seven companies of the 2d Georgia Regiment, 750 men, under
+Colonel B. M. Butt, toward the enemy in the face of a heavy front and
+flank fire. Colonel Williams' regiment crossed the field at double-quick
+under a galling fire from the opposite side of the ravine. Unshaken by
+fearful odds, they held their ground and replied with spirit. The 15th
+Georgia Regiment, under Colonel McIntosh then entered the fight, and
+this gallant officer was mortally wounded. The 17th Georgia charged on
+the left and the 20th on the right. The engagement was a very bloody
+one. Over 200 of Toombs' men were lost and several valuable officers
+were killed. The opposing troops were a part of General Hancock's
+command, and the firing ceased only with the night. Next morning the
+enemy retreated, and Toombs' men pressed forward and held their
+position. General Toombs was censured for this engagement, for which, it
+seems, he was in no wise responsible.
+
+On the 1st of July, about three o'clock in the afternoon, commenced one
+of the famous battles of the war. McClellan's army had gotten away from
+its perilous position astride the Chickahominy, and now found itself
+united and strongly intrenched on the heights of Malvern Hill. All hope
+of destroying that army was gone, and it was evident that an engagement
+must ensue, with the odds in favor of the Union army. It was in many
+respects like the battle of Gettysburg, except that the Confederate
+forces were not handled with the precision and effectiveness of the
+historic sorties against Cemetery Heights. The battlefield was in plain
+range of the enemy's gunboats, and there was much surprise that General
+Lee should have sanctioned an engagement at that point. General D. H.
+Hill misunderstood the signal for attack at Malvern Hill, and late in
+the afternoon ordered the charge. Toombs' brigade had been marching and
+countermarching all day, and went into action much thinned from the
+effects of the sharp fighting at Labor-in-Vain Ravine. There was no
+concerted attack. The charge seems to have been made by brigades, even
+single regiments being thrown forward. They advanced through a swamp,
+and the difficulties of the charge, owing to a murderous fire which
+raked the plain from the hills, 600 yards away, cannot be exaggerated.
+Toombs' brigade was one of the first to reach the plateau swept by
+fifty guns. It advanced with Anderson's brigade, but obliqued to the
+left about half-way up the hill, and took position near a fence, where
+the troops, suffering fearfully from the cool, deadly aim of the Federal
+gunners, were ordered to lie down and secure some shelter from the
+cannon-shot. It was at this time that General D. H. Hill rode up to
+General Toombs and ordered his brigade forward. Some sharp words ensued
+between these officers, and the men moved forward handsomely to the brow
+of the hill. At this time, however, the steady stream of fugitives
+pressing back from the charge, broke the alignment of the brigade and
+separated the regiments. Colonel Butt's regiment went forward with
+Kershaw's brigade. The whole Confederate charge was soon checked and the
+troops fell back in disorder. Their loss was fully 5000 men, and the
+loss in Toombs' brigade was 219 men, making his losses in the two
+engagements over one-third of his entire number. Malvern Hill was a
+blunder which was never repeated, but it was a disastrous one for the
+Georgia troops.
+
+The subjoined correspondence will be understood in the light of the
+meeting of General D. H. Hill and General Toombs near Malvern Hill
+during the progress of the charge of the Confederate forces.
+
+
+      HEADQUARTERS FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION,
+      In the Field, July 6, 1862.
+
+      MAJOR GENERAL D. H. HILL.
+
+      _Sir_: Military movements since Tuesday last have prevented
+      an earlier reply to your conversation with me on the
+      battlefield that evening. I understood you to say, among
+      other things, that "Your (my) brigade would not fight";
+      that you "always knew it would not fight"; that it
+      "pretended to want to fight, but would not"; "Where were
+      you when I was riding in front on my horse trying to rally
+      your brigade?" I desire first to know whether I am correct
+      in my understanding of your language, and if not, wherein I
+      am mistaken.
+
+      And secondly, to request of you such explanation of that
+      language as you may choose to give.
+
+                                      I am sir,
+                                        Your obedient servant,
+                                          ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+      July 6, 1862.
+
+      _General_: Your note has just been received. My remarks
+      were personal to yourself and not to your brigade. I did
+      not in the slightest degree reflect on your men. What I
+      said was in substance this: "You have been wanting to
+      fight, and now that you have one, you have got out of it."
+      There were witnesses to our conversation, and if my remarks
+      were severer, I will let you know.
+
+      It may be well to suggest to you that, as the commanding
+      officer on the field, I have an official report to make
+      which will not be modified by your note.
+
+      It is notorious that you have a thousand times expressed
+      your disgust that the commanding general did not permit you
+      to fight. It is equally notorious that you retired from
+      the field. These are the two facts of which I reminded you
+      on Tuesday. I made no comment upon them, and if the simple
+      truth has been offensive, the interpretation of it has been
+      your own.
+
+                                      Yours truly,
+                                        D. H. HILL,
+      BRIGADIER GENERAL TOOMBS.             Major General.
+
+
+      HEADQUARTERS FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION,
+      July 6, 1862.
+
+      GENERAL D. H. HILL.
+
+      _Sir_: Your note of this date has just been received. It is
+      scarcely necessary for me to say it is not satisfactory. It
+      would be inappropriate to comment upon it properly in this
+      note, and for that reason alone I waive it for the present.
+
+      As to your remark that you were the commanding officer on
+      the field on the 1st inst., I never before heard of it, nor
+      do I now think so, but, however that fact may be, I am at a
+      loss to know for what reason you state it unless it was to
+      menace and intimidate me in the pursuit of proper
+      satisfaction for the unprovoked insult you have cast upon
+      me. If that was your object, this note will satisfy you
+      that you have failed in your object. I now demand of you
+      personal satisfaction for the insult you cast upon my
+      command and myself on the battlefield on the 1st inst., and
+      for the repetition and aggravation thereof in your note of
+      this day. I refer you to my friend Colonel Benning for all
+      necessary arrangements.
+
+                                      Your obedient servant,
+                                        ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+      CAMP NEAR RICHMOND, VA.,
+      July 12, 1862.
+
+      _General_: Your note of the 6th was received yesterday. I
+      must again enter my protest against your second declaration
+      that I reflected upon your brigade in the battle of
+      Malvern Hill. Witnesses to our interview affirm that my
+      remarks were entirely personal to yourself.
+
+      In regard to your demand for satisfaction, I construe it to
+      mean either that I must apologize to you for the language
+      used by me on the battlefield, or that I must grant you a
+      hostile meeting. If the first interpretation be correct, I
+      will state that I will make full, public, and ample
+      concessions when satisfied that I did you injustice; and
+      this I would do without any demand. I certainly thought
+      that you had taken the field too late, and that you left it
+      too early. You may, however, have done your whole duty, and
+      held your ground as long as it was possible for a brave and
+      skillful officer to hold it. If the facts prove this to be
+      so, no one will be more gratified than myself, and my
+      acknowledgment of error will be cordial and complete.
+
+      But if your demand means a challenge, its acceptance, when
+      we have a country to defend and enemies to fight, would be
+      highly improper and contrary to the dictates of plain duty,
+      without reference to higher grounds of action. I will not
+      make myself a party to a course of conduct forbidden alike
+      by the plainest principles of duty, and the laws which we
+      have mutually sworn to serve.
+
+                                      Yours truly,
+                                        D. H. HILL, Major General.
+      BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+Just what General Toombs replied to this is not known. The letter has
+not been preserved in this correspondence. It evidently declared that
+the explanation was not satisfactory. Major R. J. Moses, Jr., a member
+of General Toombs' staff, submitted in writing the following report of
+his recollection of General Hill's words to General Toombs at Malvern
+Hill:
+
+      Where is your brigade, sir? I told you that I wanted a
+      fighting brigade, and your brigade will not fight. I knew
+      it would not, and you are the man who pretends to have been
+      spoiling for a fight. For shame! Rally your troops! Where
+      were you when I was riding up and down your line rallying
+      your troops?
+
+Major Moses adds:
+
+      As aid-de-camp of General Robert Toombs, I remained with
+      him until some time after this conversation. Previous to
+      this conversation General Toombs had been about fifteen
+      yards to the rear of the center of his line and his troops
+      were unbroken. There were many men coming by us, but I saw
+      not over ten from General Toombs' brigade. The order was
+      given "Forward, left oblique," and General Toombs moved to
+      the left of his line. When General Hill met him and
+      commenced this attack on the character of himself and his
+      brigade without the slightest provocation, General Toombs
+      had not only been rallying the troops, but continued to use
+      his best endeavors to rally them till late at night. I was
+      with General Toombs the whole time from the commencement of
+      the action until half or three-quarters of an hour after
+      the conversation.
+
+The following is the concluding letter of the correspondence:
+
+      July 15, 1862.
+
+      _General_: I regret that my last note, which was intended
+      to be conciliatory, has been misunderstood or
+      misappreciated. I take it for granted that you know enough
+      of my previous history to be aware that a hostile meeting,
+      under any circumstances, would be abhorrent to my
+      principles and character. At this time it would be in the
+      highest degree improper. I have offered you the only
+      redress which I could make even after a meeting, viz., an
+      acknowledgment of error when convinced of that error. As no
+      good can result from a continued correspondence, it will
+      close on my part with this communication.
+
+                                      Yours truly,
+                                        D. H. HILL, Major General.
+      BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+General Hill was a good man and a brave soldier. His devotion to the
+Confederate cause was undoubted, but his zeal sometimes made him harsh,
+and more than once he placed himself in the position of reflecting upon
+the conduct of others. On one occasion at the battle of Chickamauga,
+where General Hill was in command of the extreme right of the
+Confederate line, on the second day of the battle information was
+brought to him of the sudden and unexpected advance of a strong Federal
+force against his line. It proved to be the division of the Federal
+General Gordon Granger. General Hill and General W. H. T. Walker, who
+commanded two divisions under General Hill, proceeded at once to the
+threatened point, to ascertain the situation of affairs, accompanied by
+some members of their staff. Arrived at a point where this new arrival
+of Federal forces could be seen, General Walker deferred to General Hill
+and asked him, "What do you wish me to do?"
+
+"What do I want you to do?" said Hill with severity, and even with
+something like a snarl, "I want you to fight."
+
+General Walker flushed up in a moment. He was not a man to deserve any
+reflection upon his courage or to bear it when offered. No man in the
+old army had a higher and more deserved reputation for dashing courage.
+He had been desperately wounded in Florida, and again wounded, supposed
+to be mortally, in leading the assault on Chapultepec in the Mexican
+War, and had, on many occasions, given undoubted evidence of his valor
+and fidelity. He answered hotly, "Of course I will fight; you know that,
+General Hill, well enough; but, by God! sir, there are two ways of
+fighting, one to whip and the other to get whipped."
+
+The point was a good one. Major Joseph B. Cumming, chief of General
+Walker's staff, who related this incident, says it had the desired
+effect.
+
+When Longstreet marched against Pope he stationed General Toombs'
+brigade to guard one of the fords of the Rapidan. Toombs was absent at
+the time and when he rode up ordered them back to camp. General
+Longstreet heard of Toombs making stump speeches and "referring in
+anything but complimentary terms of his commander." He sent General
+Toombs to Gordonsville. Afterward he received an apology from Toombs and
+directed him to join his command. ["]As we were preparing for the
+charge at Manassas (second battle), Toombs got there, riding rapidly
+with his hat in his hand, and was much enthused. I was just sending a
+courier to his command with a dispatch. 'Let me take it,' he exclaimed.
+'With pleasure,' I responded, and handed him the paper. He put spurs to
+his horse and dashed off, accompanied by his courier. When he rode up
+and took command of his brigade there was wild enthusiasm, and,
+everything being ready, an exultant shout was sent up, and the men
+sprang to the charge. I never had any more trouble with Toombs. We were
+afterward warm personal friends."
+
+On the 30th of August, 1862, Hon. A. H. Stephens wrote to Mrs. Toombs
+that General Toombs was still at Gordonsville. He said:
+
+      How long he will remain, I do not know. I thought at first
+      that it would only be for a day or two, or until General
+      Longstreet could receive and reply to two notes he had
+      written, explaining to my mind very fully and
+      satisfactorily his acts and conduct, which, it seems to me,
+      General Longstreet had misunderstood. Such is still my
+      opinion, and yet I may be mistaken. I do not know much of
+      General Longstreet. I only know that General Toombs, who
+      does know him, always expressed very high admiration of him
+      as an officer.
+
+At the second battle of Manassas, August 29, 1862, Toombs' brigade in
+Jones' division held the rear of Longstreet's corps. Early in the
+morning the brigade took up the march in the direction of the old
+battlefield of Manassas, where heavy firing was heard. Arriving at noon
+it was stationed on the extreme right, or upon the Manassas Gap
+railroad. The brigades formed in echelon. General Longstreet in his
+published report commended especially General Toombs for gallant conduct
+at Manassas Plain.
+
+General D. R. Jones, in his report of Manassas, says:
+
+      General Toombs, released from arrest, under which he had
+      been since the 18th of August, came upon the field shortly
+      after his brigade went in under fire and accompanied it in
+      action.
+
+Captain H. L. French, of the 17th Georgia Regiment, says: "Soon after
+our engagement, to our great satisfaction, we unexpectedly met our
+gallant commander, Brigadier General Robert Toombs, who, anticipating
+the fight, had ridden hard all day. He was greeted with hearty cheers,
+and said, 'Boys, I am proud of the report given of you by General Jones.
+I could not be with you to-day, but this was owing to no fault of mine.
+To-morrow I lead you.'"
+
+One report of this engagement declares that as Toombs dashed into the
+fire and joined his men, he waved his hat and shouted, "Go it, boys! I
+am with you again. Jeff Davis can make a general, but it takes God
+Almighty to make a soldier!"
+
+The expulsion of Pope only accelerated the momentum of the Army of
+Northern Virginia. From the front of Richmond, the theater of operations
+was transferred at once to the front of Washington, and the Union army
+was again on the defensive. General Lee, freed from the necessity of
+guarding the Confederate capital, resolved to invade Maryland. He
+reasoned that the prestige of the invasion would advance the cause of
+the young nation abroad; that it would relieve Virginia from incursions
+during the winter, and that the presence of the army in Maryland would
+raise the standard of revolt and cause the liberation of that State from
+the Union cause. Lee's army, however, was not equal to such an
+expedition. It was not well clothed or armed, and barely numbered
+40,000, while McClellan had 80,000.
+
+Toombs' brigade accompanied Longstreet's corps in its counter-march from
+Hagarstown to Hill's support. On the 14th of September these were
+withdrawn to the valley of the Antietam. The creek of Antietam runs
+obliquely to the source of the Potomac, and empties into that river six
+miles above Harper's Ferry. The Confederate lines were, on the 15th,
+drawn up in front of Sharpsburg, Longstreet being on the right of the
+road from Sharpsburg.
+
+In this place the creek is crossed by four stone bridges, and three of
+these were strongly guarded by the Confederates. Burnside's army corps
+was stationed on the Sharpsburg Turnpike, directly in front of bridge
+No. 3. The preliminary deploy occupied the 16th of September, an
+artillery duel enlivening the time before the battle. Burnside lay
+behind the heights on the east bank of the Antietam and opposite the
+Confederate right, which, Swinton says, it was designed he should
+assail, after forcing the passage of the Antietam by the lower stone
+bridge. The part assigned to General Burnside was of the highest
+importance, for a successful attack by him upon the Confederate right,
+would, by carrying the Sharpsburg Crest, force Lee from his line of
+retreat by way of Shepherdstown. Swinton says this task should have been
+an easy one, for the Confederate forces at this point had been drawn
+upon to recruit the left where Hooker had made his furious assaults.
+
+There was left in the right wing of the Confederate army but a single
+division of 2500 men under General D. R. Jones, and the force actually
+present to dispute the passage of the stone bridge did not exceed 400.
+These troops were under the direction of General Robert Toombs, and this
+engagement made his reputation as a fighter and was one of the most
+brilliant and memorable of the Civil War. It was one o'clock before
+Burnside charged. General Lee, in his report of the battle, said:
+
+      In the afternoon the enemy advanced on our right, where
+      General Jones' division was posted, who handsomely
+      maintained his position. General Toombs' brigade, guarding
+      the bridge on Antietam Creek, gallantly resisted the
+      approach of the enemy, but his superior number enabling him
+      to extend his left, he crossed below the bridge and assumed
+      a threatening attitude on our right, which fell back in
+      confusion. By this time, between 3 and 4 o'clock P.M., A.
+      P. Hill, with five of his brigades, reached the scene of
+      action and drove the enemy from the position they had
+      taken. The bridge was defended with two regiments of
+      Toombs' brigade (2d and 20th) and the batteries of General
+      Jones. General Toombs' small command repulsed five
+      different assaults made by greatly superior forces, and
+      maintained its position with distinguished gallantry....
+      Toombs charged the flank of the enemy, while Archer moved
+      upon the front of the Federal line. The enemy made a brief
+      resistance and then ran in confusion.
+
+Such commendation from the commander-in-chief of the Confederate army
+speaks for itself.
+
+Speaking of the last charge, when the Federals were driven back over the
+creek in the counter-attack, General Jones says:
+
+      General Toombs, whom I had sent for, arriving from the
+      right with a portion of his brigade (11th Georgia
+      Regiment) was ordered to charge the enemy. This he did
+      most gallantly, supported by Archer's brigade, delivering
+      fire at less than fifty yards, dashing at the enemy with
+      the bayonet, forcing him from the crest and following him
+      down the hill.
+
+General Garnett's report credits Toombs with having "reënforced the
+right just after it had been driven back, and restored the fortunes of
+the day in that quarter."
+
+From the report of General Toombs it appeared that when he first moved
+into Maryland he was assigned to command a division composed of Toombs',
+Drayton's, and Anderson's brigades, and took possession of Hagerstown.
+On September 14 he was ordered to Sharpsburg, two of his regiments
+having been sent to Williamsport to protect the wagon trains. With two
+small regiments left, General Toombs took position near the bridge over
+the Antietam on the road to Harper's Ferry. He took possession of the
+ground with the 20th Georgia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Jonathan B.
+Cumming, and the 2d Georgia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Holmes. The
+creek was comparatively straight by this bridge. He formed his regiments
+along the creek in more open order than was desirable on account of the
+smallness of his number. Subsequently the 50th Georgia, with scarcely
+100 men, was placed under his command. Colonel Eubanks' battery was by
+order of General Longstreet placed in his rear. The enemy opened on his
+position on Tuesday evening, the 16th of September. On Wednesday
+morning, his pickets were driven in and the enemy menaced his position.
+The ground descended gently to the creek covered with a narrow strip of
+woods, affording slight protection. The enemy approached by the road
+parallel with his line of battle, he says, exposing his flank to a
+destructive fire. Between 9 A. M. and 1 P. M. the Federals made five
+attempts to carry the bridge, and were repulsed by the 2d and 20th
+Georgia regiments. Failing to wrest the bridge from its heroic
+defenders, the enemy turned his attention to the fords. "Not being able
+to get reënforcements, and seeing that the enemy would cross and attack
+my front, right flank, and rear, Colonel Holmes having been killed,
+Major Harris wounded, both regiments having suffered heavily, ammunition
+nearly exhausted, and the battery withdrawn, I withdrew my command to a
+position, designated by Longstreet, opposite the lower fords. This
+change of position was made very satisfactorily and without serious
+loss. The 15th and 17th Georgia regiments and part of the 11th,
+previously detached, now came up and occupied the new position. The 20th
+and 2d went to the ammunition train to replenish their cartridge boxes.
+The enemy moved through the bridge and ford with extreme caution, and
+lost nearly two hours in crossing, about which time A. P. Hill's
+division came from Harper's Ferry. I was ordered by Longstreet to put my
+command in motion to meet the enemy. I found them in possession of the
+ground I was ordered to occupy, including the bridge road and the
+suburbs of Sharpsburg. With less than one-fifth the numbers of the enemy
+and within 100 paces of his lines I determined to give battle. I had
+instantly to determine either to retreat or to fight. A retreat would
+have left the town of Sharpsburg and General Longstreet's rear open to
+the enemy. The enemy advanced in good order to within sixty or eighty
+paces, when the effectiveness of the fire threw his column into
+considerable confusion, perceiving which I instantly ordered a charge,
+which was brilliantly executed by my whole line. The enemy fled in
+confusion toward the river, making two or three efforts to rally, which
+were soon defeated. The enemy brought over the bridge a battery. I
+ordered Richardson's battery to open upon it, and at the same time the
+15th and 20th Georgia charged upon it and compelled it to rejoin the
+flying infantry. I desired to pursue the enemy across the river, but,
+being deficient in artillery, I sent to General Lee for a battery, which
+came up too late. I then determined to move my troops to my first
+position along the river, but received the order to occupy the heights
+on the opposite side of the road leading to the bridge from Sharpsburg,
+and there the troops bivouacked for the night."
+
+The gallant conduct of Toombs' brigade at Sharpsburg was the theme on
+both sides. The country rang with its exploits and the fiery Georgia
+brigadier became the toast of the army. Burnside's heavy losses
+abundantly proved the stoutness of the resistance and the deadliness of
+the charges of the Georgia troops.
+
+The next evening, on the edge of Sharpsburg, General Toombs and his aids
+crossed a little branch on his way to the headquarters of Colonel
+Benning. General Toombs rode his famous mare "Gray Alice," so well known
+to his command. He was not very far over when a troop of cavalry rode
+up. He challenged them, and they answered "We are friends." Captain
+Troup of his staff, however, detected the ruse and fired into them. The
+squad returned the fire. General Toombs was shot through the hand with
+which he was holding the reins. The gray mare at once became
+unmanageable and ran back across the branch. As soon as he could control
+the mare, General Toombs rode back to Colonel Benning and, reporting his
+wound, turned his brigade over to Colonel Benning. When it became known
+that General Toombs was wounded his men were deeply pained. Always
+solicitous for their welfare, his soldiers were devotedly attached to
+him. He took care of his brigade even to the extremity of violating army
+discipline. He exacted the utmost consideration for his men, and the
+officer who periled their safety, or disputed their efficiency, was
+quickly called to account. Whether against Johnston, Longstreet, or
+Hill, the First Brigade, First Division, was sure of a fearless champion
+in the person of its commander.
+
+The battle of Sharpsburg was a very bloody one. The losses on the
+Federal side were nearly 12,500, while the Confederates lost 8000. Lee
+withdrew into Virginia, and McClellan was too much demoralized to
+follow. Longstreet, in summing up the Manassas and Maryland campaign,
+declared that in one month the troops had marched over two hundred miles
+upon little more than half rations and fought nine battles and
+skirmishes. They had "killed, wounded, and captured nearly as many men
+as we had in our ranks, besides taking arms and other munitions of war
+in large quantities." General Longstreet compliments Brigadier General
+Toombs for his "gallant defense at the bridge of Antietam and his
+vigorous charge upon the enemy's flank; he was severely wounded at the
+close of the engagement."
+
+General Toombs returned to his home after Sharpsburg, and remained
+several months. He rejoined his command near Fredericksburg, but in
+March, 1863, wrote a touching farewell to his brigade and resigned his
+commission in the army of Northern Virginia. It seemed to him that he
+did not have justice done him at Richmond. He aspired, with the ambition
+of a soldier, to be promoted in his country's service. His conduct at
+Sharpsburg, where he wrung admiration from his superior officers,
+appeared to call for recognition from the President, but he did not
+receive his major-generalship, and, although more than once in the
+actual command of a division, did not secure that title. It is true that
+he would have liked the promotion; but he did not expect it. He had
+written to his wife that he would not be driven from the army until
+after some great battle, when he should have the opportunity of doing
+something for his country. "The day after such an event, I will retire
+if I live through it." The battle had occurred, his record was written
+upon the stone bridge of Antietam, and his work was at an end.
+
+Postmaster-General Reagan was one of those who recognized the merits of
+General Toombs. Twice did he approach President Davis with the request
+that General Toombs be promoted to the command of a division. That
+official replied promptly that he did not oppose it himself, but that he
+could not do it without the recommendation of the army officers, and
+that recommendation had not been given. Possibly the field officers
+believed the suggestion would have been ungracious to Mr. Davis.
+General Toombs had not hesitated to criticise the policy and
+appointments of the Richmond administration. That practice had strained
+his relations with the Confederate Government, but Toombs was a man who
+"would not flatter Neptune for his trident."
+
+General Toombs was not a trained soldier, but he had some fine points of
+a great commander. He was the soul of energy and common sense. He was
+bold, dashing, magnetic. He had the quality of infusing his spirit into
+his men. His quick mind seized the points of a campaign, and his
+intellect was broad and overmastering. It is related of him that one day
+in Virginia he hurried to the rear for a conference with Jefferson
+Davis, to which the President had summoned him, upon some point of civil
+administration. This business over, he dashed back to the front, where
+he had an engagement with General Lee over a plan of attack. General
+Longstreet said Toombs had the kindling eye and rare genius of a
+soldier, but lacked the discipline of a military man. This was the
+serious flaw in his character. He had what General Johnston declared was
+the great drawback about the Southern soldier, "a large endowment of the
+instinct of personal liberty," and it was difficult to subordinate his
+will to the needs of military discipline. He had been accustomed to
+priority, and in whatever company, under whatever conditions he found
+himself, his had been the part to lead and to rule. As Colonel Thomas W.
+Thomas had said of him, "Toombs has always been the big frog in the
+pond." Men conceded to him this prestige. Under the cast-iron rule of
+the army he found himself subordinated to men intellectually beneath
+him, but trained and skilled in the art of war. He was swift to detect
+error, and impatient in combating blunder. The rule of mediocrity, the
+red tape of the service, the restraints of the corps, the tactics of the
+field galled his imperious spirit. He commanded his brigade as he had
+represented his State in the Senate--as a sovereign and independent
+body, and like the heroic Helvetian had blazoned on his crest, "No one
+shall cross me with impunity."
+
+Robert Toombs made a mistake in sinking himself in the routine of a
+brigade commander. He should have taken the War Department, or, like
+Pitt, have pushed the war from the floor of the Senate. Swinton says
+that Abraham Lincoln brought the habits of a politician to military
+affairs, in which their intrusion can only result in confusion of just
+relations. There is ineradicable antagonism between the maxims which
+govern politics and those which govern war.
+
+During General Toombs' absence in the field, he opposed the Conscript
+Acts of the Confederate administration. He believed them arbitrary and
+unjust. He considered that this was a tendency toward centralization
+which the Confederate Government was fighting; that it placed too much
+power in the hands of one man; that it was deadly to States' Rights and
+personal liberty, and that it would impair the efficiency of the army by
+lowering its patriotism. The champion of this anti-administration policy
+in Georgia was Linton Stephens, the brother of the vice president.
+Toombs in the field, the elder Stephens in Congress, and Linton Stephens
+in the Georgia Legislature, fought the Conscription and Impressment
+Acts. Hon. Joseph E. Brown, the war Governor of Georgia, was also a
+vigorous opponent of this policy. This influence gave rise, in the early
+part of 1864, to the Peace Resolutions of Linton Stephens, who sustained
+Governor Brown in his policy, to inaugurate State action for "the
+preservation of rights and the attainment of peace." Linton Stephens, in
+a strong letter to General Toombs at that time, called attention to the
+fact that since the war began neither side had made any effort to stop
+the effusion of blood. He believed that the professional soldiers and
+West Point generals would never permit the cessation of hostilities.
+Such men, he thought, would not, in human nature, desire peace. "How can
+it be explained," he wrote, "that both governments have fought on during
+these long years of blood and tears and desolation, without either one
+offering terms of peace, and with both running a swift race of rivalry
+in usurping the most despotic power under the ever-recurring and false
+plea of necessities of war? Have both governments formed designs that
+cannot be accomplished in peace, and which seek opportunity and shelter
+in the confusion and panic of war?"
+
+Mr. Linton Stephens was a leading lawyer and legislator in Georgia. He
+was a man of great ability. He had started the practice of law in the
+office of Robert Toombs, and had been a political follower and close
+friend of the great Georgian. He had served upon the bench of the
+Supreme Court of his State, and at the close of the war his political
+influence was probably greater than that of any man at home. He was
+fearless, inflexible, high-toned, and full of power. He did not hesitate
+to condemn the legislation asked for by Mr. Davis, and joined Mr. Toombs
+in opposing the appointment of General Bragg as supervisor of all
+military operations. Mr. Stephens believed that the next step after the
+Impressment Act would be the organization of all labor into a military
+system under government control.
+
+The result of the policy of Mr. Davis justified the protest of the
+Georgians, but there is nothing to warrant the belief that Mr. Davis was
+moving toward military despotism or that he relished the continuance of
+strife. He saw that the South was in for the war. Desperate situations
+required desperate remedies. He grasped the government with a strong
+hand, and lacked neither nerve nor patriotism. The principles of this
+policy were unsound, but the motives of Jefferson Davis were pure. Nor
+was there reason to sustain the wholesale denunciation of West Point.
+That school of soldiers was the backbone of the army, and the fact that
+so many Southern men gave up commissions in the United States army and
+came South when their States seceded, overthrew the idea that they were
+tools of the general government and had lost identity or sympathy with
+people at home. But General Toombs was bold and impatient in his
+positions.
+
+Equally opposed was he to the policy adopted in Georgia of recommending
+the planting of all grain and no cotton. From Richmond he wrote in
+March, 1864, directions to his brother Gabriel Toombs, who managed his
+plantations in Washington:
+
+      I do not care to change my crops. I wish to raise an
+      abundant provision crop and then as much cotton as I
+      can.... Brown's and Chambers' policy is all foolishness....
+      As to what I shall choose to plant on my own estates, I
+      shall neither refer it to newspapers, nor to public
+      meetings, nor to legislatures. I know what sort of people
+      compose these classes. Let them take up arms and come with
+      me to drive the intruders away from our soil, and then we
+      will settle what sort of seed we will put into it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+WITH THE GEORGIA MILITIA.
+
+
+General Toombs' next appearance in the field was as adjutant and
+inspector-general of General G. W. Smith's division of Georgia militia.
+He was present during the battles before Atlanta, the engagement at
+Peachtree Creek, and the siege of the city. General J. E. Johnston had
+just been relieved from command of the Confederate forces, and General
+J. B. Hood placed in charge. General Toombs wrote from Atlanta:
+
+      The tone of the army has greatly improved. We are now
+      receiving reënforcements from the West. Davis, having
+      kicked Johnston out, now feels obliged to sustain Hood, so
+      the country is likely to get good out of evil. General Hood
+      is displaying great energy and using his best exertions for
+      success. I think very well of him. He is a most excellent
+      man, and undoubtedly of great military talent. Whether
+      equal or not to this great struggle, time must prove.
+
+      The militia are coming up finely. Twelve hundred of them
+      arrived here this evening, armed and tolerably well
+      equipped. Poor fellows! They are green and raw,
+      undisciplined and badly officered. It keeps us at work day
+      and night to bring order out of this confused mass, and we
+      have but a poor chance. They march right into the
+      trenches, and are immediately under the enemy's fire all
+      day. We shall trust to a kind Providence alone to preserve
+      them from a great disaster, and make them useful to the
+      army and the country. The pressure is so great that we are
+      compelled to put them to the work of veterans without an
+      hour's preparation. I am doing my utmost to get them in the
+      best possible position. Georgians are all coming up well
+      except the cities.
+
+Speaking of men who try to shirk duty, Mr. Toombs wrote, "Poor
+creatures! What do they want to live for?"
+
+General Toombs had the task of organizing the recruits and getting them
+ready for the field. He writes to his wife: "Since I began this letter,
+the Yankees have begun an attack on a part of our line and I was obliged
+to ride with General Hood to look after our defenses." General Toombs
+alludes to General E. C. Walthall of Mississippi, as "a splendid officer
+and a gentleman." He says: "The enemy are evidently intending to starve
+us rather than to fight us out. I have, at the request of General Hood,
+not less than twenty letters to write on that very subject. Sherman
+shells the town furiously every day. Not much damage yet."
+
+It has been customary to speak in light terms of the Georgia militia,
+who, late in the day, took the field to man the defenses when Sherman
+was marching to the sea. They were frequently made up of old men and
+boys who had been exempt from the regular service, and these were
+hurried into action with poor equipment and scant preparation. General
+Toombs, in a letter written to his wife, July 25, 1864, says:
+
+      The militia have behaved with great gallantry. This is
+      sincerely true. They have far exceeded my expectations, and
+      in the fight on Thursday equaled any troops in the line of
+      battle. If they will stand and fight like men, our homes
+      will be saved. God give them the spirit of men, and all
+      will be well!
+
+In another place he writes:
+
+      We have a mixed crowd, a large number of earnest, brave,
+      true men; then all the shirks and skulks in Georgia trying
+      to get from under bullets.
+
+General Toombs commended and endorsed the policy of Governor Brown
+during his six years' administration of the office from 1857 to 1863.
+These two men were warm friends and political allies. When Governor
+Brown's third term was drawing to a close, he preferred the selection of
+General Toombs as his successor. But Toombs declined to make the race.
+His game now was war, not politics. He preferred the field to the
+Cabinet. He writes with considerable feeling this letter to his wife:
+
+      Whatever fate may befall me, I feel that this is my place,
+      in the field and with the militia, with the men who own the
+      country and who are struggling to preserve it for their
+      children. I am truly thankful to God for the health he has
+      given me to enable me to perform my part of this work.
+
+He called all the sons of Georgia to come, even to "die together rather
+than let the Yankee overrun and conquer Georgia." He concludes a letter
+of appeal:
+
+                                Better be
+    Where the unconquered Spartans still are free,
+    In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ.
+
+General Toombs' last military service, after the fall of Atlanta, was on
+the 20th of December, 1864, when as adjutant and inspector-general he
+served in General G. W. Smith's division, Georgia militia, at the siege
+of Savannah. General Dick Taylor, in his "Destruction and
+Reconstruction," gives a very graphic description of General Toombs'
+energy. The Georgia militia had left Macon for Savannah, and to avoid
+capture by the resistless column of Sherman's army, then marching to the
+sea, was shipped by way of Thomasville. The trains were sometimes slow
+in moving, and to General Taylor, who was anxious to mass all forces at
+Savannah, the delay was galling. When Toombs came up, he "damned the
+dawdling trainmen, and pretty soon infused his own nervous force into
+the whole concern. The wheezing engines and freight vans were readily
+put in motion, and Governor Brown's 'army' started toward Savannah."
+News reached General Taylor about that time that the Federal forces at
+Port Royal were coming up to capture Pocotaligo on the Charleston and
+Savannah road. This was a dangerous move, as General Taylor was anxious
+to hold this line for coast defense. He needed reënforcements to hold
+this point, and at once thought of "Joe Brown's Army." The position of
+Governor Brown was, however, as General Taylor understood it, that
+Georgia troops were to be held to guard Georgia soil. This was one of
+the points in his discussion with Mr. Davis. General Taylor consulted
+with General Toombs, however, and they arranged to have the Georgia
+militia "shunted off at a switch near Savannah and transported quietly
+to Carolina." At Pocotaligo these troops had a lively brush with the
+Union forces and succeeded in holding the railroad. The Georgians were
+plucky whether at home or abroad, but General Taylor declared that
+Toombs enjoyed his part in making them "unconscious patriots."
+
+Sherman's march to the sea was the concluding tragedy of the Civil War.
+The State which had been at the forefront of the revolution had become
+the bloody theater of battle. From the Tennessee River to Atlanta,
+Sherman and Johnston had grappled with deadly fury down the mountain
+defiles; then Cheatham and Wheeler harassed him at Macon and united for
+a final siege of Savannah. The granaries and workshops of the
+Confederacy were gone when Georgia was devastated--as General Lord
+Wolseley said, Sherman's invasion was a swordthrust through the vitals
+of the young nation. Robert Toombs had followed his own idea of meeting
+the invader as soon as he struck an inch of State soil and fighting him
+as long as a man remained. From the fruitless defense of Savannah,
+Toombs hastened to discuss the situation with Governor Brown. He
+happened to be dining with him that April day when the news came of the
+surrender at Appomattox. The two men looked at each other intently, when
+they realized that all was over.
+
+Toombs and Brown had been closely allied since the day that the latter
+was nominated for Governor in 1857. They had fought campaigns together.
+Toombs had sustained Governor Brown's war policy almost to the letter.
+Now they shook hands and parted. Henceforth their paths diverged. Days
+of bitterness put that friendship to an end. Both men worked his course
+during reconstruction as he saw fit. But political differences deepened
+almost into personal feud.
+
+General Toombs repaired to his home in Washington and, on the 4th of
+May, 1865, Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet and staff, having retreated from
+Richmond to Danville, thence to Greensboro, N. C., and Abbeville, S. C.,
+rode across the country with an armed escort to Washington, Ga. Here,
+in the old Heard House, the last meeting of the Confederate Cabinet was
+held. The members separated, and the civil government of the Southern
+Confederacy passed into history. There were present John C.
+Breckenridge, Secretary of War; John H. Reagan, Postmaster-General,
+besides the members of Mr. Davis' staff. The Confederate President was
+worn and jaded. He looked pale and thin, but was plucky to the last.
+After the surrender of Lee and Johnston, he wanted to keep up the
+warfare in the mountains of Virginia, and in the country west of the
+Mississippi, but he was finally persuaded that the Confederacy must
+cease to struggle. On the public square of Washington the little brick
+house, with its iron rail and its red walls, is still pointed out to the
+visitor as the spot where the Davis government dissolved. It was a
+dramatic fate which determined its dissolution at the home of Robert
+Toombs. He had been present at its birth. His had been one of the
+leading spirits of the revolution. He had served it in the Cabinet and
+field, he had been pressed for the position of its chief magistracy, and
+now in the shadow of his own rooftree its concluding council was held.
+General Reagan was a guest of General Toombs during his stay in
+Washington, as was General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses, who had
+been a member of Toombs' staff. In the evening General Toombs called
+General Reagan into a room by himself and inquired whether the latter
+needed any money. General Reagan said he had money enough to take him to
+Texas. Then General Toombs inquired after Mr. Davis, and asked whether
+he had any money. "I told him no," says General Reagan, "but that I had
+money enough to take us both West of of the Mississippi, and had told
+Mr. Davis so. I had no doubt but that he would rely on that." General
+Toombs then asked if Mr. Davis was well mounted. "I told him yes, that
+he had his bay horse Kentucky, and that after the surrender General Lee
+had sent his fine gray Traveler, by his son Robert, around through
+Lynchburg to Mr. Davis at Greenesboro, N. C." "Well," said General
+Toombs, with thoughtfulness, "Davis and I had a quarrel once, but that
+is over now. I am at home and can command money and men, and if Mr.
+Davis wants anything, I shall be glad to furnish it." General Toombs
+added that under terms of the convention between Sherman and Johnston,
+Mr. Davis was entitled to go where he pleased between that point and the
+Chattahoochee River. "I wish you would say to Mr. Davis," said Toombs,
+in his bluff way, "that, if necessary, I will call my men around me and
+see him safe to the Chattahoochee at the risk of my life."
+
+On his return to the hotel Mr. Reagan gave General Toombs' message to
+Mr. Davis, and told the latter of the inquiries and offers. "That is
+like Toombs," said Mr. Davis. "He was always a whole-souled man."
+
+The four men whom the Washington government wanted to arrest and hold
+responsible for the war were Toombs, Davis, Slidell, and Howell Cobb.
+Their friends understood this perfectly, and each man was urged to make
+his escape. Jefferson Davis was arrested in Irwin County, Ga., on May
+10. He was rapidly making his way to the West, and was trying to reach
+Texas. How General Toombs finally escaped must be reserved for a more
+extended recital.
+
+General Toombs and Mr. Davis never met but once after the war. It was
+unexpected, dramatic. Some years after General Toombs had returned from
+his long exile, and Mr. Davis was just back from his trip to England,
+the ex-president visited Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, the guest of the
+poet Sidney Lanier. He here appeared at his best in the company of
+sympathetic and admiring friends, and charmed everyone by his polish and
+learning. The day before Jefferson Davis left, General and Mrs. Toombs
+arrived at the mountain. Mr. Davis was, at that time, absent on a
+horseback trip. He was fond of riding, and had gone over to see some of
+the fine views of the mountain and to inspect the fields where recent
+battles had raged with so much fury. The hotel was kept by a Northern
+man who knew nothing of the relations between Mr. Davis and General
+Toombs, and he believed the thing to do was to put General and Mrs.
+Toombs in a vacant room of the cottage occupied by Mr. Davis. It was a
+small house, with a piazza extending along the front. It so happened
+that the Toombses, who had just learned of Mr. Davis' presence at the
+hotel, were sitting on the piazza chatting with friends when Mr. Davis
+came up. Mr. Davis had also heard of General Toombs' arrival at the
+hotel, but neither knew that the other was domiciled in the same
+cottage. To General Toombs the appearance was as if Mr. Davis had come
+at once to make a cordial call. No one could be more hospitable and
+polite than Toombs, and this apparent challenge to friendship brought
+out the best side of his nature. The men met with considerable warmth.
+From General Toombs Mr. Davis advanced to Mrs. Toombs. Between these two
+the meeting was profoundly affecting. He embraced her tenderly. Toombs
+and Davis had been friends and neighbors years ago in Washington City,
+and Mr. Davis had been extremely fond of Mr. Toombs' family. The
+distinguished party soon fell into friendly conversation. Next day Mr.
+Davis left Lookout Mountain. He never met Robert Toombs again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+TOOMBS AS A FUGITIVE.
+
+
+At the conclusion of the war, Secretary Stanton issued specific orders
+for the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, and Robert
+Toombs. Mr. Stephens was arrested quietly at his own home in
+Crawfordville on the 12th of May, 1865, two days after Mr. Davis had
+been overtaken. On the same day a squad of soldiers, most of them
+negroes, reached Washington, Ga. They were commanded by General Wilde,
+and their orders were to take General Toombs in charge. One of the
+colored troops marched up town with the photograph of Toombs, which they
+had procured to identify him, impaled upon his bayonet. General Toombs
+was, at the time, in his private office at his residence. Hearing the
+noise in his yard, he walked out of his basement to the corner of his
+front steps. There he perceived the squad and divined their purpose. "By
+God, the bluecoats!" was all he said. Walking quickly through his back
+lot, he strode across his plantation and disappeared. By this time the
+guard was clamoring at the front door, and Mrs. Toombs went out to meet
+them. "Where is General Toombs?" the commander asked. "He is not here,"
+the lady answered firmly. A parley ensued, during which Mrs. Toombs
+managed to detain the men long enough to enable her husband to get out
+of sight. "Unless General Toombs is produced, I shall burn the house,"
+retorted the officer. Mrs. Toombs blanched a little at this, but, biting
+her lip, she turned on her heel, and coolly replied: "Very well, burn
+it." Among the listeners to this colloquy was a young man just returned
+from the Confederate army. He was moved with indignation. He still wore
+the gray jacket, and was deeply anxious for the Toombs family. He had
+been a neighbor to them all his life, as had his father before him, and
+he shared the pride which the village felt for its most distinguished
+resident.
+
+He was the son of Hon. I. T. Irvin, a prominent public man and lifelong
+friend of General Toombs. Preparations were made for the threatened
+fire. General Toombs did not come out. Furniture was moved and papers
+destroyed, but the young Confederate was soon convinced that the threat
+was a mere bluff. Relieved on that point, his loyal spirit yearned
+toward the fugitive. Charles E. Irvin was the name of the young man, and
+he had seen service in the artillery under Longstreet. Not yet
+twenty-one years of age, he was fired with ardor and devotion, and had
+already resolved to aid General Toombs in escaping.
+
+Riding over to a neighbor's house, Mr. J. T. Wingfield, he failed to
+find his friend, but left word for General Toombs to let him know where
+to meet him with his horses. That night about two o'clock Lieutenant
+Irvin got word from General Toombs to bring his horse to Nick Chenault's
+by seven o'clock in the morning. This was a farm about eighteen miles
+from Washington, near the Broad River. Here General Toombs mounted his
+trusted horse and felt at home. It was the famous mare Gray Alice, which
+had carried him through all his campaigns. He had ridden her during the
+charges at Antietam, and she had borne him from the fire of the scouts
+the night he had received his wound. Once more he pressed her into
+service, and Robert Toombs, for the first time in his life, was a
+fugitive. This man, who commanded men and had gained his own way by
+sheer brain and combativeness, fled by stealth from a dreaded enemy. It
+was a new rôle for Toombs. His plucky young guide was resolved to
+accompany him in his flight--it might be to his death; it was all the
+same to Lieutenant Irvin. Riding swiftly into Elbert County, the two men
+crossed over to Harrison Landing, a picturesque spot on the Savannah
+River. Here dwelt an old man, Alexander LeSeur, who led something of a
+hermit's life. Before the war he had been a "Know-nothing," and had been
+exposed to Toombs' withering fire upon that class of politicians.
+LeSeur met the fugitive with a laugh and a friendly oath. "You have been
+fighting me for forty years," he said, "and now that you are in trouble,
+I am the first man you seek for protection."
+
+[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF GENERAL B. W. HEARD, WASHINGTON, GA., WHERE
+JEFFERSON DAVIS HELD LAST MEETING OF CABINET, APRIL, 1865.]
+
+General Toombs had not traveled too fast. The country was swarming with
+raiders. News of the capture of Davis and Stephens had fired these men
+with desire to overhaul the great champion of secession. A Federal
+major, commanding a force of men, put up at Tate's residence, just
+opposite the hermit's island. While there, a negro from the LeSeur place
+informed the officer that some prominent man was at the house. "If it
+ain't Jeff Davis, it is just as big a man," said he. The hint was taken.
+The island was surrounded and carefully watched, but when the party went
+over to capture Toombs, the game was gone.
+
+General Toombs now started out carefully up the Savannah River. In
+Elbert, he was in the hands of his friends. This county, which had first
+encouraged the struggles of the young lawyer, which had followed him
+steadfastly in his political fortunes, which had furnished soldiers for
+his brigade, now supplied protectors at every step. Before leaving this
+county he was initiated into a Masonic lodge, and took the first degrees
+of the order. More than once the signs and symbols of the mystic
+brotherhood stood him in good stead on this eventful trip. He was
+afterward a high Mason, and remained to his death a devoted friend of
+the order.
+
+Continuing his journey alone he stopped at the Tugaloo River in
+Habersham County, and remained at the house of Colonel Prather until
+Lieutenant Irvin, whom he had sent back to Washington with letters,
+could rejoin him with funds and clothing. Here his young companion soon
+found him, bringing, besides letters from home, some astonishing news.
+
+"General," said Lieutenant Irvin, "what do you think? Your friend
+General Joseph E. Brown has sold out the State of Georgia, and gone over
+to the Republican party."
+
+Toombs glared at him savagely.
+
+"For the first time on this trip," says Lieutenant Irvin, "he looked
+like he wanted to kill me. He brought his fist down heavily upon the
+table and said: 'By God, I don't believe it!'
+
+"'Well here it is in black and white.'"
+
+Lieutenant Irvin gave him the paper in which was printed Governor
+Brown's famous address to the people of Georgia.
+
+"This news," said Lieutenant Irvin, "absolutely sent the old man to
+bed."
+
+Toombs remained a week at Colonel Prather's, and in the meantime sent
+Lieutenant Irvin to Savannah with important letters. He desired to
+escape, if possible, through the port of Savannah. The Savannah friends
+were not at home, however, and Lieutenant Irvin, bearing these important
+letters, actually fell into the hands of the enemy.
+
+He was a high-strung, plucky young fellow, and was reproved by a Federal
+officer for continuing to wear brass buttons. Irvin retorted sharply,
+and was hurried into prison. Fearing that he would be searched and his
+papers found, he slipped them to a friend, undetected by the guard.
+After remaining in prison for several hours, Lieutenant Irvin was
+released and censured by the officer, who reminded him that there were
+bayonets about him.
+
+"Yes," retorted young Irvin, "and brave men always avail themselves of
+such advantages."
+
+Trudging back from Savannah, Lieutenant Irvin found General Toombs at
+the Rembert place, near Tallalah Falls. This was a beautiful home in a
+wild, picturesque country, where Toombs was less liable to capture than
+in middle Georgia, and where he was less known to the people. General
+Toombs had already procured the parole papers of Major Luther Martin, of
+Elbert County, a friend and member of his former command. He traveled
+under that name, and was so addressed by his young companion all along
+the route. General Toombs passed the time deer-hunting in Habersham. He
+had the steady hand and fine eye of a sportsman, and he was noted for
+his horsemanship and endurance.
+
+Returning toward Washington through Elbert County, General Toombs
+decided to spend a night with Major Martin. Lieutenant Irvin stoutly
+opposed this and warned him that if the enemy were to look for him
+anywhere, it would certainly be at Martin's house. Turning down the
+road, he finally concluded to put up at the house of Colonel W. H.
+Mattox. It was well he did. That night a party of thirty soldiers raided
+the Martin plantation on a hot trail, and searched thoroughly for
+Toombs.
+
+During his travels General Toombs did not wear a disguise of any sort.
+Dressed in a checked suit, and riding his gray mare, he was a prominent
+object, and to most of the people was well known. One day he wore green
+goggles, but soon threw them away in disgust. The nearness of troops
+forced General Toombs to abandon his plan of going home for his family
+before leaving the country. He dispatched Lieutenant Irvin to Washington
+with letters to his wife, telling her that he would not see her again
+until he had gone abroad, when he would send for her to join him. He
+himself passed through Centreville, twelve miles from his home, and
+directed his young guide where to meet him in middle Georgia. This
+Lieutenant Irvin found it very hard to do. General Toombs was very
+discreet as to whom he took into his confidence. Once or twice he
+cautioned his companion against certain parties, to the surprise of the
+young man. Toombs, however, read human nature pretty well, and, later,
+when the real character of these persons developed, Irvin understood the
+counsels of his older friend. So carefully did General Toombs cover his
+tracks that Lieutenant Irvin, after his detour to Washington, was a long
+time in overtaking him. Traveling straight to Sparta, Lieutenant Irvin
+called on Judge Linton Stephens and asked about the general. This shrewd
+Georgian came to the door and flatly denied knowing anything about
+Toombs.
+
+"He questioned me closely," said Lieutenant Irvin, "and finding that I
+was really who I pretended to be, finally agreed to take me to Toombs.
+Riding down to Old-Town, in Jefferson County, we failed to find Toombs,
+but receiving a clew that he had passed through the David Dickson
+plantation in Hancock County, I accosted Mr. Worthen, the manager. 'Has
+an old man riding a gray horse passed this way,' Worthen was asked. He
+promptly answered, 'No.' Believing that he was deceiving me, I
+questioned him more closely."
+
+Worthen tried to persuade the young man to get down and take some plums.
+He was evidently anxious to detain him. Finally he eyed the stranger
+more closely, and, convinced that he was the companion whom Toombs
+expected, he confessed that General Toombs had been at his place and was
+then at the home of Major Gonder in Washington County.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin had ridden over two hundred miles in this search and
+lost two or three days out of his way. Toombs covered his trail so
+carefully that it was difficult even for his friends to find him. Small
+wonder that he was not captured by the enemy.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin was not yet "out of the woods." Reaching the home of
+Major Gonder late in the evening, he rode up to the front fence, fifty
+yards from the dwelling. Mrs. Gonder and her daughter were sitting on
+the piazza. Lieutenant Irvin asked the usual question about the old man
+and the gray horse. The lady replied that she knew nothing about them.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin said: "But I was directed to this place."
+
+Mrs. Gonder: "I should like to know who sent you."
+
+Lieutenant Irvin: "But has no one passed or stopped here, answering my
+description?"
+
+Both ladies were now considerably worked up; the younger scarcely
+suppressed her amusement.
+
+"Come, ladies," said Lieutenant Irvin, "I see you both know more than
+you will confess."
+
+"If I do, I will die before I tell it," naïvely replied the elder.
+
+"Now I know you know where General Toombs is."
+
+"Then get it out of me if you can."
+
+Finally the young man persuaded her that he was the friend of Toombs,
+and Mrs. Gonder reluctantly directed him to Colonel Jack Smith's over on
+the Oconee River.
+
+Riding up to Colonel Smith's, his valiant pursuer spied General Toombs
+through the window. The head of the house, however, denied that Toombs
+was there at all.
+
+"But that looks very much like him through the window," said Lieutenant
+Irvin.
+
+"Young man," retorted Colonel Smith, "what is your name?"
+
+Of course this disclosure led to the reunion of the fugitive and his
+friend.
+
+Toombs realized that he was in almost as much danger from his own
+friends as from the enemy. He was careful to whom he disclosed his
+identity or his plans, for fear that they might indiscreetly comment on
+his presence or embarrass him even by their willingness to befriend him.
+So it was that he proceeded secretly, picking his way by stealth, and
+actually doing much of his travel by night.
+
+At the home of Colonel Jack Smith, the two men remained a week to rest
+their horses and take their bearings. General Toombs spent much time on
+the Oconee trolling for trout, while bodies of Union cavalry were
+watching the ferries and guarding the fords, seining for bigger fish.
+
+Passing into Wilkinson County, General Toombs stopped at the home of Mr.
+Joseph Deas. When Lieutenant Irvin asked if the pair could come in, Deas
+replied, "Yes, if you can put up with the fare of a man who subsists in
+Sherman's track."
+
+A maiden sister of Deas lived in the house. With a woman's sensitive
+ear, she recognized General Toombs' voice, having heard him speak at
+Toombsboro seventeen years before. This discovery, she did not
+communicate to her brother until after the guests had retired. Deas had
+been discussing politics with Toombs, and his sister asked him if he
+knew to whom he had been talking all night? Deas said he did not.
+
+"Joe Deas," she said, "are you a fool? Don't you know that is General
+Toombs?"
+
+Strange to say, a negro on the place, just as they were leaving, cried
+out "Good-by, Marse Bob." He had driven the family to the speaking
+seventeen years before, and had not forgotten the man who defended
+slavery on that day.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Toombs, "go give that negro some money."
+
+This same negro had been strung up by the thumbs by Sherman's troops a
+few months before because he would not tell where his master's mules
+were hidden. He piloted General Toombs through the woods to the home of
+Colonel David Hughes, a prominent and wealthy farmer of Twiggs County.
+Colonel Hughes had been in Toombs' brigade, and the general remained
+with him a week.
+
+General Toombs was sitting on the piazza of Colonel Hughes's house one
+afternoon when an old soldier asked permission to come in. He still wore
+the gray, and was scarred and begrimed. He eyed General Toombs very
+closely, and seemed to hang upon his words. He heard him addressed as
+Major Martin, and finally, when he arose to leave, wrung the general's
+hand.
+
+"Major Martin," he said, brushing the tears from his eyes, "I'm mighty
+glad to see you. I wish to God I could do something for you."
+
+At the gate he turned to Colonel Hughes and said: "I know who that is.
+It is General Toombs. You can't fool me."
+
+"Why do you think so?" Colonel Hughes asked.
+
+"Oh, I remember Gray Alice jumping the stone walls at Sharpsburg too
+well to forget the rider now."
+
+"Colonel," he continued, "this morning a man near here, who is a
+Republican and an enemy of General Toombs, thought he recognized him
+near your house. He saw him two hundred yards away. I heard him say he
+believed it was Toombs and he wished he had his head shot off. I came
+here to-night to see for myself. You tell General Toombs that if he says
+the word, I will kill that scoundrel as sure as guns."
+
+The veteran was persuaded, however, to keep quiet and do nothing of the
+sort.
+
+It was at this time that Lieutenant Irvin found that the ferries of the
+Ocmulgee River were guarded from one end to the other. Near this place
+Davis had been captured and the Union troops were on a sharp lookout for
+Toombs. Convinced that further travel might be hazardous, General Toombs
+and his friend rode back to the mountains of North Georgia, and there
+remained until the early fall. It was in the month of October that the
+fugitives again started on their checkered flight. The May days had
+melted into summer, and summer had been succeeded by early autumn. The
+crops, planted when he started from home that spring day, were now
+ripening in the fields, and Northern statesmen were still declaring that
+Toombs was the arch-traitor, and must be apprehended. Davis was in
+irons, and Stephens languished in a dungeon at Fortress Monroe.
+
+Passing once more near Sparta, Ga., Toombs met, by appointment, his
+friends, Linton Stephens, R. M. Johnson, W. W. Simpson, Jack Lane, Edge
+Bird, and other kindred spirits. It was a royal reunion, a sort of
+Lucretia Borgia feast for Toombs--"eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow
+we may die."
+
+Traveling their old road through Washington County, they crossed the
+Ocmulgee, this time in safety, and passed into Houston County. The
+Federals believed Toombs already abroad and had ceased to look for him
+in Georgia. After the passage was made General Toombs said: "Charlie,
+that ferryman eyed me very closely. Go back and give him some money."
+
+Lieutenant Irvin did return. The ferryman refused any gift. He said: "I
+did not want to take what you did give me." Irvin asked the reason. The
+ferryman said: "Tell General Toombs I wish to God I could do something
+for him."
+
+General Toombs had a wide personal acquaintance in Georgia. He seldom
+stopped at a house whose inmates he did not know, and whose relatives
+and connections he could not trace for generations. Sometimes, when
+incognito, the two men were asked where General Toombs was. They
+answered, "Cuba."
+
+At Oglethorpe, in Macon County, General Toombs rode right through a
+garrison of Federal soldiers. As one of his regiments came from this
+section, General Toombs was afraid that some of his old soldiers might
+recognize him on the road. A Federal officer advanced to the middle of
+the street and saluted the travelers. Their hearts bounded to their
+throats, and, instinctively, two hands stole to their revolvers. Pistols
+and spurs were the only resources. Chances were desperate, but they were
+resolved to take them. The officer watched them intently as they rode
+leisurely through the town, but he was really more interested in their
+fine horses, "Gray Alice" and "Young Alice," than in the men. Jogging
+unconcernedly along until the town was hidden by a hill, General Toombs
+urged his horse into a run, and left "his friends, the enemy," far in
+the rear. It was a close call, but he did not breathe freely yet. There
+was possibility of pursuit, and when the party reached the residence of
+a Mr. Brown, a messenger was sent back to the town to mislead the
+soldiers should pursuit be attempted. From the hands of the enemy,
+General Toombs and his friend were now inducted into pleasanter scenes.
+The house was decorated with lilies and orange blossoms. A wedding was
+on hand, and the bride happened to be the daughter of the host. Brown
+was a brave and determined man. He assured General Toombs that when the
+wedding guests assembled, there would be men enough on hand, should an
+attack be made, to rout the United States garrison, horse, foot, and
+dragoons. At Dr. Raines' place, on the Chattahoochee River, a horse
+drover happened to say something about Toombs. He gave the statesman a
+round of abuse and added: "And yet, they tell me that if I were to meet
+General Toombs and say what I think of him, I would either have a fight
+or he would convince me that he was the biggest man in the world."
+
+Tired of the long horseback ride, having been nearly six months in the
+saddle, the men now secured an ambulance from Toombs' plantation in
+Stewart County, and crossed the river into Alabama. His faithful mare,
+which he was forced to leave behind, neighed pathetically as her master
+rode away in a boat and pulled for the Alabama shore. At Evergreen they
+took the train, and it seemed that half the men on the cars recognized
+General Toombs. General Joseph Wheeler, who was on board, did not take
+his eyes off him. Toombs became nervous under these searching glances,
+and managed to hide his face behind a paper which he was reading. At
+Tensas Station he took the boat for Mobile. There was a force of Federal
+soldiers on board, and this was the closest quarters of his long
+journey. There was now no chance of escape, if detected. The soldiers
+frequently spoke to General Toombs, but he was not in the slightest way
+molested.
+
+At Mobile General Toombs took his saddle-bags and repaired to the home
+of his friend Mr. Evans, about four miles from the city. There he was
+placed in the care of Howard Evans and his sister, Miss Augusta J.
+Evans, the gifted Southern authoress. Anxious to conceal the identity of
+their guest, these hospitable young people dismissed their servants, and
+Miss Evans herself cooked and served General Toombs' meals with her own
+hands. She declared, with true hospitality, that she felt it a privilege
+to contribute to the comfort and insure the safety of the brilliant
+statesman. She was a Georgian herself, and with her this was a labor of
+love.
+
+These were among the most agreeable moments of General Toombs' long
+exile. He loved the companionship of intellectual women, and the
+conversation during these days was full of brilliant interest. Miss
+Evans was a charming talker, as bright as a jewel, and Toombs was a
+Chesterfield with ladies. The general would walk to and fro along the
+shaded walks and pour forth, in his matchless way, the secret history of
+the ruin of Confederate hopes.
+
+General Toombs wrote home, in courtly enthusiasm, of his visit to
+Mobile. Mr. Stephens sent Miss Evans a warm letter of thanks for her
+attentions to his friend. "I have," said he, "just received a letter
+from General Toombs, who has been so united with me in friendship and
+destiny all our lives, giving such account of the kind attentions he
+received from you and your father while in Mobile, that I cannot forbear
+to thank you and him for it in the same strain and terms as if these
+attentions had been rendered to myself. What you did for my friend, in
+this particular, you did for me."
+
+While General Toombs was in Mobile, General Wheeler called upon the
+Evans family and remarked that he thought he had seen General Toombs on
+the train. Miss Evans replied that she had heard General Toombs was in
+Cuba.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin went to New Orleans and secured from the Spanish Consul
+a pass to Cuba for "Major Luther Martin." At Mobile General Toombs took
+the boat _Creole_ for New Orleans. He seemed to be nearing the end of
+his long journey, but it was on this boat that the dramatic incident
+occurred which threatened to change the course of his wanderings at
+last. While General Toombs was at supper, he became conscious that one
+of the passengers was eying him closely. He said to Lieutenant Irvin:
+"Charlie, don't look up now, but there is a man in the doorway who
+evidently recognizes me."
+
+"General, probably it is someone who thinks he knows you."
+
+"No," replied Toombs quietly, "that man is a spy."
+
+Lieutenant Irvin asked what should be done. General Toombs told him to
+go out and question the man and, if convinced that he was a spy, to
+throw him over the stern-rail of the steamer. Lieutenant Irvin got up
+and went on deck. The stranger followed him. Irvin walked toward the
+rail. The stranger asked him where he was from. He answered "North
+Carolina."
+
+"Who is that with you?" he questioned.
+
+"My uncle, Major Martin," said Irvin.
+
+The man then remarked that it looked very much like Robert Toombs. Irvin
+answered that the likeness had been noted before, but that he could not
+see it.
+
+"Young man," said the stranger, "I don't want to dispute your word, but
+that is certainly Toombs. I know him well, and am his friend."
+
+Irvin then gave up the idea of throwing him overboard. Had the brave
+young officer not been convinced that the party questioning him was
+Colonel M. C. Fulton, a prominent resident of Georgia, he says he would
+certainly have pitched him into the Gulf of Mexico.
+
+General Toombs, when informed of the identity of Colonel Fulton, sent
+for him to come to his room, and the two men had a long and friendly
+conversation.
+
+Arriving at New Orleans General Toombs drove up to the residence of
+Colonel Marshal J. Smith. On the 4th of November, 1865, he boarded the
+steamship _Alabama_, the first of the Morgan line put on after the war
+between New Orleans, Havana, and Liverpool. A tremendous crowd had
+gathered at the dock to see the steamer off, and Lieutenant Irvin tried
+to persuade General Toombs to go below until the ship cleared. But the
+buoyant Georgian persisted in walking the deck, and was actually
+recognized by General Humphrey Marshall of Texas, who had known him in
+the Senate before the war.
+
+"No," said Toombs to his companion's expostulations, "I want fresh air,
+and I will die right here. I am impatient to get into neutral waters,
+when I can talk. I have not had a square, honest talk in six months."
+
+By the time the good ship had cleared the harbor, everybody on board
+knew that Robert Toombs, "the fire-eater and rebel," was a passenger,
+and hundreds gathered around to listen to his matchless conversation.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin never saw General Toombs again until 1868. He himself
+was an officer of the Irvin artillery, Cutts' battalion, being a part of
+Walker's artillery in Longstreet's corps. Entering the army at seventeen
+years of age, Charles E. Irvin was a veteran at twenty-one. He was
+brave, alert, tender, and true. He recalls that when his company joined
+the army in Richmond, Robert Toombs, then Secretary of State, gave them
+a handsome supper at the Exchange Hotel. "I remember," said he, "with
+infinite satisfaction, that during the seven months I accompanied
+General Toombs, in the closest relations and under the most trying
+positions, he was never once impatient with me." Frequently, on this
+long and perilous journey, Toombs would say; "Well, my boy! suppose the
+Yankees find us to-day; what will you do?" "General, you say you won't
+be taken alive. I reckon they will have to kill me too."
+
+General Toombs often declared that he would not be captured.
+Imprisonment, trial, and exile, he did not dread; but to be carried
+about, a prize captive and a curiosity through Northern cities, was his
+constant fear. He was prepared to sell his life dearly, and there is no
+doubt but that he would have done so.
+
+During all these trying days, Toombs rode with the grace and gayety of a
+cavalier. He talked incessantly to his young companion, who eagerly
+drank in his words. He fought his battles over again and discussed the
+leaders of the Civil War in his racy style. He constantly predicted the
+collapse of the greenback system of currency, and speculated
+facetiously each day upon the chances of capture. He calculated shrewdly
+enough his routes and plans, and when he found himself on _terra firma_,
+it was under the soft skies of the Antilles with a foreign flag above
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
+
+
+From Cuba General Toombs proceeded to Paris. It was early in July before
+he reached his new stopping place. He found himself somewhat restricted
+in funds, as he had not had time to turn his property into gold to make
+his trip abroad. It is related that just after the departure of the
+famous "specie train," through Washington in the wake of Mr. Davis'
+party, a Confederate horseman dashed by the residence of General Toombs
+and threw a bag of bullion over the fence. It was found to contain five
+thousand dollars, but Toombs swore he would not even borrow this amount
+from his government. He turned it over to the authorities for the use of
+disabled Confederate soldiers, and hurriedly scraped up what funds he
+could command in case he should be compelled to fly. Arriving in Paris,
+General Toombs succeeded in selling one of his plantations, realizing
+about five dollars an acre for it. He used to explain to the astounded
+Frenchmen, during his residence abroad, that he ate an acre of dirt a
+day.
+
+General Toombs repaired to Enghien, where he took a course of sulphur
+baths for the benefit of his throat. Constant exposure with the army and
+in his flight had brought on his old enemy, the asthma. He had been a
+healthy man, having long passed the limit of manhood before he tasted
+medicine. Late in life, an attack of scarlet fever left his throat in a
+delicate condition.
+
+Mrs. Toombs joined him in Paris in July, 1865, and he passed eighteen
+months quietly with her in Europe. It was in marked contrast to his tour
+in 1855, when, as United States Senator, he had gone from place to
+place, observed, honored, and courted. He was now an exile without a
+country. He had seen his political dreams wiped out in blood and his
+home in the hands of the enemy. From the dignity and power of a United
+States Senator and a possible aspirant to the Presidency, he had been
+branded as a conspirator, and forced, like Mirabeau, to seek shelter in
+distant lands.
+
+France was, at that time, in a state of unrest. Louis Napoleon was
+watching with anxiety the eagles of Prussia hovering over the German
+Confederation. Austria had already succumbed to Prussian power, and
+Napoleon had been blocked in his scheme to secure, from this disorder,
+his share of the Rhenish provinces. Toombs, who had fled from a restored
+Union in America, now watched the march of consolidation in Europe, and
+predicted its final success.
+
+General Toombs was an object of interest in Europe. His position toward
+the American government prevented his public recognition by the rulers,
+but he used to relate with zest his interviews with Carlyle, the Empress
+Eugenie, and other notables. He was a man to attract attention, and his
+talk was fascinating and bright.
+
+He was sometimes sought in a legal way by prominent financiers, who
+asked his opinions upon fiscal matters in America. There is no doubt but
+that, like Judah P. Benjamin, he could have built up a large practice
+abroad, had he cared to do so; but permanent residence away from home
+was entirely out of his mind.
+
+In December, 1866, General and Mrs. Toombs received a cable message
+telling them of the death of their only daughter, Mrs. Dudley M. DuBose,
+in Washington, Ga. Mrs. Toombs at once returned home, leaving the
+grief-stricken father alone in Paris. Anxious to go back with her, he
+was advised that matters were still unsettled in the United States. The
+impeachment of Andrew Johnson was in progress, and his conviction meant
+restored martial law for the South. So the days were full of woe for the
+lonely exile.
+
+On December 25, 1866, he writes a beautiful and pathetic letter to his
+wife. While the denizens of the gay city were deep in the celebration
+of the joyous Christmas feast, the Southern wanderer, "with heart bowed
+down," was passing through the shadows, and suffering in silence the
+keenest pangs of affliction. Around him the votaries of fashion and
+wealth were flushed with gayety. Paris was in the ecstasy of
+Christmastide. But the depths of his soul were starless and chill, and
+in the midst of all this mirth one heart was tuned to melancholy. He
+writes to his wife:
+
+      The night you left I retired to the room and did not go to
+      sleep until after two o'clock. I felt so sad at parting
+      with you and could not help thinking what a long dreary
+      trip you had that night. I shall have a long journey of
+      five thousand miles to Havana, and do not know that I shall
+      meet a human being to whom I am known, but if I keep well I
+      shall not mind that, especially as I am homeward bound; for
+      my hearthstone is desolate, and clouds and darkness hover
+      over the little remnant that is left of us, and of all our
+      poor friends and countrymen; and, when you get home,
+      Washington will contain nearly all that is dear to me in
+      this world. I remained alone yesterday after I got up and
+      went to my solitary meal. I immediately came back to my
+      room, and have seen nothing of Christmas in Paris.
+
+On January 1, 1867, he writes:
+
+      This is the first of the new year. How sad it opens upon
+      me! In a foreign land, with all that is dear to me on earth
+      beyond the ocean, either on the way to a distant home or at
+      its desolate fireside. Well, I shall not nurse such gloomy
+      ideas. Let us hope that the new year may be happier and
+      that we may grow better. God knows I cannot regret that
+      1866 is gone. I hope its calamities will not enter with us
+      into 1867. I had hoped to hear from New York of your safe
+      arrival on the other side of the ocean.
+
+The loss of his daughter Sallie was a severe blow to General Toombs. But
+two of his children lived to be grown. His eldest daughter Louise died
+in 1855, shortly after her marriage to Mr. W. F. Alexander. General
+Toombs had a son who died in early childhood of scarlet fever. This was
+a great blow to him, for he always longed for a son to bear his name.
+Away off in Paris his heart yearned for his four little grandchildren,
+left motherless by this new affliction. He writes again from Paris:
+
+      I almost determined to take the steamer Saturday and run
+      the gauntlet to New York. I would have done so but for my
+      promise to you. I know everything looks worse and worse on
+      our side of the ocean, but when will it be any better? Is
+      this state of things to last forever? To me it is becoming
+      intolerable.... Kiss the dear little children for me. Bless
+      their hearts! How I long to see them and take them to my
+      arms. God bless you! Pray for me that I may be a better man
+      in the new year than in all the old ones before in my time.
+
+Early in January General Toombs decided to sail for Cuba and thence to
+New Orleans. If he found it unsafe to remain in the South he concluded
+he could either go back to Cuba or extend his travels into Canada. He
+had promised his wife he would remain abroad for the present. But he
+writes:
+
+      The worst that can happen to me is a prison, and I don't
+      see much to choose between my present condition and any
+      decent fort. I feel so anxious about you and the children
+      that it makes me very wretched.
+
+From Paris, January 16, 1867, he writes:
+
+      My preparations are all complete, and I leave to-morrow on
+      the _New World_ for Havana and New Orleans, _via_
+      Martinique. I am well; except my throat. I shall have a
+      long and lonesome voyage, with not much else to cheer me
+      but that I shall find you and our dear little ones at the
+      end of my journey. If I am permitted to find you all well,
+      I shall be compensated for its fatigues and dangers. God
+      grant that we may all meet once more in this world in
+      health!
+
+                      Yours truly and affectionately, as ever,
+                        TOOMBS.
+
+General Toombs returned to America and after a short residence in Canada
+went to Washington, where he had a long interview with his old
+senatorial colleague, President Andrew Johnson. He went home from
+Washington and was never again molested. He made no petition for relief
+of political disabilities. He was never restored to citizenship. When
+Honorable Samuel J. Randall proposed his General Amnesty Act in 1875,
+Mr. Blaine and other Republicans desired to exclude from its provisions
+the names of Davis and Toombs. The Democrats would not accept this
+amendment, and the bill was never passed. Once, when Senator Oliver P.
+Morton asked General Toombs why he did not petition Congress for pardon,
+Toombs quietly answered, "Pardon for what? I have not pardoned you all
+yet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+COMMENCING LIFE ANEW.
+
+
+When General Toombs finally returned to Georgia it was with a great part
+of his fortune gone, his political career cut off by hopeless
+disability, and his household desolate. These were serious calamities
+for a man fifty-seven years of age. He found himself forced under new
+and unfavorable conditions to build all over again, but he set about it
+in a vigorous and heroic way. His health was good. He was a splendid
+specimen of manhood. His once raven locks were gray, and his beard,
+which grew out from his throat, gave him a grizzly appearance. His dark
+eye was full of fire and his mind responded with vigor to its new work.
+
+When General Toombs arrived at Washington, Ga., he consulted some of his
+friends over the advisability of returning to the practice of law, which
+he had left twenty-five years before. Their advice was against it.
+Things were in chaos; the people were impoverished, and the custodians
+of the courts were the creatures of a hostile government. But Robert
+Toombs was made of different stuff. Associating himself in the practice
+of his profession with General Dudley M. DuBose, who had been his chief
+of staff, and was his son-in-law, an able and popular man in the full
+vigor of manhood, General Toombs returned actively to the practice of
+law. He was not long in turning to practical account his great
+abilities. Success soon claimed him as an old favorite. Business
+accumulated and the ex-senator and soldier found himself once more at
+the head of the bar of Georgia. Large fees were readily commanded. He
+was employed in important cases in every part of Georgia, and the
+announcement that Robert Toombs was to appear before judge and jury was
+enough to draw large crowds from city and country. His old habits of
+indomitable industry returned. He rode the circuits like a young
+barrister again. He was a close collector of claims, an admirable
+administrator, a safe counselor, and a bold and fearless advocate. In a
+short time General Toombs' family found themselves once more in comfort,
+and he was the same power with the people that he had always been.
+
+Cut off from all hope of official promotion, scorning to sue for
+political pardon, he strove to wield in the courts some of the power he
+forfeited in politics. He figured largely in cases of a public nature,
+and became an outspoken tribune of the people. He did not hesitate to
+face the Supreme Court of Georgia, then made up of Republican judges,
+and attack the laws of a Republican legislature. Among the bills passed
+at that time to popularize the legislature with the people, was a series
+of liberal homestead and exemption laws. They were the relief measures
+of 1868. By these schemes, at once rigorous and sweeping, millions of
+dollars were lost in Georgia. They were intended to wipe out old debts,
+especially contracts made during the war, and Governor Bullock had
+appointed a Supreme Court which sustained them. These laws were
+abhorrent to Toombs. He thundered against them with all the powers of
+his learning and eloquence. When he arose in court, there stood with
+him, he believed, not only the cause of his client, but the honor of the
+whole State of Georgia. It was much easier to seduce a poverty-stricken
+people by offering them measures of relief than to drive them by the
+bayonet or to subject them to African domination. In the case of
+Hardeman against Downer, in June, 1868, he declared before the Supreme
+Court that these homestead laws put a premium on dishonesty and robbed
+the poor man of his capital. "But we must consider the intention of the
+Act," said the Court. "Was it not the intention of the legislature to
+prevent the collection of just such claims as these you now bring?"
+"Yes, may it please the Court," said Toombs, shaking his leonine locks,
+"there can be no doubt that it was the intention of the legislature to
+defraud the creditor; but they have failed to put their intention in a
+form that would stand, so it becomes necessary for this Court to add its
+own ingenuity to this villainy. It seems that this Court is making laws
+rather than decisions."
+
+In one of his dissenting opinions upon these laws, Justice Hiram Warner
+declared that he would not allow his name to go down to posterity
+steeped in the infamy of such a decision. General Toombs lost his case,
+but the decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court of the
+United States.
+
+The times were full of evil. The legislature was dominated by
+adventurers and ignorant men, and public credit was freely voted away to
+new enterprises. The State was undeveloped, and this wholesale system of
+public improvement became popular. Unworthy men were scrambling for
+public station, and the times were out of tune. In the midst of this
+demoralization Toombs was a pillar of fire. He was tireless in his
+withering satire, his stinging invective, his uncompromising war upon
+the misgovernment of the day.
+
+Here was a fine field and a rare occasion for his pungent criticism and
+denunciation. His utterances were not those of a political leader. He
+was not trimming his sails for office. He did not shape his conduct so
+as to be considered an available man by the North. He fought error
+wherever he saw it. He made no terms with those whom he considered
+public enemies. He denounced radicalism as a "leagued scoundrelism of
+private gain and public plunder."
+
+In opposing the issue of State bonds to aid a certain railroad, he
+declared that if the legislature saddled this debt upon the taxpayers,
+their act would be a nullity. "We will adopt a new constitution with a
+clause repudiating these bonds, and like Ætna spew the monstrous frauds
+out of the market!"
+
+"You may," he said, "by your deep-laid schemes, lull the thoughtless,
+enlist the selfish, and stifle for a while the voices of patriots, but
+the day of reckoning will come. These cormorant corporations, these
+so-called patriotic developers, whom you seek to exempt, shall pay their
+dues, if justice lives. By the Living God, they shall pay them."
+
+"Georgia shall pay her debts," said Toombs on one occasion. "If she does
+not, I will pay them for her!" This piece of hyperbole was softened by
+the fact that on two occasions, when the State needed money to supply
+deficits, Toombs with other Georgians did come forward and lift the
+pressure. Sometimes he talked in a random way, but responsibility always
+sobered him. He was impatient of fraud and stupidity, often full of
+exaggerations, but scrupulous when the truth was relevant. Always
+strict and honorable in his engagements, he boasted that he never had a
+dirty shilling in his pocket.
+
+The men who "left the country for the country's good" and came South to
+fatten on the spoils of reconstruction, furnished unending targets for
+his satire. He declared that these so-called developers came for pelf,
+not patriotism. "Why, these men," he said, "are like thieving elephants.
+They will uproot an oak or pick up a pin. They would steal anything from
+a button to an empire." On one occasion he was bewailing the degeneracy
+of the times, and he exclaimed: "I am sorry I have got so much sense. I
+see into the tricks of these public men too quickly. When God Almighty
+moves me from the earth, he will take away a heap of experience. I
+expect when a man gets to be seventy he ought to go, for he knows too
+much for other people's convenience."
+
+"I hope the Lord will allow me to go to heaven as a gentleman," he used
+to say. "Some of these Georgia politicians I do not want to associate
+with. I would like to associate with Socrates and Shakespeare."
+
+During his arguments before the Supreme Court, General Toombs used to
+abuse the Governor and the Bullock Legislature very roundly. The Court
+adopted a rule that no lawyer should be allowed, while conducting his
+case, to abuse a coördinate branch of the government. General Toombs was
+informed that if he persisted in this practice he would be held for
+contempt. The next time Toombs went before the Court he alluded to the
+fugitive Governor in very sharp terms. "May it please your Honors, the
+Governor has now absconded. Your Honors have put in a little rule to
+catch me. In seeking to protect the powers that be, I presume you did
+not intend to defend the powers that were."
+
+The papers printed an account of an interview between General Gordon and
+Mr. Tilden in 1880, Gordon told Tilden that he was sorry he could not
+impart to Tilden some of his own strength and vitality. "So my brother
+told me last year," answered Mr. Tilden. "I have since followed him to
+the grave." Toombs read this and remarked that Tilden did not think he
+was going to die. "No one expects to die but I. I have got sense enough
+to know that I am bound to die."
+
+On one occasion Toombs was criticising an appointment made by an
+unpopular official. "But, General," someone said, "you must confess that
+it was a good appointment." "That may be, but that was not the reason it
+was made. Bacon was not accused of selling injustice. He was eternally
+damned for selling justice."
+
+General Toombs was once asked in a crowd in the Kimball House in
+Atlanta what he thought of the North. "My opinion of the Yankees is
+apostolic. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward
+him according to his works." A Federal officer was standing in the
+crowd. He said: "Well, General, we whipped you, anyhow." "No," replied
+Toombs, "we just wore ourselves out whipping you."
+
+He spoke of the spoliators in the State Legislature as "an assembly of
+manikins whose object is never higher than their breeches pockets;
+seekers of jobs and judgeships, anything for pap or plunder, an
+amalgamation of white rogues and blind negroes, gouging the treasury and
+disgracing Georgia."
+
+He was a violent foe of exemptions, of bounties, and of all sorts of
+corruption and fraud. He was overbearing at times, but not more
+conscious of power than of honesty in its use. He was generous to the
+weak. It was in defense of his ideas of justice that he overbore
+opposition.
+
+General Toombs kept the issues before the people. He had no patience
+with the tentative policy. He forfeited much of his influence at this
+time by his indiscriminate abuse of Northern men and Southern opponents,
+and his defiance of all the conditions of a restored Union. He could
+have served his people best by more conservative conduct, but he had all
+the roughness and acerbity of a reformer, dead in earnest. It was owing
+to his constant arraignment of illegal acts of the post-bellum régime
+that the people finally aroused, in 1870, and regained the State for
+white supremacy and Democratic government. He challenged the authors of
+the Reconstruction measures to discuss the constitutionality of the
+amendments. Charles J. Jenkins had already carried the cause of Georgia
+into the courts, and Linton Stephens, before United States Commissioner
+Swayze in Macon, had made an exhaustive argument upon the whole subject.
+Toombs forced these issues constantly into his cases, and kept public
+interest at white heat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+DAYS OF RECONSTRUCTION
+
+
+In July, 1868, the people of Georgia made the first determined stand
+against the Republican party. John B. Gordon was nominated for Governor,
+and Seymour and Blair had been named in New York as National Democratic
+standard-bearers. A memorable meeting was held in Atlanta. It was the
+first real rally of the white people under the new order of things.
+Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and Benjamin H. Hill addressed the
+multitude. There was much enthusiasm, and crowds gathered from every
+part of Georgia. This was the great "Bush Arbor meeting" of that year,
+and old men and boys speak of it to-day with kindling ardor. "Few
+people," said Toombs in that speech, "had escaped the horrors of war,
+and fewer still the stern and bitter curse of civil war. The histories
+of the greatest peoples of earth have been filled with defeats as well
+as victories, suffering as well as happiness, shame and reproach as well
+as honor and glory. The struggles of the great and good are the noblest
+legacies left by the past to the present generation, trophies worthy to
+be laid at the feet of Jehovah himself. Those whose blades glittered in
+the foremost ranks of the Northern army on the battlefield, with a yet
+higher and nobler purpose denounce the base uses to which the victory
+has been applied. The old shibboleths of victory are proclaimed as
+living principles. Whatever else may be lost, the principles of Magna
+Charta have survived the conflict of arms. The edicts of the enemy
+abolish all securities of life, liberty, and property; defeat all the
+rightful purposes of government, and renounce all remedies, all laws.["]
+
+General Toombs denounced the incompetency of the dominant party in
+Georgia--"In its tyranny, its corruption, its treachery to the Caucasian
+race, its patronage of vice, of fraud, of crime and criminals, its crime
+against humanity and in its efforts to subordinate the safeguards of
+public security and to uproot the foundations of free government it has
+forfeited all claims upon a free people."
+
+Alluding to General Longstreet, who had been a member of the Republican
+party, General Toombs said: "I would not have him tarnish his own
+laurels. I respect his courage, honor his devotion to his cause, and
+regret his errors." He denounced the ruling party of Georgia as a mass
+of floating putrescence, "which rises as it rots and rots as it rises."
+He declared that the Reconstruction Acts "stared out in their naked
+deformity, open to the indignant gaze of all honest men."
+
+The campaign at that time was made upon the illegality of the amendments
+to the Constitution. Enthusiasm was fed by the fiery and impetuous
+invective of Toombs. The utterances of most public men were guarded and
+conservative. But when Toombs spoke the people realized that he uttered
+the convictions of an unshackled mind and a fearless spirit. Leaders
+deprecated his extreme views, but the hustings rang with his ruthless
+candor.
+
+The conclusion of his Bush Arbor effort was a fine sample of his fervid
+speech: "All these and many more wrongs have been heaped upon you, my
+countrymen, without your consent. Your consent alone can give the least
+validity to these usurpations. Let no power on earth wring that consent
+from you. Take no counsel of fear; it is the meanest of masters; spurn
+the temptations of office from the polluted hands of your oppressors. He
+who owns only his own sepulcher at the price of such claims holds a
+heritage of shame. Unite with the National Democratic party. Your
+country says come; honor says come; duty says come; liberty says come;
+the country is in danger; let every freeman hasten to the rescue."
+
+It was at this meeting that Benjamin H. Hill, who made so much
+reputation by the publication of a series of papers entitled, "Notes on
+the Situation," delivered one of the most memorable speeches of his
+life. It was a moving, overmastering appeal to the people to go to the
+polls. When this oration was over, the audience was almost wild, and
+Robert Toombs, standing on the platform, in his enthusiasm threw his hat
+away into the delighted throng. A young bright-faced boy picked it up
+and carried it back to the speakers' stand. It was Henry Grady.
+
+The defeat of the National Democratic party in 1868 disheartened the
+Southern people, and the old disinclination to take part in politics
+seized them stronger than before. In 1870, however, General Toombs
+delivered, in different parts of Georgia, a carefully prepared lecture
+on the Principles of Magna Charta. It was just the reverse in style and
+conception to his fervid Bush Arbor oration. It was submitted to
+manuscript and was read from notes at the speakers' stand. With the
+possible exception of his Tremont Temple lecture, delivered in Boston in
+1856, it was the only one of his public addresses so carefully prepared
+and so dispassionately delivered. In his opinion the principles of free
+government were drifting away from old landmarks. The times were out of
+joint, the people were demoralized. The causes which afterward led to
+the great revolt in the Republican ranks in 1872 were already marked in
+the quick perception of Toombs, and this admirable state paper was
+framed to put the issue before the public in a sober, statesmanlike way,
+and to draw the people back to their old moorings. This lecture was
+delivered in all the large cities and many of the smaller towns of
+Georgia, and had a great effect. Already there had been concerted appeal
+to Georgians to cease this political opposition and "accept the
+situation." Even statesmen like Mr. Hill had come round to the point of
+advising the people to abandon "dead issues." The situation was more
+desperate than ever.
+
+In his Magna Charta lecture Mr. Toombs said that Algernon Sidney had
+summed up the object of all human wisdom as the good government of the
+people. "From the earliest ages to the present time," said he, "there
+has been a continued contest between the wise and the virtuous who wish
+to secure good government and the corrupt who were unwilling to grant
+it. The highest duty of every man, a duty enjoined by God, was the
+service of his country." This was the great value of the victory at
+Runnymede, with its rich fruits--that rights should be respected and
+that justice should be done. "These had never been denied for seven
+hundred years, until the present evil days," said Toombs. Magna Charta
+had been overridden and trampled underfoot by brave tyrants and evaded
+by cowardly ones. There had been ingenious schemes to destroy it. The
+men of '76 fought for Magna Charta. These principles had been prominent
+in our Constitution until a Republican majority attempted destruction
+and civil war. Kings had made efforts to destroy its power and subvert
+its influence. Not a single noble family existed in England but which
+had lost a member in its defense. Society was organized to protect it,
+and all good and true men are required to maintain its teachings. "The
+assassins of liberty are now in power, but a reaction is coming. Stand
+firm, make no compromise, have nothing to do with men who talk of dead
+issues. It is the shibboleth of ruin. Push forward, and make a square
+fight for your liberties."
+
+The plain but powerful summary of public obligation had a more lasting
+effect than his more fiery appeals. General Toombs was a potent leader
+in the campaign, though not himself a candidate or even a voter. General
+D. M. DuBose, his law partner, was elected to Congress this year, and
+the Democratic party secured a majority in the State Legislature. Among
+the men who shared in the redemption of the State Robert Toombs was the
+first and most conspicuous.
+
+Some of the best speeches made by General Toombs at this time were
+delivered to the farmers at the various agricultural fairs. These were
+frequent and, as Judge Reese declared, abounded with wisdom which
+caused him years of reflection and observation. He had been reared upon
+a farm. His interests, as his sympathies, were with these people. He
+remained in active management of his large plantation, Roanoke, in
+Stewart County, during the period when he was a member of Congress and
+even when he was in the army. Two or three times a year he made visits
+to that place and was always in close communication with his overseers.
+He loved the work and was a successful farmer. A fondness for gardening
+and stock-raising remained with him until his last years. Even in a very
+busy and tempestuous life, as he characterized it in speaking to Judge
+Reese, a spacious garden, with orchards and vineyards, was to him an
+unfailing source of recreation and pleasure.
+
+He writes to his wife of the disasters of the army at Orange Court
+House, Va., but finds time to add: "The gardens and fruit are great
+additions to the family comfort, and every effort should be made to put
+them in the best condition." Writing from Richmond of the condition of
+Lee's army in March, 1862, he does not forget to add: "I am sorry to
+know that the prospects of the crops are so bad. One of the best
+reliances now is the garden. Manure high, work well, and keep planting
+vegetables." From Roanoke, in 1863, he writes; "My plantation affairs
+are not in as good condition as I would wish. I have lost a great many
+sheep, have but few lambs and little wool; cattle poor--all need looking
+after." In the midst of the shelling of Atlanta in 1864, he writes from
+the trenches to his wife: "Tell Squire to put your cows and Gabriel's in
+the volunteer oatfield. Every day we hear cannonading in front."
+
+It was in 1869 that General Toombs made one of his great speeches at the
+State fair in Columbus, in the course of which he used this expression;
+"The farmers of Georgia will never enjoy general prosperity until they
+quit making the West their corncrib and smokehouse." It was in that same
+speech that Toombs said, referring to the soldiers of the South;
+"Liberty, in its last analysis, is but the sweat of the poor and the
+blood of the brave." Most of the great men in Georgia have been reared
+in the country. There seems to be something in the pure air, the broad
+fields, and even the solitude, conducive to vigor and self-reliance.
+Attrition and culture have finished the work laid up by the farmer boy,
+and that fertile section of middle Georgia, so rich in products of the
+earth, has given greatness to the State.
+
+In August, 1872, General Toombs was invited by the alumni of the
+University of Georgia to deliver the annual address during commencement
+week. A large crowd was in attendance and the veteran orator received
+an ovation. He departed from his usual custom and attempted to read a
+written speech. His eyesight had begun to fail him, the formation of a
+cataract having been felt with great inconvenience. The pages of the
+manuscript became separated and General Toombs, for the first time in
+his life, is said to have been embarrassed. He had not read more than
+one quarter of his speech when this complication was discovered, and he
+was unable to find the missing sheets. Governor Jenkins, who was sitting
+on the stage, whispered to him; "Toombs, throw away your manuscript and
+go it on general principles." The general took off his glasses, stuffed
+the mixed essay into his pocket, and advanced to the front of the stage.
+He was received with a storm of applause from the crowd, who had
+relished his discomfiture and were delighted with the thought of an
+old-time talk from Toombs. For half an hour he made one of his eloquent
+and electric speeches, and when he sat down the audience screamed for
+more. No one but Toombs could have emerged so brilliantly from this
+awkward dilemma.
+
+General Toombs opposed the nomination of Horace Greeley for President by
+the National Democratic convention in 1872. Mr. Stephens edited the
+Atlanta _Sun_, and these two friends once more joined their great powers
+to prevent the consummation of what they regarded as a vast political
+mistake. Greeley carried the State by a very reduced majority.
+
+In January, 1873, when Mr. Stephens was defeated for the United States
+Senate by General John B. Gordon, General Toombs called a meeting of the
+leaders of the eighth district in his room at the Kimball House in
+Atlanta, and nominated his friend Alexander Stephens for Congress. He
+needed no other indorsement. He was elected and reëlected, and remained
+in Congress until he resigned in 1882, to become Governor of Georgia.
+Toombs and Stephens never lost their lead as dictators in Georgia
+politics.
+
+The man in Georgia who suffered most frequently from the criticism of
+General Toombs during this eventful period was ex-Governor Joseph E.
+Brown. His position in taking his place in the Republican party, in
+accepting office, and separating himself from his old friends and
+allies, brought down upon him the opprobrium of most of the people. It
+was at a time when Charles J. Jenkins had carried away the great seal of
+Georgia and refused to surrender it to a hostile government. It was at a
+time when Linton Stephens, the most vigorous as the most popular public
+man during the reconstruction period, was endeavoring to arouse the
+people. Governor Brown's apostasy was unfortunate. No man was then more
+execrated by the people who had honored him. His name, for a while, was
+a byword and a reproach. Mr. Stephens defended his position as
+conscientious if not consistent, and gave Governor Brown the credit for
+the purity as well as the courage of his convictions. Governor Brown
+bore the contumely with patience. He contended that he could best serve
+the State by assuming functions that must otherwise be placed in hostile
+hands, and his friends declare to-day that in accepting the amendments
+to the Constitution he simply occupied in advance the ground to which
+the party and the people were forced to come. But his position did not
+compare favorably with that of the prominent Georgians of that day.
+
+The relations of Governor Brown and General Toombs continued strained.
+The latter never lost an opportunity to upbraid him in public or in
+private, and some of his keenest thrusts were aimed at the plodding
+figure of his old friend and ally, as it passed on its lonely way
+through the shadows of its long probation.
+
+On one occasion in Atlanta, in July, 1872, General Toombs among other
+things referred to a lobby at the legislature in connection with a claim
+for the Mitchel heirs. Governor Brown had remained quiet during his long
+political ostracism, but he turned upon his accuser now with
+unlooked-for severity. He answered the charge by declaring that if
+Toombs accused him of lobbying this claim, he was an "unscrupulous
+liar." The reply did not attract much attention until it became known
+that General Toombs had sent a friend to Governor Brown to know if the
+latter would accept a challenge. Colonel John C. Nicholls was the
+friend, and Governor Brown returned the answer that when he received the
+challenge he would let him know. General Toombs did not push the matter
+further. The affair took the form of a newspaper controversy, which was
+conducted with much acrimony on both sides. Colonel Nicholls stated in
+print his belief that Governor Brown would not have accepted a challenge
+but would have used it to Toombs' injury before the people. The prospect
+of a duel between these two old men created a sensation at the time. It
+would have been a shock to the public sense of propriety to have allowed
+such a meeting. It would never have been permitted; but Governor Brown
+seems to have been determined to put the issue to the touch. He had
+prepared his resignation as a deacon of the Baptist Church, and had
+placed his house in order. He seemed to realize that this was the
+turning-point of his career, and there is no doubt that General Toombs
+gave him the opportunity to appear in a better light than he had done
+for a long time; this incident was the beginning of his return to
+popularity and influence in Georgia. General Toombs was censured for
+provoking Governor Brown into the attitude of expecting a challenge and
+then declining to send it.
+
+Both General Toombs and Mr. Stephens were believers in the code of
+honor. Mr. Stephens once challenged Governor Herschel V. Johnson, and at
+another time he called out Hon. Benjamin H. Hill. General Toombs
+peremptorily challenged General D. H. Hill after the battle of Malvern
+Hill. In 1859, when United States Senator Broderick was killed by Judge
+Terry in California, Mr. Toombs delivered a striking eulogy of Broderick
+in the United States Senate. He said; "The dead man fell in honorable
+contest under a code which he fully recognized. While I lament his sad
+fate, I have no censure for him or his adversary. I think that no man
+under any circumstances can have a more enviable death than to fall in
+vindication of his honor. He has gone beyond censure or praise. He has
+passed away from man's judgment to the bar of the Judge of all the
+Earth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+HIS LAST PUBLIC SERVICE.
+
+
+One of the reforms advocated by General Toombs upon the return of the
+white people to the control of the State Government was the adoption of
+a new State Constitution. He never tired of declaring that the organic
+law of 1868 was the product of "aliens and usurpers," and that he would
+have none of it; Georgia must be represented by her own sons in council
+and live under a constitution of her own making. In May, 1877, an
+election was held to determine the question, and in spite of
+considerable opposition, even in the Democratic party, the people
+decided, by nine thousand majority, to have a constitutional convention.
+
+On July 10, 1877, that body, consisting of 194 delegates, assembled in
+Atlanta to revise the organic law. Charles J. Jenkins was elected
+president of the convention. He had been deposed from the office of
+Governor of Georgia at the point of the bayonet in 1866. He had carried
+the case of the State of Georgia before the national Supreme Court and
+contested the validity of the Reconstruction measures. He had carried
+with him, when expelled from the State Capitol, the great seal of the
+State, which he restored when the government was again remitted to his
+own people, and in public session of the two houses of the General
+Assembly, Governor Jenkins had been presented with a facsimile of the
+great seal, with the fitting words cut into its face, "In Arduis
+Fidelis." These words are graven on his monument to-day. He was more
+than seventy years of age, but bore himself with vigor and ability.
+There was a strong representation of the older men who had served the
+State before the war, and the younger members were in full sympathy with
+them. It was an unusual body of men--possibly the ablest that had
+assembled since the secession convention of 1861. General Toombs, of
+course, was the most prominent. He had been elected a delegate from his
+senatorial district--the only office he had occupied since the war. His
+activity in securing its call, his striking presence, as he walked to
+his seat, clad in his long summer duster, carrying his brown straw hat
+and his unlighted cigar, as well as his tireless labors in that body,
+made him the center of interest. General Toombs was chairman of the
+committee on legislation and chairman of the final committee on
+revision. This body was made up of twenty-six of the most prominent
+members of the convention, and to it were submitted the reports of the
+other thirteen committees. It was the duty of this committee to
+harmonize and digest the various matters coming before it, and to
+prepare the final report, which was discussed in open convention.
+General Toombs was practically in charge of the whole business of this
+body. He closely attended all the sessions of the convention, which
+lasted each day from 8.30 in the morning to 1 o'clock P. M. The entire
+afternoons were taken up with the important and exacting work of his
+committee of final revision. Frequently it was far into the night before
+he and his clerk had prepared their reports. General Toombs was in his
+sixty-eighth year, but stood the ordeal well. His facility, his
+endurance, his genius, his eloquence and pertinacity were revelations to
+the younger men, who knew him mainly by tradition. General Toombs
+proposed the only safe and proper course for the convention when he
+arose in his place on the floor and declared; "All this convention has
+to do is to establish a few fundamental principles and leave the other
+matters to the legislature and the people, in order to meet the ever
+varying affairs of human life." There was a persistent tendency to
+legislate upon details, a tendency which could not be entirely kept
+down. There was an element elected to this convention bent upon
+retrenchment and reform, and these delegates forced a long debate upon
+lowering the salaries of public officers, a policy which finally
+prevailed. During the progress of this debate General Toombs arose
+impatiently in his place and declared that, "The whole finances of the
+State are not included when we are speaking of the Governor's salary,
+and you spend more in talking about it than your children will have to
+pay in forty years."
+
+Occasionally he was betrayed into one of his erratic positions, as when
+he moved to strike out the section against dueling, and also to expunge
+from the bill of rights all restrictions upon bearing arms. He said:
+"Let the people bear arms for their own protection, whether in their
+boots or wherever they may choose."
+
+But his treatment of public questions was full of sound sense and
+discretion. He warned the convention that those members who, from
+hostility to the State administration, wished to wipe out the terms of
+the office-holders and make a new deal upon the adoption of the new
+constitution, were making a rash mistake. They would array a new class
+of enemies and imperil the passage of the new law. He advocated the
+submission of all doubtful questions, like the homestead laws and the
+location of the new Capitol, to the people in separate ordinances. He
+urged in eloquent terms the enlargement of the Supreme Court from three
+justices to five. Having been a champion of the law calling that Court
+into being forty years before, he knew its needs and proposed a reform
+which, if adopted, would have cut off much trouble in Georgia to-day.
+
+General Toombs was an advocate of the ordinance which took the selection
+of the judges and solicitors from the hands of the Governor and made
+them elective by the General Assembly. A strong element in the
+convention wanted the judiciary elected by the people. A member of the
+convention turned to General Toombs during the debate and said; "You
+dare not refuse the people this right to select their own judges." "I
+dare do anything that is right," replied Toombs. "It is not a reproach
+to the people to say that they are not able to do all the work of a
+complex government. Government is the act of the people after all." He
+reminded the convention that a new and ignorant element had been thrown
+in among the people as voters. "We must not only protect ourselves
+against them, but in behalf of the poor African," said he, "I would save
+him from himself. These people are kind, and affectionate, but their
+previous condition, whether by your fault or not, was such as to
+disqualify them from exercising the right of self-government. They were
+put upon us by people to make good government impossible in the South
+for all time, and before God, I believe they have done it."
+
+In answer to the argument that those States which had given the
+selection of judges to the people liked it, General Toombs replied that
+this did not prove that it was right or best. "It is easy to take the
+road to hell, but few people ever return from it." General Toombs
+prevailed in this point. He was also the author of the resolution
+authorizing the legislature to levy a tax to furnish good substantial
+artificial limbs to those who had lost them during the war.
+
+General Toombs declared frequently during the debate that one of his
+main objects in going to the convention, and for urging the people to
+vote for the call, was to place a clause in the new law prohibiting the
+policy of State aid to railroads and public enterprises. He had seen
+monstrous abuses grow up under this system. He had noticed that the
+railroads built by private enterprise had proven good investments; that
+no railroad aided by the State had paid a dividend. He declared that
+Georgia had never loaned her credit from the time when Oglethorpe landed
+at Yamacraw up to 1866, and she should never do it again. He wanted this
+license buried and buried forever. His policy prevailed. State aid to
+railroads was prohibited; corporate credit cannot now be loaned to
+public enterprises, and municipal taxation was wisely restricted.
+General Toombs declared with satisfaction that he had locked the door of
+the treasury, and put the key into the pocket of the people.
+
+During the proceedings of this convention an effort was made to open the
+courts to review the cases of certain outlawed bonds, which the
+legislature had refused to pay, and which the people had repudiated by
+constitutional amendment. Impressed by the conviction that certain
+classes of these bonds should be paid, the venerable president of the
+convention surrendered the chair and pled from his place on the floor
+for a judicial review of this question.
+
+No sooner was this solemn and urgent appeal concluded than General
+Toombs bounded to the floor. He declared with energy that no power of
+heaven or hell could bind him to pay these bonds. The contract was one
+of bayonet usurpation. Within a few days the legislature had loaded the
+State down with from ten to fifteen millions of the "bogus bonds."
+
+The term "repudiation" was distasteful to many. The bondholders did not
+relish it; but he thought it was a good honest word. No one was bound by
+these contracts, because they were not the acts of the people. "I have
+examined all the facts pertaining to these claims," said Toombs, "and
+looking to nothing but the State's integrity, I affirm that the matter
+shall go no further without my strenuous opposition. The legislature has
+again and again declared the claims fraudulent. The people have spoken.
+Let the bonds die." The convention agreed with Toombs.
+
+On the 16th of August the convention, then in the midst of its labors,
+confronted a crisis. The appropriation of $25,000 made by the
+legislature to meet the expenses of the convention had been exhausted,
+and the State Treasurer notified the president that he could not honor
+his warrants any further. This was a practical problem. The work mapped
+out had not been half done. Many of the delegates were poor men from the
+rural districts and were especially dependent upon their _per diem_
+during the dull summer season. To proceed required about $1000 per day.
+To have crippled this body in its labors would have been a public
+calamity. To check upon the public treasury beyond the limit fixed by
+law involved a risk which the State Government, not too friendly toward
+the convention at best, declined to assume. To raise the money outside
+by a private loan presented this risk, that in the case of the rejection
+of the constitution, then in embryo, the lender might find himself the
+holder of an uncertain claim. The convention, however, was not left long
+in doubt. With a heroic and patriotic _abandon_, General Toombs declared
+that if Georgia would not pay her debts, he would pay them for her.
+Selling a dozen or two United States bonds, he placed the proceeds to
+the credit of the president of the convention, who was authorized in
+turn to issue notes of $1000 each and deposit them with General Toombs.
+The act was spontaneous, whole-souled, dramatic. It saved the convention
+and rehabilitated the State with a new constitution. By a rising and
+unanimous vote General Toombs was publicly thanked for his
+public-spirited act, and the old man, alone remaining in his seat in the
+convention hall, covered his face with his hands, and shed tears during
+this unusual demonstration.
+
+When the convention had under review the bill of rights, General Toombs
+created a breeze in the proceedings by proposing a paragraph that the
+legislature should make no irrevocable grants of special privileges or
+immunities. The proposition received a rattling fire from all parts of
+the house. Governor Jenkins assailed it on the floor as dangerous to
+capital and fatal to public enterprise. It was argued that charters were
+contracts, and that when railroads or other interests were put upon
+notice that their franchise was likely to be disturbed, there would be
+an overthrow of confidence and development in Georgia. This was the
+first intimation of the master struggle which General Toombs was about
+to make, an advance against the corporations all along the line. It was
+the picket-firing before the engagement.
+
+General Toombs had made a study of the whole railroad question. He was
+a master of the law of corporations. He maintained a peculiar attitude
+toward them. He never invested a dollar in their stock, nor would he
+accept a place at their council boards. He rarely ever served them as
+attorney. When the General Assembly resolved to tax railroads in
+Georgia, the State selected General Toombs to prosecute the cases. In
+1869 he had argued the Collins case against the Central Railroad and
+Banking Company, in which the court had sustained his position that the
+proposed action of the Central Road in buying up the stock of the
+Atlantic and Gulf Railroad, to control that road, was _ultra vires_. He
+had conducted the case of Arnold DuBose against the Georgia Railroad for
+extortion in freight charges.
+
+The principles he had gleaned from this laborious record made him
+resolve to place restrictions upon corporate power in the new
+constitution. The time was ripe for this movement. The Granger
+legislation in the West had planted in the organic law of Illinois,
+Ohio, and Missouri the policy of government control over the railroads.
+The statutes of Pennsylvania also reflected the same principles, and the
+Supreme Court of the United States had decided this great case on the
+side of the people. General Toombs was master of the legislation on this
+subject in England, and had studied the American reports on the right
+and duty of the state to regulate railroad companies. He declared, in
+proposing this new system, that these laws had been adopted by the most
+enlightened governments of the world. "From the days of the Roman Empire
+down to the present time," said Toombs, "it has never been denied that
+the state has power over the corporations."
+
+At once the State was in an uproar. "Toombs is attempting a new
+revolution," was alleged. He was charged with leading an idolatrous
+majority into war upon the rights of property. Conservative men like
+Jenkins deprecated the agitation. Atlanta was filled with a powerful
+railroad lobby, and the press resounded with warning that development of
+the waste places of Georgia would be retarded by this unjust and
+nefarious warfare. Robert Toombs was not an agrarian. His movement
+against the corporations was reënforced by delegates from the small
+towns in Georgia, who had suffered from discrimination in favor of the
+larger cities. Railroad traffic had been diverted by rigid and ruthless
+exactions, and a coterie of delegates from southwest Georgia stood
+solidly by Toombs. These debates drew crowds of listeners. From the
+galleries hundreds of interested Georgians looked down upon the last
+public service of Robert Toombs. He never appeared to finer advantage.
+His voice lacked its old-time ring, his beard was gray and his frame was
+bent, but he was fearless, aggressive, alert, eloquent. He was master of
+the whole subject. Railways, he declared, were public highways. Upon no
+other principle could they receive land from the State, under its right
+of eminent domain, than that this land was condemned for public and not
+for private use. A public highway means that it must be used according
+to law. In those States where people have been fighting the
+encroachments of public monopolies, it had been found necessary to use
+these terms, and Toombs prefaced his agitation with this announcement.
+
+General Toombs did not mince matters. He declared that the rapacious
+course of the railroads in Georgia had been spoliation. Monopoly is
+extortion. Corporations must either be governed by the law or they will
+override the law. Competition is liberty. Keep the hand of the law on
+corporations and you keep up competition; keep up competition and you
+preserve liberty. It has been argued that the towns and counties in
+Georgia had grown rich. That is the same argument that was made in the
+English Parliament. They said; "Look at your little colonies, how they
+have grown under our care." But the patriotic men of America said; "We
+have grown rich in spite of your oppressions." Shall we not restrain
+this tax-gatherer who has no judge but himself, no limit but his
+avarice?
+
+General Toombs wanted it placed in the constitution that the legislature
+shall pass these laws restricting railroads. He declared he had twice
+drawn bills for that purpose; they had passed the House, but crumbled as
+though touched with the hand of death when they came to the forty-four
+(the Senate). "What," said he, "do I see before me? The grave. What
+beyond that? Starving millions of our posterity, that I have robbed by
+my action here, in giving them over to the keeping of these
+corporations. The right to control these railroads belongs to the State,
+to the people, and as long as I represent the people, I will not consent
+to surrender it, so help me God!"
+
+The spirit of Toombs dominated that convention. Men moved up the aisle
+to take their seats at his feet as he poured out his strong appeal.
+One-half of that body was filled with admiration, the other half with
+alarm. "It is a sacred thing to shake the pillars upon which the
+property of the country rests," said Mr. Hammond of Fulton. "Better
+shake the pillars of property than the pillars of liberty," answered
+this Georgia Sampson, with his thews girt for the fray. "The great
+question is, Shall Georgia govern the corporations or the corporations
+govern Georgia? Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve!"
+
+The house rang with applause. Members clustered about the old man as
+about the form of a prophet. The majority was with him. The articles
+which he had advocated came from the committee without recommendation,
+but they were substantially adopted, and are now parts of the supreme
+law of the land. The victory was won, and Robert Toombs, grim and
+triumphant, closed his legislative career, and claimed this work as the
+crowning act of his public labors.
+
+These principles are contained in Article IV. of the State constitution
+of Georgia. It declares the right of taxation to be sovereign,
+inviolable, and indestructible, and that it shall be irrevocable by the
+State; that the power to regulate freight and passenger tariffs and to
+prevent unjust discriminations shall be conferred upon the General
+Assembly, whose duty it shall be to pass laws for the same; that the
+right of eminent domain shall never be abridged; that any amendment to a
+charter shall bring the charter under the provisions of the
+Constitution; that the General Assembly shall have no authority to
+authorize any corporation to buy shares of stock in any other
+corporation, which shall have the effect to lessen competition or
+encourage monopoly. No railroad shall pay a rebate or bonus.
+
+Under these provisions, the Railroad Commission of Georgia was organized
+in 1879. This idea, as it finally worked out, was General Toombs'. He
+did not favor fixing the rates in the law, but the creation of such a
+commission to carry out these provisions. The present law was framed by
+Judge William M. Reese, Hon. Samuel Barnett, Ex-Senator H. D. McDaniel,
+and Superintendent Foreacre of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. It
+has worked well in Georgia. Twice has the legislature attempted to
+remodel it, but the people have rallied to its support and have not
+permitted it to be amended in so much as a single clause. It has served
+as an example for imitation by other States, and was cited as strong
+authority in Congress for the creation of the Inter-State Commerce Law.
+The railroad men, after fighting it for ten years, have come round to
+acknowledge its value. It has stood as a breakwater between the
+corporations and the people. It has guaranteed justice to the citizen,
+and has worked no injury to the railroads. Under its wise provisions
+Georgia has prospered, and leads the Union to-day in railroad building.
+And when, during a recent session of the legislature, an attempt was
+made to war upon railroad consolidation, the saving, overmastering,
+crowning argument of the railroads themselves was that General Toombs
+had already secured protection for the people, and that, under his
+masterly handiwork, the rights of property and the rights of the people
+were safe.
+
+When the convention had concluded its labors, General Toombs went before
+the people and threw himself with enthusiasm into the canvass. He took
+the stump, and everywhere his voice was heard in favor of the adoption
+of the new organic law. Many of the officers whose term had been cut
+off, and whose salaries had been reduced, appeared against the
+constitution. General Toombs declared that those public men who did not
+approve of the lower salaries might "pour them back in the jug." This
+homely phrase became a by-word in the canvass. It had its origin in this
+way: In the Creek war, in which "Capt. Robert A. Toombs" commanded a
+company made up of volunteers from Wilkes, Elbert, and Lincoln counties,
+a negro named Kinch went along as whisky sutler. As he served out the
+liquor, some of the soldiers complained of the price he asked. His
+answer was, "Well, sir, if you don't like it, sir, pour it back in the
+jug."
+
+In the State election of December, 1877, the new constitution was
+overwhelmingly adopted, and will remain for generations the organic law
+of the Empire State of the South.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+DOMESTIC LIFE OF TOOMBS.
+
+
+There never was a public man in America whose home life was more
+beautiful or more tender than that of Robert Toombs. As great as were
+his public virtues, his lofty character, and abilities, his domestic
+virtues were more striking still. He was a man who loved his family. In
+1830 he was married to Julia A. Dubose, with whom he lived, a model and
+devoted husband, for more than fifty years. She was a lady of rare
+personal beauty, attractive manners, and common sense. She shared his
+early struggles, and watched the lawyer grow into the statesman and the
+leader with unflagging confidence and love. There was never a time that
+he would not leave his practice or his public life to devote himself to
+her. His heart yearned for her during his long separation in Washington,
+when, during the debate upon the great Compromise measures of 1850, he
+wrote that he would rather see her than "save the State." He considered
+her in a thousand ways. He never disappointed her in coming home, but,
+when traveling, always returned when it was possible, just at the time
+he had promised. During the exciting scenes attending his first election
+to the United States Senate, he writes that he feels too little interest
+in the result perhaps for his success, and longs to be at home.
+Political honors did not draw him away from his devotion to this good
+woman. He never neglected her in the smallest way. His attentions were
+as pointed and courtly in her last days as when they were bright-faced
+boy and girl, lovers and cousins, in the twenties. During his labors in
+the constitutional convention of 1877, he one day wore upon his lapel a
+flower she had placed there, and stopping in his speech, paid fitting
+tribute to the pure emblem of a woman's love. A man of great deeds and
+great temptations, of great passions and of glaring faults, he never
+swerved in loyalty to his wedded love, and no influence ever divided his
+allegiance there. Writing to her on May 15, 1853, while he was United
+States Senator, he says:
+
+      MY DEAR JULIA:
+
+      This is your birthday, which you bid me remember, and this
+      letter will show you that I have not forgotten it. To-day
+      Gus Baldwin and Dr. Harbin dropped in to dinner, and we
+      drank your good health and many more returns in health and
+      happiness of the 15th of May. I did not tell them that you
+      were forty, for it might be that some time or other you
+      would not care to have them know it, and I am sure they
+      would never suspect it unless told. In truth I can scarcely
+      realize it myself, as you are the same lovely and loving,
+      true-hearted woman to me, that you were when I made you my
+      bride, nearly twenty-three years ago. There is no other
+      change except the superior loveliness of the full blown
+      over the budding rose. I have thrown my mind this quiet
+      Sunday evening over that large segment of human life
+      (twenty-three years) since we were married, and whatever of
+      happiness memory has treasured up clusters around you. In
+      life's struggle I have been what men call fortunate. I have
+      won its wealth and its honors, but I have won them by
+      labor, and toil, and strife, whose memory saddens even
+      success; but the pure joys of wedded love leave none but
+      pleasant recollections which one can dwell upon with
+      delight. These thoughts are dearer to me than to most men,
+      because I know for whatever success in life I may have had,
+      whatever evil I may have avoided, or whatever good I may
+      have done, I am mainly indebted to the beautiful, pure,
+      true-hearted little black-eyed girl, who on the 18th of
+      November, 1830, came trustingly to my arms, the sweetest
+      and dearest of wives. You need not fear, therefore, that I
+      shall forget your birthday. That and our bridal-day are the
+      brightest in my calendar, and memory will not easily part
+      with them.
+
+                                      Yours,
+                                        TOOMBS.
+
+So well known was this domestic trait of Mr. Toombs that Bishop Beckwith
+of Georgia, in delivering his funeral sermon, declared that "no knight,
+watching his sword before the altar, ever made a holier, truer, or purer
+vow than when Robert Toombs stood at the marriage altar more than fifty
+years ago. The fire that burned upon the altar of his home remained as
+pure and unfailing as the perpetual offering of Jerusalem."
+
+Mrs. Toombs was a woman of warm heart and strong convictions. She was
+noted for her benevolence and piety, and these she carried through life.
+Her Christian example was a steadying influence often in the stormy and
+impetuous career of her husband, and finally, when she had closed her
+eyes in peace, brought him to the altar where she had worshiped. Her
+household and her neighbors loved to be under her influence. No one who
+ever saw her fine face, or her lustrous dark eyes, forgot her. Her face
+was, in some respects, not unlike that of her husband. It is the best
+tribute that can be paid to her to say that for more than fifty years
+her influence over so strong a character as that of Robert Toombs was
+most potent. In June, 1856, while driving in Augusta, the horses
+attached to the carriage ran away, and Mrs. Toombs was thrown from the
+vehicle and sustained a fracture of the hip. General Toombs hastened to
+Georgia from Congress, and remained incessantly at her bedside for
+several weeks. In November, 1880, General and Mrs. Toombs celebrated
+their golden wedding, surrounded by their grandchildren and friends. It
+was a beautiful sight to see the bride of half a century with a new
+wedding ring upon her finger, playing the piano, while the old man of
+seventy essayed, like Washington, to dance the minuet. The old couple
+survived their three children, and lived to bless the lives of
+grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They were fond and affectionate
+parents.
+
+A friend, who had known them in their own home, describes "the great
+fire in the open fire-place; on one side the venerable statesman, with
+that head which always seemed to me of such rare beauty; on the other
+side, the quiet wife busy with home affairs, her eyes lighting, now and
+then, the wonderful conversation that fell from his eloquent lips."
+
+General Toombs was a liberal provider for his family, and his
+grandchildren and connections were constant objects of his bounty. Large
+sums were spent in charity. No church or benevolent institution appealed
+to him in vain. His house was open, and his hospitality was princely and
+proverbial. No one was more genial at home. Few prominent persons ever
+visited Washington without being entertained by Toombs. His regular
+dinners to the bar of the circuit, as, twice a year, the lawyers came to
+Washington to court, are remembered by scores of Georgians to-day. On
+one occasion when the townspeople were discussing the need of a hotel,
+General Toombs indignantly replied that there was no need for any such
+place. "If a respectable man comes to town," said he, "he can stay at
+my house. If he isn't respectable, we don't want him here at all."
+
+No religious conference could meet in Washington that the Toombs house
+was not full of guests. Many Northern people visited the place to hear
+the statesman talk. Newspaper correspondents sought him out to listen to
+his fine conversation. These people were always sure of the most
+courteous treatment, and were prepared for the most candid expression.
+General Toombs was not solely a _raconteur_. He did not draw upon his
+memory for his wit. The cream of his conversation was his bold and
+original comment. His wit flashed all along the line. His speech at
+times was droll and full of quaint provincialisms. He treated subjects
+spontaneously, in a style all his own. Strangers, who sat near him in a
+railroad car, have been enchanted by his sage and spirited conversation,
+as his leonine features lighted up, and his irresistible smile and
+kindly eye forced good-humor, even where his sentiments might have
+challenged dissent. He was the finest talker of his day. A close friend,
+who used to visit him frequently at his home, declares that Toombs'
+powers did not wait upon the occasion. He did not require an emergency
+to bring him out. All his faculties were alert, and in a morning's chat
+he would pour out the riches of memory, humor, eloquence, and logic
+until the listener would be enthralled by his brilliancy and power. He
+delighted to talk with intellectual men and women. He was impatient with
+triflers or dolts. He criticised unsparingly, and arraigned men and
+measures summarily, but he was a seeker after truth, and even when
+severe, was free from malice or envy.
+
+General Toombs was a man of tender sympathies. Distress of his friends
+moved him to prompt relief. In 1855 a friend and kinsman, Mr. Pope, died
+in Alabama. He had been a railroad contractor and his affairs were much
+involved. General Toombs promptly went to his place, bought in his
+property for the family, and left the place for the wife and children,
+just as it stood. From Mobile he writes a grief-stricken letter to his
+wife, December 28, 1855:
+
+      I feel that I must pour out my sorrows to someone, and whom
+      else can I look to but to one who, ever faithful and true,
+      has had my whole heart from my youth till now? This has
+      been one of the dark and sad days of my life. The remains
+      of my lost friend Mr. Pope came down on the cars this
+      morning. I met them alone at the depot, except Gus. Baldwin
+      and the hired hands. This evening I accompanied the remains
+      to the boat. Oh, it was so sad to see one whom so many
+      people professed to love, in a strange place, conveyed by
+      hirelings and deposited like merchandise among the freight
+      of a steamboat on the way to his long home. I can scarcely
+      write now, at the thought, through the blindness of my own
+      tears. As I saw him placed in the appointed spot among the
+      strangers and bustle of a departing boat, careless of who
+      or what he was, I stole away to the most retired part of
+      the boat, to conceal the weakness of friendship and relieve
+      my overburdened heart with a flood of tears. I felt it
+      would be a profanation of friendship even to be seen to
+      feel in such a crowd. But for my overwhelming duty to the
+      living I would have taken the boat and gone on with his
+      remains. This is the end of the just in this world. He was
+      a good and an upright man; never gave offense to a human
+      being. His family are ruined, but his only fault was want
+      of judgment, and too great confidence in his kind. He could
+      not make money, and it really seemed that his every effort
+      to do so plunged him deeper into debt. His great fault was
+      a concealment of his own difficulties and trials. I would
+      have done anything to have relieved them upon a full
+      disclosure. He was idolized at home, and I have wept at the
+      sorrows of the poor people in his employment, upon the very
+      mention of his death. I know I cannot control my grief and
+      am sensitive of my own weakness. I could not find relief
+      without pouring out my sorrows to you. There let them rest.
+
+                                      Yours,
+                                        TOOMBS.
+
+General Toombs resided in a three-story frame house in Washington, built
+after the manner of the olden time, with the spacious piazza, heavy
+columns, the wide door, and the large rooms. He lived in ease and
+comfort. He was an early riser, and after breakfast devoted himself to
+business or correspondence. At midday he was accessible to visitors, and
+rarely dined alone. In the afternoon he walked or drove. At night he sat
+in his arm-chair at his fireside, and in his lips invariably carried an
+unlit cigar. Smoking did not agree with him. While in Europe he
+delighted to test the tobacco of the different countries, but the
+practice always gave him pain above the eyes. His last attempt was in
+the army of Virginia. Convinced that smoking injured him, he never
+resumed it. Fond of his dry smoke, he had a peculiar cigar made to
+order, very closely wrapped, with fine tobacco.
+
+General Toombs made frequent trips away from home, even during the
+latter part of his life. The State retained his services in important
+cases. One of his last public acts was the prosecution of certain
+railway companies for back taxes. He recovered thousands of dollars to
+the State. He was summoned to Atlanta in 1880 to prosecute a defaulting
+State treasurer. He appeared very feeble, but his speech was a model of
+clearness and logic. During the latter part of his life there was a
+return of his early fault of quick, nervous, compressed speech. He
+grasped only the great hillocks of thought and left the intervening
+ground to be filled by the listener. His terse, rapid style was
+difficult to follow. As a presiding judge said, "His leaps are like a
+kangaroo's, and his speech gave me the headache." But his argument in
+the Jack Jones case was a model of eloquence and convincing law. A large
+number of friends attended the court, convinced that General Toombs was
+nearing the end of his great career, and were astounded at the manner
+in which he delivered his argument. As he concluded his address he
+turned in his place and caught the eye of Rev. Father J. M. O'Brien, an
+old friend of his. "Why, Father O'Brien," he said, wringing his hand, "I
+am glad to see you taking an interest in this case. These people are
+trying to usurp your functions. They want to grant the defendant
+absolution." "But, General," replied the quick-witted priest, "even I
+could not grant absolution until he had made restitution." "That's the
+doctrine," said the delighted lawyer, pleased to find that the point of
+his speech had taken so well. His face was all aglow with the _gaudia
+certaminis_ of the forum. This was his last appearance in court, and he
+won his case.
+
+His mother Georgia claimed his allegiance always, and he gave her his
+last and best powers. He worked for the commonwealth, and gave the
+people more than he ever received in return.
+
+In Augusta, in 1871, when he appeared before the Georgia Railroad
+Commission and arraigned the lease of the State road as illegal and
+unhallowed, he declared in a burst of indignation; "I would rather be
+buried at the public expense than to leave a dirty shilling." It was the
+acme of his desire to live and die like a gentleman.
+
+He had always been a safe financier. Scorning wealth, he had early found
+himself wealthy. It is estimated that he made more than a million
+dollars by his law practice after the war. He spent his money freely,
+careful always to avoid debt. Further than this, he kept no account of
+his means. Like Astor, he invested much of his holdings in land, and
+owned a large number of fine plantations in middle Georgia. When he died
+his estate probably reached two hundred thousand dollars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+HIS GREAT FAULT.
+
+
+No just biography of Robert Toombs can be written that does not take
+into notice the blemishes as well as the brightness of his character. He
+was a man on a grand scale. His virtues were heroic, his faults were
+conspicuous. No man despised hypocrisy more than he did, and no one
+would have asked any sooner to be painted as he was, without
+concealment. During the latter part of his life, many people knew him
+principally by his faults. Few knew what the wayward Prince Hal of the
+evening had been to King Henry in the morning hour. Like Webster and
+Clay, he was made up of human frailty. As his intimate friend, Samuel
+Barnett, said of him: "In spite of splendid physique, a man of blood and
+passion, he was not only a model of domestic virtue, but he avoided the
+lewd talk to which many prominent men are addicted. A fine sportsman and
+rider, a splendid shot, he was nothing of the racer or gamester. After
+all, he was more of a model than a warning." Among his faults, the one
+which exaggerated all the others, was his use of ardent liquors. This
+habit grew upon him, especially after the failure of the war. A proud,
+imperious nature, accustomed to great labors and great responsibilities,
+was left without its main resource and supplied with the stimulus of
+wine. No man needed that stimulus less than he did. His was a manhood
+vibrant in age with the warm blood of youth, and always at its best when
+his spirits and intellect alone were at play. He was easily affected by
+the smallest indulgence. When he measured himself with others, glass for
+glass, the result was distressing, disastrous. The immediate effect of
+excess was short. The next morning his splendid vitality asserted
+itself, and he was bright and clear as ever. The habit, however, grew
+upon him. The want of a physical check was bad. This was the worst of
+all his faults, and was exaggerated by special circumstances. It was
+less indulged in at home and greatly circulated abroad. Frequently the
+press reporters would surround him and expose in the papers a mere
+caricature of him. His talk, when under the influence of wine, was racy,
+extravagant, and fine, and his sayings too often found their way into
+print. In this way great injustice was done to the life and character of
+Robert Toombs, and Northern men who read these quaint sayings and
+redolent vaporings formed a distorted idea of the man.
+
+To a Northern correspondent who approached him during one of these
+periods, General Toombs said: "Yes, a gentleman whose intelligence
+revolts at usurpations must abstain from discussing the principles and
+policies of your Federal government, or receive the kicks of crossroad
+sputterers and press reporters; must either lie or be silent. They know
+only how to brawl and scrawl 'hot-head' and 'impolitic maniac.' Why, my
+free negroes know more than all your bosses. Now, damn it, put that in
+your paper."
+
+Robert Toombs was built to live ninety years, and to have been, at
+Gladstone's age, a Gladstone in power. He took little pains to explain
+his real nature. He seemed to take pains to conceal or mislead. He
+appeared at times to hide his better and expose his worse side. If he
+had been Byron, he would have put forward his deformed foot. He was
+utterly indifferent to posthumous fame. Time and again he was asked to
+have his letters and speeches compiled for print, but he would never
+hear of it. He waived these suggestions away with the sententious
+remark, "that his life was written on the pages of his country's
+history." With all his faults, his were strong principles and generous
+impulses. "We know something of what he yielded, but we know nothing of
+what he resisted." Include his strength and his weakness and measure him
+by other men, and we have a man of giant mold.
+
+One who was very near to Toombs in his last days said of him when he was
+dead: "It was a thing of sorrow to see this majestic old man pausing to
+measure his poor strength with a confirmed habit, rising, struggling,
+falling, and praying as he drifted on."
+
+General Toombs used to say that Webster was the greatest man he ever
+knew, that Clay managed men better, and Calhoun was the finest logician
+of the century. "The two most eloquent men I ever heard were Northern
+men," said he; "Choate and Prentiss." "Pierce," he used to say, "was the
+most complete gentleman I ever saw in the White House. He was clever and
+correct. Zachary Taylor was the most ignorant. It was amazing how little
+he knew. Van Buren was shrewd rather than sagacious. Tyler was a
+beautiful speaker, but Webster declared that a man who made a pretty
+speech was fit for nothing else."
+
+Toombs met Abraham Lincoln while he was in Congress. He related that Mr.
+Lincoln once objected to sitting down at table because he was the
+thirteenth man. Toombs told him that it was better to die than to be a
+victim to superstition. At the Hampton Roads Conference, President
+Lincoln expressed to Judge Campbell his confidence in the honesty and
+ability of Robert Toombs. He was a great reader. General Toombs often
+said that if the whole English literature were lost, and the Bible and
+Shakespeare remained, letters would not be much the poorer. Shakespeare
+was his standard. He was fond of Swedenborg, and in his early youth
+relished Tom Paine.
+
+General Toombs had a great affinity for young men, upon whom he exerted
+a great influence. He once said to a party of friends that gambling was
+the worst of evils because it impoverished the pocket while it corrupted
+the mind. "How about drinking, General?" he was asked. "Well, if a man
+is old and rich he may drink, for he will have the sympathy of his sober
+friends and the support of his drinking ones."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+HIS LAST DAYS.
+
+
+In 1880 General Toombs appeared in Atlanta, and addressed the Georgia
+Legislature in behalf of the candidacy of General A. R. Lawton for the
+United States Senate. His appearance, as he walked up the aisle, grim,
+venerable, and determined, awoke wild applause. He preserved his power
+of stirring the people whenever he spoke, but his speech was not as racy
+and clear as it had been. "This was one of the occasions," to quote from
+a distinguished critic of Toombs, "when the almost extinct volcano
+glowed again with its wonted fires--when the ivy-mantled keep of the
+crumbling castle resumed its pristine defiance with deep-toned culverin
+and ponderous mace; when, amid the colossal fragments of the tottering
+temple, men recognized the unsubdued spirit of Samson Agonistes."
+
+His last public speech was in September, 1884, when the people of
+Washington carried him the news of Cleveland's election to the
+Presidency. He came to his porch and responded briefly, almost
+inaudibly, to the serenade, but he was full of the gratification which
+Southern people felt over that event. He declared that he did not know
+that there was enough manhood in the country as to break loose from
+party ties and elect a President. The fact had revived his hope for the
+whole country. He had, before this, taken a gloomy view of the nation.
+He had, on one occasion, declared that the injection into the body
+politic of three million savages had made good government forever
+impossible. He had afterward said that the American Constitution rested
+solely upon the good faith of the people, and that would hardly bind
+together a great people of diverse interests. "Since 1850," he once
+said, "I have never believed this Union to be perpetual. The experience
+of the last war will deter any faction from soon making an effort at
+secession. Had it not been for this, there would have been a collision
+in 1876." But the election of Cleveland he regarded as a national,
+rather than a sectional victory--a non-partisan triumph in fact; and it
+was at this time, the first occasion since the war, that he expressed
+regret that he had not regained his citizenship and gone back into
+public life.
+
+But his great power had begun to wane. His tottering gait and hesitating
+speech pointed unmistakably to speedy dissolution. The new-born hope for
+his country came just as his steps neared "the silent, solemn shore of
+that vast ocean he must sail so soon."
+
+In March, 1883, General Toombs was summoned to Atlanta to attend the
+funeral of his lifelong friend Mr. Stephens. The latter had been an
+invalid for forty years, but was kept in active life by the sheer force
+of his indomitable will. Emerging from the war a prisoner, he had
+finally secured his release and had been elected United States Senator.
+Being prevented from taking his seat, he had returned home and finished
+his constitutional review of the "War Between the States." In 1873 he
+had been reëlected to Congress, where he had remained for ten years,
+resigning this position to accept the nomination for Governor of
+Georgia, which his party had offered him at a critical moment. It had
+been the desire of the "Great Commoner" to "die in harness," and there
+is no doubt that his close attention to the arduous duties of Governor
+hastened his death. Thousands of Georgians repaired to the State Capitol
+to honor his memory, but he who attracted most attention was the gray
+and grief-stricken companion who stood by the coffin of the man he had
+honored for fifty years. Mr. Stephens, in his diary, recalls the fact
+that his first meeting with Mr. Toombs was in court, when the latter
+generously offered to lend him money and look after his practice so that
+Stephens could take a trip for his health.
+
+Like Damon and Pythias, these two men were bound by the strongest ties.
+They entered public life together in the General Assembly of Georgia.
+Together they rode the circuits as young attorneys, and each was
+rewarded about the same time with a seat in the national councils. Both
+were conspicuous in the _ante-bellum_ agitation, and both were prominent
+in the Civil War. As age advanced their relations were closer still.
+
+General Toombs at the funeral of his friend pronounced a eulogium on the
+dead. His words were tremulous, and the trooping, tender memories of
+half a century crowded into the anguish of that moment. Toombs and
+Stephens, so long united in life, were not long parted in death.
+
+In September, 1883, Mrs. Toombs died at her summer residence in
+Clarkesville, Ga. Their devoted friend, Dr. Steiner, was with them at
+the time, and rendered the double offices of family physician and
+sympathetic friend. Between these two men there had been a warm and long
+friendship. Dr. Steiner talked with General Toombs about his spiritual
+condition. A godly man himself, the doctor thought that he might remove
+any doubts that might linger in the mind of the stricken husband. He was
+gratified to hear that the way was clear. "Why, doctor," said General
+Toombs, "I am a prayerful man. I read the Bible and the Prayer Book
+every day." "Then why not be baptized, General?" "Baptize me, doctor,"
+was his prompt reply. Dr. Steiner answered that there was no immediate
+need of that. The general was in good health. Dr. Steiner had baptized
+patients, he said, but it was in times of emergency. It was the desire
+of General Toombs to be baptized at the bedside of his wife. In a short
+time Robert Toombs was in communion with the Southern Methodist Church.
+It was his wife's beautiful example, "moving beside that soaring, stormy
+spirit, praying to God for blessings on it," which brought him to a
+confession of his faith, and left him in full fellowship with God's
+people.
+
+General Toombs' health commenced visibly to fail after his wife's death,
+and the loss of Mr. Stephens made life lonely. His younger brother
+Gabriel, himself in the shadow of a great affliction, was with him
+constantly. They were devotedly attached to each other. Mr. Gabriel
+Toombs is, in personal appearance, very much like his brother. The long,
+iron-gray hair, brushed straight out from his head, reminds one of
+Robert Toombs. He is smaller in stature, and is a man of strong
+abilities, even temperament, and well-balanced mind. His brother had
+great regard for his business judgment and political sagacity, and often
+consulted him on public matters. These men lived near each other in
+Washington, their families grew up together, and General Toombs regarded
+his brother's children almost as he did his own.
+
+On the 30th of September, 1885, Robert Toombs was confined to his house
+by illness. It was a general breaking down of his whole system. It was
+evident that he was nearing his end. During his last illness his mind
+would wander, and then his faculties would return with singular
+clearness. He suffered little pain. As Henry Grady said of him, it
+seemed that this kingly power and great vitality, which had subdued
+everything else, would finally conquer death. His ruling instinct was
+strong in dissolution. He still preserved to the last his faculty of
+grasping with ease public situations, and "framing terse epigrams, which
+he threw out like proverbs."
+
+During one of his lucid intervals he asked for the news. He was told;
+"General, the Georgia Legislature has not yet adjourned."
+
+"Lord, send for Cromwell," he answered, as he turned on his pillow.
+
+Another time he was told that the Prohibitionists were holding an
+election in the town. "Prohibitionists," said he, "are men of small
+pints."
+
+His mind at this period dwelt mainly on serious thoughts. The Bible was
+read to him daily. He was perfectly aware of his condition. He said to
+Dr. Steiner: "Looking over my broad field of life, I have not a
+resentment. I would not pang a heart."
+
+He talked in his delirium of Mr. Stephens and Dr. Steiner. The latter
+recalled him and said: "General, I am here by your side; Mr. Stephens,
+you know, has crossed over the river." Coming to himself, he said: "Yes,
+I know I am fast passing away. Life's fitful fever will soon be over. I
+would not blot out a single act of my life."
+
+Dr. Steiner declared that he never before realized so fully the
+appropriateness of Mr. Stephens' tribute to Toombs; "His was the
+greatest mind I ever came in contact with. Its operations, even in its
+errors, remind me of a mighty waste of waters."
+
+When the time came for Dr. Steiner to return to his home in Augusta,
+General Toombs bade him good-by. "I am sorry," said he, "the hour is
+come. I hope we shall meet in a better place."
+
+After Thursday, December 10, General Toombs did not regain
+consciousness. On Monday, December 15, 1885, at 6 o'clock P. M., he
+breathed his last. Just as the darkness of a winter evening stole over
+the land the great spirit of the statesman walked into eternal light.
+
+He was buried on Thursday, December 18, at twelve o'clock. The funeral
+exercises were held in the little brick Methodist church where his wife
+and daughter had worshiped.
+
+The funeral was simple, according to his wishes. A large number of
+public men in Georgia attended the services. Dr. Hillyer, a prominent
+Baptist divine and classmate of General Toombs, assisted in the
+services. Rt. Rev. John W. Beckwith, Episcopal Bishop of Georgia, who
+had been his closest religious adviser after the death of the Methodist
+Bishop George F. Pierce, delivered a beautiful eulogium.
+
+The remains were interred in the Washington cemetery, by the side of the
+body of his wife. A handsome marble shaft, bearing the simple and
+speaking inscription "Robert Toombs," marks the spot which is sacred to
+all Georgians.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+ Abolitionists, election of "Independent Democrats" by, 109;
+   in campaign of 1856, 140;
+   effect of Dred Scott case on, 159
+
+ Achison, David R., leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Act of 1789, claim for enforcement of, 73-76
+
+ Adams, John Q., compact with Clay, 14;
+   charge of corruption against, 55;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Alabama, delegates withdraw from Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 213;
+   escape through, 301-303
+
+ _Alabama_, escape on the, 305
+
+ Alexander, W. F., joins in European trip, 125;
+   appointed Quartermaster-major, 237
+
+ Alexander, Mrs. W. F., death, 312
+
+ Aliens, Toombs' welcome for, 150, 151
+
+ Alps, visit to the, 126
+
+ American party, rise, 121;
+   opposed and denounced by Toombs, 124, 128, 147, 149;
+   successes and defeats in 1855, 128;
+   nominates Fillmore, 140;
+   opposition to Toombs' party, 143;
+   principles, 148;
+   nominates Hill for governorship of Georgia, 155;
+   downfall, 158
+
+ Amsterdam, visit to, 126
+
+ Anderson, Major, besieged at Fort Sumter, 227-229
+
+ Andrews, Judge, defeated for governorship of Georgia, 128
+
+ Andrews' Grove, debate between Toombs and Hill in, 145-152
+
+ Antietam, battle of, 262-269
+
+ Anti-railroad agitation, 26
+
+ Appleton, Nathan, entertains Toombs at Boston, 130
+
+ Appleton, William, entertains Toombs at Boston, 130
+
+ Arkansas, delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secedes, 233
+
+ Army Appropriation bill, debate between Toombs and Davis on, 247-249
+
+ Army of Northern Virginia, 5, 262
+
+ Army of Potomac, defeated before Richmond, 246
+
+ Articles of Confederation, bearing on slavery question, 132
+
+ Athens, University at, 7-12
+
+ Atlanta, quarrel between Stephens and Cone in, 62;
+   in the field before, 276;
+   political meeting at, 324
+
+ _Atlanta Sun_, edited by Stephens, 332
+
+ Atlantic cable, opposes appropriation for, 194
+
+ Augusta, Ga., speeches at, 47-50, 165-168
+
+ _Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel_, defends Toombs, 186
+
+
+ Baltimore, delegate to Clay convention at, 46;
+   Whig convention at, 97;
+   Democratic convention at, 97
+
+ Baltimore convention, the, action in regard to Georgia delegations, 182
+
+ Banking, position on, 33, 39
+
+ Bank of the United States, 32
+
+ Bar, admission to the, 13
+
+ Barnett, Samuel, frames railroad law, 351;
+   tribute to Toombs, 364
+
+ Bartow, Francis S., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Bayard, James A., leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   member of Charleston convention, 176;
+   presides over seceders from Charleston convention, 178
+
+ Beaverdam Creek, 3
+
+ Beckwith, Bishop John W., eulogium on Toombs, 355, 376
+
+ Bell, John, leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115;
+   nominated for Presidency, 183;
+   vote in Georgia for, 184
+
+ Benjamin, Judah P., Attorney General of Confederate States, 221;
+   legal practice in England, 310
+
+ Benning, Col., assumes command of Toombs' brigade, 268
+
+ Benton, Thomas H., on disunion, 81
+
+ Berrien, John M., censured by Georgia Democrats, 39;
+   represents Georgia in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   in campaign of 1851, 93, 94
+
+ Bill of Rights, in Constitutional convention, 345
+
+ Bird, Edge, reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Black, Edward J., opposes Toombs in campaign of 1844, 53
+
+ Blaine, J. G., characterization of Toombs' farewell
+     speech in Senate, 205;
+   on bombardment of Sumter, 229;
+   on ravages of Confederate ships, 232;
+   objects to Toombs' restoration to citizenship, 313
+
+ Blair, Frank P., nominated for Vice-presidency, 324
+
+ Blockade of Southern ports, 229
+
+ Bonds, repudiation of outlawed, 343, 344
+
+ Boston, lecture in, 129-135
+
+ _Boston Journal_, on Toombs' lecture, 131
+
+ Boyd Amendment, 80
+
+ Braddock, Gen., massacre of his command, 1
+
+ Bragg, Gen., opposed by Toombs and Linton Stephens, 274
+
+ Breckenridge, John C., elected vice president, 152;
+   nominated for Presidency, 183;
+   vote in Georgia for, 184;
+   last attendance at Confederate Cabinet, 282
+
+ Bright, John, restrains recognition of Confederacy, 232, 233
+
+ Broderick, Senator, eulogized by Toombs, 336
+
+ Brooks, Preston S., assaults Sumner, 141, 142;
+   reëlected, 142
+
+ Brown, John, raid on Harper's Ferry, 169;
+   execution, 169;
+   influence of, 170;
+   Toombs' characterization of his raid, 172, 173
+
+ Brown, Joseph E., nominated for governorship of Georgia, 154;
+   rise of, 156, 157;
+   supported by Toombs, 157;
+   ability, 158;
+   elected governor, 158;
+   candidate for reëlection to governorship, 166;
+   seizes Fort Pulaski, 214;
+   opposes Conscription and Impressment Acts, 273;
+   commended by Toombs, 278;
+   parting with Toombs, 281;
+   joins Republican party, 290;
+   strained relations with Toombs, 333-336
+
+ Browne, W. M., Confederate Assistant Secretary of State, 237
+
+ Brussels, visit to, 126
+
+ Buchanan, James, on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114, 115;
+   nominated for Presidency, 141;
+   elected, 152;
+   position on Territorial question, 159;
+   dissolution of Cabinet, 199
+
+ Bullock, Gov., 317, 320, 321
+
+ Bunker Hill Monument, denial of speech about slave roll-call, at, 119
+
+ Burt, Armistead, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Bush Arbor meeting, 324-327
+
+ Butler, Benjamin F., member of Charleston convention, 176
+
+ Butler, Senator, Sumner's strictures on, 142
+
+
+ Calhoun, John C., compared with Toombs, 14;
+   as a lawyer, 16;
+   conflict with Jackson, 29;
+   admiration of Toombs for, 31, 104, 367;
+   railroad schemes of, 41;
+   arraigned for the "sugar letter," 46;
+   characterization of acquired Mexican territory, 67;
+   last efforts of, 68, 79, 107
+
+ California, acquisition of, 67;
+   question of admission of, 77-81, 85;
+   Toombs' ideas on exclusion of slavery from, 91;
+   supports the South in Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Cameron, Simon, criticised by Toombs, 197
+
+ Canada, favors purchase of, 195
+
+ Caribbean Sea, advocates making a _mare clausum_, 196
+
+ Carlyle, Thomas, view of the Civil War, 233;
+   Toombs' interviews with, 310
+
+ Cass, Lewis, defeated for the Presidency, 63;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   enmity to, by Northern men, 118
+
+ Catlett, Miss, 3
+
+ Central America, favors purchase of, 195
+
+ Centreville, Johnston's advance to, 238;
+   Toombs' retreat from, 239;
+   escape of Toombs through, 292
+
+ Chandler, Daniel, 9
+
+ Charles I., legend of Toombs' ancestors and, 1, 2, 156
+
+ Charleston, S. C., Yancey's speech in, 178;
+   excitement at bombardment of Sumter, 227
+
+ Charleston convention, the, 175-181
+
+ Charlton, Robert M., Democratic leader, 51;
+   opposition to Toombs, 95
+
+ Chase, Salmon P., represents Ohio in U. S. Senate, 68, 107;
+   an "Independent Democrat," 109;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Chattahoochee River, Toombs' escape by, 301
+
+ Chenault, Nick, 288
+
+ Cherokee County, sends Brown to State Senate, 157
+
+ Chickahominy River, Johnston's retreat behind, 245
+
+ Chickamauga, dispute between Gen. Hill and Gen. Walker
+     at battle of, 258, 259
+
+ Choate, Rufus, Toombs on, 367
+
+ Cilley duel, the, 55
+
+ Cincinnati Platform of 1856, 141, 165
+
+ Civil war, Toombs' horror of, 120;
+   opening of the, 227
+
+ Clarke, Gen. John, feud with Crawford, 29, 30
+
+ Clarkesville, Ga., summer residence at, 372
+
+ Clay, Henry, 14;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 38, 50, 104, 367;
+   nominated for Presidency, 46;
+   Compromise measures, 52, 79;
+   opposition to, in campaign of 1844, 54, 55;
+   popularity, 55;
+   position in campaign of 1848, 60;
+   opinion on disposition of acquired territory, 67;
+   last efforts of, 68;
+   the "Omnibus bill," 80;
+   death, 107;
+   denies framing the Missouri Compromise, 113;
+   position on internal improvements, 188;
+   his loss felt, 201
+
+ Clay and Adams compact, the, 14
+
+ Clayton Compromise, the, 61, 62, 64
+
+ Cleveland, Grover, Toombs' speech on election of, 370
+
+ Cobb, Gov. Howell, as a lawyer, 16, 20, 21;
+   Democratic leader, 51;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   elected Speaker of House of Representatives, 69;
+   position on admission of California, 81;
+   position on disunion, 82;
+   nominated for governorship, 86;
+   characteristics of, 87;
+   in campaign of 1851, 92;
+   elected governor, 93;
+   opinion of Joseph E. Brown, 155;
+   indorses seceders from Charleston convention, 179;
+   prominence of, 186;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   president of Provisional Congress, 216;
+   addresses meeting at Atlanta, 324
+
+ Cobb, Thomas R. R., zeal for secession, 212;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Cobb, Thomas W., guardian of Robert Toombs, 7, 8
+
+ College discipline, 8, 9
+
+ Collins _v._ Central R. R. & Banking Co., case argued by Toombs, 346
+
+ Colquitt, Walter T., elected U. S. Senator, 38;
+   Democratic leader, 51
+
+ Columbia County, legal practice in, 15
+
+ Columbia River, boundary line of, 57
+
+ Commerce, Toombs' views on the power to regulate, 189
+
+ Committee on Banking, General Assembly, chairman of, 33
+
+ Committee on Internal Improvements, General Assembly, member of, 33;
+   chairman of, 40
+
+ Committee on State of the Republic, General Assembly, chairman of, 33
+
+ Committees, views on legislation through, 196
+
+ Compromise bill, the, 52
+
+ Compromise of 1850, the, 67-82;
+   indorsed by Whig and Democratic conventions at Baltimore, 97;
+   Gen. Scott's position on, 103
+
+ Cone, Francis H., as a lawyer, 16;
+   opposed to Toombs at the bar, 25;
+   quarrel with Stephens, 62
+
+ Confederacy, last days of the, 280-284
+
+ Confederate commissioners, mission to Washington, 222-224;
+   sent to Europe, 229
+
+ Confederate navy, captures by, 232
+
+ Confederate States, preparation of Constitution for, 219, 220;
+   appointment of Cabinet, 221;
+   last meeting of Cabinet, 282
+
+ Conscription and Impressment Acts, opposition to, 272, 273
+
+ Constitutional Union party, 81, 93, 183
+
+ Constitutional convention, and the new constitution of Georgia, 337-352
+
+ Conventions, Toombs' opinion of, 103, 104, 106
+
+ Corporations, attitude toward, 346
+
+ Crawford, George W., as a lawyer, 16;
+   resolution in Whig convention of 1848, 60;
+   connection with the Golphin claim, 65;
+   retirement of, 66;
+   presides over State Sovereignty convention, 209
+
+ Crawford, Martin J., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   Confederate commissioner to Washington, 222
+
+ Crawford, William H., career, 13, 14, 16;
+   feud with Clarke, 29, 30;
+   heads Whig electoral ticket in Georgia, 1848, 60
+
+ Creek War, Toombs' service in, 32;
+   anecdote of sutler, 352
+
+ _Creole_, Toombs' escape on the, 303, 304
+
+ Crittenden Compromise, the, 202, 203
+
+ Cuba, favors purchase of, 195, 196;
+   arrival in, 307
+
+ Cumberland Gap, railroad scheme for, 41
+
+ Cumming, Major J. B., 259
+
+ Cummings Point battery, fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Cushing, Caleb, president of Charleston convention, 175;
+   resigns chairmanship of Baltimore convention, 182;
+   presides over seceders from Baltimore convention, 183
+
+
+ Dallas, George M., attitude on tariff question, 50;
+   Georgia's vote for, 55
+
+ Danburg, letter from Toombs to constituents at, 199-201
+
+ Davis, Col., quarrel with Henry Clay, 54, 55
+
+ Davis, Jefferson, Toombs' advice to, 23;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   on Toombs' financial ability, 59;
+   represents Mississippi in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   defeated by Foote, 97;
+   debate with Douglas on popular sovereignty, 163, 164;
+   personal traits, 163;
+   Senate resolutions concerning Southern principles, 181;
+   election to Presidency of Confederate States, 217, 218;
+   appoints his Cabinet, 221;
+   belief in Seward, 223;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 241, 242, 246;
+   debate with Toombs on Army Appropriation bill, 247-249;
+   policy and character of, 274, 275;
+   attends last meeting of Confederate Cabinet, 281, 282;
+   tribute to Toombs, 284;
+   arrest of, 284;
+   last meeting with Toombs, 284, 285;
+   in irons, 298
+
+ Davis, John W., elected Speaker of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Dawson, William C., as a lawyer, 16;
+   candidate for governor of Georgia, 37;
+   enters U. S. Senate, 68
+
+ Deas, Joseph, aids Toombs' escape, 296
+
+ Declaration of Independence, position on slavery question, 132
+
+ Declaration of Paris, accepted by Confederate government, 231
+
+ Delaware delegates leave Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Democratic party, strength in Georgia, 30;
+   supports central bank scheme, 38;
+   censures Senator Berrien, 39;
+   criticised, 48;
+   carries additional protection measure, 51;
+   attempt to defeat Toombs by, in 1848, 63, 64;
+   elects Cobb Speaker of House, 69;
+   joint action with Whigs in Georgia, 85;
+   convention at Baltimore, 97;
+   loss of House majority, 121;
+   nominates Buchanan, 141;
+   nominates Brown for governor of Georgia, 154;
+   split over Territorial question, 166, 167;
+   demand for new plank in platform, 167;
+   split among Georgia Democrats, 182;
+   success in State legislature, 329
+
+ Depreciation of currency, 31
+
+ District of Columbia, Clay's proposed abolition of slave trade in, 79;
+   amendment as to slavery in, 202
+
+ Disunion, opposition to, 81;
+   clamor for, 83
+
+ Dooly, Judge, 14
+
+ "Door sill" speech, the, 170-174
+
+ Dougherty, Robert, 9
+
+ Douglas, Stephen A., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   enters U. S. Senate, 68;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   introduces Kansas-Nebraska bill, 108, 109;
+   second bill on Kansas-Nebraska question, 109;
+   burned in effigy, 115;
+   Presidential aspirations, 140, 161;
+   debate with Lincoln, 161, 162;
+   accused of participation in assault on Sumner, 142, 143;
+   eulogized by Toombs, 148, 149, 164, 165, 167;
+   opposes Lecompton constitution, 160;
+   indorses Dred Scott decision, 160;
+   reëlected to U. S. Senate, 162, 163;
+   views on popular sovereignty, 163, 164;
+   resolution for protection of States against invasion, 170-172;
+   rupture with Toombs, 181;
+   nominated for Presidency, 182;
+   vote in Georgia for, 184
+
+ Dred Scott case, 159
+
+ Droomgoole, George C., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Du Bose, Dudley M., Toombs' adjutant-general, 237;
+   forms partnership with Toombs, 316;
+   sent to Congress, 329
+
+ Du Bose, Mrs. Dudley M., death of, 310
+
+ Du Bose _v._ Georgia Railroad, case argued by Toombs, 346
+
+ Du Quesne, Fort, massacre at, 1
+
+
+ Eberhart case, the, 25, 26
+
+ Elbert County, admission to bar in, 13;
+   legal practice in, 15, 16, 22, 23;
+   popularity in, 22;
+   escape through, 288, 289, 292
+
+ Elberton, Ga., speech at, 89
+
+ Electoral vote, views on counting, 193, 194
+
+ Emigrant Aid Societies, 115-118, 159
+
+ Enghien, visit to, 309
+
+ England, introduction of slavery into Colonies by, 134
+
+ English compromise on Lecompton constitution, 164
+
+ Eugénie, Empress, Toombs' interviews with, 310
+
+ Europe, trip in, 125-128;
+   hesitation of powers in regard to the Confederacy, 233
+
+ Evans, Augusta J., aids Toombs' escape, 302, 303
+
+ Evans, Howard, aids Toombs' escape, 302, 303
+
+ Everett, Edward, nominated for Vice-presidency, 183
+
+
+ Fanning, Welcome, 6
+
+ Felton, W. H., opposition to, 105
+
+ "Fifty-four forty, or fight," 57
+
+ Fillmore, Millard, nominated for Vice-presidency, 60;
+   on repeal of Missouri Compromise, 115;
+   nominated for Presidency, 140;
+   Toombs' characterization of, 149, 150;
+   electoral vote for, 152
+
+ Finance Committee of Provisional Congress, chairman of, 220
+
+ Fish, Hamilton, vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Fitzpatrick, Gov., declines nomination for Vice-presidency, 182
+
+ Florida, delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 213
+
+ Foote, Henry S., represents Mississippi in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   elected governor of Mississippi, 97;
+   contest with Davis in Mississippi, 163
+
+ "Forbidden Fruit," 67
+
+ Force bill, the, 51
+
+ Foreacre, Supt., frames railroad law, 351
+
+ Forensic eloquence, 18, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 361
+
+ Forsyth, John, Confederate commissioner to Washington, 222
+
+ Forsythe, John C., attitude on the Compromise bill, 52
+
+ Forts. See their names.
+
+ France, Mexican schemes, 233;
+   political events in, 309, 310
+
+ Franklin College, 6-12
+
+ Franklin County, legal practice in, 16
+
+ Freemasons, joins the, 289
+
+ Freeport, Ill., debate between Lincoln and Douglas at, 161, 162
+
+ Free-Soil party, 89
+
+ Free-Soil settlers, 115, 116
+
+ Frémont, John C., nominated for Presidency, 140;
+   electoral vote for, 152
+
+ French, Capt. H. L., account of Toombs at second battle
+     of Manassas, 261
+
+ Fugitive-Slave law, Clay's proposed, 79;
+   the Georgia platform, 86;
+   indorsed by Whig convention at Baltimore, 97;
+   Webster's attitude on, 100;
+   allusion to, in Boston lecture, 131
+
+ Fugitive-Slave laws, passage of new, 170;
+   proposed amendments, 202;
+   demands of the South as to, 206
+
+ Fulton, Col. M. C., narrow escape of, 304
+
+
+ Gardner, James, candidate for governorship of Georgia, 157
+
+ Garrison, W. L., denunciation of U. S. Constitution, 129
+
+ General Assembly, service in the, 17, 30-46;
+   vote for Speaker in, 33
+
+ Geneva, visit to, 126
+
+ Georgia, land-grant to Major Robert Toombs in, 2;
+   distress in, 34-37;
+   first railroad in, 40;
+   internal improvements, 40;
+   establishment of Supreme Court, 41;
+   organization of Congressional districts, 44;
+   supports Jackson in 1824, 51;
+   Henry Clay in, 55;
+   panegyric on, 58;
+   formation of "Rough and Ready" clubs in, 60;
+   the Clayton Compromise in, 60-62;
+   formation of Constitutional Union party, 81, 183;
+   growth of secession sentiment in, 83, 201, 204;
+   adoption of the "Georgia Platform," 86;
+   nomination of Howell Cobb for governor, 86;
+   nomination of McDonald for governor, 86;
+   a national battle ground, 102;
+   supports Pierce and King, 102, 103;
+   uncertainty of politics in, 121;
+   breaking up of Know-nothing party in, 122;
+   campaign of 1855, 128;
+   vote for Buchanan in convention, 141;
+   campaign of 1856, 143-152;
+   politics in, 145;
+   carried by Buchanan, 152;
+   campaign of 1857, 154;
+   opposition to Brown's reëlection, 166;
+   indorsement of Toombs' sentiments by, 168;
+   position on the Fugitive-Slave law, 174;
+   action of delegates to Charleston convention, 179;
+   split in Democratic party, 182;
+   vote in 1860, 184;
+   prominence in 1860, 186;
+   call for State convention, 200;
+   votes for secession, 209;
+   institution of slavery in, 211;
+   wealth at time of secession, 213;
+   agricultural policy during war, 275;
+   the militia, 276-278;
+   the March to the Sea, 280;
+   Gov. Brown's address to people of, 290;
+   Toombs' acquaintance in, 299;
+   Toombs' return to, 315;
+   in reconstruction days, 315-329;
+   Constitutional convention, and the new constitution, 337-352;
+   railroad commission formed, 350, 351
+
+ Georgia Platform, the, 83, 93, 97
+
+ Georgia Railroad, 40
+
+ Gettysburg and Malvern Hill compared, 252
+
+ Gillet, R. H., vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Gilmer, George R., as a lawyer, 16;
+   on railroad construction, 41
+
+ Glen Spring, Ga., meeting between Hill and Brown at, 155
+
+ Golphin claim, the, 65
+
+ Gonder, Major, aids Toombs' escape, 294, 295
+
+ Gordon, Gen. John B., interview with Tilden, 321;
+   nominated for governor, 324
+
+ Gordonsville, Toombs under arrest at, 259, 260
+
+ Grady, Henry W., characterization of J. E. Brown, 156;
+   at Bush Arbor meeting, 327;
+   on Toombs' approaching death, 374
+
+ "Gray Alice," 5, 268, 288, 292, 297, 300, 301
+
+ Great Britain, contention over Oregon question, 56-59;
+   accused of lack of sympathy with the North, 230
+
+ "Great Pacificator," the, 201
+
+ Greeley, Horace, nomination opposed by Toombs, 105, 332
+
+ Greene County, partition of land in, 3;
+   legal practice in, 16
+
+ Gresham, J. J., 179
+
+ Gulf of Mexico, advocates making a _mare clausum_, 196
+
+
+ Habersham County, escape through, 291
+
+ Hagarstown, taken possession of by Toombs, 265
+
+ Hale, Senator, contest with Toombs in Kansas debate, 117-120
+
+ Hallet, B. F., letter from Toombs to, 119
+
+ Hamlin, Hannibal, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Hardeman, Frank, 14
+
+ Hardeman, Judge Samuel H., 26
+
+ Harper's Ferry, John Brown's raid on, 169
+
+ Harrisburg convention, demands protection, 51
+
+ Harrison, W. H., election of, 33;
+   Toombs' interest in election of, 45
+
+ Harrison Landing, Toombs' escape by, 288
+
+ Hayne, R. Y., challenge to Webster, 175
+
+ Hayti, effects of emancipation in, 134
+
+ Heard House, the, 282
+
+ Hill, Benjamin H., as a lawyer, 20;
+   associated with Toombs in Eberhart case, 26;
+   opposition to Toombs, 95;
+   rising fame of, 144;
+   debate with Toombs, 144-152;
+   nominated for governorship of Georgia, 155;
+   supports Bell and Everett, 184;
+   Vincent's characterization of, 184, 185;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   chosen Confederate Senator, 241;
+   addresses meeting at Atlanta, 324, 327;
+   challenged by Stephens, 336
+
+ Hill, Gen. D. H., at Malvern Hill, 252, 253;
+   charges against Toombs, and correspondence thereon, 254-258;
+   character, 258, 259;
+   challenged by Toombs, 336
+
+ Hilliard, Henry W., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Hillyer, Dr., assists in Toombs' funeral services, 375, 376
+
+ Holt, Hines, opposition to Toombs, 95
+
+ Homestead and Exemption laws, 38, 317, 340
+
+ Hood, Gen. J. B., in command of Confederate forces, 276
+
+ House of Representatives, U. S., Toombs' action on organization of
+     House, Dec. 22, 1850, 71-76
+
+ Houston, Samuel, represents Texas in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   comparison of Toombs with, 131
+
+ Houston County, Toombs' escape through, 299
+
+ Huger, Gen., 245
+
+ Hughes, Col. David, aids Toombs' escape, 297
+
+ Huling, Catharine, 3, 4
+
+ Hunter, Robert M. T., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   represents Virginia in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   succeeds Toombs' as Secretary of State, 237
+
+
+ Illinois, contest between Lincoln and Douglas in, 161, 162;
+   re-election of Douglas to Senate, 163;
+   government control of railroads, 346
+
+ Internal improvements, views on, 188-191, 197;
+   principles of Confederate Constitution on, 220
+
+ Interstate Commerce Law, Georgia's influence in framing, 351
+
+ Intoxicating liquor, use of, 364-368
+
+ Ireland, tour through, 126
+
+ Irvin, Charles E., aids Toombs to escape, 287-305;
+   arrested at Savannah, 291;
+   war record, 305
+
+
+ Jack Jones case, the, 361
+
+ Jackson, Pres. Andrew, defeated by Adams, 14;
+   conflict with Calhoun, 29;
+   Toombs' vote for, 30;
+   opposition to, by Troup, 31;
+   attitude on tariff of 1824, 51;
+   nullification proclamation, 52;
+   position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Jackson, Chief Justice, tribute to Toombs, 27, 28
+
+ Jamaica, effects of emancipation in, 134
+
+ James River, Army of Potomac driven back to, 24
+
+ Jefferson, Thomas, supports the tariff, 48;
+   detestation of party machinery, 106;
+   position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Jefferson County, on the stump in, 90
+
+ Jenkins, Charles J., as a lawyer, 16;
+   elected Speaker of House, General Assembly, 33;
+   defeated for U. S. senatorship, 38;
+   reports the "Georgia Platform," 86;
+   author of the Georgia Platform, 92, 93;
+   opinion of Berrien, 93;
+   nominated for Vice-presidency, 99;
+   career of, 101;
+   personal character, 102;
+   disputes reconstruction measures, 323;
+   carries off the great seal of Georgia, 333, 338;
+   president of Constitutional convention, 337;
+   deposed from governorship, 337;
+   views on railroad question, 345
+
+ Johnson, Andrew, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   impeachment of, 310;
+   Toombs' interview with, 313
+
+ Johnson, Herschel V., Democratic leader, 51;
+   elected governor of Georgia, 128;
+   leads Union wing of Georgia Democrats, 182;
+   nominated for Vice-presidency, 183;
+   challenged by Stephens, 336
+
+ Johnson, R. M., reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Johnson, Fort, fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., on first battle of Manassas, 238;
+   advance on Washington, 238;
+   withdraws from Manassas, 239;
+   heated interview with Toombs, 243;
+   recognizes Toombs' worth, 243, 244;
+   retreats behind the Chickahominy, 245;
+   criticism of Southern soldiers, 271;
+   relieved from command, 276;
+   struggle with Sherman, 280
+
+ Jones, Gen. D. R., report of second battle of Manassas, 261;
+   reports of Toombs' actions at Antietam, 264, 265
+
+ Judiciary Committee, General Assembly, chairman of, 33, 38
+
+
+ Kansas, civil war in, 115-118, 159;
+   Pierce's message on state of, 115, 116
+
+ Kansas bill, opposition to, 166
+
+ Kansas-Nebraska bill, 107-115;
+   dissatisfaction with, in Georgia, 143;
+   Hill on, 147-149
+
+ Kennan, A. H., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Kentucky, partial secession measures of, 233
+
+ Kimball House Company, financial dealings of Toombs with, 42
+
+ Kinch, ----, sutler in Creek war, 352
+
+ Knott, Pres. Eliphalet, 13
+
+ Know-nothing party. See American party
+
+
+ Labor, views on, 197
+
+ Lamar, A. R., description of Toombs, 236, 237
+
+ Lamar, De Rosset, Toombs' aid-de-camp, 237
+
+ Lamartine, Toombs compared with, 76
+
+ Land-jobbing, opposition to, 53
+
+ Lane, Jack, reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Lane, Joseph C., nominated for Vice-presidency, 183
+
+ Lanier, Sidney, 284
+
+ Lawton, A. R., supported by Toombs, 369
+
+ Lecompton constitution, favored by Buchanan, 160;
+   passes the Senate, 164
+
+ Lee, Gen. Robert E., captures John Brown, 169;
+   successes of, 246;
+   invades Maryland, 262;
+   report of Toombs' actions at Antietam, 264
+
+ Le Seur, Alexander, aids Toombs' escape, 288, 289
+
+ Lewis, D. W., defeated by Stephens, 93
+
+ Lexington, Ga., speech in, 92;
+   debate between Hill and Stephens at, 144, 145
+
+ Lincoln, Abraham, views on slavery question, 67;
+   personal traits, 161, 162;
+   opposes Douglas, 161, 162;
+   letter to Stephens, 199;
+   election of, 199;
+   Toombs' views of his policy, 200;
+   war pressure on, 224;
+   compared with Seward, 225;
+   relies on Northern unanimity, 226;
+   proclaims blockade of Southern ports, 229;
+   disputes with McClellan, 239;
+   confidence in Toombs, 367
+
+ "Little Giant," the, 109, 161
+
+ Longstreet, Gen., opinion of Toombs, 106, 241, 271;
+   quarrel with Toombs, 259, 260;
+   report of Manassas and Maryland campaign, 269;
+   compliments Toombs, 269;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 325
+
+ Lookout Mountain, last meeting of Davis and Toombs at, 284, 285
+
+ Louisiana, Calhoun's "sugar letter" to, 46;
+   delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 216
+
+ Lumpkin, Joseph H., as a lawyer, 16;
+   opinion of Toombs' legal skill, 20
+
+ Lumpkin, murder case at, 23
+
+ Lyons, visit to, 126
+
+ Lyons, Lord, British minister at Washington, 230
+
+
+ Macon County, Toombs' escape through, 299
+
+ Madison, James, position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Magna Charta, lecture on, 327-329
+
+ Magruder, Gen., operations on Warwick River, 244;
+   command on the peninsula, 245
+
+ Mallory, S. B., Secretary of Navy of Confederate States, 221
+
+ Mallorysville, Ga., speech at, 46
+
+ Malvern Hill, battle of, 1, 252, 253
+
+ Manassas, first battle of, 238;
+   evacuated by Confederates, 239;
+   Toombs at second battle, 260-262
+
+ Manufactures, argument in favor of, 49
+
+ March to the Sea, the, 280
+
+ Marcy, Secretary, 231
+
+ Marietta, speech in, 91
+
+ Marque, letters of, 229-232
+
+ Marseilles, visit to, 126
+
+ Marshall, Chief Justice, 38
+
+ Marshall, Humphrey, duel with Henry Clay, 55;
+   recognizes Toombs at New Orleans, 305
+
+ Martin, Major Luther, gives Toombs his parole papers, 291;
+   his house raided, 292
+
+ Maryland, invasion of, 262
+
+ Mason, A. D., commissioner to Europe, 229
+
+ Mason, James M., represents Virginia in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   reads Calhoun's last speech, 79, 107
+
+ Massachusetts, power of Abolitionists in, 109;
+   withdraws from Baltimore Convention, 182
+
+ Mattox, Col. W. H., shelters Toombs, 292
+
+ Maximilian, Emperor, defeat and execution of, 233
+
+ Maybrick, Mrs., 9
+
+ McClellan, Gen., succeeds McDowell, 238;
+   disputes with Lincoln, 239;
+   marches up the peninsula, 244
+
+ McDaniel, H. D., frames railroad law, 351
+
+ McDonald, Charles J., relief measures of, 34-37;
+   reëlected, 37;
+   supports central bank scheme, 38;
+   represents Georgia at Nashville convention, 85;
+   nominated for governor, 86;
+   Toombs on the nomination of, 90;
+   supported by Berrien, 93;
+   defeated, 93;
+   opposition to Toombs, 158
+
+ McDowell, Gen., succeeded by McClellan, 238
+
+ McDuffie, George, as a lawyer, 16;
+   Toombs' contentions with, 45-51;
+   Democratic leader, 51
+
+ McKennon, ----, resignation from Interior Department, 101
+
+ McMillan, Robert, as a lawyer, 16;
+   defeated by Toombs, 93
+
+ Mediterranean, visit to, 126
+
+ Memminger, C. G., as a lawyer, 21;
+   Secretary of Treasury of Confederate States, 221
+
+ Merriweather, ----, Whig leader, 51
+
+ Mexican war, fruits of, 60
+
+ Mexico, defense of, in Texas question, 53;
+   Toombs' opinions on conquest of, 59;
+   the Clayton Compromise, 61;
+   troubles over territory acquired from, 67;
+   Toombs favors purchase of, 195;
+   French schemes in, 233
+
+ Might against right, 112
+
+ Milledge, Gov. John, 7
+
+ Milledgeville, Toombs in General Assembly at, 17;
+   Toombs' practice in, 22, 123;
+   doctrine of States' Rights, affirmed at convention of 1833, 52;
+   convention of 1850 at, 86;
+   call for State convention in 1860 at, 179;
+   meeting of State Sovereignty convention at in 1861, 209
+
+ Miller, Andrew J., 16
+
+ Mirabeau, Toombs compared with, 46, 70
+
+ Mississippi, position in secession question, 97;
+   delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 213
+
+ Mississippi River, views on appropriations for, 189-191
+
+ Missouri, sends settlers to Kansas, 115, 159;
+   representation at Baltimore convention, 182;
+   partial secession measures of, 233;
+   government control of railroads in, 346
+
+ Missouri Compromise, refusal to extend the line of, 67;
+   Sumner's claims for, 108;
+   denounced by Toombs, 114;
+   Fillmore on the repeal of, 115
+
+ Mobile, Ala., escape through, 301-303
+
+ Monopolies, hatred for, 26, 348, 349
+
+ Monroe, Fortress, McClellan's arrival at, 244;
+   Stephens imprisoned at, 298
+
+ Monroe, James, position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Montgomery, Ala., Provisional Congress at, 216
+
+ Morris Island fires on Sumter, 227
+
+ Morton, Oliver P., 314
+
+ Moses, R. J., Toombs' commissary general, 237;
+   account of dispute between Toombs and Gen. Hill, 256, 257
+
+ Moultrie, Fort, fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Mount Pleasant battery fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Munson's Hill, Toombs' position at, 238
+
+
+ Naples, visit to, 126
+
+ Nashville, convention at, 85
+
+ National debt, views on, 197
+
+ National Democratic party, defeated, 327;
+   nominates Greeley for Presidency, 332
+
+ Neahmatha, insurrection of, 32
+
+ Negroes, Toombs on the status of, 133-137;
+   Toombs' treatment of his, 138, 139;
+   decision of Dred Scott case, 159;
+   Toombs' position toward, after the war, 341
+
+ New Mexico, bill to organize, 65;
+   acquisition of, 67;
+   question of organizing Territory, 79, 80
+
+ New Orleans, fall of, 245;
+   escape through, 304, 305
+
+ Newspaper criticisms and misrepresentations, 365, 366
+
+ _New World_, return to America on the, 313
+
+ New York City, speech for Taylor in 1848, 64
+
+ New York State, power of Abolitionists in, 109
+
+ _New York Express_, on Boston lecture, 131, 132
+
+ Nicholls, Col. John C., messenger from Toombs to Brown, 335
+
+ Nisbet, Eugenius A., offers secession resolution, 209;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Norfolk, loss of, 245
+
+ North Carolina, supports Jackson, 29;
+   secedes, 233
+
+ Northern Circuit of Georgia, the bar of, 16
+
+ "Notes on the Situation," 185, 326
+
+ Nullification, 51, 52
+
+
+ O'Brien, Rev. J. M., 362
+
+ Ocmulgee River, watched for Toombs, 298;
+   escape across, 299
+
+ Oconee River, 7, 296
+
+ Oglethorpe, Ga., escape through, 299
+
+ Oglethorpe County, legal practice in, 15, 16, 25
+
+ Ohio, position in regard to the Wilmot Proviso, 60;
+   power of Abolitionists in, 109;
+   government control of railroads in, 346
+
+ Olin, Stephen, 9
+
+ Omnibus bill (Clay's), 80
+
+ Omnibus bill (State aid to railroads), opposed by Toombs, 191
+
+ Ordinance of Secession, 209, 214
+
+ Oregon supports the South in Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Oregon question, prominence in 1845, 56-59
+
+ Outlawry, Toombs' glory in, 23
+
+
+ Paine, Tom., Toombs' liking for, 368
+
+ Panic of 1837, 16, 31, 41
+
+ Paris, visit to, 126;
+   flight to, 308
+
+ Payne, Henry B., member of Charleston convention, 176
+
+ Peace congress, 234
+
+ Peace resolutions, 273
+
+ Peach Tree Creek, in battle at, 276
+
+ Pennsylvania, government control of railroads, 346
+
+ Pension grabs, views on, 192, 193, 197
+
+ Peter's Colony Grant, 152
+
+ Phillips, Wendell, oratory of, 129
+
+ Pickens, Gov., Democratic leader, 51;
+   notified in regard to Fort Sumter, 224
+
+ Pierce, Bishop Geo. F., 10, 11, 376
+
+ Pierce, Pres. Franklin, Toombs' estimate of, 367;
+   message on state of Kansas, 115, 116;
+   vetoes Mississippi River bill, 191
+
+ Polk, Pres. James K., attitude toward protection, 50;
+   Georgia's vote for, 55;
+   position on Oregon question, 57;
+   forced to retire from Oregon position, 59;
+   veto of River and Harbor bill, 188;
+   vetoes supported by Toombs, 191
+
+ Pope, Sarah, 3
+
+ Pope, ----, death of, and generosity of Toombs to his family, 359, 360
+
+ Pope, Gen., driven from Virginia, 262
+
+ Popular sovereignty, Douglas' doctrine of, 162-164
+
+ Postal service, views on, 197
+
+ Pottle, Judge E. H., 25, 26
+
+ "Pour it back in the jug," 352
+
+ Prather, Col., shelters Toombs, 290
+
+ Prentiss, Sergeant S., vanquished in debate by Davis, 163
+
+ Presidential vote, Toombs' views on counting, 193
+
+ Principles of Magna Charta, lecture, 327-329
+
+ Privateers, 229-232
+
+ Produce Loan, the, 236
+
+ Prohibitionists, Toombs' opinion of, 374
+
+ Protection, defense of, 48-50;
+   in campaign of 1844, 51
+
+ Provisional Congress of seceded States, 214-218
+
+ Pulaski, Fort, seized by Gov. Brown, 214
+
+
+ Railroad Commission of Georgia, 350, 351;
+   Toombs' appearance before, 362
+
+ Railroad corporations, Toombs' attitude toward, 342, 345-351
+
+ Randall, S. J., proposes General Amnesty Act, 313
+
+ Randolph, John, duel with Henry Clay, 55
+
+ Rapidan River, Confederate retirement along, 239;
+   Toombs' brigade at the, 259
+
+ Rappahannock River, Confederates retire behind, 239
+
+ Reagan, J. H., Postmaster General of Confederate States, 221;
+   recognizes Toombs' merits, 270;
+   last attendance at Confederate Cabinet, 282
+
+ Reconstruction Acts, views on, 325, 326
+
+ Reese, Judge William M., on the practice of law, 15;
+   description of Toombs by, 24;
+   opinion of Toombs' speeches, 329, 330;
+   frames railroad law, 351
+
+ Religion, liberality in matters of, 124, 125
+
+ Republican party, formation of, 140;
+   growing strength of, 161;
+   arraigned by Toombs, 172-174, 203;
+   opposition to, in Georgia, 324
+
+ Repudiation, 343, 344
+
+ Rhett, R. Barnwell, Democratic leader, 51;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Rhine, voyage down the, 126
+
+ Richmond, Va., call for convention in, 178;
+   chosen as capital of Confederacy, 232;
+   McClellan's march on, 244;
+   Toombs at defense of, 245, 246
+
+ Right to bear arms, views on, 340
+
+ River and Harbor bills, views on, 188-191
+
+ Roanoke, plantation at, 23, 330
+
+ Roman, A. B., Confederate commissioner to Washington, 222
+
+ Roman Catholic Church, Toombs' liberality toward, 124
+
+ Rome, visit to, 126
+
+ Rost, A. P., commissioner to Europe, 229
+
+ "Rough and Ready" clubs, 60
+
+ Russia supports the North, 233
+
+
+ Sanders, Miss, 3
+
+ Savannah, siege of, 279;
+   arrest of Irvin at, 291
+
+ Savannah River, views on clearing, 188;
+   Toombs' escape by, 288
+
+ "Scarlet Letter," the, 178
+
+ Schenectady, college course at, 13
+
+ Scotland, tour through, 126
+
+ Scott, Gen. Winfield, service under, 32;
+   opposition to, by Southern Whigs, 98;
+   Toombs' estimate of, 98, 99;
+   defeats Webster, 100;
+   vote for, in 1852, 103;
+   rupture of Whig party in Georgia on his nomination, 121;
+   opinion of Fort Sumter, 223
+
+ Secession, clamor for, 83, 201;
+   assertion of right of, 87;
+   Toombs charged with fomenting, 94;
+   foreseen by Toombs, 200;
+   Toombs committed to the policy, 203;
+   Georgia's vote for, 209;
+   passage of Ordinance of, 209
+
+ Seward, William H., enters the U. S. Senate, 68, 107;
+   an "Independent Democrat," 109;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115;
+   refuses audience to Confederate commissioners, 222;
+   views on evacuation of Fort Sumter, 222, 223;
+   compared with Lincoln, 225;
+   accuses Great Britain of lack of sympathy, 230;
+   diplomacy of, 233
+
+ Seymour, Horatio, nominated for Presidency, 324
+
+ Sharpsburg, battle of, 263-269
+
+ Sherman, W. T., March to the Sea, 280
+
+ "Siamese Twins," the, 182
+
+ Simpson, W. W., reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Slaughter, James M., letter from Yancey to, 177, 178
+
+ Slavery, Gabriel Toombs' treatment of negroes, 3;
+   arraignment of Calhoun for the "sugar letter," 46;
+   Toombs' attitude toward, 46, 47, 48;
+   the Clayton Compromise, 61, 64;
+   Lincoln's views on, 67, 162;
+   Toombs' actions and speeches on slavery in
+     Territories, 69, 76-81, 164, 166, 167, 181;
+   Clay's resolutions to abolish, in District of Columbia, 79;
+   protest against admission of California by Nashville convention, 85;
+   Toombs accused of unsoundness on the question of, 85;
+   the Georgia Platform, 86;
+   Toombs' ideas on exclusion of, from California, 91;
+   the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 108-115;
+   provisions for, in U. S. Constitution, 114;
+   question reopened by Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114;
+   lecture in Boston on, 129-135;
+   Toombs on the status of the negro, 133-137;
+   decision of Dred Scott case, 159;
+   Southern view of Dred Scott decision as affecting Territories, 162;
+   Douglas' views on, in Territories, 163, 164;
+   anxiety in the South for protection of, 165;
+   demand for new plank in platform of Democratic party, 167;
+   deadlock on, in Charleston convention, 177;
+   Lincoln's letter to Stephens, 199;
+   tendency toward extinction, 199;
+   measures before the House, 202;
+   the Crittenden Compromise, 202, 203;
+   demands of the South as to, 206;
+   institution in Georgia, 211
+
+ Slidell, John, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Smith, Col. Jack, aids Toombs' escape, 295
+
+ Smith, Col. Marshal J., aids Toombs' escape, 305
+
+ Smith, George W., 242
+
+ South, stability of social institutions in, 138;
+   demands of the, as set forth by Toombs, 205-208;
+   sacrifices by secession, 213
+
+ South Carolina, condemnation of school of politics of, 53;
+   supports Pierce, 103;
+   Hayne's challenge to Webster, 175;
+   secession of, 213
+
+ Southern Methodist Church, Toombs' communion with, 373
+
+ Southern Rights party, nominates Troup for Presidency, 102
+
+ Sparta, Ga., Toombs' escape by, 293, 298
+
+ Speeches, i, iv, 18, 20, 21, 23-25, 27, 28, 46-50, 57, 59, 64, 69-78,
+     85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 98, 99, 103-105, 109-118, 145-152, 165-168,
+     170-174, 176, 177, 187-193, 205-208, 236, 237, 317, 318, 324-326,
+     329, 331, 336, 348, 349, 369, 370
+
+ Squatter sovereignty, 153;
+   Douglas' views on, 160, 162;
+   Toombs' opposition to, 166, 167;
+   before Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Stanton, Edwin M., orders arrests of Confederate leaders, 286
+
+ State Railroad of Georgia, supported by Toombs, 192
+
+ State Sovereignty convention, 209
+
+ States' Rights, doctrine affirmed at Milledgeville, 52;
+   Toombs' characterization of the Clayton Compromise, 61;
+   speeches and views on, 69, 70, 76-78, 88, 110-114, 116-119, 133;
+   claims by Nashville convention, 85;
+   the Cincinnati Platform, 141;
+   Hill on, 148
+
+ States' Rights party, in campaign of 1844, 51;
+   nominates Troup for Presidency, 102
+
+ States' Rights Whigs, joined by Toombs, 30;
+   policy of, 31
+
+ Steiner, Dr. Henry H., 119, 243;
+   influence over Toombs, 249;
+   talks with Toombs on spiritual condition, 372, 373;
+   attends Toombs at the last, 374, 375
+
+ Stephens, Alexander H., his tutor, 6;
+   as a lawyer, 16;
+   compared with Toombs, 18, 20, 43;
+   opinion of Toombs' legal skill, 20;
+   friendship with Toombs, 43;
+   position on slavery question, 44;
+   elected to Congress, 44, 55, 56, 63, 122, 333;
+   Whig leader, 51;
+   leads campaign of 1848 in Georgia, 60;
+   quarrel with Cone, 62;
+   reported rupture between Pres. Taylor and, 64, 65;
+   description of Toombs in debate, 75, 76;
+   position on admission of California, 81;
+   position on disunion, 82;
+   sent to conventional Milledgeville, 86;
+   personality of, 90;
+   Toombs' description of, 91;
+   in campaign of 1851, 92;
+   defeats Lewis, 93;
+   on the Compromise of 1850, 98;
+   nominated for Congress by Toombs, 105, 333;
+   breaks up Know-nothing party in Georgia, 122;
+   debate with Hill, 144, 145;
+   on Cincinnati Platform, 165;
+   opinion on action of Charleston convention, 179;
+   supports Douglas for Presidency, 183;
+   Vincent's characterization of, 184, 185;
+   prominence of, 186;
+   letter from Lincoln to, 199;
+   views of secession, 212;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   opinion of Provisional Congress, 216;
+   Toombs' eulogy of, 216;
+   opposes Conscription and Impressment Acts, 273;
+   arrested, 286;
+   imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, 298;
+   defeated by Gordon, 333;
+   becomes Governor of Georgia, 333;
+   challenges Johnson and Hill, 336;
+   funeral of, 371, 372;
+   tribute to Toombs, 375
+
+ Stephens, Linton, opinion of Toombs, 26;
+   opposes Conscript Acts, 273;
+   introduces peace resolutions, 273;
+   career, 274;
+   aids Toombs' escape, 293;
+   reunion with Toombs, 298, 299;
+   disputes reconstruction measures, 323;
+   activity in reconstruction times, 333
+
+ Stewart County, Toombs' escape through, 301
+
+ Stump-speaking, 145
+
+ Subtreasury system, the, 31, 38
+
+ Sumner, Charles, leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   opposes Kansas-Nebraska bill, 108, 115;
+   an "Independent Democrat," 109;
+   denounced by Toombs, 110;
+   enmity to Southern propagandism, 129;
+   Brooks' assault on, 141, 142
+
+ Sumter, Fort, Confederate demand for surrender of, 222;
+   abandonment favored by Lincoln's Cabinet, 223;
+   preparations to provision, 224;
+   orders to Beauregard, 225;
+   bombardment of, 227-229
+
+ Superstition, Toombs' views on, 367
+
+ Supreme Court of Georgia, practice in, 20-22, 24, 25;
+   establishment of, 41
+
+ Suretyship, opposition to contracts of, 41, 42
+
+ Swedenborg, Toombs' fondness for, 368
+
+ Swinton, William, on Lincoln's administration, 272
+
+
+ Taliaferro County, assigned to Seventh Congressional District, 44
+
+ Taney, Roger B., decision in Dred Scott case, 159
+
+ Tariff, Whigs favor protective, 31;
+   defense of the, 48-50;
+   in campaign of 1844, 51;
+   modified in 1832, 52;
+   Toombs' attitude on, 52;
+   prominence of the question in 1845, 56;
+   bill of 1846, 59
+
+ Taxation, attitude on Georgia, 54
+
+ Taylor, Gen. Dick, on Toombs' energy, 279, 280
+
+ Taylor, Zachary, nominated for President, 60;
+   elected, 63;
+   attitude of Cabinet toward the South, 64;
+   reported rupture with Toombs and Stephens, 64, 65;
+   death, 65;
+   opinion on disposition of acquired territory, 67;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 367
+
+ Tennessee secedes, 233
+
+ Territories, Toombs' position on slavery in, 69, 76-78, 80, 132,
+     166, 167, 181;
+   protest by Nashville convention in regard to, 85;
+   the Georgia Platform, 86;
+   the slavery question in the, 87;
+   third great sectional fight on the, 107-115;
+   Toombs on Federal power over, 111, 132, 133;
+   the Cincinnati Platform, 141;
+   Hill on rights of, 148;
+   Buchanan's position on question of, 159;
+   Douglas' views on admission of, 160;
+   Southern view of Dred Scott decision as affecting slavery in, 162;
+   Buchanan's resolution in Cincinnati Platform, 165;
+   contest over slavery in, in Charleston contention, 177;
+   demands of the South as to, 206
+
+ Texas, Toombs' attitude on annexation of, 53;
+   prominence of question in 1845, 56;
+   Toombs' purchase of lands in, 152, 153;
+   visit to, 153;
+   delegates leave Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Texas and New Mexico bill, passed, 80
+
+ "The Crime against Kansas," 142
+
+ Thomas, Thomas W., as a lawyer, 16;
+   leader of campaign of 1848 in Georgia, 60;
+   on Toombs' characteristics, 272
+
+ Thompson, Jacob, member of the Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Tilden, S. J., interview with Gen. Gordon, 321
+
+ _Times_ (London), on bombardment of Sumter, 228, 229
+
+ Tobacco, Toombs' use of, 360, 361
+
+ Toombs, Ann, 3
+
+ Toombs, Augustus, 3
+
+ Toombs, Dawson Gabriel, 3
+
+ Toombs, Gabriel, Sr., 1-3
+
+ Toombs, Gabriel, Jr., 4;
+   manager of his brother's plantations, 275;
+   at his brother's bedside, 373;
+   resemblance to Robert, 373
+
+ Toombs, James, 3
+
+ Toombs, Louise, death of, 312
+
+ Toombs, Gen. Robert, ancestry, 1-4;
+   birth, 4;
+   filial affection, 4;
+   boyhood and education, 4-12;
+   horsemanship, 4-6;
+   historical learning, 6;
+   play upon his name, 6;
+   generosity, 10, 124, 283, 284, 357;
+   joins Methodist Church, 11, 373;
+   trustee of State University, 11;
+   college legends of, 12;
+   receives degree, 13;
+   admitted to the bar, 13;
+   marriage, 14;
+   legal career, 13-28;
+   legal ethics, 18, 19, 23;
+   oratorical powers, 18, 21, 23-25, 27, 28;
+   financial ability, 23, 59, 152, 220, 310, 362;
+   morality, 23, 24;
+   Reese's opinion of, 24;
+   justice of, 26, 27;
+   failing powers, 27;
+   brilliant plea of, 28;
+   entrance into politics, 30;
+   elected to General Assembly, 30;
+   popularity in Wilkes County, 32;
+   chairman of Judiciary Committee in General Assembly, 33, 38;
+   action on Gov. McDonald's relief measures, 34-37;
+   financial policy, 35-39;
+   defends Berrien, 39;
+   support of railroad enterprise, 40;
+   compared with A. H. Stephens, 43;
+   friendship of the two, 43;
+   first participation in national politics, 45;
+   contentions with McDuffie, 45-51;
+   charged with being an Abolitionist, 46;
+   compared to Mirabeau, 46;
+   delegate to Clay convention of 1844, 46;
+   opposes acquisition of Texas, 53;
+   sent to Congress, 55, 56, 63, 93;
+   position on Oregon question, 57;
+   leads in campaign of 1848 in Georgia, 60;
+   reported rupture between Pres. Taylor and, 64, 65;
+   leads Southern members from Whig caucus, 69;
+   personal appearance, 72, 74, 89, 90, 130;
+   domestic character, 82, 353-363;
+   address to people of Georgia, 83-85;
+   sent to convention at Milledgeville, 86;
+   renominated for Congress, 87;
+   prominence in campaign of 1850, 87, 88;
+   position on the Union question, 88;
+   a journalist's description of, 91;
+   elected U. S. Senator, 94, 158;
+   charged with fomenting secession, 94;
+   letters to his wife, 95, 123-125, 158, 239, 242, 277, 278, 310-313,
+     354, 355, 359, 360;
+   feeling toward the North, 98;
+   friendship for Webster, 101;
+   becomes a Democrat, 105;
+   independence of, 106;
+   enters U. S. Senate, 107;
+   frequently misquoted, 119;
+   horror of civil war, 120;
+   death of his daughters, 123, 310, 312;
+   European trip, 123, 125-128;
+   liberality in matters of conscience, 125;
+   physical strength, 125, 127;
+   international reputation, 126;
+   knowledge of human nature, 127;
+   treatment of slaves, 138, 139;
+   accused of participation in assault on Sumner, 142, 143;
+   debate with Hill, 144-152;
+   accused of being a turncoat and disunionist, 151;
+   address to Northern Democrats, 176, 177;
+   letter to Macon committee, 179, 180;
+   advice on Charleston convention matters, 180, 181;
+   fears for the Constitution, 180, 182;
+   rupture with Douglas, 181;
+   delegate to Democratic State convention, 183;
+   Vincent's characterization of, 184, 185;
+   charges of desertion of Douglas, 186;
+   Presidential ambitions, 186, 187;
+   activity in public duty, 187;
+   first public office, 192;
+   accused by Georgia "minute-men," 201;
+   withdrawal from the Senate, 205-208;
+   chairman of Committee on Foreign Relations, 214;
+   writes address to people of Georgia, 215;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   a candidate for Presidency of Southern Confederacy, 216;
+   machinations against, 218;
+   curious incidents in life of, 219;
+   chairman of Finance Committee of Provisional Congress, 220;
+   made Secretary of State, 221;
+   opposes assault on Sumter, 226;
+   triumphs of diplomacy, 230;
+   joins the army, 235;
+   speech on the produce loan, 236, 237;
+   the archives of the Confederacy, 237;
+   retreat from Centreville, 239;
+   care of his brigade, 240;
+   impatience of mismanagement, 240;
+   elected Confederate Senator, 241;
+   declines Secretaryship of War, 242;
+   impatience under red tape, 234, 243;
+   debate with Davis on Army Appropriation bill, 247-249;
+   use of liquor, 249, 250;
+   position on the peninsula, 250;
+   action at Golding's farm, 250, 251;
+   at Malvern Hill, 252, 253;
+   charges of cowardice, and correspondence thereon, 254-258;
+   quarrel with Longstreet, 259, 260;
+   under arrest at Gordonsville, 259, 260;
+   in second battle of Manassas, 261, 262;
+   report of actions at Antietam, 265-268;
+   wounded, 268, 269;
+   popularity among his troops, 269;
+   leaves the army, 269, 270;
+   reasons for his non-promotion, 270, 271;
+   military abilities, 271;
+   with the militia, 276-279;
+   declines governorship, 273;
+   energy of, 279, 280;
+   parting with Gov. Brown, 281;
+   action at close of war, 281;
+   last meeting with Davis, 284, 285;
+   escape, 286-307;
+   becomes a Freemason, 289;
+   conversational powers, 305, 306, 310, 358, 359;
+   dread of capture, 306;
+   vivacity, 306;
+   arrival in Cuba, 307;
+   arrival in Paris, 308;
+   sells land, 308;
+   in exile, 309-313;
+   returns to America, 312, 313;
+   unreconstructed, 313;
+   return to Georgia, 315;
+   resumes practice of law, 316;
+   in reconstruction days, 315-329;
+   master of invective, 318-322, 326;
+   before the Supreme Court of Georgia, 320, 321;
+   opinion of Yankees, 322;
+   zeal, 322, 323;
+   addresses meeting at Atlanta, 324-326;
+   fondness for farming, 330, 331;
+   strained relations with Brown, 333-336;
+   a believer in the code of honor, 336;
+   the Constitutional convention, and the new constitution, 337-352;
+   pays expenses of Constitutional convention, 344, 345;
+   golden wedding, 356, 357;
+   hospitality, 357, 358;
+   sympathies of, 359, 360;
+   last appearance in court, 361, 362;
+   wealth, 362, 363;
+   his great fault, 364-368;
+   love of literature, 367, 368;
+   last days, 369-375;
+   attends Stephens' funeral, 371, 372;
+   at wife's death-bed, 372, 373;
+   baptized, 373;
+   death and burial, 375, 376;
+   his monument, 376
+
+ Toombs, Major Robert, 2, 3
+
+ Toombs, Mrs., friendship for A. H. Stephens, 62;
+   aids her husband's escape, 286, 287;
+   joins her husband in Paris, 309;
+   returns to America, 310;
+   character, 356, 357;
+   accident to, 356;
+   golden wedding, 356, 357;
+   death, 372, 373
+
+ Toombs, William, 2
+
+ Toombs oak, the, 12
+
+ Toucey, ----, leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Towns, Gov., calls State convention, 83
+
+ Tremont Temple, Boston, lecture on slavery in, 129-135
+
+ Trinity River, Toombs' lands on, 152
+
+ Troup, George M., defender of States' Rights, 30, 31;
+   opposition to Jackson's measures, 31;
+   attitude on the tariff question, 51;
+   opposes Toombs in campaign of 1844, 53
+
+ Troup, Capt., on Toombs' staff, 268
+
+ Tugaloo River, 290
+
+ Turncoats, Crawford's ideas of, 91
+
+ Tyler, Pres., Toombs on, 367
+
+
+ Union College, 13
+
+ Union Democratic-Republican party, 30
+
+ United States Bank, supported by Berrien, 39;
+   defense of, 48
+
+ United States Constitution, position on slavery, 132
+
+ United States judges, higher pay for, supported by Toombs, 192
+
+ United States Senate, _personnel_ in 1853, 107;
+   debate on popular sovereignty, 163, 164;
+   farewell speech in, 205-208
+
+ University of Georgia, 6-12;
+   annual address at, 331, 332
+
+ University of Virginia, course at, 13
+
+ Utah, acquisition of, 67;
+   question of organization of Territory, 79
+
+
+ Van Buren, Pres. Martin, censured by Toombs, 31;
+   Toombs on, 367
+
+ Vandyke, John, opposes Toombs in House of Representatives, 72
+
+ Vincent, characterization of Toombs, Hill, and Stephens, 184, 185
+
+ Virginia, ----, settlement of the Toombs family in, 2;
+   supports Calhoun, 29;
+   Brown's raid into, 169, 170;
+   secedes, 233
+
+
+ Waddell, Pres. Moses, 8, 9
+
+ Wade, ----, vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Walker, Levi P., Secretary of War of Confederate States, 221;
+   instructions to Beauregard about Fort Sumter, 224, 225
+
+ Walker, Robert J., governor of Kansas, 160
+
+ Walker, Gen. W. H. T., dispute with Gen. Hill at Chickamauga, 258, 259
+
+ Walthall, Gen. E. C., 277
+
+ War, Toombs' views on, 57
+
+ "War between the States," 75, 98, 185, 371
+
+ Warner, Hiram, opinion of Homestead and Exemption laws, 318
+
+ Warwick River, Toombs' operations on, 244
+
+ Washington, D. C., imperiled after first battle of Manassas, 238;
+   Army of Northern Virginia advances on, 262
+
+ Washington, Ga., Mrs. Toombs' residence at, 4;
+   distinguished men around, 16;
+   speech at, 98, 99;
+   debate between Toombs and Hill at, 144-152;
+   Toombs elected commissioner, 192;
+   the Toombs home at, 360
+
+ Washington County, escape through, 299
+
+ Waterloo, visit to field of, 126
+
+ Webster, Rev. Alexander, 6
+
+ Webster, Daniel, compared with Toombs, 14;
+   last efforts of, 68;
+   great Union speech of, 79;
+   tribute to, 99, 104, 367;
+   nominated for Presidency, 99;
+   admiration for, in the South, 100;
+   Secretary of State, 100;
+   friendship with Toombs, 101;
+   death, 102, 107;
+   Hayne's challenge to, 175;
+   his loss felt, 201
+
+ Wellborn, Speaker, 39
+
+ Wesleyan Female College, 9
+
+ Western and Atlantic Railroad, 40
+
+ West Indies, effects of emancipation in, 134, 137
+
+ West Point, Toombs' opinion of training at, 246-249;
+   criticism of officers from, 273;
+   criticism not sustained, 275
+
+ Wheeler, Gen. Joseph, 301, 303
+
+ Whig party, demand internal improvements, 40;
+   attitude toward protection, 46;
+   in campaign of 1844, 51, 55;
+   position in campaign of 1848, 60;
+   caucus of 1845, 68-70;
+   joint action with Democrats in Georgia, 85;
+   convention at Baltimore, 97;
+   Southern opposition to Presidential candidate Scott, 98;
+   nominates Webster for Presidency, 99;
+   break in, by Southern members, 100;
+   Toombs' defection from, 105;
+   rupture over Scott's nomination, 121;
+   absorption into Republican party, 140
+
+ Wilde, Gen., attempts the capture of Toombs, 286
+
+ Wilkes County, land-grant to Major Robert Toombs in, 2;
+   partition of lands in, 3;
+   birth-place of Gen. Toombs, 4;
+   legal practice in, 15, 16, 22, 23;
+   factions in, 29, 30;
+   politics of, 32;
+   defeat of Whigs in, 37;
+   assigned to Eighth Congressional District, 44
+
+ Wilkinson County, escape through, 296
+
+ Willington, S. C., speech at, 45
+
+ Wilmot, David, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Wilmot Proviso, Ohio's position in regard to, 60;
+   menace to the South, 70, 79;
+   abandoned, 79, 87;
+   Webster's attitude on, 99, 100;
+   how characterized by Toombs, 149
+
+ Wingfield, J. T., 288
+
+ Winthrop, Robert C., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   defeated for Speakership, 69
+
+ Wisconsin, debate on counting Electoral vote, 193, 194
+
+ Wolseley, Gen., on Sherman's invasion of Georgia, 281
+
+ Worth, Fort, meeting with squatters at, 153, 154
+
+ Wright, A. R., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+
+ Yancey, William L., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   leads seceders from Charleston convention, 177;
+   letter to Slaughter, 177, 178;
+   speech in Charleston, 178;
+   commissioner to Europe, 229
+
+ Yorktown, Toombs' operations at, 244, 245
+
+ "Young Alice," 300
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
+been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+
+page 39: typo corrected
+
+    and declared the resolutions adopted. Mr. Toombe[Toombs]
+    fired up at this unusual decision. He threw himself before
+
+page 122: possible typo
+
+    he did run for Congress and scored[should be scorned?] the
+    secret order on every stump in the district.
+
+page 171: quote added in likely place
+
+    Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle
+    introduced into our Constitution. ["]It was inserted in
+    the ordinance of 1787. The New
+
+page 237: typo corrected
+
+    When General Toombs joined the Army his staff was made up as
+    follows; D. M. Dubose[DuBose], Adjutant General; R. J. Moses,
+
+page 260: quote added in likely place
+
+    from Toombs and directed him to join his command. ["]As we
+    were preparing for the charge at Manassas (second battle),
+
+page 268: typo corrected
+
+    "Gray Alice," so well known to his command. He was not very
+    far over when a troop of calvary[cavalry] rode up. He
+
+page 288: typo corrected
+
+    Riding over to a neigbor's[neighbor's] house, Mr. J. T.
+    Wingfield, he failed to find his friend, but left
+
+page 295: comma added
+
+    "But that looks very much like him through the window[,]"
+    said Lieutenant Irvin.
+
+page 295: typo corrected
+
+    or his plans, for fear that they might indiscreetly comment
+    on his presence or embarass[embarrass] him even by their
+
+page 299: typo corrected
+
+    Federals believed Tombs[Toombs] already abroad and had ceased
+    to look for him in Georgia. After the passage
+
+page 325: added missing quote
+
+    and property; defeat all the rightful purposes of government,
+    and renounce all remedies, all laws.["]
+
+page 342: typo corrected
+
+    authorizing the legislature to levy a lax[tax] to furnish
+    good substantial artificial limbs to those
+
+page 375: added missing quote
+
+    to his home in Augusta, General Toombs bade him good-by. ["]I
+    am sorry," said he, "the hour is come. I hope we shall meet
+
+On page 250, a quotation begins with no conclusive end:
+
+    "Just before dark," says Dr. Steiner, "Mr. Toombs received
+    orders to charge the enemy, firing having been heard on the
+    left. The position
+
+Inconsistent spelling:
+
+    Greensboro (page 281)/Greenesboro (pages 9, 283)
+
+Inconsistent spelling:
+
+    Empress Eugenie (page 310)/Eugénie (index)
+
+Inconsistent spelling:
+
+    Hagerstown (page 265)/Hagarstown (page 262 and index)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Toombs, by Pleasant A. Stovall
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Toombs, by Pleasant A. Stovall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Robert Toombs
+       Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage
+
+Author: Pleasant A. Stovall
+
+Release Date: July 16, 2008 [EBook #26069]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT TOOMBS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="trans_note">
+<p class="center"><big>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</big></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as
+faithfully as possible; please see <a href="#TN">detailed list of printing issues</a> at the
+end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>ROBERT TOOMBS</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 282px;">
+<img src="images/illo1.jpg" width="282" height="394" alt="ROBERT TOOMBS, AT THE AGE OF 75 YEARS." title="ROBERT TOOMBS, AT THE AGE OF 75 YEARS." />
+<span class="caption">ROBERT TOOMBS,<br />AT THE AGE OF 75 YEARS.</span></div>
+
+
+<h1><big>ROBERT TOOMBS</big></h1>
+
+<h2><i>STATESMAN, SPEAKER, SOLDIER,<br />
+SAGE</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">HIS CAREER IN CONGRESS AND ON THE HUSTINGS&mdash;HIS<br />
+WORK IN THE COURTS&mdash;HIS RECORD WITH<br />
+THE ARMY&mdash;HIS LIFE AT HOME</p>
+
+<h2><small>BY</small><br />
+
+PLEASANT A. STOVALL<br /><br /><br /></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i"></a>"The blood which mingled at Cowpens and at Eutaw cannot be kept at
+enmity forever."&mdash;<i>Toombs.</i><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<small>NEW YORK<br />
+CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY<br />
+104 &amp; 106 <span class="smcap">Fourth Avenue</span></small><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<small><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1892,<br />
+BY<br />
+CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.<br />
+<br />
+<i>All rights reserved.</i><br />
+<br />
+THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,<br />
+RAHWAY, N. J.</small><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>Dedication.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><i>TO ROBERT TOOMBS DU BOSE, WHOSE INTEREST AND AID WERE<br />INVALUABLE, AND
+WITHOUT WHOSE CO&Ouml;PERATION THE<br />BIOGRAPHY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PREPARED,<br />
+THIS WORK IS DEDICATED BY<br />THE AUTHOR.</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="blockquotnot"><p><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv"></a>"There are courageous and honest men enough in both
+sections to fight. There is no question of courage
+involved. The people of both sections of this Union have
+illustrated their courage on too many battlefields to be
+questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities
+shoulder to shoulder whenever their country has called upon
+them; but that they may never come in contact with each
+other in fratricidal war, should be the ardent wish of
+every true man and honest patriot."&mdash;<i>Robert Toombs, Speech
+in U. S. Senate</i>, 1856.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+
+<th class="tda">CHAPTER</th>
+<th class="tdc" colspan="2">PAGE</th>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tda">I.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Family, Boyhood, Life at College</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">            <a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+II.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">At the Bar</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                                 <a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+III.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">In the Legislature</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                         <a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+IV.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Elected to Congress</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                        <a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+V.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">In the Lower House</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                         <a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+VI.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Compromise of 1850</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                     <a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+VII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Georgia Platform</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                       <a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+VIII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Campaign of 1852</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                       <a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+IX.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Toombs in the Senate</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                      <a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+X.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The "Know-nothing" Party</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                  <a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XI.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Toombs in Boston</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                          <a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Buchanan's Administration</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                 <a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XIII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">"On the Stump" in Georgia</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                 <a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XIV.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Campaign of 1856</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                      <a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XV.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">John Brown's Raid</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                         <a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XVI.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Charleston Convention</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                 <a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XVII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Toombs as a Legislator</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                    <a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Election of Lincoln</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                       <a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XIX.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Farewell to the Senate</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                    <a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XX.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Toombs and Secession</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                      <a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXI.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Toombs as Premier of the Confederacy</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">      <a href="#Page_222">222</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Brigadier-General in Army of Northern Virginia</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">      <a href="#Page_236">236</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">With the Georgia Militia</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                  <a href="#Page_277">277</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Toombs as a Fugitive</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">         <a href="#Page_286">286</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXV.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Without a Country</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">            <a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Commencing Life Anew</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">         <a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Days of Reconstruction</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">       <a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">His Last Public Service</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">      <a href="#Page_337">337</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Domestic Life of Toombs</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">      <a href="#Page_353">353</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXX.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">His Great Fault</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">              <a href="#Page_364">364</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda">
+XXXI.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">His Last Days</span>,</td>
+<td class="tdc">                <a href="#Page_369">369</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ROBERT TOOMBS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>FAMILY, BOYHOOD, LIFE AT COLLEGE.</h3>
+
+<p>Gabriel Toombs was one of General Braddock's soldiers who marched
+against Fort DuQuesne in 1755. He was a member of the sturdy Virginia
+line which protested against the dangerous tactics of the British
+martinet, and when the English regulars were ambushed and cut to pieces,
+Gabriel Toombs deployed with his men in the woods and picked off the
+savages with the steady aim and unerring skill of the frontiersman. Over
+one hundred years later Robert Toombs, his grandson, protested against
+the fruitless charge at Malvern Hill, and obliquing to the left with his
+brigade, protected his men and managed to cover the retreat of his
+division.</p>
+
+<p>This was a family of soldiers. They were found in the old country
+fighting Cromwell's army of the rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs of Georgia was fond of tracing his lineage to the
+champions of the English king <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>who defended their sovereign at Boscobel.
+But the American family was made up of lovers of liberty rather than
+defenders of the King. It was one of the anomalies in the life of the
+Georgia Toombs, who resisted all restraint and challenged authority in
+every form, that he should have located his ancestry among the sworn
+royalists of the seventeenth century.</p>
+
+<p>William Toombs, the great-grandfather of Robert, was the first of the
+English family to come to America, about 1650. He settled in Virginia.
+Gabriel, who fought with Braddock, was the son of William. Major Robert
+Toombs, the father of the Georgia statesman, commanded a Virginia
+regiment during the Revolution and rendered conspicuous service in
+Georgia against the British. Major Toombs came to Georgia in 1783 and
+received a rich tract of 3000 acres of land in Wilkes County. This was
+their share in the award to distinguished soldiers of "the Virginia
+line."</p>
+
+<p>"They fought for their estates like feudal barons," General Toombs used
+to say, when speaking of his ancestors, now sleeping in the red hills of
+Georgia. When he was asked after the civil war why he did not petition
+for relief of political disabilities, he declared that "no vote of
+Congress, no amnesty proclamation, shall rob me of the glory of
+outlawry. I shall not be the first of my name <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>for three centuries to
+accept the stigma of a pardon."</p>
+
+<p>The elder Gabriel Toombs in 1795 made his last will and testament. He
+commended his soul to God who gave it, and blessed his Maker for the
+worldly goods that he was possessed of. Distributing his estate among
+his wife, Ann Toombs, and his six children, he expressly directed that
+his negroes and their increase must be appraised together; that they
+were not to be sold out of the family, and that they should be "used in
+a Christian-like manner." He divided up parcels of land in Greene and
+Wilkes counties among his sons, Robert Toombs and Dawson Gabriel Toombs,
+and his four daughters. Gabriel Toombs died in 1801.</p>
+
+<p>When Major Robert Toombs, the Virginia veteran, and son of Gabriel, came
+to Georgia to claim his award of land, he settled on Beaverdam Creek,
+five miles from the town of Washington. It is probable that he stopped
+in Columbia County, for he married Miss Sanders, of that county. She
+died, leaving no children, and Major Toombs went back to Virginia and
+married Miss Catlett. One son was born, and this lady died. Miss
+Catharine Huling was the third wife. The Hulings were also Virginians,
+and by this marriage six children were reared. Sarah, who finally became
+Mrs. Pope; James, who was killed by accident while hunting; Augustus,
+Robert, and Gabriel.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Catharine Huling, the mother of Robert Toombs of Georgia, was a most
+excellent woman, of strong and exalted piety. She was of Welsh ancestry,
+a devout Methodist, and after accompanying her son to college, and
+seeing him married, prosperous, and distinguished, died in 1848, when he
+was a member of Congress. Mrs. Toombs gave generously of her own means,
+to family and friends. Robert Toombs proved to be a dutiful son. He
+visited his mother constantly, and carefully managed her property.
+Finally he induced her to move to Washington, so that he might be near
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs was the fifth child of Robert and Catharine Toombs. He was
+born in Wilkes County, about five miles from Washington, July 2, 1810.
+His brother Gabriel, who still lives, was three years his junior, and
+was throughout his life his close and confidential adviser and friend.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs, in childhood, was a slender, active, mischievous lad, and
+it will be a surprise to those who remember his superb physical manhood,
+to hear that at school and college he bore the nickname of "Runt." He
+was marked for his energy and vivacity. He was not precocious. Nature
+gave no signs of her intentions in his youth. His development, physical
+and mental, was not rapid, but wholesome. He was fond of horseback
+riding, and the earliest glimpse we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>have of him is as a slender lad,
+with dark eyes and hair slightly touched with auburn, flying through the
+village, and sometimes carrying on his pony behind him his little
+brother to school.</p>
+
+<p>He was always in good health. He boasted that he never took medicine
+until he was thirty-four years old. His mother said that he grew up
+almost without her knowledge, so little trouble had he given her. He was
+a fine horseman. Possibly this practice had much to do with his good
+spirits and physical strength.</p>
+
+<p>In his younger days he rode sixty-five miles to Milledgeville, covering
+the distance in one day, and was fresh enough to attend a dance at
+night. He delighted in fox-hunting, although never a racer or in any
+sense a sporting man. During the earlier years of his career he
+practiced law in the saddle, as was the custom with the profession at
+that time, and never thought of riding to court on wheels until later in
+life. Throughout his active participation in the Civil War he rode his
+famous mare, "Gray Alice," and was a striking figure as, splendidly
+mounted and charged with enthusiasm, he plunged along the lines of the
+Army of Northern Virginia. In his long wandering from capture in 1865,
+he was in the saddle six months, riding to and from the wilds of
+northeast Georgia to the swamps of the Chattahoochee. There was
+something in his picturesque figure upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>the horse which suggests John
+Randolph of Roanoke.</p>
+
+<p>His first training was at what was known as an "old field school,"
+taught by Welcome Fanning, a master of good attainments and a firm
+believer in the discipline of the rod. Afterward, Robert Toombs was
+drilled by a private tutor, Rev. Alexander Webster&mdash;an adjunct professor
+of the University of Georgia and a man of high repute as scholar and
+instructor. Mr. Webster was the friend and early preceptor of Alexander
+H. Stephens.</p>
+
+<p>Young Toombs was christened Robert Augustus, and carried his middle name
+until 1840, when he seems to have dropped it as a useless piece of
+furniture. There is a report that some of his political foes, playing
+upon his initials, saddled him with the sobriquet of "Rat." Having
+out-grown one nickname he was prepared to shed another.</p>
+
+<p>Young Toombs proved to be a great reader. Most of his learning developed
+in the Humanities; and a cultured visitor from Maryland who once stopped
+at his father's house declared that this boy of fourteen was better
+posted in history than anyone he had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>It was about this time that Robert Toombs was fitted out for Franklin
+College&mdash;now the State University&mdash;located in Athens, Ga., forty miles
+from Washington.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This institution, to which he was devotedly attached and of whose
+governing board he was a member at the time of his death, was chartered
+in 1785 by the State of Georgia. It was the early recipient of the deed
+of western lands, which the State subsequently purchased, assuming the
+perpetual endowment of the college. It has been to Georgia what
+Jefferson's school has proved to Virginia, the nursery of scholars and
+statesmen. Governor John Milledge had given the institution a home upon
+a beautiful hill overlooking the Oconee River, and this lovely spot they
+had named Athens. Here in 1824 young Robert Toombs repaired, animated
+with the feelings which move a college boy, except that his mother went
+with him and relieved him of the usual sense of loneliness which
+overtakes the student. Major Robert Toombs, his father, who was an
+indigo and tobacco planter, was reputed to be a wealthy man for those
+times, but it was the comfort of the early settler who had earned his
+demesne from the government rather than the wealth of the capitalist. He
+had enough to support his family in comfort. He died when Robert was
+five years old, and the latter selected as his guardian Thomas W. Cobb,
+of Greene County, a cousin of Governor Howell Cobb, a member of Congress
+himself and a man of high legal attainment.</p>
+
+<p>When Robert Toombs entered college that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>institution was under the
+Presidency of Moses Waddell, a born educator and strict disciplinarian.
+Three generations of this family have served the State as preceptors in
+Franklin College.</p>
+
+<p>It may well be imagined that the college had not at that time reached
+the dignity of a university, for an entry in President Waddell's diary
+was this: "Caught Jones chewing tobacco: whipped him for it." Those were
+the old days when boys were boys until they were twenty-one. There is no
+record to show that Robert Toombs in college was a close scholar. Later
+in life he became a hard student and laborious worker. But if these
+industrious habits were born to him in Athens there is no trace of them.
+That he was a reader of Shakespeare and history he gave ample evidence
+in his long career, but if the legends of his college town are to be
+trusted, he was more noted for outbreaks of mischief than for close
+application. Full of life and spirits, a healthy, impetuous boy, he was
+on good terms with his classmates, and took life easily. That was a time
+when students were required to get up at sunrise and attend prayers.</p>
+
+<p>One night, the story goes, the vigilant proctor actually found young
+Toombs playing cards with some of his friends. Fearing a reprimand,
+Toombs sought his guardian, who happened to be in Athens on a visit from
+his home in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> <a name="Page_9t" id="Page_9t"></a><a href="#Page_281tn">Greenesboro</a>. It is not certain that young Toombs
+communicated the enormity of his offense, but he obtained leave to apply
+to Dr. Waddell for a letter of discharge. The learned but severe scholar
+had not received the proctor's report, and gave the young student a
+certificate of honorable dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the day the President met Toombs walking around the campus.</p>
+
+<p>"Robert Toombs," said he, "you took advantage of me early this morning.
+I did not then know that you had been caught at the card-table last
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>Toombs straightened up and informed the doctor that he was no longer
+addressing a student of his college, but a free-born American citizen.</p>
+
+<p>The halls of Athens are fragrant with these stories of Toombs. No man
+ever left so distinctive a stamp upon the place or gave such spicy
+flavor to its traditions.</p>
+
+<p>Among the college-mates of Robert Toombs at Athens were Stephen Olin,
+Robert Dougherty, and Daniel Chandler, the grandfather of the
+unfortunate Mrs. Maybrick of England, and the man whose chaste and
+convincing appeal for female education resulted in the establishment of
+Wesleyan Female College&mdash;the first seminary in the world for the higher
+culture of women.</p>
+
+<p>The closest of these companionships was that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> George F. Pierce, a
+young man like Toombs, full of brains and energy&mdash;even then a striking
+and sparkling figure. The path of these men commenced at the door of
+their <i>alma mater</i>, and although their ways were widely divergent, the
+friends never parted. Two of the finest orators in Georgia, one left his
+impress as strongly upon the Church as did the other upon the State. One
+became bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the other a Whig
+senator. One day these men met, both in the zenith of power, when Toombs
+said: "Well, George, you are fighting the devil, and I am fighting the
+Democrats."</p>
+
+<p>Closer in friendship their hands clasped as age swept over their raven
+locks and stalwart shoulders. Bishop Pierce never hesitated to go to
+Robert Toombs when his churches or his schools needed money. Toombs
+would give to the Methodist itinerant as quickly as he would to the
+local priest. Whether he was subscribing for a Catholic Orphans' Home or
+a Methodist College he would remark, as he gave liberally and freely, "I
+always try to honor God Almighty's drafts."</p>
+
+<p>Pierce and Toombs had much in common&mdash;although the one was full of
+saintly fire and the other, at times, of defiant irreverence. It was
+Pierce whose visits Toombs most enjoyed at his own home, with whom he
+afterward talked of God and religion. The good bishop lived to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>bury the
+devoted Christian wife of the Georgia statesman, and finally, when the
+dross of worldliness was gone, to receive into the Methodist Church the
+bowed and weeping figure of the giant Toombs.</p>
+
+<p>When Robert Toombs became prominent in Georgia, there is a story that
+his State university, in order to win back his friendship, conferred
+upon him an honorary degree. Toombs is represented as having spurned it
+with characteristic scorn. "No," said he, "when I was unknown and
+friendless, you sent me out disgraced, and refused me a diploma. Now
+that I would honor the degree I do not want it."</p>
+
+<p>There is no record that the college ever conferred a degree upon Toombs
+at all. Later in life he was elected a trustee of this university, and
+each year his familiar figure was seen on the stage during commencement,
+or his wise counsel heard about the board. His attendance upon these
+duties was punctilious. He would leave the courthouse, the legislative
+halls, or Virginia Springs&mdash;wherever he happened to be&mdash;and repair to
+Athens the first week in August. Once or twice he delivered the annual
+address before the alumni; several times he secured appropriations for
+his <i>alma mater</i> from the State. His visits to Athens were always
+occasions of honor. Young men flocked wherever his voice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>was heard,
+fascinated by his racy conversation. No "Disinherited Knight" ever
+returned to more certain conquest or more princely homage.</p>
+
+<p>There is a regular mythology about Toombs at his State university. The
+things he said would fill a volume of Sydney Smith, while the pranks he
+played would rival the record of Robin Hood. There is still standing in
+the college campus in Athens a noble tree, with the crown of a century
+upon it. Under its spreading branches the first college commencement was
+held one hundred years ago; under it the student Toombs once stood and
+addressed his classmates, and of all the men who have gone in and out
+beneath its shade, but one name has been found sturdy enough to link
+with this monument of a forgotten forest. The boys to this day call it
+"The Toombs Oak."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img src="images/illo2.jpg" width="280" height="363" alt="ROBERT TOOMBS, AGE 19, LAW STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF
+VIRGINIA, 1829." title="ROBERT TOOMBS, AGE 19, LAW STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF
+VIRGINIA, 1829." />
+<span class="caption">ROBERT TOOMBS, AGE 19, LAW STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF
+VIRGINIA, 1829.<br />
+
+<small>(<i>From a miniature painting.</i>)</small></span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>AT THE BAR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After Robert Toombs left the University of Georgia, he entered Union
+College at Schenectady, N. Y., under the presidency of Dr. Eliphalet
+Knott. Here he finished his classical course and received his A. B.
+degree. This was in 1828, and in 1829 he repaired to the University of
+Virginia, where he studied law one year. In the Superior Court of Elbert
+County, Ga., holden on the 18th day of March, 1830, he was admitted to
+the bar. The license to practice recites that "Robert A. Toombs made his
+application for leave to practice and plead in the several courts of law
+and equity in this State, whereupon the said Robert A. Toombs, having
+given satisfactory evidence of good moral character, and having been
+examined in open court, and being found well acquainted and skilled in
+the laws, he was admitted by the court to all the privileges of an
+attorney, solicitor, and counsel in the several courts of law and equity
+in this State."</p>
+
+<p>The license is signed by William H. Crawford, Judge, Superior Court,
+Northern Circuit. Judge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> Crawford had served two terms in the United
+States Senate from Georgia. He had been Minister to Paris during the
+days of the first Napoleon. He had been Secretary of War and of the
+Treasury of the United States. In 1825 he received a flattering vote for
+President, when the Clay and Adams compact drove Jackson and Crawford to
+the rear. Bad health forced Mr. Crawford from the field of national
+politics, and in 1827, upon the death of Judge Dooly, Mr. Crawford was
+appointed Judge of the Northern Circuit. He held this position until his
+death in Elbert County, which occurred in 1834. Crawford was a friend
+and patron of young Toombs. The latter considered him the full peer of
+Webster and of Calhoun.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs was married eight months after his admission to the bar.
+His career in his profession was not immediately successful. A newspaper
+writer recently said of him that "while his contemporaries were fighting
+stubbornly, with varying luck, Toombs took his honors without a
+struggle, as if by divine right." This was no more true of Toombs than
+it is true of other men. He seems to have reached excellence in law by
+slow degrees of toil. Hon. Frank Hardeman, Solicitor-General of the
+Northern Circuit, was one of the lawyers who examined Toombs for
+admission to the bar. He afterward declared that Robert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> Toombs, during
+the first four or five years of his practice, did not give high promise.
+His work in his office was spasmodic, and his style in court was too
+vehement and disconnected to make marked impression. But the exuberance
+or redundancy of youth soon passed, and he afterward reached a height in
+his profession never attained by a lawyer in Georgia.</p>
+
+<p>His work during the first seven years of his practice did not vary in
+emolument or incident from the routine of a country lawyer. In those
+days the bulk of legal business lay in the country, and the most
+prominent men of the profession made the circuit with their saddle-bags,
+and put up during court week at the village taverns. Slaves and land
+furnished the basis of litigation. Cities had not reached their size and
+importance, corporations had not grown to present magnitude, and the
+wealth and brains of the land were found in the rural districts. "The
+young lawyers of to-day," says Judge Reese of Georgia, "are far in
+advance of those during the days of Toombs, owing to the fact that
+questions and principles then in doubt, and which the lawyers had to dig
+out, have been long ago decided, nor were there any Supreme Court
+reports to render stable the body of our jurisprudence."</p>
+
+<p>The counties in which Robert Toombs practiced were Wilkes, Columbia,
+Oglethorpe, Elbert,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> Franklin, and Greene. The bar of the Northern
+Circuit was full of eminent men. Crawford presided over the courts and a
+delegation of rare strength pleaded before him. There were Charles J.
+Jenkins, Andrew J. Miller, and George W. Crawford of Richmond County;
+from Oglethorpe were George R. Gilmer and Joseph Henry Lumpkin; from
+Elbert, Thomas W. Thomas and Robert McMillan; from Greene, William C.
+Dawson, Francis H. Cone; from Clarke, Howell Cobb; from Taliaferro,
+Alexander H. Stephens. Across the river in Carolina dwelt Calhoun and
+McDuffie. As a prominent actor in those days remarked: "Giants seem to
+grow in groups. There are seed plats which foster them like the big
+trees of California, and they nourish and develop one another, and seem
+to put men on their mettle." Such a seed plat we notice within a radius
+of fifty miles of Washington, Ga., where lived a galaxy of men,
+illustrious in State and national affairs.</p>
+
+<p>In 1837 the great panic which swept over the country left a large amount
+of litigation in its path. Between that time and 1843, Lawyer Toombs did
+an immense practice. It is said that in one term of court in one county
+he returned two hundred cases and took judgment for $200,000. The
+largest part of his business was in Wilkes and Elbert, and his fees
+during a single <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>session of the latter court often reached $5000. During
+these six years he devoted himself diligently and systematically to the
+practice of his profession, broken only by his annual attendance upon
+the General Assembly at Milledgeville. It was during this period that he
+developed his rare powers for business and his surpassing eloquence as
+an advocate. He made his fortune during these years, for after 1843, and
+until the opening of the war between the States, he was uninterruptedly
+a member of Congress.</p>
+
+<p>There was no important litigation in eastern or middle Georgia that did
+not enlist his services. He proved to be an ardent and tireless worker.
+He had grown into a manhood of splendid physique, and he spent the days
+and most of the nights in careful application. He never went into a case
+until after the most thorough preparation, where preparation was
+possible. But he had a wonderful memory and rare legal judgment. He was
+thoroughly grounded in the principles of law. He possessed, as well,
+some of that common sense which enabled him to see what the law ought to
+be, and above all else, he had the strongest intuitive perception of
+truth. He could strip a case of its toggery and go right to its vitals.
+He was bold, clean, fearless, and impetuous, and when convinced he had
+right on his side would fight through all the courts, with irresisti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>ble
+impulse. He was susceptible to argument, but seemed absolutely blind to
+fear.</p>
+
+<p>The brightest chapters of the life of Toombs are perhaps his courthouse
+appearances. There is no written record of his masterly performances,
+but the lawyers of his day attest that his jury speeches were even
+better than his political addresses.</p>
+
+<p>A keen observer of those days will tell you that Mr. Stephens would
+begin his talk to the jury with calmness and build upon his opening
+until he warmed up into eloquence; but that Mr. Toombs would plunge
+immediately into his fierce and impassioned oratory, and pour his
+torrent of wit, eloquence, logic, and satire upon judge and jury. He
+would seem to establish his case upon the right, and then defy them to
+disregard it.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this vehement and overpowering method he possessed great
+practical gifts. He had the knack of unraveling accounts, and while not
+technically skilled in bookkeeping, had a general and accurate knowledge
+which gave him prestige, whether in intricate civil or criminal cases.
+He was a rash talker, but the safest of counselors, and practiced his
+profession with the greatest scruple. On one occasion he said to a
+client who had stated his case to him: "Yes, you can recover in this
+suit, but you ought not to do <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>so. This is a case in which law and
+justice are on opposite sides."</p>
+
+<p>The client told him he would push the case, anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," replied Mr. Toombs, "you must hire someone else to assist you in
+your damned rascality."</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion a lawyer went to him and asked him what he should charge
+a client, in a case to which Mr. Toombs had just listened in the
+courthouse.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Toombs, "I should have charged a thousand dollars; but you
+ought to have five thousand, for you did a great many things I could not
+have done."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs was strict in all his engagements. His practice remained with
+him, even while he was in Congress, and his occasional return during the
+session of the Superior Court of the Northern Circuit gave rise at one
+time to some comment on the part of his opponents, the Democrats. The
+nominee of that party, on the stump, declared that the demands upon Mr.
+Toombs's legal talent in Georgia were too great to admit of his strict
+attendance to public business in Washington. When Mr. Toombs came to
+answer this point, he said: "You have heard what the gentleman says
+about my coming home to practice law. He promises, if elected to
+Congress, he will not leave his seat. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>leave you to judge,
+fellow-citizens, whether your interest in Washington will be best
+protected by his continued presence or his occasional absence." This hit
+brought down the house. Mr. Toombs's addresses to the Supreme Court were
+models of solid argument. During the early days of the Supreme Court of
+Georgia, it was a migratory body; the law creating it tended to
+popularize it by providing that it should hold its sessions in the
+different towns in the State convenient to the lawyers. The court once
+met in the little schoolroom of the Lumpkin Law School in Athens. One of
+the earliest cases heard was a land claim from Hancock County, bristling
+with points and involving about $100,000 worth of property. A. H.
+Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Howell and Thomas Cobb were employed, but in
+this splendid fight of Titans, Justice Lumpkin declared that the finest
+legal arguments he ever heard were from the lips of Robert Toombs.</p>
+
+<p>Hon. A. H. Stephens said the best speech Mr. Toombs ever made was in a
+case in which he represented a poor girl who was suing her stepfather
+for cruel treatment. The defendant was a preacher, and the jury brought
+in a verdict for $4000, the maximum sum allowed, and petitioned the
+Judge to allow them to find damages in a heavier amount.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most celebrated causes Mr. Toombs was engaged in before the
+war was a railroad case <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>heard in Marietta, Ga., in September, 1858.
+Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs were employed on one side, while Messrs.
+Pettigru and Memminger, of Charleston, giants of the Carolina bar, were
+ranged in opposition. The ordeal was a very trying one. The case
+occupied seven days. Mr. Toombs, always an early riser, generally
+commenced his preparation in this case at half-past five in the morning.
+The hearing of the facts continued in the courthouse until seven in the
+evening, and the nights were passed in consultation with counsel.
+Attendants upon this celebrated trial declared that Toombs's manner in
+the courtroom was indifferent. That, while other lawyers were busy
+taking notes, he seemed to sit a listless spectator, rolling his head
+from side to side, oblivious to evidence or proceeding. And yet, when
+his time came to conclude the argument, he arose with his kingly way,
+and so thorough was his mastery of the case, with its infinite detail,
+its broad principles, and intricate technicalities, that his argument
+was inspiring and profound. His memory seemed to have indelibly pictured
+the entire record of the seven days, and to have grouped in his mind the
+main argument of counsel. It was a wonderful display of retentiveness,
+acumen, learning, and power. On one occasion, while a member of the
+United States Senate, he came to Georgia to attend a session of the
+Supreme Court <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>in Milledgeville. He writes his wife: "I have had a hard,
+close week's work. The lawyers very kindly gave way and allowed my cases
+to come on this week, which brought them very close together, and as I
+was but ill prepared for them, not having given them any attention last
+winter, and but little this spring, I have been pretty much speaking all
+day and studying all night." In March, 1856, Mr. Toombs wrote to his
+wife, whom he had left in Washington City, that the spring term of
+Wilkes court would be the most laborious and disagreeable he ever
+attended. Says he: "For the first time in my life, I have business in
+court of my own&mdash;that is, where I am a party. The Bank of the State of
+Georgia has given me a year's work on my own account. If I live I will
+make the last named party repent of it."</p>
+
+<p>At another time he wrote: "I had fine weather for Elbert, and a
+delightful trip. Everything went well in Elbert with my business." It
+usually did. There was no county in which he was more of an autocrat
+than in Elbert. He never failed to carry the county in politics, even
+when Elbert had a candidate of her own for Congress. His legal advice
+was eagerly sought, and he was more consulted than any other man in
+Georgia about public and private affairs. The reason of his phenomenal
+success as counsel was that, united with his learning and forensic
+power, he had a genius for de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>tail. He was a natural financier. He used
+to tell President Davis, during the early days of the Confederacy, that
+four-fifths of war was business, and that he must "organize" victory.</p>
+
+<p>During the sessions of Elbert court his arguments swept the jury, his
+word was law outside. His talk was inspiring to the people. His rare and
+racy conversation drew crowds to his room every night, and to an
+occasional client, who would drop in upon his symposium to confer with
+him, he would say, with a move of his head, "Don't worry about that now.
+I know more about your business than you do, as I will show you at the
+proper time." His fees at Elbert were larger than at any other court
+except his own home in Wilkes. It was during the adjournment of court
+for dinner that he would be called out by his constituents to make one
+of his matchless political speeches. He never failed to move the crowds
+to cheers of delight.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion he was at Roanoke, his plantation in Stewart County, Ga.
+He writes his wife: "I was sent for night before last to appear in
+Lumpkin to prosecute a case of murder: but as it appeared that the act
+was committed on account of a wrong to the slayer's marital rights, I
+declined to appear against him." Mr. Toombs was the embodiment of
+virtue, and the strictest defender of the sanctity of marriage on the
+part of man as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>well as woman. His whole life was a sermon of purity and
+devotion.</p>
+
+<p>Judge William M. Reese, who practiced law with Mr. Toombs, and was his
+partner from 1840 to 1843, gives this picture of Toombs at the bar: "A
+noble presence, a delivery which captivated his hearers by its intense
+earnestness: a thorough knowledge of his cases, a lightning-like
+perception of the weak and strong points of controversy; a power of
+expressing in original and striking language his strong convictions; a
+capacity and willingness to perform intellectual labor; a passion for
+the contest of the courthouse; a perfect fidelity and integrity in all
+business intrusted to him, with charming conversational powers&mdash;all
+contributed to an immense success in his profession. Such gifts, with a
+knowledge of business and the best uses of money, were soon rendered
+valuable in accumulating wealth."</p>
+
+<p>Although Mr. Toombs often appeared in courts to attend to business
+already in his charge, he gave out that he would not engage in any new
+causes which might interfere with his Congressional duties. The
+absorbing nature of public business from 1850 to 1867 withdrew him from
+the bar, and the records of the Supreme Court of Georgia have only about
+twenty-five cases argued by him in that time. Some of these were of
+commanding importance, and the opinions of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> Justices handed down in
+that time bear impress of the conclusiveness of his reasoning and the
+power of his effort before that tribunal. Judge E. H. Pottle, who
+presided over the courts of the Northern Circuit during the later years
+of Toombs's practice, recalls a celebrated land case when Robert Toombs
+was associated against Francis H. Cone&mdash;himself a legal giant. Toombs's
+associate expected to make the argument, but Cone put up such a powerful
+speech that it was decided that Toombs must answer him. Toombs
+protested, declaring that he had been reading a newspaper, and not
+expecting to speak, had not followed Judge Cone. However, he laid down
+his paper and listened to Cone's conclusion, then got up and made an
+overmastering forensic effort which captured Court and crowd.</p>
+
+<p>The last appearance Toombs ever made in a criminal case was in the
+Eberhart case in Oglethorpe County, Ga., in 1877. He was then
+sixty-seven years of age, and not only was his speech fine, but his
+management of his case was superb. He had not worked on that side of the
+court for many years, but the presiding Judge, who watched him closely,
+declared that he never made a mistake or missed a point.</p>
+
+<p>It was during a preliminary hearing of this case that Toombs resorted to
+one of his brilliant and audacious motions, characteristic of him. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+State wanted to divide the case and try the principals separately.
+Father and son were charged with murder. The defense objected, but was
+overruled by the Court. General Toombs then sprung the point that Judge
+Pottle was not qualified to preside, on the ground of a rumor that he
+had selected the men of the jury panel instead of drawing them. Toombs
+further argued that the Court was not competent to decide the question
+of fact. Judge Pottle vacated the bench and the clerk of court called
+Hon. Samuel H. Hardeman to preside. Toombs and Benjamin H. Hill, his
+assistant, contended that the clerk had no right to appoint a judge.
+Judge Hardeman sustained the point and promptly came down, when Judge
+Pottle resumed the bench and continued the case&mdash;just the result that
+Toombs wanted. This case attracted immense comment, and in the
+Constitution of 1877 a provision was made, growing out of this incident,
+providing for the appointment of judges <i>pro hac vice</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He was a bitter enemy to anything that smacked of monopoly, and during
+the anti-railroad agitation of 1879-80, he said: "If I was forty-five
+years old I would whip this fight." Still, he was an exceedingly just
+man. Linton Stephens, noted for his probity and honor, said he would
+rather trust Robert Toombs to decide a case in which he was interested
+than any man he ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>During the last five years of General Toombs's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>life he was seldom seen
+in the courtroom. He was sometimes employed in important causes, but his
+eyesight failed him, and his strength was visibly impaired. His
+addresses were rather disconnected. His old habit of covering his points
+in great leaps, leaving the intervening spaces unexplained, rendered it
+difficult to follow him. His mind still acted with power, and he seemed
+to presume that his hearers were as well up on his subject as he was.
+His manner was sometimes overbearing to the members of the bar, but no
+man was more open to reason or more sobered by reflection, and he was
+absolutely without malice. He was always recognized as an upright man,
+and he maintained, in spite of his infirmities, the respect and
+confidence of the bench and bar and of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Chief Justice Jackson said: "In the practice of law this lightning-like
+rapidity of thought distinguished Toombs. He saw through the case at a
+glance, and grasped the controlling point. Yielding minor hillocks, he
+seized and held the height that covered the field, and from that
+eminence shot after shot swept all before it. Concentrated fire was
+always his policy. A single sentence would win his case. A big thought,
+compressed into small compass, was fatal to his foe. It is the clear
+insight of a great mind only that shaped out truth in words few and
+simple. Brevity is power, wherever thought is strong. From Gaul C&aelig;sar
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>wrote '<i>Veni, vidi, vici.</i>' Rome was electrified, and the message
+immortalized. Toombs said to this Court, 'May it please your
+Honor&mdash;Seizin, Marriage, Death, Dower,' and sat down. His case was won,
+the widow's heart leaped with joy, and the lawyer's argument lives
+forever."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE LEGISLATURE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun were waging their "irrepressible
+conflict," the county of Wilkes in the State of Georgia was nursing
+discordant factions. Just across the river in Carolina lived the great
+Nullifier. The Virginia settlers of Wilkes sided with him, while scores
+of North Carolinians, who had come to live in the county, swore by "Old
+Hickory." This political difference gave rise to numerous feuds. The two
+elements maintained their identity for generations, and the divisions
+became social as well as political. The Virginians nursed their State
+pride. The sons of North Carolina, overshadowed by the Old Dominion,
+clung to the Union and accepted Andrew Jackson, their friend and
+neighbor, as oracle and leader. The earliest political division in
+Georgia was between the Clarke and Crawford factions. General John
+Clarke, a sturdy soldier of the Revolution, came from North Carolina,
+while William H. Crawford, a Virginian by birth and a Georgian by
+residence, led the Virginia element. The feud between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> Clarke and
+Crawford gave rise to numerous duels. Then came George M. Troup to
+re&euml;nforce the Crawford faction and defend States' Rights, even at the
+point of the sword. Troup and Clarke were rival candidates for Governor
+of Georgia in 1825, and the Toombs family ardently fought for Troup.
+Young Toombs was but fifteen years of age, but politics had been burnt
+into his ardent soul. Wilkes had remained a Union county until this
+campaign, when the Troup and Toombs influence was too strong for the
+North Carolina faction. Wilkes, in fact, seemed to be a watershed in
+early politics. It was in close touch with Jackson and Calhoun, with
+Clarke and Crawford, and then with Clarke and Troup. On the one side the
+current from the mountain streams melted into the peaceful Savannah and
+merged into the Atlantic; on the other they swept into the Tennessee and
+hurried off to the Father of Waters.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs cast his first vote for Andrew Jackson in 1832. He
+abandoned the Union Democratic-Republican party, however, after the
+proclamation and force bill of the Administration and joined the States'
+Rights Whigs. When young Toombs was elected to the General Assembly of
+Georgia in October, 1837, parties were sharply divided. The Democrats,
+sustained by the personal popularity of "Old Hickory," were still
+dominant in the State. The States' Rights<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> Whigs, however, had a large
+following, and although not indorsing the doctrines of Calhoun, the
+party was still animated by the spirit of George M. Troup. This
+statesman, just retired from public life, had been borne from a sick-bed
+to the United States Senate Chamber to vote against the extreme measures
+of President Jackson. The Troup men claimed to be loyal to the
+Constitution of their country in all its defined grants, and conceded
+the right of the Chief Magistrate to execute the office so delegated,
+but they resisted what they believed to be a dangerous latitude of
+construction looking to consolidated power. Robert Toombs was not a
+disciple of Calhoun. While admiring the generalities and theories of the
+great Carolinian, the young Georgian was a more practical statesman. The
+States' Rights Whigs advocated a protective tariff and a national bank.
+They believed that the depreciation of the currency had caused the
+distress of the people in the panic of 1837, and no man in this stormy
+era more vigorously upbraided the pet-bank and sub-treasury system than
+Robert Toombs. He introduced a resolution in the legislature declaring
+that President Van Buren had used the patronage of the government to
+strengthen his own party; that he had repudiated the practices and
+principles of his patriotic antecedents, and "had sought out antiquated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+European systems for the collection, safe keeping, and distribution of
+public moneys&mdash;foreign to our habits, unsuited to our conditions,
+expensive and unsafe in operation." Mr. Toombs contended, with all the
+force that was in him, that a bank of the United States, properly
+regulated, was "the best, most proper and economical means for handling
+public moneys." Robert Toombs would not have waited until he was
+twenty-seven years of age before entering public life, had not the
+sentiment of his county been hostile to his party. Wilkes had been a
+Union county, but in 1837 it returned to the lower house two Democrats,
+and Robert A. Toombs, the only Whig. Nothing but his recognized ability
+induced the people to make an exception in his favor. Besides his
+reputation as an orator and advocate, Toombs had just returned from the
+Creek war, where he had commanded a company and served under General
+Winfield Scott in putting down the insurrection of Neahmatha, the Indian
+chief. He now brought to public life the new prestige of a soldier.
+After this, "Captain Toombs" was never defeated in his county. He was
+returned at the annual elections in 1839, 1840, 1842, and 1843&mdash;and
+succeeded in preserving at home an average Whig majority of 100 votes.
+He did not care for the State Senate, preferring the more populous body,
+then composed of 200 members. Parties in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> State were very evenly
+balanced, but Mr. Toombs preserved, in the varying scale of politics, a
+prominent place in the house. He was made chairman of the Judiciary
+Committee by his political opponents. He served as a member of the
+Committee on Internal Improvements, as chairman of the all-important
+Committee on Banking, chairman of the Committee on State of the
+Republic, and in 1842 received the vote of the Whig minority in the
+house for Speaker. In 1840 the Whigs gained control of the government.
+The Harrison tidal wave swept their best men to the front in State and
+national councils. Charles J. Jenkins of Richmond was elected speaker of
+the house, and Mr. Toombs, as chairman of the Banking Committee, framed
+the bill which repealed the law authorizing the issue of bank bills to
+the amount of twice their capital stock. He went right to the marrow of
+honest banking and sound finance by providing for a fund to redeem the
+outstanding bills, and condemned the course of the State banks in
+flooding the State with irredeemable promises to pay.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this session of the General Assembly that Mr. Toombs displayed
+the skill and sagacity of a statesman in fearlessly exposing a seductive
+scheme for popular relief. He was called upon to confront public clamor
+and to fight in the face of fearful odds, but he did not falter.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Just before the General Assembly of 1840 adjourned, Governor McDonald
+sent an urgent message to both houses calling upon them to frame some
+means for the speedy relief of the people. The situation in Georgia was
+very distressing. The rains and floods of that year had swept the crops
+from the fields, and there was much suffering among the planters. Coming
+upon the heel of the session, the Whig members of the legislature looked
+upon the message as a surprise, and rather regarded it as a shrewd
+political stroke. Mr. Toombs was equal to the emergency. He quickly put
+in a resolution asking the Governor himself to suggest some means of
+popular relief&mdash;throwing the burden of the problem back upon the
+executive. But Governor McDonald was armed. He drew his last weapon from
+his arsenal, and used it with formidable power. He sent in an elaborate
+message to the houses recommending that the State make a large loan and
+deposit the proceeds in bank, to be given out to the people on good
+security. The Senate committee, in evident sympathy with the scheme for
+relief, reported a bill authorizing the issue of two million six-year
+eight-per-cent. bonds to be loaned to private citizens, limiting each
+loan to one thousand dollars, and restricting the notes to three years,
+with eight per cent. interest.</p>
+
+<p>The report of the House Committee was pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>pared by Robert Toombs. It was
+the most admirable and statesmanlike document of that day. Mr. Toombs
+said that deliberation had resulted in the conviction that the measure
+suggested by His Excellency should not be adopted. While his committee
+was duly sensible of and deeply regretted the pecuniary embarrassment of
+many of their fellow-citizens, he felt constrained by a sense of public
+duty to declare that he deemed it unwise and impolitic to use the
+credit, and pledge the property and labor of the whole people, to supply
+the private wants of a portion only of the people. The use of the public
+credit, he went on to say, was one of the most important and delicate
+powers which a free people could confide in their representatives; it
+should be jealously guarded, sacredly protected, and cautiously used,
+even for the attainment of the noblest patriotic ends, and never for the
+benefit of one class of the community to the exclusion or injury of the
+rest, whether the demand grew out of real or supposed pecuniary
+difficulties. To relieve these difficulties by use of the public credit
+would be to substitute a public calamity for private misfortune, and
+would end in the certain necessity of imposing grievous burdens in the
+way of taxes upon the many for the benefit of the few. All experience,
+Mr. Toombs went on to declare, admonish us to expect such results from
+the pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>posed relief measures, to adopt which would be to violate some
+of the most sacred principles of the social compact. All free
+governments, deriving their just powers from, and being established for
+the benefit of, the governed, must necessarily have power over the
+property, and consequently the credit, of the governed to the extent of
+public use, and no further. And whenever government assumed the right to
+use the property or credit of the people for any other purpose, it
+abused a power essential for the perfection of its legislative duties in
+a manner destructive of the rights and interests of the governed, and
+ought to be sternly resisted by the people. The proposed measures, he
+contended, violated these admitted truths, asserted the untenable
+principle that governments should protect a portion of the people, in
+violation of the rights of the remainder, from the calamities consequent
+on unpropitious seasons and private misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>He must have been an indifferent or careless spectator of similar
+financial schemes, Mr. Toombs declared, who could persuade himself that
+this plan of borrowing money, to lend again at the same rate of
+interest, could be performed without loss to the State. That loss must
+be supplied by taxation, and to that extent, at least, it will operate
+so as to legislate money from the pocket of one citizen to that of
+another. The committee <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>declared that it knew of no mode of legislative
+relief except the interposition of unconstitutional, unwise, unjust, and
+oppressive legislation between debtor and creditor, which did not need
+their condemnation.</p>
+
+<p>The argument was exhaustive and convincing. Never were the powers of the
+State or the soundness of public credit more strongly set forth. The
+whole scheme of relief was abandoned, and the General Assembly
+adjourned.</p>
+
+<p>The relief measures, however, had a great effect upon the campaign.
+Rejected in the legislature under the rattling fire and withering
+sarcasm of Toombs, they were artfully used on the hustings. "McDonald
+and Relief" was the slogan. Men talked airily about "deliverance and
+liberty." Mr. Toombs declared that "humbuggery was reduced to an exact
+science and demonstrated by figures." The Act compelling the banks to
+make cash payments was represented as an unwise contraction of the
+currency and a great oppression to the people. Governor McDonald was
+consequently re&euml;lected over William C. Dawson, the Whig nominee.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs was not a candidate for re&euml;lection in 1841. He worked hard
+at the polls for the Whig ticket, and although his candidate for
+Governor received a majority of one in Wilkes County, the Whigs were
+defeated for the legisla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>ture. When he returned to the Assembly in 1842
+he still found Governor McDonald and the Democrats supporting a central
+bank and the sub-treasury. They clamored to restore public finances to
+the old system. The Democrats held the legislature and elected to the
+United States Senate Walter T. Colquitt over Charles J. Jenkins.
+Although a member of the minority party, Mr. Toombs was appointed
+chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Here his high character and moral
+courage shone conspicuously. He proved a stone wall against the perfect
+flood of legislation designed for popular relief. To use his own words:
+"The calendar was strong with a heterogeneous collection of bills
+proposing stay-laws." He reported as "unwise, inexpedient, and
+injurious," proposed Acts "to protect unfortunate debtors"; "to redeem
+property in certain cases"; also a bill to "exempt from levy and sale
+certain classes of property." He held with Marshall the absolute
+inviolability of contracts; he believed in common honesty in public and
+private life; he was strict in all business obligations; he denounced
+the Homestead Act of 1868, and declared in his last days that there was
+"not a dirty shilling in his pocket." Mr. Toombs was nothing of the
+demagogue. He was highminded, fearless, and sincere, and it may be said
+of him what he afterward declared so often of Henry Clay, that "he would
+not flatter Neptune<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> for his trident or Jove for his power to thunder."
+He was called upon at this session to fight the repeal of the law he had
+framed in 1840, to regulate the system of banking. He declared in
+eloquent terms that the State must restrict the issue of the banks and
+compel their payment in specie. The experiment of banking on public
+credit had failed, he said. It had brought loss to the government,
+distress to the people, and had sullied the good faith of Georgia.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this session of the legislature that the Democrats proposed a
+vote of censure upon John McPherson Berrien, United States Senator from
+Georgia, for his advocacy of a national bank. Mr. Toombs ardently
+defended Senator Berrien. He said that the State legislature was not the
+custodian of a senator's conscience, and held that the people of Georgia
+sanctioned the expediency and utility of a national bank. When the
+resolution of censure came up in the house, the Whigs refused to vote,
+and raised the point of "no quorum." Speaker <i>pro tem</i>. Wellborn, who
+presided, counted a quorum and declared the resolutions adopted. Mr.
+<a name="Page_39t" id="Page_39t"></a><a href="#Page_39tn">Toombs</a> fired up at this unusual decision. He threw himself before the
+Speaker with impetuous appeal and called for a reversal of the decision.
+But it was a Democratic house, and the Speaker was sustained by a vote
+of 96 to 40.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The craze for internal improvements now swept over the country. The
+Whigs were especially active, and we find resolutions adopted by the
+General Assembly, calling on the Federal Government to create ports of
+entry and to build government foundries and navy yards on the Southern
+seaboard. Mr. Toombs was chairman of the Committee of Internal
+Improvements, but his efforts were directed toward the completion of the
+Western and Atlantic Railroad. These enterprises had overshadowed the
+waterways, and the railway from Charleston, S.&nbsp;C., to Augusta, Ga., one
+of the very first in the country, had just been completed. Already a
+company had embarked upon the construction of the Georgia Railroad, and
+on May 21, 1837, the first locomotive ever put in motion on the soil of
+Georgia moved out from Augusta. A local paper described the event in
+sententious terms:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This locomotive started beautifully and majestically from
+the depository and, following the impetus given, flew with
+surprising velocity on the road which hereafter is to be
+her natural element.</p></div>
+
+<p>The General Assembly decided that these rail lines should have an outlet
+to the West. This great road was finally built and operated from Atlanta
+to Chattanooga, and is still owned by the State, a monument to the
+sagacity and persistency of Toombs and his associates in 1840. The great
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>possibilities of these iron highways opened the eyes of the statesmen
+of that day, Mr. Calhoun seemed to drop for a time his philosophical
+studies of States and slavery and to dream of railroads and commercial
+greatness. He proposed the connection of the Atlantic Ocean with the
+Mississippi River and the great West, through Cumberland Gap&mdash;a
+brilliant and feasible scheme. Governor Gilmer of Georgia declared in
+his message that these projected roads "would add new bonds to the
+Union." But King Cotton, with his millions in serfdom, issued his
+imperial decrees, and not even this great railroad development could
+keep down the tremendous tragedy of the century.</p>
+
+<p>One of the measures to which Mr. Toombs devoted great attention during
+his legislative term was the establishment of a State Supreme Court.
+This bill was several times defeated, but finally in 1843 passed the
+house by a vote of 88 to 86. It was the scene of many of his forensic
+triumphs. He also introduced, during the sessions of 1842 and 1843,
+bills to abolish suretyship in Georgia. This system had been severely
+abused. In the flush times men indorsed without stint, and then during
+the panic of 1837 "reaped the whirlwind." Fortunes were swept away,
+individual credit ruined, and families brought to beggary by this
+reckless system of surety. What a man seldom refused to do for another,
+Mr. Toombs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>strove to reach by law. But the system had become too firmly
+intrenched in the financial habits of the people. His bill, which he
+distinctly stated was to apply alone to future and not past contracts,
+only commanded a small minority of votes. It was looked upon as an
+abridgment of personal liberty. Mr. Toombs exerted all of his efforts in
+behalf of this bill, and it became quite an issue in Georgia. It is not
+a little strange that when Robert Toombs was dead, it was found that his
+own estate was involved by a series of indorsements which he had given
+in Atlanta to the Kimball House Company. Had he maintained the activity
+of his younger days, he would probably have turned this deal into a
+profitable investment. The complication was finally arranged, but his
+large property came near being swept away under the same system of
+surety he had striven to abolish.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>ELECTED TO CONGRESS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Entering public life about the same time, living a short distance apart,
+professing the same political principles, practicing in the same courts
+of law, were Alexander H. Stephens of Taliaferro and Robert Toombs of
+Wilkes. Entirely unlike in physical organism and mental make-up,
+differing entirely in origin and views of life, these two men were close
+personal friends, and throughout an eventful period of more than half a
+century, preserved an affectionate regard for each other.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stephens was delicate, sensitive, conservative, and sagacious, while
+Toombs was impetuous, overpowering, defiant, and masterful. Stephens was
+small, swarthy, fragile, while Toombs was leonine, full-blooded, and
+majestic. And yet in peace and war these two men walked hand in hand,
+and the last public appearance of Robert Toombs was when, bent and
+weeping, he bowed his gray head at the coffin and pronounced the funeral
+oration over Alexander Stephens.</p>
+
+<p>In the General Assembly of 1843, Robert Toombs was a member of the
+house, but his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>ability and power had marked him as a candidate for
+Congress, and Mr. Stephens had already been promoted from the State
+Senate to a seat in the national legislature at Washington. The law
+requiring the State to choose congressmen on the district plan had been
+passed, and the General Assembly was then engaged in laying off the
+counties into congressional districts. The bill, as first reported,
+included the counties of Wilkes and Taliaferro in the second district of
+Georgia. Here was a problem. Toombs and Stephens had been named as Whig
+candidates for the Clay campaign of 1844. To have them clash would have
+been to deprive the State of their talents in the national councils. It
+would be interesting to speculate as to what would have been the result
+had these two men been opposed. Stephens was naturally a Union man, and
+was no very ardent advocate of slavery. Toombs inherited the traditions
+of the Virginia landowners. It is not improbable that the firmness of
+the one would have been a foil for the fire of the other. History might
+have been written differently had not the conference committee in the
+Georgia Legislature in 1843 altered the schedule of districts, placing
+Taliaferro in the seventh and Wilkes in the eighth Congressional
+district. Both were safely Whig, and the future Vice-President and
+premier of the Southern Confederacy now prepared for the canvass which
+was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>to plunge them into their duties as members of the national
+Congress.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs had already made his appearance in national politics in
+1840. Although still a member of the Georgia Legislature, he took a deep
+interest in the success of the Whig ticket for President. His power as a
+stump speaker was felt in eastern Georgia, where the people gathered at
+the "log cabin and hard cider" campaigns. The most daring feat of young
+Toombs, just thirty years old, was in crossing the Savannah River and
+meeting George McDuffie, the great Democrat of South Carolina, then in
+the zenith of his fame. An eye-witness of this contest between the
+champions of Van Buren and Harrison declared that McDuffie was
+"harnessed lightning" himself. He was a nervous, impassioned speaker.
+When the rash young Georgian crossed over to Willington, S.&nbsp;C., to meet
+the lion in his den, Toombs rode horseback, and it was noticed that his
+shirt front was stained with tobacco juice, and yet Toombs was a
+remarkably handsome man. "Genius sat upon his brow, and his eyes were as
+black as death and bigger than an ox's." His presence captivated even
+the idolators of McDuffie. His argument and invective, his overpowering
+eloquence, linger in the memory of old men now. McDuffie said of him: "I
+have heard John Randolph of Roanoke, and met Burgess of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> Rhode Island,
+but this wild Georgian is a Mirabeau."</p>
+
+<p>In 1844 Robert Toombs was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which
+nominated Henry Clay, and during this visit he made a speech in New York
+which attracted wide attention. It threatened to raise a storm about his
+head in Georgia. In his speech he arraigned Mr. Calhoun for writing his
+"sugar letter" to Louisiana, and for saying that he would protect sugar
+because it was the production of slave labor. Mr. Toombs declared: "If
+any discrimination is made between free and slave labor it ought to be
+in favor of free labor." "But," said he, "the Whigs of Georgia want no
+such partial protection as Mr. Calhoun offers; they want protection for
+all classes of labor and home industry. The Whigs protest against these
+efforts to prejudice the South against the North, or the North against
+the South. They have a common interest as well as a common history. The
+blood that was mingled at Yorktown and at Eutaw cannot be kept at enmity
+forever. The Whigs of Bunker Hill are the same as the Whigs of Georgia."
+Mr. Toombs was actually charged in this campaign with being an
+Abolitionist. He was accused of saying in a speech at Mallorysville,
+Ga., during the Harrison campaign, that slavery was "a moral and
+political evil." This was now brought up against him. Mr. Toombs
+admitted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>saying that slavery was a political evil. He wrote a ringing
+letter to his constituents, in which he declared that "the affected fear
+and pretended suspicion of a part of the Democratic press in relation to
+my views are well understood by the people. I have no language to
+express my scorn and contempt for the whole crew. I have no other reply
+to make to these common sewers of filth and falsehood. If I had as many
+arms as Briareus they would be too few to correct the misrepresentations
+of speeches I have made in the past six months."</p>
+
+<p>It was on the 3d of October, 1844, that Robert Toombs spoke at a
+memorable political meeting in Augusta, Ga. Augusta was in the heart of
+the district which he was contesting for Congress, and the Democrats, to
+strengthen their cause, brought over McDuffie from South Carolina. Large
+crowds were present in the shady yard surrounding the City Hall; seats
+had been constructed there, while back in the distance long trenches
+were dug, and savory meats were undergoing the famous process of
+barbecue. Speaking commenced at ten o'clock in the morning, and, with a
+short rest for dinner, there were seven hours of oratory. People seldom
+tired in those days of forensic meetings. Toombs was on his mettle. He
+denounced the Democrats for dragging the slavery question before the
+people to operate upon their fears. It was a bugbear everlastingly used
+to cover up the true question at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>issue. It was kept up to operate on
+the fears of the timid and the passions and prejudices of the
+unsuspecting.</p>
+
+<p>The young Whig then launched into a glowing defense of the National
+Bank. The Democrats had asked where was the authority to charter a bank?
+He would reply, "Where was the authority, in so many words, to build
+lighthouses? Democrats were very strict constructionists when it was
+necessary to accomplish their political purposes, but always found a way
+to get around these doubts when occasion required." He taunted McDuffie
+with having admitted that Congress had power to charter a bank.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs contended that a tariff, with the features of protection to
+American industry, had existed since the foundation of the government.
+This great system of "plunder" had been supported by Jefferson.
+Eloquently warming up under the Democratic charge that the tariff was a
+system of robbery, Mr. Toombs appealed to every Whig and Democrat as an
+American who boasted of this government as "a model to all nations of
+the earth; as the consummation of political wisdom; who asks the
+oppressed of all nations to come and place himself under its protection,
+because it upholds the weak against the strong and protects the poor
+against the rich, whether it has been going on in a system of plunder
+ever since it sprang into power." "It is not true," he said, "it is not
+true!"</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Turning with prophetic ken to his Augusta friends, he asked what would
+be the effect were the Savannah River turned through the beautiful
+plains of Augusta, and manufactures built up where the industrious could
+find employment. Hundreds of persons, he said, would be brought together
+to spin the raw cotton grown in the State, to consume the provisions
+which the farmers raised, thus diversifying their employment and
+increasing their profits. "Would any man tell me," shouted the orator,
+his eyes blazing, and his arms uplifted, "that this would impoverish the
+country&mdash;would make paupers of the people? To increase the places where
+the laborer may sell his labor would never make him a pauper. Be
+controlled," said he, "in the administration of government and in all
+other things, by the improvement of the age. Do not tie the living to
+the dead. Others may despise the lights of science or experience; they
+have a right, if they choose, to be governed by the dreams of economists
+who have rejected practical evidence. But no such consistency is mine. I
+will have none of it."</p>
+
+<p>McDuffie in his speech declared that all the plundering which England
+had been subjected to from the days of Hengist and Horsa could not equal
+the plundering which the people of the exporting States had sustained.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs answered that if a man must pay tax to sustain the government it
+was better he should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>pay it in such a way as to benefit his own
+countrymen than for the benefit of foreign manufacturers and foreign
+capitalists.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs alluded to a letter of James K. Polk to a Pennsylvania
+manufacturer, as leaning toward protection.</p>
+
+<p>McDuffie said that Polk's letter was "composed for that meridian."</p>
+
+<p>"Henry Clay does not need an interpreter," cried Toombs. "He is the same
+in the North as in the South. He would rather be right than President."</p>
+
+<p>"Dallas, the Democratic nominee for vice president, is a high-tariff
+man," said Toombs. "He voted for the tariff of 1832 and against the
+compromise measures. Although the sword was drawn to drink the blood of
+McDuffie's friends in Carolina, Dallas would still adhere to his pound
+of flesh."</p>
+
+<p>Toombs concluded his great reply to McDuffie: "We have lived under the
+present order of things for fifty years, and can continue to live under
+it for one thousand years to come, if the people of the South are but
+content to stand upon their rights as guaranteed in the Constitution,
+and not work confusion by listening to ambitious politicians: by taking
+as much pains to preserve a good understanding with our Northern
+brethren, the vast majority of whom are inclined to respect the
+limitations of the Constitution."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This was perhaps the greatest political meeting Georgia ever held.
+Politics were at white heat. Toombs and McDuffie each spoke two hours.
+The campaign cry was for the Whigs: "Clay, Frelinghuysen, Toombs, and
+our glorious Union," and by the Democrats: "Polk, Dallas, Texas, and
+Oregon." It was Whig <i>vs.</i> Loco-foco. The Whig leaders of the South were
+Pettigru, Thompson, and Yeadon of South Carolina, Merriweather, Toombs,
+and Stephens, of Georgia, while the Democratic lights were McDuffie,
+Rhett, and Pickens of South Carolina, and Charlton, Cobb, Colquitt, and
+Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1844 was bitter in Georgia. The Whigs carried the burden
+of a protective tariff, while the memories of nullification and the
+Force bill were awakened by a ringing letter from George M. Troup,
+condemning the tariff in his vigorous style. This forced Mr. Toombs, in
+his letter accepting the congressional nomination, to review the subject
+in its relation to the States' Rights party in Georgia. "The tariff of
+1824," said he, "which was voted for by Andrew Jackson, carried the
+principle of protection further than any preceding one. Jackson was the
+avowed friend of the protective policy, yet he received the vote of
+Georgia, regardless of party. In 1828 the Harrisburg convention demanded
+additional protection, and this measure was carried through Congress by
+the leading men of the Democratic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>party. It created discontent in the
+South, and the Act of 1832 professed to modify the tariff&mdash;but this
+measure not proving satisfactory was 'nullified' by South Carolina.
+General Jackson then issued his proclamation which pronounced principles
+and issues utterly at war with the rights of the States, and subversive
+of the character of the government. The opponents of consolidating
+principles went into opposition. Delegates met in Milledgeville in 1833,
+adopted the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, denounced the sentiments
+of Jackson's proclamation, and affirmed the doctrine of States' Rights."</p>
+
+<p>"The Democratic party was then," said Toombs, "cheek by jowl with the
+whole tariff party in the United States, sustaining General Jackson, and
+stoutly maintaining that the leaders of that spirited little band in our
+sister State, whose talent shed a glory over their opposition, deserved
+a halter. They sustained John C. Forsythe in voting against the
+Compromise bill&mdash;that peace offering of the illustrious Henry Clay."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs declared in this campaign that the effect of a tariff on the
+productive industries of a country has been a disputed question among
+the wisest statesmen for centuries, and that these influences are
+subject to so many disturbing causes, both foreign and domestic, that
+they are incapable of being reduced to fixed principles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> Mr. Toombs did
+not hesitate, however, to condemn "the theories of the South Carolina
+school of politics."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs opposed the acquisition of Texas. He did not believe the
+North would consent. "It matters not," he said, "that Mexico is weak,
+that the acquisition is easy. The question is just the same: Is it
+right, is it just, is it the policy of this country to enlarge its
+territory by conquest? The principle is condemned by the spirit of the
+age, by reason, and by revelation. A people who love justice and hate
+wrong and oppression cannot approve it. War in a just cause is a great
+calamity to any people, and can only be justified by the highest
+necessity. A people who go to war without just and sufficient cause,
+with no other motive than pride and love of glory, are enemies to the
+human race and deserve the execration of all mankind. What, then, must
+be the judgment of a war for plunder?" He denounced the whole thing as a
+land job, and declared that he would rather have "the Union without
+Texas than Texas without the Union."</p>
+
+<p>The Democratic opponent of Mr. Toombs in this canvass was Hon. Edward J.
+Black of Screven, who had been in Congress since 1838. The new district
+was safely Whig, but the young candidate had to fight the prestige of
+McDuffie and Troup and opposition from numberless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>sources. It was
+charged that he always voted in the Georgia Legislature to raise taxes.
+He retorted, "It is right to resort to taxation to pay the honest debt
+of a State. I did vote to raise taxes, and I glory in it. It was a duty
+I owed the State, and I would go to the last dollar to preserve her good
+name and honor."</p>
+
+<p>While Mr. Toombs was making a speech in this canvass a man in the
+audience charged him with having voted for the free banking law and
+against the poor-school fund. "The gentleman," said Mr. Toombs, "seems
+to find pleasure in reveling in my cast-off errors. I shall not disturb
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"How is this, Mr. Toombs," shouted a Democrat at another time, "here is
+a vote of yours in the house journal I do not like."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my friend, there are several there that I do not like: now what
+are you going to do about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Especially was opposition bitter to Henry Clay. Cartoons were published
+from Northern papers, of Clay whipping a negro slave, with this
+inscription: "The Mill Boy of the <i>Slashes</i>." Pictures appeared in the
+Democratic papers of a human figure surmounted by a pistol, a bottle,
+and a deck of cards. To this a <i>r&eacute;sum&eacute;</i> of Clay's misdeeds was appended:</p>
+
+<p>"In 1805 quarreled with Colonel Davis of Ken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>tucky, which led to his
+first duel. In 1808 challenged Humphrey Marshall, and fired three times
+at his breast. In 1825 challenged the great John Randolph, and fired
+once at his breast. In 1838 he planned the Cilley duel, by which a
+murder was committed and a wife made a mourner. In 1841, when sixty-five
+years old, and gray-headed, is under a five thousand dollar bond to keep
+the peace. At twenty-nine he perjured himself to secure a seat in the
+United States Senate. In 1824, made the infamous bargain with Adams by
+which he sold out for a six thousand dollar office. He is well known as
+a gambler and Sabbath-breaker."</p>
+
+<p>But the eloquent Harry of the West had a large and devoted following. He
+visited Georgia in March of this year, and charmed the people by his
+eloquence and magnetism. Robert Toombs had met him at the social board
+and had been won by his superb mentality and fine manners. Women paid
+him the tribute of their presence wherever he spoke, and little children
+scattered flowers along his path. But the November election in Georgia,
+as elsewhere, was adverse to the party of Henry Clay. Toombs and
+Stephens were sent to Congress, but the electoral vote of Georgia was
+cast for Polk and Dallas, and the Whigs, who loved Clay as a father,
+regarded his defeat as a personal affliction as well as a public
+calamity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE LOWER HOUSE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Robert Toombs took his seat in the twenty-ninth Congress in December,
+1845. The Democrats organized the House by the election of John W. Davis
+of Indiana, Speaker. The House was made up of unusually strong men, who
+afterward became noted in national affairs. Hannibal Hamlin was with the
+Maine delegation; ex-President John Quincy Adams had been elected from
+Massachusetts with Robert C. Winthrop; Stephen A. Douglas was there from
+Illinois; David Wilmot from Pennsylvania; R. Barnwell Rhett and
+Armistead Burt from South Carolina; Geo. C. Droomgoole and Robert M. T.
+Hunter of Virginia, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, were members, as were
+Henry W. Hilliard and W. L. Yancey of Alabama, Jefferson Davis and Jacob
+Thompson of Mississippi, and John Slidell of Louisiana. Toombs,
+Stephens, and Cobb were the most prominent figures in the Georgia
+delegation.</p>
+
+<p>The topics uppermost in the public mind of that day were the Oregon
+question, Texas, and the ubiquitous tariff. It looked at one time as if
+war with Great Britain were unavoidable. Presi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>dent Polk occupied an
+extreme position, and declared in his message to Congress that our title
+to the whole of Oregon was clear. The boundary of the ceded territory
+was unsettled. The Democrats demanded the occupation of Oregon, with the
+campaign cry of "fifty-four forty or fight."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs did not accept President Polk's position. His first speech in
+the House was made January 12, 1846, and at once placed him in the front
+rank of orators and statesmen. He said that it was not clear to him that
+our title was exceptional up to 54&deg;40'. Our claim to the territory north
+of the Columbia River was the Spanish title only, and this had been an
+inchoate right.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs wanted the question settled by reason. He impetuously
+declared that "neither the clamors within nor without this hall, nor the
+ten thousand British cannon, floating on every ship, or mounted on every
+island, shall influence my decision in a question like this." He was for
+peace&mdash;for honorable peace. "It is the mother of all the virtues and
+hopes of mankind." No man would go further than he to obtain honorable
+peace; but dishonorable peace was worse than war&mdash;it was the worst of
+all evil.</p>
+
+<p>War was the greatest and the most horrible of calamities. Even a war for
+liberty itself was rarely compensated by the consequences. "Yet the
+common judgment of mankind consigned to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>lasting infamy the people who
+would surrender their rights and freedom for the sake of a dishonest
+peace."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us," cried the speaker, turning to his Southern colleagues, "let us
+repress any unworthy sectional feeling which looks only to the
+attainment of sectional power."</p>
+
+<p>His conclusion was an apotheosis of Georgia as a Union State. He said:
+"Mr. Speaker, Georgia wants peace, but she would not for the sake of
+peace yield any of her own or the nation's rights. A new career of
+prosperity is now before her; new prospects, bright and fair, open to
+her vision and lie ready for her grasp, and she fully appreciates her
+position. She has at length begun to avail herself of her advantages by
+forming a great commercial line between the Atlantic and the West. She
+is embarking in enterprises of intense importance, and is beginning to
+provide manufactures for her unpaid laborers. She sees nothing but
+prosperity ahead, and peace is necessary in order to reveal it; but
+still, if war must come, if it has been decreed that Oregon must be
+consecrated to liberty in the blood of the brave and the sufferings of
+the free, Georgia will be found ready with her share of the offering,
+and, whatever may be her sacrifice, she will display a magnanimity as
+great as the occasion and as prolonged as the conflict."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs indorsed the conservative action of the Senate, which forced
+President Polk from his extreme position and established the parallel of
+49&deg; as the northern boundary.</p>
+
+<p>The tariff bill of 1846 was framed, as President Polk expressed it, in
+the interest of lower duties, and it changed the basis of assessment
+from specific, or minimum duties, to duties <i>ad valorem</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs made a most elaborate speech against this bill in July, 1846.
+If his Oregon speech had shown thorough familiarity with the force and
+effect of treaties and the laws of nations, his tariff speech proved him
+a student of fiscal matters and a master of finance. His genius, as
+Jefferson Davis afterward remarked, lay decidedly in this direction. Mr.
+Toombs announced in his tariff speech that the best of laws, especially
+tax laws, were but approximations of human justice. He entered into an
+elaborate argument to controvert the idea that low tariff meant
+increased revenue. The history of such legislation, he contended, had
+been that the highest tariff had raised the most money. Mr. Toombs
+combated the <i>ad valorem</i> principle of levying duty upon imports.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs declared to his constituents in September, 1846, that the
+President had marched his army into Mexico without authority of law.
+"The conquest and dismemberment of Mexico, however brilliant may be the
+success of our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>arms," said he, "will not redound to the glory of our
+republic."</p>
+
+<p>The Whigs approached the Presidential campaign of 1848 with every chance
+of success. They still hoped that the Sage of Ashland might be the
+nominee. George W. Crawford, ex-Governor of Georgia, and afterward
+member of the Taylor Cabinet, perceiving that the drift in the West was
+against Mr. Clay, offered a resolution in the Whig convention that
+"whatever may have been our personal preferences, we feel that in
+yielding them at the present time, we are only pursuing Mr. Clay's own
+illustrious example." Mr. Toombs stated to his constituents that Clay
+could not be nominated because Ohio had declared that no man who had
+opposed the Wilmot Proviso could get the vote of that State. The Whigs,
+who had opposed the Mexican war, now reaped its benefits by nominating
+one of its heroes to the Presidency, and Zachary Taylor of Louisiana
+became at once a popular candidate. Millard Fillmore of New York was
+named for vice president, and "Rough and Ready" clubs were soon
+organized in every part of Georgia. The venerable William H. Crawford
+headed the Whig electoral ticket in Georgia, while Toombs, Stephens, and
+Thomas W. Thomas led the campaign.</p>
+
+<p>The issue of the campaign in Georgia was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> Clayton compromise which
+the Georgia senators had sustained, but which Stephens and Toombs had
+defeated in the House. This compromise proposed that all questions
+concerning slavery in the governments of the ceded territory be referred
+to the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Toombs declared that the
+Mexican law prohibiting slavery was still valid and would so remain;
+that Congress and not the courts must change this law.</p>
+
+<p>The Clayton compromise, Mr. Toombs said, was only intended as "the
+Euthanasia of States' Rights. When our rights are clear, security for
+them should be free from all ambiguity. We ought never to surrender
+territory, until it shall be wrested from us as we have wrested it from
+Mexico. Such a surrender would degrade and demoralize our section and
+disable us for effective resistance against future aggression. It is far
+better that this new acquisition should be the grave of the republic
+than of the rights and honor of the South&mdash;and, from present
+indications, to this complexion it must come at last."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs demanded that what was recognized by law as property in the
+slaveholding States should be recognized in the Mexican territory. "This
+boon," he pleaded, "may be worthless, but its surrender involves our
+honor. We can permit no discrimination against our section <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>or our
+institutions in dividing out the common property of the republic. Their
+rights are not to be abandoned, or bartered away in presidential
+elections."</p>
+
+<p>So Toombs and Stephens were central figures in this national campaign.
+It was during this canvass that Mr. Stephens became embroiled with Judge
+Francis H. Cone, a prominent lawyer of Georgia and a near neighbor. Mr.
+Stephens heard that Judge Cone had denounced him as a traitor for moving
+to table the Clayton compromise. Stephens had retorted sharply that if
+Cone had said this he would slap his face. After some correspondence the
+two men met in Atlanta, September 4, 1848. The trouble was renewed;
+Judge Cone denounced Mr. Stephens, who rapped him over the shoulders
+with a whalebone cane. Mr. Stephens was a fragile man, and Judge Cone,
+with strong physique, closed in and forced him to the floor. During the
+scuffle Mr. Stephens was cut in six places. His life for a while was
+despaired of. Upon his recovery he was received with wild enthusiasm by
+the Whigs, who cheered his pluck and regarded his return to the canvass
+as an omen of victory.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterward he wrote to Mrs. Toombs, thanking her for her interest
+and solicitude during his illness. He managed to write with his left
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>hand, as he could not use his right. "I hope," he says, "I will be able
+to take the stump again next week for old Zach. I think Mr. Toombs has
+had the weight of the canvass long enough, and though he has done
+gallant service, this but inspires me with the wish to lend all aid in
+my power. I think we shall yet be able to save the State. My faith is as
+strong as Mr. Preston's which, you know, was enough to move mountains. I
+got a letter the other day from Mr. C&mdash;&mdash;, who gives it as his opinion
+that Ohio would go for General Taylor. If so, he will be elected. And
+you know how I shall hail such a result."</p>
+
+<p>During Mr. Stephens' illness Mr. Toombs canvassed many of the counties
+in the Stephens district. Both men were re&euml;lected to Congress, and
+Zachary Taylor received the electoral vote of Georgia over Lewis Cass of
+Michigan, and was elected President of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>The Democrats, who put out a candidate this year against Mr. Toombs,
+issued an address which was evidently not inspired by the able and
+deserving gentleman who bore their standard, but was intended as a sharp
+rebuke to Mr. Toombs. It is interesting as showing how he was regarded
+by his friends, the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Of an age when life's illusions have vanished," they said of the
+Democratic candidate, "he has no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>selfish aspirations, no vaulting
+ambition to carry him astray: no vanity to lead where it is glory enough
+to follow." They accorded to Mr. Toombs "a very showy cast of
+talent&mdash;better suited to the displays of the stump than the grave
+discussions of the legislative hall. His eloquence has that sort of
+splendor mixed with the false and true which is calculated to dazzle the
+multitude. He would rather win the applause of groundlings by some silly
+tale than gain the intelligent by the most triumphant course of
+reasoning." Mr. Toombs carried every county in the district and was
+returned to Congress by 1681 majority.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Toombs returned to Washington he had commanded national
+prominence. He had not only carried his State for Zachary Taylor, but
+his speech in New York, during a critical period of the canvass, had
+turned the tide for the Whig candidate in the country. Toombs and
+Stephens naturally stood very near the administration. They soon had
+reason to see, however, that the Taylor Cabinet was not attentive to
+Southern counsels.</p>
+
+<p>During the fight over the compromise measure in Congress the Northern
+papers printed sensational accounts of a rupture between President
+Taylor and Messrs. Toombs and Stephens. According to this account the
+Georgia congressmen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>called on the President and expressed strong
+disapprobation of his stand upon the bill to organize the Territory of
+New Mexico. It was said that they even threatened to side with his
+opponents to censure him upon his action in the case of Secretary
+Crawford and the Golphin claim. The President, the article recited, was
+very much troubled over this interview and remained despondent for
+several days. He took his bed and never rallied, dying on the 9th of
+July, 1850. Mr. Stephens published a card, promptly denying this
+sensation. He said that neither he nor his colleague Mr. Toombs had
+visited the President at all during or previous to his last illness, and
+that no such scene had occurred.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs and Stephens, in fact, were warm personal friends of George W.
+Crawford, who was Secretary of War in Taylor's Cabinet. He had served
+with them in the General Assembly of Georgia and had twice been Governor
+of their State. The Golphin claim, of which Governor Crawford had been
+agent, had been collected from the Secretary of the Treasury while
+Governor Crawford was in the Cabinet, but President Taylor had decided
+that as Governor Crawford was at the head of an entirely different
+department of the government, he had been guilty of no impropriety.
+After the death of President Taylor, Governor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> Crawford returned to
+Augusta and was tendered a public dinner by his fellow-citizens,
+irrespective of party. He delivered an eloquent and feeling address. He
+made an extensive tour abroad, then lived in retirement in Richmond
+County, enjoying the respect and confidence of his neighbors.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.</h3>
+
+
+<p>No legislative body ever assembled with more momentous measures before
+it than the thirty-first Congress of the United States. An immense area
+of unsettled public domain had been wrested from Mexico. The Territories
+of California, Utah, and New Mexico, amounting to several hundred
+thousand square miles, remained undisposed of. They comprised what Mr.
+Calhoun had termed the "Forbidden Fruit," and the trouble which
+beclouded their annexation threatened to surpass the storms of conquest.</p>
+
+<p>Congress felt that it was absolutely without light to guide it. It had
+declined to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean.
+Henry Clay had pronounced such division of public domain between the
+sections a "Utopian dream," and Zachary Taylor had condemned the
+principle in the only message he ever delivered to Congress. What Mr.
+Lincoln afterward embodied in his famous expression that the Union could
+never exist "half slave, half free," had been actually anticipated. The
+whole territorial ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>tion came up as a new problem. But if the crisis
+was now momentous the body of statesmen which considered it was a great
+one. The men and the hour seemed to meet in that supreme moment. The
+Senate consisted of sixty members, and for the last time that great trio
+of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster met upon its floor. Commencing their
+careers a generation before; with eventful lives and illustrious
+performance, they lingered one moment in this arena before passing
+forever from the scenes of their earthly efforts. All three had given up
+ambition for the Presidency, none of them had commenced to break in
+mental power, and each one was animated by patriotism to serve and save
+his country. William H. Seward had entered the Senate from New York;
+James M. Mason and Robert M. T. Hunter represented Virginia; Wm. C.
+Dawson had joined Mr. Berrien from Georgia; Salmon P. Chase appeared
+from Ohio; Jefferson Davis and Henry S. Foote illustrated Mississippi;
+Stephen A. Douglas had been promoted from the House in Illinois, and
+Samuel Houston was there from Texas. The House was unusually strong and
+divided with the Senate the stormy scenes and surpassing struggles over
+the compromise measures of 1850. It was the time of breaking up of party
+lines, and many believed that the hour of disunion had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>The Whig caucus, which assembled to nomi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>nate a candidate for Speaker of
+the House, sustained a serious split. Robert Toombs offered a resolution
+that Congress should place no restriction upon slavery in the
+Territories. The Northern Whigs scouted the idea and Toombs led the
+Southern members out of the meeting. The organization of the House was
+delayed three weeks, and finally, under a plurality resolution, the
+Democrats elected Howell Cobb of Georgia Speaker over Robert C. Winthrop
+of Massachusetts. In the midst of these stormy scenes Mr. Toombs forced
+the fighting. He declared with impetuous manner that he believed the
+interests of his people were in danger and he was unwilling to surrender
+the great power of the Speaker's chair without security for the future.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems," he said, "that we are to be intimidated by eulogies of the
+Union and denunciations of those who are not ready to sacrifice national
+honor, essential interests, and constitutional rights upon its altar.
+Sir, I have as much attachment to the Union of these States, under the
+Constitution of our fathers, as any freeman ought to have. I am ready to
+concede and sacrifice for it whatever a just and honorable man ought to
+sacrifice. I will do no more. I have not heeded the expression of those
+who did not understand or desired to misrepresent my conduct or opinions
+in relation to these questions, which, in my judgment, so vitally
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>affect it. The time has come when I shall not only utter them, but make
+them the basis of my political actions here. I do not then hesitate to
+avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the
+living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the
+Territories purchased by the common blood and treasure of the people,
+and to abolish slavery in the District, thereby attempting to fix a
+national degradation upon half the States of this confederacy, I am for
+disunion, and if my physical courage be equal to the maintenance of my
+convictions of right and duty I will devote all I am and all I have on
+earth to its consummation.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me securities that the power of organization which you seek will
+not be used to the injury of my constituents; then you can have my
+co&ouml;peration, but not till then. Grant them, and you prevent the
+disgraceful scenes of the last twenty-four hours and restore
+tranquillity to the country. Refuse them, and, as far as I am concerned,
+let discord reign forever."</p>
+
+<p>This speech fell like a clap of thunder. The Wilmot Proviso waved like a
+black flag over the heads of Southern men. No one had spoken outright
+until Mr. Toombs in his bold, dashing, Mirabeau style accepted the issue
+in the words just given. The House was filled with storms of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>applause
+and jeers, and, as can be imagined, Mr. Toombs' speech did not soothe
+the bitterness or alter the determination of either side.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22d of December a conference was held by Whigs and Democrats, the
+Southern Whigs excepted, and a resolution reported that the person
+receiving the largest number of votes for Speaker, on a certain ballot,
+should be declared elected, provided this number should be the majority
+of a quorum, but not a majority of the House. Mr. Stanton of Tennessee
+offered this "plurality resolution."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs sprang to his feet and declared that the House, until it
+organized, could not pass this or any other rule.</p>
+
+<p>Members stood up and called Mr. Toombs to order, claiming that there was
+already a question pending. Mr. Stanton contended that he had the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs called out: "You may cry 'order,' gentlemen, until the heavens
+fall; you cannot take this place from me. I have the right to protest
+against this transaction. It is not with you to say whether this right
+shall be yielded or when it shall be yielded."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania: "I call the gentleman to order."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs: "I say that by the law of 1789 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>this House, until a Speaker
+is elected and gentlemen have taken the oath of office, has no right to
+adopt any rules whatever."</p>
+
+<p>(Loud cries of "order.")</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs: "Gentlemen may amuse themselves crying 'order.'"</p>
+
+<p>(Calls of "order.")</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs: "But I have the right and I intend to maintain the right
+to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Vandyke called upon the clerk to put the preceding question. "Let us
+see," he said, "whether the gentleman will disregard the order of this
+House."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs: "I have the floor, and the clerk cannot put the question."</p>
+
+<p>"The House," he said, "has no right. Gentlemen may cry 'order' and
+interrupt me. It is mere brute force, attempting by the power of lungs
+to put me down."</p>
+
+<p>Confusion increased. Members called out to encourage Mr. Toombs, and
+others to put him down. In the midst of this babel he continued to
+speak, his black hair thrown back, his face flushed, and his eyes
+blazing like suns. His deep voice could be heard above the shouts like a
+lion's roar. Members shouted to the clerk to call the roll for the yeas
+and nays.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs continued: "If you seek by violating the common law of
+parliament, the laws of the land, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>and the Constitution of the United
+States, to put me down ["order, order, call the roll"], you will find it
+a vain and futile attempt. ["Order."] I am sure I am indebted to the
+ignorance of my character on the part of those who are thus disgracing
+themselves ["order, order"], if they suppose any such efforts as they
+are now making will succeed in driving me from the position which I have
+assumed. I stand upon the Constitution of my country, upon the liberty
+of speech which you have treacherously violated, and upon the rights of
+my constituents, and your fiendish yells may be well raised to drown an
+argument which you tremble to hear. You claim and have exercised the
+power to prevent all debate upon any and every subject, yet you have not
+as yet shown your right to sit here at all. I will not presume that you
+have any such right ["order, order"]. I will not suppose that the
+American people have elected such agents to represent them. I therefore
+demand that they shall comply with the Act of 1789 before I shall be
+bound to submit to their authority." (Loud cries of "order.")</p>
+
+<p>The Act to which Mr. Toombs referred recited that the oath must be
+administered by the Speaker to all the members present, and to the
+clerk, previous to entering on any other business. This he tried to
+read, but cries of "order" drowned his voice.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Throwing aside his manual Mr. Toombs walked further out into the aisle
+and assumed a yet more defiant position.</p>
+
+<p>"You refuse," he said, "to hear either the Constitution or the law.
+Perhaps you do well to listen to neither; they all speak a voice of
+condemnation to your reckless proceedings. But if you will not hear them
+the country will. Every freeman from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore
+shall hear them, and every honest man shall consider them. You cannot
+stifle the voice that shall reach their ears. The electric spark shall
+proclaim to the freemen of this republic that an American Congress,
+having conceived the purpose to violate the Constitution and the laws to
+conceal their enormities, have disgraced the record of their proceedings
+by placing upon it a resolution that their representatives shall not be
+heard in their defense, and finding this illegal resolution inadequate
+to secure so vile an end, have resorted to brutish yells and cries to
+stifle the words of those they cannot intimidate."</p>
+
+<p>The clerk continued to call the roll, and Mr. Toombs with splendid
+audacity turned upon him. Pointing his finger at the <i>locum tenens</i>, he
+cried with scorn: "I ask by what authority that man stands there and
+calls these names. By what authority does <span class="smcap">HE</span> interfere with the rights
+of a member of this House. [The clerk continued to call.] He is an
+intruder, and how dares he to interrupt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>members in the exercise of
+their constitutional rights. Gentlemen, has the sense of shame departed
+with your sense of right, that you permit a creature, an interloper, in
+no wise connected with you, to stand at that desk and interrupt your
+order?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs continued, amid these boisterous scenes, his alternate r&ocirc;le
+of argument, of appeal, of denunciation. He contended that a power
+delegated to the House must be used by a majority of the House. He
+concluded:</p>
+
+<p>"I therefore demand of you before the country, in the name of the
+Constitution and the people, to repeal your illegal rule, reject the one
+on your table, and proceed to the discharge of your high duties, which
+the people have confided to you, according to the unvarying precedents
+of your people and the law of the land."</p>
+
+<p>This performance was denounced by Northern restrictionists as menacing
+and insolent. Mr. Stephens, in his "War Between the States," contended
+that it should rather be considered in the light of a wonderful
+exhibition of physical as well as intellectual prowess&mdash;in this, that a
+single man should have been able, thus successfully, to speak to a
+tumultuous crowd and, by declamatory denunciations combined with solid
+argument, to silence an infuriated assembly.</p>
+
+<p>The noise during the delivery of this speech <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>gradually ceased. The
+clerk stopped calling the roll, all interruptions were suspended and
+"every eye," says Mr. Stephens, "was fixed upon the speaker." It was a
+picture worthy of ranking with Lamartine's great speech to the
+revolutionists in France.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of February Mr. Toombs addressed the House upon the general
+territorial question. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"We had our institutions when you sought our allegiance. We were content
+with them then, and we are content with them now. We have not sought to
+thrust them upon you, nor to interfere with yours. If you believe what
+you say, that yours are so much the best to promote the happiness and
+good government of society, why do you fear our equal competition with
+you in the Territories? We only ask that our common government shall
+protect us both, equally, until the Territories shall be admitted as
+States into the Union, then to leave their citizens free to adopt any
+domestic policy in reference to this subject which in their judgment may
+best promote their interest and their happiness. The demand is just.
+Grant it, and you place your prosperity and ours upon a solid
+foundation; you perpetuate the Union so necessary to your prosperity;
+you solve the problem of republican government. If it be demonstrated
+that the Constitution is powerless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>for our protection, it will then be
+not only the right but the duty of the slaveholding States to resume the
+powers which they have conferred upon this government and to seek new
+safeguards for their future protection.... We took the Constitution and
+the Union together. We will have both or we will have neither. This cry
+of Union is the masked battery behind which the rights of the South are
+to be assaulted. Let the South mark the man who is for the Union at
+every hazard and to the last extremity; when the day of her peril comes
+he will be the imitator of that character, the base Judas, who for
+thirty pieces of silver threw away a pearl richer than all his tribe."</p>
+
+<p>On the 15th of June, 1850, while the compromise measures were shifting
+from House to House, the question was put to some of the advocates of
+the admission of California, whether they would under any circumstances
+admit a slave State into the Union. They declined to say.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs arose and declared that the South did not deny the right of a
+people framing a State constitution to admit or exclude slavery. The
+South had uniformly maintained this right.</p>
+
+<p>"The evidence is complete," he said. "The North repudiated this
+principle."</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to drag off the mask before the consummation of the act. We do
+not oppose Cali<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>fornia on account of the antislavery clause in her
+constitution. It was her right, and I am not even prepared to say she
+acted unwisely in its exercise&mdash;that is her business: but I stand upon
+the great principle that the South has the right to an equal
+participation in the Territories of the United States. I claim the right
+for her to enter them with all her property and security to enjoy it.
+She will divide with you if you wish it: but the right to enter all, or
+divide, I will never surrender. In my judgment this right, involving, as
+it does, political equality, is worth a dozen such Unions as we have,
+even if each were a thousand times more valuable than this. I speak not
+for others, but for myself. Deprive us of this right, and appropriate
+this common property to yourselves; it is then your government, not
+mine. Then I am its enemy, and I will then, if I can, bring my children
+and my constituents to the altar of liberty, and like Hamilcar, I will
+swear them to eternal hostility to your foul domination. Give us our
+just rights, and we are ready, as ever heretofore, to stand by the
+Union, every part of it, and its every interest. Refuse it, and, for
+one, I will strike for independence."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stephens declared that this speech produced the greatest sensation
+he had ever seen in the House. "It created a perfect commotion."</p>
+
+<p>These heated arguments of Mr. Toombs were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>delivered under the menace of
+the Wilmot Proviso, or slavery restriction. When this principle was
+abandoned and the compromise measures passed, Mr. Toombs uttered, as we
+shall see, far different sentiments.</p>
+
+<p>In the Senate Mr. Clay, the Great Pacificator, had introduced his
+compromise resolutions to admit California under the government already
+formed, prohibiting slavery; to organize territorial governments for
+Utah and New Mexico without slavery restrictions; to pass a
+fugitive-slave law, and to abolish the slave trade in the District of
+Columbia. On the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster delivered his great
+Union speech, in which for the first time he took strong grounds against
+congressional restriction in the Territories. It created a profound
+sensation. It was on the 4th of March that Senator Mason read for Mr.
+Calhoun the last speech that the latter ever prepared. It was a
+memorable moment when the great Carolinian, with the stamp of death
+already upon him, reiterated his love for the Union under the
+Constitution, but declared, with the prescience of a seer, that the only
+danger threatening the government arose from its centralizing tendency.
+It was "the sunset of life which gave him mystical lore."</p>
+
+<p>Debate continued through the spring and summer with increasing
+bitterness. On the 31st of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> July Mr. Clay's "Omnibus Bill," as it was
+called, "went to pieces," but the Senate took up the separate
+propositions, passed them, and transmitted them to the House.</p>
+
+<p>Here the great sectional contest was renewed. Mr. Toombs offered an
+amendment that the Constitution of the United States, and such statutes
+thereof as may not be locally inapplicable, and the common law, as it
+existed in the British colonies of America until July 4, 1776, shall be
+the exclusive laws of said Territory upon the subject of African
+slavery, until altered by the proper authority. This was rejected by the
+House. On September 6 the Texas and New Mexico bill, with the Boyd
+amendment, passed by a vote of 108 to 97&mdash;and the anti-restrictionists,
+as Mr. Stephens said, won the day at last. This was the great compromise
+of that year, and the point established was that, since the principle of
+division of territory between the North and South had been abandoned,
+the principle of congressional restriction should also be abandoned, and
+that all new States, whether north or south of 36&deg; 30', should be
+admitted into the Union "either with or without slavery as their
+constitution might prescribe at the time of their admission."</p>
+
+<p>During this memorable contest Mr. Toombs was in active consultation with
+Northern states<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>men, trying to effect the compromise. He insisted that
+there should be no congressional exclusion of slavery from the public
+domain, but that in organizing territorial governments the people should
+be allowed to authorize or restrict, as they pleased. Until these
+principles were settled, however, he would fight the admission of
+California. Into this conference Mr. Stephens and Howell Cobb were
+admitted, and at a meeting at the house of the latter an agreement was
+reached between the three Georgians and the representatives from
+Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois, that California should be admitted: that
+the Territories should be organized without restriction, and that their
+joint efforts should be used to bring this about as well as to defeat
+any attempt to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Here was the
+essence of the compromise, built upon the great measures of Henry Clay,
+and finally ripening into the legislation of that session. Here was the
+agreement of that compact which formed the great "Constitutional Union
+Party" in Georgia, and which erected a bulwark against disunion, not
+only in Georgia, but on the whole Southern seaboard. The disunion
+movement failed in 1850. "At the head of the States which had the merit
+of stopping it," said Thomas H. Benton, "was Georgia, the greatest of
+the South Atlantic States." And that Georgia stood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>steadfast in her
+place, and declined every overture for secession, was because of the
+united prestige and splendid abilities of Howell Cobb, Alexander H.
+Stephens, and Robert Toombs.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>During this stormy session Mr. Toombs' heart continually yearned for
+home. He was a model husband and a remarkable domestic character. The
+fiery scenes of the forum did not ween him from his family. On the 29th
+of August, 1850, he wrote to his wife:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>We have before us the whole of the territorial questions,
+and shall probably pass or reject them in a few days or at
+most in a week. I am greatly in hopes that we will not pass
+over them without final action of some sort, and if we can
+get rid of them I shall have nothing to prevent my coming
+home at the time appointed. I begin to be more anxious to
+see you than to save the republic. Such is a sweet woman's
+fascination for men's hearts. The old Roman Antony threw
+away an empire rather than abandon his lovely Cleopatra,
+and the world has called him a fool for it. I begin to
+think that he was the wiser man, and that the world was
+well lost for love.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GEORGIA PLATFORM.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Mr. Toombs came home in the fall of 1850 he found the State in
+upheaval. Disunion sentiment was rife. He was confronted by garbled
+extracts of his speeches in Congress, and made to pose as the champion
+of immediate secession. He had aided in perfecting the great compromise
+and was resolved that Georgia should take her stand firmly and
+unequivocally for the Union and the Constitution. Governor Towns had
+issued a call for a State convention; Mr. Toombs took prompt issue with
+the spirit and purpose of the call. He declared that the legislature had
+endangered the honor of the State and that the Governor had put the
+people in a defile. "We must either repudiate this policy, or arm," he
+said. "I favor the former measure."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs issued a ringing address to the people. It bore date of
+October 9, 1850. He proclaimed that "the first act of legislative
+hostility was the first act of Southern resistance." He urged the South
+to stand by the Constitution and the laws in good faith, until wrong was
+con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>summated or the act of exclusion placed upon the statute books.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs said that the South had not secured its full rights. "But the
+fugitive-slave law which I demanded was granted. The abolition of
+slavery in the District of Columbia and proscription in the Territories
+were defeated, crushed, and abandoned. We have firmly established great
+and important principles. The South has compromised no right,
+surrendered no principle, and lost not an inch of ground in this great
+contest. I did not hesitate to accept these acts, but gave them my ready
+support."</p>
+
+<p>Addressing himself to the disunionists he said: "They have abandoned
+their errors, but not their object. Being bent upon the ruin of the
+republic they use truth or error for its accomplishment, as best suits
+the exigencies of the hour. If these people are honest in their
+convictions, they may find abundant consolation in the fact that the
+principle is neither conceded, compromised, nor endangered by these
+bills. It is strengthened, not weakened by them, and will survive their
+present zeal and future apostasy."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs called on all men of integrity, intellect, and courage to
+come into the service of the State and prove their devotion to the
+Constitution and the Union. "With no memory of past differences," he
+said, "careless of the fu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>ture, I am ready to unite with any portion or
+all my countrymen in defense of the integrity of the republic."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs took the stump, and his words rang out like an alarm bell.
+Men speak to-day of his activity and earnestness in that great campaign,
+as with "rapid and prompt perception, clear, close reasoning, cutting
+eloquence, and unsparing hand he rasped the follies of disunion and
+secession." A prominent journal of that day, speaking of his speech in
+Burke County, Ga., declared that "his manly eloquence has shaken and
+shivered to the base the pedestal upon which the monument of American
+ruin was to be erected."</p>
+
+<p>In November of that year a convention of delegates from Southern States
+was held at Nashville. Ex-Governor Charles J. McDonald represented
+Georgia. That meeting protested against the admission of California with
+slavery restriction; charged that the policy of Congress had been to
+exclude the Southern States from the Territories, and plainly asserted
+that the powers of the sovereign States could be resumed by the States
+separately. On November 3 the election of delegates to the Georgia
+convention was held. Toombs had already turned the tide. A great
+majority of Union men were chosen. Whigs and Democrats united to save
+the State. Toombs stood convicted before many of his old followers of
+"unsoundness <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>on the slavery question"&mdash;but he was performing his
+greatest public work.</p>
+
+<p>Among the delegates elected by the people to the Georgia convention,
+which met at Milledgeville, December 10, 1850, were Toombs and Stephens
+and many of the best men in the State.</p>
+
+<p>The work of the distinguished body was memorable. They adopted the
+celebrated "Georgia Platform," whose utterances were talismanic. Charles
+J. Jenkins reported the resolutions. They recited, first, that Georgia
+held the American Union secondary in importance to the rights and
+principles it was bound to perpetuate. That as the thirteen original
+colonies found union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of
+this day will yield somewhat in the conflict of opinion and policy, to
+preserve the Union. That Georgia had maturely considered the action of
+Congress (embracing the compromise measures) and&mdash;while she does not
+wholly approve it&mdash;will abide by it as a permanent adjustment of this
+sectional controversy. That the State would in future resist, even to
+the disruption of the Union, any act prohibiting slavery in the
+Territories, or a refusal to admit a slave State. The fifth plank
+declared for a faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave bill.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this platform the Union men selected Howell Cobb as their candidate
+for Governor. The Southern Rights men selected Charles J. Mc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>Donald.
+This party claimed that the South was degraded by the compromise
+measures. Their platform was based upon the Virginia and Kentucky
+resolution. It asserted the right of secession and maintained the
+constitutionality and necessity of intervention by Congress in favor of
+admitting slavery into the Territories. The distinct doctrine of the
+compromise measures was non-intervention.</p>
+
+<p>Howell Cobb was a born leader of men. Personally he was the most popular
+man in the State. Entering public life at an early age he had been a
+congressman at twenty-eight. He had been leader of the Southern party,
+and was chosen Speaker, as we have seen, in 1849, when only thirty-four
+years old. He had been known as a strong friend of the Union, and some
+of the extreme States' Rights men called him a "consolidationist."</p>
+
+<p>In his letter accepting the nomination for Governor, he alluded to the
+long-cherished doctrine of non-intervention. The Wilmot Proviso had been
+withdrawn and the Union saved. The people had been awarded the right to
+determine for themselves in the Territories whether or not slavery was
+to be a part of their social system.</p>
+
+<p>No man was so tireless or conspicuous in this campaign as Mr. Toombs.
+Although expressing a desire that someone else should go to Congress
+from his district, he accepted a renomination to assert his principles.
+He did not, however, con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>fine his work to his district. He traveled from
+one end of the State to the other. He recognized that party organization
+in Georgia had been over-thrown and party lines shattered in every State
+in the Union. He boldly declared that a continuance of the Union was not
+incompatible with the rights of every State. He asserted that the
+animating spirit of his opponents, the States' Rights party, was
+hostility to the Union. Some of the members still submitted to the
+humiliation of raising the cry of "the Union," he said, but it was a
+"masked battery," from which the very Union was to be assailed. Mr.
+Toombs announced on the stump that "the good sense, the firmness, the
+patriotism of the people, would shield the Union from assault of our own
+people. They will maintain it as long as it deserves to be maintained."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs admitted that the antislavery sentiment of the North had
+become more violent from its defeat on the compromise measures.</p>
+
+<p>"What did this party demand, and what did it get?" he asked on the
+stump. "It was driven from every position it assumed. It demanded the
+express prohibition of slavery, the Wilmot Proviso, in the Territories.
+It lost it. It demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of
+Columbia, and the slave trade between the States. It lost both. It
+demanded the affirmance of the oft-repeated declaration that there
+should be no more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>slave States admitted into the Union. Congress
+enacted that States hereafter coming into the Union should be admitted
+with or without slavery, as such States might determine for themselves.
+It demanded a trial by jury for fugitives at the place of arrest. It
+lost this also. Its acknowledged exponent is the Free-Soil party. The
+Whig party has succumbed to it. It is thoroughly denationalized and
+desectionalized, and will never make another national contest. We are
+indebted to the defeat of the policy of these men for the existence of
+the government to-day. The Democratic party of the North, though
+prostrated, is not yet destroyed. Our true policy is to compel both
+parties to purge themselves of this dangerous element. If either will,
+to sustain it. If neither will, then we expect to preserve the Union. We
+must overthrow both parties and rally the sound men to a common
+standard. This is the only policy which can preserve both our rights and
+the Union."</p>
+
+<p>On the 1st of August, 1851, Mr. Toombs spoke in Elberton. He was in the
+full tide of his manhood, an orator without equal; a statesman without
+fear or reproach. Personally, he was a splendid picture, full of health
+and vitality. He had been prosperous in his affairs. He was prominent in
+public life and overbore all opposition. His powers were in their prime.
+In his speech to his constituents he mentioned the fact that his
+oppo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>nents had criticised the manner in which he traveled (alluding to
+his fine horses and servants). He wanted the people to know that the
+money was his, and that he made $5000 a year in Elbert alone. "Who would
+say that he had not earned his money? He had a right to spend it as he
+chose. Perish such demagogy&mdash;such senseless stuff." The people cheered
+him to the echo for his candor and audacity.</p>
+
+<p>"What presumption," he said, "for the States' Rights men to nominate
+McDonald for Governor&mdash;a man who supported Jackson's Force bill&mdash;a man
+who had grown gray in federalism? He was the man brought to teach the
+people of Elbert States' Rights. It would be a curious subject of
+inquiry to find out when this neophyte had changed, and by what process
+the change had been wrought."</p>
+
+<p>Toombs was alluded to by the correspondents as "Richard, the
+Lion-hearted," with strong arm and ponderous battle-ax, as he went about
+winning victories. Stephens, no less effective and influential, seemed
+to be the great Saladin with well-tempered Damascus blade&mdash;so skillful
+as to sever the finest down. The people were in continued uproar as
+Toombs moved from place to place.</p>
+
+<p>In Jefferson County, Mr. Toombs denied that the South had yielded any
+demand she ever made, or had sacrificed any principle she ever held. He
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>cried that "opposition to Toombs and Stephens seemed to be the
+principle of political faith on the other side." Toombs declared that
+Stephens "carried more brains and more soul for the least flesh of any
+man God Almighty ever made."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs repeated that if the slaveholders had lost the right to carry
+slavery into California, they had lost it upon sound principle. The
+right of each State to prescribe its own institutions is a right above
+slavery. Slavery is only an incident to this right. This principle lies
+at the foundation of all good government. He had always held it and
+would always hold it:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Till wrapped in flames the realms of ether glow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He deeply sympathized with those Southern Rights men who denounced the
+Union they professed to love.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of the sudden change of some of his opponents in political
+principles, Toombs declared they "would profess any opinion to gain
+votes. It had been the belief of Crawford that if a man changed politics
+after thirty he was a rascal."</p>
+
+<p>In Marietta Mr. Toombs addressed an enthusiastic crowd. A journalist
+said of him: "He is my <i>beau id&eacute;al</i> of a statesman. Frank, honest, bold,
+and eloquent, he never fails to make a deep impression. Many of the
+fire-eaters (for they <i>will</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> go to hear him) looked as if they would
+make their escape from his withering and scathing rebuke." Toombs
+derided the States' Rights men for declaring that they were friends of
+the Union under which they declared they were "degraded and oppressed."
+The greatest stumbling-block to Toombs' triumphant tour was to be
+presented with bits of his own speeches delivered during the excitement
+of the last Congress.</p>
+
+<p>He had said in one of these impassioned outbursts: "He who counts the
+danger of defending his own home is already degraded. The people who
+count the cost of maintaining their political rights are ready for
+slavery."</p>
+
+<p>In Lexington he was accused of having said that if the people understood
+this slavery question as well as he did "they would not remain in the
+Union five minutes." This provoked a bitter controversy. Mr. Toombs
+denied the remark, and declared he was willing to respond personally and
+publicly to the author.</p>
+
+<p>As the campaign became more heated, Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb redoubled
+their efforts and drew their lines more closely. This combination was
+invincible. It was evident that they would carry the State, but some of
+the prominent men in Georgia were ruled out under what was thought to be
+the bitter spirit of the canvass. One of these was Charles J. Jenkins,
+and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>other, John McPherson Berrien. The former had drawn the
+celebrated Georgia Platform, and was devoted to the Union. The latter
+was United States Senator from Georgia, and, as his successor was to be
+chosen by the legislature soon to be elected, there was much curiosity
+to find out his real position in this canvass. Mr. Jenkins declared that
+he considered Mr. Berrien "as good a Union man and as safe a
+representative of the party as any within its ranks." Berrien acquiesced
+in but did not eulogize the compromise measures. He did not oppose or
+favor the State convention of 1850. When he submitted to the Senate the
+Georgia Platform, he declared that he did not surrender the privileges
+of a free choice. He supported McDonald for Governor against Cobb, and
+it was soon evident that he was not in full sympathy with the winning
+party.</p>
+
+<p>The Constitutional Union men won a signal victory. Howell Cobb was
+elected Governor by a large majority over Charles J. McDonald, who had
+been twice Governor and who was one of the strongest men in Georgia.
+Robert Toombs was re&euml;lected to Congress over Robert McMillen of Elbert,
+and Mr. Stephens defeated D. W. Lewis of Hancock.</p>
+
+<p>The legislature convened in November, 1851. It was largely made up of
+Union men. Judge Berrien was not a candidate for re&euml;lection to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+United States Senate. He wrote a letter in which he reviewed his course
+during the campaign. He said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I asserted in terms which even cavilers could not
+misunderstand nor any honest man doubt, my devotion to the
+Union, my unfaltering determination to maintain by all
+constitutional means, and with undiminished zeal, the equal
+rights of the South, and my acquiescence in the compromise
+measures. Satisfied that such declarations, in the excited
+state of feeling, would not meet the exactions of either
+party in a contest peculiarly bitter, and unable to
+sacrifice for the purpose of victory the dictates of
+conscience or the convictions of judgment, I expressed a
+willingness to retire."</p></div>
+
+<p>On the 10th of November Robert Toombs was elected United States Senator.
+In the caucus he secured 73 votes, and in the open Assembly next day he
+received 120 votes, scattering, 50.</p>
+
+<p>Never was reward more swift or signal to the master-mind of a campaign.
+If he had been the leader of the extreme Southern wing in Congress, he
+had shown his willingness to accept a compromise and go before the
+people in defense of the Union.</p>
+
+<p>He was charged with having aroused the Secession storm. If he had
+unwittingly done so in Congress in order to carry his point, he proved
+himself powerful in stopping it at home. What some of his critics had
+said of him was true:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> "The rashest of talkers, he was the safest of
+counselors." Certain it is that at a moment of national peril he
+repelled the charge of being an "irreconcilable," and proved to be one
+of the stanchest supporters of the Union.</p>
+
+<p>In Milledgeville, during the turmoil attending the election of United
+States Senator in November, 1851 Mr. Toombs wrote to his wife as
+follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Since I wrote you last I have been in the midst of an
+exciting political contest with constantly varying aspects.
+The friends of Judge Berrien are moving every possible
+spring to compass my defeat, but as yet I have constantly
+held the advantage over them. They started Mr. Jenkins and
+kept him up, under considerable excitement, until he came
+to town yesterday and instantly withdrew his name. To-day
+they have started a new batch of candidates: Judge Hill,
+Hines Holt, Warren, Charlton, and others, all of whom they
+seek to combine. I think I can beat the whole combination,
+though it is too close to be comfortable. It is impossible
+to give an idea of every varying scene, but as I have
+staked my political fortunes on success, if I am defeated
+in this conflict my political race is over, and perhaps I
+feel too little interest in the result for success.</p>
+
+<p>Dawson is at home sick; Stephens is not here; so I am
+standing very much on my own hand, breasting the conflict
+alone. So I shall have the consolation of knowing that, if
+I succeed, the victory will be all my own. The contest will
+be decided by Monday next, and perhaps sooner.... As soon
+as it is over I shall leave here and shall be at home at
+furthest to-day week. If I were not complicated in this
+business, nothing would induce me to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> go into it. There are
+so many unpleasant things connected with it, which will at
+least serve as lessons for the future, whatever may be the
+result. You can see from this letter how deeply I am
+immersed in this contest, yet I am getting so impatient to
+come home that even defeat would be better than this
+eternal annoyance.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+<span class="smcap">Toombs.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CAMPAIGN OF 1852.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In this first struggle between Secession and the Union Georgia had taken
+the lead, but Georgia had not been the only State involved. The fight
+was waged just as fiercely in Mississippi, when Henry S. Foote, the
+Union candidate, was elected Governor over Jefferson Davis. But the
+Georgia Platform was the corner-stone of the Southern victory. Her
+action gave peace and quiet to the whole Union, and the success of the
+triumvirate that year offered assurance of strength and security to the
+country. The national parties were quick to align themselves on this
+platform. The Democratic convention, which assembled in Baltimore June
+1, declared that "the party would abide by and adhere to a faithful
+execution of the Acts known as the Compromise Measures, settled by the
+last Congress." The Whig convention, which met also at Baltimore, June
+16, proclaimed that "the series of Acts of the thirty-first Congress,
+known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, the Act known as the
+Fugitive-slave law included, are received and acquiesced in by the Whig
+party of the United States as a settlement in principle and substance
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace."</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is," said Mr. Stephens in his "War Between the States," "an
+overwhelming majority of the people, North as well as South, was in
+favor of maintaining these principles."</p>
+
+<p>Under these conditions the presidential campaign of 1852 was opened. The
+Southern Whigs did not, as a body, accept the Baltimore nominee, General
+Winfield Scott. They claimed that he had refused to express any direct
+approval of the platform relating to the compromise. Mr. Toombs demanded
+that his candidate plant himself unequivocally upon this platform. He
+noticed that the opponents of the Fugitive-slave law were strong for
+Scott. Feeling in the South was still running high. Some extremists held
+that no Northern man was fit to be trusted. Mr. Toombs declared that
+there were good and true men at the North and that he would "hold party
+associations with no others."</p>
+
+<p>In a speech to his own townspeople in Washington, Ga., during this
+presidential campaign, Mr. Toombs declared that he had not changed one
+iota, but was ready now to support the men who would plant themselves on
+the broad principles of the Constitution and the country. He said
+General Scott had no claims whatever upon the people. He spoke of him as
+a great general, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>alluded in glowing terms to his achievements in
+arms against the Mexicans and Indians. But General Scott, he believed,
+was a Free-Soil candidate. He would be in favor of annexing Canada, but
+no more slave territory. Mr. Toombs alluded to the Democratic candidate
+for President, General Franklin Pierce, as a very consistent man in all
+his senatorial career, and believed he was the safest man on the slavery
+question north of Mason and Dixon's line. He preferred Pierce to Scott,
+but said he would not vote for either. The contest was "between a big
+general and a little general."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs launched into a magnificent tribute to Daniel Webster as a
+statesman and friend of the Constitution. It was Webster who had stayed
+the flood of abolition and killed the Wilmot Proviso; who had dared, in
+the face of the North, and in defiance of his constituents, to boldly
+defend the rights of the South and exclaim, "O God, I will be just!"</p>
+
+<p>This allusion of Mr. Toombs rang throughout the State. Its significance
+lay in the fact that the Whigs of Georgia, in convention assembled, had
+nominated Daniel Webster for President and Charles J. Jenkins for
+vice-president of the United States. Without chance of national success,
+this ticket was received with strong expression of indorsement. Since
+his celebrated "4th of March"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> speech, in the Senate, Mr. Webster had
+been a favorite in the South. He had abandoned the Wilmot Proviso and
+accepted the Fugitive-slave law to conciliate the sections, and the
+addition of his great name to seal the Compromise of 1850 was regarded
+in the South as an act of patriotism reached by few men in the country's
+history. His speech had made a profound impression. "The friends of the
+Union under the Constitution were strengthened in their hopes, and
+inspired with renewed energies by its high and lofty sentiments."
+Commanding always the respect and admiration of the Southern people Mr.
+Webster now took the place in their affections just made vacant by the
+death of Henry Clay. Mr. Webster must have put aside all political
+ambition when he made this peaceful concession. His new-found strength
+in the South did not add to his popularity in the North. When the Whig
+convention of 1852 met in Baltimore, Mr. Webster was Secretary of State
+under President Fillmore. He had added fresh luster to his name by his
+latest services to the nation. But the prestige of his life and labors
+did not override the passions of the hour, and Winfield Scott was
+nominated for the Presidency. This broke the last tie which held the
+Southern Whigs in national allegiance. Circumstances were forcing them
+into the Democratic party, but they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>made a final stand under the name
+of Daniel Webster.</p>
+
+<p>To Mr. Toombs, the regard of the Whigs of Georgia for Mr. Webster was
+especially gratifying. He had lived next door to the great Massachusetts
+statesman during his residence in Washington, and had seen him often in
+the privacy of his home. He had consulted closely with him during the
+exciting days of the compromise measures, and was advised by Mr. Webster
+about the Whig platform at Baltimore. He recognized the surpassing
+greatness of the man, and when he sounded the praises of Webster it came
+straight from an honest heart.</p>
+
+<p>Charles J. Jenkins, a native of Beaufort, S.&nbsp;C., had studied law with
+Senator Berrien and practiced in Augusta. His nomination to second place
+on the Webster ticket was a pledge of the high favor of the Whigs. Mr.
+Jenkins was five years the senior of Mr. Toombs; had served with him in
+the State Legislature and, like Toombs, had been allied with the Troup
+party in Georgia. Mr. Jenkins had been three times Speaker of the lower
+branch of the General Assembly, and in 1842 had received the entire Whig
+vote for United States Senator. Upon the resignation of McKennon of
+Pennsylvania, President Fillmore had, through Mr. Toombs, offered the
+Interior Depart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>ment to Mr. Jenkins. This position, however, was
+declined because of pressing duties in the courts.</p>
+
+<p>In the senatorial election of 1851 Mr. Jenkins would have been a
+formidable candidate for United States Senator again, had not his strong
+friendship both for Senator Berrien and Mr. Toombs dictated his
+declining the use of his name. He was a man of high ability and pure
+character.</p>
+
+<p>Georgia became a national battle-ground during this campaign. Besides
+the regular Whig and Democratic and the Webster tickets, there was an
+extreme faction of States' Rights men, who would not accept any of these
+candidates. They called on George M. Troup, then living in retirement in
+Montgomery County. He wrote a ringing letter accepting the nomination of
+the "Southern Rights" party for President. He was seventy-two years old,
+but his cherished principles, which he had proclaimed in the face of
+Adams and Jackson, were now repeated for the people of another
+generation.</p>
+
+<p>The gallant body of Union Whigs were destined to deep affliction. On the
+24th of October, 1852, ten days before the national election, Daniel
+Webster died. The land was filled with lamentation, for there was no
+North, no South, in this sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>The State of Georgia, which in 1848 had voted for Taylor, now turned
+about and voted for Pierce <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>and King. On November 2d the South Carolina
+Legislature also cast 135 votes for the Pierce electors. General Scott
+carried but four States in the Union, caused, as Mr. Stephens and Mr.
+Toombs thought, by his refusal to indorse the Compromise of 1850.</p>
+
+<p>On July 3, 1852, Mr. Toombs, then a member of the House, submitted an
+elaborate statement of his political position. He made the point that
+presidents, as then put forward, were not real representatives of the
+country or even of a party. From the beginning of the government up to
+1836 the presidency had been filled by ripe statesmen and tried
+patriots. <i>All</i> were excluded from competition except those who had
+great experience in public affairs, and who had commended themselves to
+the people by wisdom, virtue, and high services. Such men had no need of
+hired biographers and venal letter-writers to inform the people who they
+were. They needed no interpreters of letters to the public, cunningly
+devised to mystify what they pretended to elucidate. National
+conventions, Mr. Toombs contended, were contrivances to secure popular
+support to those who were not entitled to public confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs was an enemy to mere convention. All party machinery, all
+irregular organizations, which are unknown to the Constitution, he
+re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>garded as dangerous to public liberty. He had noticed that this
+machinery had been deadly to the great men of the nation and productive
+only of mediocrity. Obedience to them, he contended, was infidelity to
+popular rights. "This system," said he, "has produced none of those
+illustrious men who have become so distinguished in their country's
+history; none of those political lights which have shone so brilliantly
+on this Western continent for half a century. Nearly all of them have
+departed from us. Who is to take the place of the distinguished
+Carolinian?" he asked. "He was the handiwork of God himself and of the
+people&mdash;not party machinery. Who is to fill the place of the great
+Kentuckian? When worthily filled, it will not be by these nurseries of
+faction.</p>
+
+<p>"The friends of the Compromise," said Mr. Toombs, "demand no sectional
+candidate. They were willing to accept the great New England statesman,
+notwithstanding they may point to disagreements with him in the past. He
+has thrown the weight of his mighty intellect into the scales of
+concord, in the darkest and most perilous hour of the conflict. And
+Southern Whigs would have struggled with pride and energy to have seen
+the greatest intellect of the age preside over the greatest republic of
+the world. He was defeated in convention by the enemies of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>compromise measure, because he was its friend. And this was the true
+reason of his exclusion. It is a sufficient reason for the friends of
+the measure, North and South, to oppose and defeat General Scott's
+nomination. My action shall respond to my convictions."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs had seen Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, one by one, retired
+before Van Buren, Harrison, and Scott. Was it any wonder that, in
+breaking away from the old Whig party, he should denounce the system
+which had blighted its brightest men and which, in his opinion, had
+retired the greatest statesman in the world before an issue of sectional
+prejudice? Mr. Toombs never again gave allegiance to conventions or
+obeyed the dictates of party caucuses. From 1854 to 1860 he was a
+Democrat. After the war he acted mainly with the party which sympathized
+with the South. But his great power made him independent. He did not
+hesitate to criticise Pierce or Buchanan, or to upbraid Jefferson Davis,
+the head of the Southern Confederacy. He repudiated the nomination of
+Horace Greeley by his party. He called a meeting in his own room in an
+Atlanta hotel in 1872, and put A. H. Stephens before the people for
+Congress. In 1878, when the organized Democracy of Georgia antagonized
+Dr. William H. Felton for Congress in the seventh Georgia district, Mr
+Toombs wrote a letter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>to the press, in which he declared that party
+conventions were merely advisory. "When their action becomes
+authoritative, they are usurpers. They deprive the people of free
+elections. Let their actions be approved or disapproved by the elections
+of the people." He supported Mr. Stephens, who did not hesitate to "tote
+his own skillet," when occasion required. Toombs' independence was
+lordly. He believed in the utmost freedom in public affairs. Machinery
+was as hateful to him as to Thomas Jefferson. He was "the prince of
+innovation; the foe to all convention." No less than of Burke, it was
+said of him that "born for the universe, he did not surrender to party,"
+but General Longstreet declared of Robert Toombs that he needed only
+discipline to make him a great military genius. This was the radical
+flaw in his make-up. How near he came to the ideal of a statesman
+posterity must judge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>TOOMBS IN THE SENATE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Robert Toombs entered the Senate of the United States, in 1853, the
+<i>personnel</i> of that body had changed since the great debates on the
+compromise measures. Calhoun had died before the compromise was
+effected, and only a short time after his last address had been read to
+the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia. Clay survived his last greatest
+work but two years, and on the 29th of June, 1852, was no more. Daniel
+Webster lived only four months longer than Mr. Clay. Among the new
+leaders in that body were Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, William M.
+Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Charles Sumner of
+Massachusetts. To this list may be added the familiar names of Thompson
+of Mississippi, Bayard of Delaware, Toucey of Connecticut, Slidell of
+Louisiana, Achison of Missouri, Bell of Tennessee, and Cass of Michigan.</p>
+
+<p>The third great sectional fight on the Territories came up on the report
+to organize a government for that tract of public domain lying in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+Louisiana cession, known as Kansas and Nebraska. In doing this, Mr.
+Douglas, as chairman of the Committee on Territories, adopted the same
+principle on the slavery question as had been settled in the Utah and
+New Mexico bills of 1850.</p>
+
+<p>The words of the Nebraska bill were that "said Territory, or any portion
+of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery as
+their constitutions may prescribe at the time of their admission." Mr.
+Douglas claimed that the question of congressional interference was an
+"exploded doctrine"; that the Missouri Compromise bill had been ignored
+by North and South; that the Wilmot Proviso had been rejected
+altogether; and that the principles of 1850 had superseded the
+principles of 1820. The committee sought to avoid the perils of slavery
+agitation for all time, they claimed, by withdrawing the question of
+slavery from the halls of Congress and from national politics. "Let the
+new States and Territories," they said, "settle this matter for
+themselves." Mr. Sumner of Massachusetts took the lead in opposing the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill. He declared that the bill violated the principles
+of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in all that
+territory ceded by France and lying north of 36&deg; 30'. He and his friends
+held that this was a "sacred compact," and this territory could not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>be
+controlled by the same principles as the land secured from Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>The second bill drawn by Mr. Douglas, which provided for the
+establishment of two territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska,
+instead of one, expressly repealed the Missouri Compromise as being
+inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress. Here,
+then, the contest waged anew.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first speeches made by Senator Toombs was on the 23d of
+February, 1854, on the Kansas-Nebraska bill.</p>
+
+<p>Douglas was in charge of the Territorial bills, and his readiness in
+debate, his sinewy intellect, his tact and shrewdness, had gained for
+him the name of "Little Giant." Seward, Chase, and Sumner had been
+elected from their States as "independent Democrats" by the
+Abolitionists, who held the balance of power in New York, Ohio, and
+Massachusetts. Mr. Toombs was more than willing to measure swords with
+the champions of free soil. He declared that he would address himself to
+the consideration of the Kansas-Nebraska bill "with a heart filled with
+gratitude to the Disposer of human events, that after the conflicts of
+more than a third of a century this great question has found its
+solution, not in temporary expedients for allaying sectional discord,
+but in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>true principles of the Constitution and upon the broad
+foundation of justice and right, which forms the only true basis of
+fraternity and of national concord."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs repudiated the libel cast by Mr. Sumner upon Northern men who
+"dared to exercise the rights of freemen" and differ from the
+Abolitionists upon this question. "It appears," said he, "from the
+speeches of the senator from Massachusetts, that all such are white
+slaves, whose manhood has been debased and enervated by the irresistible
+attractions of slave power." He declared that the men who talked about
+"solemn compact" in this connection were men whom "no oaths can bind and
+no covenants restrain." They called the Missouri Compromise a compact,
+yet showed their willingness to violate it.</p>
+
+<p>"In all governments," said Mr. Toombs, "the acquisitions of the state
+belong rightfully to the people. Much more strongly does this principle
+apply to a purely popular government. Therefore, any exercise of power
+to injure or destroy those who have equal rights of enjoyment is
+arbitrary, unauthorized by the contract, and despotic."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no power to strike from the meanest Indian trapper, the basest
+trader or camp-follower, as the senator from New York styled these
+peo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>ple, their equal privileges, this sovereignty of right, which is the
+birthright of every American citizen. This sovereignty may&mdash;nay, it
+must&mdash;remain in abeyance until society becomes sufficiently strong and
+stable to be entitled to its full exercise, as sovereignty does not
+belong to the general government, and its exercise is a marked
+usurpation."</p>
+
+<p>"The power and duty, then, of this government over the inchoate society
+of the Territories, is simply to protect this equality of right of
+persons and property of all the members of society until the period
+shall arrive when this dormant sovereignty shall spring into active
+existence and exercise all the powers of a free, sovereign, and
+independent State. Then it can mold, according to its own sovereign will
+and pleasure, its own institutions, with the single restriction that
+they must be republican."</p>
+
+<p>"Justice," said Mr. Toombs, "is the highest expediency, the supremest
+wisdom. Applying that test to the principles of this measure, I say that
+no fair man in any portion of the country can come to any other
+conclusion than that it establishes between the people of this Union,
+who are bound together under a common Constitution, a firm, a permanent,
+a lasting bond of harmony.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it that we of the South ask? Do we make any unjust or unequal
+demands on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> North? None. Do we ask what we are not willing on our
+side to grant to them? Not at all. We say to them 'Gentlemen, here is
+our common territory. Whether it be ceded by old States, whether it be
+acquired by the common treasure, or was the fruits of successful war to
+which we rallied, and in which we all fought, we ask you to recognize
+this great principle of the revolution: let such as desire, go there,
+enjoy their property, take with them their flocks and herds, their
+men-servants and maid-servants, if they desire to take them there; and
+when the appropriate time comes for the exercise of the dormant
+sovereignty of the people, let them fix the character of their
+institutions for themselves.'"</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs ridiculed the idea of the "thunder of popular
+indignation." "If even this were true, it should in no wise control the
+actions of American senators. But it is not real but melodramatic
+thunder&mdash;nothing but phosphorus and sheet-iron."</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs admitted that the North had the power to reject the
+principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. They had a majority in the House
+and Senate. Aristides had said, "True, you can do it; you have got the
+power; but, Athenians, it is unjust."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 292px;">
+<img src="images/illo3.jpg" width="292" height="359" alt="ROBERT TOOMBS, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM GEORGIA, 1855." title="ROBERT TOOMBS, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM GEORGIA, 1855." />
+<span class="caption">ROBERT TOOMBS, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM GEORGIA, 1855.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs was a bold man. When he adopted a line of argument, he
+was willing to fol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>low wherever its conclusions led. He did not
+hesitate, in this speech, to admit that "if you yield to the people the
+right to mold their institutions, the establishment of polygamy may
+result legitimately therefrom." This point had been made in debate to
+fight the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Said Senator Toombs:
+"It is just what they have a right to do. When the people of Utah make
+their organic law for admission to the Union, they have a right to
+approximate, as nearly as they please, the domestic manners of the
+Patriarchs. Connecticut may establish polygamy to-morrow. The people of
+Massachusetts may do the same. How did they become possessed of greater
+rights, in this or any other respect, than the people of Utah? The right
+in both cases has the same foundation&mdash;the sovereignty of the people."</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs adverted to the fact that Henry Clay had denied that he
+framed the Missouri Compromise; that it did not originate in the House,
+of which he was a member; that he did not even know if he voted for it.
+Senator Toombs held the Act of 1820 to be no compact&mdash;binding upon no
+man of honor; but, on the contrary, a plain and palpable violation of
+the Constitution and the common rights of the citizens, and ought to be
+immediately abrogated and repealed. He declared that it had been
+rejected by the North <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>when passed, and rejected when Arkansas was
+admitted, when Oregon was formed, when California was received as a
+State. If the Kansas bill was settled upon sound and honest principles,
+he maintained that it should be applied to territory ceded from France
+just as elsewhere. He contended that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was
+not a compromise in any sense of the term, but an unconstitutional
+usurpation of power. "When we look into the Constitution, we find no
+antislavery power planted in that instrument. On the contrary, we find
+that it amply provides for the perpetuity and not for the extinction of
+slavery."</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs closed his first speech in the Senate with these words:
+"The senator from New York asks where and when the application of these
+principles will stop. He wishes not to be deceived in the future, and
+asks us whether, when we bring the Chinese and other distant nations
+under our flag, we are to apply these principles to them? For one, I
+answer yes; that wherever the flag of the Union shall float, this
+republican principle will follow it, even if it should gather under its
+ample folds the freemen of every portion of the universe."</p>
+
+<p>The Kansas-Nebraska bill reopened the whole question of slavery. In the
+North, it was a firebrand. Mr. Buchanan, in his book, written after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>his
+retirement from the presidency, said that the South was for the first
+time the aggressor in this legislation. Mr. Fillmore declared that the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise was "the Pandora Box of Evil." Mr.
+Douglas was reviled by his opponents and burned in effigy at the North.
+His leadership in this fight was ascribed to his overweening ambition to
+reach the presidency. The clergymen of New England and of Chicago
+flooded the Senate with petitions crying against this "intrigue." On May
+26, 1854, at one o'clock in the morning, the bill passed the Senate by a
+vote of 31 to 13. The "nays" were Messrs. Allen, Bell, Chase, Clayton,
+Fish, Foote, Gillet, Hamlin, James, Seward, Sumner, Wade, and Walker.</p>
+
+<p>The enactment of this measure into a law did not settle the question. It
+resulted in a strife in the Territories themselves. For two years Kansas
+was in a state of civil war. The Emigrant Aid Societies of New England
+raised large sums of money to send to the Territories Free-Soil settlers
+and other agitators. A counter-stream of agitators set in from Missouri,
+in sympathy with the slavery men, and the result was a long series of
+bloody disorders. In February, 1856, Mr. Toombs made a speech upon the
+message of the President in regard to the lawless condition of Kansas.
+The Governor informed President Pierce <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>that the laws were obstructed
+and openly resisted by bodies of armed men; that prisoners were rescued
+from the sheriffs, peaceable inhabitants murdered, and houses burned.
+Another authority informed the President that an overwhelming force was
+crossing the border for the avowed purpose of invading Kansas and
+butchering the unoffending Free-State citizens. One side claimed
+protection from insurrection within, the other from invasion without.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Emigrant Aid Societies, Mr. Toombs said, "Whatever be their
+policy, whatever their tendency to produce strife, if they simply aid
+emigrants from Massachusetts to go to Kansas to become citizens of that
+Territory, I am prepared to say that they violate no law; they have a
+right to do it, and every attempt to prevent their doing so violates the
+law and ought not to be sustained. But if they send persons there
+furnished with arms, with the intent to offer forcible resistance to the
+constituted authorities, they are guilty of the highest crime known to
+civil society, and are amenable to its penalties. I shall not undertake
+to decide upon their conduct. The facts are not before me, and I
+therefore pass it by."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs thought it would be difficult to imagine a case calling more
+loudly for the intervention of Federal power. Mr. Toombs favored <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>the
+supremacy of the law in the Territories at any cost. "If traitors seek
+to disturb the peace of the country, I desire that it shall be no
+sectional contest. I do not see the end of that. I prefer that the
+conflict shall be between the Federal Government and the lawless. I can
+see the end of that. The law will triumph and the evil stop."</p>
+
+<p>"We who pass this Kansas-Nebraska bill, both at the North and South,
+intend to maintain its principles. We do not intend to be driven from
+them by clamor nor by assault. We intend that the actual <i>bona fide</i>
+settlers of Kansas shall be protected in the full exercise of all the
+rights of freemen; that, unawed and uncontrolled, they shall freely and
+of their own will legislate for themselves, to every extent allowed by
+the Constitution, while they have a territorial government; and when
+they shall be in a condition to come into the Union and may desire it,
+that they shall come into the Union with whatever republican
+constitution they may prefer and adopt for themselves; that in the
+exercise of their rights they shall be protected from insurrection from
+within and invasion from without."</p>
+
+<p>In answer to Senator Hale of New Hampshire, Senator Toombs agreed that
+the Territory of Kansas would certainly be a free State. Such, he
+thought would be its future destiny. "The sen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>ator from New Hampshire,"
+he said, "was unable to comprehend the principles of the bill. The
+friends of the Kansas bill, North and South, supported the bill because
+it was right, and left the future to those who were affected by it. The
+policy of the Kansas bill wrongs no man, no section of our common
+country. We have never asked the government to carry by force, or in any
+way, slavery anywhere. We only demand that the inhabitants of the
+Territories shall decide the question for themselves without the
+interference of the government or the intermeddling of those who have no
+right to decide."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs and Senator Hale of New Hampshire seem to have been pitted
+squarely against each other in this great debate.</p>
+
+<p>In 1854, during the progress of the Kansas debate, Mr. Toombs occupied
+Mr. Hale's desk, and alluded to the taunts which Mr. Hale had heaped
+upon the heads of senators who had sustained the compromise measures of
+1850. He had predicted that they would be driven from their seats; that
+the mighty North would drive them from their benches. The distinguished
+senator from Michigan, Mr. Cass, was the especial object of these
+assaults. "But the result," said Mr. Toombs, looking about him, "is that
+the gentleman who made these declarations is not here."</p>
+
+<p>In 1856, however, Mr. Hale was returned to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> Senate and met Mr.
+Toombs in the Kansas debate, and the discussion was continued with the
+same acrimony.</p>
+
+<p>"Let there be no legislative aggression on either side," continued Mr.
+Toombs. "If the senator from New Hampshire is sincere, he will stand
+there. The common property is open to the common enjoyment of all. Let
+it remain so."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs charged Senator Hale with saying that the North had always
+been practically in a minority in the Senate, because the South bought
+up as many Northern men as it wanted. "Sir, I stand here to-day in
+behalf of the North to repel the accusation."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hale: "Who made it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs: "You said it. I have it before me in your printed speech. I
+heard it delivered, and you are correctly reported."</p>
+
+<p>In a letter to Mr. B. F. Hallet of Boston, in 1856, Mr. Toombs denied
+saying that he would "call the roll of his slaves at the base of Bunker
+Hill Monument." He charged Senator Hale with misrepresenting him to this
+extent.</p>
+
+<p>No man was oftener misquoted by word of mouth or in public print. As
+bold as he was in speech and as free to speak out what was in his mind,
+he once remarked to an intimate friend, Dr. Steiner of Augusta, that he
+rarely ever saw his name in print that it was not attached to a lie.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We are not left to tradition or the dictum of political opponents to
+know how seriously Mr. Toombs regarded the question of war between the
+North and South. In this same debate with Senator Hale, Mr. Toombs said:
+"He told us the North would fight. I believe that nobody ever doubted
+that any portion of the United States would fight on a proper occasion.
+Sir, if there shall ever be civil war in this country, when honest men
+shall set about cutting each other's throats, those who are least to be
+depended upon in a fight will be the people who set them at it. There
+are courageous and honest men enough in both sections to fight.... No,
+sir, there is no question of courage involved. The people of both
+sections of the Union have illustrated their courage on too many
+battlefields to be questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities,
+shoulder to shoulder, whenever their country has called upon them; but
+that they may never come in contact with each other in fratricidal war,
+should be the ardent wish and earnest desire of every true man and
+honest patriot."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE &ldquo;KNOW-NOTHING&rdquo; PARTY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the fall of 1854 the elections were generally adverse to the
+Democrats. The slavery agitation at the North, intensified by the
+passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resulted in a large number of
+Free-Soil candidates and "anti-Nebraska" Whigs being elected to the
+House. In the West and South, the "Know-nothing" movement had arisen as
+in a single night, and with secrecy and strength had asserted itself on
+election day. The consequence was that the Democratic majority in the
+House which had been elected with Franklin Pierce now disappeared. The
+years of 1854-55 were full of uncertainty in Georgia. The old-line
+Whigs, who had broken away from their party associates upon the
+nomination of General Scott for President, had not yet gone into full
+affiliation with the Democrats. Many of these men joined the "American
+party," which had arisen out of antagonism to the large foreign
+population flowing into the States and Territories. This party put out
+candidates for Congress and the State offices in Georgia.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To Alexander H. Stephens, more than to any other man, was due the honor
+of breaking up the Know-nothing movement in Georgia. Amazed at the
+rapidity with which this party organized and the completeness with which
+it worked; repudiating the principles which it held and the
+proscriptions which it enforced, Alexander Stephens announced, early in
+the day, that he would not be a candidate for re&euml;lection to Congress. He
+declared, in a letter, that, from the secrecy of the order, he was
+unable to know what they were doing, and, as political principles should
+come out in the open sunlight for inspection, he could not submit his
+candidacy to any such concern. He did not hesitate to condemn the
+practices and creed of the American party in public. Prominent leaders
+in his district who recognized his ability made it known that they were
+willing to support him, if he would not be so severe in his
+denunciations. Mr. Stephens promptly replied that the crisis required
+the knife, not the poultice. However, he did run for Congress and <a name="Page_122t" id="Page_122t"></a><a href="#Page_122tn">scored</a>
+the secret order on every stump in the district. He declared, in a
+speech in Augusta, that he "was not afraid of anything on the earth,
+above the earth, or below the earth, except to do wrong." Mr. Stephens
+was elected. Religious fanaticism and race prejudice received a death
+blow in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> Georgia. "It writhed in pain, and died among its worshipers."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs had already made himself felt in this campaign. He was in the
+shadow of a domestic affliction. His youngest daughter died in February
+of that year. This occurrence brought him to decide upon a trip abroad,
+which he had long anticipated, but which his busy and eventful life had
+not allowed him to enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>In April, 1855, he wrote his wife:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I feel more and more anxious to get abroad and out of this
+country; to be relieved of the thousand harassments of
+business, and look for a great deal of pleasure in our
+quiet and uninterrupted strolling over the hills and plains
+of Europe, where nobody knows us and nobody can harass me
+with business or their troubles. I wish I could, like our
+darling child, thank God there was rest in Heaven.</p></div>
+
+<p>Just before he left the State, he attended the Supreme Court of Georgia,
+at Milledgeville. At that time he wrote his wife:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I have had a hard, close week's work. The lawyers very
+kindly gave way and allowed my cases to come this week,
+which brought them very close together, and, as I am but
+ill prepared for them, not having given them any attention
+last winter, and but little this spring, I have been pretty
+much speaking all day and studying all night&mdash;and that
+without the benefit of "specks," which I am beginning to
+need.</p>
+
+<p>All the old Whigs here have joined the Know-noth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>ings, and
+keep very shy of me, as I have spoken not softly of the
+miserable wretches who expect to govern a great country
+like this with imbecility, if they can only cover it with
+secrecy. I have been greatly beset not to go to Europe this
+summer, as the political campaign is likely to be hot. I
+shall go, and the rather that I may avoid such an event,
+and take that leisure and repose with my family in foreign
+countries which I seem to be totally incapable of getting
+at home.</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs left no doubt as to how he regarded the American party. In a
+speech on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he had declared that the country
+could assimilate the foreigners from Europe and the Chinamen from Asia,
+and gather under the ample folds of the American flag every nation on
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>It is related that in the early part of Mr. Toombs' political career he
+was accused of having subscribed to build a Catholic church in Georgia.
+The charge was repeated secretly from ear to ear until it came to his
+friends. It was on the eve of an election in Wilkes County, and a
+delegation, in spite of the lateness of the hour, went to Mr. Toombs'
+residence, awoke him, and asked for an authoritative denial of what they
+considered a damaging charge. Mr. Toombs listened to the delegation, and
+then declared with emphasis, not free from profanity, that it was so. "I
+have responded to their calls just as I have those of other
+denominations. You can tell the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>people that the distribution of my
+money is none of their business."</p>
+
+<p>This bold and prompt reply did not prevent his re&euml;lection to the
+legislature the next day.</p>
+
+<p>No man was more liberal in matters of religion and conscience than Mr.
+Toombs. In 1851 he wrote his wife in reply to a letter informing him
+that his daughter wanted to join the Methodist Church:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I am content if she desires, and you wish it. My opinions
+about revivals, to which you refer, have been long formed
+and much strengthened by my experience in the world, but I
+am not at all desirous that they should be the rule of
+anybody's conduct but my own. I have therefore endeavored
+to stand upon the Protestant principle in matters of
+conscience, of judging for myself and allowing others to do
+the same. The Judge of the Earth will do right at the final
+hearing.</p></div>
+
+<p>On June 6, 1855, Mr. Toombs set sail from New York, in company with his
+wife and daughter, and Mr. W. F. Alexander, his son-at-law. In ten days,
+after a smooth trip, he landed in Liverpool, with just enough roughness
+off the coast of Ireland to show old Neptune in his element. Mr. Toombs
+was in the very prime of a vigorous life. He had accumulated a
+competency at the law, was in fine physical condition, and had a mind
+broad, sensitive, and retentive. He could stand any amount of
+travel&mdash;this man who rode his circuits on his horse, and who endured the
+wear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>ing trips from Georgia to the national capital. He remarked at the
+outset of his European trip that he had more money than time, so he
+secured special conveyances at every available place, and pushed his
+journey to all points of interest. From London he went to Paris, Lyons,
+Marseilles, thence to the Mediterranean, where he passed the Fourth of
+July plowing his way to Naples, sleeping on deck to escape the stuffy
+stateroom of the little steamer, and catching all the cinders from the
+smokestack. Embarking at Naples, he went to Rome, where he was entranced
+to see the historic spots of the Eternal City. Rome had for him more
+charms than Paris. Crossing the Alps, he went to Geneva, and striking
+the Rhine, he proceeded by boat to Amsterdam, thence to Brussels, where
+he walked over the field of Waterloo. Leaving his family in Paris, he
+crossed to England and made a tour alone through Ireland and Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>As an American senator, Robert Toombs bore letters of introduction to
+prominent people in Europe. His reputation was international, his
+acquaintance with the diplomatists of the Old World was extensive, and
+his knowledge of the history and government of the different countries
+was complete. But he did not seek notoriety in his trip abroad. He
+presented none of his letters. He preferred to travel among the people,
+and at night, like Jean Valjean, he loved to see the <i>bour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>geois</i> in
+their gardens and at their ease, in order to study their habits and
+condition. He took great interest in the laborers. On one occasion he
+got down from his <i>diligence</i> to ask a man, who was drawing water from a
+well to irrigate the land, how much he was paid for this slow and
+cumbersome process. He was astonished to hear that it was but twelve
+cents a day.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs spoke the French language; he studied the people, and no man
+was a better judge of human nature. He said when he returned that the
+Southern slave was better treated and was a better laborer than most of
+the peasants whom he had seen.</p>
+
+<p>His conversation during his European trip was bright and racy. He never
+fagged in body or mind. He never became a trifler or a tease. He was not
+a man who cared for his personal comforts or appetites. Occasionally he
+would abuse the hotels as being far behind the American hostelry. Now
+and then he would jest with his guide or indulge in bright raillery over
+the Italian peddler with the inevitable cigarette. He made it a rule to
+smoke a cigar in every country, to test the tobacco, and also to sample
+the wine of every nation. He drank but little at that time, never
+touching ardent spirits in any way. Good-humor, good health, and
+happiness followed him as he made the circuit of the Continent.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Just three months were passed by him in the Old World. He arrived in New
+York in September, 1855, where telegrams awaited him, summoning him to a
+desperate campaign in Georgia.</p>
+
+<p>The contest in Georgia that year was sharp. The American party elected
+several members of Congress, but their candidate for Governor, Judge
+Andrews, was defeated by Herschel V. Johnson. The latter was one of the
+strongest Democrats in Georgia. He had, in 1853, been elected Governor
+over so able a man as Charles J. Jenkins.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs plunged at once into the canvass and proceeded, in his own
+vigorous way, to fight the Know-nothings.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>TOOMBS IN BOSTON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In 1856, Mr. Toombs visited Boston, and delivered a lecture upon
+slavery. It was a bold move, and many of his friends advised against it.
+They did not see what good would come from the appearance of an extreme
+Southern man in the heart of abolitionism, carrying his doctrines to the
+very citadel of antislavery. But Toombs, with dramatic determination,
+decided to accept. Several Southern statesmen had been invited to appear
+before Boston audiences, but prudence had kept them from complying.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of the 24th of January, Mr. Toombs ascended the stage at
+Tremont Temple. A large audience greeted him. There was great curiosity
+to see the Southern leader. They admired the splendid audacity of this
+man in coming to the place where Garrison had inveighed against slavery
+and had denounced the Constitution as a "league with Hell and a covenant
+with the Devil"; where Wendell Phillips had exerted his matchless
+oratory, and where Charles Sumner had built up his reputation as an
+unflagging enemy of South<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>ern propagandism. Mr. Toombs was in good trim
+for this supreme effort. Inspired by the significance of his mission, he
+seemed possessed of unusual strength. His fine eye lighted with his
+theme, and his brow seemed stamped with confidence rather than defiance.
+His long, black hair was brushed from his forehead, and his deep voice
+filled the historic hall. He was indeed a fine specimen of a man&mdash;a Saul
+among his fellows. Possibly he was moved by the thought that he stood
+where Webster had pleaded for the Union, for concession, and for harmony
+six years before, when the people for the first time had turned from him
+and when Fanueil Hall had been closed against him.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs was attended upon the stage by William and Nathan
+Appleton, whose guest he was. Their presence was a guarantee that the
+speaker should receive a respectful hearing. It was noticed at the
+outset that he had abandoned his fervid style of speaking. He delivered
+his address from notes in a calm and deliberate manner. He never
+prepared a speech with so much care. His discourse was so logical and
+profound, his bearing so dignified and impressive, that his hearers were
+reminded of Webster.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident early in the evening that his lecture would produce a
+powerful effect. To many of his hearers his views were novel and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>fresh,
+as they had never heard the Southern side of this great question. "With
+the exception of Sam Houston," said a New York paper, "Mr. Toombs is the
+only Southern man who has had the pluck to go into the antislavery camp
+and talk aloud of the Constitution. Other Southern men, not afraid to
+face Boston, have been afraid to face opinion at home."</p>
+
+<p>In referring to the clause of the Constitution providing for the return
+of fugitive slaves, Mr. Toombs was greeted by a hiss. The speaker turned
+in the direction of the noise and said, "I did not put that clause
+there. I am only giving the history of the action of your own John
+Adams; of your fathers and mine. You may hiss them if you choose." The
+effect was electrical. The hiss was drowned in a storm of applause. The
+readiness and good-nature of the retort swept Boston off her feet, and
+for one moment prejudice was forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>The New York <i>Express</i> declared that the speaker was earnest and
+deliberate, presenting his argument with great power, and his lecture of
+an hour and a half was, for the most part, listened to with respect and
+attention. There was some conduct in the audience at the close which the
+Boston <i>Journal</i> was forced to denounce as "ungentlemanly." Three
+cheers, not unmixed with dissent, were given to the distinguished
+speaker. Some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>one called out, "When will Charles Sumner be allowed to
+speak in the South?"</p>
+
+<p>The New York <i>Express</i> declared that "if Toombs and other hotheads would
+lecture in Syracuse, Oswego, Ashtabula, and other points of 'Africa,'
+they would do a good deal of good in educating the innocents and
+becoming themselves educated and freed from fire, froth, fury, and
+folly."</p>
+
+<p>This lecture of Mr. Toombs at Boston will live as the most lucid defense
+of slavery in law and in practice ever delivered. Slavery has fallen and
+mankind has made up its verdict; but this address will still be read
+with interest.</p>
+
+<p>He did not hesitate to say that Congress had no right to limit,
+restrain, or impair slavery; but, on the contrary, was bound to protect
+it. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, slavery was a fact.
+The Declaration did not emancipate a single slave; neither did the
+Articles of Confederation. The Constitution recognized slavery. Every
+clause relative to slavery was intended to strengthen and protect it.
+Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. The clause
+giving Congress power to make regulations for the Territories did not
+confer general jurisdiction. It was not proper nor just to prohibit
+slavery in the Territories. Penning the negro up in the old States would
+only make him wretched and miserable, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>would not strike a single
+fetter from his limbs. Mr. Toombs simply asked that the common territory
+be left open to the common enjoyment of all the people of the United
+States; that they should be protected in their persons and property by
+the general government, until its authority be superseded by a State
+constitution, when the character of their democratic institutions was to
+be determined by the freemen thereof. "This," he said, "is justice. This
+is constitutional equity." Mr. Toombs contended that the compromise
+measures of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 were made to
+conform to this policy. "I trust&mdash;I believe," he continued, "that when
+the transient passions of the day shall have subsided, and reason shall
+have resumed her dominion, it will be approved, even applauded, by the
+collective body of the people."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the second branch of his theme, Mr. Toombs contended that so long
+as the African and Caucasian races co-exist in the same society, the
+subordination of the African is the normal and proper condition, the one
+which promotes the highest interests and greatest happiness of both
+races. The superiority of the white man over the black, he argued, was
+not transient or artificial. The Crown had introduced slavery among the
+American colonists. The question was not whether it was just to tear the
+African away from bondage <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>in his own country and place him here.
+England had settled that for us. When the colonies became free they
+found seven hundred thousand slaves among them. Our fathers had to
+accept the conditions and frame governments to cover it. They
+incorporated no Utopian theories in their system. They did not so much
+concern themselves about what rights man might possibly have in a state
+of nature, as what rights he ought to have in a state of society. The
+lecturer maintained that under this system, the African in the
+slaveholding States is found in a better position than he has ever
+attained in any other age or country, whether in bondage or freedom. The
+great body of this race had been slaves in foreign lands and slaves in
+their native land. In the Eastern Hemisphere the African had always been
+in a servile condition. In Hayti and Jamaica experiments had been tried
+of freeing them, under the auspices of France and England. Miseries had
+resulted and ruin overwhelmed the islands. "Fanaticism may palliate, but
+could not conceal the utter prostration of the race." The best specimens
+of the race were to be found in the Southern States, in closest contact
+with slavery. The North does not want the negro, does not encourage his
+immigration. The great fact of the inferiority of the race is admitted
+everywhere in our country.</p>
+
+<p>"Our political system gives the slave great and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>valuable rights. His
+life is protected; his person secured from assault against all others
+except his master, and his master's power in this respect is placed
+under salutary legal restriction." He gets a home, ample clothing and
+food, and is exempted from excessive labor. When no longer capable of
+labor, from age or disease, he is a legal charge upon his master. The
+Southern slave, he said, is a larger consumer of animal food than any
+population in Europe, and larger than any laboring population in the
+United States, and their natural increase is equal to that of any other
+people. Interest and humanity co&ouml;perate in harmony for the well-being of
+slave labor. Labor is not deprived of its wages. Free labor is paid in
+money, the representative of products; slave labor in the products
+themselves. The agricultural and unskilled laborers of England fail to
+earn the comforts of the Southern slave. The compensation of labor in
+the Old World has been reduced to a point scarcely adequate to the
+continuation of the race.</p>
+
+<p>"One-half the lands of the cotton States is annually planted in food
+crops. This half is consumed by the laborers and animals. The tenant in
+the North does not realize so much."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs believed that the Southern men were awakening to the
+conviction that the slave should be taught to read and write, as being
+of more use to himself, his master, and society. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>realized that the
+laws should protect marriage and other domestic ties, forbidding the
+separation of families, and stated that some of the slaveholding States
+had already adopted partial legislation for the removal of these evils.
+But the necessities of life and the roving spirit of the white people
+produced an infinitely greater amount of separation in families than
+ever happened to the colored race. "The injustice and despotism of
+England toward Ireland has produced more separation of Irish families
+and sundered more domestic ties within the last ten years than African
+slavery has effected since its introduction into the United States."
+England keeps 100,000 soldiers, a large navy, and innumerable police to
+secure obedience to her social institutions, and physical force is the
+only guarantee of her social order, the only cement of her gigantic
+empire. The laws restrain the abuses and punish the crimes of the slave
+system. Slavery is impossible in England and Europe, because wages have
+gone down to a point where they are barely sufficient to support the
+laborer and his family. Capital could not afford to own labor. Slavery
+ceased in England in obedience to this law, and not from any regard to
+liberty and humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs declared that the condition of the African might not be
+permanent among us. He might find his exodus in the unvarying law of
+population. Increase of population may supply to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>slavery its euthanasia
+in the general prostration of all labor. The emancipation of the negro
+in the West Indies had not made him a more useful or productive member
+of society. The slave States, with one-half the white population, and
+between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 slaves, furnish three-fifths of the
+annual product of the republic. In this relation, the labor of the
+country is united with and protected by its capital, directed by the
+educated and intelligent.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs combated the idea that slavery debased and enervated the
+white man. To the Hebrew race were committed the orders of the Most
+High. Slaveholding priests ministered at their altars. Greece and Rome
+afforded the highest forms of civilization. Domestic slavery neither
+enfeebles nor deteriorates a race. Burke had declared that the people of
+the Southern colonies of America were much more strongly, and with a
+higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty that those to the
+Northward. Such were our Gothic ancestors; such were the Poles; such
+will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves. In such a
+people the haughtiness of domination combines itself with the spirit of
+freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs declared that, in the great agitation which for thirty
+years had shaken the national government to its foundation and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>burst
+the bonds of Christian unity among the churches, the slaveholding States
+have scarcely felt the shock. Stability, progress, order, peace,
+content, prosperity reign through our borders. Not a single soldier is
+to be found in our domain to overawe or protect society. Mr. Toombs
+pictured the progress of the Southern churches, schools and colleges
+multiplying. None of these improvements had been aided by the Federal
+Government. "We have neither sought from it protection for our private
+interests nor appropriations for our public improvements. They have been
+effected by the unaided individual efforts of an enlightened, moral, and
+energetic people. Such is our social system and such our condition under
+it. We submit it to the judgment of mankind, with the firm conviction
+that the adoption of no other, under such circumstances, would have
+exhibited the individual man, bond or free, in a higher development or
+society in a happier civilization."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs carried his principles into practice. He owned and operated
+several large plantations in Georgia, and managed others as agent or
+executor. He had the care of, possibly, a thousand slaves. His old
+family servants idolized him. Freedom did not alter the tender bond of
+affection. They clung to him, and many of them remained with him and
+ministered to his family to the day of his death. The old plantation
+negroes never failed to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>receive his bounty or good will. During the
+sale of a plantation of an insolvent estate Mr. Toombs, who was
+executor, wrote to his wife, "The slaves sold well. There were few
+instances of the separation of families." He looked after the welfare of
+all his dependents. While he was in the army, his faithful servants took
+care of his wife and little grandchildren, and during his long exile
+from his native land they looked after his interests and watched for his
+return.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>BUCHANAN&rsquo;S ADMINISTRATION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The great contest of 1856 was coming on. A President was to be chosen.
+The relations of the sections were more strained every day. The
+elections of 1854 had emboldened the antislavery men to form the
+Republican party, and to put out, as their candidate, John C. Fr&eacute;mont,
+"pioneer and pathfinder," who had saved California to the Union. Fr&eacute;mont
+was not a statesman, but a hero of the kind who dazzled men, and was
+thought to be especially available as a presidential candidate. "Free
+soil, Free men, Fr&eacute;mont" was the cry, and it was evident that the
+Abolitionists had swept all the wavering Whigs into their lines and
+would make a determined fight. The American party nominated Millard
+Fillmore, and the Democracy, with a wealth of material and a
+non-sectional following, wheeled into line. President Pierce was willing
+to succeed himself. Stephen A. Douglas, who had rushed into the
+convention of 1852 with such reckless dash to put aside "the old fogies"
+of the party, was an avowed candidate. His championship of the
+Kansas-Ne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>braska bill had made him a favorite in the South, although it
+injured his chances at the North. It is not a little remarkable that
+Douglas, whose candidacy had the effect of setting aside Buchanan for
+Pierce in 1852, should afterward have been the means of turning down
+Pierce for Buchanan.</p>
+
+<p>James Buchanan of Pennsylvania had just returned from London, where he
+had served with dignity as American Minister. Free from recent
+animosities, he entered the field, fresh and full of prestige. He was
+nominated for President on the fifth day of the Democratic Convention,
+Georgia casting her vote for him. The Cincinnati platform adopted this
+plank:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Resolved</i>: That we recognize the right of the people of the
+Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally
+and fairly expressed will of a majority of the actual residents, and
+whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a
+Constitution, either with or without domestic slavery, and to be
+admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with all the
+other States."</p>
+
+<p>Among the causes contributing to the current bitterness was the assault
+made upon Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, by Preston S.
+Brooks, a representative from South Carolina. This happened in May,
+1856, while Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk, after the Senate had
+ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>journed. Mr. Brooks took exception to some remarks printed in Mr.
+Sumner's speech, entitled "The Crime against Kansas." In this speech,
+the senator had referred, in rather caustic terms, to Senator Butler of
+South Carolina. The latter was a kinsman of Mr. Brooks. The weapon used
+by Mr. Brooks was a gutta-percha cane, and Senator Sumner, who was a
+large, powerful man, in his effort to rise from his seat, forced his
+desk from its hinges and fell heavily to the floor. The assault created
+an immense sensation. It was associated in the heated minds at the North
+with the "slavery aggressions of the South." At the South, it was
+generally excused as the resentment of an impetuous young man to an
+insult offered an elderly kinsman. Northern men denounced the assault in
+unmeasured terms on the floor of the House and Senate. The affair led to
+several challenges between the representatives of both sections.
+Congressman Brooks resigned his seat, but was immediately re&euml;lected.</p>
+
+<p>When Senator Sumner made his statement of the attack, he said that,
+after he was taken from the floor, he saw his assailant standing between
+Senator Douglas and Senator Toombs. This led to the assertion by some
+parties that the attack was premeditated, and that the senator from
+Illinois and the senator from Georgia, who were strong political
+antagonists of Mr. Sumner, were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>aiding and abetting it. Both senators
+denied this from their places.</p>
+
+<p>The political activity was not confined to the North. There was a large
+element in Georgia which disapproved of the Kansas-Nebraska bill as an
+unwise concession on the part of the South. This class, combined with
+the American party, presented an active front against the party led by
+Senator Toombs. No contest was ever waged more vigorously in Georgia.
+New blood and new issues were infused into the fight. Mr. Toombs was at
+the maximum of his greatness. He took redoubled interest in the campaign
+in that the legislature to be chosen in 1857 was to elect his successor
+to the Senate, and because the principles in this national contest were
+taking shape for a State campaign the following year.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>&ldquo;ON THE STUMP&rdquo; IN GEORGIA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Among the young men on the stump that year was Benjamin H. Hill. He had
+come up from the plow-handles in Jasper County. Working his way to an
+education, he had graduated at the State University in 1845, with the
+first honors of his class. He was at this time barely more than thirty
+years of age, but he had won distinction at the bar and served his
+county in the State Senate. He was known for his aggressive, ringing
+eloquence, and a clear, searching style which had made him something
+more than local reputation. It was understood that he was the choice of
+the American party for Governor, and it was assumed that he would win
+his spurs in the national campaign. He did not hesitate to go into the
+thickest of the fight. He challenged Toombs and Stephens in their
+strongholds; on the 22d of October meeting Mr. Stephens at his
+stamping-ground in Lexington, Oglethorpe County, and the next day
+confronting Mr. Toombs at his home in Washington, Ga. There was a charm
+in the very audacity of this young Georgian. The man who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>would beard
+"the Douglas in his hall" was a curiosity to the people, for since the
+leadership of Toombs was established in 1844, no one, probably, had
+assumed to cross swords with him before his home people. The fact that
+young Hill had rather frustrated Mr. Stephens, in their first meeting,
+gave him fresh impetus for his clash with Toombs. People flocked to
+Washington by thousands. A large part of the audience which had cheered
+Ben Hill in Oglethorpe followed him to Wilkes.</p>
+
+<p>The speaking took place in Andrews' Grove, a noble cluster of oaks near
+the town, and by breakfast-time the place was filled with carriages and
+wagons. The red hills leading to Washington were alive with farmers and
+their wives and children, wheeling into the grove to hear the noble
+veteran and the brilliant young stranger debate upon current topics. Old
+and young men were there, and babies in arms. It was before the days of
+a universal press. People took their politics from the stump. They were
+trained in the great object-lessons of public life. The humble farmer
+knew all about the Missouri Compromise and the Nebraska bill. What they
+had learned was thorough. Every man was a politician.</p>
+
+<p>Ben Hill opened the discussion. He had the advantage of being a new and
+untried man, while Toombs and Stephens had spread their records <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>upon
+the pages of hundreds of speeches. In those days of compromises and new
+departures, it was easy for a quick, bright fellow to make capital out
+of the apparent inconsistencies of public men. Hill was a master of
+repartee. He pictured Toombs' change from Whig to Democrat. He made a
+daring onslaught upon Toombs. Hill's bump of reverence was not large,
+and the way he handled this great statesman was a surprise. He did not
+hesitate to call him "Bobuel," and to try to convict him out of his own
+mouth of error.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs sat back with his fine features lit with scorn. His facial
+expression was a rare part of his strength. He seemed to repel with his
+look the impudence of this fearless young statesman. Hill saw the effect
+of his own audacity, and "plied his blows like wintry rain." A keen
+observer of this dramatic by-play declares that the pose of these two
+men reminded him of Landseer's picture of "Dignity and Impudence."</p>
+
+<p>Hill declared that Toombs had been in Congress, "sleeping over our
+rights." Toombs retorted, "I have been protecting your rights and your
+children's rights in spite of yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Hill charged that Toombs had tried to dodge the issues of this campaign.
+Toombs, when he answered this part, cried out to the people impetuously:
+"Did I dodge the question, when in the presence of two thousand people,
+in the City <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>of Augusta, and as I was about to travel in foreign lands,
+I denounced the secret midnight organization which was being fastened
+upon the freemen of the South? An organization whose chief measure was
+to prescribe a religious test in this land of liberty, and raise up a
+barrier to the entrance of the sons of the Old World, whose gallant
+sires aided us in achieving our independence?</p>
+
+<p>"Did I dodge, when, just before putting my foot on shipboard, I wrote a
+letter to my beloved South, warning them against this insidious
+organization creeping into their midst, piloted by dark lanterns to
+midnight lodges? Did I dodge, when, hearing, as I traveled, that this
+deadly order had taken hold and fastened its fangs in my State, I
+suspended my travels and took the first ship that bore me back to my
+native shores, and, raised my cry against these revolutionary measures?</p>
+
+<p>"Did I dodge, when, as soon as landing in Georgia, I traveled all night
+and spoke all next day against these blighting measures? If this be
+called dodging, I admit that I dodged, and the gentleman can make the
+most of it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hill declared that the Kansas-Nebraska bill embodied the principles
+of "squatter sovereignty" and alien suffrage. The bill was not identical
+with the Utah and New Mexico bill, as Toombs and Stephens had alleged.
+The restrictive provisions of the Utah bill would prohibit this
+Territorial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> Legislature from excluding slavery. It could not do that
+until it became a State, while the Kansas bill allowed a majority of the
+actual residents to determine whether slavery should or should not
+exist, even prior to its admission as a State. He denounced the Kansas
+bill as a cheat, a swindle, and a surrender of our dearest rights. As to
+the National Convention, Mr. Hill declared that the South may have
+framed the platform, but the North secured the candidate. Mr. Hill,
+relative to territorial questions, recognized the right of native born
+and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in
+any Territory, to frame a constitution and laws and to regulate their
+social and domestic affairs in their own way. The American party
+proposed to extend the term required for naturalization and to bar the
+foreigners from holding office. Mr. Hill had strong sympathizers in the
+extreme Southern Rights' men, who were on hand in abundance.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs replied with great dignity and warmth. He said that the
+Nebraska bill was a reiteration of the true intent of the compromise
+measures of 1850; that whoever opposed the Kansas bill was opposed to
+the South. It was a touchstone for fixing party affiliations. It only
+carried out the Georgia platform protesting against Congressional
+prohibition of slavery in the Territories. He paid high tribute to
+Douglas as a patriot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>and friend to the South. "Whoever condemned
+Douglas needed watching himself." Mr. Toombs charged that the
+representatives of the Know-nothing party had voted for the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill, and now claimed ignorance of its provisions. He
+denied that either he or Mr. Stephens had declared that the Kansas bill
+was identical with the Utah bill. Mr. Hill insisted that they had said
+so. Affirmance and denial became heated, and talk of holding each other
+"personally responsible" was indulged in, but pretty soon the debate
+went back into the political grooves. Mr. Toombs denied that the bill
+was a "Pandora's box of evil," or that its passage was violative of the
+good faith of the South. This part of his argument, of course, was
+directed to meet Northern criticism. "The North," Mr. Toombs said, "had
+tried, by the Wilmot Proviso, to legislate the South out of the right of
+equal enjoyment of the Territories. The South had endeavored to take the
+question of these rights out of Congress, to establish the doctrine of
+non-intervention." This doctrine triumphed in 1850 and, despite the
+assertion of his opponent, was reaffirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
+This Act of 1854 was the great measure of justice and equality to the
+South.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs ridiculed the assertion of Millard Fillmore that the repeal
+of the Missouri Compromise was a violation of a sacred compact.
+"Fill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>more," said Mr. Toombs, "is an amiable, clever sort of fellow, not
+to be trusted upon the great questions now before the country. He had
+withheld action upon the compromise measures of 1850 until his
+attorney-general told him that he must sign them."</p>
+
+<p>Someone reminded Toombs that he had supported Fillmore for vice
+president in 1848. He replied, "Yes, and I said then, that if Fillmore
+was at the head of the ticket, I would not support it." Several persons
+in the audience declared that they had heard him say it. "I am glad to
+know," said he, "that, since my opponents address you people as if you
+had no sense, you, at least, have shown that you have memories."</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the crowd who had cheered the opposition speaker, Mr. Toombs
+said: "For those of you who have yelled so long and lustily, when your
+dearest rights were assailed, I can but feel the profoundest
+commiseration. Should you continue in your wild strife against the
+experience of the past, I look to a kind Providence and to wise men to
+protect you from yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>In regard to aliens in America, Mr. Toombs said: "I go for giving them
+all&mdash;the oppressed of all nations&mdash;a place of refuge, and say even to
+the paupers and criminals; 'We will forgive you for the past and try you
+for the future.' You may start in your railroad and go to Memphis, and
+then, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>follow the setting sun day by day, and week by week, until you
+find him setting in the Pacific Ocean, and all the time you are passing
+over fertile lands where industry and thrift may meet appropriate
+rewards, and the blessings of liberty and peace find a resting-place in
+the bosom of freedom."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hill said that Toombs was a turncoat. He had been a Whig, and now he
+abused the Whigs. Mr. Toombs told the people that he came not to abuse
+the Democrats or Whigs, but with the weapon of truth and the shield of
+the Constitution to aid in preserving the Union and maintaining the
+rights of the South. He did not appear before the people to carry
+majorities, but to promote their constitutional rights.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs was charged with being a disunionist. He said he stood upon
+the Georgia platform of 1850, and leaning upon that faithful support, "I
+will say, that should Fr&eacute;mont be elected, I will not stand and wait for
+fire, but will call upon my countrymen to take to that to which they
+will be driven&mdash;the sword. If that be disunion, I am a disunionist. If
+that be treason, make the most of it. You see the traitor before you."</p>
+
+<p>Opinion as to the result of the debate at Washington was divided. Good
+judges thought that Mr. Hill relied too much on the <i>ad captandum</i>
+argument, and did not meet the points of Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> Toombs; but there are men
+living in Washington who heard the great contest and who delight to tell
+how the young warrior from Troup charged right into the enemy's camp,
+and rode away with the laurels of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Buchanan was elected President in November. He carried nineteen States,
+Georgia among them. Buchanan and Breckenridge received 174 electoral
+votes and 1,838,169 popular votes.</p>
+
+<p>Fr&eacute;mont carried eleven States and 114 electoral votes, receiving
+1,341,264 popular votes. Fillmore carried Maryland with 8 electoral
+votes. His vote through the country amounted to 874,534.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs, while a member of Congress, became possessed of a large
+tract of land in Texas. It was known as the Peter's Colony Grant, which
+had never been settled. The lands, he was informed by a competent
+surveyor, were valuable and free to settlers. They comprised about
+90,000 acres in Northern Texas, on the clear fork of the Trinity, in the
+neighborhood of Dallas and Fort Worth. Mr. Toombs had a clear head and
+keen perception for business. His temperament was restless and fiery.
+His life had been spent at the bar and in the forum. His gifts of
+oratory were remarkable. It was a strange combination which added shrewd
+business sense, but he had it in an eminent degree. He was a princely
+liver, but a careful financier. He saw that this part of Texas <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>must
+some day bloom into an empire, and fifty years ago he gave $30,000 for
+this tract of land. As Texas commenced to fill up the squatters occupied
+some of the most valuable parts of the country and refused to be
+removed. These desperate fellows declared that they did not believe
+there was any such man as Toombs, the reputed owner of the land; they
+had never seen him, and certainly they would not consent to be
+dispossessed of their holdings.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1857 that Senator Toombs, accompanied by a few of his friends,
+decided to make a trip to Texas and view his large landed possessions.
+For hundreds of miles he traveled on horseback over the plains of Texas,
+sleeping at night in a buffalo robe. He was warned by his agents that he
+had a very desperate set of men to deal with. But Toombs was pretty
+determined himself. He summoned the squatters to a parley at Fort Worth,
+then, a mere spot in the wilderness. The men came in squads, mounted on
+their mustangs, and bearing over their saddles long squirrel rifles.
+They were ready for a shrewd bargain or a sharp vendetta. Senator Toombs
+and his small coterie were armed; and standing against a tree, the
+landlord confronted his tenants or trespassers, he hardly knew which. He
+spoke firmly and pointedly, and pretty soon convinced the settlers that
+they were dealing with no ordinary man. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>said he was willing to allow
+each squatter a certain sum for betterments, if they would move off his
+land, or, if they preferred to stay, he would sell the tract to each man
+at wild-land prices; but, failing in this, they must move away, as he
+had the power to put them out, and would certainly use it. There was a
+good deal of murmuring and caucussing among the men, but they concluded
+that there was a man named Toombs, and that he meant what he said. The
+matter was settled in a business way, and Senator Toombs rode back over
+the prairies, richer by a hundred thousand dollars. These lands were
+immensely valuable during the latter part of his life. They formed the
+bulk of his fortune when the war closed; and during his stay in Paris,
+an exile from his country, in 1866, he used to say that he consumed, in
+his personal expenses, an acre of dirt a day. The land was then worth
+about five dollars an acre.</p>
+
+<p>It was while he was returning home from his Texas trip that the postman
+met him on the plains and delivered a letter from Georgia. This was in
+July, 1857. The letter announced that the Democratic State Convention in
+Georgia had adjourned, after nominating for Governor Joseph E. Brown.
+Senator Toombs read the letter and, looking up in a dazed way, asked,
+"And who in the devil is Joe Brown?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was a good deal of significance in the inquiry. There was a hot
+campaign ahead. The opposition party, made up of Know-nothings and
+old-line Whigs, had nominated Benjamin H. Hill for Governor. Senator
+Toombs knew that it would require a strong man to beat him. Besides the
+Governor, a legislature was to be chosen which was to elect a successor
+to Senator Toombs in the Senate. He was personally interested in seeing
+that the Democratic party, with which he had been in full accord since
+the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, had a strong leader in the
+State. All the way home he was puzzling in his brain about "Joe Brown."</p>
+
+<p>About the time that he returned, he was informed that Hill and Brown had
+met at Glen Spring, near Athens. A large crowd had attended the opening
+discussion. Howell Cobb wrote to Senator Toombs that he had better take
+charge of the campaign himself, as he doubted the ability of Judge Brown
+to handle "Hill of Troup."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Joseph E. Brown had come up from the people. He was a native of Pickens,
+S.&nbsp;C., of old Scotch-Irish stock that had produced Calhoun and Andrew
+Jackson. The late Henry W. Grady, in a bright fancy sketch, once
+declared that the ancestors of Joseph E. Brown lived in Ireland, and
+that "For seven generations, the ancestors of Joe Brown have been
+restless, aggressive rebels&mdash;for a longer time the Toombses have been
+dauntless and intolerant followers of the King. At the siege of
+Londonderry, Margaret and James Brown were within the walls, starving
+and fighting for William and Mary; and I have no doubt there were
+hard-riding Toombses outside the walls, charging in the name of the
+peevish and unhappy James. Certain it is that forty years before, the
+direct ancestors of Robert Toombs, in their estate, were hiding the good
+King Charles in the oak at Boscobel, where, I have no doubt, the father
+and uncle of the Londonderry Brown, with cropped hair and severe mien,
+were proguing about the place with their pikes, searching every bush in
+the name of Cromwell and the psalm-singers. From these initial points
+sprang the two strains of blood&mdash;the one affluent, impetuous, prodigal,
+the other slow, resolute, forceful. From these ancestors came the two
+men&mdash;the one superb, ruddy, fashioned with incomparable grace and
+fullness&mdash;the other pale, thoughtful, angular, stripped down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>to brain
+and sinew. From these opposing theories came the two types: the one
+patrician, imperious, swift in action, and brooking no stay; the other
+democratic, sagacious, jealous of rights, and submitting to no
+opposition. The one for the king, the other for the people."</p>
+
+<p>Young Joe Brown had taught school, studied law, finally completing his
+course at Yale College. He was admitted to the bar in 1845. In 1849 he
+was elected as a Democrat to the State Senate by Cherokee County. In
+1851 he had been a Southern Rights' man, voting for McDonald against
+Cobb, the Union candidate for Governor. In 1852 he was Democratic
+elector for Pierce. In 1855 he was elected by the people judge of the
+Blue Ridge Circuit. He was very strong in North Georgia. The convention
+which selected him as the candidate for Governor met in Milledgeville,
+June 24, 1857. The Democrats had no lack of eminent men. There were
+candidates enough. James Gardner, the brilliant and incisive editor of
+the Augusta <i>Constitutionalist</i>, led the ballot, but Brown was finally
+brought in as a compromise man. His nomination was a surprise.</p>
+
+<p>When Senator Toombs met the young nominee, by appointment, to talk over
+the campaign, he found that he was full of good sense and sagacity. He
+joined him in his canvass, lending his own name and prestige to the
+Democratic meetings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> But he found much shrewdness and homely wisdom
+about Joseph E. Brown, and he became convinced that he was able to make
+his way to the favor of the people without outside aid. The Democratic
+nominee proved his ability to stand before the luminous oratory of Ben
+Hill himself. Brown had courage, clearness, and tact, with growing
+ability and confidence. He soon developed the full strength of the
+Democratic party, which, in Georgia, was overwhelming. Joseph E. Brown
+was elected Governor, and the last vestige of the American party went
+down in 1857. The legislature was overwhelmingly Democratic.</p>
+
+<p>On the 6th of November, 1857, Mr. Toombs wrote from Milledgeville to his
+wife, pending the election of United States Senator:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I got here Wednesday and found the usual turmoil and
+excitement. Governor McDonald is here and has been trying
+hard to beat me, but I find very unexpected and gratifying
+unanimity in my favor. The party met this evening and
+nominated me by acclamation, with but two or three
+dissenting votes, and they speak of bringing on the
+election to-morrow. I am very anxious to see you, and am
+tired of wandering about in excited crowds; but I suppose
+after to-morrow I will have peace, so far as I am
+concerned, for the next six years. I think I shall be
+entitled to exemption from the actual duties of future
+campaigns to stay at home with you.</p></div>
+
+<p>He was re&euml;lected to the United States Senate for the term beginning
+March 4, 1857.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When President Buchanan was inaugurated, he announced that a case was
+pending in the Supreme Court upon the occupation of the Territories. By
+this decision he would abide. The day after the inauguration the
+decision was announced. It was the celebrated Dred Scott case. It fell
+like a bomb into the antislavery camp. The great question involved was
+whether it was competent for Congress, directly or indirectly, to
+exclude slavery from the Territories of the United States. The Supreme
+Court decided that it was not. Six judges out of eight made this
+decision. The opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.</p>
+
+<p>This decision added to the fury of the storm. It was announced that the
+Chief Justice had announced the doctrine that "negroes had no rights
+that a white man was bound to respect"; a sentiment so atrocious that
+this official repelled it with indignation. Efforts were made to bury
+the Chief Justice in obloquy.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle over the admission of Kansas into the Union was prolonged
+in Congress. But the situation in Kansas became warmer every year. The
+Eastern immigrant societies were met by inroads of Missouri and Southern
+settlers. A state of civil war virtually obtained in 1856-57, and
+throughout Buchanan's administration there was a sharp skirmish of new
+settlers and a sharp <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>maneuver of parties for position. The Georgia
+State Democratic Convention of 1857 demanded the removal of Robert J.
+Walker, who had been appointed Governor of Kansas. He was a Southern
+man, but was regarded as favoring the antislavery party in its efforts
+to organize the Territory. The truth was, as Senator Toombs had clearly
+foreseen and expressed in his speech in the Senate in 1856, Kansas was
+destined to be a free State, and amid the violence of the agitation,
+confined to no one side, was marching steadily toward this destiny. The
+administration favored the admission of Kansas with the Lecompton
+Constitution, which was decidedly favorable to the proslavery men.
+Senator Douglas opposed this plan. He had become committed to the policy
+of squatter sovereignty during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill in
+1854. He contended that the settlers of a Territory could determine the
+character of their institutions, a position which the Buchanan party
+denounced as inconsistent with Democratic principles. Mr. Douglas
+indorsed the Dred Scott decision, but maintained his position on popular
+sovereignty. He became at once unpopular with the rank and file of the
+Southern Democracy, with whom he had long been a favorite. He was also
+estranged from the administration, and it was evident that he would have
+no easy matter to be re&euml;lected United States Senator. This election came
+off in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>the fall of 1858. It was clear to him that, to maintain his
+prominence in politics, he must carry Illinois. Unless he could save his
+own State his chance for President was gone. So he went into this
+memorable canvass with his own party divided and a determined opponent
+in the person of Abraham Lincoln. The young Republican party in Illinois
+had been gathering strength with each new phase of the slavery question.</p>
+
+<p>The joint debate between Douglas and Lincoln was memorable. As a
+dexterous debater, Douglas had no equal in the Union. He was strong on
+the stump and incomparable in a popular assembly. Without grace or
+imagination, he was yet a plausible, versatile man, quick and ingenious,
+resolute and ready, with a rare faculty for convincing men. He was small
+and sinewy, with smooth face, bright eye, and broad brow, and his
+neighbors called him the "Little Giant." He could be specious, even
+fallacious; he employed an <i>ad captandum</i> kind of oratory, which was
+taking with a crowd and confusing to an adversary. The man who met him
+in these debates was a tall, impressive personage, rough, original, but
+direct and thoroughly sincere. In many points he was the opposite of
+Douglas.</p>
+
+<p>He was rather an ill-ordered growth of the early West, a man who had
+toiled and suffered from his youth up. He was full of sharp corners and
+rough edges, and his nature was a strange mixture of pa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>tience and
+melancholy. As Mr. Stephens said, he regarded slavery "in the light of a
+religious mysticism," and believed that his mission to beat it down was
+God-ordained. And yet he was a statesman, a public man of breadth and
+prominence, a speaker of force and persuasion. He had the robust courage
+of a pioneer and the high purpose of a reformer. It was in this debate
+that Mr. Lincoln, at Freeport, Ill., asked Mr. Douglas that memorable
+question, on the stump: "Can the people of a Territory, in any lawful
+way, exclude slavery from their limits, prior to the formation of a
+State constitution?" Mr. Douglas promptly answered, "Yes." This was his
+doctrine of popular sovereignty. But the answer cost him the Democratic
+nomination to the Presidency. The theory that a mass of settlers,
+squatting in a Territory, could fix and determine the character of the
+Territory's domestic institutions, was repugnant to a large portion of
+the Southern people. They claimed that under the Dred Scott decision,
+slavery already existed in the Territories, and must be protected by the
+Constitution; and that it was not competent for the people to determine
+for themselves the question of slavery or no slavery, until they formed
+a constitution for admission into the Union as a State.</p>
+
+<p>The election in Illinois, in the fall of 1858, gave Stephen A. Douglas a
+majority of eight in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> General Assembly over Abraham Lincoln, and
+Douglas was re&euml;lected for the new term. In this contest he had been
+opposed by the Buchanan Democrats, who cast over 8000 votes in Illinois.</p>
+
+<p>In the Senate, the debate on popular sovereignty was renewed. This time
+Jefferson Davis, a senator from Mississippi, attacked this position as
+incompatible with the Constitution and the laws. Mr. Davis was a
+skillful debater. His mind was singularly graceful and refined. He was
+eloquent, logical, and courageous. His career as soldier and statesman,
+as War Minister under Pierce, and as senator for Mississippi, made him a
+prominent figure. He was cultured, classical, and well rounded, equipped
+by leisure and long study for the career before him. He had vanquished
+Sergeant S. Prentiss in public discussion over the national bank, and
+contested, inch by inch, the domination of Henry S. Foote in
+Mississippi. His career in the Mexican war had been a notable one.
+Allied to Zachary Taylor by marriage, a West Pointer by training, a
+Southern planter by occupation, he was a typical defender of slavery as
+it existed. Davis was as slender and frail as Douglas was compact and
+sinewy. Like Lincoln, his mind grasped great principles, while Douglas
+was fighting for points and expedients.</p>
+
+<p>Douglas declared that the territorial settler could determine whether
+slavery should exist, by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>his influence in providing or withholding
+police power; although he denied the constitutional right to legislate
+slavery out of the Territories, yet he believed the "popular sovereign"
+could, by means of "unfriendly legislation," bar out the Southern
+settler with his slaves. It was not difficult for Mr. Davis to impale
+him upon this plea.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Douglas had saved his seat in the Senate, but his position in
+the Democratic party was weakened. The Lecompton Constitution passed the
+Senate in spite of Douglas's steady opposition.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs took no part in the subtleties of the Douglas-Davis
+debate. He listened to the refinements of that discussion with decided
+convictions of his own, but with clear appreciation of the fact that
+every point scored against Douglas was cleaving the Democratic party in
+twain. Mr. Toombs favored the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution,
+but when it was rejected by the House, he promptly accepted the English
+compromise, to refer the matter back to the people. Mr. Toombs had
+always been partial to Douglas. In the campaign of 1856 he declared, in
+Georgia, that "the man who condemned Senator Douglas needed watching
+himself." He viewed with some pain the Douglas departure over popular
+sovereignty; indeed he once declared that had he not been called away
+from the Senate for quite a time in 1856, Mr. Douglas would never have
+gone off <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>on this tangent. When asked if Douglas were really a great
+man, Senator Toombs, in 1860, answered with characteristic heartiness
+and exaggeration, "There has been but one greater, and he, the Apostle
+Paul."</p>
+
+<p>It was very evident that the people of the South would demand new
+guarantees for the protection of slavery against the dogma of popular
+sovereignty. The platform of the Cincinnati convention, upon which
+Buchanan had been elected, must be recast. The platform had declared
+that immigrants to any part of the public domain were to settle the
+question of slavery for themselves. The new plank, which President
+Buchanan framed, was that the government of a Territory was provisional
+and temporary, and during its existence, all citizens of the United
+States had an equal right to settle with their property in the
+Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being
+destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation. The
+two last words contained the gist of the resolution, which was aimed at
+Senator Douglas. However right as an abstract principle, Mr. Stephens
+declared that this was a departure from the doctrine of
+non-intervention.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that Senator Toombs made one of the most important
+speeches of his life. This was delivered in Augusta, Ga., September 8,
+1859, during an exciting campaign. Governor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> Brown was a candidate for
+re&euml;lection, and a strong opposition party had developed in Georgia,
+representing the extreme Southern sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs said that the opposition to the Kansas bill had continued
+because it was said to recognize the right of the people of a Territory,
+through the Territorial legislature, to establish or prohibit slavery.
+"When we condemned and abrogated Congressional intervention against us,"
+said he, "that was a great point gained. Congress had actually excluded
+us from the Territories for thirty years. The people of a Territory had
+in no instance attempted such an iniquity. I considered it wise,
+prudent, and politic to settle the question against our common enemy,
+Congress, even if I left it unsettled as to our known friends, the
+people of the Territories. We could not settle the question of the power
+of the people over slavery while in a territorial condition, because
+Democrats differed on that point. We, therefore, declared in the Kansas
+bill that we left the people of the Territories perfectly free to form
+and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only
+to the Constitution of the United States. We decided to refer the
+question to the Supreme Court. It has gone there and been decided in our
+favor. The Southern friends of the measure repudiate the principle of
+squatter sovereignty. I stand its steady and uncompromising adversary.
+The doc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>trine of Douglas has not a leg to stand upon. Yet I do not
+belong to those who denounce him. The organization of the Democratic
+party leaves this an open question, and Mr. Douglas is at full liberty
+to take either side he may choose, and if he maintains his ground of
+neither making nor accepting new tests of political soundness, I shall
+consider him a political friend, and will accept him as the
+representative of the party, whatever it may tender him. I do not
+hesitate to tell you that, with his errors, I prefer him and would
+support him to-morrow against any opposition leader in America.</p>
+
+<p>"We are told," said Mr. Toombs, "that we must put a new plank in the
+platform of the Democratic party, and demand the affirmance of the duty
+of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, where such Territory may
+fail to discharge this duty. I reply, I do not think it is wise to do
+the thing proposed, and the inducement would not help the proposition.
+While I have already asserted full and complete power of Congress to do
+this, I think, with Mr. Madison, that it should be prudently and
+carefully exercised, and it ought not to be exercised until the occasion
+is imperative. There has been no occasion, from 1789 to this hour,
+calling for it, and I am more than willing that the Territorial settlers
+shall continue to govern themselves in their own way, so long as they
+respect the rights of all the people. I will not insult them by
+sup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>posing them capable of disregarding the Constitution of the United
+States, or by assuming that they are incapable of honest
+self-government.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I shall prescribe no new test of party fealty to Northern
+Democrats, those men who have hitherto stood with honor and fidelity
+upon their engagements. They have maintained the truth to their own
+hurt. They have displayed a patriotism, a magnanimity rarely equaled in
+the world's history, and I shall endeavor, in sunshine and in storm,
+with your approbation if I can get it, without it if I must, to stand by
+them with fidelity equal to their great deserts. If you will stand with
+me, we shall conquer faction in the North and South, and shall save the
+country from the curse of being ruled by the combination now calling
+itself the opposition. We shall leave this country to our children as we
+found it&mdash;united, strong, prosperous and happy."</p>
+
+<p>This was a memorable speech, strong, sincere, and conservative, and had
+a marked effect. It was intended, not only to influence the canvass then
+pending, but to have an effect in controlling the National convention to
+be held six months later. It was copied far and wide, and the success of
+the State candidates whom Mr. Toombs supported showed that its
+statesmanlike utterances were adopted overwhelmingly in Georgia.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>JOHN BROWN&rsquo;S RAID.</h3>
+
+
+<p>But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new
+Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep
+statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong
+and weak alike. It has been asserted, and with truth, that disunion was
+precipitated by the people, not by the politicians&mdash;by the North as well
+as by the South.</p>
+
+<p>The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which
+would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray
+of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was
+captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers
+and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E.
+Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair
+created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this
+movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The
+criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the
+North. The man, who under normal con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>ditions of society would have been
+sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and
+mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his
+honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States passed
+strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern
+press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's
+body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his
+grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.</p>
+
+<p>What the Dred Scott decision had wrought at the North, the Ossawatomie
+raid awoke at the South. The main features of Buchanan's administration
+to hasten the "irrepressible conflict" were the well-weighed words of
+the Chief Justice and the wild invasion of a border ruffian. Strange
+paradox, but such were the influences at work in those disordered times.
+Men lost their moorings, and political parties abandoned settled
+policies. Events crowded with remorseless impact upon certain civil
+strife.</p>
+
+<p>Under this new condition of things Mr. Toombs made his great "door-sill"
+speech in the United States Senate, on the 24th of January, 1860. It was
+upon the resolution offered by Senator Douglas calling for a measure of
+protection of each State and Territory against invasion by the
+authorities and inhabitants of every other State and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> Territory. Senator
+Toombs declared that the resolution opened up a new page in the history
+of our country. It was a step in the right direction. He feared that the
+disease lay too deep for the remedy. Heretofore the people of the United
+States could grapple and surmount all difficulties, foreign and
+domestic. A spirit of nationality, a common interest, a common danger,
+carried the country through revolutions. Now all this has changed. The
+feeling of loyalty and common destiny is rapidly passing away. Hostility
+to the compact of the Union, to the tie which binds us together, finds
+utterance in the tongues of millions of our countrymen, animates their
+bosoms, and leads to the habitual disregard of the plainest duties and
+obligations. Large bodies of men now feel and know that party success
+involves danger; that the result may bring us face to face with
+revolution.</p>
+
+<p>"The fundamental principles of our Union are assailed, invaded, and
+threatened with destruction; our ancient rights and liberties are in
+danger; the peace and tranquillity of our homes have been invaded by
+lawless violence, and their further invasion is imminent; the instinct
+of self-preservation arms society to their defense."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle introduced into our
+Constitution. <a name="Page_171t" id="Page_171t"></a><a href="#Page_171tn">["]</a>It was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. The New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+England Confederation adopted it in 1643. The Supreme Judicial tribunal
+of Prussia affirmed it as the public law of Europe as late as 1855. It
+was acknowledged to be a sound principle of public law in the days of
+Pericles, and its violation by one of the States of Greece was the chief
+cause of the Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for twenty-one
+years. The Megareans had given refuge to the revolted slaves of Athens."</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he continued, "the bargain is broken&mdash;broken by the States
+whose policy I have reviewed; broken by the Republican party, which did
+the work in their legislatures and elsewhere. Their hands are soiled
+with the blood of the compact. They cannot be permitted to minister at
+its altar. Their representatives on this floor mock at constitutional
+obligations; jeer at oaths. They have lost their shame with their
+virtue.... In the name of the people, I repeat, I demand the bond. In
+the name of every true and honest man at the North as well as the South,
+I demand the resumption of your plighted faith. Upon these terms I have
+ever been willing to let the Union stand, but upon no other.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is responsible for the murder, treason, and arson of John Brown? I
+have never known of his acts being approved or palliated by any other
+person than a Republican. Thousands of them have done it and are now
+doing it. In charging <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>this dark catalogue of crime against this
+organization, I would not be unjust. I have no doubt that thousands of
+persons belonging to that organization throughout the North, loathe and
+despise John Brown's raid; but it is equally true that there are other
+thousands in the same organization who do approve it. They tell us that
+they condemn his acts, but admire his heroism. I think the Republican
+party must be pressed for a hero. The 'Newgate Calendar' can furnish
+them with a dozen such saints. To 'die game' and not to 'peach' are
+sometimes useful, if not heroic, virtues in an accomplice. The thousands
+of blind Republicans who do openly approve the treason, murder, and
+arson of John Brown, get no condemnation from their party for such acts.
+They are its main defenders and propagandists all over the North, and,
+therefore, the party is in moral complicity with the criminal himself.
+No society can long exist in peace under these injuries, because we are
+in virtual civil war; hence, I denounce their authors, the Republican
+party, as enemies of the Constitution and enemies of my country.</p>
+
+<p>"It is vain, in face of these injuries, to talk of peace, fraternity,
+and common country. There is no peace; there is no fraternity; there is
+no common country; all of us know it.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I have but little more to add&mdash;nothing for myself. I feel that I
+have no need to pledge <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>my poor services to this great cause, to my
+country. My State has spoken for herself. Nine years ago a convention of
+her people met and declared that her connection with this government
+depended upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave law. I was a
+member of that convention, and I stood then and stand now pledged to its
+action. I have faithfully labored to arrest these calamities; I will yet
+labor until this last contingency happens, faithfully, honestly, and to
+the best of my ability. When that time comes, freemen of Georgia, redeem
+your pledges! I am ready to redeem mine. Your honor is involved, your
+faith is plighted. I know you feel a stain as a wound. Your peace, your
+social system, your friends are involved. Never permit this Federal
+Government to pass into the traitors' hands of the black Republican
+party. It has already declared war against you and your institutions. It
+every day commits acts of war against you; it has already compelled you
+to arm for your defense. Listen to no vain babbling; to no treacherous
+jargon about 'overt acts'; they have already been committed. Defend
+yourselves! The enemy is at your door; wait not to meet him at your
+hearthstone; meet him at the door-sill, and drive him from the Temple of
+Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was an unfortunate time for the meeting of the Democratic National
+Convention. The hope that the party which had so often brought harmony
+from discord could unite upon the soil of an extreme Southern State was
+destined to be broken. The body met in Charleston on April 23, 1860. The
+place was worthy of the assemblage. For the first time in the party
+history, its convention had met south of Cincinnati or Baltimore.
+Redolent with the beauties of spring and the tint of historic interest,
+Charleston, with its memories of Moultrie, inspired feelings of
+patriotic pride. If it suggested the obstruction of Calhoun, it recalled
+the Revolutionary glory of Marion and Rutledge, and the bold challenge
+of Hayne to Webster, that if there be one State in the Union which could
+challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, ardent, and zealous
+devotion to the Union, that State was South Carolina.</p>
+
+<p>It was a memorable meeting. The convention was presided over by Caleb
+Cushing of Massachusetts, the devoted friend of Daniel Webster, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+Attorney-General under Franklin Pierce. In its ranks were Henry B. Payne
+of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and James A. Bayard of
+Delaware. These men were towers of strength in the North. They were the
+men to whom Robert Toombs had appealed in the Senate, when he turned
+from his fiery imprecation and, lowering his great voice, declared, with
+tenderness and pride, "I have no word of invocation to those who stand
+to-day in the ranks of Northern Democracy, but to remember and emulate
+their past history. From the beginning of this controversy they have
+stood firmly by the Constitution. No body of men in the world's history
+ever exhibited higher or nobler devotion to principle under such adverse
+circumstances.... Amid the opprobrious epithets, the gibes and jeers of
+the enemies of the Constitution; worse than this, amid words of distrust
+and reproach even from men of the South, these great-hearted patriots
+have marched steadily in the path of duty.... The union of all these
+elements may yet secure to our country peace and safety. But if this
+cannot be done, safety and peace are incompatible in the Union. Amid
+treachery and desertion at home, and injustice from without, amid
+disaster and defeat, they have risen superior to fortune, and stand
+to-day with their banners all tattered and soiled in the humble service
+of the whole country. No matter what fortune may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>tide us in the
+future, while life lasts, I have a hand that will succor and a heart
+ready to embrace the humblest soldier of this noble band."</p>
+
+<p>At that time there were thirty-three States in the Union. The committee
+on platform consisted of one from each State. The delegates from
+California and Oregon, voting with the South, gave them seventeen votes
+in committee. The resolutions were quickly framed, with the exception of
+the one on slavery. Here was the deadlock. The majority plank declared
+that the right to settle in the Territories with slaves "was not to be
+destroyed nor impaired by Territorial legislation." The minority
+proposed once more to leave the question to the Supreme Court. The
+compromise was not accepted. The two reports came before the convention,
+and, the Douglas men being in the majority on the floor, the minority,
+or squatter-sovereignty report, was adopted by a vote of 165 to 138.
+Here came the crisis. The delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida,
+Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and a part of Delaware, withdrew from the
+convention. Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama led this movement. He was
+a man of courage and decision, with unrivaled powers of oratory. He had
+been a member of Congress, and his influence in the South was large. So
+far back as June 15, 1858, he had written a famous letter to James M.
+Slaughter that "no national party <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>can save us; no sectional party can
+ever do it; but if we would do as our fathers did, organize committees
+of safety all over the cotton States&mdash;and it is only to them that we can
+hope for any effectual movement&mdash;we shall fire the Southern heart,
+instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and, by one
+concerted action, we can precipitate the cotton States into a
+revolution." This was called the "Scarlet Letter," and was widely
+scattered and read.</p>
+
+<p>The seceding delegates organized a second assemblage over which the Hon.
+James A. Bayard presided. The Douglas men were left in control of the
+first convention, but could not secure the two-thirds vote necessary for
+his nomination. More than fifty ballots were taken, the full strength of
+the Illinois candidate being 152. On the 3d of May the convention
+adjourned to meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June, when it was hoped a
+spirit of compromise might be inspired by the seriousness of the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of the break in that body Mr. Yancey made a speech in
+Charleston, when in prophetic words he declared, "Perhaps even now the
+pen of the historian is nibbed to inscribe the history of a new
+revolution."</p>
+
+<p>The seceding delegates called for a convention to be held in Richmond,
+Va., on the second Monday in June.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the seven States had withdrawn from the convention, the Georgia
+delegation was split up. A majority left the convention, a small
+minority remained. This action created great excitement in Georgia. The
+Democratic executive committee called a State convention to meet in
+Milledgeville on June 4. A committee of prominent citizens, headed by
+Hon. J. J. Gresham of Macon, addressed letters to public men asking
+their views in this alarming situation. Howell Cobb indorsed the
+seceders; he was opposed to Douglas. Alexander H. Stephens thought
+Georgia should appoint delegates to the Baltimore convention, withdraw
+the demand for a new plank in the Cincinnati platform, abide by the
+doctrine of non-intervention, and nominate a good man for President. "If
+we must quarrel with the North," said he, "let us base it on the
+aggressive acts of our enemies and not on the supposed shortcomings of
+our friends."</p>
+
+<p>Hon. Robert Toombs did not come South during the Charleston convention.
+He watched from his post in the Senate the great struggle between the
+Democratic factions. On May 10, he wrote, in reply to the letter of the
+Macon committee:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Perhaps the time may not have come for the attainment of
+the full measure of our constitutional rights; it may not
+have been prudent on the part of the representatives of the
+seventeen States to have sanctioned and presented as much
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>truth on the slavery issue as is contained in what is
+commonly called the majority platform; but when it was thus
+sanctioned, approved, and presented to the convention, it
+was well to stand by and defend it, especially against the
+platform of the minority. The seceding delegates did this
+with manly firmness, and I approve their action.</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs advised, however, that the seceding delegates ought to meet
+with the convention at Baltimore and endeavor to obtain such a
+satisfactory adjustment of difficulties as could be secured. "This
+course requires no sacrifice of principles." This plan had been proposed
+by the delegates from New York to the delegates from the Southern
+States. "The proposed Richmond convention, if it shall be found
+necessary to hold it," he said, "can be held after, as well as before
+the Baltimore convention, and I think with clearer lights for its
+guidance."</p>
+
+<p>"It is sometimes wise," said Mr. Toombs, "to accept a part of our just
+rights, if we can have the residue unimpaired and uncompromised, but
+nothing can justify a voluntary surrender of principle, indispensable to
+the safety and honor of the State.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true we are surrounded with danger, but I do not concur in the
+opinion that the danger to the Union is even one of our greatest perils.
+The greatest danger, to-day, is that the Union will survive the
+Constitution. The body of your enemies in the North, who hate the
+Constitution, and daily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>trample it under their feet, profess an ardent
+attachment to the Union, and I doubt not, feel such attachment for a
+Union unrestrained by a Constitution. Do not mistake your real danger!
+The Union has more friends than you have, and will last, at least, as
+long as its continuance will be compatible with your safety."</p>
+
+<p>Prior to the reassembling of the Democratic convention, the resolutions
+introduced by the Hon. Jefferson Davis, containing the Southern
+exposition of principles, came up in the Senate. Mr. Toombs had opposed
+the policy of introducing those resolutions, but as they were then
+before the country, he said they should be met. He ridiculed the idea of
+popular sovereignty. He declared that Congress should protect slavery in
+the Territories. The Federal Government, he claimed, did protect its
+citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad, everywhere except
+on the soil of our own territory, acquired by common blood and treasure.</p>
+
+<p>This speech of Senator Toombs marked an epoch in his career. It
+separated him entirely from Stephen A. Douglas, to whom he had been
+closely allied, in spite, as he said, of Douglas having wandered after
+strange gods. Douglas absented himself from the Senate when Toombs
+spoke. For the first time in twenty years, Toombs and Stephens took
+divergent paths. They were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>called in Georgia the "Siamese twins." From
+the election of Harrison to the Democratic split in 1860, they had been
+personal friends and firm political allies. Mr. Stephens was for Douglas
+and the Union; Mr. Toombs feared lest "the Union survive the
+Constitution."</p>
+
+<p>The Democratic party in Georgia met on June 4, and parted on the lines
+of the Charleston division. The Union element in Georgia was led by
+Herschel V. Johnson, a man of power and influence. He had been Governor
+of the State, was a man of learning, profound in thought and candid in
+expression. His wife was a niece of President Polk. His state papers
+were models of clear and classical expression. Governor Johnson was,
+however, better fitted for the bench or the Cabinet than for a public
+leader.</p>
+
+<p>Both wings of the Georgia convention appointed delegates to the
+Baltimore convention. That body admitted the delegation which had
+seceded from the Charleston convention. As the seceding delegates from
+the other States were rejected, the Georgia delegates refused to go in.
+Missouri was the only Southern State which was represented entirely in
+the body, composed of 190 delegates. Massachusetts withdrew and Caleb
+Cushing resigned the chair. Stephen A. Douglas was nominated for
+President of the United States. Governor Fitzpatrick of Alabama declined
+the vice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>presidency, and Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was chosen for
+vice president. The seceders immediately organized a national
+convention, Mr. Cushing presiding. It was composed of 210 delegates. The
+majority or anti-Douglas platform of the Charleston convention was
+adopted. John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky was nominated for President,
+and Joseph C. Lane of Oregon for vice president. Mr. Breckenridge was at
+that time vice president of the United States, and Mr. Lane was a
+senator. Meanwhile, a Constitutional Union party had been formed in
+Georgia, and had elected delegates to a convention of that party in
+Baltimore. This body nominated for President and vice president, John
+Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Mr. Bell had been
+United States Senator at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska
+bill, in 1854, and had been arraigned by Mr. Toombs for opposing the
+party policy. He was one of the thirteen who voted against it in the
+Senate.</p>
+
+<p>The contest in Georgia waged with much vigor. Robert Toombs supported
+Breckenridge. He was a delegate to the Democratic State convention which
+put out a Breckenridge and Lane electoral ticket. He cut out the
+business of that convention, and declared that the Constitution and
+equality of the States was the only bond of everlasting union. Mr.
+Stephens headed the Douglas ticket.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> Senator Douglas himself came to
+Georgia and spoke during the campaign. The Bell and Everett ticket was
+championed by Benjamin H. Hill. The vote in Georgia was: Breckenridge,
+51,893; Douglas, 11,580; Bell, 42,855.</p>
+
+<p>Of these three Georgians, so strikingly arrayed against each other in
+this critical campaign, Mr. Vincent, a gifted Texan, thus wrote with
+dramatic power: "Hill, Stephens, Toombs&mdash;all eloquent, all imbued with
+the same lofty patriotism. They differed widely in their methods; their
+opinions were irreconcilable, their policies often diametrically
+opposite. Hill was quick, powerful, but unpersistent; Stephens, slow,
+forcible and compromising; Toombs, instantaneous, overwhelming, and
+unyielding. Hill carried the crowd with a whirlwind of eloquence;
+Stephens first convinced, then moved them with accelerating force;
+Toombs swept them with a hurricane of thought and magnetic example.
+Hill's eloquence was in flights, always rising and finally sublime;
+Stephens' was argumentative with an elegant smoothness, often flowing in
+sweeping, majestic waves; Toombs' was an engulfing stream of impetuous
+force, with the roar of thunder. Hill was receptive, elastic, and full
+of the future; Stephens was philosophical, adaptable, and full of the
+past; Toombs was inexhaustible, original, inflexible, and full of the
+now. It was Hill's special forte to close a cam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>paign; Stephens' to
+manage it; Toombs' to originate it. In politics as in war, he sought,
+with the suddenness of an electric flash, to combat, vanquish, and slay.
+Hill's eloquence exceeded his judgment; Stephens' judgment was superior
+to his oratorical power; in Toombs these were equipollent. Hill
+considered expediency; Stephens, policy; Toombs, principle always; Hill
+would perhaps flatter, Stephens temporize, Toombs neither&mdash;never. At
+times Hill would resort to the arts of the dialectician; Stephens would
+quibble over the niceties of construction; Toombs relied on the
+impregnability of his position, the depth of his thought, the vigor of
+his reasoning. Hill discussed with opponents; Stephens debated with
+them; Toombs ignored them. Hill refuted and vanquished his adversaries;
+Stephens persuaded and led them; Toombs magnetized them, and they
+followed him. Their enemies said that Hill was treacherous in politics;
+Stephens selfishly ambitious; and that Toombs loaned like a prince and
+collected like a Shylock.</p>
+
+<p>"In those days Georgia did not put pygmies on pedestals. Hill will be
+remembered by his 'Notes on the Situation'; Stephens by his 'War between
+the States'; Toombs had no circumstantial superiority. He is immortal,
+as the people are eternal."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>TOOMBS AS A LEGISLATOR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Georgia had taken a leading hand in the momentous events. Alexander H.
+Stephens had been prominently mentioned for President; so had Howell
+Cobb. When Senator Toombs had attacked the doctrine of Mr. Douglas, the
+followers of the latter charged that Mr. Toombs had deserted his old
+ally, and was himself making a bid for the presidency. Especially was
+this the case, they urged, as Mr. Toombs had recommended the seceding
+delegates to go back to the Baltimore convention, and endeavor to effect
+an honorable adjustment. The Augusta <i>Chronicle and Sentinel</i>, a leading
+Union organ, took up the charge and asked: "What of it? He is certainly
+as much entitled to it as any citizen in the republic. Were he elected,
+he would be such a President as the country needs, giving no countenance
+to corruption or fraud, but, with a will of his own, setting aside all
+dictation and acting as President of all the people. We doubt if there
+is a man that could arouse such a furor in his behalf, North or South,
+as Robert Toombs."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Close friends of Mr. Toombs at that time believed he was not without his
+ambition to occupy the Executive chair. Never an office-seeker, he had
+gone easily to the front rank of national politics and had won his
+honors in Georgia in a kingly way. He realized, however, that he was not
+politic enough to gain support from Northern States. His convictions
+were overmastering passions; his speech was fervid and fearless; and his
+bold, imperturbable expression had placed him in a fierce white light,
+which barred him from the promotion of party conventions. While his
+enemies were accusing him of a desire to destroy the Union and embroil
+the sections, Robert Toombs was probably cherishing in his heart a vague
+hope that one day he might be called to the presidency of a common
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs was very active in attending to his public duties. He was
+interested in every species of legislation. His remarks upon the
+different matters of national business exhibited versatility, study, and
+interest in everything that affected the public welfare. Those who
+believe him to have been a conspirator, using his high position to
+overthrow the government, have only to look over the debates in Congress
+to see how active and conscientious were his efforts to promote every
+real interest of the Union.</p>
+
+<p>In the United States Senate, on July 31, 1854,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> Mr. Toombs gave an
+elaborate exposition of his views upon the policy of internal
+improvements. He said he had maintained opposition to this system as a
+fundamental principle. Since he entered public life, he had sustained
+President Polk's veto of the River and Harbor bill in 1847. He believed
+that Congress had no constitutional power to begin or carry on a general
+system of internal improvements. He wanted to know where this power of
+the Constitution could be found. Madison and Jefferson had opposed this
+system. Monroe, Jackson, and Clay had yielded to the popular pressure
+and sanctioned it. "Instead of leaving the taxes or the money in the
+pockets of the people," he said, "you have spent nine months in
+endeavoring to squander and arranging to have more to squander in the
+next Congress. I should like to use a polite term," said he, "for I am a
+good-natured man, but I think it is corruption.</p>
+
+<p>"In this bill you offer me seventy thousand dollars for the Savannah
+river. Ships were sunk in that river for the common defense of the
+country during the Revolutionary War. You are bound to abate your
+nuisance at common law. You might offer me this Capitol full of gold,
+and	 I would scorn the gift just less than the giver. You ought to have
+removed these obstructions long ago. When we come and ask of you this
+act of justice, you tell me to go with you into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>your internal
+improvement bill and take pot-luck with you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs claimed that the power given to Congress to regulate
+commerce, simply meant to prescribe the rules by which commerce could be
+carried on, and nothing else. "The people of Maryland," he said, "had
+never asked that the harbor of Baltimore should be cleaned at the
+expense of the people of Georgia. They did not ask that other people
+should pay their burdens. They came here and asked the privilege of
+taxing their own commerce for their own benefit, and we granted it. I
+hold it to be a fundamental principle in all governments, and especially
+in all free governments, that you should not put burdens on the people
+whenever you can discriminate and put them on those who enjoy the
+benefits. You started with that principle with your post-office
+establishments.</p>
+
+<p>"Senators, is it just? I tell you, as God lives, it is not just, and you
+ought not to do it. There is manhood in the people of the Mississippi
+Valley. Let them levy tonnage duties for their own rivers and ports and
+put up their own lighthouses, and charge the people who use them for the
+benefits conferred. Let the honest farmer who makes his hay, who gathers
+his cheese, who raises his meal in Vermont, be not taxed to increase
+your magnificent improvements of nature <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>and your already gigantic
+wealth. Senators, it is unjust."</p>
+
+<p>During the session of Congress of 1856-57, Senator Toombs again
+arraigned the whole system of internal improvements. He carefully
+differentiated between building a lighthouse and clearing out a harbor
+by the Federal Government. He said in course of the debate: "Where
+lighthouses are necessary for the protection of your navy, I admit the
+power to make them; but it must be where they are necessary, and not
+merely for the benefit and facilitation of commerce. Foreign and
+domestic commerce ought to be charged, as in England and France, for the
+benefit they receive. I would make the shipowners, the common carriers
+of this country, who are constantly using the power of this government
+to make money out of the products of honest industry and agriculture,
+submit to this rule.</p>
+
+<p>"The power to found a navy is found in the only fountain of power in
+this country, the Constitution. The defense of one is the defense of
+all. The destruction of nationality is the destruction of the life of
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"I say if you take away the property of one man and give it to a
+thousand, or if you take away the property of a million and give it to
+nineteen millions, you do not create national wealth by transferring it
+from the pockets of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>honest industry to other people's pockets. This is
+my principle. It is immovable. The more commerce there is on the
+Mississippi the more they are able and competent to pay the expenses of
+transporting it, and I only ask that they shall do it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs sustained the veto of President Pierce of the Mississippi
+River bill.</p>
+
+<p>In July, 1856, he said that he had for eleven years maintained the
+vetoes of Mr. Polk. "I have perceived that this mischief is widespread,
+this corruption greater, this tendency to the destruction of the country
+is more dangerous. The tendency to place the whole government under the
+money power of the nation is greater and greater. The danger may be all
+of my imagination; but whether that be so, or whether I see in a bolder
+light the evil that will grow by letting this sluice from the public
+treasury and making it run by the will of the majority, I deem it so
+important that it may be worth an empire. We are called on, upon the
+idea of everybody helping everybody's bill, to vote for them all. There
+certainly can be no greater abandonment of public principle than is here
+presented."</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs, while a member of the Georgia Legislature, opposed the
+omnibus bill, granting State aid to railroads, and one of the first
+devices <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>to fall under his criticism was a scheme to build a road to his
+own town. He was by nature progressive. He championed the cause of the
+State railroad of Georgia. In general terms he believed that the States
+and the people should carry out works of internal improvement. It is
+said that the first office ever held by Mr. Toombs was that of
+commissioner of the town of Washington, Ga. The election hinged upon a
+question of public improvement, the question being "ditch or no ditch";
+Toombs was elected commissioner, and the ditch was dug.</p>
+
+<p>He was nothing of a demagogue. He did not attempt to belittle the public
+service. He championed the provision for higher pay for the United
+States Judges, and for increasing the stipend of army officers, although
+he denounced the system of double rations as vicious. He did not
+hesitate to hit an unnecessary expense in every shape. All overflowing
+pension grabs found in him a deadly enemy. In December, 1856, while
+speaking on the subject of claims, he said: "In 1828, when half a
+century had passed over the heads of the men who fought your battles,
+when their generation was gone, when Tories and jobbers could not be
+distinguished from the really meritorious, the agents came here and
+attempted to intimidate public men." He alluded to pension agents as men
+who prowl about and make <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>fortunes by peddling in the pretended
+patriotism and sufferings of their fathers.</p>
+
+<p>"It is," said he, "a poor pretext for an honorable man to come and tell
+the government, 'My ancestor fought for his own and the public liberty;
+he did not choose to be a slave to a foreign despotism; but with
+manliness, and honor, and patriotism, he fought during the war; now pay
+me for this. I want to be paid in hard dollars for the honor, and
+chivalry, and patriotism of my ancestor.' I tell you, Mr. President, it
+is not good money; it is bad money; it is dishonorable to the memory of
+those who fought your battles."</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1857, the electoral vote for President was counted by the
+two Houses of Congress. The vote of the State of Wisconsin (five
+ballots) had been cast on a day other than that fixed by the States for
+the meeting of the Electoral College. If counted, it gave Fr&eacute;mont 114
+votes; if omitted, Fr&eacute;mont would have 109.</p>
+
+<p>In the debate which followed, Senator Toombs discussed very closely a
+point which has since been the subject of sharp contention. He said:
+"The duty of counting the vote for President devolves on the Senate and
+House of Representatives. They must act in their separate capacities;
+but they alone can determine it, and not the President of the Senate and
+the tellers of the two Houses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> It is a high privilege, a dangerous one
+to the liberties and Constitution of this country. The Senate and House
+must determine the votes to be counted, and the President of the Senate
+can only announce those to be votes which are thus decided by competent
+authority, and any attempt of the presiding officer to declare what
+votes he may deem to be legal, or to decide which are the votes, no
+matter whether it affects the result or not, or even to say that the
+question shall not be decided, however highly I respect the chair, I
+submit is not a power given to the presiding officer by the Constitution
+and the laws."</p>
+
+<p>In 1850 Senator Toombs found it necessary to oppose an appropriation for
+an experiment with the Atlantic cable. He was not prepared to say that
+the experiment would not be successful, but he boldly declared, despite
+the importance of the work and the high character of the men who were
+supporting it, that there was no power in the Federal Constitution for
+such an appropriation. Because the government establishes post roads, it
+could not be inferred that the government had the power to aid in
+transmitting intelligence to all quarters of the globe. He did not
+believe in going beyond the constitutional guarantees. He declared of
+these questions, as he had in the debate upon the Kansas bill, that in
+hunting for power and authority he knew but one place to go&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>to the
+Constitution. When he did not find it there, he could not find it
+anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs favored the purchase of Cuba, because he considered it
+advantageous to the republic. "I will accept Canada as readily, if it
+can be honestly and fairly done," he said. "I will accept Central
+America and such part of Mexico as, in my judgment, would be
+advantageous to the republic."</p>
+
+<p>The question of the slave population of Cuba should not come into this
+discussion, he declared. "I will not trammel the great constitutional
+power of the Executive to deal with foreign nations, with our internal
+questions; and I will not manacle my country, I will not handcuff the
+energies of this mighty republic, by tying up our foreign diplomacy with
+our internal dissensions. At least to the rest of the world, let us
+present ourselves as one people, one nation." He spurned the idea that
+he wanted Cuba to strengthen the slave power in Congress. He said, "Some
+may think we go for it because by this means we shall have one more
+slave State in the Union. I know that the senator from New York (Mr.
+Seward) at the last session alluded to the comparative number of
+slaveholding and non-slaveholding States; but I never considered that my
+rights lay there; I never considered that I held my rights of property
+by the votes of senators. It is too feeble a tenure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> If I did, I have
+shown by my votes that I have not feared them. Whenever any State,
+Minnesota or Oregon, or any other, came, no matter from where, if she
+came on principles which were sufficient in my judgment to justify her
+admission into this great family of nations, I never refused her the
+right hand of fellowship. I did not inquire whether you had seventeen or
+eighteen free States. If you had fifty, it would not alter my vote. The
+idea of getting one slave State would have no effect on me. But Cuba has
+fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of
+Mexico, and then the Carribean Sea, a <i>mare clausum</i>. Probably younger
+men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float
+there except by permission of the United States of America. That is my
+policy. I rose more with a view to declare my policy for the future;
+that development, that progress throughout the tropics was the true,
+fixed, unalterable policy of the nation, no matter what may be the
+consequences with reference to European powers."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs believed that much bad legislation resulted from trusting too
+much to committees. He rarely failed to question such reports, and never
+voted unless he thoroughly understood the subject. He thought this whole
+machinery was a means of "transferring the legislation of the country
+from those into whose hands the Constitution <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>had placed it to
+irresponsible parties." He said it was a common newspaper idea that
+Congress was wasting time in debating details. His opinion was that
+nine-tenths of the time the best thing to be done in public legislation
+was to do nothing. He thought Congress was breaking down the government
+by its own weight in "pensioning all the vagrants brought here. All that
+a man has to do is to make affidavit and get a pension."</p>
+
+<p>In 1859 he refused to vote to appropriate $500,000 for the improvement
+of Buffalo harbor, because he held he had no right to spend the money of
+the whole Union for a particular locality; for this reason he voted to
+abolish the mint at Dahlonega, in his own State.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs opposed the policy of buying the outstanding debt at a
+premium. He criticised Senator Simon Cameron for asking that the
+government give employment to 50,000 laborers out of work. He said,
+"Sir, government cannot do it and never did do it. There never was a
+government in the world which did not ruin the people they attempted to
+benefit by such a course. Governments do not regulate wages."</p>
+
+<p>Senator Toombs contended that the Postal Department stood on a different
+footing from the army and navy. Postal service, he thought, was no part
+of the national duty. "It is of no more importance to the people of the
+United States <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>that this government should carry my letters than that it
+should carry my cotton." He claimed that he had some old-fashioned
+ideas, but they were innate. "I do not think it right, before God, for
+me to make another man pay my expenses."</p>
+
+<p>In discussing the financial report, he said, "You have as much time to
+appropriate money intelligently as you have to give it lavishly. While
+there is a general cry for retrenchment, when any practical movement is
+made, the answer always is that this is not the right time or the right
+place. I am afraid we shall never find the right time, or the right
+place, until the popular revolution becomes strong enough to send here
+men who will do the public business better than we have done it."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>ELECTION OF LINCOLN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the election of November, 1860, Mr. Lincoln received 1,857,610 votes,
+and the combined opposition 2,787,780 votes, the successful candidate
+being in a minority of nearly a million votes. The new House of
+Representatives was Democratic, and the Senate had not been won over to
+the antislavery party. But the trend of Northern politics was
+unmistakably toward the extinction of slavery. As Mr. Lincoln said in
+his letter to Mr. Stephens: "You think slavery is right and ought to be
+extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. There,
+I suppose, is the rub." Mr. Buchanan's message to Congress was full of
+conservative counsel, but the Northern pressure was too strong. His
+Cabinet was soon dissolved, and the places of Southern men were taken by
+Northern representatives, whose influence was not assuring to Southern
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Just before his departure for Congress Mr. Toombs, in response to an
+invitation, wrote a conservative letter to his constituents in Danburg,
+Wilkes County, Ga. It bore date of December<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> 13, 1860. The General
+Assembly of Georgia had unanimously passed a resolution calling for a
+State convention to meet on January 16, 1861. Mr. Toombs took the ground
+that separation, sooner or later, was inevitable. The time when the
+remedy was to be applied was the point of difference. He opposed delay
+longer than March 4, but declared that he would certainly yield that
+point "to earnest and honest men who are with me in principle but are
+more hopeful of redress from the aggressors than I am. To go beyond
+March 4, we should require such preliminary measures to be taken as
+would, with reasonable certainty, lead to adequate redress, and in the
+meantime, we should take care that the delay gives no advantage to the
+adversary." Mr. Toombs declared that he believed the policy of Mr.
+Lincoln was to ultimately abolish slavery in the States, by driving
+slavery out of the Territories, by abrogating Fugitive-slave laws, and
+by protecting those who stole slaves and incited insurrections. The only
+way to remedy these evils, in the Union, was by such constitutional
+amendments as can be neither resisted nor evaded. "If the Republican
+party votes for the amendments, we may postpone final action. This will
+be putting planks where they are good for something. A cartload of new
+planks in the party platform will not redress one wrong nor protect one
+right."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As strong and unmistakable as this letter seemed, the great body of the
+people of Georgia did not think it sufficiently aggressive. Secession
+now amounted to a furor. It was not the work of leaders, but the spirit
+which pervaded the ranks of the people, who clamored because events did
+not move fast enough. The "minute-men" declared Mr. Toombs' letter was a
+backdown. They called him a traitor, and wanted to vote him a tin sword.</p>
+
+<p>Congress, upon reassembling, devoted itself to measures of compromise.
+The situation was one of the deepest gravity. In the House a committee
+of thirty-three was raised, and in the Senate a committee of thirteen,
+to look into the situation. But there was no Henry Clay to interpose,
+with tact and broad statesmanship, at the supreme moment.</p>
+
+<p>Twice before in our history, the "Great Pacificator" had proven equal to
+a desperate emergency. Adjusting the tariff in 1832 when South Carolina
+threatened nullification, he had kept the peace between Calhoun and
+Jackson. Proposing his omnibus bill in 1850, he had silenced all calls
+for disunion by the territorial concession. Equally lacking was the
+example of Webster to face the prejudices of the North and calm the
+apprehensions of the South. Perhaps it was because these men had
+postponed the conflict then that it reappeared now with irrepressible
+power.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The House Committee reported propositions to amend the Fugitive-slave
+laws, and accepted Mr. Toombs' demand that a law should be enacted by
+which all offenses against slave property, by persons fleeing to other
+States, should be tried where the offense was committed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs was a member of the committee of thirteen in the Senate. The
+five Southern members submitted the Crittenden Compromise, demanding six
+amendments to the Constitution. These recognized slavery south of the
+old Missouri line, prohibited interference by Congress with slavery in
+the District of Columbia, or with transportation of slaves from one
+State to another, and provided for the payment for fugitive slaves in
+cases where the marshal was prevented from arresting said fugitive. The
+sixth amendment guaranteed the permanence of these provisions.</p>
+
+<p>The House adopted the report of the committee of thirty-three. In the
+Senate a resolution was adopted declaring that the provisions of the
+Constitution were already ample for the preservation of the Union; that
+it needed to be obeyed rather than amended. This, upon a test vote of
+twenty-five to twenty-three, was substituted for the Crittenden
+Compromise. Mr. Toombs and five other Democratic members refused to
+vote, as they appropriately declared that no measure could be of value
+to the South, unless it had the support of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> Republican senators from the
+North. They sat still and waited to see whether those senators offered
+any guarantees. The twenty-five votes showed that the Republicans were
+not in a conciliatory mood. This, in the opinion of Senator Toombs, was
+conclusive that the best interests of the South lay in immediate
+separation.</p>
+
+<p>Once convinced that this was the proper course, Senator Toombs bent all
+his powers to bring about that result. He saw that if the Southern
+States must secede, the quicker they did so the better. If the North
+cared to recall them, a vigorous policy would react more promptly upon
+the Republicans. He did not go into this movement with foreboding or
+half-heartedness. There was no mawkish sentiment&mdash;no melancholy in his
+make-up. His convictions mastered him, and his energy moved him to
+redoubled effort. On the 22d of December he sent his famous telegram to
+his "fellow-citizens of Georgia." He recited that his resolutions had
+been treated with derision and contempt by the Republican members of the
+committee of thirteen. The amendments proposed by Mr. Crittenden had
+"each and all of them been voted against unanimously by the Republican
+members of the committee." These members had also declared that they had
+no guarantees to offer. He believed that the House Committee only sought
+to amuse the South with delusive hope, "until <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>your election, in order
+that you may defeat the friends of secession. If you are deceived by
+them it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly.
+It has been decided against you, and now I tell you upon the faith of a
+true man, that all further looking to the North for security for your
+constitutional rights in the Union, ought to be instantly abandoned. It
+is fraught with nothing but menace to yourselves and your party.
+Secession by the 4th of March next should be thundered forth from the
+ballot-box by the united voice of Georgia. Such a voice will be your
+best guaranty for liberty, security, tranquillity, and glory."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>FAREWELL TO THE SENATE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the 7th of January, 1861, Robert Toombs delivered his farewell speech
+to the United States Senate. It received profound attention. It was full
+of brief sentences and bristling points. In epigrammatic power, it was
+the strongest summary of the demands of the South. As Mr. Blaine said,
+it was the only speech made by a congressman from the seceding States
+which specified the grievances of the South and which named the
+conditions upon which the States would stay in the Union. Other Senators
+regarded secession as a fixed fact. Mr. Toombs declared what, in his
+opinion, would prevent it. And yet, as he stood at his desk, where for
+seven years he had been a recognized leader, his earnestness and
+deliberation revealed a man whose hand did not hesitate to lead a revolt
+and whose heart did not fail in the face of a certain revolution. He
+acted up to his own words, repeated a short while later: "He who dallies
+is a dastard; he who doubts is damned."</p>
+
+<p>This speech was bold, succinct, definite. "Senators," said Mr. Toombs,
+"my countrymen have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>demanded no new government. They have demanded no
+new Constitution. The discontented States have demanded nothing but
+clear, distinct, constitutional rights, rights older than the
+Constitution. What do these rebels demand? First, that the people of the
+United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the
+Territories with whatever property (including slaves) they may possess.
+Second, that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection
+from the government as any other property (leaving the State the right
+to prohibit, protect, or abolish slavery within its limits). Third, that
+persons committing crimes against slave property in one State and flying
+to another shall be given up. Fourth, that fugitive slaves shall be
+surrendered. Fifth, that Congress shall pass laws for the punishment of
+all persons who shall aid and abet invasion and insurrection in any
+other State."</p>
+
+<p>He said: "We demand these five propositions. Are they not right? Are
+they not just? We will pause and consider them; but, mark me, we will
+not let you decide the questions for us. I have little care to dispute
+remedies with you unless you propose to redress our wrongs.</p>
+
+<p>"But no matter what may be our grievances, the honorable senator from
+Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden) says we cannot secede. Well, what can we do?
+We cannot revolutionize. He will say <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>that is treason. What can we do?
+Submit? They say they are the strongest and they will hang us. Very
+well! I suppose we are to be thankful for that boon. We will take that
+risk. We will stand by the right; we will take the Constitution; we will
+defend it with the sword, with the halter around our necks. Will that
+satisfy the honorable senator from Kentucky? You cannot intimidate my
+constituents by talking to them of treason.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not regard confederate obligations; you will not regard
+constitutional obligations; you will not regard your oaths. What, then,
+am I to do? Am I a freeman? Is my State a free State? We are freemen; we
+have rights; I have stated them. We have wrongs; I have recounted them.
+I have demonstrated that the party now coming into power has declared us
+outlaws, and is determined to exclude thousands of millions of our
+property from the common territory; that it has declared us under the
+ban of the Union, and out of the protection of the laws of the United
+States everywhere. They have refused to protect us from invasion and
+insurrection by the Federal power, and the Constitution denies to us, in
+the Union, the right to raise fleets and armies for our own defense. All
+these charges I have proven by the record; and I put them before the
+civilized world and demand the judgment of to-day, of to-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>morrow, of
+distant ages, and of Heaven itself upon the justice of these causes. I
+am content, whatever it be, to peril all in so holy a cause. We have
+appealed, time and again, for these constitutional rights. You have
+refused them. We appeal again. Restore us those rights as we had them;
+as your Court adjudges them to be; just as our people have said they
+are. Redress these flagrant wrongs&mdash;seen of all men&mdash;and it will restore
+fraternity, and unity, and peace to us all. Refuse them, and what then?
+We shall then ask you, 'Let us depart in peace.' Refuse that, and you
+present us war. We accept it, and, inscribing upon our banners the
+glorious words, 'Liberty and Equality,' we will trust to the blood of
+the brave and the God of battles for security and tranquillity."</p>
+
+<p>This speech created wide attention. It closed the career of Robert
+Toombs as a member of the national councils. For sixteen years he had
+served in the two Houses in Washington, holding his rank among the first
+men in the country.</p>
+
+<p>He was then fifty-one years old, full of strength and confidence. His
+leadership among Southern men was undisputed; his participation in
+public business had been long and honorable; upon matters of home and
+foreign policy his word had been law in the Senate; his influence had
+been preponderating.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 408px;">
+<img src="images/illo4.jpg" width="408" height="259" alt="RESIDENCE OF GENERAL TOOMBS, WASHINGTON, GA." title="RESIDENCE OF GENERAL TOOMBS, WASHINGTON, GA." />
+<span class="caption">RESIDENCE OF GENERAL TOOMBS, WASHINGTON, GA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>TOOMBS AND SECESSION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the 16th of January, the State Sovereignty convention met in
+Milledgeville, Ga. The election had taken place shortly after the
+delivery of Senator Toombs' farewell address, and Georgia had answered
+to his call in the election of delegates by giving a vote of 50,243 in
+favor of secession, and 39,123 against it. The convention was presided
+over by George W. Crawford, who had lived in retirement since the death
+of President Taylor in 1850, and who was called on to lend his prestige
+and influence in favor of the rights of his State. The convention went
+into secret session, and when the doors were opened, Hon. Eugenius A.
+Nisbet of Bibb offered a resolution, "That in the opinion of this
+convention, it is the right and duty of Georgia to secede from the
+Union." On the passage of this, the yeas were 165 and the noes 130. Mr.
+Toombs voted "yes," and Messrs. Hill, Johnson, and Stephens, "no." Next
+day the committee of seventeen, through Judge Nisbet, reported the
+Ordinance of Secession. It was short and pointed; it simply declared
+that the people of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> State of Georgia, in convention assembled,
+repealed the ordinance of 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United
+States was ratified and adopted. The Union was declared dissolved, so
+far as the State of Georgia was concerned, and the State to be in full
+possession of all those rights of sovereignty that belonged to a free
+and independent State. On the passage of this ordinance, the yeas were
+208, and the noes, 89. Messrs. Toombs and Hill "yes," and Mr. Stephens
+"no." At 2.15 <span class="smcap">p.&nbsp;m.</span> on the 19th of January, a signal gun was fired, and
+the "Stars and Stripes" lowered from the State Capitol. One moment
+later, the white colonial flag of Georgia fluttered to the winds, and
+the State was in uproar. The news flashed to the utmost corners of the
+commonwealth. Guns were fired, bells rung, and men were beside
+themselves. The night only intensified this carnival of joy. There were
+some men who shook their heads and doubted the wisdom of this step, and
+there were women and little children who regarded these demonstrations
+with awe. They did not comprehend what was meant by "going out of the
+Union," and by some inscrutable instinct feared the result of such an
+act. The old Union sentiment was, perhaps, stronger in Georgia than in
+any other Southern State. Georgia was the youngest of the thirteen
+States, the last of the commonwealth to come into the national compact.
+Her charter from the Crown <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>had originally barred slavery from her
+limits, but the success of the institution in Carolina, the progress of
+other States in subduing land and in cultivating indigo and tobacco in
+the Southern savannas, rendered white labor unavailable, and left
+Georgia a laggard in the work of the younger colonies. Finally, slaves
+were admitted, and commerce and agriculture seemed to thrive. But if the
+State had preserved its original charter restrictions, it is not certain
+that, even then, the Union sentiment would have prevailed. As Senator
+Toombs had declared: "The question of slavery moves not the people of
+Georgia one-half so much as the fact that you insult their rights as a
+community. Abolitionists are right when they say that there are
+thousands and tens of thousands of people in Georgia who do not own
+slaves. A very large portion of the people of Georgia own none of them.
+In the mountains there are but a few of them; but no part of our people
+is more loyal to race and country than our bold and hardy mountain
+population, and every flash of the electric wire brings me cheering news
+from our mountain-tops and our valleys that these sons of Georgia are
+excelled by none of their countrymen in loyalty to their rights, the
+honor and glory of the commonwealth. They say, and well say, this is our
+question: we want no negro equality; no negro citizenship; we want no
+mongrel race to degrade <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>our own, and, as one man, they would meet you
+upon the border with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other.
+They will tell you, 'When we choose to abolish this thing (slavery), it
+must be done under our direction, according to our will. Our own, our
+native land shall determine this question, and not the Abolitionists of
+the North.' That is the spirit of our freemen."</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of the people was plainly manifested by the zeal and ardor of
+Thomas R. R. Cobb. He was a young man who went into the secession
+movement with lofty enthusiasm. He had all the ardor and religious
+fervor of a crusader. He had never held public office, and had taken no
+hand in politics until the time came for Georgia to secede. He was the
+younger brother of Howell Cobb. He declared that what Mr. Stephens said
+was the determining sentiment of the hour, that "Georgia could make
+better terms out of the Union than in it." The greater part of the
+people was fired with this fervor, which they felt to be patriotic.
+Gray-bearded men vied with the hot blood of youth, and a venerable
+citizen of Augusta, illuminating his residence from dome to cellar,
+blazoned with candles this device upon his gateway&mdash;"Georgia, right or
+wrong&mdash;Georgia!" Never was a movement so general, so spontaneous. Those
+who charged the leaders of that day with precipitating their States into
+revolution upon a wild dream of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>power, did not know the spirit and the
+temper of the people who composed that movement. Northern men who had
+moved South and engaged in business, as a general thing, stood shoulder
+to shoulder with their Southern brethren, and went out with the
+companies that first responded to the call to war. The South sacrificed
+much, in a material point of view, in going into civil conflict. In the
+decade between 1850 and 1860, the wealth of the South had increased
+three billions of dollars, and Georgia alone had shown a growth measured
+by two hundred millions. Her aggregate wealth at the time she passed the
+Ordinance of Secession was six hundred and seventy-two millions, double
+what it is to-day. In one year her increase was sixty-two millions.
+Business of all kinds was prospering. But her people did not count the
+cost when they considered that their rights were invaded. Georgia was
+the fifth State to secede. South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and
+Florida had preceded her. Of the six States which formed the Provisional
+Government, Georgia had relatively a smaller number of slaves than any,
+and her State debt was only a little more than two and a half millions
+of dollars. Her voting population was barely 100,000, but she furnished,
+when the test came, 120,000 soldiers to the Confederate army.</p>
+
+<p>As a contemporary print of those times remarked, "The Secession
+convention of Georgia <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>was not divided upon the subject of rights or
+wrongs, but of remedies." Senator Toombs declared that the convention
+had sovereign powers, "limited only by God and the right." This policy
+opened the way to changing the great seal and adopting a new flag. Mr.
+Toombs was made chairman of the committee on Foreign Relations and
+became at once Prime Minister of the young Republic. He offered a
+resolution providing that a congress of seceded States be called to meet
+in Montgomery on the 4th of February. He admonished the convention that,
+as it had destroyed one government, it was its pressing duty to build up
+another. It was at his request that commissioners were appointed from
+Georgia to the other States in the South. Mr. Toombs also introduced a
+resolution, which was unanimously adopted, "That the Convention highly
+approves the energetic and patriotic conduct of Governor Brown in
+seizing Fort Pulaski."</p>
+
+<p>The Ordinance of Secession was, on the 31st of January, signed by all
+the members of the convention, in the open air, in the Capitol grounds.
+The scene was solemn and impressive. Six delegates entered their
+protests, but pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
+honor" in defense of Georgia against coercion and invasion.</p>
+
+<p>When the time came for the election of delegates to the Provisional
+Congress at Montgomery,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> Robert Toombs was unanimously selected as the
+first deputy from the State at large. His colleague, Howell Cobb, was
+chosen on the third ballot. The district selected Francis S. Bartow,
+Martin J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. R.
+Cobb, A. H. Kennan, and A. H. Stephens.</p>
+
+<p>The address to the people of Georgia adopted by this convention, was
+written by Mr. Toombs. It recited that "our people are still attached to
+the Union from habit, national tradition, and aversion to change." The
+address alluded to our "Northern Confederates" and declared that the
+issue had been "deliberately forced by the North and deliberately
+accepted by the South. We refuse to submit to the verdict of the North,
+and in vindication we offer the Constitution of our country. The people
+of Georgia have always been willing to stand by this compact; but they
+know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands." The report
+charged that the North had outlawed three thousand millions of our
+property, put it under a ban, and would subject us, not only to a loss
+of our property, but to destruction of our homes and firesides. It
+concludes: "To avoid these evils, we withdraw the powers that our
+fathers delegated to the government of the United States, and henceforth
+seek new safeguards for our liberty, security, and tranquillity."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the 4th of February, 1861, forty-two delegates met at Montgomery,
+Ala. The States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
+and South Carolina were represented. Howell Cobb of Georgia was chosen
+President of the Provisional Congress. Mr. Stephens said it was the most
+intellectual body of men he had ever seen. One of the first duties of
+this convention was to elect a President and vice president of the new
+Confederacy. All eyes were turned to Robert Toombs. It was by common
+consent agreed that Georgia, owing to her commanding position, her
+prominence in the movement, and her wealth of great men, should furnish
+the President. Toombs towered even above the members of that convention.
+Bold, imperious, and brainy, he had guided the revolution without haste
+or heat, and his conservative course in the Georgia convention had
+silenced those critics who had called him "the genius of the
+revolution," but denied to him the constructive power to build upon the
+ruins he had made. He had, in the choice of delegates to the Provisional
+Congress, boldly advocated the election of Mr. Stephens from his own
+district, although the latter was a Union man and, at that time, was not
+on good terms with Toombs. Toombs declared that Alexander Stephens was a
+patriot notwithstanding his views against secession. He had secured the
+recommit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>ment of a dangerous resolution upon slavery which, he declared,
+would injure the South by the announcement of an ultra policy. He had
+written a very conservative letter to Senator Crittenden. He had been a
+prominent Secessionist, and had contemplated the movement as unavoidable
+when men were talking with bated breath. But in the opening of the
+revolution, he had proven a safe counselor. Mr. Toombs was approached,
+and announced that he would accept the presidency if it were offered
+with unanimity. He was surprised to learn that the delegates from four
+States had agreed on Jefferson Davis. When this report was confirmed,
+Mr. Toombs, ignorant of the real cause of this sudden change of
+sentiment, forbade further canvass of his own claims, and cordially
+seconded the nomination of Mr. Davis. Mr. Toombs was a man of rare
+magnanimity. He was absolutely without envy or resentment, and turning
+to Mr. Stephens, pressed him to accept second place on the ticket. The
+announcement of a Georgian for vice president effectually disposed of
+his own chance for the presidency. The fact was that Mr. Toombs was the
+first choice of Georgia, as he was thought to be of Florida, Carolina,
+and Louisiana. Jefferson Davis had not been presented by Mississippi. He
+had been selected by that State as the commander-in-chief of the
+military forces and himself preferred a military station. He was not in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+Montgomery when his nomination was confirmed. A messenger had to be
+dispatched to inform him of his election as President of the Confederate
+States of America.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden selection of Mr. Davis by four States probably carries a bit
+of secret history. Old party antagonisms arose at the last moment to
+confront the candidacy of Mr. Toombs. Toombs had summarily left the Whig
+party in 1850, to join the great Constitutional Union movement.
+Jefferson Davis had always been a States' Rights Democrat, and had been
+defeated for Governor of Mississippi by the Constitutional Union party.
+Thus it would seem that, at the eleventh hour, party lines were drawn
+against Robert Toombs, and his boast that he had saved the Union in 1850
+probably cost him the presidency of the new republic. There was a story,
+credited in some quarters, that Mr. Toombs' convivial conduct at a
+dinner party in Montgomery estranged from him some of the more
+conservative delegates, who did not realize that a man like Toombs had
+versatile and reserved powers, and that Toombs at the banquet board was
+another sort of a man from Toombs in a deliberative body.</p>
+
+<p>At all events, the recognized leader of the Confederacy was set aside,
+and with rare unanimity the election of officers was accepted with
+unselfish patriotism.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At that time a curious and remarkable incident in the life of Mr. Toombs
+was related. Within thirty days he had performed journeys to the extent
+of fifteen hundred miles, largely by private conveyance, and during that
+brief period he served under four distinct governments: as senator in
+the Congress of the United States, as delegate from his native county
+(Wilkes) to the convention of the sovereign republic of Georgia, as
+deputy from his State to the Congress of seceding States, which
+instituted a Provisional Government, and finally in the permanent
+government which he aided in framing for the Confederate States of
+America.</p>
+
+<p>In the perfection of a permanent government and the new-molding of a
+Constitution, Mr. Toombs was now diligently engaged. The principal
+changes brought about by him may be briefly recalled. It was specified,
+in order to cut off lobby agents, that Congress should grant no extra
+compensation to any contractor after the service was rendered. This item
+originated with Mr. Toombs, who had noted the abuses in the Federal
+Government. Congress was authorized to grant to the principal officer of
+each of the executive departments a seat upon the floor of either house,
+without a vote, but with the privilege of discussing any measure
+relating to his department. This was an old idea of Mr. Toombs, and
+during <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>his visit abroad, he had attended sessions of the British
+Parliament in company with Mr. Buchanan, then Minister to England. He
+had been impressed with the value of the presence in Parliament of the
+Ministers themselves. During a debate in the United States Senate in
+1859, Mr. Toombs had said: "My own opinion is that it would be a great
+improvement on our system if the Cabinet officers should be on the floor
+of both Houses, and should participate in the debate; I have no doubt
+that we should thus get rid of one of the greatest difficulties in our
+Constitution."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs also incorporated into the organic law a prohibition of the
+payment of bounties and of the internal improvement system. There was a
+tax upon navigation for harbors, buoys, and beacons, but this was
+adjusted upon the Toombs principle of taxing the interest for which the
+burden was levied. Mr. Toombs was made chairman of the Finance Committee
+of the Provisional Congress. This appointment was received with general
+satisfaction. His long legislative experience, his genius for finance,
+and his executive power, fitted him for this position. To provide ways
+and means for the new nation which was, as yet, without resources or a
+system of taxation, involved no little difficulty. It was important that
+the young Confederacy should exhibit resources sufficient to equip her
+armies and maintain herself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>before she could sue for independence or
+foreign recognition. It was for these admitted qualities of Mr. Toombs
+for details and management, that President Davis preferred him to take
+the position of Secretary of the Treasury. Next to the presidency this
+was his real place, but it was suggested that a man like Toombs deserved
+the first position in the new Cabinet. A telegram from President Davis,
+offering him the portfolio of Secretary of State, reached Mr. Toombs in
+Augusta. He at first declined, but being urged by Mr. Stephens, finally
+consented to serve. The Cabinet was then made up as follows. Robert
+Toombs of Georgia, Secretary of State; C. G. Memminger of South
+Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; L. P. Walker of Alabama, Secretary
+of War; J. H. Reagan of Texas, Postmaster-General; J. P. Benjamin of
+Louisiana, Attorney-General; S. B. Mallory of Florida, Secretary of the
+Navy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>TOOMBS AS PREMIER OF THE CONFEDERACY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>One of the first acts of the new Confederate Government was to send
+three commissioners to Washington. John Forsyth of Alabama, Martin J.
+Crawford of Georgia, and A. B. Roman of Louisiana, were intrusted by the
+Secretary of State, Mr. Toombs, with a speedy adjustment of questions
+growing out of the political revolution, upon such terms of amity and
+good will as would guarantee the future welfare of the two sections. Mr.
+Toombs instructed Mr. Crawford, whom he had especially persuaded to take
+this delicate mission, that he should pertinaciously demand the
+evacuation of Fort Sumter and the maintenance of the status elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Secretary Seward declined to receive the commissioners in any diplomatic
+capacity, or even to see them personally. He acknowledged the receipt of
+their communication and caused the commissioners to be notified,
+pointedly, that he hoped they would not press him to reply at that time.
+Mr. Seward was represented as strongly disposed in favor of peace, and
+the Confederate Government <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>was semi-officially informed that Fort
+Sumter would probably be evacuated in a short time, and all immediate
+danger of conflict avoided. There is no doubt that such were Mr.
+Seward's intentions. He had cordially agreed with General Winfield Scott
+that the possession of Fort Sumter amounted to little in a strategical
+way, and that the peace-loving people, North and South, should not be
+driven into the war party by premature shock over the provisioning of a
+fort that no Federal force could have held for a week. Mr. Lincoln's
+Cabinet took this position and, by a vote of five to two, favored the
+abandonment of Sumter. The commissioners were apprised of this feeling,
+and in a dispatch to Secretary Toombs, on the 20th of March, declared
+that there was no change in the status. "If there is any faith in man,"
+they wrote, "we may rely on the assurances we have as to the status.
+Time is essential to the principal issue of this mission. In the present
+posture of affairs, precipitation is war."</p>
+
+<p>On the 26th of March the commissioners, having heard nothing more, asked
+the Confederate Secretary whether they should delay longer or demand an
+answer at once. Secretary Toombs wired them to wait a reasonable time
+and then ask for instructions. He gave them the views of President
+Davis, who believed that the counsels of Mr. Seward would prevail in
+Washington.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> "So long as the United States neither declares war nor
+establishes peace, it affords the Confederate States the advantage of
+both positions, and enables them to make all necessary arrangements for
+public defense and the solidification of government more safely,
+cheaply, and expeditiously than if the attitude of the United States was
+more definite and decided."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile new pressure was brought to bear on President Lincoln. On the
+2d of April, the commissioners, who kept up pretty well with the
+situation, telegraphed Secretary Toombs: "The war party presses on the
+President; he vibrates to that side." The rumor was given that the
+President had conferred with an engineer in regard to Fort Sumter.
+"Watch at all points." Three days later they telegraphed that the
+movement of troops and the preparation of vessels of war were continued
+with great activity. "The statement that the armament is intended for
+San Domingo," they said, "may be a mere ruse." "Have no confidence in
+this administration. We say, be ever on your guard.... Glad to hear you
+are ready. The notice promised us may come at the last moment, if the
+fleet be intended for our waters."</p>
+
+<p>On the 6th of April Governor Pickens of South Carolina was informed that
+the President had decided to supply Fort Sumter with provisions, and on
+the 10th, Hon. Levi P. Walker, Secretary of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> War at Montgomery, notified
+General Beauregard, then in command of the Confederate forces at
+Charleston, to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, and, if refused, to
+proceed to reduce it.</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that the Lincoln Cabinet reversed its position about
+Sumter. The pressure of New England and the West became too strong. What
+Sumter lacked in military importance, it made up in political
+significance. The Lincoln Government had already been taunted with
+weakness by the people who had placed it in office. Mr. Lincoln decided,
+against the better judgment of Mr. Seward, to make the issue in
+Charleston Harbor.</p>
+
+<p>Seward's mind was of finer and more reflective cast than Mr. Lincoln's.
+He had all the points of a diplomatist, ingenuity, subtlety, adroitness.
+He was temporizing over the natural antipathy of the North to war and
+the probable transient nature of the secession feeling in the South. At
+that very moment he was assuring England and France that "the
+conservative element in the South, which was kept under the surface by
+the violent pressure of secession, will emerge with irresistible force."
+He believed "that the evils and hardships produced by secession would
+become intolerably grievous to the Southern States."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln was not temporizing at all. He was looking the crisis in the
+face. What he wanted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>was support at the North, not at the South. He was
+willing to force the fighting at Sumter, knowing that the mere act of
+the Confederates in firing upon the flag would bring to his aid a united
+North.</p>
+
+<p>Secretary Toombs was one man in the Montgomery Cabinet who was not
+deceived by Seward's sophistries. He knew the temper of Mr. Lincoln
+better than Mr. Seward did. He appreciated the feeling at the North, and
+gave his counsel in the Davis Cabinet against the immediate assault upon
+Sumter. There was a secret session of the Cabinet in Montgomery. Toombs
+was pacing the floor during the discussion over Sumter, his hands behind
+him, and his face wearing that heavy, dreamy look when in repose. Facing
+about, he turned upon the President and opposed the attack. "Mr.
+President," he said, "at this time, it is suicide, murder, and will lose
+us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest
+which extends from mountains to ocean, and legions, now quiet, will
+swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the
+wrong; it is fatal." He clung to the idea expressed in his dispatches to
+the commissioners, that "So long as the United States neither declares
+war nor establishes peace, the Confederate States have the advantage of
+both conditions." But just as President Lincoln overruled Secretary
+Seward, so President Davis overruled Secretary Toombs.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No event in American history was more portentous than the first gun
+fired from Fort Johnson at 1.30 o'clock in the morning of April 12,
+1861. As the shell wound its graceful curve into the air and fell into
+the water at the base of Sumter, the Civil War was an accomplished fact.
+Major Anderson replied with his barbette guns from the fort. He had but
+little more than 100 men, and early in the engagement was forced to rely
+entirely upon his casemate ordinance. The Confederate forces numbered
+about five thousand, with thirty guns and seventeen mortars, and served
+their guns from the batteries on Mount Pleasant, Cummings Point, and the
+floating battery. Fort Sumter was built on an artificial island at the
+mouth of Charleston Harbor, and was about three and a half miles from
+the city. It had cost the government one million dollars, and had not
+been entirely completed at the time of the bombardment.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement in Charleston at the opening gun was very great. People
+rushed from their beds to the water-front, and men and women watched the
+great duel through their glasses. The South had gone into the war with
+all the fervor of conviction. The gunners in Moultrie and on Morris
+Island would leap to the ramparts and watch the effect of their shots,
+and jump back to their guns with a cheer. There was all the pomp and
+sound, but few of the terrors of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>war. On the morning of the second day
+the quarters in the fort caught fire and the whole place was wrapped in
+flames and smoke, but Major Anderson's men won the admiration of their
+enemies by standing by their guns and returning the fire at regular
+intervals. The battle lasted thirty-two hours; more than fifty tons of
+cannon-balls and eight tons of powder were expended from weapons the
+most destructive then known to warfare; not a life was lost on either
+side. Sumter and Moultrie were both badly damaged. Major Anderson
+surrendered on Saturday, April 13.</p>
+
+<p>The London <i>Times</i> treated this remarkable event in humorous style. The
+proceedings at Charleston were likened to a cricket match or a regatta
+in England. The ladies turned out to view the contest. A good shot from
+Fort Sumter was as much applauded as a good shot from Fort Moultrie.
+When the American flag was shot away, General Beauregard sent Major
+Anderson another to fight under. When the fort was found to be on fire,
+the polite enemy, who had with such intense energy labored to excite the
+conflagration, offered equally energetic assistance to put it out. The
+only indignation felt throughout the affair was at the conduct of the
+Northern flotilla, which kept outside and took no part in the fray. The
+Southerners resented this as an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>act of treachery toward their favorite
+enemy, Major Anderson. "Altogether," says the <i>Times</i>, "nothing can be
+more free from the furious hatreds, which are distinctive of civil
+warfare, than this bloodless conflict has been." Another London paper
+remarked "No one was hurt. And so ended the first, and, we trust, the
+last engagement of the American Civil War."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toombs' prediction, that the attack upon Fort Sumter would "open a
+hornet's nest" in the North, was sustained. The effect of the assault at
+that time and the lowering of the national flag to the forces of the
+Confederacy acted, as Mr. Blaine has stated, "as an inspiration,
+consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all differences." In fact it
+brought matters to a crisis all around, and prepared the two sections
+for the great drama of the War.</p>
+
+<p>An important part of the work of Secretary Toombs was the selection of a
+commission to proceed to Europe and present the Confederate position to
+England and France, in order to secure recognition of the new nation.
+Mr. William L. Yancey was placed at the head of this commission, and
+with him were associated Mr. A. D. Mason of Virginia, and Mr. A. P. Rost
+of Louisiana. The first month of the term of the Confederate Secretary
+of State was occupied in the issue of letters of marque. On the 19th of
+April President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>declared that privateers with letters of marque from the Southern
+Confederacy should be treated as pirates. This gave Secretary Toombs a
+strong point in dealing with foreign powers. The new government had been
+organized with promptness and ability. Great energy was shown in getting
+the civil and military branches equipped. The Southern position had been
+presented with great strength abroad, and France and England were not
+slow in framing proclamations recognizing the Confederate States as
+belligerents. Next to immediate recognition as a separate nationality,
+this step was significant, and was the first triumph of the diplomacy of
+Secretary Toombs over Secretary Seward. Then came the demand from the
+foreign powers that the blockade must be effectual, imposing a heavy
+burden upon the Northern States. Lord Lyons, acting in Washington in
+concert with the French Government, declared that "Her Majesty's
+Government would consider a decree closing the ports of the South,
+actually in possession of the Confederate States, as null and void, and
+they would not submit to measures on the high seas pursuant to such a
+decree." Mr Seward bitterly complained that Great Britain "did not
+sympathize with this government." The British Minister accordingly
+charged the British Consul at Charleston with the task of obtaining from
+the Confederate Government securities concerning the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>proper treatment
+of neutrals. He asked the accession of the Lincoln government and of the
+Davis government to the Declaration of Paris of 1856, which had adopted
+as articles of maritime law that privateering be abolished; that the
+neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of
+war; that neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are
+not liable to capture under the enemy's flag; that a blockade, in order
+to be binding, must be effectual, that is, must be maintained by a force
+sufficient to prevent access to the coast of the enemy. These
+conditions, except the first, were accepted by the Confederate
+Government.</p>
+
+<p>The Southern Confederacy thus became parties, as Mr. Blaine says, to "an
+international compact"; and when, a few months later, Mr. Seward offered
+to waive the point made by Secretary Marcy many years before, and accept
+the four articles of the Paris convention, he found himself blocked,
+because the Confederate States had not accepted the first article,
+abolishing privateering, and her privateers must, therefore, be
+recognized. It was by these privateers that great damage was inflicted
+upon American shipping.</p>
+
+<p>The Confederate States had no regular navy, and but few vessels; they
+were an agricultural community, not a commercial or a ship-building
+people. Quite a number of vessels were put in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>commission under letters
+of marque, and these reached the high seas by running the blockade. Many
+prizes were taken and run into Southern ports. Later on steamers were
+fitted out and sent to sea under command of experienced officers. This
+naval militia captured millions of the enemy's property, and produced a
+great sensation at the North. A Southern agent was sent abroad by the
+naval department to get ships and supplies. "In three years' time," says
+Mr. Blaine, "fifteen millions of property had been destroyed by Southern
+privateers, given to the flames, or sunk beneath the waters. The
+shipping of the United States was reduced one-half, and the commercial
+flag of the Union fluttered with terror in every wind that blew, from
+the whale fisheries of the Arctic to the Southern Cross."</p>
+
+<p>On the 21st of May, the Confederate Congress, after providing for the
+disposition of these naval prizes, and the treatment of prisoners of war
+brought into Southern ports, adjourned to meet on the 20th of July in
+the City of Richmond, now selected as the permanent seat of Government
+of the Confederacy.</p>
+
+<p>The powers of Europe never recognized the Confederate States as a
+separate nation. The leaders of the English Government were, no doubt,
+inclined to this step, but the rank and file of the Liberal party, under
+the leadership of John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> Bright, refused to sanction such a course toward
+a government whose corner stone was slavery. Mr. Seward ingeniously
+pressed the point that Southern success meant a slave oligarchy around
+the Gulf of Mexico. Russia remained the strong ally of the Northern
+States. England, with the Crimean War fresh upon her hands, hesitated
+before engaging Russia again or imperiling India in the East. France
+could not afford to take the step without the aid of England. Secretary
+Toombs dispatched a Minister to Mexico to look into the interesting
+tumult then going on. Louis Napoleon was filled with his desire of
+establishing Maximilian in Mexico, but his movement did not succeed.
+Maximilian was defeated and executed, and Napoleon found himself too
+much engaged with the House of Hohenzollern in Germany to follow any new
+or original policy in America.</p>
+
+<p>Carlyle declared with dyspeptic acrimony that the Civil War was the
+foulest chimney of the century, and should be allowed to burn out.</p>
+
+<p>Secretary Toombs had issued credentials to commissioners to the
+unseceded Southern States. On the 17th of April Virginia seceded; on the
+28th of May North Carolina went out of the Union; these were followed by
+Tennessee and Arkansas. The border States of Kentucky and Missouri did
+not formally secede, but indignantly declined to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>furnish troops in
+response to Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. They appointed delegates to a
+Peace Congress to meet in Washington.</p>
+
+<p>The tedious routine of the State Department did not suit the restless
+spirit of Robert Toombs. He had established relations abroad as
+belligerents, and had placed the new government in touch with its
+Southern neighbors. His dispatches were remarkable for brevity,
+clearness, and boldness; his public papers are models of nervous style,
+but he longed for a more active field in the revolution. He chafed under
+red-tape and convention. Toombs charged the new administration with too
+much caution and timidity. He declared that ninety per cent of war was
+business, and that the South must organize victory rather than trust
+entirety to fighting. He urged the government to send over cotton to
+England and buy arms and ships forthwith. "Joe Brown," he impatiently
+declared, "had more guns than the whole Confederacy. No new government,"
+said he, "ever started with such unlimited credit." Mr. Toombs believed
+that the financial part of the Confederacy was a failure. "We could have
+whipped the fight," said he, in his impetuous way, "in the first sixty
+days. The contest was haphazard from the first, and nothing but
+miraculous valor kept it going." Mr. Toombs said that had he been
+President of the Confederacy, he would have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>mortgaged every pound of
+cotton to France and England at a price that would have remunerated the
+planters, and in consideration of which he would have secured the aid of
+the armies and navies of both countries.</p>
+
+<p>But Robert Toombs concluded that his place was in the field, not in the
+Cabinet. Too many prominent men, he explained, were seeking bombproof
+positions. He received a commission as brigadier general, and on the
+21st of July, 1861, joined Generals Beauregard and Johnston at Manassas.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>BRIGADIER GENERAL IN ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Robert Toombs resigned the Cabinet and took the field, he still
+held the seat, as was his prerogative, in the Confederate Congress. This
+body, like the British Parliament, sat in chairs, without desks. One
+morning Congress was discussing the Produce Loan. By this measure,
+invitations were given for contributions of cotton and other crops in
+the way of a loan. By the terms of the act these articles were to be
+sold and the proceeds turned over to the Secretary of the Treasury, who
+was to issue eight per cent bonds for them. This was an extraordinary
+measure, and never really amounted to much. Colonel A. R. Lamar, at one
+time Secretary of the Provisional Congress, relates that during this
+debate General Toombs walked into the hall. "He was faultlessly attired
+in a black suit with a military cloak thrown over one shoulder and a
+military hat in his left hand. He made a rattling speech against the
+measure. Drawing himself up, he said: "Mr. Speaker, we have been told
+that Cotton is King, that he will find his way to the vaults of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>bankers of the Old World; that he can march up to the thrones of mighty
+potentates, and drag from the arsenals of armed nations the dogs of war;
+that he can open our closed ports, and fly our young flag upon all the
+seas. And yet, before the first autumnal frost has blighted a leaf upon
+his coronet, he comes to this hall a trembling mendicant, and says,
+'Give me drink, Titinius, or I perish.'" The effect was magical; Colonel
+Lamar, in commenting upon this dramatic incident, sums up the whole
+character of Robert Toombs:</p>
+
+<p>"He was cautious and safe in counsel, while wild and exasperating in
+speech."</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Toombs was once asked by an Englishman, where were the files of
+the State Department, he answered that "He carried the archives in his
+hat." When he resigned the position of Secretary of State, Hon. Robert
+M. T. Hunter of Virginia was appointed in his stead. General William M.
+Browne had been Assistant Secretary under Mr. Toombs. He was an
+Englishman, who came to this country during Buchanan's administration
+and edited a Democratic paper in Washington. When General Toombs joined
+the Army his staff was made up as follows; D. M. <a name="Page_237t" id="Page_237t"></a><a href="#Page_237tn">DuBose</a>, Adjutant
+General; R. J. Moses, Commissary General; W. F. Alexander, Quartermaster
+Major; DeRosset Lamar, Aid-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs' entry into the field, just after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>the first battle of
+Manassas, found the army of the Confederacy flushed with victory, but
+badly scattered after the first serious engagement of the war. General
+Johnston had declared that even after the decisive advantage at Bull
+Run, pursuit was not to be thought of, for his troops were almost as
+much disorganized by victory as the Federals by their defeat. Many
+soldiers, supposing the war was over, had actually gone home. "Our men,"
+said General Johnston, "had in a larger degree the instincts of personal
+liberty than those of the North, and it was found very difficult to
+subordinate their personal wills to the needs of military discipline."</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Manassas had a powerful effect upon the Northern mind. The
+Lincoln Cabinet was seized with fear for the safety of Washington. New
+troops were summoned to that city, and the materials for a magnificent
+army were placed in the hands of General McClellan, who had succeeded
+McDowell, the luckless victim of Manassas. More than one hundred
+thousand men were now massed in front of Washington, while Joseph E.
+Johnston, with fifty-four thousand, advanced his outposts to
+Centreville, and at Munson's Hill Toombs' brigade was in sight of the
+national capital. His troops could easily watch the workmen building one
+of the wings of the Capitol, and the victorious Confederates, with
+prestige in their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>ranks, were actually flaunting their flag in the face
+of Mr. Lincoln. This movement, we are told by good generals, was of no
+military value, but it kept the Northern administration in a white heat.
+It confused the Union commanders by crossing their counsels with popular
+clamor and political pressure, and it crippled McClellan when he finally
+moved down the Chesapeake to the peninsula, by detaining a large part of
+his force to pacify the authorities in Washington.</p>
+
+<p>When McClellan and Mr. Lincoln were disputing over their change of base,
+the military situation was suddenly shifted by the evacuation of
+Manassas by the Confederate army, and its retirement first behind the
+Rappahannock, then along the Rapidan. Johnston, it seems, wanted to be
+nearer his base, and on the 8th of March skillfully managed his
+withdrawal, so that the enemy had no idea of his movements. General
+Toombs' brigade started in retreat from Centreville. He did not relish
+this movement. He writes home from Culpepper:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This has been a sad and destructive business. We were
+ordered to send off all our heavy baggage, but so badly did
+they manage that none of it was sent back, and every
+particle of that baggage, blankets, and every imaginable
+useful article, was burned up to prevent its falling into
+the hands of the enemy. My brigade must have lost half a
+million of property and all the rest were in the same
+condition. Millions of stores with guns and ammunition were
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>destroyed. Never was any business worse managed. The enemy
+had no more idea of attacking us in Centreville than they
+had of attacking the Peaks of Otter. Of course, when we
+retreated, they sent marauding parties in our trail to
+watch our retreat and take possession of the country, and
+now the whole of the beautiful Counties of Loudon,
+Fauquier, Prince William, Fairfax, and the Lord only knows
+how many more, are in the possession of the enemy. It was a
+sad, distressing sight, all the way along, and one that
+frequently drew tears from my eyes. I do not know what it
+means, but I would rather have fought ten battles than thus
+to have abandoned these poor people. We have got to fight
+somewhere, and if I had my way, I would fight them on the
+first inch of our soil they invaded, and never cease to
+fight them as long as I could rally men to defend their
+homes. The great body of the army is now in the
+neighborhood, and I suppose we shall abandon these people
+and retreat back toward Richmond.... My command is in
+excellent condition. A few broke down on the way, but I
+managed to have them taken care of there and lost none of
+them on the march.</p></div>
+
+<p>One of the great features of General Toombs' control of his brigade was
+the excellent care he took of his men. He never allowed them to be
+imposed upon by the officers or by other commands.</p>
+
+<p>This letter betrays the impatience of General Toombs over any
+mismanagement. He was the soul of business, and as the transportation
+facilities at Manassas were meager, he chafed under the heavy loss to
+which his brigade was subjected in this retreat. With impetuous ardor he
+calls for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>resistance, not retreat. He did not approve of the "Fabian
+policy" of Joseph E. Johnston. As General Longstreet afterward remarked,
+"Toombs chafed at the delays of the commanders in their preparations for
+battle. His general idea was that the troops went out to fight, and he
+thought that they should be allowed to go at it at once." Near Orange
+Court House, he wrote to his wife on the 19th of March, 1862, "I know
+not what is to become of this country. Davis' incompetency is more
+apparent as our danger increases. Our only hope is Providence."</p>
+
+<p>In January, 1862, the General Assembly of Georgia elected Robert Toombs
+a member of the Confederate States Senate. Benjamin H. Hill was to be
+his colleague. But General Toombs had a different conception of his
+duty. He realized that he had been prominent in shaping the events that
+had led to the Civil War, and he did not shirk the sharpest
+responsibility. He felt that his duty was in the field. He had condemned
+the rush for civil offices and what he called "bombproof positions," and
+he wished at least to lead the way to active duty by remaining with his
+army.</p>
+
+<p>Two months later an effort was made by some of his friends to have him
+appointed Secretary of War. This would have brought him in close contact
+with the army, which he was anxious to serve. The parties behind this
+movement believed that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>the great abilities of Mr. Toombs should not be
+hidden behind the command of a brigade. He would have made an ideal war
+minister. His genius for details and his ability to manage affairs and
+plan campaigns would have overmatched Edwin M. Stanton. But Mr. Toombs
+promptly cut off this movement in his behalf.</p>
+
+<p>On 22d March, 1862, he wrote to his wife from Orange Court House, Va.:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I thought I had been very explicit on that point. I would
+not be Mr. Davis' chief clerk. His Secretary of War can
+never be anything else. I told my friends in Richmond to
+spare me the necessity of declining if they found it in
+contemplation. I have not heard that they had any occasion
+to interfere.... So far as I am concerned, Mr. Davis will
+never give me a chance for personal distinction. He thinks
+I pant for it, poor fool. I want nothing but the defeat of
+the public enemy and to retire with you for the balance of
+my life in peace and quiet in any decent corner of a free
+country. It may be his injustice will drive me from the
+army, but I shall not quit it until after a great victory,
+in which I shall have the opportunity of doing something
+for the country. The day after such an event I shall
+retire, if I live through it. I have grievances enough now
+to quit, but I shall bide my time. I get along very well
+with the army. I have not seen Johnston but once; he was
+polite and clever. George W. Smith I see every day. He is a
+first-rate gentleman and a good officer. I hear from
+Stephens constantly, but from nobody else in Richmond....
+You say you pray for me daily. I need it. Put it in your
+prayers that if it be the will of God that I shall fall, a
+sacrifice in this great conflict, that I may meet it as
+becomes a gentleman.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An instance of General Toombs' impatience under red-tape rules may be
+recalled. A member of his brigade was taken ill, and he secured for him
+entrance into the hospital of Richmond. The hospital was crowded;
+regulations were stringent, and under some technical ruling his sick
+soldier was shipped back to his brigade. Toombs was fired with
+indignation. He proceeded to sift the affair to the bottom, and was told
+that General Johnston had fixed the rules. This did not deter him.
+Riding up to the commander's tent and securing admission, he proceeded
+to upbraid the general as only Toombs could do. When he returned to his
+headquarters he narrated the circumstance to Dr. Henry H. Steiner, his
+brigade surgeon and lifelong friend. Dr. Steiner, who had been a surgeon
+in the regular army, and had served in the Mexican war, was a better
+tactical officer than Toombs. He was himself fearless and upright, but
+full of tact and discretion. "General," said Dr. Steiner, "you have been
+too rash; you will be arrested." Toombs replied that he thought so, too.
+He held himself in anticipation for two or three days, but he was not
+disturbed. When he was finally summoned to General Johnston's tent, it
+was to consult over a plan of movement, and it was noticed that Toombs
+was the only brigadier in counsel. General Johnston subsequently
+remarked that Toombs was the biggest brained man in the Confederacy. The
+bold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>ness and clearness of the impetuous Georgian had captured the grim
+hero of Manassas, who forgave the affront in the face of the
+overmastering mind of the man.</p>
+
+<p>General McClellan reached Fortress Monroe, April 2, 1862, and commenced
+his march up the peninsula. The country is low and flat, and the season
+was unusually wet and dismal. The objective point was Richmond,
+seventy-five miles away, and the first obstruction met by the Federal
+army was at Yorktown. The defense adopted by General Magruder was a
+series of dams extending along the Warwick River, which stretched across
+the peninsula from the York to the James River, a distance of thirteen
+miles. The fords along the Warwick had been destroyed by dams defended
+by redoubts, and the invader and defender were stationed in dense
+swamps. At dam No. 1 Toombs' troops were often under fire. They fought
+with spirit. Each detachment was on duty defending the dam forty-eight
+hours, and between long exposure in the trenches, the frequent alarms,
+and sharp sorties, the service was very exhausting. It was only possible
+to change troops at night. On the 16th of April Toombs writes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>One of my regiments, the 17th Georgia, had a skirmish day
+before yesterday. They acted splendidly, charging the
+Yankees, and driving them from the rifle-pits, killing,
+wounding, and taking prisoners over one hundred of the
+enemy. I lost but two killed and a few wounded.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the siege of Yorktown in the early part of May, 1862, General Toombs
+commanded a division consisting of his own and Semmes' brigades. He had
+2357 men in his own and 2342 in Semmes' brigade, making about 4700
+troops in line. During this siege General Magruder reports that General
+Toombs supported Cobb's brigade, and promptly and energetically led the
+remainder of his command under fire, arriving just before the enemy
+ceased their attack, and in time to share its danger. General Magruder
+had only 11,000 men under him in the peninsula, and General Huger but
+8000, to oppose McClellan's march with 80,000. Johnston and Lee both
+pronounced the peninsula untenable, and on the 4th of May Yorktown was
+evacuated.</p>
+
+<p>After the retreat from the peninsula, General Johnston concentrated his
+entire army behind the Chickahominy River, sixteen miles from Richmond.
+On the 12th of May General Toombs writes home that his command near the
+Chickahominy was "resting easily after a disagreeable march from
+Yorktown. I hear that there is great consternation in Richmond.... The
+loss of New Orleans gives us a terrible blow, and, followed by Norfolk,
+makes it necessary for us to strike a decisive blow somewhere." On 19th
+of May, 1862, he writes home from the camp near Richmond:</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>We seem to have come up here to defend this city. You ask
+me my opinion of the present state of the country. It is
+bad enough. The utter incompetency of Mr. Davis and his
+West Point generals have brought us to the verge of ruin.
+If McClellan is unwise enough to fight us here, we shall
+whip and drive him out of Virginia.... As to Richmond, it
+will never be taken while this army is here.</p></div>
+
+<p>General Toombs' estimate of the army and of the futility of an attack
+from McClellan was justified when, after the 26th of June, the Army of
+the Potomac, almost in sight of the spires of Richmond, was forced to
+reel back, in the deadly clinch of a seven days' combat, to the James
+River. The Confederate army changed its position from one of retreat to
+a brilliant and aggressive policy, and the subtle tactics of Johnston
+gave way to the bold strokes of Lee. The South was thrilled with
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs frequently referred to the incompetency of Mr. Davis. The
+letters which have just been quoted were written to his wife, and were
+not made public then, but he did not hesitate to express his opinion
+openly. Jefferson Davis and Mr. Toombs had some differences while the
+former was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce and Mr. Toombs was in
+the Senate. Mr. Toombs believed that President Davis was too partial to
+West Point, at which school Mr. Davis had been trained, and that in his
+man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>agement of the army he showed the tenacity of a martinet rather than
+the breadth of a statesman.</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1859, the Army Appropriation bill had come up before the
+United States Senate. Mr. Toombs attacked, and Mr. Davis defended the
+whole system. Mr. Toombs contended that the compensation of army
+officers was too great. It was more than the same talent could command
+in any other walk of life. It was upon a wrong basis. "You take a boy of
+sixteen and send him to West Point, and when he comes out you give him
+$1400 a year. In the course of a few years you carry him up to $3000,
+$6000, or $8000. Take the general employment of the youths of the
+country who are educated at the different colleges for all civil
+purposes. You may have the highest amount of genius and intellect, and
+you get nothing like such average there. It will take them many years to
+make that much money." Mr. Toombs declared that a brigadier general's
+commission was higher than that of a United States Senator. "I think,"
+said he, "it requires as great qualifications to govern this country as
+it does to be a brigadier general." Officers had increased far beyond
+the wants of the country. Members of Congress appoint cadets for the
+different districts; "they are generally associated in some way, as
+brothers, sons, or cousins, with the governing power." He thought a
+salary of $600 or $900 for the West Point grad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>uates enough. According
+to the way army commissions were valued in England, the commission of a
+lieutenant who graduated at West Point could not be worth less than
+$50,000. The pay of a captain was higher than that of a judge. That
+position required the highest ability and integrity, and the average
+salary of a judge was but $2000, without traveling expenses. Mr. Toombs
+contended that West Point men seldom reflected any opinions but those of
+the government which employed them. They seldom sympathized with the
+people, and he wanted a government of the people. "You take a boy to
+West Point," he said, "give him quarters, and fuel, and clothes, and
+maintain him, and you say he has rendered service. When the citizens of
+this country send their sons to college they pay their expenses or work
+their way through; but when a boy is carried to West Point he is taken
+care of; a house is provided for him; clothes are provided for him;
+instructors are provided for him, and that is called being in service. I
+lay down the proposition that the true theory of wages, if you employ
+these people to keep the peace, is exactly the same&mdash;a constable's
+pay&mdash;you ought to pay them what they can be had for."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Davis held that army officers were constantly tempted to resign by
+offers of higher pay. It was the training of these men in the service,
+not for the service, it was their attachment for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>country which made
+them so valuable. It was better to instruct men for officers' places and
+then appoint them, than to appoint them and then instruct them. He
+thought appointments were free from partisan selection. A soldier's
+devotion was as broad as the continent. A West Point cadet is a warrant
+officer; he goes there to serve the government as it may direct. It
+directs him to stay there until he has sufficient elementary instruction
+to properly discharge the duties of an officer.</p>
+
+<p>The debate showed the views of the two men, and indicated the
+differences which, from points of public policy, soon deepened into
+personal dislike. On the 30th of May, Toombs wrote from the army, "Davis
+is polite and formal; so am I."</p>
+
+<p>In the latter part of 1862 it was evident that the two armies must meet
+and contend for the mastery in Virginia. The day before the seven days'
+fighting commenced, Dr. Steiner said to General Toombs, his intimate
+friend: "General, I have a favor to ask of you. Keep your mind unclouded
+during these important operations." Dr. Steiner knew that during the
+heat and excitement of battle, temptation was great among soldiers to
+take ardent spirits, a practice that had grown somewhat upon General
+Toombs during his service in the field, and which at times deprived him
+of his best powers. "Why, doctor, I gladly promise," said the great
+Georgian. Nor did he, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>during the week, take a glass of any sort of
+liquor.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs' brigade was the First Brigade, First Division, Army of
+Northern Virginia, and during the campaign of the peninsula, was in
+Magruder's division. On June 15, 1862, Toombs occupied the most exposed
+position, which was held for nine days. Magruder recommended relief for
+his troops, which had been suffering from lack of rest and care. Just
+before the seven days' fight Toombs' brigade was placed in D. R. Jones'
+division and Magruder commanded his own, Jones', and McLaw's divisions,
+holding about 13,000 men. Toombs' brigade was composed of the 1st, 15th,
+17th, and 20th Georgia regiments.</p>
+
+<p>On the 26th of June Toombs' brigade was posted upon the east of
+Garnett's House, on Golding's farm, just in front of the enemy. Both
+sides threw up breastworks so near that neither could advance its picket
+line. "Just before dark," says Dr. Steiner, <a name="Page_250t" id="Page_250t"></a><a href="#Page_250tn">"Mr. Toombs received orders</a>
+to charge the enemy, firing having been heard on the left. The position
+was a dangerous one. A charge at that time of the evening was perilous.
+Just in front lay a deep gulch&mdash;Labor-in-Vain Ravine&mdash;which was alive
+with the enemy, and the charge must be through an unprotected field of
+wheat and clover. General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> Toombs was astonished at the order. His first
+instructions had been to put himself near Garnett House, to hold his
+position and to take advantage of any retreat of the enemy. He doubted
+the authenticity of the order, and sent word that he would not obey
+unless in writing. Pretty soon written instructions were returned and
+General Toombs prepared for what he believed to be a forlorn hope. He
+advanced seven companies of the 2d Georgia Regiment, 750 men, under
+Colonel B. M. Butt, toward the enemy in the face of a heavy front and
+flank fire. Colonel Williams' regiment crossed the field at double-quick
+under a galling fire from the opposite side of the ravine. Unshaken by
+fearful odds, they held their ground and replied with spirit. The 15th
+Georgia Regiment, under Colonel McIntosh then entered the fight, and
+this gallant officer was mortally wounded. The 17th Georgia charged on
+the left and the 20th on the right. The engagement was a very bloody
+one. Over 200 of Toombs' men were lost and several valuable officers
+were killed. The opposing troops were a part of General Hancock's
+command, and the firing ceased only with the night. Next morning the
+enemy retreated, and Toombs' men pressed forward and held their
+position. General Toombs was censured for this engagement, for which, it
+seems, he was in no wise responsible.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the 1st of July, about three o'clock in the afternoon, commenced one
+of the famous battles of the war. McClellan's army had gotten away from
+its perilous position astride the Chickahominy, and now found itself
+united and strongly intrenched on the heights of Malvern Hill. All hope
+of destroying that army was gone, and it was evident that an engagement
+must ensue, with the odds in favor of the Union army. It was in many
+respects like the battle of Gettysburg, except that the Confederate
+forces were not handled with the precision and effectiveness of the
+historic sorties against Cemetery Heights. The battlefield was in plain
+range of the enemy's gunboats, and there was much surprise that General
+Lee should have sanctioned an engagement at that point. General D. H.
+Hill misunderstood the signal for attack at Malvern Hill, and late in
+the afternoon ordered the charge. Toombs' brigade had been marching and
+countermarching all day, and went into action much thinned from the
+effects of the sharp fighting at Labor-in-Vain Ravine. There was no
+concerted attack. The charge seems to have been made by brigades, even
+single regiments being thrown forward. They advanced through a swamp,
+and the difficulties of the charge, owing to a murderous fire which
+raked the plain from the hills, 600 yards away, cannot be exaggerated.
+Toombs' brigade was one of the first to reach the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>plateau swept by
+fifty guns. It advanced with Anderson's brigade, but obliqued to the
+left about half-way up the hill, and took position near a fence, where
+the troops, suffering fearfully from the cool, deadly aim of the Federal
+gunners, were ordered to lie down and secure some shelter from the
+cannon-shot. It was at this time that General D. H. Hill rode up to
+General Toombs and ordered his brigade forward. Some sharp words ensued
+between these officers, and the men moved forward handsomely to the brow
+of the hill. At this time, however, the steady stream of fugitives
+pressing back from the charge, broke the alignment of the brigade and
+separated the regiments. Colonel Butt's regiment went forward with
+Kershaw's brigade. The whole Confederate charge was soon checked and the
+troops fell back in disorder. Their loss was fully 5000 men, and the
+loss in Toombs' brigade was 219 men, making his losses in the two
+engagements over one-third of his entire number. Malvern Hill was a
+blunder which was never repeated, but it was a disastrous one for the
+Georgia troops.</p>
+
+<p>The subjoined correspondence will be understood in the light of the
+meeting of General D. H. Hill and General Toombs near Malvern Hill
+during the progress of the charge of the Confederate forces.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate">
+<span class="smcap">Headquarters First Brigade, First Division</span>,<br />
+In the Field, July 6, 1862.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Major General D. H. Hill.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>: Military movements since Tuesday last have prevented
+an earlier reply to your conversation with me on the
+battlefield that evening. I understood you to say, among
+other things, that "Your (my) brigade would not fight";
+that you "always knew it would not fight"; that it
+"pretended to want to fight, but would not"; "Where were
+you when I was riding in front on my horse trying to rally
+your brigade?" I desire first to know whether I am correct
+in my understanding of your language, and if not, wherein I
+am mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>And secondly, to request of you such explanation of that
+language as you may choose to give.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+I am sir,<br />
+Your obedient servant,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Robert Toombs</span>.<br /><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate">
+July 6, 1862.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>General</i>: Your note has just been received. My remarks
+were personal to yourself and not to your brigade. I did
+not in the slightest degree reflect on your men. What I
+said was in substance this: "You have been wanting to
+fight, and now that you have one, you have got out of it."
+There were witnesses to our conversation, and if my remarks
+were severer, I will let you know.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well to suggest to you that, as the commanding
+officer on the field, I have an official report to make
+which will not be modified by your note.</p>
+
+<p>It is notorious that you have a thousand times expressed
+your disgust that the commanding general did not permit you
+to fight. It is equally notorious that you retired from
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>the field. These are the two facts of which I reminded you
+on Tuesday. I made no comment upon them, and if the simple
+truth has been offensive, the interpretation of it has been
+your own.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours truly,<br />
+<span class="smcap">D. H. Hill</span>,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Major General.</p>
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Brigadier General Toombs</span>.
+<br /><br /><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate">
+<span class="smcap">Headquarters First Brigade, First Division</span>,<br />
+July 6, 1862.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">General D. H. Hill.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>: Your note of this date has just been received. It is
+scarcely necessary for me to say it is not satisfactory. It
+would be inappropriate to comment upon it properly in this
+note, and for that reason alone I waive it for the present.</p>
+
+<p>As to your remark that you were the commanding officer on
+the field on the 1st inst., I never before heard of it, nor
+do I now think so, but, however that fact may be, I am at a
+loss to know for what reason you state it unless it was to
+menace and intimidate me in the pursuit of proper
+satisfaction for the unprovoked insult you have cast upon
+me. If that was your object, this note will satisfy you
+that you have failed in your object. I now demand of you
+personal satisfaction for the insult you cast upon my
+command and myself on the battlefield on the 1st inst., and
+for the repetition and aggravation thereof in your note of
+this day. I refer you to my friend Colonel Benning for all
+necessary arrangements.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Your obedient servant,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Robert Toombs</span>.<br />
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate">
+<span class="smcap">Camp Near Richmond, Va.</span>,<br />
+July 12, 1862.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>General</i>: Your note of the 6th was received yesterday. I
+must again enter my protest against your second declaration
+that I reflected upon your brigade in the battle of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>Malvern Hill. Witnesses to our interview affirm that my
+remarks were entirely personal to yourself.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to your demand for satisfaction, I construe it to
+mean either that I must apologize to you for the language
+used by me on the battlefield, or that I must grant you a
+hostile meeting. If the first interpretation be correct, I
+will state that I will make full, public, and ample
+concessions when satisfied that I did you injustice; and
+this I would do without any demand. I certainly thought
+that you had taken the field too late, and that you left it
+too early. You may, however, have done your whole duty, and
+held your ground as long as it was possible for a brave and
+skillful officer to hold it. If the facts prove this to be
+so, no one will be more gratified than myself, and my
+acknowledgment of error will be cordial and complete.</p>
+
+<p>But if your demand means a challenge, its acceptance, when
+we have a country to defend and enemies to fight, would be
+highly improper and contrary to the dictates of plain duty,
+without reference to higher grounds of action. I will not
+make myself a party to a course of conduct forbidden alike
+by the plainest principles of duty, and the laws which we
+have mutually sworn to serve.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours truly,<br />
+<span class="smcap">D. H. Hill</span>, Major General.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Brigadier General Robert Toombs</span>.<br /><br />
+
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Just what General Toombs replied to this is not known. The letter has
+not been preserved in this correspondence. It evidently declared that
+the explanation was not satisfactory. Major R. J. Moses, Jr., a member
+of General Toombs' staff, submitted in writing the following report of
+his recollection of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> General Hill's words to General Toombs at Malvern
+Hill:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Where is your brigade, sir? I told you that I wanted a
+fighting brigade, and your brigade will not fight. I knew
+it would not, and you are the man who pretends to have been
+spoiling for a fight. For shame! Rally your troops! Where
+were you when I was riding up and down your line rallying
+your troops?</p></div>
+
+<p>Major Moses adds:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>As aid-de-camp of General Robert Toombs, I remained with
+him until some time after this conversation. Previous to
+this conversation General Toombs had been about fifteen
+yards to the rear of the center of his line and his troops
+were unbroken. There were many men coming by us, but I saw
+not over ten from General Toombs' brigade. The order was
+given "Forward, left oblique," and General Toombs moved to
+the left of his line. When General Hill met him and
+commenced this attack on the character of himself and his
+brigade without the slightest provocation, General Toombs
+had not only been rallying the troops, but continued to use
+his best endeavors to rally them till late at night. I was
+with General Toombs the whole time from the commencement of
+the action until half or three-quarters of an hour after
+the conversation.</p></div>
+
+<p>The following is the concluding letter of the correspondence:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="quotdate">
+July 15, 1862.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>General</i>: I regret that my last note, which was intended
+to be conciliatory, has been misunderstood or
+misappreciated. I take it for granted that you know enough
+of my previous history to be aware that a hostile meeting,
+under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>any circumstances, would be abhorrent to my
+principles and character. At this time it would be in the
+highest degree improper. I have offered you the only
+redress which I could make even after a meeting, viz., an
+acknowledgment of error when convinced of that error. As no
+good can result from a continued correspondence, it will
+close on my part with this communication.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours truly,<br />
+<span class="smcap">D. H. Hill</span>, Major General.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Brigadier General Robert Toombs</span>.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>General Hill was a good man and a brave soldier. His devotion to the
+Confederate cause was undoubted, but his zeal sometimes made him harsh,
+and more than once he placed himself in the position of reflecting upon
+the conduct of others. On one occasion at the battle of Chickamauga,
+where General Hill was in command of the extreme right of the
+Confederate line, on the second day of the battle information was
+brought to him of the sudden and unexpected advance of a strong Federal
+force against his line. It proved to be the division of the Federal
+General Gordon Granger. General Hill and General W. H. T. Walker, who
+commanded two divisions under General Hill, proceeded at once to the
+threatened point, to ascertain the situation of affairs, accompanied by
+some members of their staff. Arrived at a point where this new arrival
+of Federal forces could be seen, General Walker deferred to General Hill
+and asked him, "What do you wish me to do?"</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do I want you to do?" said Hill with severity, and even with
+something like a snarl, "I want you to fight."</p>
+
+<p>General Walker flushed up in a moment. He was not a man to deserve any
+reflection upon his courage or to bear it when offered. No man in the
+old army had a higher and more deserved reputation for dashing courage.
+He had been desperately wounded in Florida, and again wounded, supposed
+to be mortally, in leading the assault on Chapultepec in the Mexican
+War, and had, on many occasions, given undoubted evidence of his valor
+and fidelity. He answered hotly, "Of course I will fight; you know that,
+General Hill, well enough; but, by God! sir, there are two ways of
+fighting, one to whip and the other to get whipped."</p>
+
+<p>The point was a good one. Major Joseph B. Cumming, chief of General
+Walker's staff, who related this incident, says it had the desired
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>When Longstreet marched against Pope he stationed General Toombs'
+brigade to guard one of the fords of the Rapidan. Toombs was absent at
+the time and when he rode up ordered them back to camp. General
+Longstreet heard of Toombs making stump speeches and "referring in
+anything but complimentary terms of his commander." He sent General
+Toombs to Gordonsville. Afterward he received an apology from Toombs and
+directed him to join <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>his command. <a name="Page_260t" id="Page_260t"></a><a href="#Page_260tn">["]</a>As we were preparing for the
+charge at Manassas (second battle), Toombs got there, riding rapidly
+with his hat in his hand, and was much enthused. I was just sending a
+courier to his command with a dispatch. 'Let me take it,' he exclaimed.
+'With pleasure,' I responded, and handed him the paper. He put spurs to
+his horse and dashed off, accompanied by his courier. When he rode up
+and took command of his brigade there was wild enthusiasm, and,
+everything being ready, an exultant shout was sent up, and the men
+sprang to the charge. I never had any more trouble with Toombs. We were
+afterward warm personal friends."</p>
+
+<p>On the 30th of August, 1862, Hon. A. H. Stephens wrote to Mrs. Toombs
+that General Toombs was still at Gordonsville. He said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How long he will remain, I do not know. I thought at first
+that it would only be for a day or two, or until General
+Longstreet could receive and reply to two notes he had
+written, explaining to my mind very fully and
+satisfactorily his acts and conduct, which, it seems to me,
+General Longstreet had misunderstood. Such is still my
+opinion, and yet I may be mistaken. I do not know much of
+General Longstreet. I only know that General Toombs, who
+does know him, always expressed very high admiration of him
+as an officer.</p></div>
+
+<p>At the second battle of Manassas, August 29, 1862, Toombs' brigade in
+Jones' division held the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>rear of Longstreet's corps. Early in the
+morning the brigade took up the march in the direction of the old
+battlefield of Manassas, where heavy firing was heard. Arriving at noon
+it was stationed on the extreme right, or upon the Manassas Gap
+railroad. The brigades formed in echelon. General Longstreet in his
+published report commended especially General Toombs for gallant conduct
+at Manassas Plain.</p>
+
+<p>General D. R. Jones, in his report of Manassas, says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>General Toombs, released from arrest, under which he had
+been since the 18th of August, came upon the field shortly
+after his brigade went in under fire and accompanied it in
+action.</p></div>
+
+<p>Captain H. L. French, of the 17th Georgia Regiment, says: "Soon after
+our engagement, to our great satisfaction, we unexpectedly met our
+gallant commander, Brigadier General Robert Toombs, who, anticipating
+the fight, had ridden hard all day. He was greeted with hearty cheers,
+and said, 'Boys, I am proud of the report given of you by General Jones.
+I could not be with you to-day, but this was owing to no fault of mine.
+To-morrow I lead you.'"</p>
+
+<p>One report of this engagement declares that as Toombs dashed into the
+fire and joined his men, he waved his hat and shouted, "Go it, boys! I
+am <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>with you again. Jeff Davis can make a general, but it takes God
+Almighty to make a soldier!"</p>
+
+<p>The expulsion of Pope only accelerated the momentum of the Army of
+Northern Virginia. From the front of Richmond, the theater of operations
+was transferred at once to the front of Washington, and the Union army
+was again on the defensive. General Lee, freed from the necessity of
+guarding the Confederate capital, resolved to invade Maryland. He
+reasoned that the prestige of the invasion would advance the cause of
+the young nation abroad; that it would relieve Virginia from incursions
+during the winter, and that the presence of the army in Maryland would
+raise the standard of revolt and cause the liberation of that State from
+the Union cause. Lee's army, however, was not equal to such an
+expedition. It was not well clothed or armed, and barely numbered
+40,000, while McClellan had 80,000.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs' brigade accompanied Longstreet's corps in its counter-march from
+<a name="Page_262t" id="Page_262t"></a><a href="#Page_265tn">Hagarstown</a> to Hill's support. On the 14th of September these were
+withdrawn to the valley of the Antietam. The creek of Antietam runs
+obliquely to the source of the Potomac, and empties into that river six
+miles above Harper's Ferry. The Confederate lines were, on the 15th,
+drawn up in front of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> Sharpsburg, Longstreet being on the right of the
+road from Sharpsburg.</p>
+
+<p>In this place the creek is crossed by four stone bridges, and three of
+these were strongly guarded by the Confederates. Burnside's army corps
+was stationed on the Sharpsburg Turnpike, directly in front of bridge
+No. 3. The preliminary deploy occupied the 16th of September, an
+artillery duel enlivening the time before the battle. Burnside lay
+behind the heights on the east bank of the Antietam and opposite the
+Confederate right, which, Swinton says, it was designed he should
+assail, after forcing the passage of the Antietam by the lower stone
+bridge. The part assigned to General Burnside was of the highest
+importance, for a successful attack by him upon the Confederate right,
+would, by carrying the Sharpsburg Crest, force Lee from his line of
+retreat by way of Shepherdstown. Swinton says this task should have been
+an easy one, for the Confederate forces at this point had been drawn
+upon to recruit the left where Hooker had made his furious assaults.</p>
+
+<p>There was left in the right wing of the Confederate army but a single
+division of 2500 men under General D. R. Jones, and the force actually
+present to dispute the passage of the stone bridge did not exceed 400.
+These troops were under the direction of General Robert Toombs, and this
+engagement made his reputation as a fighter and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>was one of the most
+brilliant and memorable of the Civil War. It was one o'clock before
+Burnside charged. General Lee, in his report of the battle, said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>In the afternoon the enemy advanced on our right, where
+General Jones' division was posted, who handsomely
+maintained his position. General Toombs' brigade, guarding
+the bridge on Antietam Creek, gallantly resisted the
+approach of the enemy, but his superior number enabling him
+to extend his left, he crossed below the bridge and assumed
+a threatening attitude on our right, which fell back in
+confusion. By this time, between 3 and 4 o'clock <span class="smcap">p.&nbsp;m.</span>, A.
+P. Hill, with five of his brigades, reached the scene of
+action and drove the enemy from the position they had
+taken. The bridge was defended with two regiments of
+Toombs' brigade (2d and 20th) and the batteries of General
+Jones. General Toombs' small command repulsed five
+different assaults made by greatly superior forces, and
+maintained its position with distinguished gallantry....
+Toombs charged the flank of the enemy, while Archer moved
+upon the front of the Federal line. The enemy made a brief
+resistance and then ran in confusion.</p></div>
+
+<p>Such commendation from the commander-in-chief of the Confederate army
+speaks for itself.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of the last charge, when the Federals were driven back over the
+creek in the counter-attack, General Jones says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>General Toombs, whom I had sent for, arriving from the
+right with a portion of his brigade (11th Georgia
+Reg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>iment) was ordered to charge the enemy. This he did
+most gallantly, supported by Archer's brigade, delivering
+fire at less than fifty yards, dashing at the enemy with
+the bayonet, forcing him from the crest and following him
+down the hill.</p></div>
+
+<p>General Garnett's report credits Toombs with having "re&euml;nforced the
+right just after it had been driven back, and restored the fortunes of
+the day in that quarter."</p>
+
+<p>From the report of General Toombs it appeared that when he first moved
+into Maryland he was assigned to command a division composed of Toombs',
+Drayton's, and Anderson's brigades, and took possession of <a name="Page_265t" id="Page_265t"></a><a href="#Page_265tn">Hagerstown</a>.
+On September 14 he was ordered to Sharpsburg, two of his regiments
+having been sent to Williamsport to protect the wagon trains. With two
+small regiments left, General Toombs took position near the bridge over
+the Antietam on the road to Harper's Ferry. He took possession of the
+ground with the 20th Georgia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Jonathan B.
+Cumming, and the 2d Georgia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Holmes. The
+creek was comparatively straight by this bridge. He formed his regiments
+along the creek in more open order than was desirable on account of the
+smallness of his number. Subsequently the 50th Georgia, with scarcely
+100 men, was placed under his command. Colonel Eubanks' battery was by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>order of General Longstreet placed in his rear. The enemy opened on his
+position on Tuesday evening, the 16th of September. On Wednesday
+morning, his pickets were driven in and the enemy menaced his position.
+The ground descended gently to the creek covered with a narrow strip of
+woods, affording slight protection. The enemy approached by the road
+parallel with his line of battle, he says, exposing his flank to a
+destructive fire. Between 9 <span class="smcap">a.&nbsp;m.</span> and 1 <span class="smcap">p.&nbsp;m.</span> the Federals made five
+attempts to carry the bridge, and were repulsed by the 2d and 20th
+Georgia regiments. Failing to wrest the bridge from its heroic
+defenders, the enemy turned his attention to the fords. "Not being able
+to get re&euml;nforcements, and seeing that the enemy would cross and attack
+my front, right flank, and rear, Colonel Holmes having been killed,
+Major Harris wounded, both regiments having suffered heavily, ammunition
+nearly exhausted, and the battery withdrawn, I withdrew my command to a
+position, designated by Longstreet, opposite the lower fords. This
+change of position was made very satisfactorily and without serious
+loss. The 15th and 17th Georgia regiments and part of the 11th,
+previously detached, now came up and occupied the new position. The 20th
+and 2d went to the ammunition train to replenish their cartridge boxes.
+The enemy moved through the bridge and ford with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>extreme caution, and
+lost nearly two hours in crossing, about which time A. P. Hill's
+division came from Harper's Ferry. I was ordered by Longstreet to put my
+command in motion to meet the enemy. I found them in possession of the
+ground I was ordered to occupy, including the bridge road and the
+suburbs of Sharpsburg. With less than one-fifth the numbers of the enemy
+and within 100 paces of his lines I determined to give battle. I had
+instantly to determine either to retreat or to fight. A retreat would
+have left the town of Sharpsburg and General Longstreet's rear open to
+the enemy. The enemy advanced in good order to within sixty or eighty
+paces, when the effectiveness of the fire threw his column into
+considerable confusion, perceiving which I instantly ordered a charge,
+which was brilliantly executed by my whole line. The enemy fled in
+confusion toward the river, making two or three efforts to rally, which
+were soon defeated. The enemy brought over the bridge a battery. I
+ordered Richardson's battery to open upon it, and at the same time the
+15th and 20th Georgia charged upon it and compelled it to rejoin the
+flying infantry. I desired to pursue the enemy across the river, but,
+being deficient in artillery, I sent to General Lee for a battery, which
+came up too late. I then determined to move my troops to my first
+position along the river, but received the order to occupy the heights
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>on the opposite side of the road leading to the bridge from Sharpsburg,
+and there the troops bivouacked for the night."</p>
+
+<p>The gallant conduct of Toombs' brigade at Sharpsburg was the theme on
+both sides. The country rang with its exploits and the fiery Georgia
+brigadier became the toast of the army. Burnside's heavy losses
+abundantly proved the stoutness of the resistance and the deadliness of
+the charges of the Georgia troops.</p>
+
+<p>The next evening, on the edge of Sharpsburg, General Toombs and his aids
+crossed a little branch on his way to the headquarters of Colonel
+Benning. General Toombs rode his famous mare "Gray Alice," so well known
+to his command. He was not very far over when a troop of <a name="Page_268t" id="Page_268t"></a><a href="#Page_268tn">cavalry</a> rode
+up. He challenged them, and they answered "We are friends." Captain
+Troup of his staff, however, detected the ruse and fired into them. The
+squad returned the fire. General Toombs was shot through the hand with
+which he was holding the reins. The gray mare at once became
+unmanageable and ran back across the branch. As soon as he could control
+the mare, General Toombs rode back to Colonel Benning and, reporting his
+wound, turned his brigade over to Colonel Benning. When it became known
+that General Toombs was wounded his men were deeply pained. Always
+solicitous for their welfare, his soldiers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>were devotedly attached to
+him. He took care of his brigade even to the extremity of violating army
+discipline. He exacted the utmost consideration for his men, and the
+officer who periled their safety, or disputed their efficiency, was
+quickly called to account. Whether against Johnston, Longstreet, or
+Hill, the First Brigade, First Division, was sure of a fearless champion
+in the person of its commander.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Sharpsburg was a very bloody one. The losses on the
+Federal side were nearly 12,500, while the Confederates lost 8000. Lee
+withdrew into Virginia, and McClellan was too much demoralized to
+follow. Longstreet, in summing up the Manassas and Maryland campaign,
+declared that in one month the troops had marched over two hundred miles
+upon little more than half rations and fought nine battles and
+skirmishes. They had "killed, wounded, and captured nearly as many men
+as we had in our ranks, besides taking arms and other munitions of war
+in large quantities." General Longstreet compliments Brigadier General
+Toombs for his "gallant defense at the bridge of Antietam and his
+vigorous charge upon the enemy's flank; he was severely wounded at the
+close of the engagement."</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs returned to his home after Sharpsburg, and remained
+several months. He rejoined his command near Fredericksburg, but in
+March, 1863, wrote a touching farewell to his bri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>gade and resigned his
+commission in the army of Northern Virginia. It seemed to him that he
+did not have justice done him at Richmond. He aspired, with the ambition
+of a soldier, to be promoted in his country's service. His conduct at
+Sharpsburg, where he wrung admiration from his superior officers,
+appeared to call for recognition from the President, but he did not
+receive his major-generalship, and, although more than once in the
+actual command of a division, did not secure that title. It is true that
+he would have liked the promotion; but he did not expect it. He had
+written to his wife that he would not be driven from the army until
+after some great battle, when he should have the opportunity of doing
+something for his country. "The day after such an event, I will retire
+if I live through it." The battle had occurred, his record was written
+upon the stone bridge of Antietam, and his work was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>Postmaster-General Reagan was one of those who recognized the merits of
+General Toombs. Twice did he approach President Davis with the request
+that General Toombs be promoted to the command of a division. That
+official replied promptly that he did not oppose it himself, but that he
+could not do it without the recommendation of the army officers, and
+that recommendation had not been given. Possibly the field officers
+be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>lieved the suggestion would have been ungracious to Mr. Davis.
+General Toombs had not hesitated to criticise the policy and
+appointments of the Richmond administration. That practice had strained
+his relations with the Confederate Government, but Toombs was a man who
+"would not flatter Neptune for his trident."</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs was not a trained soldier, but he had some fine points of
+a great commander. He was the soul of energy and common sense. He was
+bold, dashing, magnetic. He had the quality of infusing his spirit into
+his men. His quick mind seized the points of a campaign, and his
+intellect was broad and overmastering. It is related of him that one day
+in Virginia he hurried to the rear for a conference with Jefferson
+Davis, to which the President had summoned him, upon some point of civil
+administration. This business over, he dashed back to the front, where
+he had an engagement with General Lee over a plan of attack. General
+Longstreet said Toombs had the kindling eye and rare genius of a
+soldier, but lacked the discipline of a military man. This was the
+serious flaw in his character. He had what General Johnston declared was
+the great drawback about the Southern soldier, "a large endowment of the
+instinct of personal liberty," and it was difficult to subordinate his
+will to the needs of military discipline. He had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>accustomed to
+priority, and in whatever company, under whatever conditions he found
+himself, his had been the part to lead and to rule. As Colonel Thomas W.
+Thomas had said of him, "Toombs has always been the big frog in the
+pond." Men conceded to him this prestige. Under the cast-iron rule of
+the army he found himself subordinated to men intellectually beneath
+him, but trained and skilled in the art of war. He was swift to detect
+error, and impatient in combating blunder. The rule of mediocrity, the
+red tape of the service, the restraints of the corps, the tactics of the
+field galled his imperious spirit. He commanded his brigade as he had
+represented his State in the Senate&mdash;as a sovereign and independent
+body, and like the heroic Helvetian had blazoned on his crest, "No one
+shall cross me with impunity."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs made a mistake in sinking himself in the routine of a
+brigade commander. He should have taken the War Department, or, like
+Pitt, have pushed the war from the floor of the Senate. Swinton says
+that Abraham Lincoln brought the habits of a politician to military
+affairs, in which their intrusion can only result in confusion of just
+relations. There is ineradicable antagonism between the maxims which
+govern politics and those which govern war.</p>
+
+<p>During General Toombs' absence in the field, he opposed the Conscript
+Acts of the Confederate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>administration. He believed them arbitrary and
+unjust. He considered that this was a tendency toward centralization
+which the Confederate Government was fighting; that it placed too much
+power in the hands of one man; that it was deadly to States' Rights and
+personal liberty, and that it would impair the efficiency of the army by
+lowering its patriotism. The champion of this anti-administration policy
+in Georgia was Linton Stephens, the brother of the vice president.
+Toombs in the field, the elder Stephens in Congress, and Linton Stephens
+in the Georgia Legislature, fought the Conscription and Impressment
+Acts. Hon. Joseph E. Brown, the war Governor of Georgia, was also a
+vigorous opponent of this policy. This influence gave rise, in the early
+part of 1864, to the Peace Resolutions of Linton Stephens, who sustained
+Governor Brown in his policy, to inaugurate State action for "the
+preservation of rights and the attainment of peace." Linton Stephens, in
+a strong letter to General Toombs at that time, called attention to the
+fact that since the war began neither side had made any effort to stop
+the effusion of blood. He believed that the professional soldiers and
+West Point generals would never permit the cessation of hostilities.
+Such men, he thought, would not, in human nature, desire peace. "How can
+it be explained," he wrote, "that both governments have fought on during
+these long years of blood and tears and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>desolation, without either one
+offering terms of peace, and with both running a swift race of rivalry
+in usurping the most despotic power under the ever-recurring and false
+plea of necessities of war? Have both governments formed designs that
+cannot be accomplished in peace, and which seek opportunity and shelter
+in the confusion and panic of war?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Linton Stephens was a leading lawyer and legislator in Georgia. He
+was a man of great ability. He had started the practice of law in the
+office of Robert Toombs, and had been a political follower and close
+friend of the great Georgian. He had served upon the bench of the
+Supreme Court of his State, and at the close of the war his political
+influence was probably greater than that of any man at home. He was
+fearless, inflexible, high-toned, and full of power. He did not hesitate
+to condemn the legislation asked for by Mr. Davis, and joined Mr. Toombs
+in opposing the appointment of General Bragg as supervisor of all
+military operations. Mr. Stephens believed that the next step after the
+Impressment Act would be the organization of all labor into a military
+system under government control.</p>
+
+<p>The result of the policy of Mr. Davis justified the protest of the
+Georgians, but there is nothing to warrant the belief that Mr. Davis was
+moving toward military despotism or that he relished the continuance of
+strife. He saw that the South was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>in for the war. Desperate situations
+required desperate remedies. He grasped the government with a strong
+hand, and lacked neither nerve nor patriotism. The principles of this
+policy were unsound, but the motives of Jefferson Davis were pure. Nor
+was there reason to sustain the wholesale denunciation of West Point.
+That school of soldiers was the backbone of the army, and the fact that
+so many Southern men gave up commissions in the United States army and
+came South when their States seceded, overthrew the idea that they were
+tools of the general government and had lost identity or sympathy with
+people at home. But General Toombs was bold and impatient in his
+positions.</p>
+
+<p>Equally opposed was he to the policy adopted in Georgia of recommending
+the planting of all grain and no cotton. From Richmond he wrote in
+March, 1864, directions to his brother Gabriel Toombs, who managed his
+plantations in Washington:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I do not care to change my crops. I wish to raise an
+abundant provision crop and then as much cotton as I
+can.... Brown's and Chambers' policy is all foolishness....
+As to what I shall choose to plant on my own estates, I
+shall neither refer it to newspapers, nor to public
+meetings, nor to legislatures. I know what sort of people
+compose these classes. Let them take up arms and come with
+me to drive the intruders away from our soil, and then we
+will settle what sort of seed we will put into it.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>WITH THE GEORGIA MILITIA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>General Toombs' next appearance in the field was as adjutant and
+inspector-general of General G. W. Smith's division of Georgia militia.
+He was present during the battles before Atlanta, the engagement at
+Peachtree Creek, and the siege of the city. General J. E. Johnston had
+just been relieved from command of the Confederate forces, and General
+J. B. Hood placed in charge. General Toombs wrote from Atlanta:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The tone of the army has greatly improved. We are now
+receiving re&euml;nforcements from the West. Davis, having
+kicked Johnston out, now feels obliged to sustain Hood, so
+the country is likely to get good out of evil. General Hood
+is displaying great energy and using his best exertions for
+success. I think very well of him. He is a most excellent
+man, and undoubtedly of great military talent. Whether
+equal or not to this great struggle, time must prove.</p>
+
+<p>The militia are coming up finely. Twelve hundred of them
+arrived here this evening, armed and tolerably well
+equipped. Poor fellows! They are green and raw,
+undisciplined and badly officered. It keeps us at work day
+and night to bring order out of this confused mass, and we
+have but a poor chance. They march right <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>into the
+trenches, and are immediately under the enemy's fire all
+day. We shall trust to a kind Providence alone to preserve
+them from a great disaster, and make them useful to the
+army and the country. The pressure is so great that we are
+compelled to put them to the work of veterans without an
+hour's preparation. I am doing my utmost to get them in the
+best possible position. Georgians are all coming up well
+except the cities.</p></div>
+
+<p>Speaking of men who try to shirk duty, Mr. Toombs wrote, "Poor
+creatures! What do they want to live for?"</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs had the task of organizing the recruits and getting them
+ready for the field. He writes to his wife: "Since I began this letter,
+the Yankees have begun an attack on a part of our line and I was obliged
+to ride with General Hood to look after our defenses." General Toombs
+alludes to General E. C. Walthall of Mississippi, as "a splendid officer
+and a gentleman." He says: "The enemy are evidently intending to starve
+us rather than to fight us out. I have, at the request of General Hood,
+not less than twenty letters to write on that very subject. Sherman
+shells the town furiously every day. Not much damage yet."</p>
+
+<p>It has been customary to speak in light terms of the Georgia militia,
+who, late in the day, took the field to man the defenses when Sherman
+was marching to the sea. They were frequently made up of old men and
+boys who had been exempt from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>regular service, and these were
+hurried into action with poor equipment and scant preparation. General
+Toombs, in a letter written to his wife, July 25, 1864, says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The militia have behaved with great gallantry. This is
+sincerely true. They have far exceeded my expectations, and
+in the fight on Thursday equaled any troops in the line of
+battle. If they will stand and fight like men, our homes
+will be saved. God give them the spirit of men, and all
+will be well!</p></div>
+
+<p>In another place he writes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>We have a mixed crowd, a large number of earnest, brave,
+true men; then all the shirks and skulks in Georgia trying
+to get from under bullets.</p></div>
+
+<p>General Toombs commended and endorsed the policy of Governor Brown
+during his six years' administration of the office from 1857 to 1863.
+These two men were warm friends and political allies. When Governor
+Brown's third term was drawing to a close, he preferred the selection of
+General Toombs as his successor. But Toombs declined to make the race.
+His game now was war, not politics. He preferred the field to the
+Cabinet. He writes with considerable feeling this letter to his wife:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Whatever fate may befall me, I feel that this is my place,
+in the field and with the militia, with the men who own the
+country and who are struggling to preserve it for their
+children. I am truly thankful to God for the health he has
+given me to enable me to perform my part of this work.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He called all the sons of Georgia to come, even to "die together rather
+than let the Yankee overrun and conquer Georgia." He concludes a letter
+of appeal:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">Better be<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where the unconquered Spartans still are free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In their proud charnel of Thermopyl&aelig;.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>General Toombs' last military service, after the fall of Atlanta, was on
+the 20th of December, 1864, when as adjutant and inspector-general he
+served in General G. W. Smith's division, Georgia militia, at the siege
+of Savannah. General Dick Taylor, in his "Destruction and
+Reconstruction," gives a very graphic description of General Toombs'
+energy. The Georgia militia had left Macon for Savannah, and to avoid
+capture by the resistless column of Sherman's army, then marching to the
+sea, was shipped by way of Thomasville. The trains were sometimes slow
+in moving, and to General Taylor, who was anxious to mass all forces at
+Savannah, the delay was galling. When Toombs came up, he "damned the
+dawdling trainmen, and pretty soon infused his own nervous force into
+the whole concern. The wheezing engines and freight vans were readily
+put in motion, and Governor Brown's 'army' started toward Savannah."
+News reached General Taylor about that time that the Federal forces at
+Port Royal were coming up to capture Pocotaligo on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>the Charleston and
+Savannah road. This was a dangerous move, as General Taylor was anxious
+to hold this line for coast defense. He needed re&euml;nforcements to hold
+this point, and at once thought of "Joe Brown's Army." The position of
+Governor Brown was, however, as General Taylor understood it, that
+Georgia troops were to be held to guard Georgia soil. This was one of
+the points in his discussion with Mr. Davis. General Taylor consulted
+with General Toombs, however, and they arranged to have the Georgia
+militia "shunted off at a switch near Savannah and transported quietly
+to Carolina." At Pocotaligo these troops had a lively brush with the
+Union forces and succeeded in holding the railroad. The Georgians were
+plucky whether at home or abroad, but General Taylor declared that
+Toombs enjoyed his part in making them "unconscious patriots."</p>
+
+<p>Sherman's march to the sea was the concluding tragedy of the Civil War.
+The State which had been at the forefront of the revolution had become
+the bloody theater of battle. From the Tennessee River to Atlanta,
+Sherman and Johnston had grappled with deadly fury down the mountain
+defiles; then Cheatham and Wheeler harassed him at Macon and united for
+a final siege of Savannah. The granaries and workshops of the
+Confederacy were gone when Georgia was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>devastated&mdash;as General Lord
+Wolseley said, Sherman's invasion was a swordthrust through the vitals
+of the young nation. Robert Toombs had followed his own idea of meeting
+the invader as soon as he struck an inch of State soil and fighting him
+as long as a man remained. From the fruitless defense of Savannah,
+Toombs hastened to discuss the situation with Governor Brown. He
+happened to be dining with him that April day when the news came of the
+surrender at Appomattox. The two men looked at each other intently, when
+they realized that all was over.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs and Brown had been closely allied since the day that the latter
+was nominated for Governor in 1857. They had fought campaigns together.
+Toombs had sustained Governor Brown's war policy almost to the letter.
+Now they shook hands and parted. Henceforth their paths diverged. Days
+of bitterness put that friendship to an end. Both men worked his course
+during reconstruction as he saw fit. But political differences deepened
+almost into personal feud.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs repaired to his home in Washington and, on the 4th of
+May, 1865, Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet and staff, having retreated from
+Richmond to Danville, thence to <a name="Page_281t" id="Page_281t"></a><a href="#Page_281tn">Greensboro</a>, N.&nbsp;C., and Abbeville, S.&nbsp;C.,
+rode across the country with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>an armed escort to Washington, Ga. Here,
+in the old Heard House, the last meeting of the Confederate Cabinet was
+held. The members separated, and the civil government of the Southern
+Confederacy passed into history. There were present John C.
+Breckenridge, Secretary of War; John H. Reagan, Postmaster-General,
+besides the members of Mr. Davis' staff. The Confederate President was
+worn and jaded. He looked pale and thin, but was plucky to the last.
+After the surrender of Lee and Johnston, he wanted to keep up the
+warfare in the mountains of Virginia, and in the country west of the
+Mississippi, but he was finally persuaded that the Confederacy must
+cease to struggle. On the public square of Washington the little brick
+house, with its iron rail and its red walls, is still pointed out to the
+visitor as the spot where the Davis government dissolved. It was a
+dramatic fate which determined its dissolution at the home of Robert
+Toombs. He had been present at its birth. His had been one of the
+leading spirits of the revolution. He had served it in the Cabinet and
+field, he had been pressed for the position of its chief magistracy, and
+now in the shadow of his own rooftree its concluding council was held.
+General Reagan was a guest of General Toombs during his stay in
+Washington, as was General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses, who had
+been a member of Toombs' staff. In <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>the evening General Toombs called
+General Reagan into a room by himself and inquired whether the latter
+needed any money. General Reagan said he had money enough to take him to
+Texas. Then General Toombs inquired after Mr. Davis, and asked whether
+he had any money. "I told him no," says General Reagan, "but that I had
+money enough to take us both West of of the Mississippi, and had told
+Mr. Davis so. I had no doubt but that he would rely on that." General
+Toombs then asked if Mr. Davis was well mounted. "I told him yes, that
+he had his bay horse Kentucky, and that after the surrender General Lee
+had sent his fine gray Traveler, by his son Robert, around through
+Lynchburg to Mr. Davis at <a name="Page_283t" id="Page_283t"></a><a href="#Page_281tn">Greenesboro</a>, N.&nbsp;C." "Well," said General
+Toombs, with thoughtfulness, "Davis and I had a quarrel once, but that
+is over now. I am at home and can command money and men, and if Mr.
+Davis wants anything, I shall be glad to furnish it." General Toombs
+added that under terms of the convention between Sherman and Johnston,
+Mr. Davis was entitled to go where he pleased between that point and the
+Chattahoochee River. "I wish you would say to Mr. Davis," said Toombs,
+in his bluff way, "that, if necessary, I will call my men around me and
+see him safe to the Chattahoochee at the risk of my life."</p>
+
+<p>On his return to the hotel Mr. Reagan gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> General Toombs' message to
+Mr. Davis, and told the latter of the inquiries and offers. "That is
+like Toombs," said Mr. Davis. "He was always a whole-souled man."</p>
+
+<p>The four men whom the Washington government wanted to arrest and hold
+responsible for the war were Toombs, Davis, Slidell, and Howell Cobb.
+Their friends understood this perfectly, and each man was urged to make
+his escape. Jefferson Davis was arrested in Irwin County, Ga., on May
+10. He was rapidly making his way to the West, and was trying to reach
+Texas. How General Toombs finally escaped must be reserved for a more
+extended recital.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs and Mr. Davis never met but once after the war. It was
+unexpected, dramatic. Some years after General Toombs had returned from
+his long exile, and Mr. Davis was just back from his trip to England,
+the ex-president visited Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, the guest of the
+poet Sidney Lanier. He here appeared at his best in the company of
+sympathetic and admiring friends, and charmed everyone by his polish and
+learning. The day before Jefferson Davis left, General and Mrs. Toombs
+arrived at the mountain. Mr. Davis was, at that time, absent on a
+horseback trip. He was fond of riding, and had gone over to see some of
+the fine views of the mountain and to inspect the fields <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>where recent
+battles had raged with so much fury. The hotel was kept by a Northern
+man who knew nothing of the relations between Mr. Davis and General
+Toombs, and he believed the thing to do was to put General and Mrs.
+Toombs in a vacant room of the cottage occupied by Mr. Davis. It was a
+small house, with a piazza extending along the front. It so happened
+that the Toombses, who had just learned of Mr. Davis' presence at the
+hotel, were sitting on the piazza chatting with friends when Mr. Davis
+came up. Mr. Davis had also heard of General Toombs' arrival at the
+hotel, but neither knew that the other was domiciled in the same
+cottage. To General Toombs the appearance was as if Mr. Davis had come
+at once to make a cordial call. No one could be more hospitable and
+polite than Toombs, and this apparent challenge to friendship brought
+out the best side of his nature. The men met with considerable warmth.
+From General Toombs Mr. Davis advanced to Mrs. Toombs. Between these two
+the meeting was profoundly affecting. He embraced her tenderly. Toombs
+and Davis had been friends and neighbors years ago in Washington City,
+and Mr. Davis had been extremely fond of Mr. Toombs' family. The
+distinguished party soon fell into friendly conversation. Next day Mr.
+Davis left Lookout Mountain. He never met Robert Toombs again.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>TOOMBS AS A FUGITIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>At the conclusion of the war, Secretary Stanton issued specific orders
+for the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, and Robert
+Toombs. Mr. Stephens was arrested quietly at his own home in
+Crawfordville on the 12th of May, 1865, two days after Mr. Davis had
+been overtaken. On the same day a squad of soldiers, most of them
+negroes, reached Washington, Ga. They were commanded by General Wilde,
+and their orders were to take General Toombs in charge. One of the
+colored troops marched up town with the photograph of Toombs, which they
+had procured to identify him, impaled upon his bayonet. General Toombs
+was, at the time, in his private office at his residence. Hearing the
+noise in his yard, he walked out of his basement to the corner of his
+front steps. There he perceived the squad and divined their purpose. "By
+God, the bluecoats!" was all he said. Walking quickly through his back
+lot, he strode across his plantation and disappeared. By this time the
+guard was clamoring at the front door, and Mrs. Toombs went out to meet
+them. "Where is General Toombs?" the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>commander asked. "He is not here,"
+the lady answered firmly. A parley ensued, during which Mrs. Toombs
+managed to detain the men long enough to enable her husband to get out
+of sight. "Unless General Toombs is produced, I shall burn the house,"
+retorted the officer. Mrs. Toombs blanched a little at this, but, biting
+her lip, she turned on her heel, and coolly replied: "Very well, burn
+it." Among the listeners to this colloquy was a young man just returned
+from the Confederate army. He was moved with indignation. He still wore
+the gray jacket, and was deeply anxious for the Toombs family. He had
+been a neighbor to them all his life, as had his father before him, and
+he shared the pride which the village felt for its most distinguished
+resident.</p>
+
+<p>He was the son of Hon. I. T. Irvin, a prominent public man and lifelong
+friend of General Toombs. Preparations were made for the threatened
+fire. General Toombs did not come out. Furniture was moved and papers
+destroyed, but the young Confederate was soon convinced that the threat
+was a mere bluff. Relieved on that point, his loyal spirit yearned
+toward the fugitive. Charles E. Irvin was the name of the young man, and
+he had seen service in the artillery under Longstreet. Not yet
+twenty-one years of age, he was fired with ardor and devotion, and had
+already resolved to aid General Toombs in escaping.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Riding over to a <a name="Page_288t" id="Page_288t"></a><a href="#Page_288tn">neighbor's</a> house, Mr. J. T. Wingfield, he failed to
+find his friend, but left word for General Toombs to let him know where
+to meet him with his horses. That night about two o'clock Lieutenant
+Irvin got word from General Toombs to bring his horse to Nick Chenault's
+by seven o'clock in the morning. This was a farm about eighteen miles
+from Washington, near the Broad River. Here General Toombs mounted his
+trusted horse and felt at home. It was the famous mare Gray Alice, which
+had carried him through all his campaigns. He had ridden her during the
+charges at Antietam, and she had borne him from the fire of the scouts
+the night he had received his wound. Once more he pressed her into
+service, and Robert Toombs, for the first time in his life, was a
+fugitive. This man, who commanded men and had gained his own way by
+sheer brain and combativeness, fled by stealth from a dreaded enemy. It
+was a new r&ocirc;le for Toombs. His plucky young guide was resolved to
+accompany him in his flight&mdash;it might be to his death; it was all the
+same to Lieutenant Irvin. Riding swiftly into Elbert County, the two men
+crossed over to Harrison Landing, a picturesque spot on the Savannah
+River. Here dwelt an old man, Alexander LeSeur, who led something of a
+hermit's life. Before the war he had been a "Know-nothing," and had been
+exposed to Toombs' withering fire upon that class <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>of politicians.
+LeSeur met the fugitive with a laugh and a friendly oath. "You have been
+fighting me for forty years," he said, "and now that you are in trouble,
+I am the first man you seek for protection."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 411px;">
+<img src="images/illo5.jpg" width="411" height="261" alt="RESIDENCE OF GENERAL B. W. HEARD, WASHINGTON, GA., WHERE
+JEFFERSON DAVIS HELD LAST MEETING OF CABINET, APRIL, 1865." title="RESIDENCE OF GENERAL B. W. HEARD, WASHINGTON, GA., WHERE
+JEFFERSON DAVIS HELD LAST MEETING OF CABINET, APRIL, 1865." />
+<span class="caption">RESIDENCE OF GENERAL B. W. HEARD, WASHINGTON, GA., WHERE
+JEFFERSON DAVIS HELD LAST MEETING OF CABINET, APRIL, 1865.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>General Toombs had not traveled too fast. The country was swarming with
+raiders. News of the capture of Davis and Stephens had fired these men
+with desire to overhaul the great champion of secession. A Federal
+major, commanding a force of men, put up at Tate's residence, just
+opposite the hermit's island. While there, a negro from the LeSeur place
+informed the officer that some prominent man was at the house. "If it
+ain't Jeff Davis, it is just as big a man," said he. The hint was taken.
+The island was surrounded and carefully watched, but when the party went
+over to capture Toombs, the game was gone.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs now started out carefully up the Savannah River. In
+Elbert, he was in the hands of his friends. This county, which had first
+encouraged the struggles of the young lawyer, which had followed him
+steadfastly in his political fortunes, which had furnished soldiers for
+his brigade, now supplied protectors at every step. Before leaving this
+county he was initiated into a Masonic lodge, and took the first degrees
+of the order. More than once the signs and symbols of the mystic
+brotherhood stood him in good stead <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>on this eventful trip. He was
+afterward a high Mason, and remained to his death a devoted friend of
+the order.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing his journey alone he stopped at the Tugaloo River in
+Habersham County, and remained at the house of Colonel Prather until
+Lieutenant Irvin, whom he had sent back to Washington with letters,
+could rejoin him with funds and clothing. Here his young companion soon
+found him, bringing, besides letters from home, some astonishing news.</p>
+
+<p>"General," said Lieutenant Irvin, "what do you think? Your friend
+General Joseph E. Brown has sold out the State of Georgia, and gone over
+to the Republican party."</p>
+
+<p>Toombs glared at him savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"For the first time on this trip," says Lieutenant Irvin, "he looked
+like he wanted to kill me. He brought his fist down heavily upon the
+table and said: 'By God, I don't believe it!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well here it is in black and white.'"</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin gave him the paper in which was printed Governor
+Brown's famous address to the people of Georgia.</p>
+
+<p>"This news," said Lieutenant Irvin, "absolutely sent the old man to
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>Toombs remained a week at Colonel Prather's, and in the meantime sent
+Lieutenant Irvin to Savannah with important letters. He desired to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>escape, if possible, through the port of Savannah. The Savannah friends
+were not at home, however, and Lieutenant Irvin, bearing these important
+letters, actually fell into the hands of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>He was a high-strung, plucky young fellow, and was reproved by a Federal
+officer for continuing to wear brass buttons. Irvin retorted sharply,
+and was hurried into prison. Fearing that he would be searched and his
+papers found, he slipped them to a friend, undetected by the guard.
+After remaining in prison for several hours, Lieutenant Irvin was
+released and censured by the officer, who reminded him that there were
+bayonets about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," retorted young Irvin, "and brave men always avail themselves of
+such advantages."</p>
+
+<p>Trudging back from Savannah, Lieutenant Irvin found General Toombs at
+the Rembert place, near Tallalah Falls. This was a beautiful home in a
+wild, picturesque country, where Toombs was less liable to capture than
+in middle Georgia, and where he was less known to the people. General
+Toombs had already procured the parole papers of Major Luther Martin, of
+Elbert County, a friend and member of his former command. He traveled
+under that name, and was so addressed by his young companion all along
+the route. General Toombs passed the time deer-hunting in Habersham. He
+had the steady hand and fine eye of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>a sportsman, and he was noted for
+his horsemanship and endurance.</p>
+
+<p>Returning toward Washington through Elbert County, General Toombs
+decided to spend a night with Major Martin. Lieutenant Irvin stoutly
+opposed this and warned him that if the enemy were to look for him
+anywhere, it would certainly be at Martin's house. Turning down the
+road, he finally concluded to put up at the house of Colonel W. H.
+Mattox. It was well he did. That night a party of thirty soldiers raided
+the Martin plantation on a hot trail, and searched thoroughly for
+Toombs.</p>
+
+<p>During his travels General Toombs did not wear a disguise of any sort.
+Dressed in a checked suit, and riding his gray mare, he was a prominent
+object, and to most of the people was well known. One day he wore green
+goggles, but soon threw them away in disgust. The nearness of troops
+forced General Toombs to abandon his plan of going home for his family
+before leaving the country. He dispatched Lieutenant Irvin to Washington
+with letters to his wife, telling her that he would not see her again
+until he had gone abroad, when he would send for her to join him. He
+himself passed through Centreville, twelve miles from his home, and
+directed his young guide where to meet him in middle Georgia. This
+Lieutenant Irvin found it very hard to do. General Toombs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>was very
+discreet as to whom he took into his confidence. Once or twice he
+cautioned his companion against certain parties, to the surprise of the
+young man. Toombs, however, read human nature pretty well, and, later,
+when the real character of these persons developed, Irvin understood the
+counsels of his older friend. So carefully did General Toombs cover his
+tracks that Lieutenant Irvin, after his detour to Washington, was a long
+time in overtaking him. Traveling straight to Sparta, Lieutenant Irvin
+called on Judge Linton Stephens and asked about the general. This shrewd
+Georgian came to the door and flatly denied knowing anything about
+Toombs.</p>
+
+<p>"He questioned me closely," said Lieutenant Irvin, "and finding that I
+was really who I pretended to be, finally agreed to take me to Toombs.
+Riding down to Old-Town, in Jefferson County, we failed to find Toombs,
+but receiving a clew that he had passed through the David Dickson
+plantation in Hancock County, I accosted Mr. Worthen, the manager. 'Has
+an old man riding a gray horse passed this way,' Worthen was asked. He
+promptly answered, 'No.' Believing that he was deceiving me, I
+questioned him more closely."</p>
+
+<p>Worthen tried to persuade the young man to get down and take some plums.
+He was evidently anxious to detain him. Finally he eyed the stranger
+more closely, and, convinced that he was the com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>panion whom Toombs
+expected, he confessed that General Toombs had been at his place and was
+then at the home of Major Gonder in Washington County.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin had ridden over two hundred miles in this search and
+lost two or three days out of his way. Toombs covered his trail so
+carefully that it was difficult even for his friends to find him. Small
+wonder that he was not captured by the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin was not yet "out of the woods." Reaching the home of
+Major Gonder late in the evening, he rode up to the front fence, fifty
+yards from the dwelling. Mrs. Gonder and her daughter were sitting on
+the piazza. Lieutenant Irvin asked the usual question about the old man
+and the gray horse. The lady replied that she knew nothing about them.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin said: "But I was directed to this place."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gonder: "I should like to know who sent you."</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin: "But has no one passed or stopped here, answering my
+description?"</p>
+
+<p>Both ladies were now considerably worked up; the younger scarcely
+suppressed her amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, ladies," said Lieutenant Irvin, "I see you both know more than
+you will confess."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If I do, I will die before I tell it," na&iuml;vely replied the elder.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know you know where General Toombs is."</p>
+
+<p>"Then get it out of me if you can."</p>
+
+<p>Finally the young man persuaded her that he was the friend of Toombs,
+and Mrs. Gonder reluctantly directed him to Colonel Jack Smith's over on
+the Oconee River.</p>
+
+<p>Riding up to Colonel Smith's, his valiant pursuer spied General Toombs
+through the window. The head of the house, however, denied that Toombs
+was there at all.</p>
+
+<p>"But that looks very much like him through the <a name="Page_295t" id="Page_295t"></a><a href="#Page_295tn">window,</a>" said Lieutenant
+Irvin.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," retorted Colonel Smith, "what is your name?"</p>
+
+<p>Of course this disclosure led to the reunion of the fugitive and his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>Toombs realized that he was in almost as much danger from his own
+friends as from the enemy. He was careful to whom he disclosed his
+identity or his plans, for fear that they might indiscreetly comment on
+his presence or <a name="Page_295at" id="Page_295at"></a><a href="#Page_295atn">embarrass</a> him even by their willingness to befriend him.
+So it was that he proceeded secretly, picking his way by stealth, and
+actually doing much of his travel by night.</p>
+
+<p>At the home of Colonel Jack Smith, the two men remained a week to rest
+their horses and take <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>their bearings. General Toombs spent much time on
+the Oconee trolling for trout, while bodies of Union cavalry were
+watching the ferries and guarding the fords, seining for bigger fish.</p>
+
+<p>Passing into Wilkinson County, General Toombs stopped at the home of Mr.
+Joseph Deas. When Lieutenant Irvin asked if the pair could come in, Deas
+replied, "Yes, if you can put up with the fare of a man who subsists in
+Sherman's track."</p>
+
+<p>A maiden sister of Deas lived in the house. With a woman's sensitive
+ear, she recognized General Toombs' voice, having heard him speak at
+Toombsboro seventeen years before. This discovery, she did not
+communicate to her brother until after the guests had retired. Deas had
+been discussing politics with Toombs, and his sister asked him if he
+knew to whom he had been talking all night? Deas said he did not.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe Deas," she said, "are you a fool? Don't you know that is General
+Toombs?"</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, a negro on the place, just as they were leaving, cried
+out "Good-by, Marse Bob." He had driven the family to the speaking
+seventeen years before, and had not forgotten the man who defended
+slavery on that day.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" said Toombs, "go give that negro some money."</p>
+
+<p>This same negro had been strung up by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>thumbs by Sherman's troops a
+few months before because he would not tell where his master's mules
+were hidden. He piloted General Toombs through the woods to the home of
+Colonel David Hughes, a prominent and wealthy farmer of Twiggs County.
+Colonel Hughes had been in Toombs' brigade, and the general remained
+with him a week.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs was sitting on the piazza of Colonel Hughes's house one
+afternoon when an old soldier asked permission to come in. He still wore
+the gray, and was scarred and begrimed. He eyed General Toombs very
+closely, and seemed to hang upon his words. He heard him addressed as
+Major Martin, and finally, when he arose to leave, wrung the general's
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Martin," he said, brushing the tears from his eyes, "I'm mighty
+glad to see you. I wish to God I could do something for you."</p>
+
+<p>At the gate he turned to Colonel Hughes and said: "I know who that is.
+It is General Toombs. You can't fool me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you think so?" Colonel Hughes asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I remember Gray Alice jumping the stone walls at Sharpsburg too
+well to forget the rider now."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel," he continued, "this morning a man near here, who is a
+Republican and an enemy of General Toombs, thought he recognized him
+near <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>your house. He saw him two hundred yards away. I heard him say he
+believed it was Toombs and he wished he had his head shot off. I came
+here to-night to see for myself. You tell General Toombs that if he says
+the word, I will kill that scoundrel as sure as guns."</p>
+
+<p>The veteran was persuaded, however, to keep quiet and do nothing of the
+sort.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that Lieutenant Irvin found that the ferries of the
+Ocmulgee River were guarded from one end to the other. Near this place
+Davis had been captured and the Union troops were on a sharp lookout for
+Toombs. Convinced that further travel might be hazardous, General Toombs
+and his friend rode back to the mountains of North Georgia, and there
+remained until the early fall. It was in the month of October that the
+fugitives again started on their checkered flight. The May days had
+melted into summer, and summer had been succeeded by early autumn. The
+crops, planted when he started from home that spring day, were now
+ripening in the fields, and Northern statesmen were still declaring that
+Toombs was the arch-traitor, and must be apprehended. Davis was in
+irons, and Stephens languished in a dungeon at Fortress Monroe.</p>
+
+<p>Passing once more near Sparta, Ga., Toombs met, by appointment, his
+friends, Linton Stephens, R. M. Johnson, W. W. Simpson, Jack Lane, Edge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+Bird, and other kindred spirits. It was a royal reunion, a sort of
+Lucretia Borgia feast for Toombs&mdash;"eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow
+we may die."</p>
+
+<p>Traveling their old road through Washington County, they crossed the
+Ocmulgee, this time in safety, and passed into Houston County. The
+Federals believed <a name="Page_299t" id="Page_299t"></a><a href="#Page_299tn">Toombs</a> already abroad and had ceased to look for him
+in Georgia. After the passage was made General Toombs said: "Charlie,
+that ferryman eyed me very closely. Go back and give him some money."</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin did return. The ferryman refused any gift. He said: "I
+did not want to take what you did give me." Irvin asked the reason. The
+ferryman said: "Tell General Toombs I wish to God I could do something
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs had a wide personal acquaintance in Georgia. He seldom
+stopped at a house whose inmates he did not know, and whose relatives
+and connections he could not trace for generations. Sometimes, when
+incognito, the two men were asked where General Toombs was. They
+answered, "Cuba."</p>
+
+<p>At Oglethorpe, in Macon County, General Toombs rode right through a
+garrison of Federal soldiers. As one of his regiments came from this
+section, General Toombs was afraid that some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>of his old soldiers might
+recognize him on the road. A Federal officer advanced to the middle of
+the street and saluted the travelers. Their hearts bounded to their
+throats, and, instinctively, two hands stole to their revolvers. Pistols
+and spurs were the only resources. Chances were desperate, but they were
+resolved to take them. The officer watched them intently as they rode
+leisurely through the town, but he was really more interested in their
+fine horses, "Gray Alice" and "Young Alice," than in the men. Jogging
+unconcernedly along until the town was hidden by a hill, General Toombs
+urged his horse into a run, and left "his friends, the enemy," far in
+the rear. It was a close call, but he did not breathe freely yet. There
+was possibility of pursuit, and when the party reached the residence of
+a Mr. Brown, a messenger was sent back to the town to mislead the
+soldiers should pursuit be attempted. From the hands of the enemy,
+General Toombs and his friend were now inducted into pleasanter scenes.
+The house was decorated with lilies and orange blossoms. A wedding was
+on hand, and the bride happened to be the daughter of the host. Brown
+was a brave and determined man. He assured General Toombs that when the
+wedding guests assembled, there would be men enough on hand, should an
+attack be made, to rout the United States garrison, horse, foot, and
+dragoons. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> Dr. Raines' place, on the Chattahoochee River, a horse
+drover happened to say something about Toombs. He gave the statesman a
+round of abuse and added: "And yet, they tell me that if I were to meet
+General Toombs and say what I think of him, I would either have a fight
+or he would convince me that he was the biggest man in the world."</p>
+
+<p>Tired of the long horseback ride, having been nearly six months in the
+saddle, the men now secured an ambulance from Toombs' plantation in
+Stewart County, and crossed the river into Alabama. His faithful mare,
+which he was forced to leave behind, neighed pathetically as her master
+rode away in a boat and pulled for the Alabama shore. At Evergreen they
+took the train, and it seemed that half the men on the cars recognized
+General Toombs. General Joseph Wheeler, who was on board, did not take
+his eyes off him. Toombs became nervous under these searching glances,
+and managed to hide his face behind a paper which he was reading. At
+Tensas Station he took the boat for Mobile. There was a force of Federal
+soldiers on board, and this was the closest quarters of his long
+journey. There was now no chance of escape, if detected. The soldiers
+frequently spoke to General Toombs, but he was not in the slightest way
+molested.</p>
+
+<p>At Mobile General Toombs took his saddle-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>bags and repaired to the home
+of his friend Mr. Evans, about four miles from the city. There he was
+placed in the care of Howard Evans and his sister, Miss Augusta J.
+Evans, the gifted Southern authoress. Anxious to conceal the identity of
+their guest, these hospitable young people dismissed their servants, and
+Miss Evans herself cooked and served General Toombs' meals with her own
+hands. She declared, with true hospitality, that she felt it a privilege
+to contribute to the comfort and insure the safety of the brilliant
+statesman. She was a Georgian herself, and with her this was a labor of
+love.</p>
+
+<p>These were among the most agreeable moments of General Toombs' long
+exile. He loved the companionship of intellectual women, and the
+conversation during these days was full of brilliant interest. Miss
+Evans was a charming talker, as bright as a jewel, and Toombs was a
+Chesterfield with ladies. The general would walk to and fro along the
+shaded walks and pour forth, in his matchless way, the secret history of
+the ruin of Confederate hopes.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs wrote home, in courtly enthusiasm, of his visit to
+Mobile. Mr. Stephens sent Miss Evans a warm letter of thanks for her
+attentions to his friend. "I have," said he, "just received a letter
+from General Toombs, who has been so united with me in friendship and
+destiny <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>all our lives, giving such account of the kind attentions he
+received from you and your father while in Mobile, that I cannot forbear
+to thank you and him for it in the same strain and terms as if these
+attentions had been rendered to myself. What you did for my friend, in
+this particular, you did for me."</p>
+
+<p>While General Toombs was in Mobile, General Wheeler called upon the
+Evans family and remarked that he thought he had seen General Toombs on
+the train. Miss Evans replied that she had heard General Toombs was in
+Cuba.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin went to New Orleans and secured from the Spanish Consul
+a pass to Cuba for "Major Luther Martin." At Mobile General Toombs took
+the boat <i>Creole</i> for New Orleans. He seemed to be nearing the end of
+his long journey, but it was on this boat that the dramatic incident
+occurred which threatened to change the course of his wanderings at
+last. While General Toombs was at supper, he became conscious that one
+of the passengers was eying him closely. He said to Lieutenant Irvin:
+"Charlie, don't look up now, but there is a man in the doorway who
+evidently recognizes me."</p>
+
+<p>"General, probably it is someone who thinks he knows you."</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Toombs quietly, "that man is a spy."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin asked what should be done. General Toombs told him to
+go out and question the man and, if convinced that he was a spy, to
+throw him over the stern-rail of the steamer. Lieutenant Irvin got up
+and went on deck. The stranger followed him. Irvin walked toward the
+rail. The stranger asked him where he was from. He answered "North
+Carolina."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that with you?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle, Major Martin," said Irvin.</p>
+
+<p>The man then remarked that it looked very much like Robert Toombs. Irvin
+answered that the likeness had been noted before, but that he could not
+see it.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," said the stranger, "I don't want to dispute your word, but
+that is certainly Toombs. I know him well, and am his friend."</p>
+
+<p>Irvin then gave up the idea of throwing him overboard. Had the brave
+young officer not been convinced that the party questioning him was
+Colonel M. C. Fulton, a prominent resident of Georgia, he says he would
+certainly have pitched him into the Gulf of Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs, when informed of the identity of Colonel Fulton, sent
+for him to come to his room, and the two men had a long and friendly
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving at New Orleans General Toombs drove <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>up to the residence of
+Colonel Marshal J. Smith. On the 4th of November, 1865, he boarded the
+steamship <i>Alabama</i>, the first of the Morgan line put on after the war
+between New Orleans, Havana, and Liverpool. A tremendous crowd had
+gathered at the dock to see the steamer off, and Lieutenant Irvin tried
+to persuade General Toombs to go below until the ship cleared. But the
+buoyant Georgian persisted in walking the deck, and was actually
+recognized by General Humphrey Marshall of Texas, who had known him in
+the Senate before the war.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Toombs to his companion's expostulations, "I want fresh air,
+and I will die right here. I am impatient to get into neutral waters,
+when I can talk. I have not had a square, honest talk in six months."</p>
+
+<p>By the time the good ship had cleared the harbor, everybody on board
+knew that Robert Toombs, "the fire-eater and rebel," was a passenger,
+and hundreds gathered around to listen to his matchless conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Irvin never saw General Toombs again until 1868. He himself
+was an officer of the Irvin artillery, Cutts' battalion, being a part of
+Walker's artillery in Longstreet's corps. Entering the army at seventeen
+years of age, Charles E. Irvin was a veteran at twenty-one. He was
+brave, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>alert, tender, and true. He recalls that when his company joined
+the army in Richmond, Robert Toombs, then Secretary of State, gave them
+a handsome supper at the Exchange Hotel. "I remember," said he, "with
+infinite satisfaction, that during the seven months I accompanied
+General Toombs, in the closest relations and under the most trying
+positions, he was never once impatient with me." Frequently, on this
+long and perilous journey, Toombs would say; "Well, my boy! suppose the
+Yankees find us to-day; what will you do?" "General, you say you won't
+be taken alive. I reckon they will have to kill me too."</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs often declared that he would not be captured.
+Imprisonment, trial, and exile, he did not dread; but to be carried
+about, a prize captive and a curiosity through Northern cities, was his
+constant fear. He was prepared to sell his life dearly, and there is no
+doubt but that he would have done so.</p>
+
+<p>During all these trying days, Toombs rode with the grace and gayety of a
+cavalier. He talked incessantly to his young companion, who eagerly
+drank in his words. He fought his battles over again and discussed the
+leaders of the Civil War in his racy style. He constantly predicted the
+collapse of the greenback system of currency, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>speculated
+facetiously each day upon the chances of capture. He calculated shrewdly
+enough his routes and plans, and when he found himself on <i>terra firma</i>,
+it was under the soft skies of the Antilles with a foreign flag above
+him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>WITHOUT A COUNTRY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>From Cuba General Toombs proceeded to Paris. It was early in July before
+he reached his new stopping place. He found himself somewhat restricted
+in funds, as he had not had time to turn his property into gold to make
+his trip abroad. It is related that just after the departure of the
+famous "specie train," through Washington in the wake of Mr. Davis'
+party, a Confederate horseman dashed by the residence of General Toombs
+and threw a bag of bullion over the fence. It was found to contain five
+thousand dollars, but Toombs swore he would not even borrow this amount
+from his government. He turned it over to the authorities for the use of
+disabled Confederate soldiers, and hurriedly scraped up what funds he
+could command in case he should be compelled to fly. Arriving in Paris,
+General Toombs succeeded in selling one of his plantations, realizing
+about five dollars an acre for it. He used to explain to the astounded
+Frenchmen, during his residence abroad, that he ate an acre of dirt a
+day.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>General Toombs repaired to Enghien, where he took a course of sulphur
+baths for the benefit of his throat. Constant exposure with the army and
+in his flight had brought on his old enemy, the asthma. He had been a
+healthy man, having long passed the limit of manhood before he tasted
+medicine. Late in life, an attack of scarlet fever left his throat in a
+delicate condition.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Toombs joined him in Paris in July, 1865, and he passed eighteen
+months quietly with her in Europe. It was in marked contrast to his tour
+in 1855, when, as United States Senator, he had gone from place to
+place, observed, honored, and courted. He was now an exile without a
+country. He had seen his political dreams wiped out in blood and his
+home in the hands of the enemy. From the dignity and power of a United
+States Senator and a possible aspirant to the Presidency, he had been
+branded as a conspirator, and forced, like Mirabeau, to seek shelter in
+distant lands.</p>
+
+<p>France was, at that time, in a state of unrest. Louis Napoleon was
+watching with anxiety the eagles of Prussia hovering over the German
+Confederation. Austria had already succumbed to Prussian power, and
+Napoleon had been blocked in his scheme to secure, from this disorder,
+his share of the Rhenish provinces. Toombs, who had fled from a restored
+Union in America, now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>watched the march of consolidation in Europe, and
+predicted its final success.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs was an object of interest in Europe. His position toward
+the American government prevented his public recognition by the rulers,
+but he used to relate with zest his interviews with Carlyle, the Empress
+<a name="Page_310t" id="Page_310t"></a><a href="#Page_310tn">Eugenie</a>, and other notables. He was a man to attract attention, and his
+talk was fascinating and bright.</p>
+
+<p>He was sometimes sought in a legal way by prominent financiers, who
+asked his opinions upon fiscal matters in America. There is no doubt but
+that, like Judah P. Benjamin, he could have built up a large practice
+abroad, had he cared to do so; but permanent residence away from home
+was entirely out of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1866, General and Mrs. Toombs received a cable message
+telling them of the death of their only daughter, Mrs. Dudley M. DuBose,
+in Washington, Ga. Mrs. Toombs at once returned home, leaving the
+grief-stricken father alone in Paris. Anxious to go back with her, he
+was advised that matters were still unsettled in the United States. The
+impeachment of Andrew Johnson was in progress, and his conviction meant
+restored martial law for the South. So the days were full of woe for the
+lonely exile.</p>
+
+<p>On December 25, 1866, he writes a beautiful and pathetic letter to his
+wife. While the deni<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>zens of the gay city were deep in the celebration
+of the joyous Christmas feast, the Southern wanderer, "with heart bowed
+down," was passing through the shadows, and suffering in silence the
+keenest pangs of affliction. Around him the votaries of fashion and
+wealth were flushed with gayety. Paris was in the ecstasy of
+Christmastide. But the depths of his soul were starless and chill, and
+in the midst of all this mirth one heart was tuned to melancholy. He
+writes to his wife:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The night you left I retired to the room and did not go to
+sleep until after two o'clock. I felt so sad at parting
+with you and could not help thinking what a long dreary
+trip you had that night. I shall have a long journey of
+five thousand miles to Havana, and do not know that I shall
+meet a human being to whom I am known, but if I keep well I
+shall not mind that, especially as I am homeward bound; for
+my hearthstone is desolate, and clouds and darkness hover
+over the little remnant that is left of us, and of all our
+poor friends and countrymen; and, when you get home,
+Washington will contain nearly all that is dear to me in
+this world. I remained alone yesterday after I got up and
+went to my solitary meal. I immediately came back to my
+room, and have seen nothing of Christmas in Paris.</p></div>
+
+<p>On January 1, 1867, he writes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This is the first of the new year. How sad it opens upon
+me! In a foreign land, with all that is dear to me on earth
+beyond the ocean, either on the way to a distant home or at
+its desolate fireside. Well, I shall not nurse such gloomy
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>ideas. Let us hope that the new year may be happier and
+that we may grow better. God knows I cannot regret that
+1866 is gone. I hope its calamities will not enter with us
+into 1867. I had hoped to hear from New York of your safe
+arrival on the other side of the ocean.</p></div>
+
+<p>The loss of his daughter Sallie was a severe blow to General Toombs. But
+two of his children lived to be grown. His eldest daughter Louise died
+in 1855, shortly after her marriage to Mr. W. F. Alexander. General
+Toombs had a son who died in early childhood of scarlet fever. This was
+a great blow to him, for he always longed for a son to bear his name.
+Away off in Paris his heart yearned for his four little grandchildren,
+left motherless by this new affliction. He writes again from Paris:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I almost determined to take the steamer Saturday and run
+the gauntlet to New York. I would have done so but for my
+promise to you. I know everything looks worse and worse on
+our side of the ocean, but when will it be any better? Is
+this state of things to last forever? To me it is becoming
+intolerable.... Kiss the dear little children for me. Bless
+their hearts! How I long to see them and take them to my
+arms. God bless you! Pray for me that I may be a better man
+in the new year than in all the old ones before in my time.</p></div>
+
+<p>Early in January General Toombs decided to sail for Cuba and thence to
+New Orleans. If he found it unsafe to remain in the South he concluded
+he could either go back to Cuba or extend <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>his travels into Canada. He
+had promised his wife he would remain abroad for the present. But he
+writes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The worst that can happen to me is a prison, and I don't
+see much to choose between my present condition and any
+decent fort. I feel so anxious about you and the children
+that it makes me very wretched.</p></div>
+
+<p>From Paris, January 16, 1867, he writes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>My preparations are all complete, and I leave to-morrow on
+the <i>New World</i> for Havana and New Orleans, <i>via</i>
+Martinique. I am well; except my throat. I shall have a
+long and lonesome voyage, with not much else to cheer me
+but that I shall find you and our dear little ones at the
+end of my journey. If I am permitted to find you all well,
+I shall be compensated for its fatigues and dangers. God
+grant that we may all meet once more in this world in
+health!</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours truly and affectionately, as ever,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Toombs</span>.<br />
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>General Toombs returned to America and after a short residence in Canada
+went to Washington, where he had a long interview with his old
+senatorial colleague, President Andrew Johnson. He went home from
+Washington and was never again molested. He made no petition for relief
+of political disabilities. He was never restored to citizenship. When
+Honorable Samuel J. Randall proposed his General Amnesty Act in 1875,
+Mr. Blaine and other Republicans desired to exclude from its provisions
+the names of Davis and Toombs. The Democrats would not accept this
+amendment, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>and the bill was never passed. Once, when Senator Oliver P.
+Morton asked General Toombs why he did not petition Congress for pardon,
+Toombs quietly answered, "Pardon for what? I have not pardoned you all
+yet."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>COMMENCING LIFE ANEW.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When General Toombs finally returned to Georgia it was with a great part
+of his fortune gone, his political career cut off by hopeless
+disability, and his household desolate. These were serious calamities
+for a man fifty-seven years of age. He found himself forced under new
+and unfavorable conditions to build all over again, but he set about it
+in a vigorous and heroic way. His health was good. He was a splendid
+specimen of manhood. His once raven locks were gray, and his beard,
+which grew out from his throat, gave him a grizzly appearance. His dark
+eye was full of fire and his mind responded with vigor to its new work.</p>
+
+<p>When General Toombs arrived at Washington, Ga., he consulted some of his
+friends over the advisability of returning to the practice of law, which
+he had left twenty-five years before. Their advice was against it.
+Things were in chaos; the people were impoverished, and the custodians
+of the courts were the creatures of a hostile government. But Robert
+Toombs was made of different <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>stuff. Associating himself in the practice
+of his profession with General Dudley M. DuBose, who had been his chief
+of staff, and was his son-in-law, an able and popular man in the full
+vigor of manhood, General Toombs returned actively to the practice of
+law. He was not long in turning to practical account his great
+abilities. Success soon claimed him as an old favorite. Business
+accumulated and the ex-senator and soldier found himself once more at
+the head of the bar of Georgia. Large fees were readily commanded. He
+was employed in important cases in every part of Georgia, and the
+announcement that Robert Toombs was to appear before judge and jury was
+enough to draw large crowds from city and country. His old habits of
+indomitable industry returned. He rode the circuits like a young
+barrister again. He was a close collector of claims, an admirable
+administrator, a safe counselor, and a bold and fearless advocate. In a
+short time General Toombs' family found themselves once more in comfort,
+and he was the same power with the people that he had always been.</p>
+
+<p>Cut off from all hope of official promotion, scorning to sue for
+political pardon, he strove to wield in the courts some of the power he
+forfeited in politics. He figured largely in cases of a public nature,
+and became an outspoken tribune of the people. He did not hesitate to
+face the Supreme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> Court of Georgia, then made up of Republican judges,
+and attack the laws of a Republican legislature. Among the bills passed
+at that time to popularize the legislature with the people, was a series
+of liberal homestead and exemption laws. They were the relief measures
+of 1868. By these schemes, at once rigorous and sweeping, millions of
+dollars were lost in Georgia. They were intended to wipe out old debts,
+especially contracts made during the war, and Governor Bullock had
+appointed a Supreme Court which sustained them. These laws were
+abhorrent to Toombs. He thundered against them with all the powers of
+his learning and eloquence. When he arose in court, there stood with
+him, he believed, not only the cause of his client, but the honor of the
+whole State of Georgia. It was much easier to seduce a poverty-stricken
+people by offering them measures of relief than to drive them by the
+bayonet or to subject them to African domination. In the case of
+Hardeman against Downer, in June, 1868, he declared before the Supreme
+Court that these homestead laws put a premium on dishonesty and robbed
+the poor man of his capital. "But we must consider the intention of the
+Act," said the Court. "Was it not the intention of the legislature to
+prevent the collection of just such claims as these you now bring?"
+"Yes, may it please the Court," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> Toombs, shaking his leonine locks,
+"there can be no doubt that it was the intention of the legislature to
+defraud the creditor; but they have failed to put their intention in a
+form that would stand, so it becomes necessary for this Court to add its
+own ingenuity to this villainy. It seems that this Court is making laws
+rather than decisions."</p>
+
+<p>In one of his dissenting opinions upon these laws, Justice Hiram Warner
+declared that he would not allow his name to go down to posterity
+steeped in the infamy of such a decision. General Toombs lost his case,
+but the decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court of the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>The times were full of evil. The legislature was dominated by
+adventurers and ignorant men, and public credit was freely voted away to
+new enterprises. The State was undeveloped, and this wholesale system of
+public improvement became popular. Unworthy men were scrambling for
+public station, and the times were out of tune. In the midst of this
+demoralization Toombs was a pillar of fire. He was tireless in his
+withering satire, his stinging invective, his uncompromising war upon
+the misgovernment of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a fine field and a rare occasion for his pungent criticism and
+denunciation. His utterances were not those of a political leader. He
+was not trimming his sails for office. He did not shape <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>his conduct so
+as to be considered an available man by the North. He fought error
+wherever he saw it. He made no terms with those whom he considered
+public enemies. He denounced radicalism as a "leagued scoundrelism of
+private gain and public plunder."</p>
+
+<p>In opposing the issue of State bonds to aid a certain railroad, he
+declared that if the legislature saddled this debt upon the taxpayers,
+their act would be a nullity. "We will adopt a new constitution with a
+clause repudiating these bonds, and like &AElig;tna spew the monstrous frauds
+out of the market!"</p>
+
+<p>"You may," he said, "by your deep-laid schemes, lull the thoughtless,
+enlist the selfish, and stifle for a while the voices of patriots, but
+the day of reckoning will come. These cormorant corporations, these
+so-called patriotic developers, whom you seek to exempt, shall pay their
+dues, if justice lives. By the Living God, they shall pay them."</p>
+
+<p>"Georgia shall pay her debts," said Toombs on one occasion. "If she does
+not, I will pay them for her!" This piece of hyperbole was softened by
+the fact that on two occasions, when the State needed money to supply
+deficits, Toombs with other Georgians did come forward and lift the
+pressure. Sometimes he talked in a random way, but responsibility always
+sobered him. He was impatient of fraud and stupidity, often full of
+ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>aggerations, but scrupulous when the truth was relevant. Always
+strict and honorable in his engagements, he boasted that he never had a
+dirty shilling in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>The men who "left the country for the country's good" and came South to
+fatten on the spoils of reconstruction, furnished unending targets for
+his satire. He declared that these so-called developers came for pelf,
+not patriotism. "Why, these men," he said, "are like thieving elephants.
+They will uproot an oak or pick up a pin. They would steal anything from
+a button to an empire." On one occasion he was bewailing the degeneracy
+of the times, and he exclaimed: "I am sorry I have got so much sense. I
+see into the tricks of these public men too quickly. When God Almighty
+moves me from the earth, he will take away a heap of experience. I
+expect when a man gets to be seventy he ought to go, for he knows too
+much for other people's convenience."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope the Lord will allow me to go to heaven as a gentleman," he used
+to say. "Some of these Georgia politicians I do not want to associate
+with. I would like to associate with Socrates and Shakespeare."</p>
+
+<p>During his arguments before the Supreme Court, General Toombs used to
+abuse the Governor and the Bullock Legislature very roundly. The Court
+adopted a rule that no lawyer should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>be allowed, while conducting his
+case, to abuse a co&ouml;rdinate branch of the government. General Toombs was
+informed that if he persisted in this practice he would be held for
+contempt. The next time Toombs went before the Court he alluded to the
+fugitive Governor in very sharp terms. "May it please your Honors, the
+Governor has now absconded. Your Honors have put in a little rule to
+catch me. In seeking to protect the powers that be, I presume you did
+not intend to defend the powers that were."</p>
+
+<p>The papers printed an account of an interview between General Gordon and
+Mr. Tilden in 1880, Gordon told Tilden that he was sorry he could not
+impart to Tilden some of his own strength and vitality. "So my brother
+told me last year," answered Mr. Tilden. "I have since followed him to
+the grave." Toombs read this and remarked that Tilden did not think he
+was going to die. "No one expects to die but I. I have got sense enough
+to know that I am bound to die."</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion Toombs was criticising an appointment made by an
+unpopular official. "But, General," someone said, "you must confess that
+it was a good appointment." "That may be, but that was not the reason it
+was made. Bacon was not accused of selling injustice. He was eternally
+damned for selling justice."</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs was once asked in a crowd in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>the Kimball House in
+Atlanta what he thought of the North. "My opinion of the Yankees is
+apostolic. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward
+him according to his works." A Federal officer was standing in the
+crowd. He said: "Well, General, we whipped you, anyhow." "No," replied
+Toombs, "we just wore ourselves out whipping you."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke of the spoliators in the State Legislature as "an assembly of
+manikins whose object is never higher than their breeches pockets;
+seekers of jobs and judgeships, anything for pap or plunder, an
+amalgamation of white rogues and blind negroes, gouging the treasury and
+disgracing Georgia."</p>
+
+<p>He was a violent foe of exemptions, of bounties, and of all sorts of
+corruption and fraud. He was overbearing at times, but not more
+conscious of power than of honesty in its use. He was generous to the
+weak. It was in defense of his ideas of justice that he overbore
+opposition.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs kept the issues before the people. He had no patience
+with the tentative policy. He forfeited much of his influence at this
+time by his indiscriminate abuse of Northern men and Southern opponents,
+and his defiance of all the conditions of a restored Union. He could
+have served his people best by more conservative conduct, but he had all
+the roughness and acerbity of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>a reformer, dead in earnest. It was owing
+to his constant arraignment of illegal acts of the post-bellum r&eacute;gime
+that the people finally aroused, in 1870, and regained the State for
+white supremacy and Democratic government. He challenged the authors of
+the Reconstruction measures to discuss the constitutionality of the
+amendments. Charles J. Jenkins had already carried the cause of Georgia
+into the courts, and Linton Stephens, before United States Commissioner
+Swayze in Macon, had made an exhaustive argument upon the whole subject.
+Toombs forced these issues constantly into his cases, and kept public
+interest at white heat.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>DAYS OF RECONSTRUCTION</h3>
+
+
+<p>In July, 1868, the people of Georgia made the first determined stand
+against the Republican party. John B. Gordon was nominated for Governor,
+and Seymour and Blair had been named in New York as National Democratic
+standard-bearers. A memorable meeting was held in Atlanta. It was the
+first real rally of the white people under the new order of things.
+Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and Benjamin H. Hill addressed the
+multitude. There was much enthusiasm, and crowds gathered from every
+part of Georgia. This was the great "Bush Arbor meeting" of that year,
+and old men and boys speak of it to-day with kindling ardor. "Few
+people," said Toombs in that speech, "had escaped the horrors of war,
+and fewer still the stern and bitter curse of civil war. The histories
+of the greatest peoples of earth have been filled with defeats as well
+as victories, suffering as well as happiness, shame and reproach as well
+as honor and glory. The struggles of the great and good are the noblest
+legacies left by the past to the present <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>generation, trophies worthy to
+be laid at the feet of Jehovah himself. Those whose blades glittered in
+the foremost ranks of the Northern army on the battlefield, with a yet
+higher and nobler purpose denounce the base uses to which the victory
+has been applied. The old shibboleths of victory are proclaimed as
+living principles. Whatever else may be lost, the principles of Magna
+Charta have survived the conflict of arms. The edicts of the enemy
+abolish all securities of life, liberty, and property; defeat all the
+rightful purposes of government, and renounce all remedies, all laws.<a name="Page_325t" id="Page_325t"></a><a href="#Page_325tn">["]</a></p>
+
+<p>General Toombs denounced the incompetency of the dominant party in
+Georgia&mdash;"In its tyranny, its corruption, its treachery to the Caucasian
+race, its patronage of vice, of fraud, of crime and criminals, its crime
+against humanity and in its efforts to subordinate the safeguards of
+public security and to uproot the foundations of free government it has
+forfeited all claims upon a free people."</p>
+
+<p>Alluding to General Longstreet, who had been a member of the Republican
+party, General Toombs said: "I would not have him tarnish his own
+laurels. I respect his courage, honor his devotion to his cause, and
+regret his errors." He denounced the ruling party of Georgia as a mass
+of floating putrescence, "which rises as it rots and rots as it rises."
+He declared that the Reconstruc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>tion Acts "stared out in their naked
+deformity, open to the indignant gaze of all honest men."</p>
+
+<p>The campaign at that time was made upon the illegality of the amendments
+to the Constitution. Enthusiasm was fed by the fiery and impetuous
+invective of Toombs. The utterances of most public men were guarded and
+conservative. But when Toombs spoke the people realized that he uttered
+the convictions of an unshackled mind and a fearless spirit. Leaders
+deprecated his extreme views, but the hustings rang with his ruthless
+candor.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion of his Bush Arbor effort was a fine sample of his fervid
+speech: "All these and many more wrongs have been heaped upon you, my
+countrymen, without your consent. Your consent alone can give the least
+validity to these usurpations. Let no power on earth wring that consent
+from you. Take no counsel of fear; it is the meanest of masters; spurn
+the temptations of office from the polluted hands of your oppressors. He
+who owns only his own sepulcher at the price of such claims holds a
+heritage of shame. Unite with the National Democratic party. Your
+country says come; honor says come; duty says come; liberty says come;
+the country is in danger; let every freeman hasten to the rescue."</p>
+
+<p>It was at this meeting that Benjamin H. Hill, who made so much
+reputation by the publication of a series of papers entitled, "Notes on
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> Situation," delivered one of the most memorable speeches of his
+life. It was a moving, overmastering appeal to the people to go to the
+polls. When this oration was over, the audience was almost wild, and
+Robert Toombs, standing on the platform, in his enthusiasm threw his hat
+away into the delighted throng. A young bright-faced boy picked it up
+and carried it back to the speakers' stand. It was Henry Grady.</p>
+
+<p>The defeat of the National Democratic party in 1868 disheartened the
+Southern people, and the old disinclination to take part in politics
+seized them stronger than before. In 1870, however, General Toombs
+delivered, in different parts of Georgia, a carefully prepared lecture
+on the Principles of Magna Charta. It was just the reverse in style and
+conception to his fervid Bush Arbor oration. It was submitted to
+manuscript and was read from notes at the speakers' stand. With the
+possible exception of his Tremont Temple lecture, delivered in Boston in
+1856, it was the only one of his public addresses so carefully prepared
+and so dispassionately delivered. In his opinion the principles of free
+government were drifting away from old landmarks. The times were out of
+joint, the people were demoralized. The causes which afterward led to
+the great revolt in the Republican ranks in 1872 were already marked in
+the quick perception of Toombs, and this admir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>able state paper was
+framed to put the issue before the public in a sober, statesmanlike way,
+and to draw the people back to their old moorings. This lecture was
+delivered in all the large cities and many of the smaller towns of
+Georgia, and had a great effect. Already there had been concerted appeal
+to Georgians to cease this political opposition and "accept the
+situation." Even statesmen like Mr. Hill had come round to the point of
+advising the people to abandon "dead issues." The situation was more
+desperate than ever.</p>
+
+<p>In his Magna Charta lecture Mr. Toombs said that Algernon Sidney had
+summed up the object of all human wisdom as the good government of the
+people. "From the earliest ages to the present time," said he, "there
+has been a continued contest between the wise and the virtuous who wish
+to secure good government and the corrupt who were unwilling to grant
+it. The highest duty of every man, a duty enjoined by God, was the
+service of his country." This was the great value of the victory at
+Runnymede, with its rich fruits&mdash;that rights should be respected and
+that justice should be done. "These had never been denied for seven
+hundred years, until the present evil days," said Toombs. Magna Charta
+had been overridden and trampled underfoot by brave tyrants and evaded
+by cowardly ones. There had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>been ingenious schemes to destroy it. The
+men of '76 fought for Magna Charta. These principles had been prominent
+in our Constitution until a Republican majority attempted destruction
+and civil war. Kings had made efforts to destroy its power and subvert
+its influence. Not a single noble family existed in England but which
+had lost a member in its defense. Society was organized to protect it,
+and all good and true men are required to maintain its teachings. "The
+assassins of liberty are now in power, but a reaction is coming. Stand
+firm, make no compromise, have nothing to do with men who talk of dead
+issues. It is the shibboleth of ruin. Push forward, and make a square
+fight for your liberties."</p>
+
+<p>The plain but powerful summary of public obligation had a more lasting
+effect than his more fiery appeals. General Toombs was a potent leader
+in the campaign, though not himself a candidate or even a voter. General
+D. M. DuBose, his law partner, was elected to Congress this year, and
+the Democratic party secured a majority in the State Legislature. Among
+the men who shared in the redemption of the State Robert Toombs was the
+first and most conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the best speeches made by General Toombs at this time were
+delivered to the farmers at the various agricultural fairs. These were
+frequent and, as Judge Reese declared, abounded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>with wisdom which
+caused him years of reflection and observation. He had been reared upon
+a farm. His interests, as his sympathies, were with these people. He
+remained in active management of his large plantation, Roanoke, in
+Stewart County, during the period when he was a member of Congress and
+even when he was in the army. Two or three times a year he made visits
+to that place and was always in close communication with his overseers.
+He loved the work and was a successful farmer. A fondness for gardening
+and stock-raising remained with him until his last years. Even in a very
+busy and tempestuous life, as he characterized it in speaking to Judge
+Reese, a spacious garden, with orchards and vineyards, was to him an
+unfailing source of recreation and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>He writes to his wife of the disasters of the army at Orange Court
+House, Va., but finds time to add: "The gardens and fruit are great
+additions to the family comfort, and every effort should be made to put
+them in the best condition." Writing from Richmond of the condition of
+Lee's army in March, 1862, he does not forget to add: "I am sorry to
+know that the prospects of the crops are so bad. One of the best
+reliances now is the garden. Manure high, work well, and keep planting
+vegetables." From Roanoke, in 1863, he writes; "My plantation affairs
+are not in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>as good condition as I would wish. I have lost a great many
+sheep, have but few lambs and little wool; cattle poor&mdash;all need looking
+after." In the midst of the shelling of Atlanta in 1864, he writes from
+the trenches to his wife: "Tell Squire to put your cows and Gabriel's in
+the volunteer oatfield. Every day we hear cannonading in front."</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1869 that General Toombs made one of his great speeches at the
+State fair in Columbus, in the course of which he used this expression;
+"The farmers of Georgia will never enjoy general prosperity until they
+quit making the West their corncrib and smokehouse." It was in that same
+speech that Toombs said, referring to the soldiers of the South;
+"Liberty, in its last analysis, is but the sweat of the poor and the
+blood of the brave." Most of the great men in Georgia have been reared
+in the country. There seems to be something in the pure air, the broad
+fields, and even the solitude, conducive to vigor and self-reliance.
+Attrition and culture have finished the work laid up by the farmer boy,
+and that fertile section of middle Georgia, so rich in products of the
+earth, has given greatness to the State.</p>
+
+<p>In August, 1872, General Toombs was invited by the alumni of the
+University of Georgia to deliver the annual address during commencement
+week. A large crowd was in attendance and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>veteran orator received
+an ovation. He departed from his usual custom and attempted to read a
+written speech. His eyesight had begun to fail him, the formation of a
+cataract having been felt with great inconvenience. The pages of the
+manuscript became separated and General Toombs, for the first time in
+his life, is said to have been embarrassed. He had not read more than
+one quarter of his speech when this complication was discovered, and he
+was unable to find the missing sheets. Governor Jenkins, who was sitting
+on the stage, whispered to him; "Toombs, throw away your manuscript and
+go it on general principles." The general took off his glasses, stuffed
+the mixed essay into his pocket, and advanced to the front of the stage.
+He was received with a storm of applause from the crowd, who had
+relished his discomfiture and were delighted with the thought of an
+old-time talk from Toombs. For half an hour he made one of his eloquent
+and electric speeches, and when he sat down the audience screamed for
+more. No one but Toombs could have emerged so brilliantly from this
+awkward dilemma.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs opposed the nomination of Horace Greeley for President by
+the National Democratic convention in 1872. Mr. Stephens edited the
+Atlanta <i>Sun</i>, and these two friends once more joined their great powers
+to prevent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>the consummation of what they regarded as a vast political
+mistake. Greeley carried the State by a very reduced majority.</p>
+
+<p>In January, 1873, when Mr. Stephens was defeated for the United States
+Senate by General John B. Gordon, General Toombs called a meeting of the
+leaders of the eighth district in his room at the Kimball House in
+Atlanta, and nominated his friend Alexander Stephens for Congress. He
+needed no other indorsement. He was elected and re&euml;lected, and remained
+in Congress until he resigned in 1882, to become Governor of Georgia.
+Toombs and Stephens never lost their lead as dictators in Georgia
+politics.</p>
+
+<p>The man in Georgia who suffered most frequently from the criticism of
+General Toombs during this eventful period was ex-Governor Joseph E.
+Brown. His position in taking his place in the Republican party, in
+accepting office, and separating himself from his old friends and
+allies, brought down upon him the opprobrium of most of the people. It
+was at a time when Charles J. Jenkins had carried away the great seal of
+Georgia and refused to surrender it to a hostile government. It was at a
+time when Linton Stephens, the most vigorous as the most popular public
+man during the reconstruction period, was endeavoring to arouse the
+people. Governor Brown's apostasy was unfortunate. No man was then more
+exe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>crated by the people who had honored him. His name, for a while, was
+a byword and a reproach. Mr. Stephens defended his position as
+conscientious if not consistent, and gave Governor Brown the credit for
+the purity as well as the courage of his convictions. Governor Brown
+bore the contumely with patience. He contended that he could best serve
+the State by assuming functions that must otherwise be placed in hostile
+hands, and his friends declare to-day that in accepting the amendments
+to the Constitution he simply occupied in advance the ground to which
+the party and the people were forced to come. But his position did not
+compare favorably with that of the prominent Georgians of that day.</p>
+
+<p>The relations of Governor Brown and General Toombs continued strained.
+The latter never lost an opportunity to upbraid him in public or in
+private, and some of his keenest thrusts were aimed at the plodding
+figure of his old friend and ally, as it passed on its lonely way
+through the shadows of its long probation.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion in Atlanta, in July, 1872, General Toombs among other
+things referred to a lobby at the legislature in connection with a claim
+for the Mitchel heirs. Governor Brown had remained quiet during his long
+political ostracism, but he turned upon his accuser now with
+unlooked-for severity. He answered the charge by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>declaring that if
+Toombs accused him of lobbying this claim, he was an "unscrupulous
+liar." The reply did not attract much attention until it became known
+that General Toombs had sent a friend to Governor Brown to know if the
+latter would accept a challenge. Colonel John C. Nicholls was the
+friend, and Governor Brown returned the answer that when he received the
+challenge he would let him know. General Toombs did not push the matter
+further. The affair took the form of a newspaper controversy, which was
+conducted with much acrimony on both sides. Colonel Nicholls stated in
+print his belief that Governor Brown would not have accepted a challenge
+but would have used it to Toombs' injury before the people. The prospect
+of a duel between these two old men created a sensation at the time. It
+would have been a shock to the public sense of propriety to have allowed
+such a meeting. It would never have been permitted; but Governor Brown
+seems to have been determined to put the issue to the touch. He had
+prepared his resignation as a deacon of the Baptist Church, and had
+placed his house in order. He seemed to realize that this was the
+turning-point of his career, and there is no doubt that General Toombs
+gave him the opportunity to appear in a better light than he had done
+for a long time; this incident was the beginning of his return to
+popu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>larity and influence in Georgia. General Toombs was censured for
+provoking Governor Brown into the attitude of expecting a challenge and
+then declining to send it.</p>
+
+<p>Both General Toombs and Mr. Stephens were believers in the code of
+honor. Mr. Stephens once challenged Governor Herschel V. Johnson, and at
+another time he called out Hon. Benjamin H. Hill. General Toombs
+peremptorily challenged General D. H. Hill after the battle of Malvern
+Hill. In 1859, when United States Senator Broderick was killed by Judge
+Terry in California, Mr. Toombs delivered a striking eulogy of Broderick
+in the United States Senate. He said; "The dead man fell in honorable
+contest under a code which he fully recognized. While I lament his sad
+fate, I have no censure for him or his adversary. I think that no man
+under any circumstances can have a more enviable death than to fall in
+vindication of his honor. He has gone beyond censure or praise. He has
+passed away from man's judgment to the bar of the Judge of all the
+Earth."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>HIS LAST PUBLIC SERVICE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>One of the reforms advocated by General Toombs upon the return of the
+white people to the control of the State Government was the adoption of
+a new State Constitution. He never tired of declaring that the organic
+law of 1868 was the product of "aliens and usurpers," and that he would
+have none of it; Georgia must be represented by her own sons in council
+and live under a constitution of her own making. In May, 1877, an
+election was held to determine the question, and in spite of
+considerable opposition, even in the Democratic party, the people
+decided, by nine thousand majority, to have a constitutional convention.</p>
+
+<p>On July 10, 1877, that body, consisting of 194 delegates, assembled in
+Atlanta to revise the organic law. Charles J. Jenkins was elected
+president of the convention. He had been deposed from the office of
+Governor of Georgia at the point of the bayonet in 1866. He had carried
+the case of the State of Georgia before the national Supreme Court and
+contested the validity of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> Reconstruction measures. He had carried
+with him, when expelled from the State Capitol, the great seal of the
+State, which he restored when the government was again remitted to his
+own people, and in public session of the two houses of the General
+Assembly, Governor Jenkins had been presented with a facsimile of the
+great seal, with the fitting words cut into its face, "In Arduis
+Fidelis." These words are graven on his monument to-day. He was more
+than seventy years of age, but bore himself with vigor and ability.
+There was a strong representation of the older men who had served the
+State before the war, and the younger members were in full sympathy with
+them. It was an unusual body of men&mdash;possibly the ablest that had
+assembled since the secession convention of 1861. General Toombs, of
+course, was the most prominent. He had been elected a delegate from his
+senatorial district&mdash;the only office he had occupied since the war. His
+activity in securing its call, his striking presence, as he walked to
+his seat, clad in his long summer duster, carrying his brown straw hat
+and his unlighted cigar, as well as his tireless labors in that body,
+made him the center of interest. General Toombs was chairman of the
+committee on legislation and chairman of the final committee on
+revision. This body was made up of twenty-six of the most prominent
+members of the convention, and to it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>were submitted the reports of the
+other thirteen committees. It was the duty of this committee to
+harmonize and digest the various matters coming before it, and to
+prepare the final report, which was discussed in open convention.
+General Toombs was practically in charge of the whole business of this
+body. He closely attended all the sessions of the convention, which
+lasted each day from 8.30 in the morning to 1 o'clock <span class="smcap">p.&nbsp;m.</span> The entire
+afternoons were taken up with the important and exacting work of his
+committee of final revision. Frequently it was far into the night before
+he and his clerk had prepared their reports. General Toombs was in his
+sixty-eighth year, but stood the ordeal well. His facility, his
+endurance, his genius, his eloquence and pertinacity were revelations to
+the younger men, who knew him mainly by tradition. General Toombs
+proposed the only safe and proper course for the convention when he
+arose in his place on the floor and declared; "All this convention has
+to do is to establish a few fundamental principles and leave the other
+matters to the legislature and the people, in order to meet the ever
+varying affairs of human life." There was a persistent tendency to
+legislate upon details, a tendency which could not be entirely kept
+down. There was an element elected to this convention bent upon
+retrenchment and reform, and these delegates forced a long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>debate upon
+lowering the salaries of public officers, a policy which finally
+prevailed. During the progress of this debate General Toombs arose
+impatiently in his place and declared that, "The whole finances of the
+State are not included when we are speaking of the Governor's salary,
+and you spend more in talking about it than your children will have to
+pay in forty years."</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally he was betrayed into one of his erratic positions, as when
+he moved to strike out the section against dueling, and also to expunge
+from the bill of rights all restrictions upon bearing arms. He said:
+"Let the people bear arms for their own protection, whether in their
+boots or wherever they may choose."</p>
+
+<p>But his treatment of public questions was full of sound sense and
+discretion. He warned the convention that those members who, from
+hostility to the State administration, wished to wipe out the terms of
+the office-holders and make a new deal upon the adoption of the new
+constitution, were making a rash mistake. They would array a new class
+of enemies and imperil the passage of the new law. He advocated the
+submission of all doubtful questions, like the homestead laws and the
+location of the new Capitol, to the people in separate ordinances. He
+urged in eloquent terms the enlargement of the Supreme Court from three
+justices to five. Having been a champion of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>law calling that Court
+into being forty years before, he knew its needs and proposed a reform
+which, if adopted, would have cut off much trouble in Georgia to-day.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs was an advocate of the ordinance which took the selection
+of the judges and solicitors from the hands of the Governor and made
+them elective by the General Assembly. A strong element in the
+convention wanted the judiciary elected by the people. A member of the
+convention turned to General Toombs during the debate and said; "You
+dare not refuse the people this right to select their own judges." "I
+dare do anything that is right," replied Toombs. "It is not a reproach
+to the people to say that they are not able to do all the work of a
+complex government. Government is the act of the people after all." He
+reminded the convention that a new and ignorant element had been thrown
+in among the people as voters. "We must not only protect ourselves
+against them, but in behalf of the poor African," said he, "I would save
+him from himself. These people are kind, and affectionate, but their
+previous condition, whether by your fault or not, was such as to
+disqualify them from exercising the right of self-government. They were
+put upon us by people to make good government impossible in the South
+for all time, and before God, I believe they have done it."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In answer to the argument that those States which had given the
+selection of judges to the people liked it, General Toombs replied that
+this did not prove that it was right or best. "It is easy to take the
+road to hell, but few people ever return from it." General Toombs
+prevailed in this point. He was also the author of the resolution
+authorizing the legislature to levy a <a name="Page_342t" id="Page_342t"></a><a href="#Page_342tn">tax</a> to furnish good substantial
+artificial limbs to those who had lost them during the war.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs declared frequently during the debate that one of his
+main objects in going to the convention, and for urging the people to
+vote for the call, was to place a clause in the new law prohibiting the
+policy of State aid to railroads and public enterprises. He had seen
+monstrous abuses grow up under this system. He had noticed that the
+railroads built by private enterprise had proven good investments; that
+no railroad aided by the State had paid a dividend. He declared that
+Georgia had never loaned her credit from the time when Oglethorpe landed
+at Yamacraw up to 1866, and she should never do it again. He wanted this
+license buried and buried forever. His policy prevailed. State aid to
+railroads was prohibited; corporate credit cannot now be loaned to
+public enterprises, and municipal taxation was wisely restricted.
+General Toombs declared with satisfaction that he had locked the door of
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>treasury, and put the key into the pocket of the people.</p>
+
+<p>During the proceedings of this convention an effort was made to open the
+courts to review the cases of certain outlawed bonds, which the
+legislature had refused to pay, and which the people had repudiated by
+constitutional amendment. Impressed by the conviction that certain
+classes of these bonds should be paid, the venerable president of the
+convention surrendered the chair and pled from his place on the floor
+for a judicial review of this question.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was this solemn and urgent appeal concluded than General
+Toombs bounded to the floor. He declared with energy that no power of
+heaven or hell could bind him to pay these bonds. The contract was one
+of bayonet usurpation. Within a few days the legislature had loaded the
+State down with from ten to fifteen millions of the "bogus bonds."</p>
+
+<p>The term "repudiation" was distasteful to many. The bondholders did not
+relish it; but he thought it was a good honest word. No one was bound by
+these contracts, because they were not the acts of the people. "I have
+examined all the facts pertaining to these claims," said Toombs, "and
+looking to nothing but the State's integrity, I affirm that the matter
+shall go no further without my strenuous opposition. The legislature has
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>again and again declared the claims fraudulent. The people have spoken.
+Let the bonds die." The convention agreed with Toombs.</p>
+
+<p>On the 16th of August the convention, then in the midst of its labors,
+confronted a crisis. The appropriation of $25,000 made by the
+legislature to meet the expenses of the convention had been exhausted,
+and the State Treasurer notified the president that he could not honor
+his warrants any further. This was a practical problem. The work mapped
+out had not been half done. Many of the delegates were poor men from the
+rural districts and were especially dependent upon their <i>per diem</i>
+during the dull summer season. To proceed required about $1000 per day.
+To have crippled this body in its labors would have been a public
+calamity. To check upon the public treasury beyond the limit fixed by
+law involved a risk which the State Government, not too friendly toward
+the convention at best, declined to assume. To raise the money outside
+by a private loan presented this risk, that in the case of the rejection
+of the constitution, then in embryo, the lender might find himself the
+holder of an uncertain claim. The convention, however, was not left long
+in doubt. With a heroic and patriotic <i>abandon</i>, General Toombs declared
+that if Georgia would not pay her debts, he would pay them for her.
+Selling a dozen or two United States bonds, he placed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>proceeds to
+the credit of the president of the convention, who was authorized in
+turn to issue notes of $1000 each and deposit them with General Toombs.
+The act was spontaneous, whole-souled, dramatic. It saved the convention
+and rehabilitated the State with a new constitution. By a rising and
+unanimous vote General Toombs was publicly thanked for his
+public-spirited act, and the old man, alone remaining in his seat in the
+convention hall, covered his face with his hands, and shed tears during
+this unusual demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>When the convention had under review the bill of rights, General Toombs
+created a breeze in the proceedings by proposing a paragraph that the
+legislature should make no irrevocable grants of special privileges or
+immunities. The proposition received a rattling fire from all parts of
+the house. Governor Jenkins assailed it on the floor as dangerous to
+capital and fatal to public enterprise. It was argued that charters were
+contracts, and that when railroads or other interests were put upon
+notice that their franchise was likely to be disturbed, there would be
+an overthrow of confidence and development in Georgia. This was the
+first intimation of the master struggle which General Toombs was about
+to make, an advance against the corporations all along the line. It was
+the picket-firing before the engagement.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs had made a study of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>whole railroad question. He was
+a master of the law of corporations. He maintained a peculiar attitude
+toward them. He never invested a dollar in their stock, nor would he
+accept a place at their council boards. He rarely ever served them as
+attorney. When the General Assembly resolved to tax railroads in
+Georgia, the State selected General Toombs to prosecute the cases. In
+1869 he had argued the Collins case against the Central Railroad and
+Banking Company, in which the court had sustained his position that the
+proposed action of the Central Road in buying up the stock of the
+Atlantic and Gulf Railroad, to control that road, was <i>ultra vires</i>. He
+had conducted the case of Arnold DuBose against the Georgia Railroad for
+extortion in freight charges.</p>
+
+<p>The principles he had gleaned from this laborious record made him
+resolve to place restrictions upon corporate power in the new
+constitution. The time was ripe for this movement. The Granger
+legislation in the West had planted in the organic law of Illinois,
+Ohio, and Missouri the policy of government control over the railroads.
+The statutes of Pennsylvania also reflected the same principles, and the
+Supreme Court of the United States had decided this great case on the
+side of the people. General Toombs was master of the legislation on this
+subject in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> England, and had studied the American reports on the right
+and duty of the state to regulate railroad companies. He declared, in
+proposing this new system, that these laws had been adopted by the most
+enlightened governments of the world. "From the days of the Roman Empire
+down to the present time," said Toombs, "it has never been denied that
+the state has power over the corporations."</p>
+
+<p>At once the State was in an uproar. "Toombs is attempting a new
+revolution," was alleged. He was charged with leading an idolatrous
+majority into war upon the rights of property. Conservative men like
+Jenkins deprecated the agitation. Atlanta was filled with a powerful
+railroad lobby, and the press resounded with warning that development of
+the waste places of Georgia would be retarded by this unjust and
+nefarious warfare. Robert Toombs was not an agrarian. His movement
+against the corporations was re&euml;nforced by delegates from the small
+towns in Georgia, who had suffered from discrimination in favor of the
+larger cities. Railroad traffic had been diverted by rigid and ruthless
+exactions, and a coterie of delegates from southwest Georgia stood
+solidly by Toombs. These debates drew crowds of listeners. From the
+galleries hundreds of interested Georgians looked down upon the last
+public service of Robert Toombs. He never appeared <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>to finer advantage.
+His voice lacked its old-time ring, his beard was gray and his frame was
+bent, but he was fearless, aggressive, alert, eloquent. He was master of
+the whole subject. Railways, he declared, were public highways. Upon no
+other principle could they receive land from the State, under its right
+of eminent domain, than that this land was condemned for public and not
+for private use. A public highway means that it must be used according
+to law. In those States where people have been fighting the
+encroachments of public monopolies, it had been found necessary to use
+these terms, and Toombs prefaced his agitation with this announcement.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs did not mince matters. He declared that the rapacious
+course of the railroads in Georgia had been spoliation. Monopoly is
+extortion. Corporations must either be governed by the law or they will
+override the law. Competition is liberty. Keep the hand of the law on
+corporations and you keep up competition; keep up competition and you
+preserve liberty. It has been argued that the towns and counties in
+Georgia had grown rich. That is the same argument that was made in the
+English Parliament. They said; "Look at your little colonies, how they
+have grown under our care." But the patriotic men of America said; "We
+have grown rich in spite of your oppressions." Shall we not restrain
+this tax-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>gatherer who has no judge but himself, no limit but his
+avarice?</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs wanted it placed in the constitution that the legislature
+shall pass these laws restricting railroads. He declared he had twice
+drawn bills for that purpose; they had passed the House, but crumbled as
+though touched with the hand of death when they came to the forty-four
+(the Senate). "What," said he, "do I see before me? The grave. What
+beyond that? Starving millions of our posterity, that I have robbed by
+my action here, in giving them over to the keeping of these
+corporations. The right to control these railroads belongs to the State,
+to the people, and as long as I represent the people, I will not consent
+to surrender it, so help me God!"</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of Toombs dominated that convention. Men moved up the aisle
+to take their seats at his feet as he poured out his strong appeal.
+One-half of that body was filled with admiration, the other half with
+alarm. "It is a sacred thing to shake the pillars upon which the
+property of the country rests," said Mr. Hammond of Fulton. "Better
+shake the pillars of property than the pillars of liberty," answered
+this Georgia Sampson, with his thews girt for the fray. "The great
+question is, Shall Georgia govern the corporations or the corporations
+govern Georgia? Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve!"</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The house rang with applause. Members clustered about the old man as
+about the form of a prophet. The majority was with him. The articles
+which he had advocated came from the committee without recommendation,
+but they were substantially adopted, and are now parts of the supreme
+law of the land. The victory was won, and Robert Toombs, grim and
+triumphant, closed his legislative career, and claimed this work as the
+crowning act of his public labors.</p>
+
+<p>These principles are contained in Article IV. of the State constitution
+of Georgia. It declares the right of taxation to be sovereign,
+inviolable, and indestructible, and that it shall be irrevocable by the
+State; that the power to regulate freight and passenger tariffs and to
+prevent unjust discriminations shall be conferred upon the General
+Assembly, whose duty it shall be to pass laws for the same; that the
+right of eminent domain shall never be abridged; that any amendment to a
+charter shall bring the charter under the provisions of the
+Constitution; that the General Assembly shall have no authority to
+authorize any corporation to buy shares of stock in any other
+corporation, which shall have the effect to lessen competition or
+encourage monopoly. No railroad shall pay a rebate or bonus.</p>
+
+<p>Under these provisions, the Railroad Commission of Georgia was organized
+in 1879. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>idea, as it finally worked out, was General Toombs'. He
+did not favor fixing the rates in the law, but the creation of such a
+commission to carry out these provisions. The present law was framed by
+Judge William M. Reese, Hon. Samuel Barnett, Ex-Senator H. D. McDaniel,
+and Superintendent Foreacre of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. It
+has worked well in Georgia. Twice has the legislature attempted to
+remodel it, but the people have rallied to its support and have not
+permitted it to be amended in so much as a single clause. It has served
+as an example for imitation by other States, and was cited as strong
+authority in Congress for the creation of the Inter-State Commerce Law.
+The railroad men, after fighting it for ten years, have come round to
+acknowledge its value. It has stood as a breakwater between the
+corporations and the people. It has guaranteed justice to the citizen,
+and has worked no injury to the railroads. Under its wise provisions
+Georgia has prospered, and leads the Union to-day in railroad building.
+And when, during a recent session of the legislature, an attempt was
+made to war upon railroad consolidation, the saving, overmastering,
+crowning argument of the railroads themselves was that General Toombs
+had already secured protection for the people, and that, under his
+masterly handiwork, the rights of property and the rights of the people
+were safe.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the convention had concluded its labors, General Toombs went before
+the people and threw himself with enthusiasm into the canvass. He took
+the stump, and everywhere his voice was heard in favor of the adoption
+of the new organic law. Many of the officers whose term had been cut
+off, and whose salaries had been reduced, appeared against the
+constitution. General Toombs declared that those public men who did not
+approve of the lower salaries might "pour them back in the jug." This
+homely phrase became a by-word in the canvass. It had its origin in this
+way: In the Creek war, in which "Capt. Robert A. Toombs" commanded a
+company made up of volunteers from Wilkes, Elbert, and Lincoln counties,
+a negro named Kinch went along as whisky sutler. As he served out the
+liquor, some of the soldiers complained of the price he asked. His
+answer was, "Well, sir, if you don't like it, sir, pour it back in the
+jug."</p>
+
+<p>In the State election of December, 1877, the new constitution was
+overwhelmingly adopted, and will remain for generations the organic law
+of the Empire State of the South.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>DOMESTIC LIFE OF TOOMBS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There never was a public man in America whose home life was more
+beautiful or more tender than that of Robert Toombs. As great as were
+his public virtues, his lofty character, and abilities, his domestic
+virtues were more striking still. He was a man who loved his family. In
+1830 he was married to Julia A. Dubose, with whom he lived, a model and
+devoted husband, for more than fifty years. She was a lady of rare
+personal beauty, attractive manners, and common sense. She shared his
+early struggles, and watched the lawyer grow into the statesman and the
+leader with unflagging confidence and love. There was never a time that
+he would not leave his practice or his public life to devote himself to
+her. His heart yearned for her during his long separation in Washington,
+when, during the debate upon the great Compromise measures of 1850, he
+wrote that he would rather see her than "save the State." He considered
+her in a thousand ways. He never disappointed her in coming home, but,
+when traveling, always returned when it was possible, just at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>time
+he had promised. During the exciting scenes attending his first election
+to the United States Senate, he writes that he feels too little interest
+in the result perhaps for his success, and longs to be at home.
+Political honors did not draw him away from his devotion to this good
+woman. He never neglected her in the smallest way. His attentions were
+as pointed and courtly in her last days as when they were bright-faced
+boy and girl, lovers and cousins, in the twenties. During his labors in
+the constitutional convention of 1877, he one day wore upon his lapel a
+flower she had placed there, and stopping in his speech, paid fitting
+tribute to the pure emblem of a woman's love. A man of great deeds and
+great temptations, of great passions and of glaring faults, he never
+swerved in loyalty to his wedded love, and no influence ever divided his
+allegiance there. Writing to her on May 15, 1853, while he was United
+States Senator, he says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Dear Julia</span>:</p>
+
+<p>This is your birthday, which you bid me remember, and this
+letter will show you that I have not forgotten it. To-day
+Gus Baldwin and Dr. Harbin dropped in to dinner, and we
+drank your good health and many more returns in health and
+happiness of the 15th of May. I did not tell them that you
+were forty, for it might be that some time or other you
+would not care to have them know it, and I am sure they
+would never suspect it unless told. In truth I can scarcely
+realize it myself, as you are the same lovely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>and loving,
+true-hearted woman to me, that you were when I made you my
+bride, nearly twenty-three years ago. There is no other
+change except the superior loveliness of the full blown
+over the budding rose. I have thrown my mind this quiet
+Sunday evening over that large segment of human life
+(twenty-three years) since we were married, and whatever of
+happiness memory has treasured up clusters around you. In
+life's struggle I have been what men call fortunate. I have
+won its wealth and its honors, but I have won them by
+labor, and toil, and strife, whose memory saddens even
+success; but the pure joys of wedded love leave none but
+pleasant recollections which one can dwell upon with
+delight. These thoughts are dearer to me than to most men,
+because I know for whatever success in life I may have had,
+whatever evil I may have avoided, or whatever good I may
+have done, I am mainly indebted to the beautiful, pure,
+true-hearted little black-eyed girl, who on the 18th of
+November, 1830, came trustingly to my arms, the sweetest
+and dearest of wives. You need not fear, therefore, that I
+shall forget your birthday. That and our bridal-day are the
+brightest in my calendar, and memory will not easily part
+with them.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Toombs</span>.<br />
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>So well known was this domestic trait of Mr. Toombs that Bishop Beckwith
+of Georgia, in delivering his funeral sermon, declared that "no knight,
+watching his sword before the altar, ever made a holier, truer, or purer
+vow than when Robert Toombs stood at the marriage altar more than fifty
+years ago. The fire that burned upon the altar of his home remained as
+pure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>and unfailing as the perpetual offering of Jerusalem."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Toombs was a woman of warm heart and strong convictions. She was
+noted for her benevolence and piety, and these she carried through life.
+Her Christian example was a steadying influence often in the stormy and
+impetuous career of her husband, and finally, when she had closed her
+eyes in peace, brought him to the altar where she had worshiped. Her
+household and her neighbors loved to be under her influence. No one who
+ever saw her fine face, or her lustrous dark eyes, forgot her. Her face
+was, in some respects, not unlike that of her husband. It is the best
+tribute that can be paid to her to say that for more than fifty years
+her influence over so strong a character as that of Robert Toombs was
+most potent. In June, 1856, while driving in Augusta, the horses
+attached to the carriage ran away, and Mrs. Toombs was thrown from the
+vehicle and sustained a fracture of the hip. General Toombs hastened to
+Georgia from Congress, and remained incessantly at her bedside for
+several weeks. In November, 1880, General and Mrs. Toombs celebrated
+their golden wedding, surrounded by their grandchildren and friends. It
+was a beautiful sight to see the bride of half a century with a new
+wedding ring upon her finger, playing the piano, while the old man of
+seventy essayed, like Wash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>ington, to dance the minuet. The old couple
+survived their three children, and lived to bless the lives of
+grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They were fond and affectionate
+parents.</p>
+
+<p>A friend, who had known them in their own home, describes "the great
+fire in the open fire-place; on one side the venerable statesman, with
+that head which always seemed to me of such rare beauty; on the other
+side, the quiet wife busy with home affairs, her eyes lighting, now and
+then, the wonderful conversation that fell from his eloquent lips."</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs was a liberal provider for his family, and his
+grandchildren and connections were constant objects of his bounty. Large
+sums were spent in charity. No church or benevolent institution appealed
+to him in vain. His house was open, and his hospitality was princely and
+proverbial. No one was more genial at home. Few prominent persons ever
+visited Washington without being entertained by Toombs. His regular
+dinners to the bar of the circuit, as, twice a year, the lawyers came to
+Washington to court, are remembered by scores of Georgians to-day. On
+one occasion when the townspeople were discussing the need of a hotel,
+General Toombs indignantly replied that there was no need for any such
+place. "If a respectable man comes to town," said he,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> "he can stay at
+my house. If he isn't respectable, we don't want him here at all."</p>
+
+<p>No religious conference could meet in Washington that the Toombs house
+was not full of guests. Many Northern people visited the place to hear
+the statesman talk. Newspaper correspondents sought him out to listen to
+his fine conversation. These people were always sure of the most
+courteous treatment, and were prepared for the most candid expression.
+General Toombs was not solely a <i>raconteur</i>. He did not draw upon his
+memory for his wit. The cream of his conversation was his bold and
+original comment. His wit flashed all along the line. His speech at
+times was droll and full of quaint provincialisms. He treated subjects
+spontaneously, in a style all his own. Strangers, who sat near him in a
+railroad car, have been enchanted by his sage and spirited conversation,
+as his leonine features lighted up, and his irresistible smile and
+kindly eye forced good-humor, even where his sentiments might have
+challenged dissent. He was the finest talker of his day. A close friend,
+who used to visit him frequently at his home, declares that Toombs'
+powers did not wait upon the occasion. He did not require an emergency
+to bring him out. All his faculties were alert, and in a morning's chat
+he would pour out the riches of memory, humor, eloquence, and logic
+until the listener would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>enthralled by his brilliancy and power. He
+delighted to talk with intellectual men and women. He was impatient with
+triflers or dolts. He criticised unsparingly, and arraigned men and
+measures summarily, but he was a seeker after truth, and even when
+severe, was free from malice or envy.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs was a man of tender sympathies. Distress of his friends
+moved him to prompt relief. In 1855 a friend and kinsman, Mr. Pope, died
+in Alabama. He had been a railroad contractor and his affairs were much
+involved. General Toombs promptly went to his place, bought in his
+property for the family, and left the place for the wife and children,
+just as it stood. From Mobile he writes a grief-stricken letter to his
+wife, December 28, 1855:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I feel that I must pour out my sorrows to someone, and whom
+else can I look to but to one who, ever faithful and true,
+has had my whole heart from my youth till now? This has
+been one of the dark and sad days of my life. The remains
+of my lost friend Mr. Pope came down on the cars this
+morning. I met them alone at the depot, except Gus. Baldwin
+and the hired hands. This evening I accompanied the remains
+to the boat. Oh, it was so sad to see one whom so many
+people professed to love, in a strange place, conveyed by
+hirelings and deposited like merchandise among the freight
+of a steamboat on the way to his long home. I can scarcely
+write now, at the thought, through the blindness of my own
+tears. As I saw him placed in the appointed spot among the
+strangers and bustle of a departing boat, careless of who
+or what he was, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>I stole away to the most retired part of
+the boat, to conceal the weakness of friendship and relieve
+my overburdened heart with a flood of tears. I felt it
+would be a profanation of friendship even to be seen to
+feel in such a crowd. But for my overwhelming duty to the
+living I would have taken the boat and gone on with his
+remains. This is the end of the just in this world. He was
+a good and an upright man; never gave offense to a human
+being. His family are ruined, but his only fault was want
+of judgment, and too great confidence in his kind. He could
+not make money, and it really seemed that his every effort
+to do so plunged him deeper into debt. His great fault was
+a concealment of his own difficulties and trials. I would
+have done anything to have relieved them upon a full
+disclosure. He was idolized at home, and I have wept at the
+sorrows of the poor people in his employment, upon the very
+mention of his death. I know I cannot control my grief and
+am sensitive of my own weakness. I could not find relief
+without pouring out my sorrows to you. There let them rest.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Toombs</span>.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>General Toombs resided in a three-story frame house in Washington, built
+after the manner of the olden time, with the spacious piazza, heavy
+columns, the wide door, and the large rooms. He lived in ease and
+comfort. He was an early riser, and after breakfast devoted himself to
+business or correspondence. At midday he was accessible to visitors, and
+rarely dined alone. In the afternoon he walked or drove. At night he sat
+in his arm-chair at his fireside, and in his lips invariably carried an
+unlit cigar. Smoking did not agree <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>with him. While in Europe he
+delighted to test the tobacco of the different countries, but the
+practice always gave him pain above the eyes. His last attempt was in
+the army of Virginia. Convinced that smoking injured him, he never
+resumed it. Fond of his dry smoke, he had a peculiar cigar made to
+order, very closely wrapped, with fine tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs made frequent trips away from home, even during the
+latter part of his life. The State retained his services in important
+cases. One of his last public acts was the prosecution of certain
+railway companies for back taxes. He recovered thousands of dollars to
+the State. He was summoned to Atlanta in 1880 to prosecute a defaulting
+State treasurer. He appeared very feeble, but his speech was a model of
+clearness and logic. During the latter part of his life there was a
+return of his early fault of quick, nervous, compressed speech. He
+grasped only the great hillocks of thought and left the intervening
+ground to be filled by the listener. His terse, rapid style was
+difficult to follow. As a presiding judge said, "His leaps are like a
+kangaroo's, and his speech gave me the headache." But his argument in
+the Jack Jones case was a model of eloquence and convincing law. A large
+number of friends attended the court, convinced that General Toombs was
+nearing the end of his great career, and were as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>tounded at the manner
+in which he delivered his argument. As he concluded his address he
+turned in his place and caught the eye of Rev. Father J. M. O'Brien, an
+old friend of his. "Why, Father O'Brien," he said, wringing his hand, "I
+am glad to see you taking an interest in this case. These people are
+trying to usurp your functions. They want to grant the defendant
+absolution." "But, General," replied the quick-witted priest, "even I
+could not grant absolution until he had made restitution." "That's the
+doctrine," said the delighted lawyer, pleased to find that the point of
+his speech had taken so well. His face was all aglow with the <i>gaudia
+certaminis</i> of the forum. This was his last appearance in court, and he
+won his case.</p>
+
+<p>His mother Georgia claimed his allegiance always, and he gave her his
+last and best powers. He worked for the commonwealth, and gave the
+people more than he ever received in return.</p>
+
+<p>In Augusta, in 1871, when he appeared before the Georgia Railroad
+Commission and arraigned the lease of the State road as illegal and
+unhallowed, he declared in a burst of indignation; "I would rather be
+buried at the public expense than to leave a dirty shilling." It was the
+acme of his desire to live and die like a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>He had always been a safe financier. Scorning wealth, he had early found
+himself wealthy. It is estimated that he made more than a million
+dol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>lars by his law practice after the war. He spent his money freely,
+careful always to avoid debt. Further than this, he kept no account of
+his means. Like Astor, he invested much of his holdings in land, and
+owned a large number of fine plantations in middle Georgia. When he died
+his estate probably reached two hundred thousand dollars.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>HIS GREAT FAULT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>No just biography of Robert Toombs can be written that does not take
+into notice the blemishes as well as the brightness of his character. He
+was a man on a grand scale. His virtues were heroic, his faults were
+conspicuous. No man despised hypocrisy more than he did, and no one
+would have asked any sooner to be painted as he was, without
+concealment. During the latter part of his life, many people knew him
+principally by his faults. Few knew what the wayward Prince Hal of the
+evening had been to King Henry in the morning hour. Like Webster and
+Clay, he was made up of human frailty. As his intimate friend, Samuel
+Barnett, said of him: "In spite of splendid physique, a man of blood and
+passion, he was not only a model of domestic virtue, but he avoided the
+lewd talk to which many prominent men are addicted. A fine sportsman and
+rider, a splendid shot, he was nothing of the racer or gamester. After
+all, he was more of a model than a warning." Among his faults, the one
+which exaggerated all the others, was his use of ardent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span>liquors. This
+habit grew upon him, especially after the failure of the war. A proud,
+imperious nature, accustomed to great labors and great responsibilities,
+was left without its main resource and supplied with the stimulus of
+wine. No man needed that stimulus less than he did. His was a manhood
+vibrant in age with the warm blood of youth, and always at its best when
+his spirits and intellect alone were at play. He was easily affected by
+the smallest indulgence. When he measured himself with others, glass for
+glass, the result was distressing, disastrous. The immediate effect of
+excess was short. The next morning his splendid vitality asserted
+itself, and he was bright and clear as ever. The habit, however, grew
+upon him. The want of a physical check was bad. This was the worst of
+all his faults, and was exaggerated by special circumstances. It was
+less indulged in at home and greatly circulated abroad. Frequently the
+press reporters would surround him and expose in the papers a mere
+caricature of him. His talk, when under the influence of wine, was racy,
+extravagant, and fine, and his sayings too often found their way into
+print. In this way great injustice was done to the life and character of
+Robert Toombs, and Northern men who read these quaint sayings and
+redolent vaporings formed a distorted idea of the man.</p>
+
+<p>To a Northern correspondent who approached <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>him during one of these
+periods, General Toombs said: "Yes, a gentleman whose intelligence
+revolts at usurpations must abstain from discussing the principles and
+policies of your Federal government, or receive the kicks of crossroad
+sputterers and press reporters; must either lie or be silent. They know
+only how to brawl and scrawl 'hot-head' and 'impolitic maniac.' Why, my
+free negroes know more than all your bosses. Now, damn it, put that in
+your paper."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Toombs was built to live ninety years, and to have been, at
+Gladstone's age, a Gladstone in power. He took little pains to explain
+his real nature. He seemed to take pains to conceal or mislead. He
+appeared at times to hide his better and expose his worse side. If he
+had been Byron, he would have put forward his deformed foot. He was
+utterly indifferent to posthumous fame. Time and again he was asked to
+have his letters and speeches compiled for print, but he would never
+hear of it. He waived these suggestions away with the sententious
+remark, "that his life was written on the pages of his country's
+history." With all his faults, his were strong principles and generous
+impulses. "We know something of what he yielded, but we know nothing of
+what he resisted." Include his strength and his weakness and measure him
+by other men, and we have a man of giant mold.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One who was very near to Toombs in his last days said of him when he was
+dead: "It was a thing of sorrow to see this majestic old man pausing to
+measure his poor strength with a confirmed habit, rising, struggling,
+falling, and praying as he drifted on."</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs used to say that Webster was the greatest man he ever
+knew, that Clay managed men better, and Calhoun was the finest logician
+of the century. "The two most eloquent men I ever heard were Northern
+men," said he; "Choate and Prentiss." "Pierce," he used to say, "was the
+most complete gentleman I ever saw in the White House. He was clever and
+correct. Zachary Taylor was the most ignorant. It was amazing how little
+he knew. Van Buren was shrewd rather than sagacious. Tyler was a
+beautiful speaker, but Webster declared that a man who made a pretty
+speech was fit for nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>Toombs met Abraham Lincoln while he was in Congress. He related that Mr.
+Lincoln once objected to sitting down at table because he was the
+thirteenth man. Toombs told him that it was better to die than to be a
+victim to superstition. At the Hampton Roads Conference, President
+Lincoln expressed to Judge Campbell his confidence in the honesty and
+ability of Robert Toombs. He was a great reader. General Toombs often
+said that if the whole English literature <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>were lost, and the Bible and
+Shakespeare remained, letters would not be much the poorer. Shakespeare
+was his standard. He was fond of Swedenborg, and in his early youth
+relished Tom Paine.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs had a great affinity for young men, upon whom he exerted
+a great influence. He once said to a party of friends that gambling was
+the worst of evils because it impoverished the pocket while it corrupted
+the mind. "How about drinking, General?" he was asked. "Well, if a man
+is old and rich he may drink, for he will have the sympathy of his sober
+friends and the support of his drinking ones."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>HIS LAST DAYS.</h3>
+
+<p>In 1880 General Toombs appeared in Atlanta, and addressed the Georgia
+Legislature in behalf of the candidacy of General A. R. Lawton for the
+United States Senate. His appearance, as he walked up the aisle, grim,
+venerable, and determined, awoke wild applause. He preserved his power
+of stirring the people whenever he spoke, but his speech was not as racy
+and clear as it had been. "This was one of the occasions," to quote from
+a distinguished critic of Toombs, "when the almost extinct volcano
+glowed again with its wonted fires&mdash;when the ivy-mantled keep of the
+crumbling castle resumed its pristine defiance with deep-toned culverin
+and ponderous mace; when, amid the colossal fragments of the tottering
+temple, men recognized the unsubdued spirit of Samson Agonistes."</p>
+
+<p>His last public speech was in September, 1884, when the people of
+Washington carried him the news of Cleveland's election to the
+Presidency. He came to his porch and responded briefly, almost
+inaudibly, to the serenade, but he was full of the gratification which
+Southern people felt over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>that event. He declared that he did not know
+that there was enough manhood in the country as to break loose from
+party ties and elect a President. The fact had revived his hope for the
+whole country. He had, before this, taken a gloomy view of the nation.
+He had, on one occasion, declared that the injection into the body
+politic of three million savages had made good government forever
+impossible. He had afterward said that the American Constitution rested
+solely upon the good faith of the people, and that would hardly bind
+together a great people of diverse interests. "Since 1850," he once
+said, "I have never believed this Union to be perpetual. The experience
+of the last war will deter any faction from soon making an effort at
+secession. Had it not been for this, there would have been a collision
+in 1876." But the election of Cleveland he regarded as a national,
+rather than a sectional victory&mdash;a non-partisan triumph in fact; and it
+was at this time, the first occasion since the war, that he expressed
+regret that he had not regained his citizenship and gone back into
+public life.</p>
+
+<p>But his great power had begun to wane. His tottering gait and hesitating
+speech pointed unmistakably to speedy dissolution. The new-born hope for
+his country came just as his steps neared "the silent, solemn shore of
+that vast ocean he must sail so soon."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In March, 1883, General Toombs was summoned to Atlanta to attend the
+funeral of his lifelong friend Mr. Stephens. The latter had been an
+invalid for forty years, but was kept in active life by the sheer force
+of his indomitable will. Emerging from the war a prisoner, he had
+finally secured his release and had been elected United States Senator.
+Being prevented from taking his seat, he had returned home and finished
+his constitutional review of the "War Between the States." In 1873 he
+had been re&euml;lected to Congress, where he had remained for ten years,
+resigning this position to accept the nomination for Governor of
+Georgia, which his party had offered him at a critical moment. It had
+been the desire of the "Great Commoner" to "die in harness," and there
+is no doubt that his close attention to the arduous duties of Governor
+hastened his death. Thousands of Georgians repaired to the State Capitol
+to honor his memory, but he who attracted most attention was the gray
+and grief-stricken companion who stood by the coffin of the man he had
+honored for fifty years. Mr. Stephens, in his diary, recalls the fact
+that his first meeting with Mr. Toombs was in court, when the latter
+generously offered to lend him money and look after his practice so that
+Stephens could take a trip for his health.</p>
+
+<p>Like Damon and Pythias, these two men were bound by the strongest ties.
+They entered public <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>life together in the General Assembly of Georgia.
+Together they rode the circuits as young attorneys, and each was
+rewarded about the same time with a seat in the national councils. Both
+were conspicuous in the <i>ante-bellum</i> agitation, and both were prominent
+in the Civil War. As age advanced their relations were closer still.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs at the funeral of his friend pronounced a eulogium on the
+dead. His words were tremulous, and the trooping, tender memories of
+half a century crowded into the anguish of that moment. Toombs and
+Stephens, so long united in life, were not long parted in death.</p>
+
+<p>In September, 1883, Mrs. Toombs died at her summer residence in
+Clarkesville, Ga. Their devoted friend, Dr. Steiner, was with them at
+the time, and rendered the double offices of family physician and
+sympathetic friend. Between these two men there had been a warm and long
+friendship. Dr. Steiner talked with General Toombs about his spiritual
+condition. A godly man himself, the doctor thought that he might remove
+any doubts that might linger in the mind of the stricken husband. He was
+gratified to hear that the way was clear. "Why, doctor," said General
+Toombs, "I am a prayerful man. I read the Bible and the Prayer Book
+every day." "Then why not be baptized, General?" "Baptize me, doctor,"
+was his prompt reply. Dr. Steiner answered that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span>there was no immediate
+need of that. The general was in good health. Dr. Steiner had baptized
+patients, he said, but it was in times of emergency. It was the desire
+of General Toombs to be baptized at the bedside of his wife. In a short
+time Robert Toombs was in communion with the Southern Methodist Church.
+It was his wife's beautiful example, "moving beside that soaring, stormy
+spirit, praying to God for blessings on it," which brought him to a
+confession of his faith, and left him in full fellowship with God's
+people.</p>
+
+<p>General Toombs' health commenced visibly to fail after his wife's death,
+and the loss of Mr. Stephens made life lonely. His younger brother
+Gabriel, himself in the shadow of a great affliction, was with him
+constantly. They were devotedly attached to each other. Mr. Gabriel
+Toombs is, in personal appearance, very much like his brother. The long,
+iron-gray hair, brushed straight out from his head, reminds one of
+Robert Toombs. He is smaller in stature, and is a man of strong
+abilities, even temperament, and well-balanced mind. His brother had
+great regard for his business judgment and political sagacity, and often
+consulted him on public matters. These men lived near each other in
+Washington, their families grew up together, and General Toombs regarded
+his brother's children almost as he did his own.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the 30th of September, 1885, Robert Toombs was confined to his house
+by illness. It was a general breaking down of his whole system. It was
+evident that he was nearing his end. During his last illness his mind
+would wander, and then his faculties would return with singular
+clearness. He suffered little pain. As Henry Grady said of him, it
+seemed that this kingly power and great vitality, which had subdued
+everything else, would finally conquer death. His ruling instinct was
+strong in dissolution. He still preserved to the last his faculty of
+grasping with ease public situations, and "framing terse epigrams, which
+he threw out like proverbs."</p>
+
+<p>During one of his lucid intervals he asked for the news. He was told;
+"General, the Georgia Legislature has not yet adjourned."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, send for Cromwell," he answered, as he turned on his pillow.</p>
+
+<p>Another time he was told that the Prohibitionists were holding an
+election in the town. "Prohibitionists," said he, "are men of small
+pints."</p>
+
+<p>His mind at this period dwelt mainly on serious thoughts. The Bible was
+read to him daily. He was perfectly aware of his condition. He said to
+Dr. Steiner: "Looking over my broad field of life, I have not a
+resentment. I would not pang a heart."</p>
+
+<p>He talked in his delirium of Mr. Stephens and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> Dr. Steiner. The latter
+recalled him and said: "General, I am here by your side; Mr. Stephens,
+you know, has crossed over the river." Coming to himself, he said: "Yes,
+I know I am fast passing away. Life's fitful fever will soon be over. I
+would not blot out a single act of my life."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Steiner declared that he never before realized so fully the
+appropriateness of Mr. Stephens' tribute to Toombs; "His was the
+greatest mind I ever came in contact with. Its operations, even in its
+errors, remind me of a mighty waste of waters."</p>
+
+<p>When the time came for Dr. Steiner to return to his home in Augusta,
+General Toombs bade him good-by. <a name="Page_375t" id="Page_375t"></a><a href="#Page_375tn">"</a>I am sorry," said he, "the hour is
+come. I hope we shall meet in a better place."</p>
+
+<p>After Thursday, December 10, General Toombs did not regain
+consciousness. On Monday, December 15, 1885, at 6 o'clock <span class="smcap">p.&nbsp;m.</span>, he
+breathed his last. Just as the darkness of a winter evening stole over
+the land the great spirit of the statesman walked into eternal light.</p>
+
+<p>He was buried on Thursday, December 18, at twelve o'clock. The funeral
+exercises were held in the little brick Methodist church where his wife
+and daughter had worshiped.</p>
+
+<p>The funeral was simple, according to his wishes. A large number of
+public men in Georgia attended the services. Dr. Hillyer, a prominent
+Baptist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span>divine and classmate of General Toombs, assisted in the
+services. Rt. Rev. John W. Beckwith, Episcopal Bishop of Georgia, who
+had been his closest religious adviser after the death of the Methodist
+Bishop George F. Pierce, delivered a beautiful eulogium.</p>
+
+<p>The remains were interred in the Washington cemetery, by the side of the
+body of his wife. A handsome marble shaft, bearing the simple and
+speaking inscription "Robert Toombs," marks the spot which is sacred to
+all Georgians.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE END.</b></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INDEX.</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Abolitionists, election of "Independent Democrats" by, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in campaign of 1856, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of Dred Scott case on, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Achison, David R., leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br />
+<br />
+Act of 1789, claim for enforcement of, <a href="#Page_73">73-76</a><br />
+<br />
+Adams, John Q., compact with Clay, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">charge of corruption against, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Alabama, delegates withdraw from Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secession of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">escape through, <a href="#Page_301">301-303</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Alabama</i>, escape on the, <a href="#Page_305">305</a><br />
+<br />
+Alexander, W. F., joins in European trip, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed Quartermaster-major, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Alexander, Mrs. W. F., death, <a href="#Page_312">312</a><br />
+<br />
+Aliens, Toombs' welcome for, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br />
+<br />
+Alps, visit to the, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+American party, rise, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposed and denounced by Toombs, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">successes and defeats in 1855, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominates Fillmore, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to Toombs' party, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">principles, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominates Hill for governorship of Georgia, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">downfall, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Amsterdam, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Anderson, Major, besieged at Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_227">227-229</a><br />
+<br />
+Andrews, Judge, defeated for governorship of Georgia, <a href="#Page_128">128</a><br />
+<br />
+Andrews' Grove, debate between Toombs and Hill in, <a href="#Page_145">145-152</a><br />
+<br />
+Antietam, battle of, <a href="#Page_262">262-269</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>
+<br />
+Anti-railroad agitation, <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+<br />
+Appleton, Nathan, entertains Toombs at Boston, <a href="#Page_130">130</a><br />
+<br />
+Appleton, William, entertains Toombs at Boston, <a href="#Page_130">130</a><br />
+<br />
+Arkansas, delegates leave Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secedes, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Army Appropriation bill, debate between Toombs and Davis on, <a href="#Page_247">247-249</a><br />
+<br />
+Army of Northern Virginia, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a><br />
+<br />
+Army of Potomac, defeated before Richmond, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br />
+<br />
+Articles of Confederation, bearing on slavery question, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br />
+<br />
+Athens, University at, <a href="#Page_7">7-12</a><br />
+<br />
+Atlanta, quarrel between Stephens and Cone in, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the field before, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">political meeting at, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Atlanta Sun</i>, edited by Stephens, <a href="#Page_332">332</a><br />
+<br />
+Atlantic cable, opposes appropriation for, <a href="#Page_194">194</a><br />
+<br />
+Augusta, Ga., speeches at, <a href="#Page_47">47-50</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165-168</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel</i>, defends Toombs, <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Baltimore, delegate to Clay convention at, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whig convention at, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democratic convention at, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Baltimore convention, the, action in regard to Georgia delegations, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br />
+<br />
+Banking, position on, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br />
+<br />
+Bank of the United States, <a href="#Page_32">32</a><br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span>
+Bar, admission to the, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Barnett, Samuel, frames railroad law, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tribute to Toombs, <a href="#Page_364">364</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bartow, Francis S., deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a><br />
+<br />
+Bayard, James A., leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">member of Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">presides over seceders from Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Beaverdam Creek, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Beckwith, Bishop John W., eulogium on Toombs, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a><br />
+<br />
+Bell, John, leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote in Georgia for, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Benjamin, Judah P., Attorney General of Confederate States, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal practice in England, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Benning, Col., assumes command of Toombs' brigade, <a href="#Page_268">268</a><br />
+<br />
+Benton, Thomas H., on disunion, <a href="#Page_81">81</a><br />
+<br />
+Berrien, John M., censured by Georgia Democrats, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">represents Georgia in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in campaign of 1851, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bill of Rights, in Constitutional convention, <a href="#Page_345">345</a><br />
+<br />
+Bird, Edge, reunion with Toombs, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Black, Edward J., opposes Toombs in campaign of 1844, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br />
+<br />
+Blaine, J. G., characterization of Toombs' farewell speech in Senate, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on bombardment of Sumter, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on ravages of Confederate ships, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">objects to Toombs' restoration to citizenship, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Blair, Frank P., nominated for Vice-presidency, <a href="#Page_324">324</a><br />
+<br />
+Blockade of Southern ports, <a href="#Page_229">229</a><br />
+<br />
+Bonds, repudiation of outlawed, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a><br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>
+Boston, lecture in, <a href="#Page_129">129-135</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Boston Journal</i>, on Toombs' lecture, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br />
+<br />
+Boyd Amendment, <a href="#Page_80">80</a><br />
+<br />
+Braddock, Gen., massacre of his command, <a href="#Page_1">1</a><br />
+<br />
+Bragg, Gen., opposed by Toombs and Linton Stephens, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br />
+<br />
+Breckenridge, John C., elected vice president, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote in Georgia for, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last attendance at Confederate Cabinet, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bright, John, restrains recognition of Confederacy, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br />
+<br />
+Broderick, Senator, eulogized by Toombs, <a href="#Page_336">336</a><br />
+<br />
+Brooks, Preston S., assaults Sumner, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">re&euml;lected, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Brown, John, raid on Harper's Ferry, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">execution, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' characterization of his raid, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Brown, Joseph E., nominated for governorship of Georgia, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rise of, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supported by Toombs, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ability, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected governor, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">candidate for re&euml;lection to governorship, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seizes Fort Pulaski, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Conscription and Impressment Acts, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commended by Toombs, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">parting with Toombs, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joins Republican party, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">strained relations with Toombs, <a href="#Page_333">333-336</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Browne, W. M., Confederate Assistant Secretary of State, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br />
+<br />
+Brussels, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Buchanan, James, on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on Territorial question, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dissolution of Cabinet, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></span><br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>
+Bullock, Gov., <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a><br />
+<br />
+Bunker Hill Monument, denial of speech about slave roll-call, at, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br />
+<br />
+Burt, Armistead, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a><br />
+<br />
+Bush Arbor meeting, <a href="#Page_324">324-327</a><br />
+<br />
+Butler, Benjamin F., member of Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_176">176</a><br />
+<br />
+Butler, Senator, Sumner's strictures on, <a href="#Page_142">142</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Calhoun, John C., compared with Toombs, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conflict with Jackson, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">admiration of Toombs for, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">railroad schemes of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arraigned for the "sugar letter," <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">characterization of acquired Mexican territory, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last efforts of, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br />
+<br />
+California, acquisition of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">question of admission of, <a href="#Page_77">77-81</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' ideas on exclusion of slavery from, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports the South in Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cameron, Simon, criticised by Toombs, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br />
+<br />
+Canada, favors purchase of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br />
+<br />
+Caribbean Sea, advocates making a <i>mare clausum</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+<br />
+Carlyle, Thomas, view of the Civil War, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' interviews with, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cass, Lewis, defeated for the Presidency, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enmity to, by Northern men, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Catlett, Miss, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Central America, favors purchase of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br />
+<br />
+Centreville, Johnston's advance to, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' retreat from, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">escape of Toombs through, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Chandler, Daniel, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Charles I., legend of Toombs' ancestors and, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a><br />
+<br />
+Charleston, S.&nbsp;C., Yancey's speech in, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">excitement at bombardment of Sumter, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Charleston convention, the, <a href="#Page_175">175-181</a><br />
+<br />
+Charlton, Robert M., Democratic leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to Toombs, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Chase, Salmon P., represents Ohio in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an "Independent Democrat," 109;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Chattahoochee River, Toombs' escape by, <a href="#Page_301">301</a><br />
+<br />
+Chenault, Nick, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br />
+<br />
+Cherokee County, sends Brown to State Senate, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+<br />
+Chickahominy River, Johnston's retreat behind, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br />
+<br />
+Chickamauga, dispute between Gen. Hill and Gen. Walker at battle of, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br />
+<br />
+Choate, Rufus, Toombs on, <a href="#Page_367">367</a><br />
+<br />
+Cilley duel, the, <a href="#Page_55">55</a><br />
+<br />
+Cincinnati Platform of 1856, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br />
+<br />
+Civil war, Toombs' horror of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opening of the, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Clarke, Gen. John, feud with Crawford, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a><br />
+<br />
+Clarkesville, Ga., summer residence at, <a href="#Page_372">372</a><br />
+<br />
+Clay, Henry, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' opinion of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Compromise measures, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to, in campaign of 1844, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularity, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position in campaign of 1848, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion on disposition of acquired territory, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last efforts of, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the "Omnibus bill," 80;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">denies framing the Missouri Compromise, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on internal improvements, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his loss felt, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Clay and Adams compact, the, <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+Clayton Compromise, the, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span>
+<br />
+Cleveland, Grover, Toombs' speech on election of, <a href="#Page_370">370</a><br />
+<br />
+Cobb, Gov. Howell, as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democratic leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected Speaker of House of Representatives, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on admission of California, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on disunion, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for governorship, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">characteristics of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in campaign of 1851, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected governor, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Joseph E. Brown, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">indorses seceders from Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prominence of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">president of Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">addresses meeting at Atlanta, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cobb, Thomas R. R., zeal for secession, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cobb, Thomas W., guardian of Robert Toombs, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a><br />
+<br />
+College discipline, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Collins <i>v.</i> Central R. R. &amp; Banking Co., case argued by Toombs, <a href="#Page_346">346</a><br />
+<br />
+Colquitt, Walter T., elected U. S. Senator, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democratic leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Columbia County, legal practice in, <a href="#Page_15">15</a><br />
+<br />
+Columbia River, boundary line of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a><br />
+<br />
+Commerce, Toombs' views on the power to regulate, <a href="#Page_189">189</a><br />
+<br />
+Committee on Banking, General Assembly, chairman of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a><br />
+<br />
+Committee on Internal Improvements, General Assembly, member of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chairman of, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Committee on State of the Republic, General Assembly, chairman of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a><br />
+<br />
+Committees, views on legislation through, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+<br />
+Compromise bill, the, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>
+<br />
+Compromise of 1850, the, <a href="#Page_67">67-82</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">indorsed by Whig and Democratic conventions at Baltimore, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gen. Scott's position on, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cone, Francis H., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposed to Toombs at the bar, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quarrel with Stephens, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Confederacy, last days of the, <a href="#Page_280">280-284</a><br />
+<br />
+Confederate commissioners, mission to Washington, <a href="#Page_222">222-224</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to Europe, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Confederate navy, captures by, <a href="#Page_232">232</a><br />
+<br />
+Confederate States, preparation of Constitution for, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointment of Cabinet, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last meeting of Cabinet, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Conscription and Impressment Acts, opposition to, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a><br />
+<br />
+Constitutional Union party, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br />
+<br />
+Constitutional convention, and the new constitution of Georgia, <a href="#Page_337">337-352</a><br />
+<br />
+Conventions, Toombs' opinion of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br />
+<br />
+Corporations, attitude toward, <a href="#Page_346">346</a><br />
+<br />
+Crawford, George W., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resolution in Whig convention of 1848, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">connection with the Golphin claim, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">retirement of, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">presides over State Sovereignty convention, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Crawford, Martin J., deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Confederate commissioner to Washington, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Crawford, William H., career, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feud with Clarke, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">heads Whig electoral ticket in Georgia, 1848, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Creek War, Toombs' service in, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anecdote of sutler, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Creole</i>, Toombs' escape on the, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>
+<br />
+Crittenden Compromise, the, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a><br />
+<br />
+Cuba, favors purchase of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrival in, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cumberland Gap, railroad scheme for, <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br />
+<br />
+Cumming, Major J. B., <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br />
+<br />
+Cummings Point battery, fires on Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br />
+<br />
+Cushing, Caleb, president of Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resigns chairmanship of Baltimore convention, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">presides over seceders from Baltimore convention, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Dallas, George M., attitude on tariff question, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Georgia's vote for, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Danburg, letter from Toombs to constituents at, <a href="#Page_199">199-201</a><br />
+<br />
+Davis, Col., quarrel with Henry Clay, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a><br />
+<br />
+Davis, Jefferson, Toombs' advice to, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Toombs' financial ability, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">represents Mississippi in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated by Foote, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate with Douglas on popular sovereignty, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal traits, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Senate resolutions concerning Southern principles, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">election to Presidency of Confederate States, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appoints his Cabinet, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">belief in Seward, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' opinion of, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate with Toombs on Army Appropriation bill, <a href="#Page_247">247-249</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">policy and character of, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attends last meeting of Confederate Cabinet, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tribute to Toombs, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrest of, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last meeting with Toombs, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in irons, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Davis, John W., elected Speaker of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a><br />
+<br />
+Dawson, William C., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">candidate for governor of Georgia, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enters U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Deas, Joseph, aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_296">296</a><br />
+<br />
+Declaration of Independence, position on slavery question, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br />
+<br />
+Declaration of Paris, accepted by Confederate government, <a href="#Page_231">231</a><br />
+<br />
+Delaware delegates leave Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br />
+<br />
+Democratic party, strength in Georgia, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports central bank scheme, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">censures Senator Berrien, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">criticised, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">carries additional protection measure, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attempt to defeat Toombs by, in 1848, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elects Cobb Speaker of House, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joint action with Whigs in Georgia, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">convention at Baltimore, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">loss of House majority, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominates Buchanan, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominates Brown for governor of Georgia, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">split over Territorial question, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">demand for new plank in platform, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">split among Georgia Democrats, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">success in State legislature, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Depreciation of currency, <a href="#Page_31">31</a><br />
+<br />
+District of Columbia, Clay's proposed abolition of slave trade in, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amendment as to slavery in, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Disunion, opposition to, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clamor for, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dooly, Judge, <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+"Door sill" speech, the, <a href="#Page_170">170-174</a><br />
+<br />
+Dougherty, Robert, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Douglas, Stephen A., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enters U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduces Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second bill on Kansas-Nebraska question, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">burned in effigy, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Presidential aspirations, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate with Lincoln, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accused of participation in assault on Sumner, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">eulogized by Toombs, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Lecompton constitution, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">indorses Dred Scott decision, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">re&euml;lected to U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">views on popular sovereignty, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resolution for protection of States against invasion, <a href="#Page_170">170-172</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rupture with Toombs, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote in Georgia for, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dred Scott case, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br />
+<br />
+Droomgoole, George C., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a><br />
+<br />
+Du Bose, Dudley M., Toombs' adjutant-general, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forms partnership with Toombs, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to Congress, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Du Bose, Mrs. Dudley M., death of, <a href="#Page_310">310</a><br />
+<br />
+Du Bose <i>v.</i> Georgia Railroad, case argued by Toombs, <a href="#Page_346">346</a><br />
+<br />
+Du Quesne, Fort, massacre at, <a href="#Page_1">1</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Eberhart case, the, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+<br />
+Elbert County, admission to bar in, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal practice in, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularity in, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">escape through, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Elberton, Ga., speech at, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br />
+<br />
+Electoral vote, views on counting, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a><br />
+<br />
+Emigrant Aid Societies, <a href="#Page_115">115-118</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br />
+<br />
+Enghien, visit to, <a href="#Page_309">309</a><br />
+<br />
+England, introduction of slavery into Colonies by, <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br />
+<br />
+English compromise on Lecompton constitution, <a href="#Page_164">164</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Page_310at" id="Page_310at"></a><a href="#Page_310tn">Eug&eacute;nie</a>, Empress, Toombs' interviews with, <a href="#Page_310">310</a><br />
+<br />
+Europe, trip in, <a href="#Page_125">125-128</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hesitation of powers in regard to the Confederacy, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Evans, Augusta J., aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span>
+<br />
+Evans, Howard, aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a><br />
+<br />
+Everett, Edward, nominated for Vice-presidency, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Fanning, Welcome, <a href="#Page_6">6</a><br />
+<br />
+Felton, W. H., opposition to, <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br />
+<br />
+"Fifty-four forty, or fight," 57<br />
+<br />
+Fillmore, Millard, nominated for Vice-presidency, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on repeal of Missouri Compromise, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' characterization of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">electoral vote for, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Finance Committee of Provisional Congress, chairman of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br />
+<br />
+Fish, Hamilton, vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br />
+<br />
+Fitzpatrick, Gov., declines nomination for Vice-presidency, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br />
+<br />
+Florida, delegates leave Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secession of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Foote, Henry S., represents Mississippi in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected governor of Mississippi, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">contest with Davis in Mississippi, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Forbidden Fruit," 67<br />
+<br />
+Force bill, the, <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br />
+<br />
+Foreacre, Supt., frames railroad law, <a href="#Page_351">351</a><br />
+<br />
+Forensic eloquence, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br />
+<br />
+Forsyth, John, Confederate commissioner to Washington, <a href="#Page_222">222</a><br />
+<br />
+Forsythe, John C., attitude on the Compromise bill, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br />
+<br />
+Forts. See their names.<br />
+<br />
+France, Mexican schemes, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">political events in, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Franklin College, <a href="#Page_6">6-12</a><br />
+<br />
+Franklin County, legal practice in, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br />
+<br />
+Freemasons, joins the, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br />
+<br />
+Freeport, Ill., debate between Lincoln and Douglas at, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span>
+<br />
+Free-Soil party, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br />
+<br />
+Free-Soil settlers, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br />
+<br />
+Fr&eacute;mont, John C., nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">electoral vote for, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></span><br />
+<br />
+French, Capt. H. L., account of Toombs at second battle of Manassas, <a href="#Page_261">261</a><br />
+<br />
+Fugitive-Slave law, Clay's proposed, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Georgia platform, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">indorsed by Whig convention at Baltimore, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Webster's attitude on, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">allusion to, in Boston lecture, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Fugitive-Slave laws, passage of new, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed amendments, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">demands of the South as to, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Fulton, Col. M. C., narrow escape of, <a href="#Page_304">304</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Gardner, James, candidate for governorship of Georgia, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+<br />
+Garrison, W. L., denunciation of U. S. Constitution, <a href="#Page_129">129</a><br />
+<br />
+General Assembly, service in the, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30-46</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote for Speaker in, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Geneva, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Georgia, land-grant to Major Robert Toombs in, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">distress in, <a href="#Page_34">34-37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first railroad in, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">internal improvements, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">establishment of Supreme Court, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">organization of Congressional districts, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports Jackson in 1824, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henry Clay in, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">panegyric on, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">formation of "Rough and Ready" clubs in, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Clayton Compromise in, <a href="#Page_60">60-62</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">formation of Constitutional Union party, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growth of secession sentiment in, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">adoption of the "Georgia Platform," <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nomination of Howell Cobb for governor, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nomination of McDonald for governor, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a national battle ground, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports Pierce and King, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">uncertainty of politics in, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">breaking up of Know-nothing party in, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">campaign of 1855, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote for Buchanan in convention, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">campaign of 1856, <a href="#Page_143">143-152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">politics in, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">carried by Buchanan, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">campaign of 1857, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to Brown's re&euml;lection, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">indorsement of Toombs' sentiments by, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on the Fugitive-Slave law, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action of delegates to Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">split in Democratic party, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote in 1860, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prominence in 1860, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">call for State convention, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">votes for secession, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">institution of slavery in, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wealth at time of secession, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agricultural policy during war, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the militia, <a href="#Page_276">276-278</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the March to the Sea, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gov. Brown's address to people of, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' acquaintance in, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' return to, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in reconstruction days, <a href="#Page_315">315-329</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Constitutional convention, and the new constitution, <a href="#Page_337">337-352</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">railroad commission formed, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Georgia Platform, the, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br />
+<br />
+Georgia Railroad, <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br />
+<br />
+Gettysburg and Malvern Hill compared, <a href="#Page_252">252</a><br />
+<br />
+Gillet, R. H., vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br />
+<br />
+Gilmer, George R., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on railroad construction, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Glen Spring, Ga., meeting between Hill and Brown at, <a href="#Page_155">155</a><br />
+<br />
+Golphin claim, the, <a href="#Page_65">65</a><br />
+<br />
+Gonder, Major, aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a><br />
+<br />
+Gordon, Gen. John B., interview with Tilden, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for governor, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gordonsville, Toombs under arrest at, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span>
+<br />
+Grady, Henry W., characterization of J. E. Brown, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Bush Arbor meeting, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Toombs' approaching death, <a href="#Page_374">374</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Gray Alice," 5, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a><br />
+<br />
+Great Britain, contention over Oregon question, <a href="#Page_56">56-59</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accused of lack of sympathy with the North, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Great Pacificator," the, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br />
+<br />
+Greeley, Horace, nomination opposed by Toombs, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a><br />
+<br />
+Greene County, partition of land in, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal practice in, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gresham, J. J., <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br />
+<br />
+Gulf of Mexico, advocates making a <i>mare clausum</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Habersham County, escape through, <a href="#Page_291">291</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Page_262at" id="Page_262at"></a><a href="#Page_265tn">Hagarstown</a>, taken possession of by Toombs, <a href="#Page_265">265</a><br />
+<br />
+Hale, Senator, contest with Toombs in Kansas debate, <a href="#Page_117">117-120</a><br />
+<br />
+Hallet, B. F., letter from Toombs to, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br />
+<br />
+Hamlin, Hannibal, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hardeman, Frank, <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+Hardeman, Judge Samuel H., <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+<br />
+Harper's Ferry, John Brown's raid on, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br />
+<br />
+Harrisburg convention, demands protection, <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br />
+<br />
+Harrison, W. H., election of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' interest in election of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Harrison Landing, Toombs' escape by, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br />
+<br />
+Hayne, R. Y., challenge to Webster, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br />
+<br />
+Hayti, effects of emancipation in, <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br />
+<br />
+Heard House, the, <a href="#Page_282">282</a><br />
+<br />
+Hill, Benjamin H., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">associated with Toombs in Eberhart case, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to Toombs, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rising fame of, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate with Toombs, <a href="#Page_144">144-152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for governorship of Georgia, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports Bell and Everett, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vincent's characterization of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chosen Confederate Senator, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">addresses meeting at Atlanta, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">challenged by Stephens, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hill, Gen. D. H., at Malvern Hill, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">charges against Toombs, and correspondence thereon, <a href="#Page_254">254-258</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">challenged by Toombs, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hilliard, Henry W., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a><br />
+<br />
+Hillyer, Dr., assists in Toombs' funeral services, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a><br />
+<br />
+Holt, Hines, opposition to Toombs, <a href="#Page_95">95</a><br />
+<br />
+Homestead and Exemption laws, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a><br />
+<br />
+Hood, Gen. J. B., in command of Confederate forces, <a href="#Page_276">276</a><br />
+<br />
+House of Representatives, U. S., Toombs' action on organization of House, Dec. 22, 1850, <a href="#Page_71">71-76</a><br />
+<br />
+Houston, Samuel, represents Texas in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">comparison of Toombs with, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Houston County, Toombs' escape through, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Huger, Gen., <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br />
+<br />
+Hughes, Col. David, aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_297">297</a><br />
+<br />
+Huling, Catharine, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br />
+<br />
+Hunter, Robert M. T., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">represents Virginia in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">succeeds Toombs' as Secretary of State, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Illinois, contest between Lincoln and Douglas in, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reëlection of Douglas to Senate, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">government control of railroads, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Internal improvements, views on, <a href="#Page_188">188-191</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">principles of Confederate Constitution on, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Interstate Commerce Law, Georgia's influence in framing, <a href="#Page_351">351</a><br />
+<br />
+Intoxicating liquor, use of, <a href="#Page_364">364-368</a><br />
+<br />
+Ireland, tour through, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Irvin, Charles E., aids Toombs to escape, <a href="#Page_287">287-305</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrested at Savannah, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">war record, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Jack Jones case, the, <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br />
+<br />
+Jackson, Pres. Andrew, defeated by Adams, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conflict with Calhoun, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' vote for, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to, by Troup, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attitude on tariff of 1824, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nullification proclamation, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on internal improvements, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Jackson, Chief Justice, tribute to Toombs, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a><br />
+<br />
+Jamaica, effects of emancipation in, <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br />
+<br />
+James River, Army of Potomac driven back to, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br />
+<br />
+Jefferson, Thomas, supports the tariff, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">detestation of party machinery, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on internal improvements, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Jefferson County, on the stump in, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+<br />
+Jenkins, Charles J., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected Speaker of House, General Assembly, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated for U. S. senatorship, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reports the "Georgia Platform," <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">author of the Georgia Platform, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Berrien, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Vice-presidency, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">career of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal character, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disputes reconstruction measures, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">carries off the great seal of Georgia, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">president of Constitutional convention, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deposed from governorship, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">views on railroad question, <a href="#Page_345">345</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Johnson, Andrew, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impeachment of, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' interview with, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Johnson, Herschel V., Democratic leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected governor of Georgia, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leads Union wing of Georgia Democrats, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Vice-presidency, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">challenged by Stephens, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Johnson, R. M., reunion with Toombs, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Johnson, Fort, fires on Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br />
+<br />
+Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., on first battle of Manassas, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advance on Washington, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">withdraws from Manassas, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">heated interview with Toombs, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recognizes Toombs' worth, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">retreats behind the Chickahominy, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">criticism of Southern soldiers, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relieved from command, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">struggle with Sherman, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Jones, Gen. D. R., report of second battle of Manassas, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reports of Toombs' actions at Antietam, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Judiciary Committee, General Assembly, chairman of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Kansas, civil war in, <a href="#Page_115">115-118</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pierce's message on state of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Kansas bill, opposition to, <a href="#Page_166">166</a><br />
+<br />
+Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_107">107-115</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dissatisfaction with, in Georgia, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hill on, <a href="#Page_147">147-149</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Kennan, A. H., deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a><br />
+<br />
+Kentucky, partial secession measures of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br />
+<br />
+Kimball House Company, financial dealings of Toombs with, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>
+<br />
+Kinch, &mdash;&mdash;, sutler in Creek war, <a href="#Page_352">352</a><br />
+<br />
+Knott, Pres. Eliphalet, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Know-nothing party. See American party<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Labor, views on, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br />
+<br />
+Lamar, A. R., description of Toombs, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br />
+<br />
+Lamar, De Rosset, Toombs' aid-de-camp, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br />
+<br />
+Lamartine, Toombs compared with, <a href="#Page_76">76</a><br />
+<br />
+Land-jobbing, opposition to, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br />
+<br />
+Lane, Jack, reunion with Toombs, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Lane, Joseph C., nominated for Vice-presidency, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br />
+<br />
+Lanier, Sidney, <a href="#Page_284">284</a><br />
+<br />
+Lawton, A. R., supported by Toombs, <a href="#Page_369">369</a><br />
+<br />
+Lecompton constitution, favored by Buchanan, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">passes the Senate, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lee, Gen. Robert E., captures John Brown, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">successes of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">invades Maryland, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">report of Toombs' actions at Antietam, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Le Seur, Alexander, aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br />
+<br />
+Lewis, D. W., defeated by Stephens, <a href="#Page_93">93</a><br />
+<br />
+Lexington, Ga., speech in, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate between Hill and Stephens at, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lincoln, Abraham, views on slavery question, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal traits, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Douglas, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to Stephens, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">election of, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' views of his policy, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">war pressure on, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compared with Seward, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relies on Northern unanimity, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proclaims blockade of Southern ports, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disputes with McClellan, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">confidence in Toombs, <a href="#Page_367">367</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Little Giant," the, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a><br />
+<br />
+Longstreet, Gen., opinion of Toombs, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quarrel with Toombs, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">report of Manassas and Maryland campaign, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compliments Toombs, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' opinion of, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lookout Mountain, last meeting of Davis and Toombs at, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a><br />
+<br />
+Louisiana, Calhoun's "sugar letter" to, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegates leave Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secession of, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lumpkin, Joseph H., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Toombs' legal skill, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lumpkin, murder case at, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br />
+<br />
+Lyons, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Lyons, Lord, British minister at Washington, <a href="#Page_230">230</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Macon County, Toombs' escape through, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Madison, James, position on internal improvements, <a href="#Page_188">188</a><br />
+<br />
+Magna Charta, lecture on, <a href="#Page_327">327-329</a><br />
+<br />
+Magruder, Gen., operations on Warwick River, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">command on the peninsula, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mallory, S. B., Secretary of Navy of Confederate States, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br />
+<br />
+Mallorysville, Ga., speech at, <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br />
+<br />
+Malvern Hill, battle of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a><br />
+<br />
+Manassas, first battle of, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">evacuated by Confederates, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs at second battle, <a href="#Page_260">260-262</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Manufactures, argument in favor of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a><br />
+<br />
+March to the Sea, the, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br />
+<br />
+Marcy, Secretary, <a href="#Page_231">231</a><br />
+<br />
+Marietta, speech in, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br />
+<br />
+Marque, letters of, <a href="#Page_229">229-232</a><br />
+<br />
+Marseilles, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Marshall, Chief Justice, <a href="#Page_38">38</a><br />
+<br />
+Marshall, Humphrey, duel with Henry Clay, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recognizes Toombs at New Orleans, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span>
+<br />
+Martin, Major Luther, gives Toombs his parole papers, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his house raided, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Maryland, invasion of, <a href="#Page_262">262</a><br />
+<br />
+Mason, A. D., commissioner to Europe, <a href="#Page_229">229</a><br />
+<br />
+Mason, James M., represents Virginia in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reads Calhoun's last speech, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Massachusetts, power of Abolitionists in, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">withdraws from Baltimore Convention, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mattox, Col. W. H., shelters Toombs, <a href="#Page_292">292</a><br />
+<br />
+Maximilian, Emperor, defeat and execution of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br />
+<br />
+Maybrick, Mrs., <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+McClellan, Gen., succeeds McDowell, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disputes with Lincoln, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marches up the peninsula, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></span><br />
+<br />
+McDaniel, H. D., frames railroad law, <a href="#Page_351">351</a><br />
+<br />
+McDonald, Charles J., relief measures of, <a href="#Page_34">34-37</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">re&euml;lected, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports central bank scheme, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">represents Georgia at Nashville convention, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for governor, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs on the nomination of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supported by Berrien, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to Toombs, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></span><br />
+<br />
+McDowell, Gen., succeeded by McClellan, <a href="#Page_238">238</a><br />
+<br />
+McDuffie, George, as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' contentions with, <a href="#Page_45">45-51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democratic leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></span><br />
+<br />
+McKennon, &mdash;&mdash;, resignation from Interior Department, <a href="#Page_101">101</a><br />
+<br />
+McMillan, Robert, as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated by Toombs, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mediterranean, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Memminger, C. G., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secretary of Treasury of Confederate States, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Merriweather, &mdash;&mdash;, Whig leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br />
+<br />
+Mexican war, fruits of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br />
+<br />
+Mexico, defense of, in Texas question, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' opinions on conquest of, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Clayton Compromise, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">troubles over territory acquired from, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs favors purchase of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">French schemes in, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Might against right, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br />
+<br />
+Milledge, Gov. John, <a href="#Page_7">7</a><br />
+<br />
+Milledgeville, Toombs in General Assembly at, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' practice in, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">doctrine of States' Rights, affirmed at convention of 1833, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">convention of 1850 at, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">call for State convention in 1860 at, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meeting of State Sovereignty convention at in 1861, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Miller, Andrew J., <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br />
+<br />
+Mirabeau, Toombs compared with, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br />
+<br />
+Mississippi, position in secession question, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegates leave Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secession of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mississippi River, views on appropriations for, <a href="#Page_189">189-191</a><br />
+<br />
+Missouri, sends settlers to Kansas, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">representation at Baltimore convention, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">partial secession measures of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">government control of railroads in, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Missouri Compromise, refusal to extend the line of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sumner's claims for, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">denounced by Toombs, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fillmore on the repeal of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mobile, Ala., escape through, <a href="#Page_301">301-303</a><br />
+<br />
+Monopolies, hatred for, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a><br />
+<br />
+Monroe, Fortress, McClellan's arrival at, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stephens imprisoned at, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Monroe, James, position on internal improvements, <a href="#Page_188">188</a><br />
+<br />
+Montgomery, Ala., Provisional Congress at, <a href="#Page_216">216</a><br />
+<br />
+Morris Island fires on Sumter, <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span>
+<br />
+Morton, Oliver P., <a href="#Page_314">314</a><br />
+<br />
+Moses, R. J., Toombs' commissary general, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">account of dispute between Toombs and Gen. Hill, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Moultrie, Fort, fires on Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br />
+<br />
+Mount Pleasant battery fires on Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br />
+<br />
+Munson's Hill, Toombs' position at, <a href="#Page_238">238</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Naples, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Nashville, convention at, <a href="#Page_85">85</a><br />
+<br />
+National debt, views on, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br />
+<br />
+National Democratic party, defeated, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominates Greeley for Presidency, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Neahmatha, insurrection of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a><br />
+<br />
+Negroes, Toombs on the status of, <a href="#Page_133">133-137</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' treatment of his, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decision of Dred Scott case, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' position toward, after the war, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></span><br />
+<br />
+New Mexico, bill to organize, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">acquisition of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">question of organizing Territory, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></span><br />
+<br />
+New Orleans, fall of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">escape through, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Newspaper criticisms and misrepresentations, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>New World</i>, return to America on the, <a href="#Page_313">313</a><br />
+<br />
+New York City, speech for Taylor in 1848, <a href="#Page_64">64</a><br />
+<br />
+New York State, power of Abolitionists in, <a href="#Page_109">109</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>New York Express</i>, on Boston lecture, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br />
+<br />
+Nicholls, Col. John C., messenger from Toombs to Brown, <a href="#Page_335">335</a><br />
+<br />
+Nisbet, Eugenius A., offers secession resolution, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Norfolk, loss of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br />
+<br />
+North Carolina, supports Jackson, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secedes, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Northern Circuit of Georgia, the bar of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span>
+"Notes on the Situation," <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a><br />
+<br />
+Nullification, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+O'Brien, Rev. J. M., <a href="#Page_362">362</a><br />
+<br />
+Ocmulgee River, watched for Toombs, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">escape across, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Oconee River, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a><br />
+<br />
+Oglethorpe, Ga., escape through, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Oglethorpe County, legal practice in, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br />
+<br />
+Ohio, position in regard to the Wilmot Proviso, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">power of Abolitionists in, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">government control of railroads in, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Olin, Stephen, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Omnibus bill (Clay's), <a href="#Page_80">80</a><br />
+<br />
+Omnibus bill (State aid to railroads), opposed by Toombs, <a href="#Page_191">191</a><br />
+<br />
+Ordinance of Secession, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a><br />
+<br />
+Oregon supports the South in Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br />
+<br />
+Oregon question, prominence in 1845, <a href="#Page_56">56-59</a><br />
+<br />
+Outlawry, Toombs' glory in, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Paine, Tom., Toombs' liking for, <a href="#Page_368">368</a><br />
+<br />
+Panic of 1837, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br />
+<br />
+Paris, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">flight to, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Payne, Henry B., member of Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_176">176</a><br />
+<br />
+Peace congress, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br />
+<br />
+Peace resolutions, <a href="#Page_273">273</a><br />
+<br />
+Peach Tree Creek, in battle at, <a href="#Page_276">276</a><br />
+<br />
+Pennsylvania, government control of railroads, <a href="#Page_346">346</a><br />
+<br />
+Pension grabs, views on, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br />
+<br />
+Peter's Colony Grant, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br />
+<br />
+Phillips, Wendell, oratory of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a><br />
+<br />
+Pickens, Gov., Democratic leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">notified in regard to Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Pierce, Bishop Geo. F., <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a><br />
+<br />
+Pierce, Pres. Franklin, Toombs' estimate of, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">message on state of Kansas, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vetoes Mississippi River bill, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Polk, Pres. James K., attitude toward protection, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Georgia's vote for, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on Oregon question, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">forced to retire from Oregon position, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">veto of River and Harbor bill, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vetoes supported by Toombs, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Pope, Sarah, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Pope, &mdash;&mdash;, death of, and generosity of Toombs to his family, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a><br />
+<br />
+Pope, Gen., driven from Virginia, <a href="#Page_262">262</a><br />
+<br />
+Popular sovereignty, Douglas' doctrine of, <a href="#Page_162">162-164</a><br />
+<br />
+Postal service, views on, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br />
+<br />
+Pottle, Judge E. H., <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+<br />
+"Pour it back in the jug," <a href="#Page_352">352</a><br />
+<br />
+Prather, Col., shelters Toombs, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br />
+<br />
+Prentiss, Sergeant S., vanquished in debate by Davis, <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br />
+<br />
+Presidential vote, Toombs' views on counting, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+<br />
+Principles of Magna Charta, lecture, <a href="#Page_327">327-329</a><br />
+<br />
+Privateers, <a href="#Page_229">229-232</a><br />
+<br />
+Produce Loan, the, <a href="#Page_236">236</a><br />
+<br />
+Prohibitionists, Toombs' opinion of, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br />
+<br />
+Protection, defense of, <a href="#Page_48">48-50</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in campaign of 1844, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Provisional Congress of seceded States, <a href="#Page_214">214-218</a><br />
+<br />
+Pulaski, Fort, seized by Gov. Brown, <a href="#Page_214">214</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Railroad Commission of Georgia, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' appearance before, <a href="#Page_362">362</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Railroad corporations, Toombs' attitude toward, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345-351</a><br />
+<br />
+Randall, S. J., proposes General Amnesty Act, <a href="#Page_313">313</a><br />
+<br />
+Randolph, John, duel with Henry Clay, <a href="#Page_55">55</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>
+<br />
+Rapidan River, Confederate retirement along, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' brigade at the, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Rappahannock River, Confederates retire behind, <a href="#Page_239">239</a><br />
+<br />
+Reagan, J. H., Postmaster General of Confederate States, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">recognizes Toombs' merits, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last attendance at Confederate Cabinet, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Reconstruction Acts, views on, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a><br />
+<br />
+Reese, Judge William M., on the practice of law, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">description of Toombs by, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Toombs' speeches, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">frames railroad law, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Religion, liberality in matters of, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a><br />
+<br />
+Republican party, formation of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growing strength of, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arraigned by Toombs, <a href="#Page_172">172-174</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to, in Georgia, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Repudiation, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a><br />
+<br />
+Rhett, R. Barnwell, Democratic leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Rhine, voyage down the, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Richmond, Va., call for convention in, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chosen as capital of Confederacy, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">McClellan's march on, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs at defense of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Right to bear arms, views on, <a href="#Page_340">340</a><br />
+<br />
+River and Harbor bills, views on, <a href="#Page_188">188-191</a><br />
+<br />
+Roanoke, plantation at, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a><br />
+<br />
+Roman, A. B., Confederate commissioner to Washington, <a href="#Page_222">222</a><br />
+<br />
+Roman Catholic Church, Toombs' liberality toward, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br />
+<br />
+Rome, visit to, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Rost, A. P., commissioner to Europe, <a href="#Page_229">229</a><br />
+<br />
+"Rough and Ready" clubs, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br />
+<br />
+Russia supports the North, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span>
+<br />
+<br />
+Sanders, Miss, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Savannah, siege of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrest of Irvin at, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Savannah River, views on clearing, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' escape by, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Scarlet Letter," the, <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br />
+<br />
+Schenectady, college course at, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Scotland, tour through, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Scott, Gen. Winfield, service under, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to, by Southern Whigs, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' estimate of, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeats Webster, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote for, in 1852, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rupture of Whig party in Georgia on his nomination, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Secession, clamor for, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">assertion of right of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs charged with fomenting, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">foreseen by Toombs, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs committed to the policy, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Georgia's vote for, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">passage of Ordinance of, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Seward, William H., enters the U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an "Independent Democrat," <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">refuses audience to Confederate commissioners, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">views on evacuation of Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compared with Lincoln, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accuses Great Britain of lack of sympathy, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">diplomacy of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Seymour, Horatio, nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_324">324</a><br />
+<br />
+Sharpsburg, battle of, <a href="#Page_263">263-269</a><br />
+<br />
+Sherman, W. T., March to the Sea, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br />
+<br />
+"Siamese Twins," the, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br />
+<br />
+Simpson, W. W., reunion with Toombs, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Slaughter, James M., letter from Yancey to, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br />
+<br />
+Slavery, Gabriel Toombs' treatment of negroes, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arraignment of Calhoun for the "sugar letter," <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' attitude toward, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Clayton Compromise, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lincoln's views on, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' actions and speeches on slavery in Territories, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76-81</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clay's resolutions to abolish, in District of Columbia, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protest against admission of California by Nashville convention, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs accused of unsoundness on the question of, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Georgia Platform, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' ideas on exclusion of, from California, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_108">108-115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">provisions for, in U. S. Constitution, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">question reopened by Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lecture in Boston on, <a href="#Page_129">129-135</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs on the status of the negro, <a href="#Page_133">133-137</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decision of Dred Scott case, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern view of Dred Scott decision as affecting Territories, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douglas' views on, in Territories, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anxiety in the South for protection of, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">demand for new plank in platform of Democratic party, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deadlock on, in Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lincoln's letter to Stephens, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tendency toward extinction, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">measures before the House, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Crittenden Compromise, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">demands of the South as to, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">institution in Georgia, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Slidell, John, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Smith, Col. Jack, aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_295">295</a><br />
+<br />
+Smith, Col. Marshal J., aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_305">305</a><br />
+<br />
+Smith, George W., <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br />
+<br />
+South, stability of social institutions in, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">demands of the, as set forth by Toombs, <a href="#Page_205">205-208</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sacrifices by secession, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></span><br />
+<br />
+South Carolina, condemnation of school of politics of, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports Pierce, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hayne's challenge to Webster, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secession of, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Southern Methodist Church, Toombs' communion with, <a href="#Page_373">373</a><br />
+<br />
+Southern Rights party, nominates Troup for Presidency, <a href="#Page_102">102</a><br />
+<br />
+Sparta, Ga., Toombs' escape by, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a><br />
+<br />
+Speeches, <a href="#Page_i">i</a>, <a href="#Page_iv">iv</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46-50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69-78</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103-105</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109-118</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145-152</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165-168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170-174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187-193</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205-208</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324-326</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a><br />
+<br />
+Squatter sovereignty, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douglas' views on, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' opposition to, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">before Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stanton, Edwin M., orders arrests of Confederate leaders, <a href="#Page_286">286</a><br />
+<br />
+State Railroad of Georgia, supported by Toombs, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br />
+<br />
+State Sovereignty convention, <a href="#Page_209">209</a><br />
+<br />
+States' Rights, doctrine affirmed at Milledgeville, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' characterization of the Clayton Compromise, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speeches and views on, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76-78</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110-114</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116-119</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">claims by Nashville convention, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Cincinnati Platform, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hill on, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></span><br />
+<br />
+States' Rights party, in campaign of 1844, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominates Troup for Presidency, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></span><br />
+<br />
+States' Rights Whigs, joined by Toombs, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">policy of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Steiner, Dr. Henry H., <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence over Toombs, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">talks with Toombs on spiritual condition, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attends Toombs at the last, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stephens, Alexander H., his tutor, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compared with Toombs, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Toombs' legal skill, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friendship with Toombs, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on slavery question, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected to Congress, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whig leader, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leads campaign of 1848 in Georgia, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quarrel with Cone, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reported rupture between Pres. Taylor and, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">description of Toombs in debate, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on admission of California, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on disunion, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to conventional Milledgeville, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personality of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' description of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in campaign of 1851, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeats Lewis, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the Compromise of 1850, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Congress by Toombs, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">breaks up Know-nothing party in Georgia, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate with Hill, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Cincinnati Platform, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion on action of Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports Douglas for Presidency, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vincent's characterization of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prominence of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from Lincoln to, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">views of secession, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' eulogy of, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Conscription and Impressment Acts, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrested, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated by Gordon, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes Governor of Georgia, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">challenges Johnson and Hill, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">funeral of, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tribute to Toombs, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stephens, Linton, opinion of Toombs, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Conscript Acts, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduces peace resolutions, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">career, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">aids Toombs' escape, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reunion with Toombs, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disputes reconstruction measures, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">activity in reconstruction times, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stewart County, Toombs' escape through, <a href="#Page_301">301</a><br />
+<br />
+Stump-speaking, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br />
+<br />
+Subtreasury system, the, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a><br />
+<br />
+Sumner, Charles, leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an "Independent Democrat," <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">denounced by Toombs, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enmity to Southern propagandism, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brooks' assault on, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Sumter, Fort, Confederate demand for surrender of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">abandonment favored by Lincoln's Cabinet, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">preparations to provision, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">orders to Beauregard, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bombardment of, <a href="#Page_227">227-229</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Superstition, Toombs' views on, <a href="#Page_367">367</a><br />
+<br />
+Supreme Court of Georgia, practice in, <a href="#Page_20">20-22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">establishment of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Suretyship, opposition to contracts of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br />
+<br />
+Swedenborg, Toombs' fondness for, <a href="#Page_368">368</a><br />
+<br />
+Swinton, William, on Lincoln's administration, <a href="#Page_272">272</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Taliaferro County, assigned to Seventh Congressional District, <a href="#Page_44">44</a><br />
+<br />
+Taney, Roger B., decision in Dred Scott case, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br />
+<br />
+Tariff, Whigs favor protective, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defense of the, <a href="#Page_48">48-50</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in campaign of 1844, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">modified in 1832, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' attitude on, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prominence of the question in 1845, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bill of 1846, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></span><br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>
+Taxation, attitude on Georgia, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br />
+<br />
+Taylor, Gen. Dick, on Toombs' energy, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br />
+<br />
+Taylor, Zachary, nominated for President, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attitude of Cabinet toward the South, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reported rupture with Toombs and Stephens, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion on disposition of acquired territory, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' opinion of, <a href="#Page_367">367</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Tennessee secedes, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br />
+<br />
+Territories, Toombs' position on slavery in, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76-78</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protest by Nashville convention in regard to, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Georgia Platform, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the slavery question in the, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">third great sectional fight on the, <a href="#Page_107">107-115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs on Federal power over, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Cincinnati Platform, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hill on rights of, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Buchanan's position on question of, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douglas' views on admission of, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern view of Dred Scott decision as affecting slavery in, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Buchanan's resolution in Cincinnati Platform, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">contest over slavery in, in Charleston contention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">demands of the South as to, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Texas, Toombs' attitude on annexation of, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prominence of question in 1845, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' purchase of lands in, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegates leave Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Texas and New Mexico bill, passed, <a href="#Page_80">80</a><br />
+<br />
+"The Crime against Kansas," <a href="#Page_142">142</a><br />
+<br />
+Thomas, Thomas W., as a lawyer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leader of campaign of 1848 in Georgia, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Toombs' characteristics, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Thompson, Jacob, member of the Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></span><br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>
+Tilden, S. J., interview with Gen. Gordon, <a href="#Page_321">321</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Times</i> (London), on bombardment of Sumter, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a><br />
+<br />
+Tobacco, Toombs' use of, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Ann, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Augustus, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Dawson Gabriel, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Gabriel, Sr., <a href="#Page_1">1-3</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Gabriel, Jr., <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">manager of his brother's plantations, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at his brother's bedside, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resemblance to Robert, <a href="#Page_373">373</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, James, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Louise, death of, <a href="#Page_312">312</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Gen. Robert, ancestry, <a href="#Page_1">1-4</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">filial affection, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">boyhood and education, <a href="#Page_4">4-12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">horsemanship, <a href="#Page_4">4-6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">historical learning, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">play upon his name, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">generosity, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joins Methodist Church, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trustee of State University, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">college legends of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">receives degree, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">admitted to the bar, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal career, <a href="#Page_13">13-28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal ethics, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">oratorical powers, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">financial ability, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">morality, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reese's opinion of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">justice of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">failing powers, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">brilliant plea of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">entrance into politics, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected to General Assembly, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularity in Wilkes County, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chairman of Judiciary Committee in General Assembly, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action on Gov. McDonald's relief measures, <a href="#Page_34">34-37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">financial policy, <a href="#Page_35">35-39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defends Berrien, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">support of railroad enterprise, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compared with A. H. Stephens, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friendship of the two, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first participation in national politics, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">contentions with McDuffie, <a href="#Page_45">45-51</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">charged with being an Abolitionist, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compared to Mirabeau, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegate to Clay convention of 1844, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes acquisition of Texas, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to Congress, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on Oregon question, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leads in campaign of 1848 in Georgia, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reported rupture between Pres. Taylor and, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leads Southern members from Whig caucus, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal appearance, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">domestic character, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353-363</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address to people of Georgia, <a href="#Page_83">83-85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to convention at Milledgeville, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">renominated for Congress, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prominence in campaign of 1850, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on the Union question, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a journalist's description of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected U. S. Senator, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">charged with fomenting secession, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to his wife, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123-125</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310-313</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeling toward the North, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friendship for Webster, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes a Democrat, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">independence of, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enters U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">frequently misquoted, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">horror of civil war, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of his daughters, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">European trip, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125-128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">liberality in matters of conscience, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">physical strength, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">international reputation, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">knowledge of human nature, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">treatment of slaves, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accused of participation in assault on Sumner, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate with Hill, <a href="#Page_144">144-152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accused of being a turncoat and disunionist, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address to Northern Democrats, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to Macon committee, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advice on Charleston convention matters, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fears for the Constitution, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rupture with Douglas, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delegate to Democratic State convention, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vincent's characterization of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">charges of desertion of Douglas, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Presidential ambitions, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">activity in public duty, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first public office, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accused by Georgia "minute-men," <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">withdrawal from the Senate, <a href="#Page_205">205-208</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chairman of Committee on Foreign Relations, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes address to people of Georgia, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a candidate for Presidency of Southern Confederacy, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">machinations against, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">curious incidents in life of, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chairman of Finance Committee of Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">made Secretary of State, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes assault on Sumter, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">triumphs of diplomacy, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joins the army, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speech on the produce loan, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the archives of the Confederacy, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">retreat from Centreville, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">care of his brigade, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impatience of mismanagement, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected Confederate Senator, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">declines Secretaryship of War, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impatience under red tape, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate with Davis on Army Appropriation bill, <a href="#Page_247">247-249</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">use of liquor, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position on the peninsula, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action at Golding's farm, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Malvern Hill, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">charges of cowardice, and correspondence thereon, <a href="#Page_254">254-258</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quarrel with Longstreet, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">under arrest at Gordonsville, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in second battle of Manassas, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">report of actions at Antietam, <a href="#Page_265">265-268</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wounded, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularity among his troops, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leaves the army, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reasons for his non-promotion, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">military abilities, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">with the militia, <a href="#Page_276">276-279</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">declines governorship, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">energy of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">parting with Gov. Brown, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action at close of war, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last meeting with Davis, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">escape, <a href="#Page_286">286-307</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">becomes a Freemason, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conversational powers, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dread of capture, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vivacity, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrival in Cuba, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrival in Paris, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sells land, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in exile, <a href="#Page_309">309-313</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">returns to America, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">unreconstructed, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">return to Georgia, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resumes practice of law, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in reconstruction days, <a href="#Page_315">315-329</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">master of invective, <a href="#Page_318">318-322</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">before the Supreme Court of Georgia, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Yankees, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">zeal, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">addresses meeting at Atlanta, <a href="#Page_324">324-326</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fondness for farming, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">strained relations with Brown, <a href="#Page_333">333-336</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a believer in the code of honor, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Constitutional convention, and the new constitution, <a href="#Page_337">337-352</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pays expenses of Constitutional convention, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">golden wedding, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hospitality, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathies of, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last appearance in court, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wealth, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his great fault, <a href="#Page_364">364-368</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love of literature, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last days, <a href="#Page_369">369-375</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attends Stephens' funeral, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at wife's death-bed, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">baptized, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death and burial, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his monument, <a href="#Page_376">376</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Major Robert, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, Mrs., friendship for A. H. Stephens, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">aids her husband's escape, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joins her husband in Paris, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">returns to America, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accident to, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">golden wedding, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Toombs, William, <a href="#Page_2">2</a><br />
+<br />
+Toombs oak, the, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br />
+<br />
+Toucey, &mdash;&mdash;, leader in U. S. Senate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br />
+<br />
+Towns, Gov., calls State convention, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br />
+<br />
+Tremont Temple, Boston, lecture on slavery in, <a href="#Page_129">129-135</a><br />
+<br />
+Trinity River, Toombs' lands on, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br />
+<br />
+Troup, George M., defender of States' Rights, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposition to Jackson's measures, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attitude on the tariff question, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes Toombs in campaign of 1844, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Troup, Capt., on Toombs' staff, <a href="#Page_268">268</a><br />
+<br />
+Tugaloo River, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br />
+<br />
+Turncoats, Crawford's ideas of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br />
+<br />
+Tyler, Pres., Toombs on, <a href="#Page_367">367</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Union College, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Union Democratic-Republican party, <a href="#Page_30">30</a><br />
+<br />
+United States Bank, supported by Berrien, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defense of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></span><br />
+<br />
+United States Constitution, position on slavery, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br />
+<br />
+United States judges, higher pay for, supported by Toombs, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br />
+<br />
+United States Senate, <i>personnel</i> in 1853, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate on popular sovereignty, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">farewell speech in, <a href="#Page_205">205-208</a></span><br />
+<br />
+University of Georgia, <a href="#Page_6">6-12</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">annual address at, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></span><br />
+<br />
+University of Virginia, course at, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Utah, acquisition of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">question of organization of Territory, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Van Buren, Pres. Martin, censured by Toombs, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs on, <a href="#Page_367">367</a></span><br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span>
+Vandyke, John, opposes Toombs in House of Representatives, <a href="#Page_72">72</a><br />
+<br />
+Vincent, characterization of Toombs, Hill, and Stephens, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a><br />
+<br />
+Virginia, &mdash;&mdash;, settlement of the Toombs family in, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supports Calhoun, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brown's raid into, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secedes, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Waddell, Pres. Moses, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Wade, &mdash;&mdash;, vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br />
+<br />
+Walker, Levi P., Secretary of War of Confederate States, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">instructions to Beauregard about Fort Sumter, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Walker, Robert J., governor of Kansas, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+<br />
+Walker, Gen. W. H. T., dispute with Gen. Hill at Chickamauga, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br />
+<br />
+Walthall, Gen. E. C., <a href="#Page_277">277</a><br />
+<br />
+War, Toombs' views on, <a href="#Page_57">57</a><br />
+<br />
+"War between the States," <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a><br />
+<br />
+Warner, Hiram, opinion of Homestead and Exemption laws, <a href="#Page_318">318</a><br />
+<br />
+Warwick River, Toombs' operations on, <a href="#Page_244">244</a><br />
+<br />
+Washington, D. C., imperiled after first battle of Manassas, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Army of Northern Virginia advances on, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Washington, Ga., Mrs. Toombs' residence at, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">distinguished men around, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speech at, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debate between Toombs and Hill at, <a href="#Page_144">144-152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs elected commissioner, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Toombs home at, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Washington County, escape through, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Waterloo, visit to field of, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Webster, Rev. Alexander, <a href="#Page_6">6</a><br />
+<br />
+Webster, Daniel, compared with Toombs, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last efforts of, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">great Union speech of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tribute to, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominated for Presidency, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">admiration for, in the South, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secretary of State, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friendship with Toombs, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hayne's challenge to, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his loss felt, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wellborn, Speaker, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br />
+<br />
+Wesleyan Female College, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br />
+<br />
+Western and Atlantic Railroad, <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br />
+<br />
+West Indies, effects of emancipation in, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br />
+<br />
+West Point, Toombs' opinion of training at, <a href="#Page_246">246-249</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">criticism of officers from, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">criticism not sustained, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wheeler, Gen. Joseph, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a><br />
+<br />
+Whig party, demand internal improvements, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attitude toward protection, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in campaign of 1844, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position in campaign of 1848, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">caucus of 1845, <a href="#Page_68">68-70</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joint action with Democrats in Georgia, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">convention at Baltimore, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern opposition to Presidential candidate Scott, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nominates Webster for Presidency, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">break in, by Southern members, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs' defection from, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rupture over Scott's nomination, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absorption into Republican party, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wilde, Gen., attempts the capture of Toombs, <a href="#Page_286">286</a><br />
+<br />
+Wilkes County, land-grant to Major Robert Toombs in, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">partition of lands in, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth-place of Gen. Toombs, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legal practice in, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">factions in, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">politics of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeat of Whigs in, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">assigned to Eighth Congressional District, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wilkinson County, escape through, <a href="#Page_296">296</a><br />
+<br />
+Willington, S.&nbsp;C., speech at, <a href="#Page_45">45</a><br />
+<br />
+Wilmot, David, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a><br />
+<br />
+Wilmot Proviso, Ohio's position in regard to, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">menace to the South, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">abandoned, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Webster's attitude on, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how characterized by Toombs, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wingfield, J. T., <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br />
+<br />
+Winthrop, Robert C., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated for Speakership, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wisconsin, debate on counting Electoral vote, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a><br />
+<br />
+Wolseley, Gen., on Sherman's invasion of Georgia, <a href="#Page_281">281</a><br />
+<br />
+Worth, Fort, meeting with squatters at, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a><br />
+<br />
+Wright, A. R., deputy to Provisional Congress, <a href="#Page_215">215</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Yancey, William L., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leads seceders from Charleston convention, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to Slaughter, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">speech in Charleston, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commissioner to Europe, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Yorktown, Toombs' operations at, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br />
+<br />
+"Young Alice," <a href="#Page_300">300</a><br /><br /><br />
+</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417"></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<div class="trans_note">
+<p class="center"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a><big>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</big></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
+been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a name="Page_39tn" id="Page_39tn"></a>page 39: typo corrected:<br />
+and declared the resolutions adopted. Mr. <a href="#Page_39t">Toombe[Toombs]</a> fired up at this unusual decision.<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_122tn" id="Page_122tn"></a>page 122: possible typo:<br />
+
+However, he did run for Congress and <a href="#Page_122t">scored[should be
+scorned?]</a> the secret order on every stump in the district.<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_171tn" id="Page_171tn"></a>page 171: quote added in likely place:<br />
+
+this was no new principle
+introduced into our Constitution. <a href="#Page_171t">["]</a>It was inserted in the
+ordinance of 1787.<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_237tn" id="Page_237tn"></a>page 237: typo corrected:<br />
+
+joined the Army his staff was made up as
+follows; D. M. <a href="#Page_237t">Dubose[DuBose]</a>, Adjutant General;<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_260tn" id="Page_260tn"></a>page 260: quote added in likely place:<br />
+
+from Toombs and directed him to join his command. <a href="#Page_260t">["]</a>As we
+were preparing for the charge at Manassas<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_268tn" id="Page_268tn"></a>page 268: typo corrected:<br />
+
+He was not very far over when a troop of <a href="#Page_268t">calvary[cavalry]</a>
+rode up.<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_288tn" id="Page_288tn"></a>page 288: typo corrected:<br />
+
+Riding over to a <a href="#Page_288t">neigbor's[neighbor's]</a> house, Mr. J. T.
+Wingfield, he failed to find his friend, but left<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_295tn" id="Page_295tn"></a>page 295: comma added:<br />
+
+"But that looks very much like him through
+the window<a href="#Page_295t">[,]</a>" said Lieutenant Irvin.<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_295atn" id="Page_295atn"></a>page 295: typo corrected:<br />
+
+they might indiscreetly
+comment on his presence or <a href="#Page_295at">embarass[embarrass]</a> him even by
+their willingness<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_299tn" id="Page_299tn"></a>page 299: typo corrected:<br />
+
+Federals believed <a href="#Page_299t">Tombs[Toombs]</a> already abroad and had
+ceased to look for him in Georgia.<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_325tn" id="Page_325tn"></a>page 325: added missing quote:<br />
+
+and property; defeat all the rightful purposes of
+government, and renounce all remedies, all laws.<a href="#Page_325t">["]</a><br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_342tn" id="Page_342tn"></a>page 342: typo corrected:<br />
+
+authorizing the legislature to levy a <a href="#Page_342t">lax[tax]</a> to
+furnish good substantial artificial limbs<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_375tn" id="Page_375tn"></a>page 375: added missing quote:<br />
+
+to his home in Augusta, General Toombs bade
+him good-by. <a href="#Page_375t">["]</a>I am sorry," said he, "the hour is<br /><br />
+
+On <a name="Page_250tn" id="Page_250tn"></a><a href="#Page_250t">page 250</a>, a quotation begins with no conclusive end:<br />
+
+"Just before dark," says Dr. Steiner, "Mr. Toombs received orders
+to charge the enemy,<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_281tn" id="Page_281tn"></a>Inconsistent spelling: Greensboro (page <a href="#Page_281t">281</a>)/Greenesboro (pages <a href="#Page_9t">9</a>, <a href="#Page_283t">283</a>)<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_310tn" id="Page_310tn"></a>Inconsistent spelling: Empress Eugenie (<a href="#Page_310t">page 310</a>)/Eugénie (<a href="#Page_310at">index</a>)<br /><br />
+
+<a name="Page_265tn" id="Page_265tn"></a>Inconsistent spelling: Hagerstown (page <a href="#Page_265t">265</a>)/Hagarstown (page <a href="#Page_262t">262</a> and <a href="#Page_262at">index</a>)<br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Toombs, by Pleasant A. Stovall
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,10998 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Toombs, by Pleasant A. Stovall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Robert Toombs
+       Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage
+
+Author: Pleasant A. Stovall
+
+Release Date: July 16, 2008 [EBook #26069]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT TOOMBS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as
+faithfully as possible; please see detailed list of corrections at the
+end of the text (after the index).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT TOOMBS
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, AT THE AGE OF 75 YEARS.]
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT TOOMBS
+
+_STATESMAN, SPEAKER, SOLDIER, SAGE_
+
+HIS CAREER IN CONGRESS AND ON THE HUSTINGS--HIS WORK IN
+THE COURTS--HIS RECORD WITH THE ARMY--HIS LIFE AT HOME
+
+
+BY
+
+PLEASANT A. STOVALL
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The blood which mingled at Cowpens and at Eutaw
+    cannot be kept at enmity forever."--_Toombs._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ NEW YORK
+ CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
+ 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
+
+ Copyright, 1892,
+ BY CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Dedication.
+
+
+TO ROBERT TOOMBS DU BOSE, WHOSE INTEREST AND AID WERE INVALUABLE, AND
+WITHOUT WHOSE COOPERATION THE BIOGRAPHY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PREPARED,
+THIS WORK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.
+
+      "There are courageous and honest men enough in both
+      sections to fight. There is no question of courage
+      involved. The people of both sections of this Union have
+      illustrated their courage on too many battlefields to be
+      questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities
+      shoulder to shoulder whenever their country has called upon
+      them; but that they may never come in contact with each
+      other in fratricidal war, should be the ardent wish of
+      every true man and honest patriot."--_Robert Toombs, Speech
+      in U. S. Senate_, 1856.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
+
+      I. Family, Boyhood, Life at College,                          1
+
+     II. At the Bar,                                               13
+
+    III. In the Legislature,                                       29
+
+     IV. Elected to Congress,                                      43
+
+      V. In the Lower House,                                       56
+
+     VI. The Compromise of 1850,                                   67
+
+    VII. The Georgia Platform,                                     83
+
+   VIII. The Campaign of 1852,                                     97
+
+     IX. Toombs in the Senate,                                    107
+
+      X. The "Know-nothing" Party,                                121
+
+     XI. Toombs in Boston,                                        129
+
+    XII. Buchanan's Administration,                               140
+
+   XIII. "On the Stump" in Georgia,                               144
+
+    XIV. The Campaign of 1856,                                    155
+
+     XV. John Brown's Raid,                                       169
+
+    XVI. The Charleston Convention,                               175
+
+   XVII. Toombs as a Legislator,                                  186
+
+  XVIII. Election of Lincoln,                                     199
+
+    XIX. Farewell to the Senate,                                  205
+
+     XX. Toombs and Secession,                                    209
+
+    XXI. Toombs as Premier of the Confederacy,                    222
+
+   XXII. Brigadier-General in Army of Northern Virginia,          236
+
+  XXIII. With the Georgia Militia,                                277
+
+   XXIV. Toombs as a Fugitive,                                    286
+
+    XXV. Without a Country,                                       308
+
+   XXVI. Commencing Life Anew,                                    315
+
+  XXVII. Days of Reconstruction,                                  324
+
+ XXVIII. His Last Public Service,                                 337
+
+   XXIX. Domestic Life of Toombs,                                 353
+
+    XXX. His Great Fault,                                         364
+
+   XXXI. His Last Days,                                           369
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+FAMILY, BOYHOOD, LIFE AT COLLEGE.
+
+
+Gabriel Toombs was one of General Braddock's soldiers who marched
+against Fort DuQuesne in 1755. He was a member of the sturdy Virginia
+line which protested against the dangerous tactics of the British
+martinet, and when the English regulars were ambushed and cut to pieces,
+Gabriel Toombs deployed with his men in the woods and picked off the
+savages with the steady aim and unerring skill of the frontiersman. Over
+one hundred years later Robert Toombs, his grandson, protested against
+the fruitless charge at Malvern Hill, and obliquing to the left with his
+brigade, protected his men and managed to cover the retreat of his
+division.
+
+This was a family of soldiers. They were found in the old country
+fighting Cromwell's army of the rebellion.
+
+Robert Toombs of Georgia was fond of tracing his lineage to the
+champions of the English king who defended their sovereign at Boscobel.
+But the American family was made up of lovers of liberty rather than
+defenders of the King. It was one of the anomalies in the life of the
+Georgia Toombs, who resisted all restraint and challenged authority in
+every form, that he should have located his ancestry among the sworn
+royalists of the seventeenth century.
+
+William Toombs, the great-grandfather of Robert, was the first of the
+English family to come to America, about 1650. He settled in Virginia.
+Gabriel, who fought with Braddock, was the son of William. Major Robert
+Toombs, the father of the Georgia statesman, commanded a Virginia
+regiment during the Revolution and rendered conspicuous service in
+Georgia against the British. Major Toombs came to Georgia in 1783 and
+received a rich tract of 3000 acres of land in Wilkes County. This was
+their share in the award to distinguished soldiers of "the Virginia
+line."
+
+"They fought for their estates like feudal barons," General Toombs used
+to say, when speaking of his ancestors, now sleeping in the red hills of
+Georgia. When he was asked after the civil war why he did not petition
+for relief of political disabilities, he declared that "no vote of
+Congress, no amnesty proclamation, shall rob me of the glory of
+outlawry. I shall not be the first of my name for three centuries to
+accept the stigma of a pardon."
+
+The elder Gabriel Toombs in 1795 made his last will and testament. He
+commended his soul to God who gave it, and blessed his Maker for the
+worldly goods that he was possessed of. Distributing his estate among
+his wife, Ann Toombs, and his six children, he expressly directed that
+his negroes and their increase must be appraised together; that they
+were not to be sold out of the family, and that they should be "used in
+a Christian-like manner." He divided up parcels of land in Greene and
+Wilkes counties among his sons, Robert Toombs and Dawson Gabriel Toombs,
+and his four daughters. Gabriel Toombs died in 1801.
+
+When Major Robert Toombs, the Virginia veteran, and son of Gabriel, came
+to Georgia to claim his award of land, he settled on Beaverdam Creek,
+five miles from the town of Washington. It is probable that he stopped
+in Columbia County, for he married Miss Sanders, of that county. She
+died, leaving no children, and Major Toombs went back to Virginia and
+married Miss Catlett. One son was born, and this lady died. Miss
+Catharine Huling was the third wife. The Hulings were also Virginians,
+and by this marriage six children were reared. Sarah, who finally became
+Mrs. Pope; James, who was killed by accident while hunting; Augustus,
+Robert, and Gabriel.
+
+Catharine Huling, the mother of Robert Toombs of Georgia, was a most
+excellent woman, of strong and exalted piety. She was of Welsh ancestry,
+a devout Methodist, and after accompanying her son to college, and
+seeing him married, prosperous, and distinguished, died in 1848, when he
+was a member of Congress. Mrs. Toombs gave generously of her own means,
+to family and friends. Robert Toombs proved to be a dutiful son. He
+visited his mother constantly, and carefully managed her property.
+Finally he induced her to move to Washington, so that he might be near
+her.
+
+Robert Toombs was the fifth child of Robert and Catharine Toombs. He was
+born in Wilkes County, about five miles from Washington, July 2, 1810.
+His brother Gabriel, who still lives, was three years his junior, and
+was throughout his life his close and confidential adviser and friend.
+
+Robert Toombs, in childhood, was a slender, active, mischievous lad, and
+it will be a surprise to those who remember his superb physical manhood,
+to hear that at school and college he bore the nickname of "Runt." He
+was marked for his energy and vivacity. He was not precocious. Nature
+gave no signs of her intentions in his youth. His development, physical
+and mental, was not rapid, but wholesome. He was fond of horseback
+riding, and the earliest glimpse we have of him is as a slender lad,
+with dark eyes and hair slightly touched with auburn, flying through the
+village, and sometimes carrying on his pony behind him his little
+brother to school.
+
+He was always in good health. He boasted that he never took medicine
+until he was thirty-four years old. His mother said that he grew up
+almost without her knowledge, so little trouble had he given her. He was
+a fine horseman. Possibly this practice had much to do with his good
+spirits and physical strength.
+
+In his younger days he rode sixty-five miles to Milledgeville, covering
+the distance in one day, and was fresh enough to attend a dance at
+night. He delighted in fox-hunting, although never a racer or in any
+sense a sporting man. During the earlier years of his career he
+practiced law in the saddle, as was the custom with the profession at
+that time, and never thought of riding to court on wheels until later in
+life. Throughout his active participation in the Civil War he rode his
+famous mare, "Gray Alice," and was a striking figure as, splendidly
+mounted and charged with enthusiasm, he plunged along the lines of the
+Army of Northern Virginia. In his long wandering from capture in 1865,
+he was in the saddle six months, riding to and from the wilds of
+northeast Georgia to the swamps of the Chattahoochee. There was
+something in his picturesque figure upon the horse which suggests John
+Randolph of Roanoke.
+
+His first training was at what was known as an "old field school,"
+taught by Welcome Fanning, a master of good attainments and a firm
+believer in the discipline of the rod. Afterward, Robert Toombs was
+drilled by a private tutor, Rev. Alexander Webster--an adjunct professor
+of the University of Georgia and a man of high repute as scholar and
+instructor. Mr. Webster was the friend and early preceptor of Alexander
+H. Stephens.
+
+Young Toombs was christened Robert Augustus, and carried his middle name
+until 1840, when he seems to have dropped it as a useless piece of
+furniture. There is a report that some of his political foes, playing
+upon his initials, saddled him with the sobriquet of "Rat." Having
+out-grown one nickname he was prepared to shed another.
+
+Young Toombs proved to be a great reader. Most of his learning developed
+in the Humanities; and a cultured visitor from Maryland who once stopped
+at his father's house declared that this boy of fourteen was better
+posted in history than anyone he had ever seen.
+
+It was about this time that Robert Toombs was fitted out for Franklin
+College--now the State University--located in Athens, Ga., forty miles
+from Washington.
+
+This institution, to which he was devotedly attached and of whose
+governing board he was a member at the time of his death, was chartered
+in 1785 by the State of Georgia. It was the early recipient of the deed
+of western lands, which the State subsequently purchased, assuming the
+perpetual endowment of the college. It has been to Georgia what
+Jefferson's school has proved to Virginia, the nursery of scholars and
+statesmen. Governor John Milledge had given the institution a home upon
+a beautiful hill overlooking the Oconee River, and this lovely spot they
+had named Athens. Here in 1824 young Robert Toombs repaired, animated
+with the feelings which move a college boy, except that his mother went
+with him and relieved him of the usual sense of loneliness which
+overtakes the student. Major Robert Toombs, his father, who was an
+indigo and tobacco planter, was reputed to be a wealthy man for those
+times, but it was the comfort of the early settler who had earned his
+demesne from the government rather than the wealth of the capitalist. He
+had enough to support his family in comfort. He died when Robert was
+five years old, and the latter selected as his guardian Thomas W. Cobb,
+of Greene County, a cousin of Governor Howell Cobb, a member of Congress
+himself and a man of high legal attainment.
+
+When Robert Toombs entered college that institution was under the
+Presidency of Moses Waddell, a born educator and strict disciplinarian.
+Three generations of this family have served the State as preceptors in
+Franklin College.
+
+It may well be imagined that the college had not at that time reached
+the dignity of a university, for an entry in President Waddell's diary
+was this: "Caught Jones chewing tobacco: whipped him for it." Those were
+the old days when boys were boys until they were twenty-one. There is no
+record to show that Robert Toombs in college was a close scholar. Later
+in life he became a hard student and laborious worker. But if these
+industrious habits were born to him in Athens there is no trace of them.
+That he was a reader of Shakespeare and history he gave ample evidence
+in his long career, but if the legends of his college town are to be
+trusted, he was more noted for outbreaks of mischief than for close
+application. Full of life and spirits, a healthy, impetuous boy, he was
+on good terms with his classmates, and took life easily. That was a time
+when students were required to get up at sunrise and attend prayers.
+
+One night, the story goes, the vigilant proctor actually found young
+Toombs playing cards with some of his friends. Fearing a reprimand,
+Toombs sought his guardian, who happened to be in Athens on a visit from
+his home in Greenesboro. It is not certain that young Toombs
+communicated the enormity of his offense, but he obtained leave to apply
+to Dr. Waddell for a letter of discharge. The learned but severe scholar
+had not received the proctor's report, and gave the young student a
+certificate of honorable dismissal.
+
+Later in the day the President met Toombs walking around the campus.
+
+"Robert Toombs," said he, "you took advantage of me early this morning.
+I did not then know that you had been caught at the card-table last
+evening."
+
+Toombs straightened up and informed the doctor that he was no longer
+addressing a student of his college, but a free-born American citizen.
+
+The halls of Athens are fragrant with these stories of Toombs. No man
+ever left so distinctive a stamp upon the place or gave such spicy
+flavor to its traditions.
+
+Among the college-mates of Robert Toombs at Athens were Stephen Olin,
+Robert Dougherty, and Daniel Chandler, the grandfather of the
+unfortunate Mrs. Maybrick of England, and the man whose chaste and
+convincing appeal for female education resulted in the establishment of
+Wesleyan Female College--the first seminary in the world for the higher
+culture of women.
+
+The closest of these companionships was that of George F. Pierce, a
+young man like Toombs, full of brains and energy--even then a striking
+and sparkling figure. The path of these men commenced at the door of
+their _alma mater_, and although their ways were widely divergent, the
+friends never parted. Two of the finest orators in Georgia, one left his
+impress as strongly upon the Church as did the other upon the State. One
+became bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the other a Whig
+senator. One day these men met, both in the zenith of power, when Toombs
+said: "Well, George, you are fighting the devil, and I am fighting the
+Democrats."
+
+Closer in friendship their hands clasped as age swept over their raven
+locks and stalwart shoulders. Bishop Pierce never hesitated to go to
+Robert Toombs when his churches or his schools needed money. Toombs
+would give to the Methodist itinerant as quickly as he would to the
+local priest. Whether he was subscribing for a Catholic Orphans' Home or
+a Methodist College he would remark, as he gave liberally and freely, "I
+always try to honor God Almighty's drafts."
+
+Pierce and Toombs had much in common--although the one was full of
+saintly fire and the other, at times, of defiant irreverence. It was
+Pierce whose visits Toombs most enjoyed at his own home, with whom he
+afterward talked of God and religion. The good bishop lived to bury the
+devoted Christian wife of the Georgia statesman, and finally, when the
+dross of worldliness was gone, to receive into the Methodist Church the
+bowed and weeping figure of the giant Toombs.
+
+When Robert Toombs became prominent in Georgia, there is a story that
+his State university, in order to win back his friendship, conferred
+upon him an honorary degree. Toombs is represented as having spurned it
+with characteristic scorn. "No," said he, "when I was unknown and
+friendless, you sent me out disgraced, and refused me a diploma. Now
+that I would honor the degree I do not want it."
+
+There is no record that the college ever conferred a degree upon Toombs
+at all. Later in life he was elected a trustee of this university, and
+each year his familiar figure was seen on the stage during commencement,
+or his wise counsel heard about the board. His attendance upon these
+duties was punctilious. He would leave the courthouse, the legislative
+halls, or Virginia Springs--wherever he happened to be--and repair to
+Athens the first week in August. Once or twice he delivered the annual
+address before the alumni; several times he secured appropriations for
+his _alma mater_ from the State. His visits to Athens were always
+occasions of honor. Young men flocked wherever his voice was heard,
+fascinated by his racy conversation. No "Disinherited Knight" ever
+returned to more certain conquest or more princely homage.
+
+There is a regular mythology about Toombs at his State university. The
+things he said would fill a volume of Sydney Smith, while the pranks he
+played would rival the record of Robin Hood. There is still standing in
+the college campus in Athens a noble tree, with the crown of a century
+upon it. Under its spreading branches the first college commencement was
+held one hundred years ago; under it the student Toombs once stood and
+addressed his classmates, and of all the men who have gone in and out
+beneath its shade, but one name has been found sturdy enough to link
+with this monument of a forgotten forest. The boys to this day call it
+"The Toombs Oak."
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, AGE 19, LAW STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF
+VIRGINIA, 1829.
+
+(_From a miniature painting._)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+AT THE BAR.
+
+
+After Robert Toombs left the University of Georgia, he entered Union
+College at Schenectady, N. Y., under the presidency of Dr. Eliphalet
+Knott. Here he finished his classical course and received his A. B.
+degree. This was in 1828, and in 1829 he repaired to the University of
+Virginia, where he studied law one year. In the Superior Court of Elbert
+County, Ga., holden on the 18th day of March, 1830, he was admitted to
+the bar. The license to practice recites that "Robert A. Toombs made his
+application for leave to practice and plead in the several courts of law
+and equity in this State, whereupon the said Robert A. Toombs, having
+given satisfactory evidence of good moral character, and having been
+examined in open court, and being found well acquainted and skilled in
+the laws, he was admitted by the court to all the privileges of an
+attorney, solicitor, and counsel in the several courts of law and equity
+in this State."
+
+The license is signed by William H. Crawford, Judge, Superior Court,
+Northern Circuit. Judge Crawford had served two terms in the United
+States Senate from Georgia. He had been Minister to Paris during the
+days of the first Napoleon. He had been Secretary of War and of the
+Treasury of the United States. In 1825 he received a flattering vote for
+President, when the Clay and Adams compact drove Jackson and Crawford to
+the rear. Bad health forced Mr. Crawford from the field of national
+politics, and in 1827, upon the death of Judge Dooly, Mr. Crawford was
+appointed Judge of the Northern Circuit. He held this position until his
+death in Elbert County, which occurred in 1834. Crawford was a friend
+and patron of young Toombs. The latter considered him the full peer of
+Webster and of Calhoun.
+
+Robert Toombs was married eight months after his admission to the bar.
+His career in his profession was not immediately successful. A newspaper
+writer recently said of him that "while his contemporaries were fighting
+stubbornly, with varying luck, Toombs took his honors without a
+struggle, as if by divine right." This was no more true of Toombs than
+it is true of other men. He seems to have reached excellence in law by
+slow degrees of toil. Hon. Frank Hardeman, Solicitor-General of the
+Northern Circuit, was one of the lawyers who examined Toombs for
+admission to the bar. He afterward declared that Robert Toombs, during
+the first four or five years of his practice, did not give high promise.
+His work in his office was spasmodic, and his style in court was too
+vehement and disconnected to make marked impression. But the exuberance
+or redundancy of youth soon passed, and he afterward reached a height in
+his profession never attained by a lawyer in Georgia.
+
+His work during the first seven years of his practice did not vary in
+emolument or incident from the routine of a country lawyer. In those
+days the bulk of legal business lay in the country, and the most
+prominent men of the profession made the circuit with their saddle-bags,
+and put up during court week at the village taverns. Slaves and land
+furnished the basis of litigation. Cities had not reached their size and
+importance, corporations had not grown to present magnitude, and the
+wealth and brains of the land were found in the rural districts. "The
+young lawyers of to-day," says Judge Reese of Georgia, "are far in
+advance of those during the days of Toombs, owing to the fact that
+questions and principles then in doubt, and which the lawyers had to dig
+out, have been long ago decided, nor were there any Supreme Court
+reports to render stable the body of our jurisprudence."
+
+The counties in which Robert Toombs practiced were Wilkes, Columbia,
+Oglethorpe, Elbert, Franklin, and Greene. The bar of the Northern
+Circuit was full of eminent men. Crawford presided over the courts and a
+delegation of rare strength pleaded before him. There were Charles J.
+Jenkins, Andrew J. Miller, and George W. Crawford of Richmond County;
+from Oglethorpe were George R. Gilmer and Joseph Henry Lumpkin; from
+Elbert, Thomas W. Thomas and Robert McMillan; from Greene, William C.
+Dawson, Francis H. Cone; from Clarke, Howell Cobb; from Taliaferro,
+Alexander H. Stephens. Across the river in Carolina dwelt Calhoun and
+McDuffie. As a prominent actor in those days remarked: "Giants seem to
+grow in groups. There are seed plats which foster them like the big
+trees of California, and they nourish and develop one another, and seem
+to put men on their mettle." Such a seed plat we notice within a radius
+of fifty miles of Washington, Ga., where lived a galaxy of men,
+illustrious in State and national affairs.
+
+In 1837 the great panic which swept over the country left a large amount
+of litigation in its path. Between that time and 1843, Lawyer Toombs did
+an immense practice. It is said that in one term of court in one county
+he returned two hundred cases and took judgment for $200,000. The
+largest part of his business was in Wilkes and Elbert, and his fees
+during a single session of the latter court often reached $5000. During
+these six years he devoted himself diligently and systematically to the
+practice of his profession, broken only by his annual attendance upon
+the General Assembly at Milledgeville. It was during this period that he
+developed his rare powers for business and his surpassing eloquence as
+an advocate. He made his fortune during these years, for after 1843, and
+until the opening of the war between the States, he was uninterruptedly
+a member of Congress.
+
+There was no important litigation in eastern or middle Georgia that did
+not enlist his services. He proved to be an ardent and tireless worker.
+He had grown into a manhood of splendid physique, and he spent the days
+and most of the nights in careful application. He never went into a case
+until after the most thorough preparation, where preparation was
+possible. But he had a wonderful memory and rare legal judgment. He was
+thoroughly grounded in the principles of law. He possessed, as well,
+some of that common sense which enabled him to see what the law ought to
+be, and above all else, he had the strongest intuitive perception of
+truth. He could strip a case of its toggery and go right to its vitals.
+He was bold, clean, fearless, and impetuous, and when convinced he had
+right on his side would fight through all the courts, with irresistible
+impulse. He was susceptible to argument, but seemed absolutely blind to
+fear.
+
+The brightest chapters of the life of Toombs are perhaps his courthouse
+appearances. There is no written record of his masterly performances,
+but the lawyers of his day attest that his jury speeches were even
+better than his political addresses.
+
+A keen observer of those days will tell you that Mr. Stephens would
+begin his talk to the jury with calmness and build upon his opening
+until he warmed up into eloquence; but that Mr. Toombs would plunge
+immediately into his fierce and impassioned oratory, and pour his
+torrent of wit, eloquence, logic, and satire upon judge and jury. He
+would seem to establish his case upon the right, and then defy them to
+disregard it.
+
+In spite of this vehement and overpowering method he possessed great
+practical gifts. He had the knack of unraveling accounts, and while not
+technically skilled in bookkeeping, had a general and accurate knowledge
+which gave him prestige, whether in intricate civil or criminal cases.
+He was a rash talker, but the safest of counselors, and practiced his
+profession with the greatest scruple. On one occasion he said to a
+client who had stated his case to him: "Yes, you can recover in this
+suit, but you ought not to do so. This is a case in which law and
+justice are on opposite sides."
+
+The client told him he would push the case, anyhow.
+
+"Then," replied Mr. Toombs, "you must hire someone else to assist you in
+your damned rascality."
+
+On one occasion a lawyer went to him and asked him what he should charge
+a client, in a case to which Mr. Toombs had just listened in the
+courthouse.
+
+"Well," said Toombs, "I should have charged a thousand dollars; but you
+ought to have five thousand, for you did a great many things I could not
+have done."
+
+Mr. Toombs was strict in all his engagements. His practice remained with
+him, even while he was in Congress, and his occasional return during the
+session of the Superior Court of the Northern Circuit gave rise at one
+time to some comment on the part of his opponents, the Democrats. The
+nominee of that party, on the stump, declared that the demands upon Mr.
+Toombs's legal talent in Georgia were too great to admit of his strict
+attendance to public business in Washington. When Mr. Toombs came to
+answer this point, he said: "You have heard what the gentleman says
+about my coming home to practice law. He promises, if elected to
+Congress, he will not leave his seat. I leave you to judge,
+fellow-citizens, whether your interest in Washington will be best
+protected by his continued presence or his occasional absence." This hit
+brought down the house. Mr. Toombs's addresses to the Supreme Court were
+models of solid argument. During the early days of the Supreme Court of
+Georgia, it was a migratory body; the law creating it tended to
+popularize it by providing that it should hold its sessions in the
+different towns in the State convenient to the lawyers. The court once
+met in the little schoolroom of the Lumpkin Law School in Athens. One of
+the earliest cases heard was a land claim from Hancock County, bristling
+with points and involving about $100,000 worth of property. A. H.
+Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Howell and Thomas Cobb were employed, but in
+this splendid fight of Titans, Justice Lumpkin declared that the finest
+legal arguments he ever heard were from the lips of Robert Toombs.
+
+Hon. A. H. Stephens said the best speech Mr. Toombs ever made was in a
+case in which he represented a poor girl who was suing her stepfather
+for cruel treatment. The defendant was a preacher, and the jury brought
+in a verdict for $4000, the maximum sum allowed, and petitioned the
+Judge to allow them to find damages in a heavier amount.
+
+One of the most celebrated causes Mr. Toombs was engaged in before the
+war was a railroad case heard in Marietta, Ga., in September, 1858.
+Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs were employed on one side, while Messrs.
+Pettigru and Memminger, of Charleston, giants of the Carolina bar, were
+ranged in opposition. The ordeal was a very trying one. The case
+occupied seven days. Mr. Toombs, always an early riser, generally
+commenced his preparation in this case at half-past five in the morning.
+The hearing of the facts continued in the courthouse until seven in the
+evening, and the nights were passed in consultation with counsel.
+Attendants upon this celebrated trial declared that Toombs's manner in
+the courtroom was indifferent. That, while other lawyers were busy
+taking notes, he seemed to sit a listless spectator, rolling his head
+from side to side, oblivious to evidence or proceeding. And yet, when
+his time came to conclude the argument, he arose with his kingly way,
+and so thorough was his mastery of the case, with its infinite detail,
+its broad principles, and intricate technicalities, that his argument
+was inspiring and profound. His memory seemed to have indelibly pictured
+the entire record of the seven days, and to have grouped in his mind the
+main argument of counsel. It was a wonderful display of retentiveness,
+acumen, learning, and power. On one occasion, while a member of the
+United States Senate, he came to Georgia to attend a session of the
+Supreme Court in Milledgeville. He writes his wife: "I have had a hard,
+close week's work. The lawyers very kindly gave way and allowed my cases
+to come on this week, which brought them very close together, and as I
+was but ill prepared for them, not having given them any attention last
+winter, and but little this spring, I have been pretty much speaking all
+day and studying all night." In March, 1856, Mr. Toombs wrote to his
+wife, whom he had left in Washington City, that the spring term of
+Wilkes court would be the most laborious and disagreeable he ever
+attended. Says he: "For the first time in my life, I have business in
+court of my own--that is, where I am a party. The Bank of the State of
+Georgia has given me a year's work on my own account. If I live I will
+make the last named party repent of it."
+
+At another time he wrote: "I had fine weather for Elbert, and a
+delightful trip. Everything went well in Elbert with my business." It
+usually did. There was no county in which he was more of an autocrat
+than in Elbert. He never failed to carry the county in politics, even
+when Elbert had a candidate of her own for Congress. His legal advice
+was eagerly sought, and he was more consulted than any other man in
+Georgia about public and private affairs. The reason of his phenomenal
+success as counsel was that, united with his learning and forensic
+power, he had a genius for detail. He was a natural financier. He used
+to tell President Davis, during the early days of the Confederacy, that
+four-fifths of war was business, and that he must "organize" victory.
+
+During the sessions of Elbert court his arguments swept the jury, his
+word was law outside. His talk was inspiring to the people. His rare and
+racy conversation drew crowds to his room every night, and to an
+occasional client, who would drop in upon his symposium to confer with
+him, he would say, with a move of his head, "Don't worry about that now.
+I know more about your business than you do, as I will show you at the
+proper time." His fees at Elbert were larger than at any other court
+except his own home in Wilkes. It was during the adjournment of court
+for dinner that he would be called out by his constituents to make one
+of his matchless political speeches. He never failed to move the crowds
+to cheers of delight.
+
+On one occasion he was at Roanoke, his plantation in Stewart County, Ga.
+He writes his wife: "I was sent for night before last to appear in
+Lumpkin to prosecute a case of murder: but as it appeared that the act
+was committed on account of a wrong to the slayer's marital rights, I
+declined to appear against him." Mr. Toombs was the embodiment of
+virtue, and the strictest defender of the sanctity of marriage on the
+part of man as well as woman. His whole life was a sermon of purity and
+devotion.
+
+Judge William M. Reese, who practiced law with Mr. Toombs, and was his
+partner from 1840 to 1843, gives this picture of Toombs at the bar: "A
+noble presence, a delivery which captivated his hearers by its intense
+earnestness: a thorough knowledge of his cases, a lightning-like
+perception of the weak and strong points of controversy; a power of
+expressing in original and striking language his strong convictions; a
+capacity and willingness to perform intellectual labor; a passion for
+the contest of the courthouse; a perfect fidelity and integrity in all
+business intrusted to him, with charming conversational powers--all
+contributed to an immense success in his profession. Such gifts, with a
+knowledge of business and the best uses of money, were soon rendered
+valuable in accumulating wealth."
+
+Although Mr. Toombs often appeared in courts to attend to business
+already in his charge, he gave out that he would not engage in any new
+causes which might interfere with his Congressional duties. The
+absorbing nature of public business from 1850 to 1867 withdrew him from
+the bar, and the records of the Supreme Court of Georgia have only about
+twenty-five cases argued by him in that time. Some of these were of
+commanding importance, and the opinions of the Justices handed down in
+that time bear impress of the conclusiveness of his reasoning and the
+power of his effort before that tribunal. Judge E. H. Pottle, who
+presided over the courts of the Northern Circuit during the later years
+of Toombs's practice, recalls a celebrated land case when Robert Toombs
+was associated against Francis H. Cone--himself a legal giant. Toombs's
+associate expected to make the argument, but Cone put up such a powerful
+speech that it was decided that Toombs must answer him. Toombs
+protested, declaring that he had been reading a newspaper, and not
+expecting to speak, had not followed Judge Cone. However, he laid down
+his paper and listened to Cone's conclusion, then got up and made an
+overmastering forensic effort which captured Court and crowd.
+
+The last appearance Toombs ever made in a criminal case was in the
+Eberhart case in Oglethorpe County, Ga., in 1877. He was then
+sixty-seven years of age, and not only was his speech fine, but his
+management of his case was superb. He had not worked on that side of the
+court for many years, but the presiding Judge, who watched him closely,
+declared that he never made a mistake or missed a point.
+
+It was during a preliminary hearing of this case that Toombs resorted to
+one of his brilliant and audacious motions, characteristic of him. The
+State wanted to divide the case and try the principals separately.
+Father and son were charged with murder. The defense objected, but was
+overruled by the Court. General Toombs then sprung the point that Judge
+Pottle was not qualified to preside, on the ground of a rumor that he
+had selected the men of the jury panel instead of drawing them. Toombs
+further argued that the Court was not competent to decide the question
+of fact. Judge Pottle vacated the bench and the clerk of court called
+Hon. Samuel H. Hardeman to preside. Toombs and Benjamin H. Hill, his
+assistant, contended that the clerk had no right to appoint a judge.
+Judge Hardeman sustained the point and promptly came down, when Judge
+Pottle resumed the bench and continued the case--just the result that
+Toombs wanted. This case attracted immense comment, and in the
+Constitution of 1877 a provision was made, growing out of this incident,
+providing for the appointment of judges _pro hac vice_.
+
+He was a bitter enemy to anything that smacked of monopoly, and during
+the anti-railroad agitation of 1879-80, he said: "If I was forty-five
+years old I would whip this fight." Still, he was an exceedingly just
+man. Linton Stephens, noted for his probity and honor, said he would
+rather trust Robert Toombs to decide a case in which he was interested
+than any man he ever saw.
+
+During the last five years of General Toombs's life he was seldom seen
+in the courtroom. He was sometimes employed in important causes, but his
+eyesight failed him, and his strength was visibly impaired. His
+addresses were rather disconnected. His old habit of covering his points
+in great leaps, leaving the intervening spaces unexplained, rendered it
+difficult to follow him. His mind still acted with power, and he seemed
+to presume that his hearers were as well up on his subject as he was.
+His manner was sometimes overbearing to the members of the bar, but no
+man was more open to reason or more sobered by reflection, and he was
+absolutely without malice. He was always recognized as an upright man,
+and he maintained, in spite of his infirmities, the respect and
+confidence of the bench and bar and of the people.
+
+Chief Justice Jackson said: "In the practice of law this lightning-like
+rapidity of thought distinguished Toombs. He saw through the case at a
+glance, and grasped the controlling point. Yielding minor hillocks, he
+seized and held the height that covered the field, and from that
+eminence shot after shot swept all before it. Concentrated fire was
+always his policy. A single sentence would win his case. A big thought,
+compressed into small compass, was fatal to his foe. It is the clear
+insight of a great mind only that shaped out truth in words few and
+simple. Brevity is power, wherever thought is strong. From Gaul Caesar
+wrote '_Veni, vidi, vici._' Rome was electrified, and the message
+immortalized. Toombs said to this Court, 'May it please your
+Honor--Seizin, Marriage, Death, Dower,' and sat down. His case was won,
+the widow's heart leaped with joy, and the lawyer's argument lives
+forever."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN THE LEGISLATURE.
+
+
+When Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun were waging their "irrepressible
+conflict," the county of Wilkes in the State of Georgia was nursing
+discordant factions. Just across the river in Carolina lived the great
+Nullifier. The Virginia settlers of Wilkes sided with him, while scores
+of North Carolinians, who had come to live in the county, swore by "Old
+Hickory." This political difference gave rise to numerous feuds. The two
+elements maintained their identity for generations, and the divisions
+became social as well as political. The Virginians nursed their State
+pride. The sons of North Carolina, overshadowed by the Old Dominion,
+clung to the Union and accepted Andrew Jackson, their friend and
+neighbor, as oracle and leader. The earliest political division in
+Georgia was between the Clarke and Crawford factions. General John
+Clarke, a sturdy soldier of the Revolution, came from North Carolina,
+while William H. Crawford, a Virginian by birth and a Georgian by
+residence, led the Virginia element. The feud between Clarke and
+Crawford gave rise to numerous duels. Then came George M. Troup to
+reenforce the Crawford faction and defend States' Rights, even at the
+point of the sword. Troup and Clarke were rival candidates for Governor
+of Georgia in 1825, and the Toombs family ardently fought for Troup.
+Young Toombs was but fifteen years of age, but politics had been burnt
+into his ardent soul. Wilkes had remained a Union county until this
+campaign, when the Troup and Toombs influence was too strong for the
+North Carolina faction. Wilkes, in fact, seemed to be a watershed in
+early politics. It was in close touch with Jackson and Calhoun, with
+Clarke and Crawford, and then with Clarke and Troup. On the one side the
+current from the mountain streams melted into the peaceful Savannah and
+merged into the Atlantic; on the other they swept into the Tennessee and
+hurried off to the Father of Waters.
+
+Robert Toombs cast his first vote for Andrew Jackson in 1832. He
+abandoned the Union Democratic-Republican party, however, after the
+proclamation and force bill of the Administration and joined the States'
+Rights Whigs. When young Toombs was elected to the General Assembly of
+Georgia in October, 1837, parties were sharply divided. The Democrats,
+sustained by the personal popularity of "Old Hickory," were still
+dominant in the State. The States' Rights Whigs, however, had a large
+following, and although not indorsing the doctrines of Calhoun, the
+party was still animated by the spirit of George M. Troup. This
+statesman, just retired from public life, had been borne from a sick-bed
+to the United States Senate Chamber to vote against the extreme measures
+of President Jackson. The Troup men claimed to be loyal to the
+Constitution of their country in all its defined grants, and conceded
+the right of the Chief Magistrate to execute the office so delegated,
+but they resisted what they believed to be a dangerous latitude of
+construction looking to consolidated power. Robert Toombs was not a
+disciple of Calhoun. While admiring the generalities and theories of the
+great Carolinian, the young Georgian was a more practical statesman. The
+States' Rights Whigs advocated a protective tariff and a national bank.
+They believed that the depreciation of the currency had caused the
+distress of the people in the panic of 1837, and no man in this stormy
+era more vigorously upbraided the pet-bank and sub-treasury system than
+Robert Toombs. He introduced a resolution in the legislature declaring
+that President Van Buren had used the patronage of the government to
+strengthen his own party; that he had repudiated the practices and
+principles of his patriotic antecedents, and "had sought out antiquated
+European systems for the collection, safe keeping, and distribution of
+public moneys--foreign to our habits, unsuited to our conditions,
+expensive and unsafe in operation." Mr. Toombs contended, with all the
+force that was in him, that a bank of the United States, properly
+regulated, was "the best, most proper and economical means for handling
+public moneys." Robert Toombs would not have waited until he was
+twenty-seven years of age before entering public life, had not the
+sentiment of his county been hostile to his party. Wilkes had been a
+Union county, but in 1837 it returned to the lower house two Democrats,
+and Robert A. Toombs, the only Whig. Nothing but his recognized ability
+induced the people to make an exception in his favor. Besides his
+reputation as an orator and advocate, Toombs had just returned from the
+Creek war, where he had commanded a company and served under General
+Winfield Scott in putting down the insurrection of Neahmatha, the Indian
+chief. He now brought to public life the new prestige of a soldier.
+After this, "Captain Toombs" was never defeated in his county. He was
+returned at the annual elections in 1839, 1840, 1842, and 1843--and
+succeeded in preserving at home an average Whig majority of 100 votes.
+He did not care for the State Senate, preferring the more populous body,
+then composed of 200 members. Parties in the State were very evenly
+balanced, but Mr. Toombs preserved, in the varying scale of politics, a
+prominent place in the house. He was made chairman of the Judiciary
+Committee by his political opponents. He served as a member of the
+Committee on Internal Improvements, as chairman of the all-important
+Committee on Banking, chairman of the Committee on State of the
+Republic, and in 1842 received the vote of the Whig minority in the
+house for Speaker. In 1840 the Whigs gained control of the government.
+The Harrison tidal wave swept their best men to the front in State and
+national councils. Charles J. Jenkins of Richmond was elected speaker of
+the house, and Mr. Toombs, as chairman of the Banking Committee, framed
+the bill which repealed the law authorizing the issue of bank bills to
+the amount of twice their capital stock. He went right to the marrow of
+honest banking and sound finance by providing for a fund to redeem the
+outstanding bills, and condemned the course of the State banks in
+flooding the State with irredeemable promises to pay.
+
+It was at this session of the General Assembly that Mr. Toombs displayed
+the skill and sagacity of a statesman in fearlessly exposing a seductive
+scheme for popular relief. He was called upon to confront public clamor
+and to fight in the face of fearful odds, but he did not falter.
+
+Just before the General Assembly of 1840 adjourned, Governor McDonald
+sent an urgent message to both houses calling upon them to frame some
+means for the speedy relief of the people. The situation in Georgia was
+very distressing. The rains and floods of that year had swept the crops
+from the fields, and there was much suffering among the planters. Coming
+upon the heel of the session, the Whig members of the legislature looked
+upon the message as a surprise, and rather regarded it as a shrewd
+political stroke. Mr. Toombs was equal to the emergency. He quickly put
+in a resolution asking the Governor himself to suggest some means of
+popular relief--throwing the burden of the problem back upon the
+executive. But Governor McDonald was armed. He drew his last weapon from
+his arsenal, and used it with formidable power. He sent in an elaborate
+message to the houses recommending that the State make a large loan and
+deposit the proceeds in bank, to be given out to the people on good
+security. The Senate committee, in evident sympathy with the scheme for
+relief, reported a bill authorizing the issue of two million six-year
+eight-per-cent. bonds to be loaned to private citizens, limiting each
+loan to one thousand dollars, and restricting the notes to three years,
+with eight per cent. interest.
+
+The report of the House Committee was prepared by Robert Toombs. It was
+the most admirable and statesmanlike document of that day. Mr. Toombs
+said that deliberation had resulted in the conviction that the measure
+suggested by His Excellency should not be adopted. While his committee
+was duly sensible of and deeply regretted the pecuniary embarrassment of
+many of their fellow-citizens, he felt constrained by a sense of public
+duty to declare that he deemed it unwise and impolitic to use the
+credit, and pledge the property and labor of the whole people, to supply
+the private wants of a portion only of the people. The use of the public
+credit, he went on to say, was one of the most important and delicate
+powers which a free people could confide in their representatives; it
+should be jealously guarded, sacredly protected, and cautiously used,
+even for the attainment of the noblest patriotic ends, and never for the
+benefit of one class of the community to the exclusion or injury of the
+rest, whether the demand grew out of real or supposed pecuniary
+difficulties. To relieve these difficulties by use of the public credit
+would be to substitute a public calamity for private misfortune, and
+would end in the certain necessity of imposing grievous burdens in the
+way of taxes upon the many for the benefit of the few. All experience,
+Mr. Toombs went on to declare, admonish us to expect such results from
+the proposed relief measures, to adopt which would be to violate some
+of the most sacred principles of the social compact. All free
+governments, deriving their just powers from, and being established for
+the benefit of, the governed, must necessarily have power over the
+property, and consequently the credit, of the governed to the extent of
+public use, and no further. And whenever government assumed the right to
+use the property or credit of the people for any other purpose, it
+abused a power essential for the perfection of its legislative duties in
+a manner destructive of the rights and interests of the governed, and
+ought to be sternly resisted by the people. The proposed measures, he
+contended, violated these admitted truths, asserted the untenable
+principle that governments should protect a portion of the people, in
+violation of the rights of the remainder, from the calamities consequent
+on unpropitious seasons and private misfortunes.
+
+He must have been an indifferent or careless spectator of similar
+financial schemes, Mr. Toombs declared, who could persuade himself that
+this plan of borrowing money, to lend again at the same rate of
+interest, could be performed without loss to the State. That loss must
+be supplied by taxation, and to that extent, at least, it will operate
+so as to legislate money from the pocket of one citizen to that of
+another. The committee declared that it knew of no mode of legislative
+relief except the interposition of unconstitutional, unwise, unjust, and
+oppressive legislation between debtor and creditor, which did not need
+their condemnation.
+
+The argument was exhaustive and convincing. Never were the powers of the
+State or the soundness of public credit more strongly set forth. The
+whole scheme of relief was abandoned, and the General Assembly
+adjourned.
+
+The relief measures, however, had a great effect upon the campaign.
+Rejected in the legislature under the rattling fire and withering
+sarcasm of Toombs, they were artfully used on the hustings. "McDonald
+and Relief" was the slogan. Men talked airily about "deliverance and
+liberty." Mr. Toombs declared that "humbuggery was reduced to an exact
+science and demonstrated by figures." The Act compelling the banks to
+make cash payments was represented as an unwise contraction of the
+currency and a great oppression to the people. Governor McDonald was
+consequently reelected over William C. Dawson, the Whig nominee.
+
+Robert Toombs was not a candidate for reelection in 1841. He worked hard
+at the polls for the Whig ticket, and although his candidate for
+Governor received a majority of one in Wilkes County, the Whigs were
+defeated for the legislature. When he returned to the Assembly in 1842
+he still found Governor McDonald and the Democrats supporting a central
+bank and the sub-treasury. They clamored to restore public finances to
+the old system. The Democrats held the legislature and elected to the
+United States Senate Walter T. Colquitt over Charles J. Jenkins.
+Although a member of the minority party, Mr. Toombs was appointed
+chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Here his high character and moral
+courage shone conspicuously. He proved a stone wall against the perfect
+flood of legislation designed for popular relief. To use his own words:
+"The calendar was strong with a heterogeneous collection of bills
+proposing stay-laws." He reported as "unwise, inexpedient, and
+injurious," proposed Acts "to protect unfortunate debtors"; "to redeem
+property in certain cases"; also a bill to "exempt from levy and sale
+certain classes of property." He held with Marshall the absolute
+inviolability of contracts; he believed in common honesty in public and
+private life; he was strict in all business obligations; he denounced
+the Homestead Act of 1868, and declared in his last days that there was
+"not a dirty shilling in his pocket." Mr. Toombs was nothing of the
+demagogue. He was highminded, fearless, and sincere, and it may be said
+of him what he afterward declared so often of Henry Clay, that "he would
+not flatter Neptune for his trident or Jove for his power to thunder."
+He was called upon at this session to fight the repeal of the law he had
+framed in 1840, to regulate the system of banking. He declared in
+eloquent terms that the State must restrict the issue of the banks and
+compel their payment in specie. The experiment of banking on public
+credit had failed, he said. It had brought loss to the government,
+distress to the people, and had sullied the good faith of Georgia.
+
+It was at this session of the legislature that the Democrats proposed a
+vote of censure upon John McPherson Berrien, United States Senator from
+Georgia, for his advocacy of a national bank. Mr. Toombs ardently
+defended Senator Berrien. He said that the State legislature was not the
+custodian of a senator's conscience, and held that the people of Georgia
+sanctioned the expediency and utility of a national bank. When the
+resolution of censure came up in the house, the Whigs refused to vote,
+and raised the point of "no quorum." Speaker _pro tem_. Wellborn, who
+presided, counted a quorum and declared the resolutions adopted. Mr.
+Toombs fired up at this unusual decision. He threw himself before the
+Speaker with impetuous appeal and called for a reversal of the decision.
+But it was a Democratic house, and the Speaker was sustained by a vote
+of 96 to 40.
+
+The craze for internal improvements now swept over the country. The
+Whigs were especially active, and we find resolutions adopted by the
+General Assembly, calling on the Federal Government to create ports of
+entry and to build government foundries and navy yards on the Southern
+seaboard. Mr. Toombs was chairman of the Committee of Internal
+Improvements, but his efforts were directed toward the completion of the
+Western and Atlantic Railroad. These enterprises had overshadowed the
+waterways, and the railway from Charleston, S. C., to Augusta, Ga., one
+of the very first in the country, had just been completed. Already a
+company had embarked upon the construction of the Georgia Railroad, and
+on May 21, 1837, the first locomotive ever put in motion on the soil of
+Georgia moved out from Augusta. A local paper described the event in
+sententious terms:
+
+      This locomotive started beautifully and majestically from
+      the depository and, following the impetus given, flew with
+      surprising velocity on the road which hereafter is to be
+      her natural element.
+
+The General Assembly decided that these rail lines should have an outlet
+to the West. This great road was finally built and operated from Atlanta
+to Chattanooga, and is still owned by the State, a monument to the
+sagacity and persistency of Toombs and his associates in 1840. The great
+possibilities of these iron highways opened the eyes of the statesmen
+of that day, Mr. Calhoun seemed to drop for a time his philosophical
+studies of States and slavery and to dream of railroads and commercial
+greatness. He proposed the connection of the Atlantic Ocean with the
+Mississippi River and the great West, through Cumberland Gap--a
+brilliant and feasible scheme. Governor Gilmer of Georgia declared in
+his message that these projected roads "would add new bonds to the
+Union." But King Cotton, with his millions in serfdom, issued his
+imperial decrees, and not even this great railroad development could
+keep down the tremendous tragedy of the century.
+
+One of the measures to which Mr. Toombs devoted great attention during
+his legislative term was the establishment of a State Supreme Court.
+This bill was several times defeated, but finally in 1843 passed the
+house by a vote of 88 to 86. It was the scene of many of his forensic
+triumphs. He also introduced, during the sessions of 1842 and 1843,
+bills to abolish suretyship in Georgia. This system had been severely
+abused. In the flush times men indorsed without stint, and then during
+the panic of 1837 "reaped the whirlwind." Fortunes were swept away,
+individual credit ruined, and families brought to beggary by this
+reckless system of surety. What a man seldom refused to do for another,
+Mr. Toombs strove to reach by law. But the system had become too firmly
+intrenched in the financial habits of the people. His bill, which he
+distinctly stated was to apply alone to future and not past contracts,
+only commanded a small minority of votes. It was looked upon as an
+abridgment of personal liberty. Mr. Toombs exerted all of his efforts in
+behalf of this bill, and it became quite an issue in Georgia. It is not
+a little strange that when Robert Toombs was dead, it was found that his
+own estate was involved by a series of indorsements which he had given
+in Atlanta to the Kimball House Company. Had he maintained the activity
+of his younger days, he would probably have turned this deal into a
+profitable investment. The complication was finally arranged, but his
+large property came near being swept away under the same system of
+surety he had striven to abolish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ELECTED TO CONGRESS.
+
+
+Entering public life about the same time, living a short distance apart,
+professing the same political principles, practicing in the same courts
+of law, were Alexander H. Stephens of Taliaferro and Robert Toombs of
+Wilkes. Entirely unlike in physical organism and mental make-up,
+differing entirely in origin and views of life, these two men were close
+personal friends, and throughout an eventful period of more than half a
+century, preserved an affectionate regard for each other.
+
+Mr. Stephens was delicate, sensitive, conservative, and sagacious, while
+Toombs was impetuous, overpowering, defiant, and masterful. Stephens was
+small, swarthy, fragile, while Toombs was leonine, full-blooded, and
+majestic. And yet in peace and war these two men walked hand in hand,
+and the last public appearance of Robert Toombs was when, bent and
+weeping, he bowed his gray head at the coffin and pronounced the funeral
+oration over Alexander Stephens.
+
+In the General Assembly of 1843, Robert Toombs was a member of the
+house, but his ability and power had marked him as a candidate for
+Congress, and Mr. Stephens had already been promoted from the State
+Senate to a seat in the national legislature at Washington. The law
+requiring the State to choose congressmen on the district plan had been
+passed, and the General Assembly was then engaged in laying off the
+counties into congressional districts. The bill, as first reported,
+included the counties of Wilkes and Taliaferro in the second district of
+Georgia. Here was a problem. Toombs and Stephens had been named as Whig
+candidates for the Clay campaign of 1844. To have them clash would have
+been to deprive the State of their talents in the national councils. It
+would be interesting to speculate as to what would have been the result
+had these two men been opposed. Stephens was naturally a Union man, and
+was no very ardent advocate of slavery. Toombs inherited the traditions
+of the Virginia landowners. It is not improbable that the firmness of
+the one would have been a foil for the fire of the other. History might
+have been written differently had not the conference committee in the
+Georgia Legislature in 1843 altered the schedule of districts, placing
+Taliaferro in the seventh and Wilkes in the eighth Congressional
+district. Both were safely Whig, and the future Vice-President and
+premier of the Southern Confederacy now prepared for the canvass which
+was to plunge them into their duties as members of the national
+Congress.
+
+Robert Toombs had already made his appearance in national politics in
+1840. Although still a member of the Georgia Legislature, he took a deep
+interest in the success of the Whig ticket for President. His power as a
+stump speaker was felt in eastern Georgia, where the people gathered at
+the "log cabin and hard cider" campaigns. The most daring feat of young
+Toombs, just thirty years old, was in crossing the Savannah River and
+meeting George McDuffie, the great Democrat of South Carolina, then in
+the zenith of his fame. An eye-witness of this contest between the
+champions of Van Buren and Harrison declared that McDuffie was
+"harnessed lightning" himself. He was a nervous, impassioned speaker.
+When the rash young Georgian crossed over to Willington, S. C., to meet
+the lion in his den, Toombs rode horseback, and it was noticed that his
+shirt front was stained with tobacco juice, and yet Toombs was a
+remarkably handsome man. "Genius sat upon his brow, and his eyes were as
+black as death and bigger than an ox's." His presence captivated even
+the idolators of McDuffie. His argument and invective, his overpowering
+eloquence, linger in the memory of old men now. McDuffie said of him: "I
+have heard John Randolph of Roanoke, and met Burgess of Rhode Island,
+but this wild Georgian is a Mirabeau."
+
+In 1844 Robert Toombs was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which
+nominated Henry Clay, and during this visit he made a speech in New York
+which attracted wide attention. It threatened to raise a storm about his
+head in Georgia. In his speech he arraigned Mr. Calhoun for writing his
+"sugar letter" to Louisiana, and for saying that he would protect sugar
+because it was the production of slave labor. Mr. Toombs declared: "If
+any discrimination is made between free and slave labor it ought to be
+in favor of free labor." "But," said he, "the Whigs of Georgia want no
+such partial protection as Mr. Calhoun offers; they want protection for
+all classes of labor and home industry. The Whigs protest against these
+efforts to prejudice the South against the North, or the North against
+the South. They have a common interest as well as a common history. The
+blood that was mingled at Yorktown and at Eutaw cannot be kept at enmity
+forever. The Whigs of Bunker Hill are the same as the Whigs of Georgia."
+Mr. Toombs was actually charged in this campaign with being an
+Abolitionist. He was accused of saying in a speech at Mallorysville,
+Ga., during the Harrison campaign, that slavery was "a moral and
+political evil." This was now brought up against him. Mr. Toombs
+admitted saying that slavery was a political evil. He wrote a ringing
+letter to his constituents, in which he declared that "the affected fear
+and pretended suspicion of a part of the Democratic press in relation to
+my views are well understood by the people. I have no language to
+express my scorn and contempt for the whole crew. I have no other reply
+to make to these common sewers of filth and falsehood. If I had as many
+arms as Briareus they would be too few to correct the misrepresentations
+of speeches I have made in the past six months."
+
+It was on the 3d of October, 1844, that Robert Toombs spoke at a
+memorable political meeting in Augusta, Ga. Augusta was in the heart of
+the district which he was contesting for Congress, and the Democrats, to
+strengthen their cause, brought over McDuffie from South Carolina. Large
+crowds were present in the shady yard surrounding the City Hall; seats
+had been constructed there, while back in the distance long trenches
+were dug, and savory meats were undergoing the famous process of
+barbecue. Speaking commenced at ten o'clock in the morning, and, with a
+short rest for dinner, there were seven hours of oratory. People seldom
+tired in those days of forensic meetings. Toombs was on his mettle. He
+denounced the Democrats for dragging the slavery question before the
+people to operate upon their fears. It was a bugbear everlastingly used
+to cover up the true question at issue. It was kept up to operate on
+the fears of the timid and the passions and prejudices of the
+unsuspecting.
+
+The young Whig then launched into a glowing defense of the National
+Bank. The Democrats had asked where was the authority to charter a bank?
+He would reply, "Where was the authority, in so many words, to build
+lighthouses? Democrats were very strict constructionists when it was
+necessary to accomplish their political purposes, but always found a way
+to get around these doubts when occasion required." He taunted McDuffie
+with having admitted that Congress had power to charter a bank.
+
+Mr. Toombs contended that a tariff, with the features of protection to
+American industry, had existed since the foundation of the government.
+This great system of "plunder" had been supported by Jefferson.
+Eloquently warming up under the Democratic charge that the tariff was a
+system of robbery, Mr. Toombs appealed to every Whig and Democrat as an
+American who boasted of this government as "a model to all nations of
+the earth; as the consummation of political wisdom; who asks the
+oppressed of all nations to come and place himself under its protection,
+because it upholds the weak against the strong and protects the poor
+against the rich, whether it has been going on in a system of plunder
+ever since it sprang into power." "It is not true," he said, "it is not
+true!"
+
+Turning with prophetic ken to his Augusta friends, he asked what would
+be the effect were the Savannah River turned through the beautiful
+plains of Augusta, and manufactures built up where the industrious could
+find employment. Hundreds of persons, he said, would be brought together
+to spin the raw cotton grown in the State, to consume the provisions
+which the farmers raised, thus diversifying their employment and
+increasing their profits. "Would any man tell me," shouted the orator,
+his eyes blazing, and his arms uplifted, "that this would impoverish the
+country--would make paupers of the people? To increase the places where
+the laborer may sell his labor would never make him a pauper. Be
+controlled," said he, "in the administration of government and in all
+other things, by the improvement of the age. Do not tie the living to
+the dead. Others may despise the lights of science or experience; they
+have a right, if they choose, to be governed by the dreams of economists
+who have rejected practical evidence. But no such consistency is mine. I
+will have none of it."
+
+McDuffie in his speech declared that all the plundering which England
+had been subjected to from the days of Hengist and Horsa could not equal
+the plundering which the people of the exporting States had sustained.
+
+Toombs answered that if a man must pay tax to sustain the government it
+was better he should pay it in such a way as to benefit his own
+countrymen than for the benefit of foreign manufacturers and foreign
+capitalists.
+
+Mr. Toombs alluded to a letter of James K. Polk to a Pennsylvania
+manufacturer, as leaning toward protection.
+
+McDuffie said that Polk's letter was "composed for that meridian."
+
+"Henry Clay does not need an interpreter," cried Toombs. "He is the same
+in the North as in the South. He would rather be right than President."
+
+"Dallas, the Democratic nominee for vice president, is a high-tariff
+man," said Toombs. "He voted for the tariff of 1832 and against the
+compromise measures. Although the sword was drawn to drink the blood of
+McDuffie's friends in Carolina, Dallas would still adhere to his pound
+of flesh."
+
+Toombs concluded his great reply to McDuffie: "We have lived under the
+present order of things for fifty years, and can continue to live under
+it for one thousand years to come, if the people of the South are but
+content to stand upon their rights as guaranteed in the Constitution,
+and not work confusion by listening to ambitious politicians: by taking
+as much pains to preserve a good understanding with our Northern
+brethren, the vast majority of whom are inclined to respect the
+limitations of the Constitution."
+
+This was perhaps the greatest political meeting Georgia ever held.
+Politics were at white heat. Toombs and McDuffie each spoke two hours.
+The campaign cry was for the Whigs: "Clay, Frelinghuysen, Toombs, and
+our glorious Union," and by the Democrats: "Polk, Dallas, Texas, and
+Oregon." It was Whig _vs._ Loco-foco. The Whig leaders of the South were
+Pettigru, Thompson, and Yeadon of South Carolina, Merriweather, Toombs,
+and Stephens, of Georgia, while the Democratic lights were McDuffie,
+Rhett, and Pickens of South Carolina, and Charlton, Cobb, Colquitt, and
+Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia.
+
+The campaign of 1844 was bitter in Georgia. The Whigs carried the burden
+of a protective tariff, while the memories of nullification and the
+Force bill were awakened by a ringing letter from George M. Troup,
+condemning the tariff in his vigorous style. This forced Mr. Toombs, in
+his letter accepting the congressional nomination, to review the subject
+in its relation to the States' Rights party in Georgia. "The tariff of
+1824," said he, "which was voted for by Andrew Jackson, carried the
+principle of protection further than any preceding one. Jackson was the
+avowed friend of the protective policy, yet he received the vote of
+Georgia, regardless of party. In 1828 the Harrisburg convention demanded
+additional protection, and this measure was carried through Congress by
+the leading men of the Democratic party. It created discontent in the
+South, and the Act of 1832 professed to modify the tariff--but this
+measure not proving satisfactory was 'nullified' by South Carolina.
+General Jackson then issued his proclamation which pronounced principles
+and issues utterly at war with the rights of the States, and subversive
+of the character of the government. The opponents of consolidating
+principles went into opposition. Delegates met in Milledgeville in 1833,
+adopted the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, denounced the sentiments
+of Jackson's proclamation, and affirmed the doctrine of States' Rights."
+
+"The Democratic party was then," said Toombs, "cheek by jowl with the
+whole tariff party in the United States, sustaining General Jackson, and
+stoutly maintaining that the leaders of that spirited little band in our
+sister State, whose talent shed a glory over their opposition, deserved
+a halter. They sustained John C. Forsythe in voting against the
+Compromise bill--that peace offering of the illustrious Henry Clay."
+
+Mr. Toombs declared in this campaign that the effect of a tariff on the
+productive industries of a country has been a disputed question among
+the wisest statesmen for centuries, and that these influences are
+subject to so many disturbing causes, both foreign and domestic, that
+they are incapable of being reduced to fixed principles. Mr. Toombs did
+not hesitate, however, to condemn "the theories of the South Carolina
+school of politics."
+
+Mr. Toombs opposed the acquisition of Texas. He did not believe the
+North would consent. "It matters not," he said, "that Mexico is weak,
+that the acquisition is easy. The question is just the same: Is it
+right, is it just, is it the policy of this country to enlarge its
+territory by conquest? The principle is condemned by the spirit of the
+age, by reason, and by revelation. A people who love justice and hate
+wrong and oppression cannot approve it. War in a just cause is a great
+calamity to any people, and can only be justified by the highest
+necessity. A people who go to war without just and sufficient cause,
+with no other motive than pride and love of glory, are enemies to the
+human race and deserve the execration of all mankind. What, then, must
+be the judgment of a war for plunder?" He denounced the whole thing as a
+land job, and declared that he would rather have "the Union without
+Texas than Texas without the Union."
+
+The Democratic opponent of Mr. Toombs in this canvass was Hon. Edward J.
+Black of Screven, who had been in Congress since 1838. The new district
+was safely Whig, but the young candidate had to fight the prestige of
+McDuffie and Troup and opposition from numberless sources. It was
+charged that he always voted in the Georgia Legislature to raise taxes.
+He retorted, "It is right to resort to taxation to pay the honest debt
+of a State. I did vote to raise taxes, and I glory in it. It was a duty
+I owed the State, and I would go to the last dollar to preserve her good
+name and honor."
+
+While Mr. Toombs was making a speech in this canvass a man in the
+audience charged him with having voted for the free banking law and
+against the poor-school fund. "The gentleman," said Mr. Toombs, "seems
+to find pleasure in reveling in my cast-off errors. I shall not disturb
+him."
+
+"How is this, Mr. Toombs," shouted a Democrat at another time, "here is
+a vote of yours in the house journal I do not like."
+
+"Well, my friend, there are several there that I do not like: now what
+are you going to do about it?"
+
+Especially was opposition bitter to Henry Clay. Cartoons were published
+from Northern papers, of Clay whipping a negro slave, with this
+inscription: "The Mill Boy of the _Slashes_." Pictures appeared in the
+Democratic papers of a human figure surmounted by a pistol, a bottle,
+and a deck of cards. To this a _resume_ of Clay's misdeeds was appended:
+
+"In 1805 quarreled with Colonel Davis of Kentucky, which led to his
+first duel. In 1808 challenged Humphrey Marshall, and fired three times
+at his breast. In 1825 challenged the great John Randolph, and fired
+once at his breast. In 1838 he planned the Cilley duel, by which a
+murder was committed and a wife made a mourner. In 1841, when sixty-five
+years old, and gray-headed, is under a five thousand dollar bond to keep
+the peace. At twenty-nine he perjured himself to secure a seat in the
+United States Senate. In 1824, made the infamous bargain with Adams by
+which he sold out for a six thousand dollar office. He is well known as
+a gambler and Sabbath-breaker."
+
+But the eloquent Harry of the West had a large and devoted following. He
+visited Georgia in March of this year, and charmed the people by his
+eloquence and magnetism. Robert Toombs had met him at the social board
+and had been won by his superb mentality and fine manners. Women paid
+him the tribute of their presence wherever he spoke, and little children
+scattered flowers along his path. But the November election in Georgia,
+as elsewhere, was adverse to the party of Henry Clay. Toombs and
+Stephens were sent to Congress, but the electoral vote of Georgia was
+cast for Polk and Dallas, and the Whigs, who loved Clay as a father,
+regarded his defeat as a personal affliction as well as a public
+calamity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+IN THE LOWER HOUSE.
+
+
+Robert Toombs took his seat in the twenty-ninth Congress in December,
+1845. The Democrats organized the House by the election of John W. Davis
+of Indiana, Speaker. The House was made up of unusually strong men, who
+afterward became noted in national affairs. Hannibal Hamlin was with the
+Maine delegation; ex-President John Quincy Adams had been elected from
+Massachusetts with Robert C. Winthrop; Stephen A. Douglas was there from
+Illinois; David Wilmot from Pennsylvania; R. Barnwell Rhett and
+Armistead Burt from South Carolina; Geo. C. Droomgoole and Robert M. T.
+Hunter of Virginia, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, were members, as were
+Henry W. Hilliard and W. L. Yancey of Alabama, Jefferson Davis and Jacob
+Thompson of Mississippi, and John Slidell of Louisiana. Toombs,
+Stephens, and Cobb were the most prominent figures in the Georgia
+delegation.
+
+The topics uppermost in the public mind of that day were the Oregon
+question, Texas, and the ubiquitous tariff. It looked at one time as if
+war with Great Britain were unavoidable. President Polk occupied an
+extreme position, and declared in his message to Congress that our title
+to the whole of Oregon was clear. The boundary of the ceded territory
+was unsettled. The Democrats demanded the occupation of Oregon, with the
+campaign cry of "fifty-four forty or fight."
+
+Mr. Toombs did not accept President Polk's position. His first speech in
+the House was made January 12, 1846, and at once placed him in the front
+rank of orators and statesmen. He said that it was not clear to him that
+our title was exceptional up to 54 deg.40'. Our claim to the territory north
+of the Columbia River was the Spanish title only, and this had been an
+inchoate right.
+
+Mr. Toombs wanted the question settled by reason. He impetuously
+declared that "neither the clamors within nor without this hall, nor the
+ten thousand British cannon, floating on every ship, or mounted on every
+island, shall influence my decision in a question like this." He was for
+peace--for honorable peace. "It is the mother of all the virtues and
+hopes of mankind." No man would go further than he to obtain honorable
+peace; but dishonorable peace was worse than war--it was the worst of
+all evil.
+
+War was the greatest and the most horrible of calamities. Even a war for
+liberty itself was rarely compensated by the consequences. "Yet the
+common judgment of mankind consigned to lasting infamy the people who
+would surrender their rights and freedom for the sake of a dishonest
+peace."
+
+"Let us," cried the speaker, turning to his Southern colleagues, "let us
+repress any unworthy sectional feeling which looks only to the
+attainment of sectional power."
+
+His conclusion was an apotheosis of Georgia as a Union State. He said:
+"Mr. Speaker, Georgia wants peace, but she would not for the sake of
+peace yield any of her own or the nation's rights. A new career of
+prosperity is now before her; new prospects, bright and fair, open to
+her vision and lie ready for her grasp, and she fully appreciates her
+position. She has at length begun to avail herself of her advantages by
+forming a great commercial line between the Atlantic and the West. She
+is embarking in enterprises of intense importance, and is beginning to
+provide manufactures for her unpaid laborers. She sees nothing but
+prosperity ahead, and peace is necessary in order to reveal it; but
+still, if war must come, if it has been decreed that Oregon must be
+consecrated to liberty in the blood of the brave and the sufferings of
+the free, Georgia will be found ready with her share of the offering,
+and, whatever may be her sacrifice, she will display a magnanimity as
+great as the occasion and as prolonged as the conflict."
+
+Mr. Toombs indorsed the conservative action of the Senate, which forced
+President Polk from his extreme position and established the parallel of
+49 deg. as the northern boundary.
+
+The tariff bill of 1846 was framed, as President Polk expressed it, in
+the interest of lower duties, and it changed the basis of assessment
+from specific, or minimum duties, to duties _ad valorem_.
+
+Mr. Toombs made a most elaborate speech against this bill in July, 1846.
+If his Oregon speech had shown thorough familiarity with the force and
+effect of treaties and the laws of nations, his tariff speech proved him
+a student of fiscal matters and a master of finance. His genius, as
+Jefferson Davis afterward remarked, lay decidedly in this direction. Mr.
+Toombs announced in his tariff speech that the best of laws, especially
+tax laws, were but approximations of human justice. He entered into an
+elaborate argument to controvert the idea that low tariff meant
+increased revenue. The history of such legislation, he contended, had
+been that the highest tariff had raised the most money. Mr. Toombs
+combated the _ad valorem_ principle of levying duty upon imports.
+
+Mr. Toombs declared to his constituents in September, 1846, that the
+President had marched his army into Mexico without authority of law.
+"The conquest and dismemberment of Mexico, however brilliant may be the
+success of our arms," said he, "will not redound to the glory of our
+republic."
+
+The Whigs approached the Presidential campaign of 1848 with every chance
+of success. They still hoped that the Sage of Ashland might be the
+nominee. George W. Crawford, ex-Governor of Georgia, and afterward
+member of the Taylor Cabinet, perceiving that the drift in the West was
+against Mr. Clay, offered a resolution in the Whig convention that
+"whatever may have been our personal preferences, we feel that in
+yielding them at the present time, we are only pursuing Mr. Clay's own
+illustrious example." Mr. Toombs stated to his constituents that Clay
+could not be nominated because Ohio had declared that no man who had
+opposed the Wilmot Proviso could get the vote of that State. The Whigs,
+who had opposed the Mexican war, now reaped its benefits by nominating
+one of its heroes to the Presidency, and Zachary Taylor of Louisiana
+became at once a popular candidate. Millard Fillmore of New York was
+named for vice president, and "Rough and Ready" clubs were soon
+organized in every part of Georgia. The venerable William H. Crawford
+headed the Whig electoral ticket in Georgia, while Toombs, Stephens, and
+Thomas W. Thomas led the campaign.
+
+The issue of the campaign in Georgia was the Clayton compromise which
+the Georgia senators had sustained, but which Stephens and Toombs had
+defeated in the House. This compromise proposed that all questions
+concerning slavery in the governments of the ceded territory be referred
+to the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Toombs declared that the
+Mexican law prohibiting slavery was still valid and would so remain;
+that Congress and not the courts must change this law.
+
+The Clayton compromise, Mr. Toombs said, was only intended as "the
+Euthanasia of States' Rights. When our rights are clear, security for
+them should be free from all ambiguity. We ought never to surrender
+territory, until it shall be wrested from us as we have wrested it from
+Mexico. Such a surrender would degrade and demoralize our section and
+disable us for effective resistance against future aggression. It is far
+better that this new acquisition should be the grave of the republic
+than of the rights and honor of the South--and, from present
+indications, to this complexion it must come at last."
+
+Mr. Toombs demanded that what was recognized by law as property in the
+slaveholding States should be recognized in the Mexican territory. "This
+boon," he pleaded, "may be worthless, but its surrender involves our
+honor. We can permit no discrimination against our section or our
+institutions in dividing out the common property of the republic. Their
+rights are not to be abandoned, or bartered away in presidential
+elections."
+
+So Toombs and Stephens were central figures in this national campaign.
+It was during this canvass that Mr. Stephens became embroiled with Judge
+Francis H. Cone, a prominent lawyer of Georgia and a near neighbor. Mr.
+Stephens heard that Judge Cone had denounced him as a traitor for moving
+to table the Clayton compromise. Stephens had retorted sharply that if
+Cone had said this he would slap his face. After some correspondence the
+two men met in Atlanta, September 4, 1848. The trouble was renewed;
+Judge Cone denounced Mr. Stephens, who rapped him over the shoulders
+with a whalebone cane. Mr. Stephens was a fragile man, and Judge Cone,
+with strong physique, closed in and forced him to the floor. During the
+scuffle Mr. Stephens was cut in six places. His life for a while was
+despaired of. Upon his recovery he was received with wild enthusiasm by
+the Whigs, who cheered his pluck and regarded his return to the canvass
+as an omen of victory.
+
+Shortly afterward he wrote to Mrs. Toombs, thanking her for her interest
+and solicitude during his illness. He managed to write with his left
+hand, as he could not use his right. "I hope," he says, "I will be able
+to take the stump again next week for old Zach. I think Mr. Toombs has
+had the weight of the canvass long enough, and though he has done
+gallant service, this but inspires me with the wish to lend all aid in
+my power. I think we shall yet be able to save the State. My faith is as
+strong as Mr. Preston's which, you know, was enough to move mountains. I
+got a letter the other day from Mr. C----, who gives it as his opinion
+that Ohio would go for General Taylor. If so, he will be elected. And
+you know how I shall hail such a result."
+
+During Mr. Stephens' illness Mr. Toombs canvassed many of the counties
+in the Stephens district. Both men were reelected to Congress, and
+Zachary Taylor received the electoral vote of Georgia over Lewis Cass of
+Michigan, and was elected President of the United States.
+
+The Democrats, who put out a candidate this year against Mr. Toombs,
+issued an address which was evidently not inspired by the able and
+deserving gentleman who bore their standard, but was intended as a sharp
+rebuke to Mr. Toombs. It is interesting as showing how he was regarded
+by his friends, the enemy.
+
+"Of an age when life's illusions have vanished," they said of the
+Democratic candidate, "he has no selfish aspirations, no vaulting
+ambition to carry him astray: no vanity to lead where it is glory enough
+to follow." They accorded to Mr. Toombs "a very showy cast of
+talent--better suited to the displays of the stump than the grave
+discussions of the legislative hall. His eloquence has that sort of
+splendor mixed with the false and true which is calculated to dazzle the
+multitude. He would rather win the applause of groundlings by some silly
+tale than gain the intelligent by the most triumphant course of
+reasoning." Mr. Toombs carried every county in the district and was
+returned to Congress by 1681 majority.
+
+When Mr. Toombs returned to Washington he had commanded national
+prominence. He had not only carried his State for Zachary Taylor, but
+his speech in New York, during a critical period of the canvass, had
+turned the tide for the Whig candidate in the country. Toombs and
+Stephens naturally stood very near the administration. They soon had
+reason to see, however, that the Taylor Cabinet was not attentive to
+Southern counsels.
+
+During the fight over the compromise measure in Congress the Northern
+papers printed sensational accounts of a rupture between President
+Taylor and Messrs. Toombs and Stephens. According to this account the
+Georgia congressmen called on the President and expressed strong
+disapprobation of his stand upon the bill to organize the Territory of
+New Mexico. It was said that they even threatened to side with his
+opponents to censure him upon his action in the case of Secretary
+Crawford and the Golphin claim. The President, the article recited, was
+very much troubled over this interview and remained despondent for
+several days. He took his bed and never rallied, dying on the 9th of
+July, 1850. Mr. Stephens published a card, promptly denying this
+sensation. He said that neither he nor his colleague Mr. Toombs had
+visited the President at all during or previous to his last illness, and
+that no such scene had occurred.
+
+Toombs and Stephens, in fact, were warm personal friends of George W.
+Crawford, who was Secretary of War in Taylor's Cabinet. He had served
+with them in the General Assembly of Georgia and had twice been Governor
+of their State. The Golphin claim, of which Governor Crawford had been
+agent, had been collected from the Secretary of the Treasury while
+Governor Crawford was in the Cabinet, but President Taylor had decided
+that as Governor Crawford was at the head of an entirely different
+department of the government, he had been guilty of no impropriety.
+After the death of President Taylor, Governor Crawford returned to
+Augusta and was tendered a public dinner by his fellow-citizens,
+irrespective of party. He delivered an eloquent and feeling address. He
+made an extensive tour abroad, then lived in retirement in Richmond
+County, enjoying the respect and confidence of his neighbors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.
+
+
+No legislative body ever assembled with more momentous measures before
+it than the thirty-first Congress of the United States. An immense area
+of unsettled public domain had been wrested from Mexico. The Territories
+of California, Utah, and New Mexico, amounting to several hundred
+thousand square miles, remained undisposed of. They comprised what Mr.
+Calhoun had termed the "Forbidden Fruit," and the trouble which
+beclouded their annexation threatened to surpass the storms of conquest.
+
+Congress felt that it was absolutely without light to guide it. It had
+declined to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean.
+Henry Clay had pronounced such division of public domain between the
+sections a "Utopian dream," and Zachary Taylor had condemned the
+principle in the only message he ever delivered to Congress. What Mr.
+Lincoln afterward embodied in his famous expression that the Union could
+never exist "half slave, half free," had been actually anticipated. The
+whole territorial question came up as a new problem. But if the crisis
+was now momentous the body of statesmen which considered it was a great
+one. The men and the hour seemed to meet in that supreme moment. The
+Senate consisted of sixty members, and for the last time that great trio
+of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster met upon its floor. Commencing their
+careers a generation before; with eventful lives and illustrious
+performance, they lingered one moment in this arena before passing
+forever from the scenes of their earthly efforts. All three had given up
+ambition for the Presidency, none of them had commenced to break in
+mental power, and each one was animated by patriotism to serve and save
+his country. William H. Seward had entered the Senate from New York;
+James M. Mason and Robert M. T. Hunter represented Virginia; Wm. C.
+Dawson had joined Mr. Berrien from Georgia; Salmon P. Chase appeared
+from Ohio; Jefferson Davis and Henry S. Foote illustrated Mississippi;
+Stephen A. Douglas had been promoted from the House in Illinois, and
+Samuel Houston was there from Texas. The House was unusually strong and
+divided with the Senate the stormy scenes and surpassing struggles over
+the compromise measures of 1850. It was the time of breaking up of party
+lines, and many believed that the hour of disunion had arrived.
+
+The Whig caucus, which assembled to nominate a candidate for Speaker of
+the House, sustained a serious split. Robert Toombs offered a resolution
+that Congress should place no restriction upon slavery in the
+Territories. The Northern Whigs scouted the idea and Toombs led the
+Southern members out of the meeting. The organization of the House was
+delayed three weeks, and finally, under a plurality resolution, the
+Democrats elected Howell Cobb of Georgia Speaker over Robert C. Winthrop
+of Massachusetts. In the midst of these stormy scenes Mr. Toombs forced
+the fighting. He declared with impetuous manner that he believed the
+interests of his people were in danger and he was unwilling to surrender
+the great power of the Speaker's chair without security for the future.
+
+"It seems," he said, "that we are to be intimidated by eulogies of the
+Union and denunciations of those who are not ready to sacrifice national
+honor, essential interests, and constitutional rights upon its altar.
+Sir, I have as much attachment to the Union of these States, under the
+Constitution of our fathers, as any freeman ought to have. I am ready to
+concede and sacrifice for it whatever a just and honorable man ought to
+sacrifice. I will do no more. I have not heeded the expression of those
+who did not understand or desired to misrepresent my conduct or opinions
+in relation to these questions, which, in my judgment, so vitally
+affect it. The time has come when I shall not only utter them, but make
+them the basis of my political actions here. I do not then hesitate to
+avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the
+living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the
+Territories purchased by the common blood and treasure of the people,
+and to abolish slavery in the District, thereby attempting to fix a
+national degradation upon half the States of this confederacy, I am for
+disunion, and if my physical courage be equal to the maintenance of my
+convictions of right and duty I will devote all I am and all I have on
+earth to its consummation.
+
+"Give me securities that the power of organization which you seek will
+not be used to the injury of my constituents; then you can have my
+cooperation, but not till then. Grant them, and you prevent the
+disgraceful scenes of the last twenty-four hours and restore
+tranquillity to the country. Refuse them, and, as far as I am concerned,
+let discord reign forever."
+
+This speech fell like a clap of thunder. The Wilmot Proviso waved like a
+black flag over the heads of Southern men. No one had spoken outright
+until Mr. Toombs in his bold, dashing, Mirabeau style accepted the issue
+in the words just given. The House was filled with storms of applause
+and jeers, and, as can be imagined, Mr. Toombs' speech did not soothe
+the bitterness or alter the determination of either side.
+
+On the 22d of December a conference was held by Whigs and Democrats, the
+Southern Whigs excepted, and a resolution reported that the person
+receiving the largest number of votes for Speaker, on a certain ballot,
+should be declared elected, provided this number should be the majority
+of a quorum, but not a majority of the House. Mr. Stanton of Tennessee
+offered this "plurality resolution."
+
+Mr. Toombs sprang to his feet and declared that the House, until it
+organized, could not pass this or any other rule.
+
+Members stood up and called Mr. Toombs to order, claiming that there was
+already a question pending. Mr. Stanton contended that he had the floor.
+
+Toombs called out: "You may cry 'order,' gentlemen, until the heavens
+fall; you cannot take this place from me. I have the right to protest
+against this transaction. It is not with you to say whether this right
+shall be yielded or when it shall be yielded."
+
+Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania: "I call the gentleman to order."
+
+Mr. Toombs: "I say that by the law of 1789 this House, until a Speaker
+is elected and gentlemen have taken the oath of office, has no right to
+adopt any rules whatever."
+
+(Loud cries of "order.")
+
+Mr. Toombs: "Gentlemen may amuse themselves crying 'order.'"
+
+(Calls of "order.")
+
+Mr. Toombs: "But I have the right and I intend to maintain the right
+to----"
+
+Mr. Vandyke called upon the clerk to put the preceding question. "Let us
+see," he said, "whether the gentleman will disregard the order of this
+House."
+
+Mr. Toombs: "I have the floor, and the clerk cannot put the question."
+
+"The House," he said, "has no right. Gentlemen may cry 'order' and
+interrupt me. It is mere brute force, attempting by the power of lungs
+to put me down."
+
+Confusion increased. Members called out to encourage Mr. Toombs, and
+others to put him down. In the midst of this babel he continued to
+speak, his black hair thrown back, his face flushed, and his eyes
+blazing like suns. His deep voice could be heard above the shouts like a
+lion's roar. Members shouted to the clerk to call the roll for the yeas
+and nays.
+
+Toombs continued: "If you seek by violating the common law of
+parliament, the laws of the land, and the Constitution of the United
+States, to put me down ["order, order, call the roll"], you will find it
+a vain and futile attempt. ["Order."] I am sure I am indebted to the
+ignorance of my character on the part of those who are thus disgracing
+themselves ["order, order"], if they suppose any such efforts as they
+are now making will succeed in driving me from the position which I have
+assumed. I stand upon the Constitution of my country, upon the liberty
+of speech which you have treacherously violated, and upon the rights of
+my constituents, and your fiendish yells may be well raised to drown an
+argument which you tremble to hear. You claim and have exercised the
+power to prevent all debate upon any and every subject, yet you have not
+as yet shown your right to sit here at all. I will not presume that you
+have any such right ["order, order"]. I will not suppose that the
+American people have elected such agents to represent them. I therefore
+demand that they shall comply with the Act of 1789 before I shall be
+bound to submit to their authority." (Loud cries of "order.")
+
+The Act to which Mr. Toombs referred recited that the oath must be
+administered by the Speaker to all the members present, and to the
+clerk, previous to entering on any other business. This he tried to
+read, but cries of "order" drowned his voice.
+
+Throwing aside his manual Mr. Toombs walked further out into the aisle
+and assumed a yet more defiant position.
+
+"You refuse," he said, "to hear either the Constitution or the law.
+Perhaps you do well to listen to neither; they all speak a voice of
+condemnation to your reckless proceedings. But if you will not hear them
+the country will. Every freeman from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore
+shall hear them, and every honest man shall consider them. You cannot
+stifle the voice that shall reach their ears. The electric spark shall
+proclaim to the freemen of this republic that an American Congress,
+having conceived the purpose to violate the Constitution and the laws to
+conceal their enormities, have disgraced the record of their proceedings
+by placing upon it a resolution that their representatives shall not be
+heard in their defense, and finding this illegal resolution inadequate
+to secure so vile an end, have resorted to brutish yells and cries to
+stifle the words of those they cannot intimidate."
+
+The clerk continued to call the roll, and Mr. Toombs with splendid
+audacity turned upon him. Pointing his finger at the _locum tenens_, he
+cried with scorn: "I ask by what authority that man stands there and
+calls these names. By what authority does HE interfere with the rights
+of a member of this House. [The clerk continued to call.] He is an
+intruder, and how dares he to interrupt members in the exercise of
+their constitutional rights. Gentlemen, has the sense of shame departed
+with your sense of right, that you permit a creature, an interloper, in
+no wise connected with you, to stand at that desk and interrupt your
+order?"
+
+Mr. Toombs continued, amid these boisterous scenes, his alternate role
+of argument, of appeal, of denunciation. He contended that a power
+delegated to the House must be used by a majority of the House. He
+concluded:
+
+"I therefore demand of you before the country, in the name of the
+Constitution and the people, to repeal your illegal rule, reject the one
+on your table, and proceed to the discharge of your high duties, which
+the people have confided to you, according to the unvarying precedents
+of your people and the law of the land."
+
+This performance was denounced by Northern restrictionists as menacing
+and insolent. Mr. Stephens, in his "War Between the States," contended
+that it should rather be considered in the light of a wonderful
+exhibition of physical as well as intellectual prowess--in this, that a
+single man should have been able, thus successfully, to speak to a
+tumultuous crowd and, by declamatory denunciations combined with solid
+argument, to silence an infuriated assembly.
+
+The noise during the delivery of this speech gradually ceased. The
+clerk stopped calling the roll, all interruptions were suspended and
+"every eye," says Mr. Stephens, "was fixed upon the speaker." It was a
+picture worthy of ranking with Lamartine's great speech to the
+revolutionists in France.
+
+On the 29th of February Mr. Toombs addressed the House upon the general
+territorial question. He said:
+
+"We had our institutions when you sought our allegiance. We were content
+with them then, and we are content with them now. We have not sought to
+thrust them upon you, nor to interfere with yours. If you believe what
+you say, that yours are so much the best to promote the happiness and
+good government of society, why do you fear our equal competition with
+you in the Territories? We only ask that our common government shall
+protect us both, equally, until the Territories shall be admitted as
+States into the Union, then to leave their citizens free to adopt any
+domestic policy in reference to this subject which in their judgment may
+best promote their interest and their happiness. The demand is just.
+Grant it, and you place your prosperity and ours upon a solid
+foundation; you perpetuate the Union so necessary to your prosperity;
+you solve the problem of republican government. If it be demonstrated
+that the Constitution is powerless for our protection, it will then be
+not only the right but the duty of the slaveholding States to resume the
+powers which they have conferred upon this government and to seek new
+safeguards for their future protection.... We took the Constitution and
+the Union together. We will have both or we will have neither. This cry
+of Union is the masked battery behind which the rights of the South are
+to be assaulted. Let the South mark the man who is for the Union at
+every hazard and to the last extremity; when the day of her peril comes
+he will be the imitator of that character, the base Judas, who for
+thirty pieces of silver threw away a pearl richer than all his tribe."
+
+On the 15th of June, 1850, while the compromise measures were shifting
+from House to House, the question was put to some of the advocates of
+the admission of California, whether they would under any circumstances
+admit a slave State into the Union. They declined to say.
+
+Mr. Toombs arose and declared that the South did not deny the right of a
+people framing a State constitution to admit or exclude slavery. The
+South had uniformly maintained this right.
+
+"The evidence is complete," he said. "The North repudiated this
+principle."
+
+"I intend to drag off the mask before the consummation of the act. We do
+not oppose California on account of the antislavery clause in her
+constitution. It was her right, and I am not even prepared to say she
+acted unwisely in its exercise--that is her business: but I stand upon
+the great principle that the South has the right to an equal
+participation in the Territories of the United States. I claim the right
+for her to enter them with all her property and security to enjoy it.
+She will divide with you if you wish it: but the right to enter all, or
+divide, I will never surrender. In my judgment this right, involving, as
+it does, political equality, is worth a dozen such Unions as we have,
+even if each were a thousand times more valuable than this. I speak not
+for others, but for myself. Deprive us of this right, and appropriate
+this common property to yourselves; it is then your government, not
+mine. Then I am its enemy, and I will then, if I can, bring my children
+and my constituents to the altar of liberty, and like Hamilcar, I will
+swear them to eternal hostility to your foul domination. Give us our
+just rights, and we are ready, as ever heretofore, to stand by the
+Union, every part of it, and its every interest. Refuse it, and, for
+one, I will strike for independence."
+
+Mr. Stephens declared that this speech produced the greatest sensation
+he had ever seen in the House. "It created a perfect commotion."
+
+These heated arguments of Mr. Toombs were delivered under the menace of
+the Wilmot Proviso, or slavery restriction. When this principle was
+abandoned and the compromise measures passed, Mr. Toombs uttered, as we
+shall see, far different sentiments.
+
+In the Senate Mr. Clay, the Great Pacificator, had introduced his
+compromise resolutions to admit California under the government already
+formed, prohibiting slavery; to organize territorial governments for
+Utah and New Mexico without slavery restrictions; to pass a
+fugitive-slave law, and to abolish the slave trade in the District of
+Columbia. On the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster delivered his great
+Union speech, in which for the first time he took strong grounds against
+congressional restriction in the Territories. It created a profound
+sensation. It was on the 4th of March that Senator Mason read for Mr.
+Calhoun the last speech that the latter ever prepared. It was a
+memorable moment when the great Carolinian, with the stamp of death
+already upon him, reiterated his love for the Union under the
+Constitution, but declared, with the prescience of a seer, that the only
+danger threatening the government arose from its centralizing tendency.
+It was "the sunset of life which gave him mystical lore."
+
+Debate continued through the spring and summer with increasing
+bitterness. On the 31st of July Mr. Clay's "Omnibus Bill," as it was
+called, "went to pieces," but the Senate took up the separate
+propositions, passed them, and transmitted them to the House.
+
+Here the great sectional contest was renewed. Mr. Toombs offered an
+amendment that the Constitution of the United States, and such statutes
+thereof as may not be locally inapplicable, and the common law, as it
+existed in the British colonies of America until July 4, 1776, shall be
+the exclusive laws of said Territory upon the subject of African
+slavery, until altered by the proper authority. This was rejected by the
+House. On September 6 the Texas and New Mexico bill, with the Boyd
+amendment, passed by a vote of 108 to 97--and the anti-restrictionists,
+as Mr. Stephens said, won the day at last. This was the great compromise
+of that year, and the point established was that, since the principle of
+division of territory between the North and South had been abandoned,
+the principle of congressional restriction should also be abandoned, and
+that all new States, whether north or south of 36 deg. 30', should be
+admitted into the Union "either with or without slavery as their
+constitution might prescribe at the time of their admission."
+
+During this memorable contest Mr. Toombs was in active consultation with
+Northern statesmen, trying to effect the compromise. He insisted that
+there should be no congressional exclusion of slavery from the public
+domain, but that in organizing territorial governments the people should
+be allowed to authorize or restrict, as they pleased. Until these
+principles were settled, however, he would fight the admission of
+California. Into this conference Mr. Stephens and Howell Cobb were
+admitted, and at a meeting at the house of the latter an agreement was
+reached between the three Georgians and the representatives from
+Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois, that California should be admitted: that
+the Territories should be organized without restriction, and that their
+joint efforts should be used to bring this about as well as to defeat
+any attempt to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Here was the
+essence of the compromise, built upon the great measures of Henry Clay,
+and finally ripening into the legislation of that session. Here was the
+agreement of that compact which formed the great "Constitutional Union
+Party" in Georgia, and which erected a bulwark against disunion, not
+only in Georgia, but on the whole Southern seaboard. The disunion
+movement failed in 1850. "At the head of the States which had the merit
+of stopping it," said Thomas H. Benton, "was Georgia, the greatest of
+the South Atlantic States." And that Georgia stood steadfast in her
+place, and declined every overture for secession, was because of the
+united prestige and splendid abilities of Howell Cobb, Alexander H.
+Stephens, and Robert Toombs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During this stormy session Mr. Toombs' heart continually yearned for
+home. He was a model husband and a remarkable domestic character. The
+fiery scenes of the forum did not ween him from his family. On the 29th
+of August, 1850, he wrote to his wife:
+
+      We have before us the whole of the territorial questions,
+      and shall probably pass or reject them in a few days or at
+      most in a week. I am greatly in hopes that we will not pass
+      over them without final action of some sort, and if we can
+      get rid of them I shall have nothing to prevent my coming
+      home at the time appointed. I begin to be more anxious to
+      see you than to save the republic. Such is a sweet woman's
+      fascination for men's hearts. The old Roman Antony threw
+      away an empire rather than abandon his lovely Cleopatra,
+      and the world has called him a fool for it. I begin to
+      think that he was the wiser man, and that the world was
+      well lost for love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE GEORGIA PLATFORM.
+
+
+When Mr. Toombs came home in the fall of 1850 he found the State in
+upheaval. Disunion sentiment was rife. He was confronted by garbled
+extracts of his speeches in Congress, and made to pose as the champion
+of immediate secession. He had aided in perfecting the great compromise
+and was resolved that Georgia should take her stand firmly and
+unequivocally for the Union and the Constitution. Governor Towns had
+issued a call for a State convention; Mr. Toombs took prompt issue with
+the spirit and purpose of the call. He declared that the legislature had
+endangered the honor of the State and that the Governor had put the
+people in a defile. "We must either repudiate this policy, or arm," he
+said. "I favor the former measure."
+
+Mr. Toombs issued a ringing address to the people. It bore date of
+October 9, 1850. He proclaimed that "the first act of legislative
+hostility was the first act of Southern resistance." He urged the South
+to stand by the Constitution and the laws in good faith, until wrong was
+consummated or the act of exclusion placed upon the statute books.
+
+Mr. Toombs said that the South had not secured its full rights. "But the
+fugitive-slave law which I demanded was granted. The abolition of
+slavery in the District of Columbia and proscription in the Territories
+were defeated, crushed, and abandoned. We have firmly established great
+and important principles. The South has compromised no right,
+surrendered no principle, and lost not an inch of ground in this great
+contest. I did not hesitate to accept these acts, but gave them my ready
+support."
+
+Addressing himself to the disunionists he said: "They have abandoned
+their errors, but not their object. Being bent upon the ruin of the
+republic they use truth or error for its accomplishment, as best suits
+the exigencies of the hour. If these people are honest in their
+convictions, they may find abundant consolation in the fact that the
+principle is neither conceded, compromised, nor endangered by these
+bills. It is strengthened, not weakened by them, and will survive their
+present zeal and future apostasy."
+
+Mr. Toombs called on all men of integrity, intellect, and courage to
+come into the service of the State and prove their devotion to the
+Constitution and the Union. "With no memory of past differences," he
+said, "careless of the future, I am ready to unite with any portion or
+all my countrymen in defense of the integrity of the republic."
+
+Mr. Toombs took the stump, and his words rang out like an alarm bell.
+Men speak to-day of his activity and earnestness in that great campaign,
+as with "rapid and prompt perception, clear, close reasoning, cutting
+eloquence, and unsparing hand he rasped the follies of disunion and
+secession." A prominent journal of that day, speaking of his speech in
+Burke County, Ga., declared that "his manly eloquence has shaken and
+shivered to the base the pedestal upon which the monument of American
+ruin was to be erected."
+
+In November of that year a convention of delegates from Southern States
+was held at Nashville. Ex-Governor Charles J. McDonald represented
+Georgia. That meeting protested against the admission of California with
+slavery restriction; charged that the policy of Congress had been to
+exclude the Southern States from the Territories, and plainly asserted
+that the powers of the sovereign States could be resumed by the States
+separately. On November 3 the election of delegates to the Georgia
+convention was held. Toombs had already turned the tide. A great
+majority of Union men were chosen. Whigs and Democrats united to save
+the State. Toombs stood convicted before many of his old followers of
+"unsoundness on the slavery question"--but he was performing his
+greatest public work.
+
+Among the delegates elected by the people to the Georgia convention,
+which met at Milledgeville, December 10, 1850, were Toombs and Stephens
+and many of the best men in the State.
+
+The work of the distinguished body was memorable. They adopted the
+celebrated "Georgia Platform," whose utterances were talismanic. Charles
+J. Jenkins reported the resolutions. They recited, first, that Georgia
+held the American Union secondary in importance to the rights and
+principles it was bound to perpetuate. That as the thirteen original
+colonies found union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of
+this day will yield somewhat in the conflict of opinion and policy, to
+preserve the Union. That Georgia had maturely considered the action of
+Congress (embracing the compromise measures) and--while she does not
+wholly approve it--will abide by it as a permanent adjustment of this
+sectional controversy. That the State would in future resist, even to
+the disruption of the Union, any act prohibiting slavery in the
+Territories, or a refusal to admit a slave State. The fifth plank
+declared for a faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave bill.
+
+Upon this platform the Union men selected Howell Cobb as their candidate
+for Governor. The Southern Rights men selected Charles J. McDonald.
+This party claimed that the South was degraded by the compromise
+measures. Their platform was based upon the Virginia and Kentucky
+resolution. It asserted the right of secession and maintained the
+constitutionality and necessity of intervention by Congress in favor of
+admitting slavery into the Territories. The distinct doctrine of the
+compromise measures was non-intervention.
+
+Howell Cobb was a born leader of men. Personally he was the most popular
+man in the State. Entering public life at an early age he had been a
+congressman at twenty-eight. He had been leader of the Southern party,
+and was chosen Speaker, as we have seen, in 1849, when only thirty-four
+years old. He had been known as a strong friend of the Union, and some
+of the extreme States' Rights men called him a "consolidationist."
+
+In his letter accepting the nomination for Governor, he alluded to the
+long-cherished doctrine of non-intervention. The Wilmot Proviso had been
+withdrawn and the Union saved. The people had been awarded the right to
+determine for themselves in the Territories whether or not slavery was
+to be a part of their social system.
+
+No man was so tireless or conspicuous in this campaign as Mr. Toombs.
+Although expressing a desire that someone else should go to Congress
+from his district, he accepted a renomination to assert his principles.
+He did not, however, confine his work to his district. He traveled from
+one end of the State to the other. He recognized that party organization
+in Georgia had been over-thrown and party lines shattered in every State
+in the Union. He boldly declared that a continuance of the Union was not
+incompatible with the rights of every State. He asserted that the
+animating spirit of his opponents, the States' Rights party, was
+hostility to the Union. Some of the members still submitted to the
+humiliation of raising the cry of "the Union," he said, but it was a
+"masked battery," from which the very Union was to be assailed. Mr.
+Toombs announced on the stump that "the good sense, the firmness, the
+patriotism of the people, would shield the Union from assault of our own
+people. They will maintain it as long as it deserves to be maintained."
+
+Mr. Toombs admitted that the antislavery sentiment of the North had
+become more violent from its defeat on the compromise measures.
+
+"What did this party demand, and what did it get?" he asked on the
+stump. "It was driven from every position it assumed. It demanded the
+express prohibition of slavery, the Wilmot Proviso, in the Territories.
+It lost it. It demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of
+Columbia, and the slave trade between the States. It lost both. It
+demanded the affirmance of the oft-repeated declaration that there
+should be no more slave States admitted into the Union. Congress
+enacted that States hereafter coming into the Union should be admitted
+with or without slavery, as such States might determine for themselves.
+It demanded a trial by jury for fugitives at the place of arrest. It
+lost this also. Its acknowledged exponent is the Free-Soil party. The
+Whig party has succumbed to it. It is thoroughly denationalized and
+desectionalized, and will never make another national contest. We are
+indebted to the defeat of the policy of these men for the existence of
+the government to-day. The Democratic party of the North, though
+prostrated, is not yet destroyed. Our true policy is to compel both
+parties to purge themselves of this dangerous element. If either will,
+to sustain it. If neither will, then we expect to preserve the Union. We
+must overthrow both parties and rally the sound men to a common
+standard. This is the only policy which can preserve both our rights and
+the Union."
+
+On the 1st of August, 1851, Mr. Toombs spoke in Elberton. He was in the
+full tide of his manhood, an orator without equal; a statesman without
+fear or reproach. Personally, he was a splendid picture, full of health
+and vitality. He had been prosperous in his affairs. He was prominent in
+public life and overbore all opposition. His powers were in their prime.
+In his speech to his constituents he mentioned the fact that his
+opponents had criticised the manner in which he traveled (alluding to
+his fine horses and servants). He wanted the people to know that the
+money was his, and that he made $5000 a year in Elbert alone. "Who would
+say that he had not earned his money? He had a right to spend it as he
+chose. Perish such demagogy--such senseless stuff." The people cheered
+him to the echo for his candor and audacity.
+
+"What presumption," he said, "for the States' Rights men to nominate
+McDonald for Governor--a man who supported Jackson's Force bill--a man
+who had grown gray in federalism? He was the man brought to teach the
+people of Elbert States' Rights. It would be a curious subject of
+inquiry to find out when this neophyte had changed, and by what process
+the change had been wrought."
+
+Toombs was alluded to by the correspondents as "Richard, the
+Lion-hearted," with strong arm and ponderous battle-ax, as he went about
+winning victories. Stephens, no less effective and influential, seemed
+to be the great Saladin with well-tempered Damascus blade--so skillful
+as to sever the finest down. The people were in continued uproar as
+Toombs moved from place to place.
+
+In Jefferson County, Mr. Toombs denied that the South had yielded any
+demand she ever made, or had sacrificed any principle she ever held. He
+cried that "opposition to Toombs and Stephens seemed to be the
+principle of political faith on the other side." Toombs declared that
+Stephens "carried more brains and more soul for the least flesh of any
+man God Almighty ever made."
+
+Mr. Toombs repeated that if the slaveholders had lost the right to carry
+slavery into California, they had lost it upon sound principle. The
+right of each State to prescribe its own institutions is a right above
+slavery. Slavery is only an incident to this right. This principle lies
+at the foundation of all good government. He had always held it and
+would always hold it:
+
+    Till wrapped in flames the realms of ether glow,
+    And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below.
+
+He deeply sympathized with those Southern Rights men who denounced the
+Union they professed to love.
+
+Speaking of the sudden change of some of his opponents in political
+principles, Toombs declared they "would profess any opinion to gain
+votes. It had been the belief of Crawford that if a man changed politics
+after thirty he was a rascal."
+
+In Marietta Mr. Toombs addressed an enthusiastic crowd. A journalist
+said of him: "He is my _beau ideal_ of a statesman. Frank, honest, bold,
+and eloquent, he never fails to make a deep impression. Many of the
+fire-eaters (for they _will_ go to hear him) looked as if they would
+make their escape from his withering and scathing rebuke." Toombs
+derided the States' Rights men for declaring that they were friends of
+the Union under which they declared they were "degraded and oppressed."
+The greatest stumbling-block to Toombs' triumphant tour was to be
+presented with bits of his own speeches delivered during the excitement
+of the last Congress.
+
+He had said in one of these impassioned outbursts: "He who counts the
+danger of defending his own home is already degraded. The people who
+count the cost of maintaining their political rights are ready for
+slavery."
+
+In Lexington he was accused of having said that if the people understood
+this slavery question as well as he did "they would not remain in the
+Union five minutes." This provoked a bitter controversy. Mr. Toombs
+denied the remark, and declared he was willing to respond personally and
+publicly to the author.
+
+As the campaign became more heated, Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb redoubled
+their efforts and drew their lines more closely. This combination was
+invincible. It was evident that they would carry the State, but some of
+the prominent men in Georgia were ruled out under what was thought to be
+the bitter spirit of the canvass. One of these was Charles J. Jenkins,
+and the other, John McPherson Berrien. The former had drawn the
+celebrated Georgia Platform, and was devoted to the Union. The latter
+was United States Senator from Georgia, and, as his successor was to be
+chosen by the legislature soon to be elected, there was much curiosity
+to find out his real position in this canvass. Mr. Jenkins declared that
+he considered Mr. Berrien "as good a Union man and as safe a
+representative of the party as any within its ranks." Berrien acquiesced
+in but did not eulogize the compromise measures. He did not oppose or
+favor the State convention of 1850. When he submitted to the Senate the
+Georgia Platform, he declared that he did not surrender the privileges
+of a free choice. He supported McDonald for Governor against Cobb, and
+it was soon evident that he was not in full sympathy with the winning
+party.
+
+The Constitutional Union men won a signal victory. Howell Cobb was
+elected Governor by a large majority over Charles J. McDonald, who had
+been twice Governor and who was one of the strongest men in Georgia.
+Robert Toombs was reelected to Congress over Robert McMillen of Elbert,
+and Mr. Stephens defeated D. W. Lewis of Hancock.
+
+The legislature convened in November, 1851. It was largely made up of
+Union men. Judge Berrien was not a candidate for reelection to the
+United States Senate. He wrote a letter in which he reviewed his course
+during the campaign. He said:
+
+      "I asserted in terms which even cavilers could not
+      misunderstand nor any honest man doubt, my devotion to the
+      Union, my unfaltering determination to maintain by all
+      constitutional means, and with undiminished zeal, the equal
+      rights of the South, and my acquiescence in the compromise
+      measures. Satisfied that such declarations, in the excited
+      state of feeling, would not meet the exactions of either
+      party in a contest peculiarly bitter, and unable to
+      sacrifice for the purpose of victory the dictates of
+      conscience or the convictions of judgment, I expressed a
+      willingness to retire."
+
+On the 10th of November Robert Toombs was elected United States Senator.
+In the caucus he secured 73 votes, and in the open Assembly next day he
+received 120 votes, scattering, 50.
+
+Never was reward more swift or signal to the master-mind of a campaign.
+If he had been the leader of the extreme Southern wing in Congress, he
+had shown his willingness to accept a compromise and go before the
+people in defense of the Union.
+
+He was charged with having aroused the Secession storm. If he had
+unwittingly done so in Congress in order to carry his point, he proved
+himself powerful in stopping it at home. What some of his critics had
+said of him was true: "The rashest of talkers, he was the safest of
+counselors." Certain it is that at a moment of national peril he
+repelled the charge of being an "irreconcilable," and proved to be one
+of the stanchest supporters of the Union.
+
+In Milledgeville, during the turmoil attending the election of United
+States Senator in November, 1851 Mr. Toombs wrote to his wife as
+follows:
+
+      Since I wrote you last I have been in the midst of an
+      exciting political contest with constantly varying aspects.
+      The friends of Judge Berrien are moving every possible
+      spring to compass my defeat, but as yet I have constantly
+      held the advantage over them. They started Mr. Jenkins and
+      kept him up, under considerable excitement, until he came
+      to town yesterday and instantly withdrew his name. To-day
+      they have started a new batch of candidates: Judge Hill,
+      Hines Holt, Warren, Charlton, and others, all of whom they
+      seek to combine. I think I can beat the whole combination,
+      though it is too close to be comfortable. It is impossible
+      to give an idea of every varying scene, but as I have
+      staked my political fortunes on success, if I am defeated
+      in this conflict my political race is over, and perhaps I
+      feel too little interest in the result for success.
+
+      Dawson is at home sick; Stephens is not here; so I am
+      standing very much on my own hand, breasting the conflict
+      alone. So I shall have the consolation of knowing that, if
+      I succeed, the victory will be all my own. The contest will
+      be decided by Monday next, and perhaps sooner.... As soon
+      as it is over I shall leave here and shall be at home at
+      furthest to-day week. If I were not complicated in this
+      business, nothing would induce me to go into it. There are
+      so many unpleasant things connected with it, which will at
+      least serve as lessons for the future, whatever may be the
+      result. You can see from this letter how deeply I am
+      immersed in this contest, yet I am getting so impatient to
+      come home that even defeat would be better than this
+      eternal annoyance.
+
+        TOOMBS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF 1852.
+
+
+In this first struggle between Secession and the Union Georgia had taken
+the lead, but Georgia had not been the only State involved. The fight
+was waged just as fiercely in Mississippi, when Henry S. Foote, the
+Union candidate, was elected Governor over Jefferson Davis. But the
+Georgia Platform was the corner-stone of the Southern victory. Her
+action gave peace and quiet to the whole Union, and the success of the
+triumvirate that year offered assurance of strength and security to the
+country. The national parties were quick to align themselves on this
+platform. The Democratic convention, which assembled in Baltimore June
+1, declared that "the party would abide by and adhere to a faithful
+execution of the Acts known as the Compromise Measures, settled by the
+last Congress." The Whig convention, which met also at Baltimore, June
+16, proclaimed that "the series of Acts of the thirty-first Congress,
+known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, the Act known as the
+Fugitive-slave law included, are received and acquiesced in by the Whig
+party of the United States as a settlement in principle and substance
+of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace."
+
+"The truth is," said Mr. Stephens in his "War Between the States," "an
+overwhelming majority of the people, North as well as South, was in
+favor of maintaining these principles."
+
+Under these conditions the presidential campaign of 1852 was opened. The
+Southern Whigs did not, as a body, accept the Baltimore nominee, General
+Winfield Scott. They claimed that he had refused to express any direct
+approval of the platform relating to the compromise. Mr. Toombs demanded
+that his candidate plant himself unequivocally upon this platform. He
+noticed that the opponents of the Fugitive-slave law were strong for
+Scott. Feeling in the South was still running high. Some extremists held
+that no Northern man was fit to be trusted. Mr. Toombs declared that
+there were good and true men at the North and that he would "hold party
+associations with no others."
+
+In a speech to his own townspeople in Washington, Ga., during this
+presidential campaign, Mr. Toombs declared that he had not changed one
+iota, but was ready now to support the men who would plant themselves on
+the broad principles of the Constitution and the country. He said
+General Scott had no claims whatever upon the people. He spoke of him as
+a great general, and alluded in glowing terms to his achievements in
+arms against the Mexicans and Indians. But General Scott, he believed,
+was a Free-Soil candidate. He would be in favor of annexing Canada, but
+no more slave territory. Mr. Toombs alluded to the Democratic candidate
+for President, General Franklin Pierce, as a very consistent man in all
+his senatorial career, and believed he was the safest man on the slavery
+question north of Mason and Dixon's line. He preferred Pierce to Scott,
+but said he would not vote for either. The contest was "between a big
+general and a little general."
+
+Mr. Toombs launched into a magnificent tribute to Daniel Webster as a
+statesman and friend of the Constitution. It was Webster who had stayed
+the flood of abolition and killed the Wilmot Proviso; who had dared, in
+the face of the North, and in defiance of his constituents, to boldly
+defend the rights of the South and exclaim, "O God, I will be just!"
+
+This allusion of Mr. Toombs rang throughout the State. Its significance
+lay in the fact that the Whigs of Georgia, in convention assembled, had
+nominated Daniel Webster for President and Charles J. Jenkins for
+vice-president of the United States. Without chance of national success,
+this ticket was received with strong expression of indorsement. Since
+his celebrated "4th of March" speech, in the Senate, Mr. Webster had
+been a favorite in the South. He had abandoned the Wilmot Proviso and
+accepted the Fugitive-slave law to conciliate the sections, and the
+addition of his great name to seal the Compromise of 1850 was regarded
+in the South as an act of patriotism reached by few men in the country's
+history. His speech had made a profound impression. "The friends of the
+Union under the Constitution were strengthened in their hopes, and
+inspired with renewed energies by its high and lofty sentiments."
+Commanding always the respect and admiration of the Southern people Mr.
+Webster now took the place in their affections just made vacant by the
+death of Henry Clay. Mr. Webster must have put aside all political
+ambition when he made this peaceful concession. His new-found strength
+in the South did not add to his popularity in the North. When the Whig
+convention of 1852 met in Baltimore, Mr. Webster was Secretary of State
+under President Fillmore. He had added fresh luster to his name by his
+latest services to the nation. But the prestige of his life and labors
+did not override the passions of the hour, and Winfield Scott was
+nominated for the Presidency. This broke the last tie which held the
+Southern Whigs in national allegiance. Circumstances were forcing them
+into the Democratic party, but they made a final stand under the name
+of Daniel Webster.
+
+To Mr. Toombs, the regard of the Whigs of Georgia for Mr. Webster was
+especially gratifying. He had lived next door to the great Massachusetts
+statesman during his residence in Washington, and had seen him often in
+the privacy of his home. He had consulted closely with him during the
+exciting days of the compromise measures, and was advised by Mr. Webster
+about the Whig platform at Baltimore. He recognized the surpassing
+greatness of the man, and when he sounded the praises of Webster it came
+straight from an honest heart.
+
+Charles J. Jenkins, a native of Beaufort, S. C., had studied law with
+Senator Berrien and practiced in Augusta. His nomination to second place
+on the Webster ticket was a pledge of the high favor of the Whigs. Mr.
+Jenkins was five years the senior of Mr. Toombs; had served with him in
+the State Legislature and, like Toombs, had been allied with the Troup
+party in Georgia. Mr. Jenkins had been three times Speaker of the lower
+branch of the General Assembly, and in 1842 had received the entire Whig
+vote for United States Senator. Upon the resignation of McKennon of
+Pennsylvania, President Fillmore had, through Mr. Toombs, offered the
+Interior Department to Mr. Jenkins. This position, however, was
+declined because of pressing duties in the courts.
+
+In the senatorial election of 1851 Mr. Jenkins would have been a
+formidable candidate for United States Senator again, had not his strong
+friendship both for Senator Berrien and Mr. Toombs dictated his
+declining the use of his name. He was a man of high ability and pure
+character.
+
+Georgia became a national battle-ground during this campaign. Besides
+the regular Whig and Democratic and the Webster tickets, there was an
+extreme faction of States' Rights men, who would not accept any of these
+candidates. They called on George M. Troup, then living in retirement in
+Montgomery County. He wrote a ringing letter accepting the nomination of
+the "Southern Rights" party for President. He was seventy-two years old,
+but his cherished principles, which he had proclaimed in the face of
+Adams and Jackson, were now repeated for the people of another
+generation.
+
+The gallant body of Union Whigs were destined to deep affliction. On the
+24th of October, 1852, ten days before the national election, Daniel
+Webster died. The land was filled with lamentation, for there was no
+North, no South, in this sorrow.
+
+The State of Georgia, which in 1848 had voted for Taylor, now turned
+about and voted for Pierce and King. On November 2d the South Carolina
+Legislature also cast 135 votes for the Pierce electors. General Scott
+carried but four States in the Union, caused, as Mr. Stephens and Mr.
+Toombs thought, by his refusal to indorse the Compromise of 1850.
+
+On July 3, 1852, Mr. Toombs, then a member of the House, submitted an
+elaborate statement of his political position. He made the point that
+presidents, as then put forward, were not real representatives of the
+country or even of a party. From the beginning of the government up to
+1836 the presidency had been filled by ripe statesmen and tried
+patriots. _All_ were excluded from competition except those who had
+great experience in public affairs, and who had commended themselves to
+the people by wisdom, virtue, and high services. Such men had no need of
+hired biographers and venal letter-writers to inform the people who they
+were. They needed no interpreters of letters to the public, cunningly
+devised to mystify what they pretended to elucidate. National
+conventions, Mr. Toombs contended, were contrivances to secure popular
+support to those who were not entitled to public confidence.
+
+Mr. Toombs was an enemy to mere convention. All party machinery, all
+irregular organizations, which are unknown to the Constitution, he
+regarded as dangerous to public liberty. He had noticed that this
+machinery had been deadly to the great men of the nation and productive
+only of mediocrity. Obedience to them, he contended, was infidelity to
+popular rights. "This system," said he, "has produced none of those
+illustrious men who have become so distinguished in their country's
+history; none of those political lights which have shone so brilliantly
+on this Western continent for half a century. Nearly all of them have
+departed from us. Who is to take the place of the distinguished
+Carolinian?" he asked. "He was the handiwork of God himself and of the
+people--not party machinery. Who is to fill the place of the great
+Kentuckian? When worthily filled, it will not be by these nurseries of
+faction.
+
+"The friends of the Compromise," said Mr. Toombs, "demand no sectional
+candidate. They were willing to accept the great New England statesman,
+notwithstanding they may point to disagreements with him in the past. He
+has thrown the weight of his mighty intellect into the scales of
+concord, in the darkest and most perilous hour of the conflict. And
+Southern Whigs would have struggled with pride and energy to have seen
+the greatest intellect of the age preside over the greatest republic of
+the world. He was defeated in convention by the enemies of the
+compromise measure, because he was its friend. And this was the true
+reason of his exclusion. It is a sufficient reason for the friends of
+the measure, North and South, to oppose and defeat General Scott's
+nomination. My action shall respond to my convictions."
+
+Mr. Toombs had seen Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, one by one, retired
+before Van Buren, Harrison, and Scott. Was it any wonder that, in
+breaking away from the old Whig party, he should denounce the system
+which had blighted its brightest men and which, in his opinion, had
+retired the greatest statesman in the world before an issue of sectional
+prejudice? Mr. Toombs never again gave allegiance to conventions or
+obeyed the dictates of party caucuses. From 1854 to 1860 he was a
+Democrat. After the war he acted mainly with the party which sympathized
+with the South. But his great power made him independent. He did not
+hesitate to criticise Pierce or Buchanan, or to upbraid Jefferson Davis,
+the head of the Southern Confederacy. He repudiated the nomination of
+Horace Greeley by his party. He called a meeting in his own room in an
+Atlanta hotel in 1872, and put A. H. Stephens before the people for
+Congress. In 1878, when the organized Democracy of Georgia antagonized
+Dr. William H. Felton for Congress in the seventh Georgia district, Mr
+Toombs wrote a letter to the press, in which he declared that party
+conventions were merely advisory. "When their action becomes
+authoritative, they are usurpers. They deprive the people of free
+elections. Let their actions be approved or disapproved by the elections
+of the people." He supported Mr. Stephens, who did not hesitate to "tote
+his own skillet," when occasion required. Toombs' independence was
+lordly. He believed in the utmost freedom in public affairs. Machinery
+was as hateful to him as to Thomas Jefferson. He was "the prince of
+innovation; the foe to all convention." No less than of Burke, it was
+said of him that "born for the universe, he did not surrender to party,"
+but General Longstreet declared of Robert Toombs that he needed only
+discipline to make him a great military genius. This was the radical
+flaw in his make-up. How near he came to the ideal of a statesman
+posterity must judge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+TOOMBS IN THE SENATE.
+
+
+When Robert Toombs entered the Senate of the United States, in 1853, the
+_personnel_ of that body had changed since the great debates on the
+compromise measures. Calhoun had died before the compromise was
+effected, and only a short time after his last address had been read to
+the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia. Clay survived his last greatest
+work but two years, and on the 29th of June, 1852, was no more. Daniel
+Webster lived only four months longer than Mr. Clay. Among the new
+leaders in that body were Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, William M.
+Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Charles Sumner of
+Massachusetts. To this list may be added the familiar names of Thompson
+of Mississippi, Bayard of Delaware, Toucey of Connecticut, Slidell of
+Louisiana, Achison of Missouri, Bell of Tennessee, and Cass of Michigan.
+
+The third great sectional fight on the Territories came up on the report
+to organize a government for that tract of public domain lying in the
+Louisiana cession, known as Kansas and Nebraska. In doing this, Mr.
+Douglas, as chairman of the Committee on Territories, adopted the same
+principle on the slavery question as had been settled in the Utah and
+New Mexico bills of 1850.
+
+The words of the Nebraska bill were that "said Territory, or any portion
+of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery as
+their constitutions may prescribe at the time of their admission." Mr.
+Douglas claimed that the question of congressional interference was an
+"exploded doctrine"; that the Missouri Compromise bill had been ignored
+by North and South; that the Wilmot Proviso had been rejected
+altogether; and that the principles of 1850 had superseded the
+principles of 1820. The committee sought to avoid the perils of slavery
+agitation for all time, they claimed, by withdrawing the question of
+slavery from the halls of Congress and from national politics. "Let the
+new States and Territories," they said, "settle this matter for
+themselves." Mr. Sumner of Massachusetts took the lead in opposing the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill. He declared that the bill violated the principles
+of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in all that
+territory ceded by France and lying north of 36 deg. 30'. He and his friends
+held that this was a "sacred compact," and this territory could not be
+controlled by the same principles as the land secured from Mexico.
+
+The second bill drawn by Mr. Douglas, which provided for the
+establishment of two territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska,
+instead of one, expressly repealed the Missouri Compromise as being
+inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress. Here,
+then, the contest waged anew.
+
+One of the first speeches made by Senator Toombs was on the 23d of
+February, 1854, on the Kansas-Nebraska bill.
+
+Douglas was in charge of the Territorial bills, and his readiness in
+debate, his sinewy intellect, his tact and shrewdness, had gained for
+him the name of "Little Giant." Seward, Chase, and Sumner had been
+elected from their States as "independent Democrats" by the
+Abolitionists, who held the balance of power in New York, Ohio, and
+Massachusetts. Mr. Toombs was more than willing to measure swords with
+the champions of free soil. He declared that he would address himself to
+the consideration of the Kansas-Nebraska bill "with a heart filled with
+gratitude to the Disposer of human events, that after the conflicts of
+more than a third of a century this great question has found its
+solution, not in temporary expedients for allaying sectional discord,
+but in the true principles of the Constitution and upon the broad
+foundation of justice and right, which forms the only true basis of
+fraternity and of national concord."
+
+Mr. Toombs repudiated the libel cast by Mr. Sumner upon Northern men who
+"dared to exercise the rights of freemen" and differ from the
+Abolitionists upon this question. "It appears," said he, "from the
+speeches of the senator from Massachusetts, that all such are white
+slaves, whose manhood has been debased and enervated by the irresistible
+attractions of slave power." He declared that the men who talked about
+"solemn compact" in this connection were men whom "no oaths can bind and
+no covenants restrain." They called the Missouri Compromise a compact,
+yet showed their willingness to violate it.
+
+"In all governments," said Mr. Toombs, "the acquisitions of the state
+belong rightfully to the people. Much more strongly does this principle
+apply to a purely popular government. Therefore, any exercise of power
+to injure or destroy those who have equal rights of enjoyment is
+arbitrary, unauthorized by the contract, and despotic."
+
+"You have no power to strike from the meanest Indian trapper, the basest
+trader or camp-follower, as the senator from New York styled these
+people, their equal privileges, this sovereignty of right, which is the
+birthright of every American citizen. This sovereignty may--nay, it
+must--remain in abeyance until society becomes sufficiently strong and
+stable to be entitled to its full exercise, as sovereignty does not
+belong to the general government, and its exercise is a marked
+usurpation."
+
+"The power and duty, then, of this government over the inchoate society
+of the Territories, is simply to protect this equality of right of
+persons and property of all the members of society until the period
+shall arrive when this dormant sovereignty shall spring into active
+existence and exercise all the powers of a free, sovereign, and
+independent State. Then it can mold, according to its own sovereign will
+and pleasure, its own institutions, with the single restriction that
+they must be republican."
+
+"Justice," said Mr. Toombs, "is the highest expediency, the supremest
+wisdom. Applying that test to the principles of this measure, I say that
+no fair man in any portion of the country can come to any other
+conclusion than that it establishes between the people of this Union,
+who are bound together under a common Constitution, a firm, a permanent,
+a lasting bond of harmony.
+
+"What is it that we of the South ask? Do we make any unjust or unequal
+demands on the North? None. Do we ask what we are not willing on our
+side to grant to them? Not at all. We say to them 'Gentlemen, here is
+our common territory. Whether it be ceded by old States, whether it be
+acquired by the common treasure, or was the fruits of successful war to
+which we rallied, and in which we all fought, we ask you to recognize
+this great principle of the revolution: let such as desire, go there,
+enjoy their property, take with them their flocks and herds, their
+men-servants and maid-servants, if they desire to take them there; and
+when the appropriate time comes for the exercise of the dormant
+sovereignty of the people, let them fix the character of their
+institutions for themselves.'"
+
+Senator Toombs ridiculed the idea of the "thunder of popular
+indignation." "If even this were true, it should in no wise control the
+actions of American senators. But it is not real but melodramatic
+thunder--nothing but phosphorus and sheet-iron."
+
+Senator Toombs admitted that the North had the power to reject the
+principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. They had a majority in the House
+and Senate. Aristides had said, "True, you can do it; you have got the
+power; but, Athenians, it is unjust."
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT TOOMBS, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM GEORGIA, 1855.]
+
+Senator Toombs was a bold man. When he adopted a line of argument, he
+was willing to follow wherever its conclusions led. He did not
+hesitate, in this speech, to admit that "if you yield to the people the
+right to mold their institutions, the establishment of polygamy may
+result legitimately therefrom." This point had been made in debate to
+fight the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Said Senator Toombs:
+"It is just what they have a right to do. When the people of Utah make
+their organic law for admission to the Union, they have a right to
+approximate, as nearly as they please, the domestic manners of the
+Patriarchs. Connecticut may establish polygamy to-morrow. The people of
+Massachusetts may do the same. How did they become possessed of greater
+rights, in this or any other respect, than the people of Utah? The right
+in both cases has the same foundation--the sovereignty of the people."
+
+Senator Toombs adverted to the fact that Henry Clay had denied that he
+framed the Missouri Compromise; that it did not originate in the House,
+of which he was a member; that he did not even know if he voted for it.
+Senator Toombs held the Act of 1820 to be no compact--binding upon no
+man of honor; but, on the contrary, a plain and palpable violation of
+the Constitution and the common rights of the citizens, and ought to be
+immediately abrogated and repealed. He declared that it had been
+rejected by the North when passed, and rejected when Arkansas was
+admitted, when Oregon was formed, when California was received as a
+State. If the Kansas bill was settled upon sound and honest principles,
+he maintained that it should be applied to territory ceded from France
+just as elsewhere. He contended that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was
+not a compromise in any sense of the term, but an unconstitutional
+usurpation of power. "When we look into the Constitution, we find no
+antislavery power planted in that instrument. On the contrary, we find
+that it amply provides for the perpetuity and not for the extinction of
+slavery."
+
+Senator Toombs closed his first speech in the Senate with these words:
+"The senator from New York asks where and when the application of these
+principles will stop. He wishes not to be deceived in the future, and
+asks us whether, when we bring the Chinese and other distant nations
+under our flag, we are to apply these principles to them? For one, I
+answer yes; that wherever the flag of the Union shall float, this
+republican principle will follow it, even if it should gather under its
+ample folds the freemen of every portion of the universe."
+
+The Kansas-Nebraska bill reopened the whole question of slavery. In the
+North, it was a firebrand. Mr. Buchanan, in his book, written after his
+retirement from the presidency, said that the South was for the first
+time the aggressor in this legislation. Mr. Fillmore declared that the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise was "the Pandora Box of Evil." Mr.
+Douglas was reviled by his opponents and burned in effigy at the North.
+His leadership in this fight was ascribed to his overweening ambition to
+reach the presidency. The clergymen of New England and of Chicago
+flooded the Senate with petitions crying against this "intrigue." On May
+26, 1854, at one o'clock in the morning, the bill passed the Senate by a
+vote of 31 to 13. The "nays" were Messrs. Allen, Bell, Chase, Clayton,
+Fish, Foote, Gillet, Hamlin, James, Seward, Sumner, Wade, and Walker.
+
+The enactment of this measure into a law did not settle the question. It
+resulted in a strife in the Territories themselves. For two years Kansas
+was in a state of civil war. The Emigrant Aid Societies of New England
+raised large sums of money to send to the Territories Free-Soil settlers
+and other agitators. A counter-stream of agitators set in from Missouri,
+in sympathy with the slavery men, and the result was a long series of
+bloody disorders. In February, 1856, Mr. Toombs made a speech upon the
+message of the President in regard to the lawless condition of Kansas.
+The Governor informed President Pierce that the laws were obstructed
+and openly resisted by bodies of armed men; that prisoners were rescued
+from the sheriffs, peaceable inhabitants murdered, and houses burned.
+Another authority informed the President that an overwhelming force was
+crossing the border for the avowed purpose of invading Kansas and
+butchering the unoffending Free-State citizens. One side claimed
+protection from insurrection within, the other from invasion without.
+
+As to the Emigrant Aid Societies, Mr. Toombs said, "Whatever be their
+policy, whatever their tendency to produce strife, if they simply aid
+emigrants from Massachusetts to go to Kansas to become citizens of that
+Territory, I am prepared to say that they violate no law; they have a
+right to do it, and every attempt to prevent their doing so violates the
+law and ought not to be sustained. But if they send persons there
+furnished with arms, with the intent to offer forcible resistance to the
+constituted authorities, they are guilty of the highest crime known to
+civil society, and are amenable to its penalties. I shall not undertake
+to decide upon their conduct. The facts are not before me, and I
+therefore pass it by."
+
+Mr. Toombs thought it would be difficult to imagine a case calling more
+loudly for the intervention of Federal power. Mr. Toombs favored the
+supremacy of the law in the Territories at any cost. "If traitors seek
+to disturb the peace of the country, I desire that it shall be no
+sectional contest. I do not see the end of that. I prefer that the
+conflict shall be between the Federal Government and the lawless. I can
+see the end of that. The law will triumph and the evil stop."
+
+"We who pass this Kansas-Nebraska bill, both at the North and South,
+intend to maintain its principles. We do not intend to be driven from
+them by clamor nor by assault. We intend that the actual _bona fide_
+settlers of Kansas shall be protected in the full exercise of all the
+rights of freemen; that, unawed and uncontrolled, they shall freely and
+of their own will legislate for themselves, to every extent allowed by
+the Constitution, while they have a territorial government; and when
+they shall be in a condition to come into the Union and may desire it,
+that they shall come into the Union with whatever republican
+constitution they may prefer and adopt for themselves; that in the
+exercise of their rights they shall be protected from insurrection from
+within and invasion from without."
+
+In answer to Senator Hale of New Hampshire, Senator Toombs agreed that
+the Territory of Kansas would certainly be a free State. Such, he
+thought would be its future destiny. "The senator from New Hampshire,"
+he said, "was unable to comprehend the principles of the bill. The
+friends of the Kansas bill, North and South, supported the bill because
+it was right, and left the future to those who were affected by it. The
+policy of the Kansas bill wrongs no man, no section of our common
+country. We have never asked the government to carry by force, or in any
+way, slavery anywhere. We only demand that the inhabitants of the
+Territories shall decide the question for themselves without the
+interference of the government or the intermeddling of those who have no
+right to decide."
+
+Mr. Toombs and Senator Hale of New Hampshire seem to have been pitted
+squarely against each other in this great debate.
+
+In 1854, during the progress of the Kansas debate, Mr. Toombs occupied
+Mr. Hale's desk, and alluded to the taunts which Mr. Hale had heaped
+upon the heads of senators who had sustained the compromise measures of
+1850. He had predicted that they would be driven from their seats; that
+the mighty North would drive them from their benches. The distinguished
+senator from Michigan, Mr. Cass, was the especial object of these
+assaults. "But the result," said Mr. Toombs, looking about him, "is that
+the gentleman who made these declarations is not here."
+
+In 1856, however, Mr. Hale was returned to the Senate and met Mr.
+Toombs in the Kansas debate, and the discussion was continued with the
+same acrimony.
+
+"Let there be no legislative aggression on either side," continued Mr.
+Toombs. "If the senator from New Hampshire is sincere, he will stand
+there. The common property is open to the common enjoyment of all. Let
+it remain so."
+
+Mr. Toombs charged Senator Hale with saying that the North had always
+been practically in a minority in the Senate, because the South bought
+up as many Northern men as it wanted. "Sir, I stand here to-day in
+behalf of the North to repel the accusation."
+
+Mr. Hale: "Who made it?"
+
+Mr. Toombs: "You said it. I have it before me in your printed speech. I
+heard it delivered, and you are correctly reported."
+
+In a letter to Mr. B. F. Hallet of Boston, in 1856, Mr. Toombs denied
+saying that he would "call the roll of his slaves at the base of Bunker
+Hill Monument." He charged Senator Hale with misrepresenting him to this
+extent.
+
+No man was oftener misquoted by word of mouth or in public print. As
+bold as he was in speech and as free to speak out what was in his mind,
+he once remarked to an intimate friend, Dr. Steiner of Augusta, that he
+rarely ever saw his name in print that it was not attached to a lie.
+
+We are not left to tradition or the dictum of political opponents to
+know how seriously Mr. Toombs regarded the question of war between the
+North and South. In this same debate with Senator Hale, Mr. Toombs said:
+"He told us the North would fight. I believe that nobody ever doubted
+that any portion of the United States would fight on a proper occasion.
+Sir, if there shall ever be civil war in this country, when honest men
+shall set about cutting each other's throats, those who are least to be
+depended upon in a fight will be the people who set them at it. There
+are courageous and honest men enough in both sections to fight.... No,
+sir, there is no question of courage involved. The people of both
+sections of the Union have illustrated their courage on too many
+battlefields to be questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities,
+shoulder to shoulder, whenever their country has called upon them; but
+that they may never come in contact with each other in fratricidal war,
+should be the ardent wish and earnest desire of every true man and
+honest patriot."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE "KNOW-NOTHING" PARTY.
+
+
+In the fall of 1854 the elections were generally adverse to the
+Democrats. The slavery agitation at the North, intensified by the
+passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resulted in a large number of
+Free-Soil candidates and "anti-Nebraska" Whigs being elected to the
+House. In the West and South, the "Know-nothing" movement had arisen as
+in a single night, and with secrecy and strength had asserted itself on
+election day. The consequence was that the Democratic majority in the
+House which had been elected with Franklin Pierce now disappeared. The
+years of 1854-55 were full of uncertainty in Georgia. The old-line
+Whigs, who had broken away from their party associates upon the
+nomination of General Scott for President, had not yet gone into full
+affiliation with the Democrats. Many of these men joined the "American
+party," which had arisen out of antagonism to the large foreign
+population flowing into the States and Territories. This party put out
+candidates for Congress and the State offices in Georgia.
+
+To Alexander H. Stephens, more than to any other man, was due the honor
+of breaking up the Know-nothing movement in Georgia. Amazed at the
+rapidity with which this party organized and the completeness with which
+it worked; repudiating the principles which it held and the
+proscriptions which it enforced, Alexander Stephens announced, early in
+the day, that he would not be a candidate for reelection to Congress. He
+declared, in a letter, that, from the secrecy of the order, he was
+unable to know what they were doing, and, as political principles should
+come out in the open sunlight for inspection, he could not submit his
+candidacy to any such concern. He did not hesitate to condemn the
+practices and creed of the American party in public. Prominent leaders
+in his district who recognized his ability made it known that they were
+willing to support him, if he would not be so severe in his
+denunciations. Mr. Stephens promptly replied that the crisis required
+the knife, not the poultice. However, he did run for Congress and scored
+the secret order on every stump in the district. He declared, in a
+speech in Augusta, that he "was not afraid of anything on the earth,
+above the earth, or below the earth, except to do wrong." Mr. Stephens
+was elected. Religious fanaticism and race prejudice received a death
+blow in Georgia. "It writhed in pain, and died among its worshipers."
+
+Mr. Toombs had already made himself felt in this campaign. He was in the
+shadow of a domestic affliction. His youngest daughter died in February
+of that year. This occurrence brought him to decide upon a trip abroad,
+which he had long anticipated, but which his busy and eventful life had
+not allowed him to enjoy.
+
+In April, 1855, he wrote his wife:
+
+      I feel more and more anxious to get abroad and out of this
+      country; to be relieved of the thousand harassments of
+      business, and look for a great deal of pleasure in our
+      quiet and uninterrupted strolling over the hills and plains
+      of Europe, where nobody knows us and nobody can harass me
+      with business or their troubles. I wish I could, like our
+      darling child, thank God there was rest in Heaven.
+
+Just before he left the State, he attended the Supreme Court of Georgia,
+at Milledgeville. At that time he wrote his wife:
+
+      I have had a hard, close week's work. The lawyers very
+      kindly gave way and allowed my cases to come this week,
+      which brought them very close together, and, as I am but
+      ill prepared for them, not having given them any attention
+      last winter, and but little this spring, I have been pretty
+      much speaking all day and studying all night--and that
+      without the benefit of "specks," which I am beginning to
+      need.
+
+      All the old Whigs here have joined the Know-nothings, and
+      keep very shy of me, as I have spoken not softly of the
+      miserable wretches who expect to govern a great country
+      like this with imbecility, if they can only cover it with
+      secrecy. I have been greatly beset not to go to Europe this
+      summer, as the political campaign is likely to be hot. I
+      shall go, and the rather that I may avoid such an event,
+      and take that leisure and repose with my family in foreign
+      countries which I seem to be totally incapable of getting
+      at home.
+
+Mr. Toombs left no doubt as to how he regarded the American party. In a
+speech on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he had declared that the country
+could assimilate the foreigners from Europe and the Chinamen from Asia,
+and gather under the ample folds of the American flag every nation on
+earth.
+
+It is related that in the early part of Mr. Toombs' political career he
+was accused of having subscribed to build a Catholic church in Georgia.
+The charge was repeated secretly from ear to ear until it came to his
+friends. It was on the eve of an election in Wilkes County, and a
+delegation, in spite of the lateness of the hour, went to Mr. Toombs'
+residence, awoke him, and asked for an authoritative denial of what they
+considered a damaging charge. Mr. Toombs listened to the delegation, and
+then declared with emphasis, not free from profanity, that it was so. "I
+have responded to their calls just as I have those of other
+denominations. You can tell the people that the distribution of my
+money is none of their business."
+
+This bold and prompt reply did not prevent his reelection to the
+legislature the next day.
+
+No man was more liberal in matters of religion and conscience than Mr.
+Toombs. In 1851 he wrote his wife in reply to a letter informing him
+that his daughter wanted to join the Methodist Church:
+
+      I am content if she desires, and you wish it. My opinions
+      about revivals, to which you refer, have been long formed
+      and much strengthened by my experience in the world, but I
+      am not at all desirous that they should be the rule of
+      anybody's conduct but my own. I have therefore endeavored
+      to stand upon the Protestant principle in matters of
+      conscience, of judging for myself and allowing others to do
+      the same. The Judge of the Earth will do right at the final
+      hearing.
+
+On June 6, 1855, Mr. Toombs set sail from New York, in company with his
+wife and daughter, and Mr. W. F. Alexander, his son-at-law. In ten days,
+after a smooth trip, he landed in Liverpool, with just enough roughness
+off the coast of Ireland to show old Neptune in his element. Mr. Toombs
+was in the very prime of a vigorous life. He had accumulated a
+competency at the law, was in fine physical condition, and had a mind
+broad, sensitive, and retentive. He could stand any amount of
+travel--this man who rode his circuits on his horse, and who endured the
+wearing trips from Georgia to the national capital. He remarked at the
+outset of his European trip that he had more money than time, so he
+secured special conveyances at every available place, and pushed his
+journey to all points of interest. From London he went to Paris, Lyons,
+Marseilles, thence to the Mediterranean, where he passed the Fourth of
+July plowing his way to Naples, sleeping on deck to escape the stuffy
+stateroom of the little steamer, and catching all the cinders from the
+smokestack. Embarking at Naples, he went to Rome, where he was entranced
+to see the historic spots of the Eternal City. Rome had for him more
+charms than Paris. Crossing the Alps, he went to Geneva, and striking
+the Rhine, he proceeded by boat to Amsterdam, thence to Brussels, where
+he walked over the field of Waterloo. Leaving his family in Paris, he
+crossed to England and made a tour alone through Ireland and Scotland.
+
+As an American senator, Robert Toombs bore letters of introduction to
+prominent people in Europe. His reputation was international, his
+acquaintance with the diplomatists of the Old World was extensive, and
+his knowledge of the history and government of the different countries
+was complete. But he did not seek notoriety in his trip abroad. He
+presented none of his letters. He preferred to travel among the people,
+and at night, like Jean Valjean, he loved to see the _bourgeois_ in
+their gardens and at their ease, in order to study their habits and
+condition. He took great interest in the laborers. On one occasion he
+got down from his _diligence_ to ask a man, who was drawing water from a
+well to irrigate the land, how much he was paid for this slow and
+cumbersome process. He was astonished to hear that it was but twelve
+cents a day.
+
+Mr. Toombs spoke the French language; he studied the people, and no man
+was a better judge of human nature. He said when he returned that the
+Southern slave was better treated and was a better laborer than most of
+the peasants whom he had seen.
+
+His conversation during his European trip was bright and racy. He never
+fagged in body or mind. He never became a trifler or a tease. He was not
+a man who cared for his personal comforts or appetites. Occasionally he
+would abuse the hotels as being far behind the American hostelry. Now
+and then he would jest with his guide or indulge in bright raillery over
+the Italian peddler with the inevitable cigarette. He made it a rule to
+smoke a cigar in every country, to test the tobacco, and also to sample
+the wine of every nation. He drank but little at that time, never
+touching ardent spirits in any way. Good-humor, good health, and
+happiness followed him as he made the circuit of the Continent.
+
+Just three months were passed by him in the Old World. He arrived in New
+York in September, 1855, where telegrams awaited him, summoning him to a
+desperate campaign in Georgia.
+
+The contest in Georgia that year was sharp. The American party elected
+several members of Congress, but their candidate for Governor, Judge
+Andrews, was defeated by Herschel V. Johnson. The latter was one of the
+strongest Democrats in Georgia. He had, in 1853, been elected Governor
+over so able a man as Charles J. Jenkins.
+
+Mr. Toombs plunged at once into the canvass and proceeded, in his own
+vigorous way, to fight the Know-nothings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TOOMBS IN BOSTON.
+
+
+In 1856, Mr. Toombs visited Boston, and delivered a lecture upon
+slavery. It was a bold move, and many of his friends advised against it.
+They did not see what good would come from the appearance of an extreme
+Southern man in the heart of abolitionism, carrying his doctrines to the
+very citadel of antislavery. But Toombs, with dramatic determination,
+decided to accept. Several Southern statesmen had been invited to appear
+before Boston audiences, but prudence had kept them from complying.
+
+On the evening of the 24th of January, Mr. Toombs ascended the stage at
+Tremont Temple. A large audience greeted him. There was great curiosity
+to see the Southern leader. They admired the splendid audacity of this
+man in coming to the place where Garrison had inveighed against slavery
+and had denounced the Constitution as a "league with Hell and a covenant
+with the Devil"; where Wendell Phillips had exerted his matchless
+oratory, and where Charles Sumner had built up his reputation as an
+unflagging enemy of Southern propagandism. Mr. Toombs was in good trim
+for this supreme effort. Inspired by the significance of his mission, he
+seemed possessed of unusual strength. His fine eye lighted with his
+theme, and his brow seemed stamped with confidence rather than defiance.
+His long, black hair was brushed from his forehead, and his deep voice
+filled the historic hall. He was indeed a fine specimen of a man--a Saul
+among his fellows. Possibly he was moved by the thought that he stood
+where Webster had pleaded for the Union, for concession, and for harmony
+six years before, when the people for the first time had turned from him
+and when Fanueil Hall had been closed against him.
+
+Senator Toombs was attended upon the stage by William and Nathan
+Appleton, whose guest he was. Their presence was a guarantee that the
+speaker should receive a respectful hearing. It was noticed at the
+outset that he had abandoned his fervid style of speaking. He delivered
+his address from notes in a calm and deliberate manner. He never
+prepared a speech with so much care. His discourse was so logical and
+profound, his bearing so dignified and impressive, that his hearers were
+reminded of Webster.
+
+It was evident early in the evening that his lecture would produce a
+powerful effect. To many of his hearers his views were novel and fresh,
+as they had never heard the Southern side of this great question. "With
+the exception of Sam Houston," said a New York paper, "Mr. Toombs is the
+only Southern man who has had the pluck to go into the antislavery camp
+and talk aloud of the Constitution. Other Southern men, not afraid to
+face Boston, have been afraid to face opinion at home."
+
+In referring to the clause of the Constitution providing for the return
+of fugitive slaves, Mr. Toombs was greeted by a hiss. The speaker turned
+in the direction of the noise and said, "I did not put that clause
+there. I am only giving the history of the action of your own John
+Adams; of your fathers and mine. You may hiss them if you choose." The
+effect was electrical. The hiss was drowned in a storm of applause. The
+readiness and good-nature of the retort swept Boston off her feet, and
+for one moment prejudice was forgotten.
+
+The New York _Express_ declared that the speaker was earnest and
+deliberate, presenting his argument with great power, and his lecture of
+an hour and a half was, for the most part, listened to with respect and
+attention. There was some conduct in the audience at the close which the
+Boston _Journal_ was forced to denounce as "ungentlemanly." Three
+cheers, not unmixed with dissent, were given to the distinguished
+speaker. Someone called out, "When will Charles Sumner be allowed to
+speak in the South?"
+
+The New York _Express_ declared that "if Toombs and other hotheads would
+lecture in Syracuse, Oswego, Ashtabula, and other points of 'Africa,'
+they would do a good deal of good in educating the innocents and
+becoming themselves educated and freed from fire, froth, fury, and
+folly."
+
+This lecture of Mr. Toombs at Boston will live as the most lucid defense
+of slavery in law and in practice ever delivered. Slavery has fallen and
+mankind has made up its verdict; but this address will still be read
+with interest.
+
+He did not hesitate to say that Congress had no right to limit,
+restrain, or impair slavery; but, on the contrary, was bound to protect
+it. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, slavery was a fact.
+The Declaration did not emancipate a single slave; neither did the
+Articles of Confederation. The Constitution recognized slavery. Every
+clause relative to slavery was intended to strengthen and protect it.
+Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. The clause
+giving Congress power to make regulations for the Territories did not
+confer general jurisdiction. It was not proper nor just to prohibit
+slavery in the Territories. Penning the negro up in the old States would
+only make him wretched and miserable, and would not strike a single
+fetter from his limbs. Mr. Toombs simply asked that the common territory
+be left open to the common enjoyment of all the people of the United
+States; that they should be protected in their persons and property by
+the general government, until its authority be superseded by a State
+constitution, when the character of their democratic institutions was to
+be determined by the freemen thereof. "This," he said, "is justice. This
+is constitutional equity." Mr. Toombs contended that the compromise
+measures of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 were made to
+conform to this policy. "I trust--I believe," he continued, "that when
+the transient passions of the day shall have subsided, and reason shall
+have resumed her dominion, it will be approved, even applauded, by the
+collective body of the people."
+
+Upon the second branch of his theme, Mr. Toombs contended that so long
+as the African and Caucasian races co-exist in the same society, the
+subordination of the African is the normal and proper condition, the one
+which promotes the highest interests and greatest happiness of both
+races. The superiority of the white man over the black, he argued, was
+not transient or artificial. The Crown had introduced slavery among the
+American colonists. The question was not whether it was just to tear the
+African away from bondage in his own country and place him here.
+England had settled that for us. When the colonies became free they
+found seven hundred thousand slaves among them. Our fathers had to
+accept the conditions and frame governments to cover it. They
+incorporated no Utopian theories in their system. They did not so much
+concern themselves about what rights man might possibly have in a state
+of nature, as what rights he ought to have in a state of society. The
+lecturer maintained that under this system, the African in the
+slaveholding States is found in a better position than he has ever
+attained in any other age or country, whether in bondage or freedom. The
+great body of this race had been slaves in foreign lands and slaves in
+their native land. In the Eastern Hemisphere the African had always been
+in a servile condition. In Hayti and Jamaica experiments had been tried
+of freeing them, under the auspices of France and England. Miseries had
+resulted and ruin overwhelmed the islands. "Fanaticism may palliate, but
+could not conceal the utter prostration of the race." The best specimens
+of the race were to be found in the Southern States, in closest contact
+with slavery. The North does not want the negro, does not encourage his
+immigration. The great fact of the inferiority of the race is admitted
+everywhere in our country.
+
+"Our political system gives the slave great and valuable rights. His
+life is protected; his person secured from assault against all others
+except his master, and his master's power in this respect is placed
+under salutary legal restriction." He gets a home, ample clothing and
+food, and is exempted from excessive labor. When no longer capable of
+labor, from age or disease, he is a legal charge upon his master. The
+Southern slave, he said, is a larger consumer of animal food than any
+population in Europe, and larger than any laboring population in the
+United States, and their natural increase is equal to that of any other
+people. Interest and humanity cooperate in harmony for the well-being of
+slave labor. Labor is not deprived of its wages. Free labor is paid in
+money, the representative of products; slave labor in the products
+themselves. The agricultural and unskilled laborers of England fail to
+earn the comforts of the Southern slave. The compensation of labor in
+the Old World has been reduced to a point scarcely adequate to the
+continuation of the race.
+
+"One-half the lands of the cotton States is annually planted in food
+crops. This half is consumed by the laborers and animals. The tenant in
+the North does not realize so much."
+
+Mr. Toombs believed that the Southern men were awakening to the
+conviction that the slave should be taught to read and write, as being
+of more use to himself, his master, and society. He realized that the
+laws should protect marriage and other domestic ties, forbidding the
+separation of families, and stated that some of the slaveholding States
+had already adopted partial legislation for the removal of these evils.
+But the necessities of life and the roving spirit of the white people
+produced an infinitely greater amount of separation in families than
+ever happened to the colored race. "The injustice and despotism of
+England toward Ireland has produced more separation of Irish families
+and sundered more domestic ties within the last ten years than African
+slavery has effected since its introduction into the United States."
+England keeps 100,000 soldiers, a large navy, and innumerable police to
+secure obedience to her social institutions, and physical force is the
+only guarantee of her social order, the only cement of her gigantic
+empire. The laws restrain the abuses and punish the crimes of the slave
+system. Slavery is impossible in England and Europe, because wages have
+gone down to a point where they are barely sufficient to support the
+laborer and his family. Capital could not afford to own labor. Slavery
+ceased in England in obedience to this law, and not from any regard to
+liberty and humanity.
+
+Senator Toombs declared that the condition of the African might not be
+permanent among us. He might find his exodus in the unvarying law of
+population. Increase of population may supply to slavery its euthanasia
+in the general prostration of all labor. The emancipation of the negro
+in the West Indies had not made him a more useful or productive member
+of society. The slave States, with one-half the white population, and
+between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 slaves, furnish three-fifths of the
+annual product of the republic. In this relation, the labor of the
+country is united with and protected by its capital, directed by the
+educated and intelligent.
+
+Senator Toombs combated the idea that slavery debased and enervated the
+white man. To the Hebrew race were committed the orders of the Most
+High. Slaveholding priests ministered at their altars. Greece and Rome
+afforded the highest forms of civilization. Domestic slavery neither
+enfeebles nor deteriorates a race. Burke had declared that the people of
+the Southern colonies of America were much more strongly, and with a
+higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty that those to the
+Northward. Such were our Gothic ancestors; such were the Poles; such
+will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves. In such a
+people the haughtiness of domination combines itself with the spirit of
+freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.
+
+Senator Toombs declared that, in the great agitation which for thirty
+years had shaken the national government to its foundation and burst
+the bonds of Christian unity among the churches, the slaveholding States
+have scarcely felt the shock. Stability, progress, order, peace,
+content, prosperity reign through our borders. Not a single soldier is
+to be found in our domain to overawe or protect society. Mr. Toombs
+pictured the progress of the Southern churches, schools and colleges
+multiplying. None of these improvements had been aided by the Federal
+Government. "We have neither sought from it protection for our private
+interests nor appropriations for our public improvements. They have been
+effected by the unaided individual efforts of an enlightened, moral, and
+energetic people. Such is our social system and such our condition under
+it. We submit it to the judgment of mankind, with the firm conviction
+that the adoption of no other, under such circumstances, would have
+exhibited the individual man, bond or free, in a higher development or
+society in a happier civilization."
+
+Mr. Toombs carried his principles into practice. He owned and operated
+several large plantations in Georgia, and managed others as agent or
+executor. He had the care of, possibly, a thousand slaves. His old
+family servants idolized him. Freedom did not alter the tender bond of
+affection. They clung to him, and many of them remained with him and
+ministered to his family to the day of his death. The old plantation
+negroes never failed to receive his bounty or good will. During the
+sale of a plantation of an insolvent estate Mr. Toombs, who was
+executor, wrote to his wife, "The slaves sold well. There were few
+instances of the separation of families." He looked after the welfare of
+all his dependents. While he was in the army, his faithful servants took
+care of his wife and little grandchildren, and during his long exile
+from his native land they looked after his interests and watched for his
+return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION.
+
+
+The great contest of 1856 was coming on. A President was to be chosen.
+The relations of the sections were more strained every day. The
+elections of 1854 had emboldened the antislavery men to form the
+Republican party, and to put out, as their candidate, John C. Fremont,
+"pioneer and pathfinder," who had saved California to the Union. Fremont
+was not a statesman, but a hero of the kind who dazzled men, and was
+thought to be especially available as a presidential candidate. "Free
+soil, Free men, Fremont" was the cry, and it was evident that the
+Abolitionists had swept all the wavering Whigs into their lines and
+would make a determined fight. The American party nominated Millard
+Fillmore, and the Democracy, with a wealth of material and a
+non-sectional following, wheeled into line. President Pierce was willing
+to succeed himself. Stephen A. Douglas, who had rushed into the
+convention of 1852 with such reckless dash to put aside "the old fogies"
+of the party, was an avowed candidate. His championship of the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill had made him a favorite in the South, although it
+injured his chances at the North. It is not a little remarkable that
+Douglas, whose candidacy had the effect of setting aside Buchanan for
+Pierce in 1852, should afterward have been the means of turning down
+Pierce for Buchanan.
+
+James Buchanan of Pennsylvania had just returned from London, where he
+had served with dignity as American Minister. Free from recent
+animosities, he entered the field, fresh and full of prestige. He was
+nominated for President on the fifth day of the Democratic Convention,
+Georgia casting her vote for him. The Cincinnati platform adopted this
+plank:
+
+"_Resolved_: That we recognize the right of the people of the
+Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally
+and fairly expressed will of a majority of the actual residents, and
+whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a
+Constitution, either with or without domestic slavery, and to be
+admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with all the
+other States."
+
+Among the causes contributing to the current bitterness was the assault
+made upon Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, by Preston S.
+Brooks, a representative from South Carolina. This happened in May,
+1856, while Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk, after the Senate had
+adjourned. Mr. Brooks took exception to some remarks printed in Mr.
+Sumner's speech, entitled "The Crime against Kansas." In this speech,
+the senator had referred, in rather caustic terms, to Senator Butler of
+South Carolina. The latter was a kinsman of Mr. Brooks. The weapon used
+by Mr. Brooks was a gutta-percha cane, and Senator Sumner, who was a
+large, powerful man, in his effort to rise from his seat, forced his
+desk from its hinges and fell heavily to the floor. The assault created
+an immense sensation. It was associated in the heated minds at the North
+with the "slavery aggressions of the South." At the South, it was
+generally excused as the resentment of an impetuous young man to an
+insult offered an elderly kinsman. Northern men denounced the assault in
+unmeasured terms on the floor of the House and Senate. The affair led to
+several challenges between the representatives of both sections.
+Congressman Brooks resigned his seat, but was immediately reelected.
+
+When Senator Sumner made his statement of the attack, he said that,
+after he was taken from the floor, he saw his assailant standing between
+Senator Douglas and Senator Toombs. This led to the assertion by some
+parties that the attack was premeditated, and that the senator from
+Illinois and the senator from Georgia, who were strong political
+antagonists of Mr. Sumner, were aiding and abetting it. Both senators
+denied this from their places.
+
+The political activity was not confined to the North. There was a large
+element in Georgia which disapproved of the Kansas-Nebraska bill as an
+unwise concession on the part of the South. This class, combined with
+the American party, presented an active front against the party led by
+Senator Toombs. No contest was ever waged more vigorously in Georgia.
+New blood and new issues were infused into the fight. Mr. Toombs was at
+the maximum of his greatness. He took redoubled interest in the campaign
+in that the legislature to be chosen in 1857 was to elect his successor
+to the Senate, and because the principles in this national contest were
+taking shape for a State campaign the following year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"ON THE STUMP" IN GEORGIA.
+
+
+Among the young men on the stump that year was Benjamin H. Hill. He had
+come up from the plow-handles in Jasper County. Working his way to an
+education, he had graduated at the State University in 1845, with the
+first honors of his class. He was at this time barely more than thirty
+years of age, but he had won distinction at the bar and served his
+county in the State Senate. He was known for his aggressive, ringing
+eloquence, and a clear, searching style which had made him something
+more than local reputation. It was understood that he was the choice of
+the American party for Governor, and it was assumed that he would win
+his spurs in the national campaign. He did not hesitate to go into the
+thickest of the fight. He challenged Toombs and Stephens in their
+strongholds; on the 22d of October meeting Mr. Stephens at his
+stamping-ground in Lexington, Oglethorpe County, and the next day
+confronting Mr. Toombs at his home in Washington, Ga. There was a charm
+in the very audacity of this young Georgian. The man who would beard
+"the Douglas in his hall" was a curiosity to the people, for since the
+leadership of Toombs was established in 1844, no one, probably, had
+assumed to cross swords with him before his home people. The fact that
+young Hill had rather frustrated Mr. Stephens, in their first meeting,
+gave him fresh impetus for his clash with Toombs. People flocked to
+Washington by thousands. A large part of the audience which had cheered
+Ben Hill in Oglethorpe followed him to Wilkes.
+
+The speaking took place in Andrews' Grove, a noble cluster of oaks near
+the town, and by breakfast-time the place was filled with carriages and
+wagons. The red hills leading to Washington were alive with farmers and
+their wives and children, wheeling into the grove to hear the noble
+veteran and the brilliant young stranger debate upon current topics. Old
+and young men were there, and babies in arms. It was before the days of
+a universal press. People took their politics from the stump. They were
+trained in the great object-lessons of public life. The humble farmer
+knew all about the Missouri Compromise and the Nebraska bill. What they
+had learned was thorough. Every man was a politician.
+
+Ben Hill opened the discussion. He had the advantage of being a new and
+untried man, while Toombs and Stephens had spread their records upon
+the pages of hundreds of speeches. In those days of compromises and new
+departures, it was easy for a quick, bright fellow to make capital out
+of the apparent inconsistencies of public men. Hill was a master of
+repartee. He pictured Toombs' change from Whig to Democrat. He made a
+daring onslaught upon Toombs. Hill's bump of reverence was not large,
+and the way he handled this great statesman was a surprise. He did not
+hesitate to call him "Bobuel," and to try to convict him out of his own
+mouth of error.
+
+Toombs sat back with his fine features lit with scorn. His facial
+expression was a rare part of his strength. He seemed to repel with his
+look the impudence of this fearless young statesman. Hill saw the effect
+of his own audacity, and "plied his blows like wintry rain." A keen
+observer of this dramatic by-play declares that the pose of these two
+men reminded him of Landseer's picture of "Dignity and Impudence."
+
+Hill declared that Toombs had been in Congress, "sleeping over our
+rights." Toombs retorted, "I have been protecting your rights and your
+children's rights in spite of yourselves."
+
+Hill charged that Toombs had tried to dodge the issues of this campaign.
+Toombs, when he answered this part, cried out to the people impetuously:
+"Did I dodge the question, when in the presence of two thousand people,
+in the City of Augusta, and as I was about to travel in foreign lands,
+I denounced the secret midnight organization which was being fastened
+upon the freemen of the South? An organization whose chief measure was
+to prescribe a religious test in this land of liberty, and raise up a
+barrier to the entrance of the sons of the Old World, whose gallant
+sires aided us in achieving our independence?
+
+"Did I dodge, when, just before putting my foot on shipboard, I wrote a
+letter to my beloved South, warning them against this insidious
+organization creeping into their midst, piloted by dark lanterns to
+midnight lodges? Did I dodge, when, hearing, as I traveled, that this
+deadly order had taken hold and fastened its fangs in my State, I
+suspended my travels and took the first ship that bore me back to my
+native shores, and, raised my cry against these revolutionary measures?
+
+"Did I dodge, when, as soon as landing in Georgia, I traveled all night
+and spoke all next day against these blighting measures? If this be
+called dodging, I admit that I dodged, and the gentleman can make the
+most of it."
+
+Mr. Hill declared that the Kansas-Nebraska bill embodied the principles
+of "squatter sovereignty" and alien suffrage. The bill was not identical
+with the Utah and New Mexico bill, as Toombs and Stephens had alleged.
+The restrictive provisions of the Utah bill would prohibit this
+Territorial Legislature from excluding slavery. It could not do that
+until it became a State, while the Kansas bill allowed a majority of the
+actual residents to determine whether slavery should or should not
+exist, even prior to its admission as a State. He denounced the Kansas
+bill as a cheat, a swindle, and a surrender of our dearest rights. As to
+the National Convention, Mr. Hill declared that the South may have
+framed the platform, but the North secured the candidate. Mr. Hill,
+relative to territorial questions, recognized the right of native born
+and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in
+any Territory, to frame a constitution and laws and to regulate their
+social and domestic affairs in their own way. The American party
+proposed to extend the term required for naturalization and to bar the
+foreigners from holding office. Mr. Hill had strong sympathizers in the
+extreme Southern Rights' men, who were on hand in abundance.
+
+Mr. Toombs replied with great dignity and warmth. He said that the
+Nebraska bill was a reiteration of the true intent of the compromise
+measures of 1850; that whoever opposed the Kansas bill was opposed to
+the South. It was a touchstone for fixing party affiliations. It only
+carried out the Georgia platform protesting against Congressional
+prohibition of slavery in the Territories. He paid high tribute to
+Douglas as a patriot and friend to the South. "Whoever condemned
+Douglas needed watching himself." Mr. Toombs charged that the
+representatives of the Know-nothing party had voted for the
+Kansas-Nebraska bill, and now claimed ignorance of its provisions. He
+denied that either he or Mr. Stephens had declared that the Kansas bill
+was identical with the Utah bill. Mr. Hill insisted that they had said
+so. Affirmance and denial became heated, and talk of holding each other
+"personally responsible" was indulged in, but pretty soon the debate
+went back into the political grooves. Mr. Toombs denied that the bill
+was a "Pandora's box of evil," or that its passage was violative of the
+good faith of the South. This part of his argument, of course, was
+directed to meet Northern criticism. "The North," Mr. Toombs said, "had
+tried, by the Wilmot Proviso, to legislate the South out of the right of
+equal enjoyment of the Territories. The South had endeavored to take the
+question of these rights out of Congress, to establish the doctrine of
+non-intervention." This doctrine triumphed in 1850 and, despite the
+assertion of his opponent, was reaffirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
+This Act of 1854 was the great measure of justice and equality to the
+South.
+
+Mr. Toombs ridiculed the assertion of Millard Fillmore that the repeal
+of the Missouri Compromise was a violation of a sacred compact.
+"Fillmore," said Mr. Toombs, "is an amiable, clever sort of fellow, not
+to be trusted upon the great questions now before the country. He had
+withheld action upon the compromise measures of 1850 until his
+attorney-general told him that he must sign them."
+
+Someone reminded Toombs that he had supported Fillmore for vice
+president in 1848. He replied, "Yes, and I said then, that if Fillmore
+was at the head of the ticket, I would not support it." Several persons
+in the audience declared that they had heard him say it. "I am glad to
+know," said he, "that, since my opponents address you people as if you
+had no sense, you, at least, have shown that you have memories."
+
+Turning to the crowd who had cheered the opposition speaker, Mr. Toombs
+said: "For those of you who have yelled so long and lustily, when your
+dearest rights were assailed, I can but feel the profoundest
+commiseration. Should you continue in your wild strife against the
+experience of the past, I look to a kind Providence and to wise men to
+protect you from yourselves."
+
+In regard to aliens in America, Mr. Toombs said: "I go for giving them
+all--the oppressed of all nations--a place of refuge, and say even to
+the paupers and criminals; 'We will forgive you for the past and try you
+for the future.' You may start in your railroad and go to Memphis, and
+then, follow the setting sun day by day, and week by week, until you
+find him setting in the Pacific Ocean, and all the time you are passing
+over fertile lands where industry and thrift may meet appropriate
+rewards, and the blessings of liberty and peace find a resting-place in
+the bosom of freedom."
+
+Mr. Hill said that Toombs was a turncoat. He had been a Whig, and now he
+abused the Whigs. Mr. Toombs told the people that he came not to abuse
+the Democrats or Whigs, but with the weapon of truth and the shield of
+the Constitution to aid in preserving the Union and maintaining the
+rights of the South. He did not appear before the people to carry
+majorities, but to promote their constitutional rights.
+
+Mr. Toombs was charged with being a disunionist. He said he stood upon
+the Georgia platform of 1850, and leaning upon that faithful support, "I
+will say, that should Fremont be elected, I will not stand and wait for
+fire, but will call upon my countrymen to take to that to which they
+will be driven--the sword. If that be disunion, I am a disunionist. If
+that be treason, make the most of it. You see the traitor before you."
+
+Opinion as to the result of the debate at Washington was divided. Good
+judges thought that Mr. Hill relied too much on the _ad captandum_
+argument, and did not meet the points of Mr. Toombs; but there are men
+living in Washington who heard the great contest and who delight to tell
+how the young warrior from Troup charged right into the enemy's camp,
+and rode away with the laurels of the day.
+
+Buchanan was elected President in November. He carried nineteen States,
+Georgia among them. Buchanan and Breckenridge received 174 electoral
+votes and 1,838,169 popular votes.
+
+Fremont carried eleven States and 114 electoral votes, receiving
+1,341,264 popular votes. Fillmore carried Maryland with 8 electoral
+votes. His vote through the country amounted to 874,534.
+
+Mr. Toombs, while a member of Congress, became possessed of a large
+tract of land in Texas. It was known as the Peter's Colony Grant, which
+had never been settled. The lands, he was informed by a competent
+surveyor, were valuable and free to settlers. They comprised about
+90,000 acres in Northern Texas, on the clear fork of the Trinity, in the
+neighborhood of Dallas and Fort Worth. Mr. Toombs had a clear head and
+keen perception for business. His temperament was restless and fiery.
+His life had been spent at the bar and in the forum. His gifts of
+oratory were remarkable. It was a strange combination which added shrewd
+business sense, but he had it in an eminent degree. He was a princely
+liver, but a careful financier. He saw that this part of Texas must
+some day bloom into an empire, and fifty years ago he gave $30,000 for
+this tract of land. As Texas commenced to fill up the squatters occupied
+some of the most valuable parts of the country and refused to be
+removed. These desperate fellows declared that they did not believe
+there was any such man as Toombs, the reputed owner of the land; they
+had never seen him, and certainly they would not consent to be
+dispossessed of their holdings.
+
+It was in 1857 that Senator Toombs, accompanied by a few of his friends,
+decided to make a trip to Texas and view his large landed possessions.
+For hundreds of miles he traveled on horseback over the plains of Texas,
+sleeping at night in a buffalo robe. He was warned by his agents that he
+had a very desperate set of men to deal with. But Toombs was pretty
+determined himself. He summoned the squatters to a parley at Fort Worth,
+then, a mere spot in the wilderness. The men came in squads, mounted on
+their mustangs, and bearing over their saddles long squirrel rifles.
+They were ready for a shrewd bargain or a sharp vendetta. Senator Toombs
+and his small coterie were armed; and standing against a tree, the
+landlord confronted his tenants or trespassers, he hardly knew which. He
+spoke firmly and pointedly, and pretty soon convinced the settlers that
+they were dealing with no ordinary man. He said he was willing to allow
+each squatter a certain sum for betterments, if they would move off his
+land, or, if they preferred to stay, he would sell the tract to each man
+at wild-land prices; but, failing in this, they must move away, as he
+had the power to put them out, and would certainly use it. There was a
+good deal of murmuring and caucussing among the men, but they concluded
+that there was a man named Toombs, and that he meant what he said. The
+matter was settled in a business way, and Senator Toombs rode back over
+the prairies, richer by a hundred thousand dollars. These lands were
+immensely valuable during the latter part of his life. They formed the
+bulk of his fortune when the war closed; and during his stay in Paris,
+an exile from his country, in 1866, he used to say that he consumed, in
+his personal expenses, an acre of dirt a day. The land was then worth
+about five dollars an acre.
+
+It was while he was returning home from his Texas trip that the postman
+met him on the plains and delivered a letter from Georgia. This was in
+July, 1857. The letter announced that the Democratic State Convention in
+Georgia had adjourned, after nominating for Governor Joseph E. Brown.
+Senator Toombs read the letter and, looking up in a dazed way, asked,
+"And who in the devil is Joe Brown?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856.
+
+
+There was a good deal of significance in the inquiry. There was a hot
+campaign ahead. The opposition party, made up of Know-nothings and
+old-line Whigs, had nominated Benjamin H. Hill for Governor. Senator
+Toombs knew that it would require a strong man to beat him. Besides the
+Governor, a legislature was to be chosen which was to elect a successor
+to Senator Toombs in the Senate. He was personally interested in seeing
+that the Democratic party, with which he had been in full accord since
+the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, had a strong leader in the
+State. All the way home he was puzzling in his brain about "Joe Brown."
+
+About the time that he returned, he was informed that Hill and Brown had
+met at Glen Spring, near Athens. A large crowd had attended the opening
+discussion. Howell Cobb wrote to Senator Toombs that he had better take
+charge of the campaign himself, as he doubted the ability of Judge Brown
+to handle "Hill of Troup."
+
+Joseph E. Brown had come up from the people. He was a native of Pickens,
+S. C., of old Scotch-Irish stock that had produced Calhoun and Andrew
+Jackson. The late Henry W. Grady, in a bright fancy sketch, once
+declared that the ancestors of Joseph E. Brown lived in Ireland, and
+that "For seven generations, the ancestors of Joe Brown have been
+restless, aggressive rebels--for a longer time the Toombses have been
+dauntless and intolerant followers of the King. At the siege of
+Londonderry, Margaret and James Brown were within the walls, starving
+and fighting for William and Mary; and I have no doubt there were
+hard-riding Toombses outside the walls, charging in the name of the
+peevish and unhappy James. Certain it is that forty years before, the
+direct ancestors of Robert Toombs, in their estate, were hiding the good
+King Charles in the oak at Boscobel, where, I have no doubt, the father
+and uncle of the Londonderry Brown, with cropped hair and severe mien,
+were proguing about the place with their pikes, searching every bush in
+the name of Cromwell and the psalm-singers. From these initial points
+sprang the two strains of blood--the one affluent, impetuous, prodigal,
+the other slow, resolute, forceful. From these ancestors came the two
+men--the one superb, ruddy, fashioned with incomparable grace and
+fullness--the other pale, thoughtful, angular, stripped down to brain
+and sinew. From these opposing theories came the two types: the one
+patrician, imperious, swift in action, and brooking no stay; the other
+democratic, sagacious, jealous of rights, and submitting to no
+opposition. The one for the king, the other for the people."
+
+Young Joe Brown had taught school, studied law, finally completing his
+course at Yale College. He was admitted to the bar in 1845. In 1849 he
+was elected as a Democrat to the State Senate by Cherokee County. In
+1851 he had been a Southern Rights' man, voting for McDonald against
+Cobb, the Union candidate for Governor. In 1852 he was Democratic
+elector for Pierce. In 1855 he was elected by the people judge of the
+Blue Ridge Circuit. He was very strong in North Georgia. The convention
+which selected him as the candidate for Governor met in Milledgeville,
+June 24, 1857. The Democrats had no lack of eminent men. There were
+candidates enough. James Gardner, the brilliant and incisive editor of
+the Augusta _Constitutionalist_, led the ballot, but Brown was finally
+brought in as a compromise man. His nomination was a surprise.
+
+When Senator Toombs met the young nominee, by appointment, to talk over
+the campaign, he found that he was full of good sense and sagacity. He
+joined him in his canvass, lending his own name and prestige to the
+Democratic meetings. But he found much shrewdness and homely wisdom
+about Joseph E. Brown, and he became convinced that he was able to make
+his way to the favor of the people without outside aid. The Democratic
+nominee proved his ability to stand before the luminous oratory of Ben
+Hill himself. Brown had courage, clearness, and tact, with growing
+ability and confidence. He soon developed the full strength of the
+Democratic party, which, in Georgia, was overwhelming. Joseph E. Brown
+was elected Governor, and the last vestige of the American party went
+down in 1857. The legislature was overwhelmingly Democratic.
+
+On the 6th of November, 1857, Mr. Toombs wrote from Milledgeville to his
+wife, pending the election of United States Senator:
+
+      I got here Wednesday and found the usual turmoil and
+      excitement. Governor McDonald is here and has been trying
+      hard to beat me, but I find very unexpected and gratifying
+      unanimity in my favor. The party met this evening and
+      nominated me by acclamation, with but two or three
+      dissenting votes, and they speak of bringing on the
+      election to-morrow. I am very anxious to see you, and am
+      tired of wandering about in excited crowds; but I suppose
+      after to-morrow I will have peace, so far as I am
+      concerned, for the next six years. I think I shall be
+      entitled to exemption from the actual duties of future
+      campaigns to stay at home with you.
+
+He was reelected to the United States Senate for the term beginning
+March 4, 1857.
+
+When President Buchanan was inaugurated, he announced that a case was
+pending in the Supreme Court upon the occupation of the Territories. By
+this decision he would abide. The day after the inauguration the
+decision was announced. It was the celebrated Dred Scott case. It fell
+like a bomb into the antislavery camp. The great question involved was
+whether it was competent for Congress, directly or indirectly, to
+exclude slavery from the Territories of the United States. The Supreme
+Court decided that it was not. Six judges out of eight made this
+decision. The opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.
+
+This decision added to the fury of the storm. It was announced that the
+Chief Justice had announced the doctrine that "negroes had no rights
+that a white man was bound to respect"; a sentiment so atrocious that
+this official repelled it with indignation. Efforts were made to bury
+the Chief Justice in obloquy.
+
+The struggle over the admission of Kansas into the Union was prolonged
+in Congress. But the situation in Kansas became warmer every year. The
+Eastern immigrant societies were met by inroads of Missouri and Southern
+settlers. A state of civil war virtually obtained in 1856-57, and
+throughout Buchanan's administration there was a sharp skirmish of new
+settlers and a sharp maneuver of parties for position. The Georgia
+State Democratic Convention of 1857 demanded the removal of Robert J.
+Walker, who had been appointed Governor of Kansas. He was a Southern
+man, but was regarded as favoring the antislavery party in its efforts
+to organize the Territory. The truth was, as Senator Toombs had clearly
+foreseen and expressed in his speech in the Senate in 1856, Kansas was
+destined to be a free State, and amid the violence of the agitation,
+confined to no one side, was marching steadily toward this destiny. The
+administration favored the admission of Kansas with the Lecompton
+Constitution, which was decidedly favorable to the proslavery men.
+Senator Douglas opposed this plan. He had become committed to the policy
+of squatter sovereignty during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill in
+1854. He contended that the settlers of a Territory could determine the
+character of their institutions, a position which the Buchanan party
+denounced as inconsistent with Democratic principles. Mr. Douglas
+indorsed the Dred Scott decision, but maintained his position on popular
+sovereignty. He became at once unpopular with the rank and file of the
+Southern Democracy, with whom he had long been a favorite. He was also
+estranged from the administration, and it was evident that he would have
+no easy matter to be reelected United States Senator. This election came
+off in the fall of 1858. It was clear to him that, to maintain his
+prominence in politics, he must carry Illinois. Unless he could save his
+own State his chance for President was gone. So he went into this
+memorable canvass with his own party divided and a determined opponent
+in the person of Abraham Lincoln. The young Republican party in Illinois
+had been gathering strength with each new phase of the slavery question.
+
+The joint debate between Douglas and Lincoln was memorable. As a
+dexterous debater, Douglas had no equal in the Union. He was strong on
+the stump and incomparable in a popular assembly. Without grace or
+imagination, he was yet a plausible, versatile man, quick and ingenious,
+resolute and ready, with a rare faculty for convincing men. He was small
+and sinewy, with smooth face, bright eye, and broad brow, and his
+neighbors called him the "Little Giant." He could be specious, even
+fallacious; he employed an _ad captandum_ kind of oratory, which was
+taking with a crowd and confusing to an adversary. The man who met him
+in these debates was a tall, impressive personage, rough, original, but
+direct and thoroughly sincere. In many points he was the opposite of
+Douglas.
+
+He was rather an ill-ordered growth of the early West, a man who had
+toiled and suffered from his youth up. He was full of sharp corners and
+rough edges, and his nature was a strange mixture of patience and
+melancholy. As Mr. Stephens said, he regarded slavery "in the light of a
+religious mysticism," and believed that his mission to beat it down was
+God-ordained. And yet he was a statesman, a public man of breadth and
+prominence, a speaker of force and persuasion. He had the robust courage
+of a pioneer and the high purpose of a reformer. It was in this debate
+that Mr. Lincoln, at Freeport, Ill., asked Mr. Douglas that memorable
+question, on the stump: "Can the people of a Territory, in any lawful
+way, exclude slavery from their limits, prior to the formation of a
+State constitution?" Mr. Douglas promptly answered, "Yes." This was his
+doctrine of popular sovereignty. But the answer cost him the Democratic
+nomination to the Presidency. The theory that a mass of settlers,
+squatting in a Territory, could fix and determine the character of the
+Territory's domestic institutions, was repugnant to a large portion of
+the Southern people. They claimed that under the Dred Scott decision,
+slavery already existed in the Territories, and must be protected by the
+Constitution; and that it was not competent for the people to determine
+for themselves the question of slavery or no slavery, until they formed
+a constitution for admission into the Union as a State.
+
+The election in Illinois, in the fall of 1858, gave Stephen A. Douglas a
+majority of eight in the General Assembly over Abraham Lincoln, and
+Douglas was reelected for the new term. In this contest he had been
+opposed by the Buchanan Democrats, who cast over 8000 votes in Illinois.
+
+In the Senate, the debate on popular sovereignty was renewed. This time
+Jefferson Davis, a senator from Mississippi, attacked this position as
+incompatible with the Constitution and the laws. Mr. Davis was a
+skillful debater. His mind was singularly graceful and refined. He was
+eloquent, logical, and courageous. His career as soldier and statesman,
+as War Minister under Pierce, and as senator for Mississippi, made him a
+prominent figure. He was cultured, classical, and well rounded, equipped
+by leisure and long study for the career before him. He had vanquished
+Sergeant S. Prentiss in public discussion over the national bank, and
+contested, inch by inch, the domination of Henry S. Foote in
+Mississippi. His career in the Mexican war had been a notable one.
+Allied to Zachary Taylor by marriage, a West Pointer by training, a
+Southern planter by occupation, he was a typical defender of slavery as
+it existed. Davis was as slender and frail as Douglas was compact and
+sinewy. Like Lincoln, his mind grasped great principles, while Douglas
+was fighting for points and expedients.
+
+Douglas declared that the territorial settler could determine whether
+slavery should exist, by his influence in providing or withholding
+police power; although he denied the constitutional right to legislate
+slavery out of the Territories, yet he believed the "popular sovereign"
+could, by means of "unfriendly legislation," bar out the Southern
+settler with his slaves. It was not difficult for Mr. Davis to impale
+him upon this plea.
+
+Senator Douglas had saved his seat in the Senate, but his position in
+the Democratic party was weakened. The Lecompton Constitution passed the
+Senate in spite of Douglas's steady opposition.
+
+Senator Toombs took no part in the subtleties of the Douglas-Davis
+debate. He listened to the refinements of that discussion with decided
+convictions of his own, but with clear appreciation of the fact that
+every point scored against Douglas was cleaving the Democratic party in
+twain. Mr. Toombs favored the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution,
+but when it was rejected by the House, he promptly accepted the English
+compromise, to refer the matter back to the people. Mr. Toombs had
+always been partial to Douglas. In the campaign of 1856 he declared, in
+Georgia, that "the man who condemned Senator Douglas needed watching
+himself." He viewed with some pain the Douglas departure over popular
+sovereignty; indeed he once declared that had he not been called away
+from the Senate for quite a time in 1856, Mr. Douglas would never have
+gone off on this tangent. When asked if Douglas were really a great
+man, Senator Toombs, in 1860, answered with characteristic heartiness
+and exaggeration, "There has been but one greater, and he, the Apostle
+Paul."
+
+It was very evident that the people of the South would demand new
+guarantees for the protection of slavery against the dogma of popular
+sovereignty. The platform of the Cincinnati convention, upon which
+Buchanan had been elected, must be recast. The platform had declared
+that immigrants to any part of the public domain were to settle the
+question of slavery for themselves. The new plank, which President
+Buchanan framed, was that the government of a Territory was provisional
+and temporary, and during its existence, all citizens of the United
+States had an equal right to settle with their property in the
+Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being
+destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation. The
+two last words contained the gist of the resolution, which was aimed at
+Senator Douglas. However right as an abstract principle, Mr. Stephens
+declared that this was a departure from the doctrine of
+non-intervention.
+
+It was at this time that Senator Toombs made one of the most important
+speeches of his life. This was delivered in Augusta, Ga., September 8,
+1859, during an exciting campaign. Governor Brown was a candidate for
+reelection, and a strong opposition party had developed in Georgia,
+representing the extreme Southern sentiment.
+
+Senator Toombs said that the opposition to the Kansas bill had continued
+because it was said to recognize the right of the people of a Territory,
+through the Territorial legislature, to establish or prohibit slavery.
+"When we condemned and abrogated Congressional intervention against us,"
+said he, "that was a great point gained. Congress had actually excluded
+us from the Territories for thirty years. The people of a Territory had
+in no instance attempted such an iniquity. I considered it wise,
+prudent, and politic to settle the question against our common enemy,
+Congress, even if I left it unsettled as to our known friends, the
+people of the Territories. We could not settle the question of the power
+of the people over slavery while in a territorial condition, because
+Democrats differed on that point. We, therefore, declared in the Kansas
+bill that we left the people of the Territories perfectly free to form
+and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only
+to the Constitution of the United States. We decided to refer the
+question to the Supreme Court. It has gone there and been decided in our
+favor. The Southern friends of the measure repudiate the principle of
+squatter sovereignty. I stand its steady and uncompromising adversary.
+The doctrine of Douglas has not a leg to stand upon. Yet I do not
+belong to those who denounce him. The organization of the Democratic
+party leaves this an open question, and Mr. Douglas is at full liberty
+to take either side he may choose, and if he maintains his ground of
+neither making nor accepting new tests of political soundness, I shall
+consider him a political friend, and will accept him as the
+representative of the party, whatever it may tender him. I do not
+hesitate to tell you that, with his errors, I prefer him and would
+support him to-morrow against any opposition leader in America.
+
+"We are told," said Mr. Toombs, "that we must put a new plank in the
+platform of the Democratic party, and demand the affirmance of the duty
+of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, where such Territory may
+fail to discharge this duty. I reply, I do not think it is wise to do
+the thing proposed, and the inducement would not help the proposition.
+While I have already asserted full and complete power of Congress to do
+this, I think, with Mr. Madison, that it should be prudently and
+carefully exercised, and it ought not to be exercised until the occasion
+is imperative. There has been no occasion, from 1789 to this hour,
+calling for it, and I am more than willing that the Territorial settlers
+shall continue to govern themselves in their own way, so long as they
+respect the rights of all the people. I will not insult them by
+supposing them capable of disregarding the Constitution of the United
+States, or by assuming that they are incapable of honest
+self-government.
+
+"No; I shall prescribe no new test of party fealty to Northern
+Democrats, those men who have hitherto stood with honor and fidelity
+upon their engagements. They have maintained the truth to their own
+hurt. They have displayed a patriotism, a magnanimity rarely equaled in
+the world's history, and I shall endeavor, in sunshine and in storm,
+with your approbation if I can get it, without it if I must, to stand by
+them with fidelity equal to their great deserts. If you will stand with
+me, we shall conquer faction in the North and South, and shall save the
+country from the curse of being ruled by the combination now calling
+itself the opposition. We shall leave this country to our children as we
+found it--united, strong, prosperous and happy."
+
+This was a memorable speech, strong, sincere, and conservative, and had
+a marked effect. It was intended, not only to influence the canvass then
+pending, but to have an effect in controlling the National convention to
+be held six months later. It was copied far and wide, and the success of
+the State candidates whom Mr. Toombs supported showed that its
+statesmanlike utterances were adopted overwhelmingly in Georgia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+JOHN BROWN'S RAID.
+
+
+But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new
+Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep
+statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong
+and weak alike. It has been asserted, and with truth, that disunion was
+precipitated by the people, not by the politicians--by the North as well
+as by the South.
+
+The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which
+would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray
+of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was
+captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers
+and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E.
+Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair
+created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this
+movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The
+criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the
+North. The man, who under normal conditions of society would have been
+sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and
+mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his
+honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States passed
+strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern
+press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's
+body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his
+grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.
+
+What the Dred Scott decision had wrought at the North, the Ossawatomie
+raid awoke at the South. The main features of Buchanan's administration
+to hasten the "irrepressible conflict" were the well-weighed words of
+the Chief Justice and the wild invasion of a border ruffian. Strange
+paradox, but such were the influences at work in those disordered times.
+Men lost their moorings, and political parties abandoned settled
+policies. Events crowded with remorseless impact upon certain civil
+strife.
+
+Under this new condition of things Mr. Toombs made his great "door-sill"
+speech in the United States Senate, on the 24th of January, 1860. It was
+upon the resolution offered by Senator Douglas calling for a measure of
+protection of each State and Territory against invasion by the
+authorities and inhabitants of every other State and Territory. Senator
+Toombs declared that the resolution opened up a new page in the history
+of our country. It was a step in the right direction. He feared that the
+disease lay too deep for the remedy. Heretofore the people of the United
+States could grapple and surmount all difficulties, foreign and
+domestic. A spirit of nationality, a common interest, a common danger,
+carried the country through revolutions. Now all this has changed. The
+feeling of loyalty and common destiny is rapidly passing away. Hostility
+to the compact of the Union, to the tie which binds us together, finds
+utterance in the tongues of millions of our countrymen, animates their
+bosoms, and leads to the habitual disregard of the plainest duties and
+obligations. Large bodies of men now feel and know that party success
+involves danger; that the result may bring us face to face with
+revolution.
+
+"The fundamental principles of our Union are assailed, invaded, and
+threatened with destruction; our ancient rights and liberties are in
+danger; the peace and tranquillity of our homes have been invaded by
+lawless violence, and their further invasion is imminent; the instinct
+of self-preservation arms society to their defense."
+
+Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle introduced into our
+Constitution. ["]It was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. The New
+England Confederation adopted it in 1643. The Supreme Judicial tribunal
+of Prussia affirmed it as the public law of Europe as late as 1855. It
+was acknowledged to be a sound principle of public law in the days of
+Pericles, and its violation by one of the States of Greece was the chief
+cause of the Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for twenty-one
+years. The Megareans had given refuge to the revolted slaves of Athens."
+
+"I say," he continued, "the bargain is broken--broken by the States
+whose policy I have reviewed; broken by the Republican party, which did
+the work in their legislatures and elsewhere. Their hands are soiled
+with the blood of the compact. They cannot be permitted to minister at
+its altar. Their representatives on this floor mock at constitutional
+obligations; jeer at oaths. They have lost their shame with their
+virtue.... In the name of the people, I repeat, I demand the bond. In
+the name of every true and honest man at the North as well as the South,
+I demand the resumption of your plighted faith. Upon these terms I have
+ever been willing to let the Union stand, but upon no other.
+
+"Who is responsible for the murder, treason, and arson of John Brown? I
+have never known of his acts being approved or palliated by any other
+person than a Republican. Thousands of them have done it and are now
+doing it. In charging this dark catalogue of crime against this
+organization, I would not be unjust. I have no doubt that thousands of
+persons belonging to that organization throughout the North, loathe and
+despise John Brown's raid; but it is equally true that there are other
+thousands in the same organization who do approve it. They tell us that
+they condemn his acts, but admire his heroism. I think the Republican
+party must be pressed for a hero. The 'Newgate Calendar' can furnish
+them with a dozen such saints. To 'die game' and not to 'peach' are
+sometimes useful, if not heroic, virtues in an accomplice. The thousands
+of blind Republicans who do openly approve the treason, murder, and
+arson of John Brown, get no condemnation from their party for such acts.
+They are its main defenders and propagandists all over the North, and,
+therefore, the party is in moral complicity with the criminal himself.
+No society can long exist in peace under these injuries, because we are
+in virtual civil war; hence, I denounce their authors, the Republican
+party, as enemies of the Constitution and enemies of my country.
+
+"It is vain, in face of these injuries, to talk of peace, fraternity,
+and common country. There is no peace; there is no fraternity; there is
+no common country; all of us know it.
+
+"Sir, I have but little more to add--nothing for myself. I feel that I
+have no need to pledge my poor services to this great cause, to my
+country. My State has spoken for herself. Nine years ago a convention of
+her people met and declared that her connection with this government
+depended upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave law. I was a
+member of that convention, and I stood then and stand now pledged to its
+action. I have faithfully labored to arrest these calamities; I will yet
+labor until this last contingency happens, faithfully, honestly, and to
+the best of my ability. When that time comes, freemen of Georgia, redeem
+your pledges! I am ready to redeem mine. Your honor is involved, your
+faith is plighted. I know you feel a stain as a wound. Your peace, your
+social system, your friends are involved. Never permit this Federal
+Government to pass into the traitors' hands of the black Republican
+party. It has already declared war against you and your institutions. It
+every day commits acts of war against you; it has already compelled you
+to arm for your defense. Listen to no vain babbling; to no treacherous
+jargon about 'overt acts'; they have already been committed. Defend
+yourselves! The enemy is at your door; wait not to meet him at your
+hearthstone; meet him at the door-sill, and drive him from the Temple of
+Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.
+
+
+It was an unfortunate time for the meeting of the Democratic National
+Convention. The hope that the party which had so often brought harmony
+from discord could unite upon the soil of an extreme Southern State was
+destined to be broken. The body met in Charleston on April 23, 1860. The
+place was worthy of the assemblage. For the first time in the party
+history, its convention had met south of Cincinnati or Baltimore.
+Redolent with the beauties of spring and the tint of historic interest,
+Charleston, with its memories of Moultrie, inspired feelings of
+patriotic pride. If it suggested the obstruction of Calhoun, it recalled
+the Revolutionary glory of Marion and Rutledge, and the bold challenge
+of Hayne to Webster, that if there be one State in the Union which could
+challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, ardent, and zealous
+devotion to the Union, that State was South Carolina.
+
+It was a memorable meeting. The convention was presided over by Caleb
+Cushing of Massachusetts, the devoted friend of Daniel Webster, and
+Attorney-General under Franklin Pierce. In its ranks were Henry B. Payne
+of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and James A. Bayard of
+Delaware. These men were towers of strength in the North. They were the
+men to whom Robert Toombs had appealed in the Senate, when he turned
+from his fiery imprecation and, lowering his great voice, declared, with
+tenderness and pride, "I have no word of invocation to those who stand
+to-day in the ranks of Northern Democracy, but to remember and emulate
+their past history. From the beginning of this controversy they have
+stood firmly by the Constitution. No body of men in the world's history
+ever exhibited higher or nobler devotion to principle under such adverse
+circumstances.... Amid the opprobrious epithets, the gibes and jeers of
+the enemies of the Constitution; worse than this, amid words of distrust
+and reproach even from men of the South, these great-hearted patriots
+have marched steadily in the path of duty.... The union of all these
+elements may yet secure to our country peace and safety. But if this
+cannot be done, safety and peace are incompatible in the Union. Amid
+treachery and desertion at home, and injustice from without, amid
+disaster and defeat, they have risen superior to fortune, and stand
+to-day with their banners all tattered and soiled in the humble service
+of the whole country. No matter what fortune may betide us in the
+future, while life lasts, I have a hand that will succor and a heart
+ready to embrace the humblest soldier of this noble band."
+
+At that time there were thirty-three States in the Union. The committee
+on platform consisted of one from each State. The delegates from
+California and Oregon, voting with the South, gave them seventeen votes
+in committee. The resolutions were quickly framed, with the exception of
+the one on slavery. Here was the deadlock. The majority plank declared
+that the right to settle in the Territories with slaves "was not to be
+destroyed nor impaired by Territorial legislation." The minority
+proposed once more to leave the question to the Supreme Court. The
+compromise was not accepted. The two reports came before the convention,
+and, the Douglas men being in the majority on the floor, the minority,
+or squatter-sovereignty report, was adopted by a vote of 165 to 138.
+Here came the crisis. The delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida,
+Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and a part of Delaware, withdrew from the
+convention. Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama led this movement. He was
+a man of courage and decision, with unrivaled powers of oratory. He had
+been a member of Congress, and his influence in the South was large. So
+far back as June 15, 1858, he had written a famous letter to James M.
+Slaughter that "no national party can save us; no sectional party can
+ever do it; but if we would do as our fathers did, organize committees
+of safety all over the cotton States--and it is only to them that we can
+hope for any effectual movement--we shall fire the Southern heart,
+instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and, by one
+concerted action, we can precipitate the cotton States into a
+revolution." This was called the "Scarlet Letter," and was widely
+scattered and read.
+
+The seceding delegates organized a second assemblage over which the Hon.
+James A. Bayard presided. The Douglas men were left in control of the
+first convention, but could not secure the two-thirds vote necessary for
+his nomination. More than fifty ballots were taken, the full strength of
+the Illinois candidate being 152. On the 3d of May the convention
+adjourned to meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June, when it was hoped a
+spirit of compromise might be inspired by the seriousness of the
+situation.
+
+On the night of the break in that body Mr. Yancey made a speech in
+Charleston, when in prophetic words he declared, "Perhaps even now the
+pen of the historian is nibbed to inscribe the history of a new
+revolution."
+
+The seceding delegates called for a convention to be held in Richmond,
+Va., on the second Monday in June.
+
+When the seven States had withdrawn from the convention, the Georgia
+delegation was split up. A majority left the convention, a small
+minority remained. This action created great excitement in Georgia. The
+Democratic executive committee called a State convention to meet in
+Milledgeville on June 4. A committee of prominent citizens, headed by
+Hon. J. J. Gresham of Macon, addressed letters to public men asking
+their views in this alarming situation. Howell Cobb indorsed the
+seceders; he was opposed to Douglas. Alexander H. Stephens thought
+Georgia should appoint delegates to the Baltimore convention, withdraw
+the demand for a new plank in the Cincinnati platform, abide by the
+doctrine of non-intervention, and nominate a good man for President. "If
+we must quarrel with the North," said he, "let us base it on the
+aggressive acts of our enemies and not on the supposed shortcomings of
+our friends."
+
+Hon. Robert Toombs did not come South during the Charleston convention.
+He watched from his post in the Senate the great struggle between the
+Democratic factions. On May 10, he wrote, in reply to the letter of the
+Macon committee:
+
+      Perhaps the time may not have come for the attainment of
+      the full measure of our constitutional rights; it may not
+      have been prudent on the part of the representatives of the
+      seventeen States to have sanctioned and presented as much
+      truth on the slavery issue as is contained in what is
+      commonly called the majority platform; but when it was thus
+      sanctioned, approved, and presented to the convention, it
+      was well to stand by and defend it, especially against the
+      platform of the minority. The seceding delegates did this
+      with manly firmness, and I approve their action.
+
+Mr. Toombs advised, however, that the seceding delegates ought to meet
+with the convention at Baltimore and endeavor to obtain such a
+satisfactory adjustment of difficulties as could be secured. "This
+course requires no sacrifice of principles." This plan had been proposed
+by the delegates from New York to the delegates from the Southern
+States. "The proposed Richmond convention, if it shall be found
+necessary to hold it," he said, "can be held after, as well as before
+the Baltimore convention, and I think with clearer lights for its
+guidance."
+
+"It is sometimes wise," said Mr. Toombs, "to accept a part of our just
+rights, if we can have the residue unimpaired and uncompromised, but
+nothing can justify a voluntary surrender of principle, indispensable to
+the safety and honor of the State.
+
+"It is true we are surrounded with danger, but I do not concur in the
+opinion that the danger to the Union is even one of our greatest perils.
+The greatest danger, to-day, is that the Union will survive the
+Constitution. The body of your enemies in the North, who hate the
+Constitution, and daily trample it under their feet, profess an ardent
+attachment to the Union, and I doubt not, feel such attachment for a
+Union unrestrained by a Constitution. Do not mistake your real danger!
+The Union has more friends than you have, and will last, at least, as
+long as its continuance will be compatible with your safety."
+
+Prior to the reassembling of the Democratic convention, the resolutions
+introduced by the Hon. Jefferson Davis, containing the Southern
+exposition of principles, came up in the Senate. Mr. Toombs had opposed
+the policy of introducing those resolutions, but as they were then
+before the country, he said they should be met. He ridiculed the idea of
+popular sovereignty. He declared that Congress should protect slavery in
+the Territories. The Federal Government, he claimed, did protect its
+citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad, everywhere except
+on the soil of our own territory, acquired by common blood and treasure.
+
+This speech of Senator Toombs marked an epoch in his career. It
+separated him entirely from Stephen A. Douglas, to whom he had been
+closely allied, in spite, as he said, of Douglas having wandered after
+strange gods. Douglas absented himself from the Senate when Toombs
+spoke. For the first time in twenty years, Toombs and Stephens took
+divergent paths. They were called in Georgia the "Siamese twins." From
+the election of Harrison to the Democratic split in 1860, they had been
+personal friends and firm political allies. Mr. Stephens was for Douglas
+and the Union; Mr. Toombs feared lest "the Union survive the
+Constitution."
+
+The Democratic party in Georgia met on June 4, and parted on the lines
+of the Charleston division. The Union element in Georgia was led by
+Herschel V. Johnson, a man of power and influence. He had been Governor
+of the State, was a man of learning, profound in thought and candid in
+expression. His wife was a niece of President Polk. His state papers
+were models of clear and classical expression. Governor Johnson was,
+however, better fitted for the bench or the Cabinet than for a public
+leader.
+
+Both wings of the Georgia convention appointed delegates to the
+Baltimore convention. That body admitted the delegation which had
+seceded from the Charleston convention. As the seceding delegates from
+the other States were rejected, the Georgia delegates refused to go in.
+Missouri was the only Southern State which was represented entirely in
+the body, composed of 190 delegates. Massachusetts withdrew and Caleb
+Cushing resigned the chair. Stephen A. Douglas was nominated for
+President of the United States. Governor Fitzpatrick of Alabama declined
+the vice presidency, and Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was chosen for
+vice president. The seceders immediately organized a national
+convention, Mr. Cushing presiding. It was composed of 210 delegates. The
+majority or anti-Douglas platform of the Charleston convention was
+adopted. John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky was nominated for President,
+and Joseph C. Lane of Oregon for vice president. Mr. Breckenridge was at
+that time vice president of the United States, and Mr. Lane was a
+senator. Meanwhile, a Constitutional Union party had been formed in
+Georgia, and had elected delegates to a convention of that party in
+Baltimore. This body nominated for President and vice president, John
+Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Mr. Bell had been
+United States Senator at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska
+bill, in 1854, and had been arraigned by Mr. Toombs for opposing the
+party policy. He was one of the thirteen who voted against it in the
+Senate.
+
+The contest in Georgia waged with much vigor. Robert Toombs supported
+Breckenridge. He was a delegate to the Democratic State convention which
+put out a Breckenridge and Lane electoral ticket. He cut out the
+business of that convention, and declared that the Constitution and
+equality of the States was the only bond of everlasting union. Mr.
+Stephens headed the Douglas ticket. Senator Douglas himself came to
+Georgia and spoke during the campaign. The Bell and Everett ticket was
+championed by Benjamin H. Hill. The vote in Georgia was: Breckenridge,
+51,893; Douglas, 11,580; Bell, 42,855.
+
+Of these three Georgians, so strikingly arrayed against each other in
+this critical campaign, Mr. Vincent, a gifted Texan, thus wrote with
+dramatic power: "Hill, Stephens, Toombs--all eloquent, all imbued with
+the same lofty patriotism. They differed widely in their methods; their
+opinions were irreconcilable, their policies often diametrically
+opposite. Hill was quick, powerful, but unpersistent; Stephens, slow,
+forcible and compromising; Toombs, instantaneous, overwhelming, and
+unyielding. Hill carried the crowd with a whirlwind of eloquence;
+Stephens first convinced, then moved them with accelerating force;
+Toombs swept them with a hurricane of thought and magnetic example.
+Hill's eloquence was in flights, always rising and finally sublime;
+Stephens' was argumentative with an elegant smoothness, often flowing in
+sweeping, majestic waves; Toombs' was an engulfing stream of impetuous
+force, with the roar of thunder. Hill was receptive, elastic, and full
+of the future; Stephens was philosophical, adaptable, and full of the
+past; Toombs was inexhaustible, original, inflexible, and full of the
+now. It was Hill's special forte to close a campaign; Stephens' to
+manage it; Toombs' to originate it. In politics as in war, he sought,
+with the suddenness of an electric flash, to combat, vanquish, and slay.
+Hill's eloquence exceeded his judgment; Stephens' judgment was superior
+to his oratorical power; in Toombs these were equipollent. Hill
+considered expediency; Stephens, policy; Toombs, principle always; Hill
+would perhaps flatter, Stephens temporize, Toombs neither--never. At
+times Hill would resort to the arts of the dialectician; Stephens would
+quibble over the niceties of construction; Toombs relied on the
+impregnability of his position, the depth of his thought, the vigor of
+his reasoning. Hill discussed with opponents; Stephens debated with
+them; Toombs ignored them. Hill refuted and vanquished his adversaries;
+Stephens persuaded and led them; Toombs magnetized them, and they
+followed him. Their enemies said that Hill was treacherous in politics;
+Stephens selfishly ambitious; and that Toombs loaned like a prince and
+collected like a Shylock.
+
+"In those days Georgia did not put pygmies on pedestals. Hill will be
+remembered by his 'Notes on the Situation'; Stephens by his 'War between
+the States'; Toombs had no circumstantial superiority. He is immortal,
+as the people are eternal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TOOMBS AS A LEGISLATOR.
+
+
+Georgia had taken a leading hand in the momentous events. Alexander H.
+Stephens had been prominently mentioned for President; so had Howell
+Cobb. When Senator Toombs had attacked the doctrine of Mr. Douglas, the
+followers of the latter charged that Mr. Toombs had deserted his old
+ally, and was himself making a bid for the presidency. Especially was
+this the case, they urged, as Mr. Toombs had recommended the seceding
+delegates to go back to the Baltimore convention, and endeavor to effect
+an honorable adjustment. The Augusta _Chronicle and Sentinel_, a leading
+Union organ, took up the charge and asked: "What of it? He is certainly
+as much entitled to it as any citizen in the republic. Were he elected,
+he would be such a President as the country needs, giving no countenance
+to corruption or fraud, but, with a will of his own, setting aside all
+dictation and acting as President of all the people. We doubt if there
+is a man that could arouse such a furor in his behalf, North or South,
+as Robert Toombs."
+
+Close friends of Mr. Toombs at that time believed he was not without his
+ambition to occupy the Executive chair. Never an office-seeker, he had
+gone easily to the front rank of national politics and had won his
+honors in Georgia in a kingly way. He realized, however, that he was not
+politic enough to gain support from Northern States. His convictions
+were overmastering passions; his speech was fervid and fearless; and his
+bold, imperturbable expression had placed him in a fierce white light,
+which barred him from the promotion of party conventions. While his
+enemies were accusing him of a desire to destroy the Union and embroil
+the sections, Robert Toombs was probably cherishing in his heart a vague
+hope that one day he might be called to the presidency of a common
+country.
+
+Senator Toombs was very active in attending to his public duties. He was
+interested in every species of legislation. His remarks upon the
+different matters of national business exhibited versatility, study, and
+interest in everything that affected the public welfare. Those who
+believe him to have been a conspirator, using his high position to
+overthrow the government, have only to look over the debates in Congress
+to see how active and conscientious were his efforts to promote every
+real interest of the Union.
+
+In the United States Senate, on July 31, 1854, Mr. Toombs gave an
+elaborate exposition of his views upon the policy of internal
+improvements. He said he had maintained opposition to this system as a
+fundamental principle. Since he entered public life, he had sustained
+President Polk's veto of the River and Harbor bill in 1847. He believed
+that Congress had no constitutional power to begin or carry on a general
+system of internal improvements. He wanted to know where this power of
+the Constitution could be found. Madison and Jefferson had opposed this
+system. Monroe, Jackson, and Clay had yielded to the popular pressure
+and sanctioned it. "Instead of leaving the taxes or the money in the
+pockets of the people," he said, "you have spent nine months in
+endeavoring to squander and arranging to have more to squander in the
+next Congress. I should like to use a polite term," said he, "for I am a
+good-natured man, but I think it is corruption.
+
+"In this bill you offer me seventy thousand dollars for the Savannah
+river. Ships were sunk in that river for the common defense of the
+country during the Revolutionary War. You are bound to abate your
+nuisance at common law. You might offer me this Capitol full of gold,
+and I would scorn the gift just less than the giver. You ought to have
+removed these obstructions long ago. When we come and ask of you this
+act of justice, you tell me to go with you into your internal
+improvement bill and take pot-luck with you."
+
+Mr. Toombs claimed that the power given to Congress to regulate
+commerce, simply meant to prescribe the rules by which commerce could be
+carried on, and nothing else. "The people of Maryland," he said, "had
+never asked that the harbor of Baltimore should be cleaned at the
+expense of the people of Georgia. They did not ask that other people
+should pay their burdens. They came here and asked the privilege of
+taxing their own commerce for their own benefit, and we granted it. I
+hold it to be a fundamental principle in all governments, and especially
+in all free governments, that you should not put burdens on the people
+whenever you can discriminate and put them on those who enjoy the
+benefits. You started with that principle with your post-office
+establishments.
+
+"Senators, is it just? I tell you, as God lives, it is not just, and you
+ought not to do it. There is manhood in the people of the Mississippi
+Valley. Let them levy tonnage duties for their own rivers and ports and
+put up their own lighthouses, and charge the people who use them for the
+benefits conferred. Let the honest farmer who makes his hay, who gathers
+his cheese, who raises his meal in Vermont, be not taxed to increase
+your magnificent improvements of nature and your already gigantic
+wealth. Senators, it is unjust."
+
+During the session of Congress of 1856-57, Senator Toombs again
+arraigned the whole system of internal improvements. He carefully
+differentiated between building a lighthouse and clearing out a harbor
+by the Federal Government. He said in course of the debate: "Where
+lighthouses are necessary for the protection of your navy, I admit the
+power to make them; but it must be where they are necessary, and not
+merely for the benefit and facilitation of commerce. Foreign and
+domestic commerce ought to be charged, as in England and France, for the
+benefit they receive. I would make the shipowners, the common carriers
+of this country, who are constantly using the power of this government
+to make money out of the products of honest industry and agriculture,
+submit to this rule.
+
+"The power to found a navy is found in the only fountain of power in
+this country, the Constitution. The defense of one is the defense of
+all. The destruction of nationality is the destruction of the life of
+all.
+
+"I say if you take away the property of one man and give it to a
+thousand, or if you take away the property of a million and give it to
+nineteen millions, you do not create national wealth by transferring it
+from the pockets of honest industry to other people's pockets. This is
+my principle. It is immovable. The more commerce there is on the
+Mississippi the more they are able and competent to pay the expenses of
+transporting it, and I only ask that they shall do it."
+
+Mr. Toombs sustained the veto of President Pierce of the Mississippi
+River bill.
+
+In July, 1856, he said that he had for eleven years maintained the
+vetoes of Mr. Polk. "I have perceived that this mischief is widespread,
+this corruption greater, this tendency to the destruction of the country
+is more dangerous. The tendency to place the whole government under the
+money power of the nation is greater and greater. The danger may be all
+of my imagination; but whether that be so, or whether I see in a bolder
+light the evil that will grow by letting this sluice from the public
+treasury and making it run by the will of the majority, I deem it so
+important that it may be worth an empire. We are called on, upon the
+idea of everybody helping everybody's bill, to vote for them all. There
+certainly can be no greater abandonment of public principle than is here
+presented."
+
+Senator Toombs, while a member of the Georgia Legislature, opposed the
+omnibus bill, granting State aid to railroads, and one of the first
+devices to fall under his criticism was a scheme to build a road to his
+own town. He was by nature progressive. He championed the cause of the
+State railroad of Georgia. In general terms he believed that the States
+and the people should carry out works of internal improvement. It is
+said that the first office ever held by Mr. Toombs was that of
+commissioner of the town of Washington, Ga. The election hinged upon a
+question of public improvement, the question being "ditch or no ditch";
+Toombs was elected commissioner, and the ditch was dug.
+
+He was nothing of a demagogue. He did not attempt to belittle the public
+service. He championed the provision for higher pay for the United
+States Judges, and for increasing the stipend of army officers, although
+he denounced the system of double rations as vicious. He did not
+hesitate to hit an unnecessary expense in every shape. All overflowing
+pension grabs found in him a deadly enemy. In December, 1856, while
+speaking on the subject of claims, he said: "In 1828, when half a
+century had passed over the heads of the men who fought your battles,
+when their generation was gone, when Tories and jobbers could not be
+distinguished from the really meritorious, the agents came here and
+attempted to intimidate public men." He alluded to pension agents as men
+who prowl about and make fortunes by peddling in the pretended
+patriotism and sufferings of their fathers.
+
+"It is," said he, "a poor pretext for an honorable man to come and tell
+the government, 'My ancestor fought for his own and the public liberty;
+he did not choose to be a slave to a foreign despotism; but with
+manliness, and honor, and patriotism, he fought during the war; now pay
+me for this. I want to be paid in hard dollars for the honor, and
+chivalry, and patriotism of my ancestor.' I tell you, Mr. President, it
+is not good money; it is bad money; it is dishonorable to the memory of
+those who fought your battles."
+
+In February, 1857, the electoral vote for President was counted by the
+two Houses of Congress. The vote of the State of Wisconsin (five
+ballots) had been cast on a day other than that fixed by the States for
+the meeting of the Electoral College. If counted, it gave Fremont 114
+votes; if omitted, Fremont would have 109.
+
+In the debate which followed, Senator Toombs discussed very closely a
+point which has since been the subject of sharp contention. He said:
+"The duty of counting the vote for President devolves on the Senate and
+House of Representatives. They must act in their separate capacities;
+but they alone can determine it, and not the President of the Senate and
+the tellers of the two Houses. It is a high privilege, a dangerous one
+to the liberties and Constitution of this country. The Senate and House
+must determine the votes to be counted, and the President of the Senate
+can only announce those to be votes which are thus decided by competent
+authority, and any attempt of the presiding officer to declare what
+votes he may deem to be legal, or to decide which are the votes, no
+matter whether it affects the result or not, or even to say that the
+question shall not be decided, however highly I respect the chair, I
+submit is not a power given to the presiding officer by the Constitution
+and the laws."
+
+In 1850 Senator Toombs found it necessary to oppose an appropriation for
+an experiment with the Atlantic cable. He was not prepared to say that
+the experiment would not be successful, but he boldly declared, despite
+the importance of the work and the high character of the men who were
+supporting it, that there was no power in the Federal Constitution for
+such an appropriation. Because the government establishes post roads, it
+could not be inferred that the government had the power to aid in
+transmitting intelligence to all quarters of the globe. He did not
+believe in going beyond the constitutional guarantees. He declared of
+these questions, as he had in the debate upon the Kansas bill, that in
+hunting for power and authority he knew but one place to go--to the
+Constitution. When he did not find it there, he could not find it
+anywhere.
+
+Senator Toombs favored the purchase of Cuba, because he considered it
+advantageous to the republic. "I will accept Canada as readily, if it
+can be honestly and fairly done," he said. "I will accept Central
+America and such part of Mexico as, in my judgment, would be
+advantageous to the republic."
+
+The question of the slave population of Cuba should not come into this
+discussion, he declared. "I will not trammel the great constitutional
+power of the Executive to deal with foreign nations, with our internal
+questions; and I will not manacle my country, I will not handcuff the
+energies of this mighty republic, by tying up our foreign diplomacy with
+our internal dissensions. At least to the rest of the world, let us
+present ourselves as one people, one nation." He spurned the idea that
+he wanted Cuba to strengthen the slave power in Congress. He said, "Some
+may think we go for it because by this means we shall have one more
+slave State in the Union. I know that the senator from New York (Mr.
+Seward) at the last session alluded to the comparative number of
+slaveholding and non-slaveholding States; but I never considered that my
+rights lay there; I never considered that I held my rights of property
+by the votes of senators. It is too feeble a tenure. If I did, I have
+shown by my votes that I have not feared them. Whenever any State,
+Minnesota or Oregon, or any other, came, no matter from where, if she
+came on principles which were sufficient in my judgment to justify her
+admission into this great family of nations, I never refused her the
+right hand of fellowship. I did not inquire whether you had seventeen or
+eighteen free States. If you had fifty, it would not alter my vote. The
+idea of getting one slave State would have no effect on me. But Cuba has
+fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of
+Mexico, and then the Carribean Sea, a _mare clausum_. Probably younger
+men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float
+there except by permission of the United States of America. That is my
+policy. I rose more with a view to declare my policy for the future;
+that development, that progress throughout the tropics was the true,
+fixed, unalterable policy of the nation, no matter what may be the
+consequences with reference to European powers."
+
+Mr. Toombs believed that much bad legislation resulted from trusting too
+much to committees. He rarely failed to question such reports, and never
+voted unless he thoroughly understood the subject. He thought this whole
+machinery was a means of "transferring the legislation of the country
+from those into whose hands the Constitution had placed it to
+irresponsible parties." He said it was a common newspaper idea that
+Congress was wasting time in debating details. His opinion was that
+nine-tenths of the time the best thing to be done in public legislation
+was to do nothing. He thought Congress was breaking down the government
+by its own weight in "pensioning all the vagrants brought here. All that
+a man has to do is to make affidavit and get a pension."
+
+In 1859 he refused to vote to appropriate $500,000 for the improvement
+of Buffalo harbor, because he held he had no right to spend the money of
+the whole Union for a particular locality; for this reason he voted to
+abolish the mint at Dahlonega, in his own State.
+
+Mr. Toombs opposed the policy of buying the outstanding debt at a
+premium. He criticised Senator Simon Cameron for asking that the
+government give employment to 50,000 laborers out of work. He said,
+"Sir, government cannot do it and never did do it. There never was a
+government in the world which did not ruin the people they attempted to
+benefit by such a course. Governments do not regulate wages."
+
+Senator Toombs contended that the Postal Department stood on a different
+footing from the army and navy. Postal service, he thought, was no part
+of the national duty. "It is of no more importance to the people of the
+United States that this government should carry my letters than that it
+should carry my cotton." He claimed that he had some old-fashioned
+ideas, but they were innate. "I do not think it right, before God, for
+me to make another man pay my expenses."
+
+In discussing the financial report, he said, "You have as much time to
+appropriate money intelligently as you have to give it lavishly. While
+there is a general cry for retrenchment, when any practical movement is
+made, the answer always is that this is not the right time or the right
+place. I am afraid we shall never find the right time, or the right
+place, until the popular revolution becomes strong enough to send here
+men who will do the public business better than we have done it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ELECTION OF LINCOLN.
+
+
+In the election of November, 1860, Mr. Lincoln received 1,857,610 votes,
+and the combined opposition 2,787,780 votes, the successful candidate
+being in a minority of nearly a million votes. The new House of
+Representatives was Democratic, and the Senate had not been won over to
+the antislavery party. But the trend of Northern politics was
+unmistakably toward the extinction of slavery. As Mr. Lincoln said in
+his letter to Mr. Stephens: "You think slavery is right and ought to be
+extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. There,
+I suppose, is the rub." Mr. Buchanan's message to Congress was full of
+conservative counsel, but the Northern pressure was too strong. His
+Cabinet was soon dissolved, and the places of Southern men were taken by
+Northern representatives, whose influence was not assuring to Southern
+people.
+
+Just before his departure for Congress Mr. Toombs, in response to an
+invitation, wrote a conservative letter to his constituents in Danburg,
+Wilkes County, Ga. It bore date of December 13, 1860. The General
+Assembly of Georgia had unanimously passed a resolution calling for a
+State convention to meet on January 16, 1861. Mr. Toombs took the ground
+that separation, sooner or later, was inevitable. The time when the
+remedy was to be applied was the point of difference. He opposed delay
+longer than March 4, but declared that he would certainly yield that
+point "to earnest and honest men who are with me in principle but are
+more hopeful of redress from the aggressors than I am. To go beyond
+March 4, we should require such preliminary measures to be taken as
+would, with reasonable certainty, lead to adequate redress, and in the
+meantime, we should take care that the delay gives no advantage to the
+adversary." Mr. Toombs declared that he believed the policy of Mr.
+Lincoln was to ultimately abolish slavery in the States, by driving
+slavery out of the Territories, by abrogating Fugitive-slave laws, and
+by protecting those who stole slaves and incited insurrections. The only
+way to remedy these evils, in the Union, was by such constitutional
+amendments as can be neither resisted nor evaded. "If the Republican
+party votes for the amendments, we may postpone final action. This will
+be putting planks where they are good for something. A cartload of new
+planks in the party platform will not redress one wrong nor protect one
+right."
+
+As strong and unmistakable as this letter seemed, the great body of the
+people of Georgia did not think it sufficiently aggressive. Secession
+now amounted to a furor. It was not the work of leaders, but the spirit
+which pervaded the ranks of the people, who clamored because events did
+not move fast enough. The "minute-men" declared Mr. Toombs' letter was a
+backdown. They called him a traitor, and wanted to vote him a tin sword.
+
+Congress, upon reassembling, devoted itself to measures of compromise.
+The situation was one of the deepest gravity. In the House a committee
+of thirty-three was raised, and in the Senate a committee of thirteen,
+to look into the situation. But there was no Henry Clay to interpose,
+with tact and broad statesmanship, at the supreme moment.
+
+Twice before in our history, the "Great Pacificator" had proven equal to
+a desperate emergency. Adjusting the tariff in 1832 when South Carolina
+threatened nullification, he had kept the peace between Calhoun and
+Jackson. Proposing his omnibus bill in 1850, he had silenced all calls
+for disunion by the territorial concession. Equally lacking was the
+example of Webster to face the prejudices of the North and calm the
+apprehensions of the South. Perhaps it was because these men had
+postponed the conflict then that it reappeared now with irrepressible
+power.
+
+The House Committee reported propositions to amend the Fugitive-slave
+laws, and accepted Mr. Toombs' demand that a law should be enacted by
+which all offenses against slave property, by persons fleeing to other
+States, should be tried where the offense was committed.
+
+Mr. Toombs was a member of the committee of thirteen in the Senate. The
+five Southern members submitted the Crittenden Compromise, demanding six
+amendments to the Constitution. These recognized slavery south of the
+old Missouri line, prohibited interference by Congress with slavery in
+the District of Columbia, or with transportation of slaves from one
+State to another, and provided for the payment for fugitive slaves in
+cases where the marshal was prevented from arresting said fugitive. The
+sixth amendment guaranteed the permanence of these provisions.
+
+The House adopted the report of the committee of thirty-three. In the
+Senate a resolution was adopted declaring that the provisions of the
+Constitution were already ample for the preservation of the Union; that
+it needed to be obeyed rather than amended. This, upon a test vote of
+twenty-five to twenty-three, was substituted for the Crittenden
+Compromise. Mr. Toombs and five other Democratic members refused to
+vote, as they appropriately declared that no measure could be of value
+to the South, unless it had the support of Republican senators from the
+North. They sat still and waited to see whether those senators offered
+any guarantees. The twenty-five votes showed that the Republicans were
+not in a conciliatory mood. This, in the opinion of Senator Toombs, was
+conclusive that the best interests of the South lay in immediate
+separation.
+
+Once convinced that this was the proper course, Senator Toombs bent all
+his powers to bring about that result. He saw that if the Southern
+States must secede, the quicker they did so the better. If the North
+cared to recall them, a vigorous policy would react more promptly upon
+the Republicans. He did not go into this movement with foreboding or
+half-heartedness. There was no mawkish sentiment--no melancholy in his
+make-up. His convictions mastered him, and his energy moved him to
+redoubled effort. On the 22d of December he sent his famous telegram to
+his "fellow-citizens of Georgia." He recited that his resolutions had
+been treated with derision and contempt by the Republican members of the
+committee of thirteen. The amendments proposed by Mr. Crittenden had
+"each and all of them been voted against unanimously by the Republican
+members of the committee." These members had also declared that they had
+no guarantees to offer. He believed that the House Committee only sought
+to amuse the South with delusive hope, "until your election, in order
+that you may defeat the friends of secession. If you are deceived by
+them it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly.
+It has been decided against you, and now I tell you upon the faith of a
+true man, that all further looking to the North for security for your
+constitutional rights in the Union, ought to be instantly abandoned. It
+is fraught with nothing but menace to yourselves and your party.
+Secession by the 4th of March next should be thundered forth from the
+ballot-box by the united voice of Georgia. Such a voice will be your
+best guaranty for liberty, security, tranquillity, and glory."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+FAREWELL TO THE SENATE.
+
+
+On the 7th of January, 1861, Robert Toombs delivered his farewell speech
+to the United States Senate. It received profound attention. It was full
+of brief sentences and bristling points. In epigrammatic power, it was
+the strongest summary of the demands of the South. As Mr. Blaine said,
+it was the only speech made by a congressman from the seceding States
+which specified the grievances of the South and which named the
+conditions upon which the States would stay in the Union. Other Senators
+regarded secession as a fixed fact. Mr. Toombs declared what, in his
+opinion, would prevent it. And yet, as he stood at his desk, where for
+seven years he had been a recognized leader, his earnestness and
+deliberation revealed a man whose hand did not hesitate to lead a revolt
+and whose heart did not fail in the face of a certain revolution. He
+acted up to his own words, repeated a short while later: "He who dallies
+is a dastard; he who doubts is damned."
+
+This speech was bold, succinct, definite. "Senators," said Mr. Toombs,
+"my countrymen have demanded no new government. They have demanded no
+new Constitution. The discontented States have demanded nothing but
+clear, distinct, constitutional rights, rights older than the
+Constitution. What do these rebels demand? First, that the people of the
+United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the
+Territories with whatever property (including slaves) they may possess.
+Second, that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection
+from the government as any other property (leaving the State the right
+to prohibit, protect, or abolish slavery within its limits). Third, that
+persons committing crimes against slave property in one State and flying
+to another shall be given up. Fourth, that fugitive slaves shall be
+surrendered. Fifth, that Congress shall pass laws for the punishment of
+all persons who shall aid and abet invasion and insurrection in any
+other State."
+
+He said: "We demand these five propositions. Are they not right? Are
+they not just? We will pause and consider them; but, mark me, we will
+not let you decide the questions for us. I have little care to dispute
+remedies with you unless you propose to redress our wrongs.
+
+"But no matter what may be our grievances, the honorable senator from
+Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden) says we cannot secede. Well, what can we do?
+We cannot revolutionize. He will say that is treason. What can we do?
+Submit? They say they are the strongest and they will hang us. Very
+well! I suppose we are to be thankful for that boon. We will take that
+risk. We will stand by the right; we will take the Constitution; we will
+defend it with the sword, with the halter around our necks. Will that
+satisfy the honorable senator from Kentucky? You cannot intimidate my
+constituents by talking to them of treason.
+
+"You will not regard confederate obligations; you will not regard
+constitutional obligations; you will not regard your oaths. What, then,
+am I to do? Am I a freeman? Is my State a free State? We are freemen; we
+have rights; I have stated them. We have wrongs; I have recounted them.
+I have demonstrated that the party now coming into power has declared us
+outlaws, and is determined to exclude thousands of millions of our
+property from the common territory; that it has declared us under the
+ban of the Union, and out of the protection of the laws of the United
+States everywhere. They have refused to protect us from invasion and
+insurrection by the Federal power, and the Constitution denies to us, in
+the Union, the right to raise fleets and armies for our own defense. All
+these charges I have proven by the record; and I put them before the
+civilized world and demand the judgment of to-day, of to-morrow, of
+distant ages, and of Heaven itself upon the justice of these causes. I
+am content, whatever it be, to peril all in so holy a cause. We have
+appealed, time and again, for these constitutional rights. You have
+refused them. We appeal again. Restore us those rights as we had them;
+as your Court adjudges them to be; just as our people have said they
+are. Redress these flagrant wrongs--seen of all men--and it will restore
+fraternity, and unity, and peace to us all. Refuse them, and what then?
+We shall then ask you, 'Let us depart in peace.' Refuse that, and you
+present us war. We accept it, and, inscribing upon our banners the
+glorious words, 'Liberty and Equality,' we will trust to the blood of
+the brave and the God of battles for security and tranquillity."
+
+This speech created wide attention. It closed the career of Robert
+Toombs as a member of the national councils. For sixteen years he had
+served in the two Houses in Washington, holding his rank among the first
+men in the country.
+
+He was then fifty-one years old, full of strength and confidence. His
+leadership among Southern men was undisputed; his participation in
+public business had been long and honorable; upon matters of home and
+foreign policy his word had been law in the Senate; his influence had
+been preponderating.
+
+[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF GENERAL TOOMBS, WASHINGTON, GA.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TOOMBS AND SECESSION.
+
+
+On the 16th of January, the State Sovereignty convention met in
+Milledgeville, Ga. The election had taken place shortly after the
+delivery of Senator Toombs' farewell address, and Georgia had answered
+to his call in the election of delegates by giving a vote of 50,243 in
+favor of secession, and 39,123 against it. The convention was presided
+over by George W. Crawford, who had lived in retirement since the death
+of President Taylor in 1850, and who was called on to lend his prestige
+and influence in favor of the rights of his State. The convention went
+into secret session, and when the doors were opened, Hon. Eugenius A.
+Nisbet of Bibb offered a resolution, "That in the opinion of this
+convention, it is the right and duty of Georgia to secede from the
+Union." On the passage of this, the yeas were 165 and the noes 130. Mr.
+Toombs voted "yes," and Messrs. Hill, Johnson, and Stephens, "no." Next
+day the committee of seventeen, through Judge Nisbet, reported the
+Ordinance of Secession. It was short and pointed; it simply declared
+that the people of the State of Georgia, in convention assembled,
+repealed the ordinance of 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United
+States was ratified and adopted. The Union was declared dissolved, so
+far as the State of Georgia was concerned, and the State to be in full
+possession of all those rights of sovereignty that belonged to a free
+and independent State. On the passage of this ordinance, the yeas were
+208, and the noes, 89. Messrs. Toombs and Hill "yes," and Mr. Stephens
+"no." At 2.15 P. M. on the 19th of January, a signal gun was fired, and
+the "Stars and Stripes" lowered from the State Capitol. One moment
+later, the white colonial flag of Georgia fluttered to the winds, and
+the State was in uproar. The news flashed to the utmost corners of the
+commonwealth. Guns were fired, bells rung, and men were beside
+themselves. The night only intensified this carnival of joy. There were
+some men who shook their heads and doubted the wisdom of this step, and
+there were women and little children who regarded these demonstrations
+with awe. They did not comprehend what was meant by "going out of the
+Union," and by some inscrutable instinct feared the result of such an
+act. The old Union sentiment was, perhaps, stronger in Georgia than in
+any other Southern State. Georgia was the youngest of the thirteen
+States, the last of the commonwealth to come into the national compact.
+Her charter from the Crown had originally barred slavery from her
+limits, but the success of the institution in Carolina, the progress of
+other States in subduing land and in cultivating indigo and tobacco in
+the Southern savannas, rendered white labor unavailable, and left
+Georgia a laggard in the work of the younger colonies. Finally, slaves
+were admitted, and commerce and agriculture seemed to thrive. But if the
+State had preserved its original charter restrictions, it is not certain
+that, even then, the Union sentiment would have prevailed. As Senator
+Toombs had declared: "The question of slavery moves not the people of
+Georgia one-half so much as the fact that you insult their rights as a
+community. Abolitionists are right when they say that there are
+thousands and tens of thousands of people in Georgia who do not own
+slaves. A very large portion of the people of Georgia own none of them.
+In the mountains there are but a few of them; but no part of our people
+is more loyal to race and country than our bold and hardy mountain
+population, and every flash of the electric wire brings me cheering news
+from our mountain-tops and our valleys that these sons of Georgia are
+excelled by none of their countrymen in loyalty to their rights, the
+honor and glory of the commonwealth. They say, and well say, this is our
+question: we want no negro equality; no negro citizenship; we want no
+mongrel race to degrade our own, and, as one man, they would meet you
+upon the border with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other.
+They will tell you, 'When we choose to abolish this thing (slavery), it
+must be done under our direction, according to our will. Our own, our
+native land shall determine this question, and not the Abolitionists of
+the North.' That is the spirit of our freemen."
+
+The spirit of the people was plainly manifested by the zeal and ardor of
+Thomas R. R. Cobb. He was a young man who went into the secession
+movement with lofty enthusiasm. He had all the ardor and religious
+fervor of a crusader. He had never held public office, and had taken no
+hand in politics until the time came for Georgia to secede. He was the
+younger brother of Howell Cobb. He declared that what Mr. Stephens said
+was the determining sentiment of the hour, that "Georgia could make
+better terms out of the Union than in it." The greater part of the
+people was fired with this fervor, which they felt to be patriotic.
+Gray-bearded men vied with the hot blood of youth, and a venerable
+citizen of Augusta, illuminating his residence from dome to cellar,
+blazoned with candles this device upon his gateway--"Georgia, right or
+wrong--Georgia!" Never was a movement so general, so spontaneous. Those
+who charged the leaders of that day with precipitating their States into
+revolution upon a wild dream of power, did not know the spirit and the
+temper of the people who composed that movement. Northern men who had
+moved South and engaged in business, as a general thing, stood shoulder
+to shoulder with their Southern brethren, and went out with the
+companies that first responded to the call to war. The South sacrificed
+much, in a material point of view, in going into civil conflict. In the
+decade between 1850 and 1860, the wealth of the South had increased
+three billions of dollars, and Georgia alone had shown a growth measured
+by two hundred millions. Her aggregate wealth at the time she passed the
+Ordinance of Secession was six hundred and seventy-two millions, double
+what it is to-day. In one year her increase was sixty-two millions.
+Business of all kinds was prospering. But her people did not count the
+cost when they considered that their rights were invaded. Georgia was
+the fifth State to secede. South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and
+Florida had preceded her. Of the six States which formed the Provisional
+Government, Georgia had relatively a smaller number of slaves than any,
+and her State debt was only a little more than two and a half millions
+of dollars. Her voting population was barely 100,000, but she furnished,
+when the test came, 120,000 soldiers to the Confederate army.
+
+As a contemporary print of those times remarked, "The Secession
+convention of Georgia was not divided upon the subject of rights or
+wrongs, but of remedies." Senator Toombs declared that the convention
+had sovereign powers, "limited only by God and the right." This policy
+opened the way to changing the great seal and adopting a new flag. Mr.
+Toombs was made chairman of the committee on Foreign Relations and
+became at once Prime Minister of the young Republic. He offered a
+resolution providing that a congress of seceded States be called to meet
+in Montgomery on the 4th of February. He admonished the convention that,
+as it had destroyed one government, it was its pressing duty to build up
+another. It was at his request that commissioners were appointed from
+Georgia to the other States in the South. Mr. Toombs also introduced a
+resolution, which was unanimously adopted, "That the Convention highly
+approves the energetic and patriotic conduct of Governor Brown in
+seizing Fort Pulaski."
+
+The Ordinance of Secession was, on the 31st of January, signed by all
+the members of the convention, in the open air, in the Capitol grounds.
+The scene was solemn and impressive. Six delegates entered their
+protests, but pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
+honor" in defense of Georgia against coercion and invasion.
+
+When the time came for the election of delegates to the Provisional
+Congress at Montgomery, Robert Toombs was unanimously selected as the
+first deputy from the State at large. His colleague, Howell Cobb, was
+chosen on the third ballot. The district selected Francis S. Bartow,
+Martin J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. R.
+Cobb, A. H. Kennan, and A. H. Stephens.
+
+The address to the people of Georgia adopted by this convention, was
+written by Mr. Toombs. It recited that "our people are still attached to
+the Union from habit, national tradition, and aversion to change." The
+address alluded to our "Northern Confederates" and declared that the
+issue had been "deliberately forced by the North and deliberately
+accepted by the South. We refuse to submit to the verdict of the North,
+and in vindication we offer the Constitution of our country. The people
+of Georgia have always been willing to stand by this compact; but they
+know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands." The report
+charged that the North had outlawed three thousand millions of our
+property, put it under a ban, and would subject us, not only to a loss
+of our property, but to destruction of our homes and firesides. It
+concludes: "To avoid these evils, we withdraw the powers that our
+fathers delegated to the government of the United States, and henceforth
+seek new safeguards for our liberty, security, and tranquillity."
+
+On the 4th of February, 1861, forty-two delegates met at Montgomery,
+Ala. The States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
+and South Carolina were represented. Howell Cobb of Georgia was chosen
+President of the Provisional Congress. Mr. Stephens said it was the most
+intellectual body of men he had ever seen. One of the first duties of
+this convention was to elect a President and vice president of the new
+Confederacy. All eyes were turned to Robert Toombs. It was by common
+consent agreed that Georgia, owing to her commanding position, her
+prominence in the movement, and her wealth of great men, should furnish
+the President. Toombs towered even above the members of that convention.
+Bold, imperious, and brainy, he had guided the revolution without haste
+or heat, and his conservative course in the Georgia convention had
+silenced those critics who had called him "the genius of the
+revolution," but denied to him the constructive power to build upon the
+ruins he had made. He had, in the choice of delegates to the Provisional
+Congress, boldly advocated the election of Mr. Stephens from his own
+district, although the latter was a Union man and, at that time, was not
+on good terms with Toombs. Toombs declared that Alexander Stephens was a
+patriot notwithstanding his views against secession. He had secured the
+recommitment of a dangerous resolution upon slavery which, he declared,
+would injure the South by the announcement of an ultra policy. He had
+written a very conservative letter to Senator Crittenden. He had been a
+prominent Secessionist, and had contemplated the movement as unavoidable
+when men were talking with bated breath. But in the opening of the
+revolution, he had proven a safe counselor. Mr. Toombs was approached,
+and announced that he would accept the presidency if it were offered
+with unanimity. He was surprised to learn that the delegates from four
+States had agreed on Jefferson Davis. When this report was confirmed,
+Mr. Toombs, ignorant of the real cause of this sudden change of
+sentiment, forbade further canvass of his own claims, and cordially
+seconded the nomination of Mr. Davis. Mr. Toombs was a man of rare
+magnanimity. He was absolutely without envy or resentment, and turning
+to Mr. Stephens, pressed him to accept second place on the ticket. The
+announcement of a Georgian for vice president effectually disposed of
+his own chance for the presidency. The fact was that Mr. Toombs was the
+first choice of Georgia, as he was thought to be of Florida, Carolina,
+and Louisiana. Jefferson Davis had not been presented by Mississippi. He
+had been selected by that State as the commander-in-chief of the
+military forces and himself preferred a military station. He was not in
+Montgomery when his nomination was confirmed. A messenger had to be
+dispatched to inform him of his election as President of the Confederate
+States of America.
+
+The sudden selection of Mr. Davis by four States probably carries a bit
+of secret history. Old party antagonisms arose at the last moment to
+confront the candidacy of Mr. Toombs. Toombs had summarily left the Whig
+party in 1850, to join the great Constitutional Union movement.
+Jefferson Davis had always been a States' Rights Democrat, and had been
+defeated for Governor of Mississippi by the Constitutional Union party.
+Thus it would seem that, at the eleventh hour, party lines were drawn
+against Robert Toombs, and his boast that he had saved the Union in 1850
+probably cost him the presidency of the new republic. There was a story,
+credited in some quarters, that Mr. Toombs' convivial conduct at a
+dinner party in Montgomery estranged from him some of the more
+conservative delegates, who did not realize that a man like Toombs had
+versatile and reserved powers, and that Toombs at the banquet board was
+another sort of a man from Toombs in a deliberative body.
+
+At all events, the recognized leader of the Confederacy was set aside,
+and with rare unanimity the election of officers was accepted with
+unselfish patriotism.
+
+At that time a curious and remarkable incident in the life of Mr. Toombs
+was related. Within thirty days he had performed journeys to the extent
+of fifteen hundred miles, largely by private conveyance, and during that
+brief period he served under four distinct governments: as senator in
+the Congress of the United States, as delegate from his native county
+(Wilkes) to the convention of the sovereign republic of Georgia, as
+deputy from his State to the Congress of seceding States, which
+instituted a Provisional Government, and finally in the permanent
+government which he aided in framing for the Confederate States of
+America.
+
+In the perfection of a permanent government and the new-molding of a
+Constitution, Mr. Toombs was now diligently engaged. The principal
+changes brought about by him may be briefly recalled. It was specified,
+in order to cut off lobby agents, that Congress should grant no extra
+compensation to any contractor after the service was rendered. This item
+originated with Mr. Toombs, who had noted the abuses in the Federal
+Government. Congress was authorized to grant to the principal officer of
+each of the executive departments a seat upon the floor of either house,
+without a vote, but with the privilege of discussing any measure
+relating to his department. This was an old idea of Mr. Toombs, and
+during his visit abroad, he had attended sessions of the British
+Parliament in company with Mr. Buchanan, then Minister to England. He
+had been impressed with the value of the presence in Parliament of the
+Ministers themselves. During a debate in the United States Senate in
+1859, Mr. Toombs had said: "My own opinion is that it would be a great
+improvement on our system if the Cabinet officers should be on the floor
+of both Houses, and should participate in the debate; I have no doubt
+that we should thus get rid of one of the greatest difficulties in our
+Constitution."
+
+Mr. Toombs also incorporated into the organic law a prohibition of the
+payment of bounties and of the internal improvement system. There was a
+tax upon navigation for harbors, buoys, and beacons, but this was
+adjusted upon the Toombs principle of taxing the interest for which the
+burden was levied. Mr. Toombs was made chairman of the Finance Committee
+of the Provisional Congress. This appointment was received with general
+satisfaction. His long legislative experience, his genius for finance,
+and his executive power, fitted him for this position. To provide ways
+and means for the new nation which was, as yet, without resources or a
+system of taxation, involved no little difficulty. It was important that
+the young Confederacy should exhibit resources sufficient to equip her
+armies and maintain herself before she could sue for independence or
+foreign recognition. It was for these admitted qualities of Mr. Toombs
+for details and management, that President Davis preferred him to take
+the position of Secretary of the Treasury. Next to the presidency this
+was his real place, but it was suggested that a man like Toombs deserved
+the first position in the new Cabinet. A telegram from President Davis,
+offering him the portfolio of Secretary of State, reached Mr. Toombs in
+Augusta. He at first declined, but being urged by Mr. Stephens, finally
+consented to serve. The Cabinet was then made up as follows. Robert
+Toombs of Georgia, Secretary of State; C. G. Memminger of South
+Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; L. P. Walker of Alabama, Secretary
+of War; J. H. Reagan of Texas, Postmaster-General; J. P. Benjamin of
+Louisiana, Attorney-General; S. B. Mallory of Florida, Secretary of the
+Navy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+TOOMBS AS PREMIER OF THE CONFEDERACY.
+
+
+One of the first acts of the new Confederate Government was to send
+three commissioners to Washington. John Forsyth of Alabama, Martin J.
+Crawford of Georgia, and A. B. Roman of Louisiana, were intrusted by the
+Secretary of State, Mr. Toombs, with a speedy adjustment of questions
+growing out of the political revolution, upon such terms of amity and
+good will as would guarantee the future welfare of the two sections. Mr.
+Toombs instructed Mr. Crawford, whom he had especially persuaded to take
+this delicate mission, that he should pertinaciously demand the
+evacuation of Fort Sumter and the maintenance of the status elsewhere.
+
+Secretary Seward declined to receive the commissioners in any diplomatic
+capacity, or even to see them personally. He acknowledged the receipt of
+their communication and caused the commissioners to be notified,
+pointedly, that he hoped they would not press him to reply at that time.
+Mr. Seward was represented as strongly disposed in favor of peace, and
+the Confederate Government was semi-officially informed that Fort
+Sumter would probably be evacuated in a short time, and all immediate
+danger of conflict avoided. There is no doubt that such were Mr.
+Seward's intentions. He had cordially agreed with General Winfield Scott
+that the possession of Fort Sumter amounted to little in a strategical
+way, and that the peace-loving people, North and South, should not be
+driven into the war party by premature shock over the provisioning of a
+fort that no Federal force could have held for a week. Mr. Lincoln's
+Cabinet took this position and, by a vote of five to two, favored the
+abandonment of Sumter. The commissioners were apprised of this feeling,
+and in a dispatch to Secretary Toombs, on the 20th of March, declared
+that there was no change in the status. "If there is any faith in man,"
+they wrote, "we may rely on the assurances we have as to the status.
+Time is essential to the principal issue of this mission. In the present
+posture of affairs, precipitation is war."
+
+On the 26th of March the commissioners, having heard nothing more, asked
+the Confederate Secretary whether they should delay longer or demand an
+answer at once. Secretary Toombs wired them to wait a reasonable time
+and then ask for instructions. He gave them the views of President
+Davis, who believed that the counsels of Mr. Seward would prevail in
+Washington. "So long as the United States neither declares war nor
+establishes peace, it affords the Confederate States the advantage of
+both positions, and enables them to make all necessary arrangements for
+public defense and the solidification of government more safely,
+cheaply, and expeditiously than if the attitude of the United States was
+more definite and decided."
+
+Meanwhile new pressure was brought to bear on President Lincoln. On the
+2d of April, the commissioners, who kept up pretty well with the
+situation, telegraphed Secretary Toombs: "The war party presses on the
+President; he vibrates to that side." The rumor was given that the
+President had conferred with an engineer in regard to Fort Sumter.
+"Watch at all points." Three days later they telegraphed that the
+movement of troops and the preparation of vessels of war were continued
+with great activity. "The statement that the armament is intended for
+San Domingo," they said, "may be a mere ruse." "Have no confidence in
+this administration. We say, be ever on your guard.... Glad to hear you
+are ready. The notice promised us may come at the last moment, if the
+fleet be intended for our waters."
+
+On the 6th of April Governor Pickens of South Carolina was informed that
+the President had decided to supply Fort Sumter with provisions, and on
+the 10th, Hon. Levi P. Walker, Secretary of War at Montgomery, notified
+General Beauregard, then in command of the Confederate forces at
+Charleston, to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, and, if refused, to
+proceed to reduce it.
+
+There is no doubt that the Lincoln Cabinet reversed its position about
+Sumter. The pressure of New England and the West became too strong. What
+Sumter lacked in military importance, it made up in political
+significance. The Lincoln Government had already been taunted with
+weakness by the people who had placed it in office. Mr. Lincoln decided,
+against the better judgment of Mr. Seward, to make the issue in
+Charleston Harbor.
+
+Seward's mind was of finer and more reflective cast than Mr. Lincoln's.
+He had all the points of a diplomatist, ingenuity, subtlety, adroitness.
+He was temporizing over the natural antipathy of the North to war and
+the probable transient nature of the secession feeling in the South. At
+that very moment he was assuring England and France that "the
+conservative element in the South, which was kept under the surface by
+the violent pressure of secession, will emerge with irresistible force."
+He believed "that the evils and hardships produced by secession would
+become intolerably grievous to the Southern States."
+
+Mr. Lincoln was not temporizing at all. He was looking the crisis in the
+face. What he wanted was support at the North, not at the South. He was
+willing to force the fighting at Sumter, knowing that the mere act of
+the Confederates in firing upon the flag would bring to his aid a united
+North.
+
+Secretary Toombs was one man in the Montgomery Cabinet who was not
+deceived by Seward's sophistries. He knew the temper of Mr. Lincoln
+better than Mr. Seward did. He appreciated the feeling at the North, and
+gave his counsel in the Davis Cabinet against the immediate assault upon
+Sumter. There was a secret session of the Cabinet in Montgomery. Toombs
+was pacing the floor during the discussion over Sumter, his hands behind
+him, and his face wearing that heavy, dreamy look when in repose. Facing
+about, he turned upon the President and opposed the attack. "Mr.
+President," he said, "at this time, it is suicide, murder, and will lose
+us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest
+which extends from mountains to ocean, and legions, now quiet, will
+swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the
+wrong; it is fatal." He clung to the idea expressed in his dispatches to
+the commissioners, that "So long as the United States neither declares
+war nor establishes peace, the Confederate States have the advantage of
+both conditions." But just as President Lincoln overruled Secretary
+Seward, so President Davis overruled Secretary Toombs.
+
+No event in American history was more portentous than the first gun
+fired from Fort Johnson at 1.30 o'clock in the morning of April 12,
+1861. As the shell wound its graceful curve into the air and fell into
+the water at the base of Sumter, the Civil War was an accomplished fact.
+Major Anderson replied with his barbette guns from the fort. He had but
+little more than 100 men, and early in the engagement was forced to rely
+entirely upon his casemate ordinance. The Confederate forces numbered
+about five thousand, with thirty guns and seventeen mortars, and served
+their guns from the batteries on Mount Pleasant, Cummings Point, and the
+floating battery. Fort Sumter was built on an artificial island at the
+mouth of Charleston Harbor, and was about three and a half miles from
+the city. It had cost the government one million dollars, and had not
+been entirely completed at the time of the bombardment.
+
+The excitement in Charleston at the opening gun was very great. People
+rushed from their beds to the water-front, and men and women watched the
+great duel through their glasses. The South had gone into the war with
+all the fervor of conviction. The gunners in Moultrie and on Morris
+Island would leap to the ramparts and watch the effect of their shots,
+and jump back to their guns with a cheer. There was all the pomp and
+sound, but few of the terrors of war. On the morning of the second day
+the quarters in the fort caught fire and the whole place was wrapped in
+flames and smoke, but Major Anderson's men won the admiration of their
+enemies by standing by their guns and returning the fire at regular
+intervals. The battle lasted thirty-two hours; more than fifty tons of
+cannon-balls and eight tons of powder were expended from weapons the
+most destructive then known to warfare; not a life was lost on either
+side. Sumter and Moultrie were both badly damaged. Major Anderson
+surrendered on Saturday, April 13.
+
+The London _Times_ treated this remarkable event in humorous style. The
+proceedings at Charleston were likened to a cricket match or a regatta
+in England. The ladies turned out to view the contest. A good shot from
+Fort Sumter was as much applauded as a good shot from Fort Moultrie.
+When the American flag was shot away, General Beauregard sent Major
+Anderson another to fight under. When the fort was found to be on fire,
+the polite enemy, who had with such intense energy labored to excite the
+conflagration, offered equally energetic assistance to put it out. The
+only indignation felt throughout the affair was at the conduct of the
+Northern flotilla, which kept outside and took no part in the fray. The
+Southerners resented this as an act of treachery toward their favorite
+enemy, Major Anderson. "Altogether," says the _Times_, "nothing can be
+more free from the furious hatreds, which are distinctive of civil
+warfare, than this bloodless conflict has been." Another London paper
+remarked "No one was hurt. And so ended the first, and, we trust, the
+last engagement of the American Civil War."
+
+Mr. Toombs' prediction, that the attack upon Fort Sumter would "open a
+hornet's nest" in the North, was sustained. The effect of the assault at
+that time and the lowering of the national flag to the forces of the
+Confederacy acted, as Mr. Blaine has stated, "as an inspiration,
+consolidating public sentiment, dissipating all differences." In fact it
+brought matters to a crisis all around, and prepared the two sections
+for the great drama of the War.
+
+An important part of the work of Secretary Toombs was the selection of a
+commission to proceed to Europe and present the Confederate position to
+England and France, in order to secure recognition of the new nation.
+Mr. William L. Yancey was placed at the head of this commission, and
+with him were associated Mr. A. D. Mason of Virginia, and Mr. A. P. Rost
+of Louisiana. The first month of the term of the Confederate Secretary
+of State was occupied in the issue of letters of marque. On the 19th of
+April President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports, and
+declared that privateers with letters of marque from the Southern
+Confederacy should be treated as pirates. This gave Secretary Toombs a
+strong point in dealing with foreign powers. The new government had been
+organized with promptness and ability. Great energy was shown in getting
+the civil and military branches equipped. The Southern position had been
+presented with great strength abroad, and France and England were not
+slow in framing proclamations recognizing the Confederate States as
+belligerents. Next to immediate recognition as a separate nationality,
+this step was significant, and was the first triumph of the diplomacy of
+Secretary Toombs over Secretary Seward. Then came the demand from the
+foreign powers that the blockade must be effectual, imposing a heavy
+burden upon the Northern States. Lord Lyons, acting in Washington in
+concert with the French Government, declared that "Her Majesty's
+Government would consider a decree closing the ports of the South,
+actually in possession of the Confederate States, as null and void, and
+they would not submit to measures on the high seas pursuant to such a
+decree." Mr Seward bitterly complained that Great Britain "did not
+sympathize with this government." The British Minister accordingly
+charged the British Consul at Charleston with the task of obtaining from
+the Confederate Government securities concerning the proper treatment
+of neutrals. He asked the accession of the Lincoln government and of the
+Davis government to the Declaration of Paris of 1856, which had adopted
+as articles of maritime law that privateering be abolished; that the
+neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of
+war; that neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are
+not liable to capture under the enemy's flag; that a blockade, in order
+to be binding, must be effectual, that is, must be maintained by a force
+sufficient to prevent access to the coast of the enemy. These
+conditions, except the first, were accepted by the Confederate
+Government.
+
+The Southern Confederacy thus became parties, as Mr. Blaine says, to "an
+international compact"; and when, a few months later, Mr. Seward offered
+to waive the point made by Secretary Marcy many years before, and accept
+the four articles of the Paris convention, he found himself blocked,
+because the Confederate States had not accepted the first article,
+abolishing privateering, and her privateers must, therefore, be
+recognized. It was by these privateers that great damage was inflicted
+upon American shipping.
+
+The Confederate States had no regular navy, and but few vessels; they
+were an agricultural community, not a commercial or a ship-building
+people. Quite a number of vessels were put in commission under letters
+of marque, and these reached the high seas by running the blockade. Many
+prizes were taken and run into Southern ports. Later on steamers were
+fitted out and sent to sea under command of experienced officers. This
+naval militia captured millions of the enemy's property, and produced a
+great sensation at the North. A Southern agent was sent abroad by the
+naval department to get ships and supplies. "In three years' time," says
+Mr. Blaine, "fifteen millions of property had been destroyed by Southern
+privateers, given to the flames, or sunk beneath the waters. The
+shipping of the United States was reduced one-half, and the commercial
+flag of the Union fluttered with terror in every wind that blew, from
+the whale fisheries of the Arctic to the Southern Cross."
+
+On the 21st of May, the Confederate Congress, after providing for the
+disposition of these naval prizes, and the treatment of prisoners of war
+brought into Southern ports, adjourned to meet on the 20th of July in
+the City of Richmond, now selected as the permanent seat of Government
+of the Confederacy.
+
+The powers of Europe never recognized the Confederate States as a
+separate nation. The leaders of the English Government were, no doubt,
+inclined to this step, but the rank and file of the Liberal party, under
+the leadership of John Bright, refused to sanction such a course toward
+a government whose corner stone was slavery. Mr. Seward ingeniously
+pressed the point that Southern success meant a slave oligarchy around
+the Gulf of Mexico. Russia remained the strong ally of the Northern
+States. England, with the Crimean War fresh upon her hands, hesitated
+before engaging Russia again or imperiling India in the East. France
+could not afford to take the step without the aid of England. Secretary
+Toombs dispatched a Minister to Mexico to look into the interesting
+tumult then going on. Louis Napoleon was filled with his desire of
+establishing Maximilian in Mexico, but his movement did not succeed.
+Maximilian was defeated and executed, and Napoleon found himself too
+much engaged with the House of Hohenzollern in Germany to follow any new
+or original policy in America.
+
+Carlyle declared with dyspeptic acrimony that the Civil War was the
+foulest chimney of the century, and should be allowed to burn out.
+
+Secretary Toombs had issued credentials to commissioners to the
+unseceded Southern States. On the 17th of April Virginia seceded; on the
+28th of May North Carolina went out of the Union; these were followed by
+Tennessee and Arkansas. The border States of Kentucky and Missouri did
+not formally secede, but indignantly declined to furnish troops in
+response to Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. They appointed delegates to a
+Peace Congress to meet in Washington.
+
+The tedious routine of the State Department did not suit the restless
+spirit of Robert Toombs. He had established relations abroad as
+belligerents, and had placed the new government in touch with its
+Southern neighbors. His dispatches were remarkable for brevity,
+clearness, and boldness; his public papers are models of nervous style,
+but he longed for a more active field in the revolution. He chafed under
+red-tape and convention. Toombs charged the new administration with too
+much caution and timidity. He declared that ninety per cent of war was
+business, and that the South must organize victory rather than trust
+entirety to fighting. He urged the government to send over cotton to
+England and buy arms and ships forthwith. "Joe Brown," he impatiently
+declared, "had more guns than the whole Confederacy. No new government,"
+said he, "ever started with such unlimited credit." Mr. Toombs believed
+that the financial part of the Confederacy was a failure. "We could have
+whipped the fight," said he, in his impetuous way, "in the first sixty
+days. The contest was haphazard from the first, and nothing but
+miraculous valor kept it going." Mr. Toombs said that had he been
+President of the Confederacy, he would have mortgaged every pound of
+cotton to France and England at a price that would have remunerated the
+planters, and in consideration of which he would have secured the aid of
+the armies and navies of both countries.
+
+But Robert Toombs concluded that his place was in the field, not in the
+Cabinet. Too many prominent men, he explained, were seeking bombproof
+positions. He received a commission as brigadier general, and on the
+21st of July, 1861, joined Generals Beauregard and Johnston at Manassas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+BRIGADIER GENERAL IN ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.
+
+
+When Robert Toombs resigned the Cabinet and took the field, he still
+held the seat, as was his prerogative, in the Confederate Congress. This
+body, like the British Parliament, sat in chairs, without desks. One
+morning Congress was discussing the Produce Loan. By this measure,
+invitations were given for contributions of cotton and other crops in
+the way of a loan. By the terms of the act these articles were to be
+sold and the proceeds turned over to the Secretary of the Treasury, who
+was to issue eight per cent bonds for them. This was an extraordinary
+measure, and never really amounted to much. Colonel A. R. Lamar, at one
+time Secretary of the Provisional Congress, relates that during this
+debate General Toombs walked into the hall. "He was faultlessly attired
+in a black suit with a military cloak thrown over one shoulder and a
+military hat in his left hand. He made a rattling speech against the
+measure. Drawing himself up, he said: "Mr. Speaker, we have been told
+that Cotton is King, that he will find his way to the vaults of the
+bankers of the Old World; that he can march up to the thrones of mighty
+potentates, and drag from the arsenals of armed nations the dogs of war;
+that he can open our closed ports, and fly our young flag upon all the
+seas. And yet, before the first autumnal frost has blighted a leaf upon
+his coronet, he comes to this hall a trembling mendicant, and says,
+'Give me drink, Titinius, or I perish.'" The effect was magical; Colonel
+Lamar, in commenting upon this dramatic incident, sums up the whole
+character of Robert Toombs:
+
+"He was cautious and safe in counsel, while wild and exasperating in
+speech."
+
+When Mr. Toombs was once asked by an Englishman, where were the files of
+the State Department, he answered that "He carried the archives in his
+hat." When he resigned the position of Secretary of State, Hon. Robert
+M. T. Hunter of Virginia was appointed in his stead. General William M.
+Browne had been Assistant Secretary under Mr. Toombs. He was an
+Englishman, who came to this country during Buchanan's administration
+and edited a Democratic paper in Washington. When General Toombs joined
+the Army his staff was made up as follows; D. M. DuBose, Adjutant
+General; R. J. Moses, Commissary General; W. F. Alexander, Quartermaster
+Major; DeRosset Lamar, Aid-de-camp.
+
+General Toombs' entry into the field, just after the first battle of
+Manassas, found the army of the Confederacy flushed with victory, but
+badly scattered after the first serious engagement of the war. General
+Johnston had declared that even after the decisive advantage at Bull
+Run, pursuit was not to be thought of, for his troops were almost as
+much disorganized by victory as the Federals by their defeat. Many
+soldiers, supposing the war was over, had actually gone home. "Our men,"
+said General Johnston, "had in a larger degree the instincts of personal
+liberty than those of the North, and it was found very difficult to
+subordinate their personal wills to the needs of military discipline."
+
+The battle of Manassas had a powerful effect upon the Northern mind. The
+Lincoln Cabinet was seized with fear for the safety of Washington. New
+troops were summoned to that city, and the materials for a magnificent
+army were placed in the hands of General McClellan, who had succeeded
+McDowell, the luckless victim of Manassas. More than one hundred
+thousand men were now massed in front of Washington, while Joseph E.
+Johnston, with fifty-four thousand, advanced his outposts to
+Centreville, and at Munson's Hill Toombs' brigade was in sight of the
+national capital. His troops could easily watch the workmen building one
+of the wings of the Capitol, and the victorious Confederates, with
+prestige in their ranks, were actually flaunting their flag in the face
+of Mr. Lincoln. This movement, we are told by good generals, was of no
+military value, but it kept the Northern administration in a white heat.
+It confused the Union commanders by crossing their counsels with popular
+clamor and political pressure, and it crippled McClellan when he finally
+moved down the Chesapeake to the peninsula, by detaining a large part of
+his force to pacify the authorities in Washington.
+
+When McClellan and Mr. Lincoln were disputing over their change of base,
+the military situation was suddenly shifted by the evacuation of
+Manassas by the Confederate army, and its retirement first behind the
+Rappahannock, then along the Rapidan. Johnston, it seems, wanted to be
+nearer his base, and on the 8th of March skillfully managed his
+withdrawal, so that the enemy had no idea of his movements. General
+Toombs' brigade started in retreat from Centreville. He did not relish
+this movement. He writes home from Culpepper:
+
+      This has been a sad and destructive business. We were
+      ordered to send off all our heavy baggage, but so badly did
+      they manage that none of it was sent back, and every
+      particle of that baggage, blankets, and every imaginable
+      useful article, was burned up to prevent its falling into
+      the hands of the enemy. My brigade must have lost half a
+      million of property and all the rest were in the same
+      condition. Millions of stores with guns and ammunition were
+      destroyed. Never was any business worse managed. The enemy
+      had no more idea of attacking us in Centreville than they
+      had of attacking the Peaks of Otter. Of course, when we
+      retreated, they sent marauding parties in our trail to
+      watch our retreat and take possession of the country, and
+      now the whole of the beautiful Counties of Loudon,
+      Fauquier, Prince William, Fairfax, and the Lord only knows
+      how many more, are in the possession of the enemy. It was a
+      sad, distressing sight, all the way along, and one that
+      frequently drew tears from my eyes. I do not know what it
+      means, but I would rather have fought ten battles than thus
+      to have abandoned these poor people. We have got to fight
+      somewhere, and if I had my way, I would fight them on the
+      first inch of our soil they invaded, and never cease to
+      fight them as long as I could rally men to defend their
+      homes. The great body of the army is now in the
+      neighborhood, and I suppose we shall abandon these people
+      and retreat back toward Richmond.... My command is in
+      excellent condition. A few broke down on the way, but I
+      managed to have them taken care of there and lost none of
+      them on the march.
+
+One of the great features of General Toombs' control of his brigade was
+the excellent care he took of his men. He never allowed them to be
+imposed upon by the officers or by other commands.
+
+This letter betrays the impatience of General Toombs over any
+mismanagement. He was the soul of business, and as the transportation
+facilities at Manassas were meager, he chafed under the heavy loss to
+which his brigade was subjected in this retreat. With impetuous ardor he
+calls for resistance, not retreat. He did not approve of the "Fabian
+policy" of Joseph E. Johnston. As General Longstreet afterward remarked,
+"Toombs chafed at the delays of the commanders in their preparations for
+battle. His general idea was that the troops went out to fight, and he
+thought that they should be allowed to go at it at once." Near Orange
+Court House, he wrote to his wife on the 19th of March, 1862, "I know
+not what is to become of this country. Davis' incompetency is more
+apparent as our danger increases. Our only hope is Providence."
+
+In January, 1862, the General Assembly of Georgia elected Robert Toombs
+a member of the Confederate States Senate. Benjamin H. Hill was to be
+his colleague. But General Toombs had a different conception of his
+duty. He realized that he had been prominent in shaping the events that
+had led to the Civil War, and he did not shirk the sharpest
+responsibility. He felt that his duty was in the field. He had condemned
+the rush for civil offices and what he called "bombproof positions," and
+he wished at least to lead the way to active duty by remaining with his
+army.
+
+Two months later an effort was made by some of his friends to have him
+appointed Secretary of War. This would have brought him in close contact
+with the army, which he was anxious to serve. The parties behind this
+movement believed that the great abilities of Mr. Toombs should not be
+hidden behind the command of a brigade. He would have made an ideal war
+minister. His genius for details and his ability to manage affairs and
+plan campaigns would have overmatched Edwin M. Stanton. But Mr. Toombs
+promptly cut off this movement in his behalf.
+
+On 22d March, 1862, he wrote to his wife from Orange Court House, Va.:
+
+      I thought I had been very explicit on that point. I would
+      not be Mr. Davis' chief clerk. His Secretary of War can
+      never be anything else. I told my friends in Richmond to
+      spare me the necessity of declining if they found it in
+      contemplation. I have not heard that they had any occasion
+      to interfere.... So far as I am concerned, Mr. Davis will
+      never give me a chance for personal distinction. He thinks
+      I pant for it, poor fool. I want nothing but the defeat of
+      the public enemy and to retire with you for the balance of
+      my life in peace and quiet in any decent corner of a free
+      country. It may be his injustice will drive me from the
+      army, but I shall not quit it until after a great victory,
+      in which I shall have the opportunity of doing something
+      for the country. The day after such an event I shall
+      retire, if I live through it. I have grievances enough now
+      to quit, but I shall bide my time. I get along very well
+      with the army. I have not seen Johnston but once; he was
+      polite and clever. George W. Smith I see every day. He is a
+      first-rate gentleman and a good officer. I hear from
+      Stephens constantly, but from nobody else in Richmond....
+      You say you pray for me daily. I need it. Put it in your
+      prayers that if it be the will of God that I shall fall, a
+      sacrifice in this great conflict, that I may meet it as
+      becomes a gentleman.
+
+An instance of General Toombs' impatience under red-tape rules may be
+recalled. A member of his brigade was taken ill, and he secured for him
+entrance into the hospital of Richmond. The hospital was crowded;
+regulations were stringent, and under some technical ruling his sick
+soldier was shipped back to his brigade. Toombs was fired with
+indignation. He proceeded to sift the affair to the bottom, and was told
+that General Johnston had fixed the rules. This did not deter him.
+Riding up to the commander's tent and securing admission, he proceeded
+to upbraid the general as only Toombs could do. When he returned to his
+headquarters he narrated the circumstance to Dr. Henry H. Steiner, his
+brigade surgeon and lifelong friend. Dr. Steiner, who had been a surgeon
+in the regular army, and had served in the Mexican war, was a better
+tactical officer than Toombs. He was himself fearless and upright, but
+full of tact and discretion. "General," said Dr. Steiner, "you have been
+too rash; you will be arrested." Toombs replied that he thought so, too.
+He held himself in anticipation for two or three days, but he was not
+disturbed. When he was finally summoned to General Johnston's tent, it
+was to consult over a plan of movement, and it was noticed that Toombs
+was the only brigadier in counsel. General Johnston subsequently
+remarked that Toombs was the biggest brained man in the Confederacy. The
+boldness and clearness of the impetuous Georgian had captured the grim
+hero of Manassas, who forgave the affront in the face of the
+overmastering mind of the man.
+
+General McClellan reached Fortress Monroe, April 2, 1862, and commenced
+his march up the peninsula. The country is low and flat, and the season
+was unusually wet and dismal. The objective point was Richmond,
+seventy-five miles away, and the first obstruction met by the Federal
+army was at Yorktown. The defense adopted by General Magruder was a
+series of dams extending along the Warwick River, which stretched across
+the peninsula from the York to the James River, a distance of thirteen
+miles. The fords along the Warwick had been destroyed by dams defended
+by redoubts, and the invader and defender were stationed in dense
+swamps. At dam No. 1 Toombs' troops were often under fire. They fought
+with spirit. Each detachment was on duty defending the dam forty-eight
+hours, and between long exposure in the trenches, the frequent alarms,
+and sharp sorties, the service was very exhausting. It was only possible
+to change troops at night. On the 16th of April Toombs writes:
+
+      One of my regiments, the 17th Georgia, had a skirmish day
+      before yesterday. They acted splendidly, charging the
+      Yankees, and driving them from the rifle-pits, killing,
+      wounding, and taking prisoners over one hundred of the
+      enemy. I lost but two killed and a few wounded.
+
+At the siege of Yorktown in the early part of May, 1862, General Toombs
+commanded a division consisting of his own and Semmes' brigades. He had
+2357 men in his own and 2342 in Semmes' brigade, making about 4700
+troops in line. During this siege General Magruder reports that General
+Toombs supported Cobb's brigade, and promptly and energetically led the
+remainder of his command under fire, arriving just before the enemy
+ceased their attack, and in time to share its danger. General Magruder
+had only 11,000 men under him in the peninsula, and General Huger but
+8000, to oppose McClellan's march with 80,000. Johnston and Lee both
+pronounced the peninsula untenable, and on the 4th of May Yorktown was
+evacuated.
+
+After the retreat from the peninsula, General Johnston concentrated his
+entire army behind the Chickahominy River, sixteen miles from Richmond.
+On the 12th of May General Toombs writes home that his command near the
+Chickahominy was "resting easily after a disagreeable march from
+Yorktown. I hear that there is great consternation in Richmond.... The
+loss of New Orleans gives us a terrible blow, and, followed by Norfolk,
+makes it necessary for us to strike a decisive blow somewhere." On 19th
+of May, 1862, he writes home from the camp near Richmond:
+
+      We seem to have come up here to defend this city. You ask
+      me my opinion of the present state of the country. It is
+      bad enough. The utter incompetency of Mr. Davis and his
+      West Point generals have brought us to the verge of ruin.
+      If McClellan is unwise enough to fight us here, we shall
+      whip and drive him out of Virginia.... As to Richmond, it
+      will never be taken while this army is here.
+
+General Toombs' estimate of the army and of the futility of an attack
+from McClellan was justified when, after the 26th of June, the Army of
+the Potomac, almost in sight of the spires of Richmond, was forced to
+reel back, in the deadly clinch of a seven days' combat, to the James
+River. The Confederate army changed its position from one of retreat to
+a brilliant and aggressive policy, and the subtle tactics of Johnston
+gave way to the bold strokes of Lee. The South was thrilled with
+victory.
+
+General Toombs frequently referred to the incompetency of Mr. Davis. The
+letters which have just been quoted were written to his wife, and were
+not made public then, but he did not hesitate to express his opinion
+openly. Jefferson Davis and Mr. Toombs had some differences while the
+former was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce and Mr. Toombs was in
+the Senate. Mr. Toombs believed that President Davis was too partial to
+West Point, at which school Mr. Davis had been trained, and that in his
+management of the army he showed the tenacity of a martinet rather than
+the breadth of a statesman.
+
+In February, 1859, the Army Appropriation bill had come up before the
+United States Senate. Mr. Toombs attacked, and Mr. Davis defended the
+whole system. Mr. Toombs contended that the compensation of army
+officers was too great. It was more than the same talent could command
+in any other walk of life. It was upon a wrong basis. "You take a boy of
+sixteen and send him to West Point, and when he comes out you give him
+$1400 a year. In the course of a few years you carry him up to $3000,
+$6000, or $8000. Take the general employment of the youths of the
+country who are educated at the different colleges for all civil
+purposes. You may have the highest amount of genius and intellect, and
+you get nothing like such average there. It will take them many years to
+make that much money." Mr. Toombs declared that a brigadier general's
+commission was higher than that of a United States Senator. "I think,"
+said he, "it requires as great qualifications to govern this country as
+it does to be a brigadier general." Officers had increased far beyond
+the wants of the country. Members of Congress appoint cadets for the
+different districts; "they are generally associated in some way, as
+brothers, sons, or cousins, with the governing power." He thought a
+salary of $600 or $900 for the West Point graduates enough. According
+to the way army commissions were valued in England, the commission of a
+lieutenant who graduated at West Point could not be worth less than
+$50,000. The pay of a captain was higher than that of a judge. That
+position required the highest ability and integrity, and the average
+salary of a judge was but $2000, without traveling expenses. Mr. Toombs
+contended that West Point men seldom reflected any opinions but those of
+the government which employed them. They seldom sympathized with the
+people, and he wanted a government of the people. "You take a boy to
+West Point," he said, "give him quarters, and fuel, and clothes, and
+maintain him, and you say he has rendered service. When the citizens of
+this country send their sons to college they pay their expenses or work
+their way through; but when a boy is carried to West Point he is taken
+care of; a house is provided for him; clothes are provided for him;
+instructors are provided for him, and that is called being in service. I
+lay down the proposition that the true theory of wages, if you employ
+these people to keep the peace, is exactly the same--a constable's
+pay--you ought to pay them what they can be had for."
+
+Mr. Davis held that army officers were constantly tempted to resign by
+offers of higher pay. It was the training of these men in the service,
+not for the service, it was their attachment for the country which made
+them so valuable. It was better to instruct men for officers' places and
+then appoint them, than to appoint them and then instruct them. He
+thought appointments were free from partisan selection. A soldier's
+devotion was as broad as the continent. A West Point cadet is a warrant
+officer; he goes there to serve the government as it may direct. It
+directs him to stay there until he has sufficient elementary instruction
+to properly discharge the duties of an officer.
+
+The debate showed the views of the two men, and indicated the
+differences which, from points of public policy, soon deepened into
+personal dislike. On the 30th of May, Toombs wrote from the army, "Davis
+is polite and formal; so am I."
+
+In the latter part of 1862 it was evident that the two armies must meet
+and contend for the mastery in Virginia. The day before the seven days'
+fighting commenced, Dr. Steiner said to General Toombs, his intimate
+friend: "General, I have a favor to ask of you. Keep your mind unclouded
+during these important operations." Dr. Steiner knew that during the
+heat and excitement of battle, temptation was great among soldiers to
+take ardent spirits, a practice that had grown somewhat upon General
+Toombs during his service in the field, and which at times deprived him
+of his best powers. "Why, doctor, I gladly promise," said the great
+Georgian. Nor did he, during the week, take a glass of any sort of
+liquor.
+
+General Toombs' brigade was the First Brigade, First Division, Army of
+Northern Virginia, and during the campaign of the peninsula, was in
+Magruder's division. On June 15, 1862, Toombs occupied the most exposed
+position, which was held for nine days. Magruder recommended relief for
+his troops, which had been suffering from lack of rest and care. Just
+before the seven days' fight Toombs' brigade was placed in D. R. Jones'
+division and Magruder commanded his own, Jones', and McLaw's divisions,
+holding about 13,000 men. Toombs' brigade was composed of the 1st, 15th,
+17th, and 20th Georgia regiments.
+
+On the 26th of June Toombs' brigade was posted upon the east of
+Garnett's House, on Golding's farm, just in front of the enemy. Both
+sides threw up breastworks so near that neither could advance its picket
+line. "Just before dark," says Dr. Steiner, "Mr. Toombs received orders
+to charge the enemy, firing having been heard on the left. The position
+was a dangerous one. A charge at that time of the evening was perilous.
+Just in front lay a deep gulch--Labor-in-Vain Ravine--which was alive
+with the enemy, and the charge must be through an unprotected field of
+wheat and clover. General Toombs was astonished at the order. His first
+instructions had been to put himself near Garnett House, to hold his
+position and to take advantage of any retreat of the enemy. He doubted
+the authenticity of the order, and sent word that he would not obey
+unless in writing. Pretty soon written instructions were returned and
+General Toombs prepared for what he believed to be a forlorn hope. He
+advanced seven companies of the 2d Georgia Regiment, 750 men, under
+Colonel B. M. Butt, toward the enemy in the face of a heavy front and
+flank fire. Colonel Williams' regiment crossed the field at double-quick
+under a galling fire from the opposite side of the ravine. Unshaken by
+fearful odds, they held their ground and replied with spirit. The 15th
+Georgia Regiment, under Colonel McIntosh then entered the fight, and
+this gallant officer was mortally wounded. The 17th Georgia charged on
+the left and the 20th on the right. The engagement was a very bloody
+one. Over 200 of Toombs' men were lost and several valuable officers
+were killed. The opposing troops were a part of General Hancock's
+command, and the firing ceased only with the night. Next morning the
+enemy retreated, and Toombs' men pressed forward and held their
+position. General Toombs was censured for this engagement, for which, it
+seems, he was in no wise responsible.
+
+On the 1st of July, about three o'clock in the afternoon, commenced one
+of the famous battles of the war. McClellan's army had gotten away from
+its perilous position astride the Chickahominy, and now found itself
+united and strongly intrenched on the heights of Malvern Hill. All hope
+of destroying that army was gone, and it was evident that an engagement
+must ensue, with the odds in favor of the Union army. It was in many
+respects like the battle of Gettysburg, except that the Confederate
+forces were not handled with the precision and effectiveness of the
+historic sorties against Cemetery Heights. The battlefield was in plain
+range of the enemy's gunboats, and there was much surprise that General
+Lee should have sanctioned an engagement at that point. General D. H.
+Hill misunderstood the signal for attack at Malvern Hill, and late in
+the afternoon ordered the charge. Toombs' brigade had been marching and
+countermarching all day, and went into action much thinned from the
+effects of the sharp fighting at Labor-in-Vain Ravine. There was no
+concerted attack. The charge seems to have been made by brigades, even
+single regiments being thrown forward. They advanced through a swamp,
+and the difficulties of the charge, owing to a murderous fire which
+raked the plain from the hills, 600 yards away, cannot be exaggerated.
+Toombs' brigade was one of the first to reach the plateau swept by
+fifty guns. It advanced with Anderson's brigade, but obliqued to the
+left about half-way up the hill, and took position near a fence, where
+the troops, suffering fearfully from the cool, deadly aim of the Federal
+gunners, were ordered to lie down and secure some shelter from the
+cannon-shot. It was at this time that General D. H. Hill rode up to
+General Toombs and ordered his brigade forward. Some sharp words ensued
+between these officers, and the men moved forward handsomely to the brow
+of the hill. At this time, however, the steady stream of fugitives
+pressing back from the charge, broke the alignment of the brigade and
+separated the regiments. Colonel Butt's regiment went forward with
+Kershaw's brigade. The whole Confederate charge was soon checked and the
+troops fell back in disorder. Their loss was fully 5000 men, and the
+loss in Toombs' brigade was 219 men, making his losses in the two
+engagements over one-third of his entire number. Malvern Hill was a
+blunder which was never repeated, but it was a disastrous one for the
+Georgia troops.
+
+The subjoined correspondence will be understood in the light of the
+meeting of General D. H. Hill and General Toombs near Malvern Hill
+during the progress of the charge of the Confederate forces.
+
+
+      HEADQUARTERS FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION,
+      In the Field, July 6, 1862.
+
+      MAJOR GENERAL D. H. HILL.
+
+      _Sir_: Military movements since Tuesday last have prevented
+      an earlier reply to your conversation with me on the
+      battlefield that evening. I understood you to say, among
+      other things, that "Your (my) brigade would not fight";
+      that you "always knew it would not fight"; that it
+      "pretended to want to fight, but would not"; "Where were
+      you when I was riding in front on my horse trying to rally
+      your brigade?" I desire first to know whether I am correct
+      in my understanding of your language, and if not, wherein I
+      am mistaken.
+
+      And secondly, to request of you such explanation of that
+      language as you may choose to give.
+
+                                      I am sir,
+                                        Your obedient servant,
+                                          ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+      July 6, 1862.
+
+      _General_: Your note has just been received. My remarks
+      were personal to yourself and not to your brigade. I did
+      not in the slightest degree reflect on your men. What I
+      said was in substance this: "You have been wanting to
+      fight, and now that you have one, you have got out of it."
+      There were witnesses to our conversation, and if my remarks
+      were severer, I will let you know.
+
+      It may be well to suggest to you that, as the commanding
+      officer on the field, I have an official report to make
+      which will not be modified by your note.
+
+      It is notorious that you have a thousand times expressed
+      your disgust that the commanding general did not permit you
+      to fight. It is equally notorious that you retired from
+      the field. These are the two facts of which I reminded you
+      on Tuesday. I made no comment upon them, and if the simple
+      truth has been offensive, the interpretation of it has been
+      your own.
+
+                                      Yours truly,
+                                        D. H. HILL,
+      BRIGADIER GENERAL TOOMBS.             Major General.
+
+
+      HEADQUARTERS FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION,
+      July 6, 1862.
+
+      GENERAL D. H. HILL.
+
+      _Sir_: Your note of this date has just been received. It is
+      scarcely necessary for me to say it is not satisfactory. It
+      would be inappropriate to comment upon it properly in this
+      note, and for that reason alone I waive it for the present.
+
+      As to your remark that you were the commanding officer on
+      the field on the 1st inst., I never before heard of it, nor
+      do I now think so, but, however that fact may be, I am at a
+      loss to know for what reason you state it unless it was to
+      menace and intimidate me in the pursuit of proper
+      satisfaction for the unprovoked insult you have cast upon
+      me. If that was your object, this note will satisfy you
+      that you have failed in your object. I now demand of you
+      personal satisfaction for the insult you cast upon my
+      command and myself on the battlefield on the 1st inst., and
+      for the repetition and aggravation thereof in your note of
+      this day. I refer you to my friend Colonel Benning for all
+      necessary arrangements.
+
+                                      Your obedient servant,
+                                        ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+      CAMP NEAR RICHMOND, VA.,
+      July 12, 1862.
+
+      _General_: Your note of the 6th was received yesterday. I
+      must again enter my protest against your second declaration
+      that I reflected upon your brigade in the battle of
+      Malvern Hill. Witnesses to our interview affirm that my
+      remarks were entirely personal to yourself.
+
+      In regard to your demand for satisfaction, I construe it to
+      mean either that I must apologize to you for the language
+      used by me on the battlefield, or that I must grant you a
+      hostile meeting. If the first interpretation be correct, I
+      will state that I will make full, public, and ample
+      concessions when satisfied that I did you injustice; and
+      this I would do without any demand. I certainly thought
+      that you had taken the field too late, and that you left it
+      too early. You may, however, have done your whole duty, and
+      held your ground as long as it was possible for a brave and
+      skillful officer to hold it. If the facts prove this to be
+      so, no one will be more gratified than myself, and my
+      acknowledgment of error will be cordial and complete.
+
+      But if your demand means a challenge, its acceptance, when
+      we have a country to defend and enemies to fight, would be
+      highly improper and contrary to the dictates of plain duty,
+      without reference to higher grounds of action. I will not
+      make myself a party to a course of conduct forbidden alike
+      by the plainest principles of duty, and the laws which we
+      have mutually sworn to serve.
+
+                                      Yours truly,
+                                        D. H. HILL, Major General.
+      BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+
+Just what General Toombs replied to this is not known. The letter has
+not been preserved in this correspondence. It evidently declared that
+the explanation was not satisfactory. Major R. J. Moses, Jr., a member
+of General Toombs' staff, submitted in writing the following report of
+his recollection of General Hill's words to General Toombs at Malvern
+Hill:
+
+      Where is your brigade, sir? I told you that I wanted a
+      fighting brigade, and your brigade will not fight. I knew
+      it would not, and you are the man who pretends to have been
+      spoiling for a fight. For shame! Rally your troops! Where
+      were you when I was riding up and down your line rallying
+      your troops?
+
+Major Moses adds:
+
+      As aid-de-camp of General Robert Toombs, I remained with
+      him until some time after this conversation. Previous to
+      this conversation General Toombs had been about fifteen
+      yards to the rear of the center of his line and his troops
+      were unbroken. There were many men coming by us, but I saw
+      not over ten from General Toombs' brigade. The order was
+      given "Forward, left oblique," and General Toombs moved to
+      the left of his line. When General Hill met him and
+      commenced this attack on the character of himself and his
+      brigade without the slightest provocation, General Toombs
+      had not only been rallying the troops, but continued to use
+      his best endeavors to rally them till late at night. I was
+      with General Toombs the whole time from the commencement of
+      the action until half or three-quarters of an hour after
+      the conversation.
+
+The following is the concluding letter of the correspondence:
+
+      July 15, 1862.
+
+      _General_: I regret that my last note, which was intended
+      to be conciliatory, has been misunderstood or
+      misappreciated. I take it for granted that you know enough
+      of my previous history to be aware that a hostile meeting,
+      under any circumstances, would be abhorrent to my
+      principles and character. At this time it would be in the
+      highest degree improper. I have offered you the only
+      redress which I could make even after a meeting, viz., an
+      acknowledgment of error when convinced of that error. As no
+      good can result from a continued correspondence, it will
+      close on my part with this communication.
+
+                                      Yours truly,
+                                        D. H. HILL, Major General.
+      BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT TOOMBS.
+
+General Hill was a good man and a brave soldier. His devotion to the
+Confederate cause was undoubted, but his zeal sometimes made him harsh,
+and more than once he placed himself in the position of reflecting upon
+the conduct of others. On one occasion at the battle of Chickamauga,
+where General Hill was in command of the extreme right of the
+Confederate line, on the second day of the battle information was
+brought to him of the sudden and unexpected advance of a strong Federal
+force against his line. It proved to be the division of the Federal
+General Gordon Granger. General Hill and General W. H. T. Walker, who
+commanded two divisions under General Hill, proceeded at once to the
+threatened point, to ascertain the situation of affairs, accompanied by
+some members of their staff. Arrived at a point where this new arrival
+of Federal forces could be seen, General Walker deferred to General Hill
+and asked him, "What do you wish me to do?"
+
+"What do I want you to do?" said Hill with severity, and even with
+something like a snarl, "I want you to fight."
+
+General Walker flushed up in a moment. He was not a man to deserve any
+reflection upon his courage or to bear it when offered. No man in the
+old army had a higher and more deserved reputation for dashing courage.
+He had been desperately wounded in Florida, and again wounded, supposed
+to be mortally, in leading the assault on Chapultepec in the Mexican
+War, and had, on many occasions, given undoubted evidence of his valor
+and fidelity. He answered hotly, "Of course I will fight; you know that,
+General Hill, well enough; but, by God! sir, there are two ways of
+fighting, one to whip and the other to get whipped."
+
+The point was a good one. Major Joseph B. Cumming, chief of General
+Walker's staff, who related this incident, says it had the desired
+effect.
+
+When Longstreet marched against Pope he stationed General Toombs'
+brigade to guard one of the fords of the Rapidan. Toombs was absent at
+the time and when he rode up ordered them back to camp. General
+Longstreet heard of Toombs making stump speeches and "referring in
+anything but complimentary terms of his commander." He sent General
+Toombs to Gordonsville. Afterward he received an apology from Toombs and
+directed him to join his command. ["]As we were preparing for the
+charge at Manassas (second battle), Toombs got there, riding rapidly
+with his hat in his hand, and was much enthused. I was just sending a
+courier to his command with a dispatch. 'Let me take it,' he exclaimed.
+'With pleasure,' I responded, and handed him the paper. He put spurs to
+his horse and dashed off, accompanied by his courier. When he rode up
+and took command of his brigade there was wild enthusiasm, and,
+everything being ready, an exultant shout was sent up, and the men
+sprang to the charge. I never had any more trouble with Toombs. We were
+afterward warm personal friends."
+
+On the 30th of August, 1862, Hon. A. H. Stephens wrote to Mrs. Toombs
+that General Toombs was still at Gordonsville. He said:
+
+      How long he will remain, I do not know. I thought at first
+      that it would only be for a day or two, or until General
+      Longstreet could receive and reply to two notes he had
+      written, explaining to my mind very fully and
+      satisfactorily his acts and conduct, which, it seems to me,
+      General Longstreet had misunderstood. Such is still my
+      opinion, and yet I may be mistaken. I do not know much of
+      General Longstreet. I only know that General Toombs, who
+      does know him, always expressed very high admiration of him
+      as an officer.
+
+At the second battle of Manassas, August 29, 1862, Toombs' brigade in
+Jones' division held the rear of Longstreet's corps. Early in the
+morning the brigade took up the march in the direction of the old
+battlefield of Manassas, where heavy firing was heard. Arriving at noon
+it was stationed on the extreme right, or upon the Manassas Gap
+railroad. The brigades formed in echelon. General Longstreet in his
+published report commended especially General Toombs for gallant conduct
+at Manassas Plain.
+
+General D. R. Jones, in his report of Manassas, says:
+
+      General Toombs, released from arrest, under which he had
+      been since the 18th of August, came upon the field shortly
+      after his brigade went in under fire and accompanied it in
+      action.
+
+Captain H. L. French, of the 17th Georgia Regiment, says: "Soon after
+our engagement, to our great satisfaction, we unexpectedly met our
+gallant commander, Brigadier General Robert Toombs, who, anticipating
+the fight, had ridden hard all day. He was greeted with hearty cheers,
+and said, 'Boys, I am proud of the report given of you by General Jones.
+I could not be with you to-day, but this was owing to no fault of mine.
+To-morrow I lead you.'"
+
+One report of this engagement declares that as Toombs dashed into the
+fire and joined his men, he waved his hat and shouted, "Go it, boys! I
+am with you again. Jeff Davis can make a general, but it takes God
+Almighty to make a soldier!"
+
+The expulsion of Pope only accelerated the momentum of the Army of
+Northern Virginia. From the front of Richmond, the theater of operations
+was transferred at once to the front of Washington, and the Union army
+was again on the defensive. General Lee, freed from the necessity of
+guarding the Confederate capital, resolved to invade Maryland. He
+reasoned that the prestige of the invasion would advance the cause of
+the young nation abroad; that it would relieve Virginia from incursions
+during the winter, and that the presence of the army in Maryland would
+raise the standard of revolt and cause the liberation of that State from
+the Union cause. Lee's army, however, was not equal to such an
+expedition. It was not well clothed or armed, and barely numbered
+40,000, while McClellan had 80,000.
+
+Toombs' brigade accompanied Longstreet's corps in its counter-march from
+Hagarstown to Hill's support. On the 14th of September these were
+withdrawn to the valley of the Antietam. The creek of Antietam runs
+obliquely to the source of the Potomac, and empties into that river six
+miles above Harper's Ferry. The Confederate lines were, on the 15th,
+drawn up in front of Sharpsburg, Longstreet being on the right of the
+road from Sharpsburg.
+
+In this place the creek is crossed by four stone bridges, and three of
+these were strongly guarded by the Confederates. Burnside's army corps
+was stationed on the Sharpsburg Turnpike, directly in front of bridge
+No. 3. The preliminary deploy occupied the 16th of September, an
+artillery duel enlivening the time before the battle. Burnside lay
+behind the heights on the east bank of the Antietam and opposite the
+Confederate right, which, Swinton says, it was designed he should
+assail, after forcing the passage of the Antietam by the lower stone
+bridge. The part assigned to General Burnside was of the highest
+importance, for a successful attack by him upon the Confederate right,
+would, by carrying the Sharpsburg Crest, force Lee from his line of
+retreat by way of Shepherdstown. Swinton says this task should have been
+an easy one, for the Confederate forces at this point had been drawn
+upon to recruit the left where Hooker had made his furious assaults.
+
+There was left in the right wing of the Confederate army but a single
+division of 2500 men under General D. R. Jones, and the force actually
+present to dispute the passage of the stone bridge did not exceed 400.
+These troops were under the direction of General Robert Toombs, and this
+engagement made his reputation as a fighter and was one of the most
+brilliant and memorable of the Civil War. It was one o'clock before
+Burnside charged. General Lee, in his report of the battle, said:
+
+      In the afternoon the enemy advanced on our right, where
+      General Jones' division was posted, who handsomely
+      maintained his position. General Toombs' brigade, guarding
+      the bridge on Antietam Creek, gallantly resisted the
+      approach of the enemy, but his superior number enabling him
+      to extend his left, he crossed below the bridge and assumed
+      a threatening attitude on our right, which fell back in
+      confusion. By this time, between 3 and 4 o'clock P.M., A.
+      P. Hill, with five of his brigades, reached the scene of
+      action and drove the enemy from the position they had
+      taken. The bridge was defended with two regiments of
+      Toombs' brigade (2d and 20th) and the batteries of General
+      Jones. General Toombs' small command repulsed five
+      different assaults made by greatly superior forces, and
+      maintained its position with distinguished gallantry....
+      Toombs charged the flank of the enemy, while Archer moved
+      upon the front of the Federal line. The enemy made a brief
+      resistance and then ran in confusion.
+
+Such commendation from the commander-in-chief of the Confederate army
+speaks for itself.
+
+Speaking of the last charge, when the Federals were driven back over the
+creek in the counter-attack, General Jones says:
+
+      General Toombs, whom I had sent for, arriving from the
+      right with a portion of his brigade (11th Georgia
+      Regiment) was ordered to charge the enemy. This he did
+      most gallantly, supported by Archer's brigade, delivering
+      fire at less than fifty yards, dashing at the enemy with
+      the bayonet, forcing him from the crest and following him
+      down the hill.
+
+General Garnett's report credits Toombs with having "reenforced the
+right just after it had been driven back, and restored the fortunes of
+the day in that quarter."
+
+From the report of General Toombs it appeared that when he first moved
+into Maryland he was assigned to command a division composed of Toombs',
+Drayton's, and Anderson's brigades, and took possession of Hagerstown.
+On September 14 he was ordered to Sharpsburg, two of his regiments
+having been sent to Williamsport to protect the wagon trains. With two
+small regiments left, General Toombs took position near the bridge over
+the Antietam on the road to Harper's Ferry. He took possession of the
+ground with the 20th Georgia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Jonathan B.
+Cumming, and the 2d Georgia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Holmes. The
+creek was comparatively straight by this bridge. He formed his regiments
+along the creek in more open order than was desirable on account of the
+smallness of his number. Subsequently the 50th Georgia, with scarcely
+100 men, was placed under his command. Colonel Eubanks' battery was by
+order of General Longstreet placed in his rear. The enemy opened on his
+position on Tuesday evening, the 16th of September. On Wednesday
+morning, his pickets were driven in and the enemy menaced his position.
+The ground descended gently to the creek covered with a narrow strip of
+woods, affording slight protection. The enemy approached by the road
+parallel with his line of battle, he says, exposing his flank to a
+destructive fire. Between 9 A. M. and 1 P. M. the Federals made five
+attempts to carry the bridge, and were repulsed by the 2d and 20th
+Georgia regiments. Failing to wrest the bridge from its heroic
+defenders, the enemy turned his attention to the fords. "Not being able
+to get reenforcements, and seeing that the enemy would cross and attack
+my front, right flank, and rear, Colonel Holmes having been killed,
+Major Harris wounded, both regiments having suffered heavily, ammunition
+nearly exhausted, and the battery withdrawn, I withdrew my command to a
+position, designated by Longstreet, opposite the lower fords. This
+change of position was made very satisfactorily and without serious
+loss. The 15th and 17th Georgia regiments and part of the 11th,
+previously detached, now came up and occupied the new position. The 20th
+and 2d went to the ammunition train to replenish their cartridge boxes.
+The enemy moved through the bridge and ford with extreme caution, and
+lost nearly two hours in crossing, about which time A. P. Hill's
+division came from Harper's Ferry. I was ordered by Longstreet to put my
+command in motion to meet the enemy. I found them in possession of the
+ground I was ordered to occupy, including the bridge road and the
+suburbs of Sharpsburg. With less than one-fifth the numbers of the enemy
+and within 100 paces of his lines I determined to give battle. I had
+instantly to determine either to retreat or to fight. A retreat would
+have left the town of Sharpsburg and General Longstreet's rear open to
+the enemy. The enemy advanced in good order to within sixty or eighty
+paces, when the effectiveness of the fire threw his column into
+considerable confusion, perceiving which I instantly ordered a charge,
+which was brilliantly executed by my whole line. The enemy fled in
+confusion toward the river, making two or three efforts to rally, which
+were soon defeated. The enemy brought over the bridge a battery. I
+ordered Richardson's battery to open upon it, and at the same time the
+15th and 20th Georgia charged upon it and compelled it to rejoin the
+flying infantry. I desired to pursue the enemy across the river, but,
+being deficient in artillery, I sent to General Lee for a battery, which
+came up too late. I then determined to move my troops to my first
+position along the river, but received the order to occupy the heights
+on the opposite side of the road leading to the bridge from Sharpsburg,
+and there the troops bivouacked for the night."
+
+The gallant conduct of Toombs' brigade at Sharpsburg was the theme on
+both sides. The country rang with its exploits and the fiery Georgia
+brigadier became the toast of the army. Burnside's heavy losses
+abundantly proved the stoutness of the resistance and the deadliness of
+the charges of the Georgia troops.
+
+The next evening, on the edge of Sharpsburg, General Toombs and his aids
+crossed a little branch on his way to the headquarters of Colonel
+Benning. General Toombs rode his famous mare "Gray Alice," so well known
+to his command. He was not very far over when a troop of cavalry rode
+up. He challenged them, and they answered "We are friends." Captain
+Troup of his staff, however, detected the ruse and fired into them. The
+squad returned the fire. General Toombs was shot through the hand with
+which he was holding the reins. The gray mare at once became
+unmanageable and ran back across the branch. As soon as he could control
+the mare, General Toombs rode back to Colonel Benning and, reporting his
+wound, turned his brigade over to Colonel Benning. When it became known
+that General Toombs was wounded his men were deeply pained. Always
+solicitous for their welfare, his soldiers were devotedly attached to
+him. He took care of his brigade even to the extremity of violating army
+discipline. He exacted the utmost consideration for his men, and the
+officer who periled their safety, or disputed their efficiency, was
+quickly called to account. Whether against Johnston, Longstreet, or
+Hill, the First Brigade, First Division, was sure of a fearless champion
+in the person of its commander.
+
+The battle of Sharpsburg was a very bloody one. The losses on the
+Federal side were nearly 12,500, while the Confederates lost 8000. Lee
+withdrew into Virginia, and McClellan was too much demoralized to
+follow. Longstreet, in summing up the Manassas and Maryland campaign,
+declared that in one month the troops had marched over two hundred miles
+upon little more than half rations and fought nine battles and
+skirmishes. They had "killed, wounded, and captured nearly as many men
+as we had in our ranks, besides taking arms and other munitions of war
+in large quantities." General Longstreet compliments Brigadier General
+Toombs for his "gallant defense at the bridge of Antietam and his
+vigorous charge upon the enemy's flank; he was severely wounded at the
+close of the engagement."
+
+General Toombs returned to his home after Sharpsburg, and remained
+several months. He rejoined his command near Fredericksburg, but in
+March, 1863, wrote a touching farewell to his brigade and resigned his
+commission in the army of Northern Virginia. It seemed to him that he
+did not have justice done him at Richmond. He aspired, with the ambition
+of a soldier, to be promoted in his country's service. His conduct at
+Sharpsburg, where he wrung admiration from his superior officers,
+appeared to call for recognition from the President, but he did not
+receive his major-generalship, and, although more than once in the
+actual command of a division, did not secure that title. It is true that
+he would have liked the promotion; but he did not expect it. He had
+written to his wife that he would not be driven from the army until
+after some great battle, when he should have the opportunity of doing
+something for his country. "The day after such an event, I will retire
+if I live through it." The battle had occurred, his record was written
+upon the stone bridge of Antietam, and his work was at an end.
+
+Postmaster-General Reagan was one of those who recognized the merits of
+General Toombs. Twice did he approach President Davis with the request
+that General Toombs be promoted to the command of a division. That
+official replied promptly that he did not oppose it himself, but that he
+could not do it without the recommendation of the army officers, and
+that recommendation had not been given. Possibly the field officers
+believed the suggestion would have been ungracious to Mr. Davis.
+General Toombs had not hesitated to criticise the policy and
+appointments of the Richmond administration. That practice had strained
+his relations with the Confederate Government, but Toombs was a man who
+"would not flatter Neptune for his trident."
+
+General Toombs was not a trained soldier, but he had some fine points of
+a great commander. He was the soul of energy and common sense. He was
+bold, dashing, magnetic. He had the quality of infusing his spirit into
+his men. His quick mind seized the points of a campaign, and his
+intellect was broad and overmastering. It is related of him that one day
+in Virginia he hurried to the rear for a conference with Jefferson
+Davis, to which the President had summoned him, upon some point of civil
+administration. This business over, he dashed back to the front, where
+he had an engagement with General Lee over a plan of attack. General
+Longstreet said Toombs had the kindling eye and rare genius of a
+soldier, but lacked the discipline of a military man. This was the
+serious flaw in his character. He had what General Johnston declared was
+the great drawback about the Southern soldier, "a large endowment of the
+instinct of personal liberty," and it was difficult to subordinate his
+will to the needs of military discipline. He had been accustomed to
+priority, and in whatever company, under whatever conditions he found
+himself, his had been the part to lead and to rule. As Colonel Thomas W.
+Thomas had said of him, "Toombs has always been the big frog in the
+pond." Men conceded to him this prestige. Under the cast-iron rule of
+the army he found himself subordinated to men intellectually beneath
+him, but trained and skilled in the art of war. He was swift to detect
+error, and impatient in combating blunder. The rule of mediocrity, the
+red tape of the service, the restraints of the corps, the tactics of the
+field galled his imperious spirit. He commanded his brigade as he had
+represented his State in the Senate--as a sovereign and independent
+body, and like the heroic Helvetian had blazoned on his crest, "No one
+shall cross me with impunity."
+
+Robert Toombs made a mistake in sinking himself in the routine of a
+brigade commander. He should have taken the War Department, or, like
+Pitt, have pushed the war from the floor of the Senate. Swinton says
+that Abraham Lincoln brought the habits of a politician to military
+affairs, in which their intrusion can only result in confusion of just
+relations. There is ineradicable antagonism between the maxims which
+govern politics and those which govern war.
+
+During General Toombs' absence in the field, he opposed the Conscript
+Acts of the Confederate administration. He believed them arbitrary and
+unjust. He considered that this was a tendency toward centralization
+which the Confederate Government was fighting; that it placed too much
+power in the hands of one man; that it was deadly to States' Rights and
+personal liberty, and that it would impair the efficiency of the army by
+lowering its patriotism. The champion of this anti-administration policy
+in Georgia was Linton Stephens, the brother of the vice president.
+Toombs in the field, the elder Stephens in Congress, and Linton Stephens
+in the Georgia Legislature, fought the Conscription and Impressment
+Acts. Hon. Joseph E. Brown, the war Governor of Georgia, was also a
+vigorous opponent of this policy. This influence gave rise, in the early
+part of 1864, to the Peace Resolutions of Linton Stephens, who sustained
+Governor Brown in his policy, to inaugurate State action for "the
+preservation of rights and the attainment of peace." Linton Stephens, in
+a strong letter to General Toombs at that time, called attention to the
+fact that since the war began neither side had made any effort to stop
+the effusion of blood. He believed that the professional soldiers and
+West Point generals would never permit the cessation of hostilities.
+Such men, he thought, would not, in human nature, desire peace. "How can
+it be explained," he wrote, "that both governments have fought on during
+these long years of blood and tears and desolation, without either one
+offering terms of peace, and with both running a swift race of rivalry
+in usurping the most despotic power under the ever-recurring and false
+plea of necessities of war? Have both governments formed designs that
+cannot be accomplished in peace, and which seek opportunity and shelter
+in the confusion and panic of war?"
+
+Mr. Linton Stephens was a leading lawyer and legislator in Georgia. He
+was a man of great ability. He had started the practice of law in the
+office of Robert Toombs, and had been a political follower and close
+friend of the great Georgian. He had served upon the bench of the
+Supreme Court of his State, and at the close of the war his political
+influence was probably greater than that of any man at home. He was
+fearless, inflexible, high-toned, and full of power. He did not hesitate
+to condemn the legislation asked for by Mr. Davis, and joined Mr. Toombs
+in opposing the appointment of General Bragg as supervisor of all
+military operations. Mr. Stephens believed that the next step after the
+Impressment Act would be the organization of all labor into a military
+system under government control.
+
+The result of the policy of Mr. Davis justified the protest of the
+Georgians, but there is nothing to warrant the belief that Mr. Davis was
+moving toward military despotism or that he relished the continuance of
+strife. He saw that the South was in for the war. Desperate situations
+required desperate remedies. He grasped the government with a strong
+hand, and lacked neither nerve nor patriotism. The principles of this
+policy were unsound, but the motives of Jefferson Davis were pure. Nor
+was there reason to sustain the wholesale denunciation of West Point.
+That school of soldiers was the backbone of the army, and the fact that
+so many Southern men gave up commissions in the United States army and
+came South when their States seceded, overthrew the idea that they were
+tools of the general government and had lost identity or sympathy with
+people at home. But General Toombs was bold and impatient in his
+positions.
+
+Equally opposed was he to the policy adopted in Georgia of recommending
+the planting of all grain and no cotton. From Richmond he wrote in
+March, 1864, directions to his brother Gabriel Toombs, who managed his
+plantations in Washington:
+
+      I do not care to change my crops. I wish to raise an
+      abundant provision crop and then as much cotton as I
+      can.... Brown's and Chambers' policy is all foolishness....
+      As to what I shall choose to plant on my own estates, I
+      shall neither refer it to newspapers, nor to public
+      meetings, nor to legislatures. I know what sort of people
+      compose these classes. Let them take up arms and come with
+      me to drive the intruders away from our soil, and then we
+      will settle what sort of seed we will put into it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+WITH THE GEORGIA MILITIA.
+
+
+General Toombs' next appearance in the field was as adjutant and
+inspector-general of General G. W. Smith's division of Georgia militia.
+He was present during the battles before Atlanta, the engagement at
+Peachtree Creek, and the siege of the city. General J. E. Johnston had
+just been relieved from command of the Confederate forces, and General
+J. B. Hood placed in charge. General Toombs wrote from Atlanta:
+
+      The tone of the army has greatly improved. We are now
+      receiving reenforcements from the West. Davis, having
+      kicked Johnston out, now feels obliged to sustain Hood, so
+      the country is likely to get good out of evil. General Hood
+      is displaying great energy and using his best exertions for
+      success. I think very well of him. He is a most excellent
+      man, and undoubtedly of great military talent. Whether
+      equal or not to this great struggle, time must prove.
+
+      The militia are coming up finely. Twelve hundred of them
+      arrived here this evening, armed and tolerably well
+      equipped. Poor fellows! They are green and raw,
+      undisciplined and badly officered. It keeps us at work day
+      and night to bring order out of this confused mass, and we
+      have but a poor chance. They march right into the
+      trenches, and are immediately under the enemy's fire all
+      day. We shall trust to a kind Providence alone to preserve
+      them from a great disaster, and make them useful to the
+      army and the country. The pressure is so great that we are
+      compelled to put them to the work of veterans without an
+      hour's preparation. I am doing my utmost to get them in the
+      best possible position. Georgians are all coming up well
+      except the cities.
+
+Speaking of men who try to shirk duty, Mr. Toombs wrote, "Poor
+creatures! What do they want to live for?"
+
+General Toombs had the task of organizing the recruits and getting them
+ready for the field. He writes to his wife: "Since I began this letter,
+the Yankees have begun an attack on a part of our line and I was obliged
+to ride with General Hood to look after our defenses." General Toombs
+alludes to General E. C. Walthall of Mississippi, as "a splendid officer
+and a gentleman." He says: "The enemy are evidently intending to starve
+us rather than to fight us out. I have, at the request of General Hood,
+not less than twenty letters to write on that very subject. Sherman
+shells the town furiously every day. Not much damage yet."
+
+It has been customary to speak in light terms of the Georgia militia,
+who, late in the day, took the field to man the defenses when Sherman
+was marching to the sea. They were frequently made up of old men and
+boys who had been exempt from the regular service, and these were
+hurried into action with poor equipment and scant preparation. General
+Toombs, in a letter written to his wife, July 25, 1864, says:
+
+      The militia have behaved with great gallantry. This is
+      sincerely true. They have far exceeded my expectations, and
+      in the fight on Thursday equaled any troops in the line of
+      battle. If they will stand and fight like men, our homes
+      will be saved. God give them the spirit of men, and all
+      will be well!
+
+In another place he writes:
+
+      We have a mixed crowd, a large number of earnest, brave,
+      true men; then all the shirks and skulks in Georgia trying
+      to get from under bullets.
+
+General Toombs commended and endorsed the policy of Governor Brown
+during his six years' administration of the office from 1857 to 1863.
+These two men were warm friends and political allies. When Governor
+Brown's third term was drawing to a close, he preferred the selection of
+General Toombs as his successor. But Toombs declined to make the race.
+His game now was war, not politics. He preferred the field to the
+Cabinet. He writes with considerable feeling this letter to his wife:
+
+      Whatever fate may befall me, I feel that this is my place,
+      in the field and with the militia, with the men who own the
+      country and who are struggling to preserve it for their
+      children. I am truly thankful to God for the health he has
+      given me to enable me to perform my part of this work.
+
+He called all the sons of Georgia to come, even to "die together rather
+than let the Yankee overrun and conquer Georgia." He concludes a letter
+of appeal:
+
+                                Better be
+    Where the unconquered Spartans still are free,
+    In their proud charnel of Thermopylae.
+
+General Toombs' last military service, after the fall of Atlanta, was on
+the 20th of December, 1864, when as adjutant and inspector-general he
+served in General G. W. Smith's division, Georgia militia, at the siege
+of Savannah. General Dick Taylor, in his "Destruction and
+Reconstruction," gives a very graphic description of General Toombs'
+energy. The Georgia militia had left Macon for Savannah, and to avoid
+capture by the resistless column of Sherman's army, then marching to the
+sea, was shipped by way of Thomasville. The trains were sometimes slow
+in moving, and to General Taylor, who was anxious to mass all forces at
+Savannah, the delay was galling. When Toombs came up, he "damned the
+dawdling trainmen, and pretty soon infused his own nervous force into
+the whole concern. The wheezing engines and freight vans were readily
+put in motion, and Governor Brown's 'army' started toward Savannah."
+News reached General Taylor about that time that the Federal forces at
+Port Royal were coming up to capture Pocotaligo on the Charleston and
+Savannah road. This was a dangerous move, as General Taylor was anxious
+to hold this line for coast defense. He needed reenforcements to hold
+this point, and at once thought of "Joe Brown's Army." The position of
+Governor Brown was, however, as General Taylor understood it, that
+Georgia troops were to be held to guard Georgia soil. This was one of
+the points in his discussion with Mr. Davis. General Taylor consulted
+with General Toombs, however, and they arranged to have the Georgia
+militia "shunted off at a switch near Savannah and transported quietly
+to Carolina." At Pocotaligo these troops had a lively brush with the
+Union forces and succeeded in holding the railroad. The Georgians were
+plucky whether at home or abroad, but General Taylor declared that
+Toombs enjoyed his part in making them "unconscious patriots."
+
+Sherman's march to the sea was the concluding tragedy of the Civil War.
+The State which had been at the forefront of the revolution had become
+the bloody theater of battle. From the Tennessee River to Atlanta,
+Sherman and Johnston had grappled with deadly fury down the mountain
+defiles; then Cheatham and Wheeler harassed him at Macon and united for
+a final siege of Savannah. The granaries and workshops of the
+Confederacy were gone when Georgia was devastated--as General Lord
+Wolseley said, Sherman's invasion was a swordthrust through the vitals
+of the young nation. Robert Toombs had followed his own idea of meeting
+the invader as soon as he struck an inch of State soil and fighting him
+as long as a man remained. From the fruitless defense of Savannah,
+Toombs hastened to discuss the situation with Governor Brown. He
+happened to be dining with him that April day when the news came of the
+surrender at Appomattox. The two men looked at each other intently, when
+they realized that all was over.
+
+Toombs and Brown had been closely allied since the day that the latter
+was nominated for Governor in 1857. They had fought campaigns together.
+Toombs had sustained Governor Brown's war policy almost to the letter.
+Now they shook hands and parted. Henceforth their paths diverged. Days
+of bitterness put that friendship to an end. Both men worked his course
+during reconstruction as he saw fit. But political differences deepened
+almost into personal feud.
+
+General Toombs repaired to his home in Washington and, on the 4th of
+May, 1865, Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet and staff, having retreated from
+Richmond to Danville, thence to Greensboro, N. C., and Abbeville, S. C.,
+rode across the country with an armed escort to Washington, Ga. Here,
+in the old Heard House, the last meeting of the Confederate Cabinet was
+held. The members separated, and the civil government of the Southern
+Confederacy passed into history. There were present John C.
+Breckenridge, Secretary of War; John H. Reagan, Postmaster-General,
+besides the members of Mr. Davis' staff. The Confederate President was
+worn and jaded. He looked pale and thin, but was plucky to the last.
+After the surrender of Lee and Johnston, he wanted to keep up the
+warfare in the mountains of Virginia, and in the country west of the
+Mississippi, but he was finally persuaded that the Confederacy must
+cease to struggle. On the public square of Washington the little brick
+house, with its iron rail and its red walls, is still pointed out to the
+visitor as the spot where the Davis government dissolved. It was a
+dramatic fate which determined its dissolution at the home of Robert
+Toombs. He had been present at its birth. His had been one of the
+leading spirits of the revolution. He had served it in the Cabinet and
+field, he had been pressed for the position of its chief magistracy, and
+now in the shadow of his own rooftree its concluding council was held.
+General Reagan was a guest of General Toombs during his stay in
+Washington, as was General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses, who had
+been a member of Toombs' staff. In the evening General Toombs called
+General Reagan into a room by himself and inquired whether the latter
+needed any money. General Reagan said he had money enough to take him to
+Texas. Then General Toombs inquired after Mr. Davis, and asked whether
+he had any money. "I told him no," says General Reagan, "but that I had
+money enough to take us both West of of the Mississippi, and had told
+Mr. Davis so. I had no doubt but that he would rely on that." General
+Toombs then asked if Mr. Davis was well mounted. "I told him yes, that
+he had his bay horse Kentucky, and that after the surrender General Lee
+had sent his fine gray Traveler, by his son Robert, around through
+Lynchburg to Mr. Davis at Greenesboro, N. C." "Well," said General
+Toombs, with thoughtfulness, "Davis and I had a quarrel once, but that
+is over now. I am at home and can command money and men, and if Mr.
+Davis wants anything, I shall be glad to furnish it." General Toombs
+added that under terms of the convention between Sherman and Johnston,
+Mr. Davis was entitled to go where he pleased between that point and the
+Chattahoochee River. "I wish you would say to Mr. Davis," said Toombs,
+in his bluff way, "that, if necessary, I will call my men around me and
+see him safe to the Chattahoochee at the risk of my life."
+
+On his return to the hotel Mr. Reagan gave General Toombs' message to
+Mr. Davis, and told the latter of the inquiries and offers. "That is
+like Toombs," said Mr. Davis. "He was always a whole-souled man."
+
+The four men whom the Washington government wanted to arrest and hold
+responsible for the war were Toombs, Davis, Slidell, and Howell Cobb.
+Their friends understood this perfectly, and each man was urged to make
+his escape. Jefferson Davis was arrested in Irwin County, Ga., on May
+10. He was rapidly making his way to the West, and was trying to reach
+Texas. How General Toombs finally escaped must be reserved for a more
+extended recital.
+
+General Toombs and Mr. Davis never met but once after the war. It was
+unexpected, dramatic. Some years after General Toombs had returned from
+his long exile, and Mr. Davis was just back from his trip to England,
+the ex-president visited Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, the guest of the
+poet Sidney Lanier. He here appeared at his best in the company of
+sympathetic and admiring friends, and charmed everyone by his polish and
+learning. The day before Jefferson Davis left, General and Mrs. Toombs
+arrived at the mountain. Mr. Davis was, at that time, absent on a
+horseback trip. He was fond of riding, and had gone over to see some of
+the fine views of the mountain and to inspect the fields where recent
+battles had raged with so much fury. The hotel was kept by a Northern
+man who knew nothing of the relations between Mr. Davis and General
+Toombs, and he believed the thing to do was to put General and Mrs.
+Toombs in a vacant room of the cottage occupied by Mr. Davis. It was a
+small house, with a piazza extending along the front. It so happened
+that the Toombses, who had just learned of Mr. Davis' presence at the
+hotel, were sitting on the piazza chatting with friends when Mr. Davis
+came up. Mr. Davis had also heard of General Toombs' arrival at the
+hotel, but neither knew that the other was domiciled in the same
+cottage. To General Toombs the appearance was as if Mr. Davis had come
+at once to make a cordial call. No one could be more hospitable and
+polite than Toombs, and this apparent challenge to friendship brought
+out the best side of his nature. The men met with considerable warmth.
+From General Toombs Mr. Davis advanced to Mrs. Toombs. Between these two
+the meeting was profoundly affecting. He embraced her tenderly. Toombs
+and Davis had been friends and neighbors years ago in Washington City,
+and Mr. Davis had been extremely fond of Mr. Toombs' family. The
+distinguished party soon fell into friendly conversation. Next day Mr.
+Davis left Lookout Mountain. He never met Robert Toombs again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+TOOMBS AS A FUGITIVE.
+
+
+At the conclusion of the war, Secretary Stanton issued specific orders
+for the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, and Robert
+Toombs. Mr. Stephens was arrested quietly at his own home in
+Crawfordville on the 12th of May, 1865, two days after Mr. Davis had
+been overtaken. On the same day a squad of soldiers, most of them
+negroes, reached Washington, Ga. They were commanded by General Wilde,
+and their orders were to take General Toombs in charge. One of the
+colored troops marched up town with the photograph of Toombs, which they
+had procured to identify him, impaled upon his bayonet. General Toombs
+was, at the time, in his private office at his residence. Hearing the
+noise in his yard, he walked out of his basement to the corner of his
+front steps. There he perceived the squad and divined their purpose. "By
+God, the bluecoats!" was all he said. Walking quickly through his back
+lot, he strode across his plantation and disappeared. By this time the
+guard was clamoring at the front door, and Mrs. Toombs went out to meet
+them. "Where is General Toombs?" the commander asked. "He is not here,"
+the lady answered firmly. A parley ensued, during which Mrs. Toombs
+managed to detain the men long enough to enable her husband to get out
+of sight. "Unless General Toombs is produced, I shall burn the house,"
+retorted the officer. Mrs. Toombs blanched a little at this, but, biting
+her lip, she turned on her heel, and coolly replied: "Very well, burn
+it." Among the listeners to this colloquy was a young man just returned
+from the Confederate army. He was moved with indignation. He still wore
+the gray jacket, and was deeply anxious for the Toombs family. He had
+been a neighbor to them all his life, as had his father before him, and
+he shared the pride which the village felt for its most distinguished
+resident.
+
+He was the son of Hon. I. T. Irvin, a prominent public man and lifelong
+friend of General Toombs. Preparations were made for the threatened
+fire. General Toombs did not come out. Furniture was moved and papers
+destroyed, but the young Confederate was soon convinced that the threat
+was a mere bluff. Relieved on that point, his loyal spirit yearned
+toward the fugitive. Charles E. Irvin was the name of the young man, and
+he had seen service in the artillery under Longstreet. Not yet
+twenty-one years of age, he was fired with ardor and devotion, and had
+already resolved to aid General Toombs in escaping.
+
+Riding over to a neighbor's house, Mr. J. T. Wingfield, he failed to
+find his friend, but left word for General Toombs to let him know where
+to meet him with his horses. That night about two o'clock Lieutenant
+Irvin got word from General Toombs to bring his horse to Nick Chenault's
+by seven o'clock in the morning. This was a farm about eighteen miles
+from Washington, near the Broad River. Here General Toombs mounted his
+trusted horse and felt at home. It was the famous mare Gray Alice, which
+had carried him through all his campaigns. He had ridden her during the
+charges at Antietam, and she had borne him from the fire of the scouts
+the night he had received his wound. Once more he pressed her into
+service, and Robert Toombs, for the first time in his life, was a
+fugitive. This man, who commanded men and had gained his own way by
+sheer brain and combativeness, fled by stealth from a dreaded enemy. It
+was a new role for Toombs. His plucky young guide was resolved to
+accompany him in his flight--it might be to his death; it was all the
+same to Lieutenant Irvin. Riding swiftly into Elbert County, the two men
+crossed over to Harrison Landing, a picturesque spot on the Savannah
+River. Here dwelt an old man, Alexander LeSeur, who led something of a
+hermit's life. Before the war he had been a "Know-nothing," and had been
+exposed to Toombs' withering fire upon that class of politicians.
+LeSeur met the fugitive with a laugh and a friendly oath. "You have been
+fighting me for forty years," he said, "and now that you are in trouble,
+I am the first man you seek for protection."
+
+[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF GENERAL B. W. HEARD, WASHINGTON, GA., WHERE
+JEFFERSON DAVIS HELD LAST MEETING OF CABINET, APRIL, 1865.]
+
+General Toombs had not traveled too fast. The country was swarming with
+raiders. News of the capture of Davis and Stephens had fired these men
+with desire to overhaul the great champion of secession. A Federal
+major, commanding a force of men, put up at Tate's residence, just
+opposite the hermit's island. While there, a negro from the LeSeur place
+informed the officer that some prominent man was at the house. "If it
+ain't Jeff Davis, it is just as big a man," said he. The hint was taken.
+The island was surrounded and carefully watched, but when the party went
+over to capture Toombs, the game was gone.
+
+General Toombs now started out carefully up the Savannah River. In
+Elbert, he was in the hands of his friends. This county, which had first
+encouraged the struggles of the young lawyer, which had followed him
+steadfastly in his political fortunes, which had furnished soldiers for
+his brigade, now supplied protectors at every step. Before leaving this
+county he was initiated into a Masonic lodge, and took the first degrees
+of the order. More than once the signs and symbols of the mystic
+brotherhood stood him in good stead on this eventful trip. He was
+afterward a high Mason, and remained to his death a devoted friend of
+the order.
+
+Continuing his journey alone he stopped at the Tugaloo River in
+Habersham County, and remained at the house of Colonel Prather until
+Lieutenant Irvin, whom he had sent back to Washington with letters,
+could rejoin him with funds and clothing. Here his young companion soon
+found him, bringing, besides letters from home, some astonishing news.
+
+"General," said Lieutenant Irvin, "what do you think? Your friend
+General Joseph E. Brown has sold out the State of Georgia, and gone over
+to the Republican party."
+
+Toombs glared at him savagely.
+
+"For the first time on this trip," says Lieutenant Irvin, "he looked
+like he wanted to kill me. He brought his fist down heavily upon the
+table and said: 'By God, I don't believe it!'
+
+"'Well here it is in black and white.'"
+
+Lieutenant Irvin gave him the paper in which was printed Governor
+Brown's famous address to the people of Georgia.
+
+"This news," said Lieutenant Irvin, "absolutely sent the old man to
+bed."
+
+Toombs remained a week at Colonel Prather's, and in the meantime sent
+Lieutenant Irvin to Savannah with important letters. He desired to
+escape, if possible, through the port of Savannah. The Savannah friends
+were not at home, however, and Lieutenant Irvin, bearing these important
+letters, actually fell into the hands of the enemy.
+
+He was a high-strung, plucky young fellow, and was reproved by a Federal
+officer for continuing to wear brass buttons. Irvin retorted sharply,
+and was hurried into prison. Fearing that he would be searched and his
+papers found, he slipped them to a friend, undetected by the guard.
+After remaining in prison for several hours, Lieutenant Irvin was
+released and censured by the officer, who reminded him that there were
+bayonets about him.
+
+"Yes," retorted young Irvin, "and brave men always avail themselves of
+such advantages."
+
+Trudging back from Savannah, Lieutenant Irvin found General Toombs at
+the Rembert place, near Tallalah Falls. This was a beautiful home in a
+wild, picturesque country, where Toombs was less liable to capture than
+in middle Georgia, and where he was less known to the people. General
+Toombs had already procured the parole papers of Major Luther Martin, of
+Elbert County, a friend and member of his former command. He traveled
+under that name, and was so addressed by his young companion all along
+the route. General Toombs passed the time deer-hunting in Habersham. He
+had the steady hand and fine eye of a sportsman, and he was noted for
+his horsemanship and endurance.
+
+Returning toward Washington through Elbert County, General Toombs
+decided to spend a night with Major Martin. Lieutenant Irvin stoutly
+opposed this and warned him that if the enemy were to look for him
+anywhere, it would certainly be at Martin's house. Turning down the
+road, he finally concluded to put up at the house of Colonel W. H.
+Mattox. It was well he did. That night a party of thirty soldiers raided
+the Martin plantation on a hot trail, and searched thoroughly for
+Toombs.
+
+During his travels General Toombs did not wear a disguise of any sort.
+Dressed in a checked suit, and riding his gray mare, he was a prominent
+object, and to most of the people was well known. One day he wore green
+goggles, but soon threw them away in disgust. The nearness of troops
+forced General Toombs to abandon his plan of going home for his family
+before leaving the country. He dispatched Lieutenant Irvin to Washington
+with letters to his wife, telling her that he would not see her again
+until he had gone abroad, when he would send for her to join him. He
+himself passed through Centreville, twelve miles from his home, and
+directed his young guide where to meet him in middle Georgia. This
+Lieutenant Irvin found it very hard to do. General Toombs was very
+discreet as to whom he took into his confidence. Once or twice he
+cautioned his companion against certain parties, to the surprise of the
+young man. Toombs, however, read human nature pretty well, and, later,
+when the real character of these persons developed, Irvin understood the
+counsels of his older friend. So carefully did General Toombs cover his
+tracks that Lieutenant Irvin, after his detour to Washington, was a long
+time in overtaking him. Traveling straight to Sparta, Lieutenant Irvin
+called on Judge Linton Stephens and asked about the general. This shrewd
+Georgian came to the door and flatly denied knowing anything about
+Toombs.
+
+"He questioned me closely," said Lieutenant Irvin, "and finding that I
+was really who I pretended to be, finally agreed to take me to Toombs.
+Riding down to Old-Town, in Jefferson County, we failed to find Toombs,
+but receiving a clew that he had passed through the David Dickson
+plantation in Hancock County, I accosted Mr. Worthen, the manager. 'Has
+an old man riding a gray horse passed this way,' Worthen was asked. He
+promptly answered, 'No.' Believing that he was deceiving me, I
+questioned him more closely."
+
+Worthen tried to persuade the young man to get down and take some plums.
+He was evidently anxious to detain him. Finally he eyed the stranger
+more closely, and, convinced that he was the companion whom Toombs
+expected, he confessed that General Toombs had been at his place and was
+then at the home of Major Gonder in Washington County.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin had ridden over two hundred miles in this search and
+lost two or three days out of his way. Toombs covered his trail so
+carefully that it was difficult even for his friends to find him. Small
+wonder that he was not captured by the enemy.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin was not yet "out of the woods." Reaching the home of
+Major Gonder late in the evening, he rode up to the front fence, fifty
+yards from the dwelling. Mrs. Gonder and her daughter were sitting on
+the piazza. Lieutenant Irvin asked the usual question about the old man
+and the gray horse. The lady replied that she knew nothing about them.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin said: "But I was directed to this place."
+
+Mrs. Gonder: "I should like to know who sent you."
+
+Lieutenant Irvin: "But has no one passed or stopped here, answering my
+description?"
+
+Both ladies were now considerably worked up; the younger scarcely
+suppressed her amusement.
+
+"Come, ladies," said Lieutenant Irvin, "I see you both know more than
+you will confess."
+
+"If I do, I will die before I tell it," naively replied the elder.
+
+"Now I know you know where General Toombs is."
+
+"Then get it out of me if you can."
+
+Finally the young man persuaded her that he was the friend of Toombs,
+and Mrs. Gonder reluctantly directed him to Colonel Jack Smith's over on
+the Oconee River.
+
+Riding up to Colonel Smith's, his valiant pursuer spied General Toombs
+through the window. The head of the house, however, denied that Toombs
+was there at all.
+
+"But that looks very much like him through the window," said Lieutenant
+Irvin.
+
+"Young man," retorted Colonel Smith, "what is your name?"
+
+Of course this disclosure led to the reunion of the fugitive and his
+friend.
+
+Toombs realized that he was in almost as much danger from his own
+friends as from the enemy. He was careful to whom he disclosed his
+identity or his plans, for fear that they might indiscreetly comment on
+his presence or embarrass him even by their willingness to befriend him.
+So it was that he proceeded secretly, picking his way by stealth, and
+actually doing much of his travel by night.
+
+At the home of Colonel Jack Smith, the two men remained a week to rest
+their horses and take their bearings. General Toombs spent much time on
+the Oconee trolling for trout, while bodies of Union cavalry were
+watching the ferries and guarding the fords, seining for bigger fish.
+
+Passing into Wilkinson County, General Toombs stopped at the home of Mr.
+Joseph Deas. When Lieutenant Irvin asked if the pair could come in, Deas
+replied, "Yes, if you can put up with the fare of a man who subsists in
+Sherman's track."
+
+A maiden sister of Deas lived in the house. With a woman's sensitive
+ear, she recognized General Toombs' voice, having heard him speak at
+Toombsboro seventeen years before. This discovery, she did not
+communicate to her brother until after the guests had retired. Deas had
+been discussing politics with Toombs, and his sister asked him if he
+knew to whom he had been talking all night? Deas said he did not.
+
+"Joe Deas," she said, "are you a fool? Don't you know that is General
+Toombs?"
+
+Strange to say, a negro on the place, just as they were leaving, cried
+out "Good-by, Marse Bob." He had driven the family to the speaking
+seventeen years before, and had not forgotten the man who defended
+slavery on that day.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Toombs, "go give that negro some money."
+
+This same negro had been strung up by the thumbs by Sherman's troops a
+few months before because he would not tell where his master's mules
+were hidden. He piloted General Toombs through the woods to the home of
+Colonel David Hughes, a prominent and wealthy farmer of Twiggs County.
+Colonel Hughes had been in Toombs' brigade, and the general remained
+with him a week.
+
+General Toombs was sitting on the piazza of Colonel Hughes's house one
+afternoon when an old soldier asked permission to come in. He still wore
+the gray, and was scarred and begrimed. He eyed General Toombs very
+closely, and seemed to hang upon his words. He heard him addressed as
+Major Martin, and finally, when he arose to leave, wrung the general's
+hand.
+
+"Major Martin," he said, brushing the tears from his eyes, "I'm mighty
+glad to see you. I wish to God I could do something for you."
+
+At the gate he turned to Colonel Hughes and said: "I know who that is.
+It is General Toombs. You can't fool me."
+
+"Why do you think so?" Colonel Hughes asked.
+
+"Oh, I remember Gray Alice jumping the stone walls at Sharpsburg too
+well to forget the rider now."
+
+"Colonel," he continued, "this morning a man near here, who is a
+Republican and an enemy of General Toombs, thought he recognized him
+near your house. He saw him two hundred yards away. I heard him say he
+believed it was Toombs and he wished he had his head shot off. I came
+here to-night to see for myself. You tell General Toombs that if he says
+the word, I will kill that scoundrel as sure as guns."
+
+The veteran was persuaded, however, to keep quiet and do nothing of the
+sort.
+
+It was at this time that Lieutenant Irvin found that the ferries of the
+Ocmulgee River were guarded from one end to the other. Near this place
+Davis had been captured and the Union troops were on a sharp lookout for
+Toombs. Convinced that further travel might be hazardous, General Toombs
+and his friend rode back to the mountains of North Georgia, and there
+remained until the early fall. It was in the month of October that the
+fugitives again started on their checkered flight. The May days had
+melted into summer, and summer had been succeeded by early autumn. The
+crops, planted when he started from home that spring day, were now
+ripening in the fields, and Northern statesmen were still declaring that
+Toombs was the arch-traitor, and must be apprehended. Davis was in
+irons, and Stephens languished in a dungeon at Fortress Monroe.
+
+Passing once more near Sparta, Ga., Toombs met, by appointment, his
+friends, Linton Stephens, R. M. Johnson, W. W. Simpson, Jack Lane, Edge
+Bird, and other kindred spirits. It was a royal reunion, a sort of
+Lucretia Borgia feast for Toombs--"eat and drink to-day, for to-morrow
+we may die."
+
+Traveling their old road through Washington County, they crossed the
+Ocmulgee, this time in safety, and passed into Houston County. The
+Federals believed Toombs already abroad and had ceased to look for him
+in Georgia. After the passage was made General Toombs said: "Charlie,
+that ferryman eyed me very closely. Go back and give him some money."
+
+Lieutenant Irvin did return. The ferryman refused any gift. He said: "I
+did not want to take what you did give me." Irvin asked the reason. The
+ferryman said: "Tell General Toombs I wish to God I could do something
+for him."
+
+General Toombs had a wide personal acquaintance in Georgia. He seldom
+stopped at a house whose inmates he did not know, and whose relatives
+and connections he could not trace for generations. Sometimes, when
+incognito, the two men were asked where General Toombs was. They
+answered, "Cuba."
+
+At Oglethorpe, in Macon County, General Toombs rode right through a
+garrison of Federal soldiers. As one of his regiments came from this
+section, General Toombs was afraid that some of his old soldiers might
+recognize him on the road. A Federal officer advanced to the middle of
+the street and saluted the travelers. Their hearts bounded to their
+throats, and, instinctively, two hands stole to their revolvers. Pistols
+and spurs were the only resources. Chances were desperate, but they were
+resolved to take them. The officer watched them intently as they rode
+leisurely through the town, but he was really more interested in their
+fine horses, "Gray Alice" and "Young Alice," than in the men. Jogging
+unconcernedly along until the town was hidden by a hill, General Toombs
+urged his horse into a run, and left "his friends, the enemy," far in
+the rear. It was a close call, but he did not breathe freely yet. There
+was possibility of pursuit, and when the party reached the residence of
+a Mr. Brown, a messenger was sent back to the town to mislead the
+soldiers should pursuit be attempted. From the hands of the enemy,
+General Toombs and his friend were now inducted into pleasanter scenes.
+The house was decorated with lilies and orange blossoms. A wedding was
+on hand, and the bride happened to be the daughter of the host. Brown
+was a brave and determined man. He assured General Toombs that when the
+wedding guests assembled, there would be men enough on hand, should an
+attack be made, to rout the United States garrison, horse, foot, and
+dragoons. At Dr. Raines' place, on the Chattahoochee River, a horse
+drover happened to say something about Toombs. He gave the statesman a
+round of abuse and added: "And yet, they tell me that if I were to meet
+General Toombs and say what I think of him, I would either have a fight
+or he would convince me that he was the biggest man in the world."
+
+Tired of the long horseback ride, having been nearly six months in the
+saddle, the men now secured an ambulance from Toombs' plantation in
+Stewart County, and crossed the river into Alabama. His faithful mare,
+which he was forced to leave behind, neighed pathetically as her master
+rode away in a boat and pulled for the Alabama shore. At Evergreen they
+took the train, and it seemed that half the men on the cars recognized
+General Toombs. General Joseph Wheeler, who was on board, did not take
+his eyes off him. Toombs became nervous under these searching glances,
+and managed to hide his face behind a paper which he was reading. At
+Tensas Station he took the boat for Mobile. There was a force of Federal
+soldiers on board, and this was the closest quarters of his long
+journey. There was now no chance of escape, if detected. The soldiers
+frequently spoke to General Toombs, but he was not in the slightest way
+molested.
+
+At Mobile General Toombs took his saddle-bags and repaired to the home
+of his friend Mr. Evans, about four miles from the city. There he was
+placed in the care of Howard Evans and his sister, Miss Augusta J.
+Evans, the gifted Southern authoress. Anxious to conceal the identity of
+their guest, these hospitable young people dismissed their servants, and
+Miss Evans herself cooked and served General Toombs' meals with her own
+hands. She declared, with true hospitality, that she felt it a privilege
+to contribute to the comfort and insure the safety of the brilliant
+statesman. She was a Georgian herself, and with her this was a labor of
+love.
+
+These were among the most agreeable moments of General Toombs' long
+exile. He loved the companionship of intellectual women, and the
+conversation during these days was full of brilliant interest. Miss
+Evans was a charming talker, as bright as a jewel, and Toombs was a
+Chesterfield with ladies. The general would walk to and fro along the
+shaded walks and pour forth, in his matchless way, the secret history of
+the ruin of Confederate hopes.
+
+General Toombs wrote home, in courtly enthusiasm, of his visit to
+Mobile. Mr. Stephens sent Miss Evans a warm letter of thanks for her
+attentions to his friend. "I have," said he, "just received a letter
+from General Toombs, who has been so united with me in friendship and
+destiny all our lives, giving such account of the kind attentions he
+received from you and your father while in Mobile, that I cannot forbear
+to thank you and him for it in the same strain and terms as if these
+attentions had been rendered to myself. What you did for my friend, in
+this particular, you did for me."
+
+While General Toombs was in Mobile, General Wheeler called upon the
+Evans family and remarked that he thought he had seen General Toombs on
+the train. Miss Evans replied that she had heard General Toombs was in
+Cuba.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin went to New Orleans and secured from the Spanish Consul
+a pass to Cuba for "Major Luther Martin." At Mobile General Toombs took
+the boat _Creole_ for New Orleans. He seemed to be nearing the end of
+his long journey, but it was on this boat that the dramatic incident
+occurred which threatened to change the course of his wanderings at
+last. While General Toombs was at supper, he became conscious that one
+of the passengers was eying him closely. He said to Lieutenant Irvin:
+"Charlie, don't look up now, but there is a man in the doorway who
+evidently recognizes me."
+
+"General, probably it is someone who thinks he knows you."
+
+"No," replied Toombs quietly, "that man is a spy."
+
+Lieutenant Irvin asked what should be done. General Toombs told him to
+go out and question the man and, if convinced that he was a spy, to
+throw him over the stern-rail of the steamer. Lieutenant Irvin got up
+and went on deck. The stranger followed him. Irvin walked toward the
+rail. The stranger asked him where he was from. He answered "North
+Carolina."
+
+"Who is that with you?" he questioned.
+
+"My uncle, Major Martin," said Irvin.
+
+The man then remarked that it looked very much like Robert Toombs. Irvin
+answered that the likeness had been noted before, but that he could not
+see it.
+
+"Young man," said the stranger, "I don't want to dispute your word, but
+that is certainly Toombs. I know him well, and am his friend."
+
+Irvin then gave up the idea of throwing him overboard. Had the brave
+young officer not been convinced that the party questioning him was
+Colonel M. C. Fulton, a prominent resident of Georgia, he says he would
+certainly have pitched him into the Gulf of Mexico.
+
+General Toombs, when informed of the identity of Colonel Fulton, sent
+for him to come to his room, and the two men had a long and friendly
+conversation.
+
+Arriving at New Orleans General Toombs drove up to the residence of
+Colonel Marshal J. Smith. On the 4th of November, 1865, he boarded the
+steamship _Alabama_, the first of the Morgan line put on after the war
+between New Orleans, Havana, and Liverpool. A tremendous crowd had
+gathered at the dock to see the steamer off, and Lieutenant Irvin tried
+to persuade General Toombs to go below until the ship cleared. But the
+buoyant Georgian persisted in walking the deck, and was actually
+recognized by General Humphrey Marshall of Texas, who had known him in
+the Senate before the war.
+
+"No," said Toombs to his companion's expostulations, "I want fresh air,
+and I will die right here. I am impatient to get into neutral waters,
+when I can talk. I have not had a square, honest talk in six months."
+
+By the time the good ship had cleared the harbor, everybody on board
+knew that Robert Toombs, "the fire-eater and rebel," was a passenger,
+and hundreds gathered around to listen to his matchless conversation.
+
+Lieutenant Irvin never saw General Toombs again until 1868. He himself
+was an officer of the Irvin artillery, Cutts' battalion, being a part of
+Walker's artillery in Longstreet's corps. Entering the army at seventeen
+years of age, Charles E. Irvin was a veteran at twenty-one. He was
+brave, alert, tender, and true. He recalls that when his company joined
+the army in Richmond, Robert Toombs, then Secretary of State, gave them
+a handsome supper at the Exchange Hotel. "I remember," said he, "with
+infinite satisfaction, that during the seven months I accompanied
+General Toombs, in the closest relations and under the most trying
+positions, he was never once impatient with me." Frequently, on this
+long and perilous journey, Toombs would say; "Well, my boy! suppose the
+Yankees find us to-day; what will you do?" "General, you say you won't
+be taken alive. I reckon they will have to kill me too."
+
+General Toombs often declared that he would not be captured.
+Imprisonment, trial, and exile, he did not dread; but to be carried
+about, a prize captive and a curiosity through Northern cities, was his
+constant fear. He was prepared to sell his life dearly, and there is no
+doubt but that he would have done so.
+
+During all these trying days, Toombs rode with the grace and gayety of a
+cavalier. He talked incessantly to his young companion, who eagerly
+drank in his words. He fought his battles over again and discussed the
+leaders of the Civil War in his racy style. He constantly predicted the
+collapse of the greenback system of currency, and speculated
+facetiously each day upon the chances of capture. He calculated shrewdly
+enough his routes and plans, and when he found himself on _terra firma_,
+it was under the soft skies of the Antilles with a foreign flag above
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+WITHOUT A COUNTRY.
+
+
+From Cuba General Toombs proceeded to Paris. It was early in July before
+he reached his new stopping place. He found himself somewhat restricted
+in funds, as he had not had time to turn his property into gold to make
+his trip abroad. It is related that just after the departure of the
+famous "specie train," through Washington in the wake of Mr. Davis'
+party, a Confederate horseman dashed by the residence of General Toombs
+and threw a bag of bullion over the fence. It was found to contain five
+thousand dollars, but Toombs swore he would not even borrow this amount
+from his government. He turned it over to the authorities for the use of
+disabled Confederate soldiers, and hurriedly scraped up what funds he
+could command in case he should be compelled to fly. Arriving in Paris,
+General Toombs succeeded in selling one of his plantations, realizing
+about five dollars an acre for it. He used to explain to the astounded
+Frenchmen, during his residence abroad, that he ate an acre of dirt a
+day.
+
+General Toombs repaired to Enghien, where he took a course of sulphur
+baths for the benefit of his throat. Constant exposure with the army and
+in his flight had brought on his old enemy, the asthma. He had been a
+healthy man, having long passed the limit of manhood before he tasted
+medicine. Late in life, an attack of scarlet fever left his throat in a
+delicate condition.
+
+Mrs. Toombs joined him in Paris in July, 1865, and he passed eighteen
+months quietly with her in Europe. It was in marked contrast to his tour
+in 1855, when, as United States Senator, he had gone from place to
+place, observed, honored, and courted. He was now an exile without a
+country. He had seen his political dreams wiped out in blood and his
+home in the hands of the enemy. From the dignity and power of a United
+States Senator and a possible aspirant to the Presidency, he had been
+branded as a conspirator, and forced, like Mirabeau, to seek shelter in
+distant lands.
+
+France was, at that time, in a state of unrest. Louis Napoleon was
+watching with anxiety the eagles of Prussia hovering over the German
+Confederation. Austria had already succumbed to Prussian power, and
+Napoleon had been blocked in his scheme to secure, from this disorder,
+his share of the Rhenish provinces. Toombs, who had fled from a restored
+Union in America, now watched the march of consolidation in Europe, and
+predicted its final success.
+
+General Toombs was an object of interest in Europe. His position toward
+the American government prevented his public recognition by the rulers,
+but he used to relate with zest his interviews with Carlyle, the Empress
+Eugenie, and other notables. He was a man to attract attention, and his
+talk was fascinating and bright.
+
+He was sometimes sought in a legal way by prominent financiers, who
+asked his opinions upon fiscal matters in America. There is no doubt but
+that, like Judah P. Benjamin, he could have built up a large practice
+abroad, had he cared to do so; but permanent residence away from home
+was entirely out of his mind.
+
+In December, 1866, General and Mrs. Toombs received a cable message
+telling them of the death of their only daughter, Mrs. Dudley M. DuBose,
+in Washington, Ga. Mrs. Toombs at once returned home, leaving the
+grief-stricken father alone in Paris. Anxious to go back with her, he
+was advised that matters were still unsettled in the United States. The
+impeachment of Andrew Johnson was in progress, and his conviction meant
+restored martial law for the South. So the days were full of woe for the
+lonely exile.
+
+On December 25, 1866, he writes a beautiful and pathetic letter to his
+wife. While the denizens of the gay city were deep in the celebration
+of the joyous Christmas feast, the Southern wanderer, "with heart bowed
+down," was passing through the shadows, and suffering in silence the
+keenest pangs of affliction. Around him the votaries of fashion and
+wealth were flushed with gayety. Paris was in the ecstasy of
+Christmastide. But the depths of his soul were starless and chill, and
+in the midst of all this mirth one heart was tuned to melancholy. He
+writes to his wife:
+
+      The night you left I retired to the room and did not go to
+      sleep until after two o'clock. I felt so sad at parting
+      with you and could not help thinking what a long dreary
+      trip you had that night. I shall have a long journey of
+      five thousand miles to Havana, and do not know that I shall
+      meet a human being to whom I am known, but if I keep well I
+      shall not mind that, especially as I am homeward bound; for
+      my hearthstone is desolate, and clouds and darkness hover
+      over the little remnant that is left of us, and of all our
+      poor friends and countrymen; and, when you get home,
+      Washington will contain nearly all that is dear to me in
+      this world. I remained alone yesterday after I got up and
+      went to my solitary meal. I immediately came back to my
+      room, and have seen nothing of Christmas in Paris.
+
+On January 1, 1867, he writes:
+
+      This is the first of the new year. How sad it opens upon
+      me! In a foreign land, with all that is dear to me on earth
+      beyond the ocean, either on the way to a distant home or at
+      its desolate fireside. Well, I shall not nurse such gloomy
+      ideas. Let us hope that the new year may be happier and
+      that we may grow better. God knows I cannot regret that
+      1866 is gone. I hope its calamities will not enter with us
+      into 1867. I had hoped to hear from New York of your safe
+      arrival on the other side of the ocean.
+
+The loss of his daughter Sallie was a severe blow to General Toombs. But
+two of his children lived to be grown. His eldest daughter Louise died
+in 1855, shortly after her marriage to Mr. W. F. Alexander. General
+Toombs had a son who died in early childhood of scarlet fever. This was
+a great blow to him, for he always longed for a son to bear his name.
+Away off in Paris his heart yearned for his four little grandchildren,
+left motherless by this new affliction. He writes again from Paris:
+
+      I almost determined to take the steamer Saturday and run
+      the gauntlet to New York. I would have done so but for my
+      promise to you. I know everything looks worse and worse on
+      our side of the ocean, but when will it be any better? Is
+      this state of things to last forever? To me it is becoming
+      intolerable.... Kiss the dear little children for me. Bless
+      their hearts! How I long to see them and take them to my
+      arms. God bless you! Pray for me that I may be a better man
+      in the new year than in all the old ones before in my time.
+
+Early in January General Toombs decided to sail for Cuba and thence to
+New Orleans. If he found it unsafe to remain in the South he concluded
+he could either go back to Cuba or extend his travels into Canada. He
+had promised his wife he would remain abroad for the present. But he
+writes:
+
+      The worst that can happen to me is a prison, and I don't
+      see much to choose between my present condition and any
+      decent fort. I feel so anxious about you and the children
+      that it makes me very wretched.
+
+From Paris, January 16, 1867, he writes:
+
+      My preparations are all complete, and I leave to-morrow on
+      the _New World_ for Havana and New Orleans, _via_
+      Martinique. I am well; except my throat. I shall have a
+      long and lonesome voyage, with not much else to cheer me
+      but that I shall find you and our dear little ones at the
+      end of my journey. If I am permitted to find you all well,
+      I shall be compensated for its fatigues and dangers. God
+      grant that we may all meet once more in this world in
+      health!
+
+                      Yours truly and affectionately, as ever,
+                        TOOMBS.
+
+General Toombs returned to America and after a short residence in Canada
+went to Washington, where he had a long interview with his old
+senatorial colleague, President Andrew Johnson. He went home from
+Washington and was never again molested. He made no petition for relief
+of political disabilities. He was never restored to citizenship. When
+Honorable Samuel J. Randall proposed his General Amnesty Act in 1875,
+Mr. Blaine and other Republicans desired to exclude from its provisions
+the names of Davis and Toombs. The Democrats would not accept this
+amendment, and the bill was never passed. Once, when Senator Oliver P.
+Morton asked General Toombs why he did not petition Congress for pardon,
+Toombs quietly answered, "Pardon for what? I have not pardoned you all
+yet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+COMMENCING LIFE ANEW.
+
+
+When General Toombs finally returned to Georgia it was with a great part
+of his fortune gone, his political career cut off by hopeless
+disability, and his household desolate. These were serious calamities
+for a man fifty-seven years of age. He found himself forced under new
+and unfavorable conditions to build all over again, but he set about it
+in a vigorous and heroic way. His health was good. He was a splendid
+specimen of manhood. His once raven locks were gray, and his beard,
+which grew out from his throat, gave him a grizzly appearance. His dark
+eye was full of fire and his mind responded with vigor to its new work.
+
+When General Toombs arrived at Washington, Ga., he consulted some of his
+friends over the advisability of returning to the practice of law, which
+he had left twenty-five years before. Their advice was against it.
+Things were in chaos; the people were impoverished, and the custodians
+of the courts were the creatures of a hostile government. But Robert
+Toombs was made of different stuff. Associating himself in the practice
+of his profession with General Dudley M. DuBose, who had been his chief
+of staff, and was his son-in-law, an able and popular man in the full
+vigor of manhood, General Toombs returned actively to the practice of
+law. He was not long in turning to practical account his great
+abilities. Success soon claimed him as an old favorite. Business
+accumulated and the ex-senator and soldier found himself once more at
+the head of the bar of Georgia. Large fees were readily commanded. He
+was employed in important cases in every part of Georgia, and the
+announcement that Robert Toombs was to appear before judge and jury was
+enough to draw large crowds from city and country. His old habits of
+indomitable industry returned. He rode the circuits like a young
+barrister again. He was a close collector of claims, an admirable
+administrator, a safe counselor, and a bold and fearless advocate. In a
+short time General Toombs' family found themselves once more in comfort,
+and he was the same power with the people that he had always been.
+
+Cut off from all hope of official promotion, scorning to sue for
+political pardon, he strove to wield in the courts some of the power he
+forfeited in politics. He figured largely in cases of a public nature,
+and became an outspoken tribune of the people. He did not hesitate to
+face the Supreme Court of Georgia, then made up of Republican judges,
+and attack the laws of a Republican legislature. Among the bills passed
+at that time to popularize the legislature with the people, was a series
+of liberal homestead and exemption laws. They were the relief measures
+of 1868. By these schemes, at once rigorous and sweeping, millions of
+dollars were lost in Georgia. They were intended to wipe out old debts,
+especially contracts made during the war, and Governor Bullock had
+appointed a Supreme Court which sustained them. These laws were
+abhorrent to Toombs. He thundered against them with all the powers of
+his learning and eloquence. When he arose in court, there stood with
+him, he believed, not only the cause of his client, but the honor of the
+whole State of Georgia. It was much easier to seduce a poverty-stricken
+people by offering them measures of relief than to drive them by the
+bayonet or to subject them to African domination. In the case of
+Hardeman against Downer, in June, 1868, he declared before the Supreme
+Court that these homestead laws put a premium on dishonesty and robbed
+the poor man of his capital. "But we must consider the intention of the
+Act," said the Court. "Was it not the intention of the legislature to
+prevent the collection of just such claims as these you now bring?"
+"Yes, may it please the Court," said Toombs, shaking his leonine locks,
+"there can be no doubt that it was the intention of the legislature to
+defraud the creditor; but they have failed to put their intention in a
+form that would stand, so it becomes necessary for this Court to add its
+own ingenuity to this villainy. It seems that this Court is making laws
+rather than decisions."
+
+In one of his dissenting opinions upon these laws, Justice Hiram Warner
+declared that he would not allow his name to go down to posterity
+steeped in the infamy of such a decision. General Toombs lost his case,
+but the decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court of the
+United States.
+
+The times were full of evil. The legislature was dominated by
+adventurers and ignorant men, and public credit was freely voted away to
+new enterprises. The State was undeveloped, and this wholesale system of
+public improvement became popular. Unworthy men were scrambling for
+public station, and the times were out of tune. In the midst of this
+demoralization Toombs was a pillar of fire. He was tireless in his
+withering satire, his stinging invective, his uncompromising war upon
+the misgovernment of the day.
+
+Here was a fine field and a rare occasion for his pungent criticism and
+denunciation. His utterances were not those of a political leader. He
+was not trimming his sails for office. He did not shape his conduct so
+as to be considered an available man by the North. He fought error
+wherever he saw it. He made no terms with those whom he considered
+public enemies. He denounced radicalism as a "leagued scoundrelism of
+private gain and public plunder."
+
+In opposing the issue of State bonds to aid a certain railroad, he
+declared that if the legislature saddled this debt upon the taxpayers,
+their act would be a nullity. "We will adopt a new constitution with a
+clause repudiating these bonds, and like AEtna spew the monstrous frauds
+out of the market!"
+
+"You may," he said, "by your deep-laid schemes, lull the thoughtless,
+enlist the selfish, and stifle for a while the voices of patriots, but
+the day of reckoning will come. These cormorant corporations, these
+so-called patriotic developers, whom you seek to exempt, shall pay their
+dues, if justice lives. By the Living God, they shall pay them."
+
+"Georgia shall pay her debts," said Toombs on one occasion. "If she does
+not, I will pay them for her!" This piece of hyperbole was softened by
+the fact that on two occasions, when the State needed money to supply
+deficits, Toombs with other Georgians did come forward and lift the
+pressure. Sometimes he talked in a random way, but responsibility always
+sobered him. He was impatient of fraud and stupidity, often full of
+exaggerations, but scrupulous when the truth was relevant. Always
+strict and honorable in his engagements, he boasted that he never had a
+dirty shilling in his pocket.
+
+The men who "left the country for the country's good" and came South to
+fatten on the spoils of reconstruction, furnished unending targets for
+his satire. He declared that these so-called developers came for pelf,
+not patriotism. "Why, these men," he said, "are like thieving elephants.
+They will uproot an oak or pick up a pin. They would steal anything from
+a button to an empire." On one occasion he was bewailing the degeneracy
+of the times, and he exclaimed: "I am sorry I have got so much sense. I
+see into the tricks of these public men too quickly. When God Almighty
+moves me from the earth, he will take away a heap of experience. I
+expect when a man gets to be seventy he ought to go, for he knows too
+much for other people's convenience."
+
+"I hope the Lord will allow me to go to heaven as a gentleman," he used
+to say. "Some of these Georgia politicians I do not want to associate
+with. I would like to associate with Socrates and Shakespeare."
+
+During his arguments before the Supreme Court, General Toombs used to
+abuse the Governor and the Bullock Legislature very roundly. The Court
+adopted a rule that no lawyer should be allowed, while conducting his
+case, to abuse a coordinate branch of the government. General Toombs was
+informed that if he persisted in this practice he would be held for
+contempt. The next time Toombs went before the Court he alluded to the
+fugitive Governor in very sharp terms. "May it please your Honors, the
+Governor has now absconded. Your Honors have put in a little rule to
+catch me. In seeking to protect the powers that be, I presume you did
+not intend to defend the powers that were."
+
+The papers printed an account of an interview between General Gordon and
+Mr. Tilden in 1880, Gordon told Tilden that he was sorry he could not
+impart to Tilden some of his own strength and vitality. "So my brother
+told me last year," answered Mr. Tilden. "I have since followed him to
+the grave." Toombs read this and remarked that Tilden did not think he
+was going to die. "No one expects to die but I. I have got sense enough
+to know that I am bound to die."
+
+On one occasion Toombs was criticising an appointment made by an
+unpopular official. "But, General," someone said, "you must confess that
+it was a good appointment." "That may be, but that was not the reason it
+was made. Bacon was not accused of selling injustice. He was eternally
+damned for selling justice."
+
+General Toombs was once asked in a crowd in the Kimball House in
+Atlanta what he thought of the North. "My opinion of the Yankees is
+apostolic. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward
+him according to his works." A Federal officer was standing in the
+crowd. He said: "Well, General, we whipped you, anyhow." "No," replied
+Toombs, "we just wore ourselves out whipping you."
+
+He spoke of the spoliators in the State Legislature as "an assembly of
+manikins whose object is never higher than their breeches pockets;
+seekers of jobs and judgeships, anything for pap or plunder, an
+amalgamation of white rogues and blind negroes, gouging the treasury and
+disgracing Georgia."
+
+He was a violent foe of exemptions, of bounties, and of all sorts of
+corruption and fraud. He was overbearing at times, but not more
+conscious of power than of honesty in its use. He was generous to the
+weak. It was in defense of his ideas of justice that he overbore
+opposition.
+
+General Toombs kept the issues before the people. He had no patience
+with the tentative policy. He forfeited much of his influence at this
+time by his indiscriminate abuse of Northern men and Southern opponents,
+and his defiance of all the conditions of a restored Union. He could
+have served his people best by more conservative conduct, but he had all
+the roughness and acerbity of a reformer, dead in earnest. It was owing
+to his constant arraignment of illegal acts of the post-bellum regime
+that the people finally aroused, in 1870, and regained the State for
+white supremacy and Democratic government. He challenged the authors of
+the Reconstruction measures to discuss the constitutionality of the
+amendments. Charles J. Jenkins had already carried the cause of Georgia
+into the courts, and Linton Stephens, before United States Commissioner
+Swayze in Macon, had made an exhaustive argument upon the whole subject.
+Toombs forced these issues constantly into his cases, and kept public
+interest at white heat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+DAYS OF RECONSTRUCTION
+
+
+In July, 1868, the people of Georgia made the first determined stand
+against the Republican party. John B. Gordon was nominated for Governor,
+and Seymour and Blair had been named in New York as National Democratic
+standard-bearers. A memorable meeting was held in Atlanta. It was the
+first real rally of the white people under the new order of things.
+Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and Benjamin H. Hill addressed the
+multitude. There was much enthusiasm, and crowds gathered from every
+part of Georgia. This was the great "Bush Arbor meeting" of that year,
+and old men and boys speak of it to-day with kindling ardor. "Few
+people," said Toombs in that speech, "had escaped the horrors of war,
+and fewer still the stern and bitter curse of civil war. The histories
+of the greatest peoples of earth have been filled with defeats as well
+as victories, suffering as well as happiness, shame and reproach as well
+as honor and glory. The struggles of the great and good are the noblest
+legacies left by the past to the present generation, trophies worthy to
+be laid at the feet of Jehovah himself. Those whose blades glittered in
+the foremost ranks of the Northern army on the battlefield, with a yet
+higher and nobler purpose denounce the base uses to which the victory
+has been applied. The old shibboleths of victory are proclaimed as
+living principles. Whatever else may be lost, the principles of Magna
+Charta have survived the conflict of arms. The edicts of the enemy
+abolish all securities of life, liberty, and property; defeat all the
+rightful purposes of government, and renounce all remedies, all laws.["]
+
+General Toombs denounced the incompetency of the dominant party in
+Georgia--"In its tyranny, its corruption, its treachery to the Caucasian
+race, its patronage of vice, of fraud, of crime and criminals, its crime
+against humanity and in its efforts to subordinate the safeguards of
+public security and to uproot the foundations of free government it has
+forfeited all claims upon a free people."
+
+Alluding to General Longstreet, who had been a member of the Republican
+party, General Toombs said: "I would not have him tarnish his own
+laurels. I respect his courage, honor his devotion to his cause, and
+regret his errors." He denounced the ruling party of Georgia as a mass
+of floating putrescence, "which rises as it rots and rots as it rises."
+He declared that the Reconstruction Acts "stared out in their naked
+deformity, open to the indignant gaze of all honest men."
+
+The campaign at that time was made upon the illegality of the amendments
+to the Constitution. Enthusiasm was fed by the fiery and impetuous
+invective of Toombs. The utterances of most public men were guarded and
+conservative. But when Toombs spoke the people realized that he uttered
+the convictions of an unshackled mind and a fearless spirit. Leaders
+deprecated his extreme views, but the hustings rang with his ruthless
+candor.
+
+The conclusion of his Bush Arbor effort was a fine sample of his fervid
+speech: "All these and many more wrongs have been heaped upon you, my
+countrymen, without your consent. Your consent alone can give the least
+validity to these usurpations. Let no power on earth wring that consent
+from you. Take no counsel of fear; it is the meanest of masters; spurn
+the temptations of office from the polluted hands of your oppressors. He
+who owns only his own sepulcher at the price of such claims holds a
+heritage of shame. Unite with the National Democratic party. Your
+country says come; honor says come; duty says come; liberty says come;
+the country is in danger; let every freeman hasten to the rescue."
+
+It was at this meeting that Benjamin H. Hill, who made so much
+reputation by the publication of a series of papers entitled, "Notes on
+the Situation," delivered one of the most memorable speeches of his
+life. It was a moving, overmastering appeal to the people to go to the
+polls. When this oration was over, the audience was almost wild, and
+Robert Toombs, standing on the platform, in his enthusiasm threw his hat
+away into the delighted throng. A young bright-faced boy picked it up
+and carried it back to the speakers' stand. It was Henry Grady.
+
+The defeat of the National Democratic party in 1868 disheartened the
+Southern people, and the old disinclination to take part in politics
+seized them stronger than before. In 1870, however, General Toombs
+delivered, in different parts of Georgia, a carefully prepared lecture
+on the Principles of Magna Charta. It was just the reverse in style and
+conception to his fervid Bush Arbor oration. It was submitted to
+manuscript and was read from notes at the speakers' stand. With the
+possible exception of his Tremont Temple lecture, delivered in Boston in
+1856, it was the only one of his public addresses so carefully prepared
+and so dispassionately delivered. In his opinion the principles of free
+government were drifting away from old landmarks. The times were out of
+joint, the people were demoralized. The causes which afterward led to
+the great revolt in the Republican ranks in 1872 were already marked in
+the quick perception of Toombs, and this admirable state paper was
+framed to put the issue before the public in a sober, statesmanlike way,
+and to draw the people back to their old moorings. This lecture was
+delivered in all the large cities and many of the smaller towns of
+Georgia, and had a great effect. Already there had been concerted appeal
+to Georgians to cease this political opposition and "accept the
+situation." Even statesmen like Mr. Hill had come round to the point of
+advising the people to abandon "dead issues." The situation was more
+desperate than ever.
+
+In his Magna Charta lecture Mr. Toombs said that Algernon Sidney had
+summed up the object of all human wisdom as the good government of the
+people. "From the earliest ages to the present time," said he, "there
+has been a continued contest between the wise and the virtuous who wish
+to secure good government and the corrupt who were unwilling to grant
+it. The highest duty of every man, a duty enjoined by God, was the
+service of his country." This was the great value of the victory at
+Runnymede, with its rich fruits--that rights should be respected and
+that justice should be done. "These had never been denied for seven
+hundred years, until the present evil days," said Toombs. Magna Charta
+had been overridden and trampled underfoot by brave tyrants and evaded
+by cowardly ones. There had been ingenious schemes to destroy it. The
+men of '76 fought for Magna Charta. These principles had been prominent
+in our Constitution until a Republican majority attempted destruction
+and civil war. Kings had made efforts to destroy its power and subvert
+its influence. Not a single noble family existed in England but which
+had lost a member in its defense. Society was organized to protect it,
+and all good and true men are required to maintain its teachings. "The
+assassins of liberty are now in power, but a reaction is coming. Stand
+firm, make no compromise, have nothing to do with men who talk of dead
+issues. It is the shibboleth of ruin. Push forward, and make a square
+fight for your liberties."
+
+The plain but powerful summary of public obligation had a more lasting
+effect than his more fiery appeals. General Toombs was a potent leader
+in the campaign, though not himself a candidate or even a voter. General
+D. M. DuBose, his law partner, was elected to Congress this year, and
+the Democratic party secured a majority in the State Legislature. Among
+the men who shared in the redemption of the State Robert Toombs was the
+first and most conspicuous.
+
+Some of the best speeches made by General Toombs at this time were
+delivered to the farmers at the various agricultural fairs. These were
+frequent and, as Judge Reese declared, abounded with wisdom which
+caused him years of reflection and observation. He had been reared upon
+a farm. His interests, as his sympathies, were with these people. He
+remained in active management of his large plantation, Roanoke, in
+Stewart County, during the period when he was a member of Congress and
+even when he was in the army. Two or three times a year he made visits
+to that place and was always in close communication with his overseers.
+He loved the work and was a successful farmer. A fondness for gardening
+and stock-raising remained with him until his last years. Even in a very
+busy and tempestuous life, as he characterized it in speaking to Judge
+Reese, a spacious garden, with orchards and vineyards, was to him an
+unfailing source of recreation and pleasure.
+
+He writes to his wife of the disasters of the army at Orange Court
+House, Va., but finds time to add: "The gardens and fruit are great
+additions to the family comfort, and every effort should be made to put
+them in the best condition." Writing from Richmond of the condition of
+Lee's army in March, 1862, he does not forget to add: "I am sorry to
+know that the prospects of the crops are so bad. One of the best
+reliances now is the garden. Manure high, work well, and keep planting
+vegetables." From Roanoke, in 1863, he writes; "My plantation affairs
+are not in as good condition as I would wish. I have lost a great many
+sheep, have but few lambs and little wool; cattle poor--all need looking
+after." In the midst of the shelling of Atlanta in 1864, he writes from
+the trenches to his wife: "Tell Squire to put your cows and Gabriel's in
+the volunteer oatfield. Every day we hear cannonading in front."
+
+It was in 1869 that General Toombs made one of his great speeches at the
+State fair in Columbus, in the course of which he used this expression;
+"The farmers of Georgia will never enjoy general prosperity until they
+quit making the West their corncrib and smokehouse." It was in that same
+speech that Toombs said, referring to the soldiers of the South;
+"Liberty, in its last analysis, is but the sweat of the poor and the
+blood of the brave." Most of the great men in Georgia have been reared
+in the country. There seems to be something in the pure air, the broad
+fields, and even the solitude, conducive to vigor and self-reliance.
+Attrition and culture have finished the work laid up by the farmer boy,
+and that fertile section of middle Georgia, so rich in products of the
+earth, has given greatness to the State.
+
+In August, 1872, General Toombs was invited by the alumni of the
+University of Georgia to deliver the annual address during commencement
+week. A large crowd was in attendance and the veteran orator received
+an ovation. He departed from his usual custom and attempted to read a
+written speech. His eyesight had begun to fail him, the formation of a
+cataract having been felt with great inconvenience. The pages of the
+manuscript became separated and General Toombs, for the first time in
+his life, is said to have been embarrassed. He had not read more than
+one quarter of his speech when this complication was discovered, and he
+was unable to find the missing sheets. Governor Jenkins, who was sitting
+on the stage, whispered to him; "Toombs, throw away your manuscript and
+go it on general principles." The general took off his glasses, stuffed
+the mixed essay into his pocket, and advanced to the front of the stage.
+He was received with a storm of applause from the crowd, who had
+relished his discomfiture and were delighted with the thought of an
+old-time talk from Toombs. For half an hour he made one of his eloquent
+and electric speeches, and when he sat down the audience screamed for
+more. No one but Toombs could have emerged so brilliantly from this
+awkward dilemma.
+
+General Toombs opposed the nomination of Horace Greeley for President by
+the National Democratic convention in 1872. Mr. Stephens edited the
+Atlanta _Sun_, and these two friends once more joined their great powers
+to prevent the consummation of what they regarded as a vast political
+mistake. Greeley carried the State by a very reduced majority.
+
+In January, 1873, when Mr. Stephens was defeated for the United States
+Senate by General John B. Gordon, General Toombs called a meeting of the
+leaders of the eighth district in his room at the Kimball House in
+Atlanta, and nominated his friend Alexander Stephens for Congress. He
+needed no other indorsement. He was elected and reelected, and remained
+in Congress until he resigned in 1882, to become Governor of Georgia.
+Toombs and Stephens never lost their lead as dictators in Georgia
+politics.
+
+The man in Georgia who suffered most frequently from the criticism of
+General Toombs during this eventful period was ex-Governor Joseph E.
+Brown. His position in taking his place in the Republican party, in
+accepting office, and separating himself from his old friends and
+allies, brought down upon him the opprobrium of most of the people. It
+was at a time when Charles J. Jenkins had carried away the great seal of
+Georgia and refused to surrender it to a hostile government. It was at a
+time when Linton Stephens, the most vigorous as the most popular public
+man during the reconstruction period, was endeavoring to arouse the
+people. Governor Brown's apostasy was unfortunate. No man was then more
+execrated by the people who had honored him. His name, for a while, was
+a byword and a reproach. Mr. Stephens defended his position as
+conscientious if not consistent, and gave Governor Brown the credit for
+the purity as well as the courage of his convictions. Governor Brown
+bore the contumely with patience. He contended that he could best serve
+the State by assuming functions that must otherwise be placed in hostile
+hands, and his friends declare to-day that in accepting the amendments
+to the Constitution he simply occupied in advance the ground to which
+the party and the people were forced to come. But his position did not
+compare favorably with that of the prominent Georgians of that day.
+
+The relations of Governor Brown and General Toombs continued strained.
+The latter never lost an opportunity to upbraid him in public or in
+private, and some of his keenest thrusts were aimed at the plodding
+figure of his old friend and ally, as it passed on its lonely way
+through the shadows of its long probation.
+
+On one occasion in Atlanta, in July, 1872, General Toombs among other
+things referred to a lobby at the legislature in connection with a claim
+for the Mitchel heirs. Governor Brown had remained quiet during his long
+political ostracism, but he turned upon his accuser now with
+unlooked-for severity. He answered the charge by declaring that if
+Toombs accused him of lobbying this claim, he was an "unscrupulous
+liar." The reply did not attract much attention until it became known
+that General Toombs had sent a friend to Governor Brown to know if the
+latter would accept a challenge. Colonel John C. Nicholls was the
+friend, and Governor Brown returned the answer that when he received the
+challenge he would let him know. General Toombs did not push the matter
+further. The affair took the form of a newspaper controversy, which was
+conducted with much acrimony on both sides. Colonel Nicholls stated in
+print his belief that Governor Brown would not have accepted a challenge
+but would have used it to Toombs' injury before the people. The prospect
+of a duel between these two old men created a sensation at the time. It
+would have been a shock to the public sense of propriety to have allowed
+such a meeting. It would never have been permitted; but Governor Brown
+seems to have been determined to put the issue to the touch. He had
+prepared his resignation as a deacon of the Baptist Church, and had
+placed his house in order. He seemed to realize that this was the
+turning-point of his career, and there is no doubt that General Toombs
+gave him the opportunity to appear in a better light than he had done
+for a long time; this incident was the beginning of his return to
+popularity and influence in Georgia. General Toombs was censured for
+provoking Governor Brown into the attitude of expecting a challenge and
+then declining to send it.
+
+Both General Toombs and Mr. Stephens were believers in the code of
+honor. Mr. Stephens once challenged Governor Herschel V. Johnson, and at
+another time he called out Hon. Benjamin H. Hill. General Toombs
+peremptorily challenged General D. H. Hill after the battle of Malvern
+Hill. In 1859, when United States Senator Broderick was killed by Judge
+Terry in California, Mr. Toombs delivered a striking eulogy of Broderick
+in the United States Senate. He said; "The dead man fell in honorable
+contest under a code which he fully recognized. While I lament his sad
+fate, I have no censure for him or his adversary. I think that no man
+under any circumstances can have a more enviable death than to fall in
+vindication of his honor. He has gone beyond censure or praise. He has
+passed away from man's judgment to the bar of the Judge of all the
+Earth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+HIS LAST PUBLIC SERVICE.
+
+
+One of the reforms advocated by General Toombs upon the return of the
+white people to the control of the State Government was the adoption of
+a new State Constitution. He never tired of declaring that the organic
+law of 1868 was the product of "aliens and usurpers," and that he would
+have none of it; Georgia must be represented by her own sons in council
+and live under a constitution of her own making. In May, 1877, an
+election was held to determine the question, and in spite of
+considerable opposition, even in the Democratic party, the people
+decided, by nine thousand majority, to have a constitutional convention.
+
+On July 10, 1877, that body, consisting of 194 delegates, assembled in
+Atlanta to revise the organic law. Charles J. Jenkins was elected
+president of the convention. He had been deposed from the office of
+Governor of Georgia at the point of the bayonet in 1866. He had carried
+the case of the State of Georgia before the national Supreme Court and
+contested the validity of the Reconstruction measures. He had carried
+with him, when expelled from the State Capitol, the great seal of the
+State, which he restored when the government was again remitted to his
+own people, and in public session of the two houses of the General
+Assembly, Governor Jenkins had been presented with a facsimile of the
+great seal, with the fitting words cut into its face, "In Arduis
+Fidelis." These words are graven on his monument to-day. He was more
+than seventy years of age, but bore himself with vigor and ability.
+There was a strong representation of the older men who had served the
+State before the war, and the younger members were in full sympathy with
+them. It was an unusual body of men--possibly the ablest that had
+assembled since the secession convention of 1861. General Toombs, of
+course, was the most prominent. He had been elected a delegate from his
+senatorial district--the only office he had occupied since the war. His
+activity in securing its call, his striking presence, as he walked to
+his seat, clad in his long summer duster, carrying his brown straw hat
+and his unlighted cigar, as well as his tireless labors in that body,
+made him the center of interest. General Toombs was chairman of the
+committee on legislation and chairman of the final committee on
+revision. This body was made up of twenty-six of the most prominent
+members of the convention, and to it were submitted the reports of the
+other thirteen committees. It was the duty of this committee to
+harmonize and digest the various matters coming before it, and to
+prepare the final report, which was discussed in open convention.
+General Toombs was practically in charge of the whole business of this
+body. He closely attended all the sessions of the convention, which
+lasted each day from 8.30 in the morning to 1 o'clock P. M. The entire
+afternoons were taken up with the important and exacting work of his
+committee of final revision. Frequently it was far into the night before
+he and his clerk had prepared their reports. General Toombs was in his
+sixty-eighth year, but stood the ordeal well. His facility, his
+endurance, his genius, his eloquence and pertinacity were revelations to
+the younger men, who knew him mainly by tradition. General Toombs
+proposed the only safe and proper course for the convention when he
+arose in his place on the floor and declared; "All this convention has
+to do is to establish a few fundamental principles and leave the other
+matters to the legislature and the people, in order to meet the ever
+varying affairs of human life." There was a persistent tendency to
+legislate upon details, a tendency which could not be entirely kept
+down. There was an element elected to this convention bent upon
+retrenchment and reform, and these delegates forced a long debate upon
+lowering the salaries of public officers, a policy which finally
+prevailed. During the progress of this debate General Toombs arose
+impatiently in his place and declared that, "The whole finances of the
+State are not included when we are speaking of the Governor's salary,
+and you spend more in talking about it than your children will have to
+pay in forty years."
+
+Occasionally he was betrayed into one of his erratic positions, as when
+he moved to strike out the section against dueling, and also to expunge
+from the bill of rights all restrictions upon bearing arms. He said:
+"Let the people bear arms for their own protection, whether in their
+boots or wherever they may choose."
+
+But his treatment of public questions was full of sound sense and
+discretion. He warned the convention that those members who, from
+hostility to the State administration, wished to wipe out the terms of
+the office-holders and make a new deal upon the adoption of the new
+constitution, were making a rash mistake. They would array a new class
+of enemies and imperil the passage of the new law. He advocated the
+submission of all doubtful questions, like the homestead laws and the
+location of the new Capitol, to the people in separate ordinances. He
+urged in eloquent terms the enlargement of the Supreme Court from three
+justices to five. Having been a champion of the law calling that Court
+into being forty years before, he knew its needs and proposed a reform
+which, if adopted, would have cut off much trouble in Georgia to-day.
+
+General Toombs was an advocate of the ordinance which took the selection
+of the judges and solicitors from the hands of the Governor and made
+them elective by the General Assembly. A strong element in the
+convention wanted the judiciary elected by the people. A member of the
+convention turned to General Toombs during the debate and said; "You
+dare not refuse the people this right to select their own judges." "I
+dare do anything that is right," replied Toombs. "It is not a reproach
+to the people to say that they are not able to do all the work of a
+complex government. Government is the act of the people after all." He
+reminded the convention that a new and ignorant element had been thrown
+in among the people as voters. "We must not only protect ourselves
+against them, but in behalf of the poor African," said he, "I would save
+him from himself. These people are kind, and affectionate, but their
+previous condition, whether by your fault or not, was such as to
+disqualify them from exercising the right of self-government. They were
+put upon us by people to make good government impossible in the South
+for all time, and before God, I believe they have done it."
+
+In answer to the argument that those States which had given the
+selection of judges to the people liked it, General Toombs replied that
+this did not prove that it was right or best. "It is easy to take the
+road to hell, but few people ever return from it." General Toombs
+prevailed in this point. He was also the author of the resolution
+authorizing the legislature to levy a tax to furnish good substantial
+artificial limbs to those who had lost them during the war.
+
+General Toombs declared frequently during the debate that one of his
+main objects in going to the convention, and for urging the people to
+vote for the call, was to place a clause in the new law prohibiting the
+policy of State aid to railroads and public enterprises. He had seen
+monstrous abuses grow up under this system. He had noticed that the
+railroads built by private enterprise had proven good investments; that
+no railroad aided by the State had paid a dividend. He declared that
+Georgia had never loaned her credit from the time when Oglethorpe landed
+at Yamacraw up to 1866, and she should never do it again. He wanted this
+license buried and buried forever. His policy prevailed. State aid to
+railroads was prohibited; corporate credit cannot now be loaned to
+public enterprises, and municipal taxation was wisely restricted.
+General Toombs declared with satisfaction that he had locked the door of
+the treasury, and put the key into the pocket of the people.
+
+During the proceedings of this convention an effort was made to open the
+courts to review the cases of certain outlawed bonds, which the
+legislature had refused to pay, and which the people had repudiated by
+constitutional amendment. Impressed by the conviction that certain
+classes of these bonds should be paid, the venerable president of the
+convention surrendered the chair and pled from his place on the floor
+for a judicial review of this question.
+
+No sooner was this solemn and urgent appeal concluded than General
+Toombs bounded to the floor. He declared with energy that no power of
+heaven or hell could bind him to pay these bonds. The contract was one
+of bayonet usurpation. Within a few days the legislature had loaded the
+State down with from ten to fifteen millions of the "bogus bonds."
+
+The term "repudiation" was distasteful to many. The bondholders did not
+relish it; but he thought it was a good honest word. No one was bound by
+these contracts, because they were not the acts of the people. "I have
+examined all the facts pertaining to these claims," said Toombs, "and
+looking to nothing but the State's integrity, I affirm that the matter
+shall go no further without my strenuous opposition. The legislature has
+again and again declared the claims fraudulent. The people have spoken.
+Let the bonds die." The convention agreed with Toombs.
+
+On the 16th of August the convention, then in the midst of its labors,
+confronted a crisis. The appropriation of $25,000 made by the
+legislature to meet the expenses of the convention had been exhausted,
+and the State Treasurer notified the president that he could not honor
+his warrants any further. This was a practical problem. The work mapped
+out had not been half done. Many of the delegates were poor men from the
+rural districts and were especially dependent upon their _per diem_
+during the dull summer season. To proceed required about $1000 per day.
+To have crippled this body in its labors would have been a public
+calamity. To check upon the public treasury beyond the limit fixed by
+law involved a risk which the State Government, not too friendly toward
+the convention at best, declined to assume. To raise the money outside
+by a private loan presented this risk, that in the case of the rejection
+of the constitution, then in embryo, the lender might find himself the
+holder of an uncertain claim. The convention, however, was not left long
+in doubt. With a heroic and patriotic _abandon_, General Toombs declared
+that if Georgia would not pay her debts, he would pay them for her.
+Selling a dozen or two United States bonds, he placed the proceeds to
+the credit of the president of the convention, who was authorized in
+turn to issue notes of $1000 each and deposit them with General Toombs.
+The act was spontaneous, whole-souled, dramatic. It saved the convention
+and rehabilitated the State with a new constitution. By a rising and
+unanimous vote General Toombs was publicly thanked for his
+public-spirited act, and the old man, alone remaining in his seat in the
+convention hall, covered his face with his hands, and shed tears during
+this unusual demonstration.
+
+When the convention had under review the bill of rights, General Toombs
+created a breeze in the proceedings by proposing a paragraph that the
+legislature should make no irrevocable grants of special privileges or
+immunities. The proposition received a rattling fire from all parts of
+the house. Governor Jenkins assailed it on the floor as dangerous to
+capital and fatal to public enterprise. It was argued that charters were
+contracts, and that when railroads or other interests were put upon
+notice that their franchise was likely to be disturbed, there would be
+an overthrow of confidence and development in Georgia. This was the
+first intimation of the master struggle which General Toombs was about
+to make, an advance against the corporations all along the line. It was
+the picket-firing before the engagement.
+
+General Toombs had made a study of the whole railroad question. He was
+a master of the law of corporations. He maintained a peculiar attitude
+toward them. He never invested a dollar in their stock, nor would he
+accept a place at their council boards. He rarely ever served them as
+attorney. When the General Assembly resolved to tax railroads in
+Georgia, the State selected General Toombs to prosecute the cases. In
+1869 he had argued the Collins case against the Central Railroad and
+Banking Company, in which the court had sustained his position that the
+proposed action of the Central Road in buying up the stock of the
+Atlantic and Gulf Railroad, to control that road, was _ultra vires_. He
+had conducted the case of Arnold DuBose against the Georgia Railroad for
+extortion in freight charges.
+
+The principles he had gleaned from this laborious record made him
+resolve to place restrictions upon corporate power in the new
+constitution. The time was ripe for this movement. The Granger
+legislation in the West had planted in the organic law of Illinois,
+Ohio, and Missouri the policy of government control over the railroads.
+The statutes of Pennsylvania also reflected the same principles, and the
+Supreme Court of the United States had decided this great case on the
+side of the people. General Toombs was master of the legislation on this
+subject in England, and had studied the American reports on the right
+and duty of the state to regulate railroad companies. He declared, in
+proposing this new system, that these laws had been adopted by the most
+enlightened governments of the world. "From the days of the Roman Empire
+down to the present time," said Toombs, "it has never been denied that
+the state has power over the corporations."
+
+At once the State was in an uproar. "Toombs is attempting a new
+revolution," was alleged. He was charged with leading an idolatrous
+majority into war upon the rights of property. Conservative men like
+Jenkins deprecated the agitation. Atlanta was filled with a powerful
+railroad lobby, and the press resounded with warning that development of
+the waste places of Georgia would be retarded by this unjust and
+nefarious warfare. Robert Toombs was not an agrarian. His movement
+against the corporations was reenforced by delegates from the small
+towns in Georgia, who had suffered from discrimination in favor of the
+larger cities. Railroad traffic had been diverted by rigid and ruthless
+exactions, and a coterie of delegates from southwest Georgia stood
+solidly by Toombs. These debates drew crowds of listeners. From the
+galleries hundreds of interested Georgians looked down upon the last
+public service of Robert Toombs. He never appeared to finer advantage.
+His voice lacked its old-time ring, his beard was gray and his frame was
+bent, but he was fearless, aggressive, alert, eloquent. He was master of
+the whole subject. Railways, he declared, were public highways. Upon no
+other principle could they receive land from the State, under its right
+of eminent domain, than that this land was condemned for public and not
+for private use. A public highway means that it must be used according
+to law. In those States where people have been fighting the
+encroachments of public monopolies, it had been found necessary to use
+these terms, and Toombs prefaced his agitation with this announcement.
+
+General Toombs did not mince matters. He declared that the rapacious
+course of the railroads in Georgia had been spoliation. Monopoly is
+extortion. Corporations must either be governed by the law or they will
+override the law. Competition is liberty. Keep the hand of the law on
+corporations and you keep up competition; keep up competition and you
+preserve liberty. It has been argued that the towns and counties in
+Georgia had grown rich. That is the same argument that was made in the
+English Parliament. They said; "Look at your little colonies, how they
+have grown under our care." But the patriotic men of America said; "We
+have grown rich in spite of your oppressions." Shall we not restrain
+this tax-gatherer who has no judge but himself, no limit but his
+avarice?
+
+General Toombs wanted it placed in the constitution that the legislature
+shall pass these laws restricting railroads. He declared he had twice
+drawn bills for that purpose; they had passed the House, but crumbled as
+though touched with the hand of death when they came to the forty-four
+(the Senate). "What," said he, "do I see before me? The grave. What
+beyond that? Starving millions of our posterity, that I have robbed by
+my action here, in giving them over to the keeping of these
+corporations. The right to control these railroads belongs to the State,
+to the people, and as long as I represent the people, I will not consent
+to surrender it, so help me God!"
+
+The spirit of Toombs dominated that convention. Men moved up the aisle
+to take their seats at his feet as he poured out his strong appeal.
+One-half of that body was filled with admiration, the other half with
+alarm. "It is a sacred thing to shake the pillars upon which the
+property of the country rests," said Mr. Hammond of Fulton. "Better
+shake the pillars of property than the pillars of liberty," answered
+this Georgia Sampson, with his thews girt for the fray. "The great
+question is, Shall Georgia govern the corporations or the corporations
+govern Georgia? Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve!"
+
+The house rang with applause. Members clustered about the old man as
+about the form of a prophet. The majority was with him. The articles
+which he had advocated came from the committee without recommendation,
+but they were substantially adopted, and are now parts of the supreme
+law of the land. The victory was won, and Robert Toombs, grim and
+triumphant, closed his legislative career, and claimed this work as the
+crowning act of his public labors.
+
+These principles are contained in Article IV. of the State constitution
+of Georgia. It declares the right of taxation to be sovereign,
+inviolable, and indestructible, and that it shall be irrevocable by the
+State; that the power to regulate freight and passenger tariffs and to
+prevent unjust discriminations shall be conferred upon the General
+Assembly, whose duty it shall be to pass laws for the same; that the
+right of eminent domain shall never be abridged; that any amendment to a
+charter shall bring the charter under the provisions of the
+Constitution; that the General Assembly shall have no authority to
+authorize any corporation to buy shares of stock in any other
+corporation, which shall have the effect to lessen competition or
+encourage monopoly. No railroad shall pay a rebate or bonus.
+
+Under these provisions, the Railroad Commission of Georgia was organized
+in 1879. This idea, as it finally worked out, was General Toombs'. He
+did not favor fixing the rates in the law, but the creation of such a
+commission to carry out these provisions. The present law was framed by
+Judge William M. Reese, Hon. Samuel Barnett, Ex-Senator H. D. McDaniel,
+and Superintendent Foreacre of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. It
+has worked well in Georgia. Twice has the legislature attempted to
+remodel it, but the people have rallied to its support and have not
+permitted it to be amended in so much as a single clause. It has served
+as an example for imitation by other States, and was cited as strong
+authority in Congress for the creation of the Inter-State Commerce Law.
+The railroad men, after fighting it for ten years, have come round to
+acknowledge its value. It has stood as a breakwater between the
+corporations and the people. It has guaranteed justice to the citizen,
+and has worked no injury to the railroads. Under its wise provisions
+Georgia has prospered, and leads the Union to-day in railroad building.
+And when, during a recent session of the legislature, an attempt was
+made to war upon railroad consolidation, the saving, overmastering,
+crowning argument of the railroads themselves was that General Toombs
+had already secured protection for the people, and that, under his
+masterly handiwork, the rights of property and the rights of the people
+were safe.
+
+When the convention had concluded its labors, General Toombs went before
+the people and threw himself with enthusiasm into the canvass. He took
+the stump, and everywhere his voice was heard in favor of the adoption
+of the new organic law. Many of the officers whose term had been cut
+off, and whose salaries had been reduced, appeared against the
+constitution. General Toombs declared that those public men who did not
+approve of the lower salaries might "pour them back in the jug." This
+homely phrase became a by-word in the canvass. It had its origin in this
+way: In the Creek war, in which "Capt. Robert A. Toombs" commanded a
+company made up of volunteers from Wilkes, Elbert, and Lincoln counties,
+a negro named Kinch went along as whisky sutler. As he served out the
+liquor, some of the soldiers complained of the price he asked. His
+answer was, "Well, sir, if you don't like it, sir, pour it back in the
+jug."
+
+In the State election of December, 1877, the new constitution was
+overwhelmingly adopted, and will remain for generations the organic law
+of the Empire State of the South.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+DOMESTIC LIFE OF TOOMBS.
+
+
+There never was a public man in America whose home life was more
+beautiful or more tender than that of Robert Toombs. As great as were
+his public virtues, his lofty character, and abilities, his domestic
+virtues were more striking still. He was a man who loved his family. In
+1830 he was married to Julia A. Dubose, with whom he lived, a model and
+devoted husband, for more than fifty years. She was a lady of rare
+personal beauty, attractive manners, and common sense. She shared his
+early struggles, and watched the lawyer grow into the statesman and the
+leader with unflagging confidence and love. There was never a time that
+he would not leave his practice or his public life to devote himself to
+her. His heart yearned for her during his long separation in Washington,
+when, during the debate upon the great Compromise measures of 1850, he
+wrote that he would rather see her than "save the State." He considered
+her in a thousand ways. He never disappointed her in coming home, but,
+when traveling, always returned when it was possible, just at the time
+he had promised. During the exciting scenes attending his first election
+to the United States Senate, he writes that he feels too little interest
+in the result perhaps for his success, and longs to be at home.
+Political honors did not draw him away from his devotion to this good
+woman. He never neglected her in the smallest way. His attentions were
+as pointed and courtly in her last days as when they were bright-faced
+boy and girl, lovers and cousins, in the twenties. During his labors in
+the constitutional convention of 1877, he one day wore upon his lapel a
+flower she had placed there, and stopping in his speech, paid fitting
+tribute to the pure emblem of a woman's love. A man of great deeds and
+great temptations, of great passions and of glaring faults, he never
+swerved in loyalty to his wedded love, and no influence ever divided his
+allegiance there. Writing to her on May 15, 1853, while he was United
+States Senator, he says:
+
+      MY DEAR JULIA:
+
+      This is your birthday, which you bid me remember, and this
+      letter will show you that I have not forgotten it. To-day
+      Gus Baldwin and Dr. Harbin dropped in to dinner, and we
+      drank your good health and many more returns in health and
+      happiness of the 15th of May. I did not tell them that you
+      were forty, for it might be that some time or other you
+      would not care to have them know it, and I am sure they
+      would never suspect it unless told. In truth I can scarcely
+      realize it myself, as you are the same lovely and loving,
+      true-hearted woman to me, that you were when I made you my
+      bride, nearly twenty-three years ago. There is no other
+      change except the superior loveliness of the full blown
+      over the budding rose. I have thrown my mind this quiet
+      Sunday evening over that large segment of human life
+      (twenty-three years) since we were married, and whatever of
+      happiness memory has treasured up clusters around you. In
+      life's struggle I have been what men call fortunate. I have
+      won its wealth and its honors, but I have won them by
+      labor, and toil, and strife, whose memory saddens even
+      success; but the pure joys of wedded love leave none but
+      pleasant recollections which one can dwell upon with
+      delight. These thoughts are dearer to me than to most men,
+      because I know for whatever success in life I may have had,
+      whatever evil I may have avoided, or whatever good I may
+      have done, I am mainly indebted to the beautiful, pure,
+      true-hearted little black-eyed girl, who on the 18th of
+      November, 1830, came trustingly to my arms, the sweetest
+      and dearest of wives. You need not fear, therefore, that I
+      shall forget your birthday. That and our bridal-day are the
+      brightest in my calendar, and memory will not easily part
+      with them.
+
+                                      Yours,
+                                        TOOMBS.
+
+So well known was this domestic trait of Mr. Toombs that Bishop Beckwith
+of Georgia, in delivering his funeral sermon, declared that "no knight,
+watching his sword before the altar, ever made a holier, truer, or purer
+vow than when Robert Toombs stood at the marriage altar more than fifty
+years ago. The fire that burned upon the altar of his home remained as
+pure and unfailing as the perpetual offering of Jerusalem."
+
+Mrs. Toombs was a woman of warm heart and strong convictions. She was
+noted for her benevolence and piety, and these she carried through life.
+Her Christian example was a steadying influence often in the stormy and
+impetuous career of her husband, and finally, when she had closed her
+eyes in peace, brought him to the altar where she had worshiped. Her
+household and her neighbors loved to be under her influence. No one who
+ever saw her fine face, or her lustrous dark eyes, forgot her. Her face
+was, in some respects, not unlike that of her husband. It is the best
+tribute that can be paid to her to say that for more than fifty years
+her influence over so strong a character as that of Robert Toombs was
+most potent. In June, 1856, while driving in Augusta, the horses
+attached to the carriage ran away, and Mrs. Toombs was thrown from the
+vehicle and sustained a fracture of the hip. General Toombs hastened to
+Georgia from Congress, and remained incessantly at her bedside for
+several weeks. In November, 1880, General and Mrs. Toombs celebrated
+their golden wedding, surrounded by their grandchildren and friends. It
+was a beautiful sight to see the bride of half a century with a new
+wedding ring upon her finger, playing the piano, while the old man of
+seventy essayed, like Washington, to dance the minuet. The old couple
+survived their three children, and lived to bless the lives of
+grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They were fond and affectionate
+parents.
+
+A friend, who had known them in their own home, describes "the great
+fire in the open fire-place; on one side the venerable statesman, with
+that head which always seemed to me of such rare beauty; on the other
+side, the quiet wife busy with home affairs, her eyes lighting, now and
+then, the wonderful conversation that fell from his eloquent lips."
+
+General Toombs was a liberal provider for his family, and his
+grandchildren and connections were constant objects of his bounty. Large
+sums were spent in charity. No church or benevolent institution appealed
+to him in vain. His house was open, and his hospitality was princely and
+proverbial. No one was more genial at home. Few prominent persons ever
+visited Washington without being entertained by Toombs. His regular
+dinners to the bar of the circuit, as, twice a year, the lawyers came to
+Washington to court, are remembered by scores of Georgians to-day. On
+one occasion when the townspeople were discussing the need of a hotel,
+General Toombs indignantly replied that there was no need for any such
+place. "If a respectable man comes to town," said he, "he can stay at
+my house. If he isn't respectable, we don't want him here at all."
+
+No religious conference could meet in Washington that the Toombs house
+was not full of guests. Many Northern people visited the place to hear
+the statesman talk. Newspaper correspondents sought him out to listen to
+his fine conversation. These people were always sure of the most
+courteous treatment, and were prepared for the most candid expression.
+General Toombs was not solely a _raconteur_. He did not draw upon his
+memory for his wit. The cream of his conversation was his bold and
+original comment. His wit flashed all along the line. His speech at
+times was droll and full of quaint provincialisms. He treated subjects
+spontaneously, in a style all his own. Strangers, who sat near him in a
+railroad car, have been enchanted by his sage and spirited conversation,
+as his leonine features lighted up, and his irresistible smile and
+kindly eye forced good-humor, even where his sentiments might have
+challenged dissent. He was the finest talker of his day. A close friend,
+who used to visit him frequently at his home, declares that Toombs'
+powers did not wait upon the occasion. He did not require an emergency
+to bring him out. All his faculties were alert, and in a morning's chat
+he would pour out the riches of memory, humor, eloquence, and logic
+until the listener would be enthralled by his brilliancy and power. He
+delighted to talk with intellectual men and women. He was impatient with
+triflers or dolts. He criticised unsparingly, and arraigned men and
+measures summarily, but he was a seeker after truth, and even when
+severe, was free from malice or envy.
+
+General Toombs was a man of tender sympathies. Distress of his friends
+moved him to prompt relief. In 1855 a friend and kinsman, Mr. Pope, died
+in Alabama. He had been a railroad contractor and his affairs were much
+involved. General Toombs promptly went to his place, bought in his
+property for the family, and left the place for the wife and children,
+just as it stood. From Mobile he writes a grief-stricken letter to his
+wife, December 28, 1855:
+
+      I feel that I must pour out my sorrows to someone, and whom
+      else can I look to but to one who, ever faithful and true,
+      has had my whole heart from my youth till now? This has
+      been one of the dark and sad days of my life. The remains
+      of my lost friend Mr. Pope came down on the cars this
+      morning. I met them alone at the depot, except Gus. Baldwin
+      and the hired hands. This evening I accompanied the remains
+      to the boat. Oh, it was so sad to see one whom so many
+      people professed to love, in a strange place, conveyed by
+      hirelings and deposited like merchandise among the freight
+      of a steamboat on the way to his long home. I can scarcely
+      write now, at the thought, through the blindness of my own
+      tears. As I saw him placed in the appointed spot among the
+      strangers and bustle of a departing boat, careless of who
+      or what he was, I stole away to the most retired part of
+      the boat, to conceal the weakness of friendship and relieve
+      my overburdened heart with a flood of tears. I felt it
+      would be a profanation of friendship even to be seen to
+      feel in such a crowd. But for my overwhelming duty to the
+      living I would have taken the boat and gone on with his
+      remains. This is the end of the just in this world. He was
+      a good and an upright man; never gave offense to a human
+      being. His family are ruined, but his only fault was want
+      of judgment, and too great confidence in his kind. He could
+      not make money, and it really seemed that his every effort
+      to do so plunged him deeper into debt. His great fault was
+      a concealment of his own difficulties and trials. I would
+      have done anything to have relieved them upon a full
+      disclosure. He was idolized at home, and I have wept at the
+      sorrows of the poor people in his employment, upon the very
+      mention of his death. I know I cannot control my grief and
+      am sensitive of my own weakness. I could not find relief
+      without pouring out my sorrows to you. There let them rest.
+
+                                      Yours,
+                                        TOOMBS.
+
+General Toombs resided in a three-story frame house in Washington, built
+after the manner of the olden time, with the spacious piazza, heavy
+columns, the wide door, and the large rooms. He lived in ease and
+comfort. He was an early riser, and after breakfast devoted himself to
+business or correspondence. At midday he was accessible to visitors, and
+rarely dined alone. In the afternoon he walked or drove. At night he sat
+in his arm-chair at his fireside, and in his lips invariably carried an
+unlit cigar. Smoking did not agree with him. While in Europe he
+delighted to test the tobacco of the different countries, but the
+practice always gave him pain above the eyes. His last attempt was in
+the army of Virginia. Convinced that smoking injured him, he never
+resumed it. Fond of his dry smoke, he had a peculiar cigar made to
+order, very closely wrapped, with fine tobacco.
+
+General Toombs made frequent trips away from home, even during the
+latter part of his life. The State retained his services in important
+cases. One of his last public acts was the prosecution of certain
+railway companies for back taxes. He recovered thousands of dollars to
+the State. He was summoned to Atlanta in 1880 to prosecute a defaulting
+State treasurer. He appeared very feeble, but his speech was a model of
+clearness and logic. During the latter part of his life there was a
+return of his early fault of quick, nervous, compressed speech. He
+grasped only the great hillocks of thought and left the intervening
+ground to be filled by the listener. His terse, rapid style was
+difficult to follow. As a presiding judge said, "His leaps are like a
+kangaroo's, and his speech gave me the headache." But his argument in
+the Jack Jones case was a model of eloquence and convincing law. A large
+number of friends attended the court, convinced that General Toombs was
+nearing the end of his great career, and were astounded at the manner
+in which he delivered his argument. As he concluded his address he
+turned in his place and caught the eye of Rev. Father J. M. O'Brien, an
+old friend of his. "Why, Father O'Brien," he said, wringing his hand, "I
+am glad to see you taking an interest in this case. These people are
+trying to usurp your functions. They want to grant the defendant
+absolution." "But, General," replied the quick-witted priest, "even I
+could not grant absolution until he had made restitution." "That's the
+doctrine," said the delighted lawyer, pleased to find that the point of
+his speech had taken so well. His face was all aglow with the _gaudia
+certaminis_ of the forum. This was his last appearance in court, and he
+won his case.
+
+His mother Georgia claimed his allegiance always, and he gave her his
+last and best powers. He worked for the commonwealth, and gave the
+people more than he ever received in return.
+
+In Augusta, in 1871, when he appeared before the Georgia Railroad
+Commission and arraigned the lease of the State road as illegal and
+unhallowed, he declared in a burst of indignation; "I would rather be
+buried at the public expense than to leave a dirty shilling." It was the
+acme of his desire to live and die like a gentleman.
+
+He had always been a safe financier. Scorning wealth, he had early found
+himself wealthy. It is estimated that he made more than a million
+dollars by his law practice after the war. He spent his money freely,
+careful always to avoid debt. Further than this, he kept no account of
+his means. Like Astor, he invested much of his holdings in land, and
+owned a large number of fine plantations in middle Georgia. When he died
+his estate probably reached two hundred thousand dollars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+HIS GREAT FAULT.
+
+
+No just biography of Robert Toombs can be written that does not take
+into notice the blemishes as well as the brightness of his character. He
+was a man on a grand scale. His virtues were heroic, his faults were
+conspicuous. No man despised hypocrisy more than he did, and no one
+would have asked any sooner to be painted as he was, without
+concealment. During the latter part of his life, many people knew him
+principally by his faults. Few knew what the wayward Prince Hal of the
+evening had been to King Henry in the morning hour. Like Webster and
+Clay, he was made up of human frailty. As his intimate friend, Samuel
+Barnett, said of him: "In spite of splendid physique, a man of blood and
+passion, he was not only a model of domestic virtue, but he avoided the
+lewd talk to which many prominent men are addicted. A fine sportsman and
+rider, a splendid shot, he was nothing of the racer or gamester. After
+all, he was more of a model than a warning." Among his faults, the one
+which exaggerated all the others, was his use of ardent liquors. This
+habit grew upon him, especially after the failure of the war. A proud,
+imperious nature, accustomed to great labors and great responsibilities,
+was left without its main resource and supplied with the stimulus of
+wine. No man needed that stimulus less than he did. His was a manhood
+vibrant in age with the warm blood of youth, and always at its best when
+his spirits and intellect alone were at play. He was easily affected by
+the smallest indulgence. When he measured himself with others, glass for
+glass, the result was distressing, disastrous. The immediate effect of
+excess was short. The next morning his splendid vitality asserted
+itself, and he was bright and clear as ever. The habit, however, grew
+upon him. The want of a physical check was bad. This was the worst of
+all his faults, and was exaggerated by special circumstances. It was
+less indulged in at home and greatly circulated abroad. Frequently the
+press reporters would surround him and expose in the papers a mere
+caricature of him. His talk, when under the influence of wine, was racy,
+extravagant, and fine, and his sayings too often found their way into
+print. In this way great injustice was done to the life and character of
+Robert Toombs, and Northern men who read these quaint sayings and
+redolent vaporings formed a distorted idea of the man.
+
+To a Northern correspondent who approached him during one of these
+periods, General Toombs said: "Yes, a gentleman whose intelligence
+revolts at usurpations must abstain from discussing the principles and
+policies of your Federal government, or receive the kicks of crossroad
+sputterers and press reporters; must either lie or be silent. They know
+only how to brawl and scrawl 'hot-head' and 'impolitic maniac.' Why, my
+free negroes know more than all your bosses. Now, damn it, put that in
+your paper."
+
+Robert Toombs was built to live ninety years, and to have been, at
+Gladstone's age, a Gladstone in power. He took little pains to explain
+his real nature. He seemed to take pains to conceal or mislead. He
+appeared at times to hide his better and expose his worse side. If he
+had been Byron, he would have put forward his deformed foot. He was
+utterly indifferent to posthumous fame. Time and again he was asked to
+have his letters and speeches compiled for print, but he would never
+hear of it. He waived these suggestions away with the sententious
+remark, "that his life was written on the pages of his country's
+history." With all his faults, his were strong principles and generous
+impulses. "We know something of what he yielded, but we know nothing of
+what he resisted." Include his strength and his weakness and measure him
+by other men, and we have a man of giant mold.
+
+One who was very near to Toombs in his last days said of him when he was
+dead: "It was a thing of sorrow to see this majestic old man pausing to
+measure his poor strength with a confirmed habit, rising, struggling,
+falling, and praying as he drifted on."
+
+General Toombs used to say that Webster was the greatest man he ever
+knew, that Clay managed men better, and Calhoun was the finest logician
+of the century. "The two most eloquent men I ever heard were Northern
+men," said he; "Choate and Prentiss." "Pierce," he used to say, "was the
+most complete gentleman I ever saw in the White House. He was clever and
+correct. Zachary Taylor was the most ignorant. It was amazing how little
+he knew. Van Buren was shrewd rather than sagacious. Tyler was a
+beautiful speaker, but Webster declared that a man who made a pretty
+speech was fit for nothing else."
+
+Toombs met Abraham Lincoln while he was in Congress. He related that Mr.
+Lincoln once objected to sitting down at table because he was the
+thirteenth man. Toombs told him that it was better to die than to be a
+victim to superstition. At the Hampton Roads Conference, President
+Lincoln expressed to Judge Campbell his confidence in the honesty and
+ability of Robert Toombs. He was a great reader. General Toombs often
+said that if the whole English literature were lost, and the Bible and
+Shakespeare remained, letters would not be much the poorer. Shakespeare
+was his standard. He was fond of Swedenborg, and in his early youth
+relished Tom Paine.
+
+General Toombs had a great affinity for young men, upon whom he exerted
+a great influence. He once said to a party of friends that gambling was
+the worst of evils because it impoverished the pocket while it corrupted
+the mind. "How about drinking, General?" he was asked. "Well, if a man
+is old and rich he may drink, for he will have the sympathy of his sober
+friends and the support of his drinking ones."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+HIS LAST DAYS.
+
+
+In 1880 General Toombs appeared in Atlanta, and addressed the Georgia
+Legislature in behalf of the candidacy of General A. R. Lawton for the
+United States Senate. His appearance, as he walked up the aisle, grim,
+venerable, and determined, awoke wild applause. He preserved his power
+of stirring the people whenever he spoke, but his speech was not as racy
+and clear as it had been. "This was one of the occasions," to quote from
+a distinguished critic of Toombs, "when the almost extinct volcano
+glowed again with its wonted fires--when the ivy-mantled keep of the
+crumbling castle resumed its pristine defiance with deep-toned culverin
+and ponderous mace; when, amid the colossal fragments of the tottering
+temple, men recognized the unsubdued spirit of Samson Agonistes."
+
+His last public speech was in September, 1884, when the people of
+Washington carried him the news of Cleveland's election to the
+Presidency. He came to his porch and responded briefly, almost
+inaudibly, to the serenade, but he was full of the gratification which
+Southern people felt over that event. He declared that he did not know
+that there was enough manhood in the country as to break loose from
+party ties and elect a President. The fact had revived his hope for the
+whole country. He had, before this, taken a gloomy view of the nation.
+He had, on one occasion, declared that the injection into the body
+politic of three million savages had made good government forever
+impossible. He had afterward said that the American Constitution rested
+solely upon the good faith of the people, and that would hardly bind
+together a great people of diverse interests. "Since 1850," he once
+said, "I have never believed this Union to be perpetual. The experience
+of the last war will deter any faction from soon making an effort at
+secession. Had it not been for this, there would have been a collision
+in 1876." But the election of Cleveland he regarded as a national,
+rather than a sectional victory--a non-partisan triumph in fact; and it
+was at this time, the first occasion since the war, that he expressed
+regret that he had not regained his citizenship and gone back into
+public life.
+
+But his great power had begun to wane. His tottering gait and hesitating
+speech pointed unmistakably to speedy dissolution. The new-born hope for
+his country came just as his steps neared "the silent, solemn shore of
+that vast ocean he must sail so soon."
+
+In March, 1883, General Toombs was summoned to Atlanta to attend the
+funeral of his lifelong friend Mr. Stephens. The latter had been an
+invalid for forty years, but was kept in active life by the sheer force
+of his indomitable will. Emerging from the war a prisoner, he had
+finally secured his release and had been elected United States Senator.
+Being prevented from taking his seat, he had returned home and finished
+his constitutional review of the "War Between the States." In 1873 he
+had been reelected to Congress, where he had remained for ten years,
+resigning this position to accept the nomination for Governor of
+Georgia, which his party had offered him at a critical moment. It had
+been the desire of the "Great Commoner" to "die in harness," and there
+is no doubt that his close attention to the arduous duties of Governor
+hastened his death. Thousands of Georgians repaired to the State Capitol
+to honor his memory, but he who attracted most attention was the gray
+and grief-stricken companion who stood by the coffin of the man he had
+honored for fifty years. Mr. Stephens, in his diary, recalls the fact
+that his first meeting with Mr. Toombs was in court, when the latter
+generously offered to lend him money and look after his practice so that
+Stephens could take a trip for his health.
+
+Like Damon and Pythias, these two men were bound by the strongest ties.
+They entered public life together in the General Assembly of Georgia.
+Together they rode the circuits as young attorneys, and each was
+rewarded about the same time with a seat in the national councils. Both
+were conspicuous in the _ante-bellum_ agitation, and both were prominent
+in the Civil War. As age advanced their relations were closer still.
+
+General Toombs at the funeral of his friend pronounced a eulogium on the
+dead. His words were tremulous, and the trooping, tender memories of
+half a century crowded into the anguish of that moment. Toombs and
+Stephens, so long united in life, were not long parted in death.
+
+In September, 1883, Mrs. Toombs died at her summer residence in
+Clarkesville, Ga. Their devoted friend, Dr. Steiner, was with them at
+the time, and rendered the double offices of family physician and
+sympathetic friend. Between these two men there had been a warm and long
+friendship. Dr. Steiner talked with General Toombs about his spiritual
+condition. A godly man himself, the doctor thought that he might remove
+any doubts that might linger in the mind of the stricken husband. He was
+gratified to hear that the way was clear. "Why, doctor," said General
+Toombs, "I am a prayerful man. I read the Bible and the Prayer Book
+every day." "Then why not be baptized, General?" "Baptize me, doctor,"
+was his prompt reply. Dr. Steiner answered that there was no immediate
+need of that. The general was in good health. Dr. Steiner had baptized
+patients, he said, but it was in times of emergency. It was the desire
+of General Toombs to be baptized at the bedside of his wife. In a short
+time Robert Toombs was in communion with the Southern Methodist Church.
+It was his wife's beautiful example, "moving beside that soaring, stormy
+spirit, praying to God for blessings on it," which brought him to a
+confession of his faith, and left him in full fellowship with God's
+people.
+
+General Toombs' health commenced visibly to fail after his wife's death,
+and the loss of Mr. Stephens made life lonely. His younger brother
+Gabriel, himself in the shadow of a great affliction, was with him
+constantly. They were devotedly attached to each other. Mr. Gabriel
+Toombs is, in personal appearance, very much like his brother. The long,
+iron-gray hair, brushed straight out from his head, reminds one of
+Robert Toombs. He is smaller in stature, and is a man of strong
+abilities, even temperament, and well-balanced mind. His brother had
+great regard for his business judgment and political sagacity, and often
+consulted him on public matters. These men lived near each other in
+Washington, their families grew up together, and General Toombs regarded
+his brother's children almost as he did his own.
+
+On the 30th of September, 1885, Robert Toombs was confined to his house
+by illness. It was a general breaking down of his whole system. It was
+evident that he was nearing his end. During his last illness his mind
+would wander, and then his faculties would return with singular
+clearness. He suffered little pain. As Henry Grady said of him, it
+seemed that this kingly power and great vitality, which had subdued
+everything else, would finally conquer death. His ruling instinct was
+strong in dissolution. He still preserved to the last his faculty of
+grasping with ease public situations, and "framing terse epigrams, which
+he threw out like proverbs."
+
+During one of his lucid intervals he asked for the news. He was told;
+"General, the Georgia Legislature has not yet adjourned."
+
+"Lord, send for Cromwell," he answered, as he turned on his pillow.
+
+Another time he was told that the Prohibitionists were holding an
+election in the town. "Prohibitionists," said he, "are men of small
+pints."
+
+His mind at this period dwelt mainly on serious thoughts. The Bible was
+read to him daily. He was perfectly aware of his condition. He said to
+Dr. Steiner: "Looking over my broad field of life, I have not a
+resentment. I would not pang a heart."
+
+He talked in his delirium of Mr. Stephens and Dr. Steiner. The latter
+recalled him and said: "General, I am here by your side; Mr. Stephens,
+you know, has crossed over the river." Coming to himself, he said: "Yes,
+I know I am fast passing away. Life's fitful fever will soon be over. I
+would not blot out a single act of my life."
+
+Dr. Steiner declared that he never before realized so fully the
+appropriateness of Mr. Stephens' tribute to Toombs; "His was the
+greatest mind I ever came in contact with. Its operations, even in its
+errors, remind me of a mighty waste of waters."
+
+When the time came for Dr. Steiner to return to his home in Augusta,
+General Toombs bade him good-by. "I am sorry," said he, "the hour is
+come. I hope we shall meet in a better place."
+
+After Thursday, December 10, General Toombs did not regain
+consciousness. On Monday, December 15, 1885, at 6 o'clock P. M., he
+breathed his last. Just as the darkness of a winter evening stole over
+the land the great spirit of the statesman walked into eternal light.
+
+He was buried on Thursday, December 18, at twelve o'clock. The funeral
+exercises were held in the little brick Methodist church where his wife
+and daughter had worshiped.
+
+The funeral was simple, according to his wishes. A large number of
+public men in Georgia attended the services. Dr. Hillyer, a prominent
+Baptist divine and classmate of General Toombs, assisted in the
+services. Rt. Rev. John W. Beckwith, Episcopal Bishop of Georgia, who
+had been his closest religious adviser after the death of the Methodist
+Bishop George F. Pierce, delivered a beautiful eulogium.
+
+The remains were interred in the Washington cemetery, by the side of the
+body of his wife. A handsome marble shaft, bearing the simple and
+speaking inscription "Robert Toombs," marks the spot which is sacred to
+all Georgians.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+ Abolitionists, election of "Independent Democrats" by, 109;
+   in campaign of 1856, 140;
+   effect of Dred Scott case on, 159
+
+ Achison, David R., leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Act of 1789, claim for enforcement of, 73-76
+
+ Adams, John Q., compact with Clay, 14;
+   charge of corruption against, 55;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Alabama, delegates withdraw from Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 213;
+   escape through, 301-303
+
+ _Alabama_, escape on the, 305
+
+ Alexander, W. F., joins in European trip, 125;
+   appointed Quartermaster-major, 237
+
+ Alexander, Mrs. W. F., death, 312
+
+ Aliens, Toombs' welcome for, 150, 151
+
+ Alps, visit to the, 126
+
+ American party, rise, 121;
+   opposed and denounced by Toombs, 124, 128, 147, 149;
+   successes and defeats in 1855, 128;
+   nominates Fillmore, 140;
+   opposition to Toombs' party, 143;
+   principles, 148;
+   nominates Hill for governorship of Georgia, 155;
+   downfall, 158
+
+ Amsterdam, visit to, 126
+
+ Anderson, Major, besieged at Fort Sumter, 227-229
+
+ Andrews, Judge, defeated for governorship of Georgia, 128
+
+ Andrews' Grove, debate between Toombs and Hill in, 145-152
+
+ Antietam, battle of, 262-269
+
+ Anti-railroad agitation, 26
+
+ Appleton, Nathan, entertains Toombs at Boston, 130
+
+ Appleton, William, entertains Toombs at Boston, 130
+
+ Arkansas, delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secedes, 233
+
+ Army Appropriation bill, debate between Toombs and Davis on, 247-249
+
+ Army of Northern Virginia, 5, 262
+
+ Army of Potomac, defeated before Richmond, 246
+
+ Articles of Confederation, bearing on slavery question, 132
+
+ Athens, University at, 7-12
+
+ Atlanta, quarrel between Stephens and Cone in, 62;
+   in the field before, 276;
+   political meeting at, 324
+
+ _Atlanta Sun_, edited by Stephens, 332
+
+ Atlantic cable, opposes appropriation for, 194
+
+ Augusta, Ga., speeches at, 47-50, 165-168
+
+ _Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel_, defends Toombs, 186
+
+
+ Baltimore, delegate to Clay convention at, 46;
+   Whig convention at, 97;
+   Democratic convention at, 97
+
+ Baltimore convention, the, action in regard to Georgia delegations, 182
+
+ Banking, position on, 33, 39
+
+ Bank of the United States, 32
+
+ Bar, admission to the, 13
+
+ Barnett, Samuel, frames railroad law, 351;
+   tribute to Toombs, 364
+
+ Bartow, Francis S., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Bayard, James A., leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   member of Charleston convention, 176;
+   presides over seceders from Charleston convention, 178
+
+ Beaverdam Creek, 3
+
+ Beckwith, Bishop John W., eulogium on Toombs, 355, 376
+
+ Bell, John, leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115;
+   nominated for Presidency, 183;
+   vote in Georgia for, 184
+
+ Benjamin, Judah P., Attorney General of Confederate States, 221;
+   legal practice in England, 310
+
+ Benning, Col., assumes command of Toombs' brigade, 268
+
+ Benton, Thomas H., on disunion, 81
+
+ Berrien, John M., censured by Georgia Democrats, 39;
+   represents Georgia in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   in campaign of 1851, 93, 94
+
+ Bill of Rights, in Constitutional convention, 345
+
+ Bird, Edge, reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Black, Edward J., opposes Toombs in campaign of 1844, 53
+
+ Blaine, J. G., characterization of Toombs' farewell
+     speech in Senate, 205;
+   on bombardment of Sumter, 229;
+   on ravages of Confederate ships, 232;
+   objects to Toombs' restoration to citizenship, 313
+
+ Blair, Frank P., nominated for Vice-presidency, 324
+
+ Blockade of Southern ports, 229
+
+ Bonds, repudiation of outlawed, 343, 344
+
+ Boston, lecture in, 129-135
+
+ _Boston Journal_, on Toombs' lecture, 131
+
+ Boyd Amendment, 80
+
+ Braddock, Gen., massacre of his command, 1
+
+ Bragg, Gen., opposed by Toombs and Linton Stephens, 274
+
+ Breckenridge, John C., elected vice president, 152;
+   nominated for Presidency, 183;
+   vote in Georgia for, 184;
+   last attendance at Confederate Cabinet, 282
+
+ Bright, John, restrains recognition of Confederacy, 232, 233
+
+ Broderick, Senator, eulogized by Toombs, 336
+
+ Brooks, Preston S., assaults Sumner, 141, 142;
+   reelected, 142
+
+ Brown, John, raid on Harper's Ferry, 169;
+   execution, 169;
+   influence of, 170;
+   Toombs' characterization of his raid, 172, 173
+
+ Brown, Joseph E., nominated for governorship of Georgia, 154;
+   rise of, 156, 157;
+   supported by Toombs, 157;
+   ability, 158;
+   elected governor, 158;
+   candidate for reelection to governorship, 166;
+   seizes Fort Pulaski, 214;
+   opposes Conscription and Impressment Acts, 273;
+   commended by Toombs, 278;
+   parting with Toombs, 281;
+   joins Republican party, 290;
+   strained relations with Toombs, 333-336
+
+ Browne, W. M., Confederate Assistant Secretary of State, 237
+
+ Brussels, visit to, 126
+
+ Buchanan, James, on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114, 115;
+   nominated for Presidency, 141;
+   elected, 152;
+   position on Territorial question, 159;
+   dissolution of Cabinet, 199
+
+ Bullock, Gov., 317, 320, 321
+
+ Bunker Hill Monument, denial of speech about slave roll-call, at, 119
+
+ Burt, Armistead, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Bush Arbor meeting, 324-327
+
+ Butler, Benjamin F., member of Charleston convention, 176
+
+ Butler, Senator, Sumner's strictures on, 142
+
+
+ Calhoun, John C., compared with Toombs, 14;
+   as a lawyer, 16;
+   conflict with Jackson, 29;
+   admiration of Toombs for, 31, 104, 367;
+   railroad schemes of, 41;
+   arraigned for the "sugar letter," 46;
+   characterization of acquired Mexican territory, 67;
+   last efforts of, 68, 79, 107
+
+ California, acquisition of, 67;
+   question of admission of, 77-81, 85;
+   Toombs' ideas on exclusion of slavery from, 91;
+   supports the South in Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Cameron, Simon, criticised by Toombs, 197
+
+ Canada, favors purchase of, 195
+
+ Caribbean Sea, advocates making a _mare clausum_, 196
+
+ Carlyle, Thomas, view of the Civil War, 233;
+   Toombs' interviews with, 310
+
+ Cass, Lewis, defeated for the Presidency, 63;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   enmity to, by Northern men, 118
+
+ Catlett, Miss, 3
+
+ Central America, favors purchase of, 195
+
+ Centreville, Johnston's advance to, 238;
+   Toombs' retreat from, 239;
+   escape of Toombs through, 292
+
+ Chandler, Daniel, 9
+
+ Charles I., legend of Toombs' ancestors and, 1, 2, 156
+
+ Charleston, S. C., Yancey's speech in, 178;
+   excitement at bombardment of Sumter, 227
+
+ Charleston convention, the, 175-181
+
+ Charlton, Robert M., Democratic leader, 51;
+   opposition to Toombs, 95
+
+ Chase, Salmon P., represents Ohio in U. S. Senate, 68, 107;
+   an "Independent Democrat," 109;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Chattahoochee River, Toombs' escape by, 301
+
+ Chenault, Nick, 288
+
+ Cherokee County, sends Brown to State Senate, 157
+
+ Chickahominy River, Johnston's retreat behind, 245
+
+ Chickamauga, dispute between Gen. Hill and Gen. Walker
+     at battle of, 258, 259
+
+ Choate, Rufus, Toombs on, 367
+
+ Cilley duel, the, 55
+
+ Cincinnati Platform of 1856, 141, 165
+
+ Civil war, Toombs' horror of, 120;
+   opening of the, 227
+
+ Clarke, Gen. John, feud with Crawford, 29, 30
+
+ Clarkesville, Ga., summer residence at, 372
+
+ Clay, Henry, 14;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 38, 50, 104, 367;
+   nominated for Presidency, 46;
+   Compromise measures, 52, 79;
+   opposition to, in campaign of 1844, 54, 55;
+   popularity, 55;
+   position in campaign of 1848, 60;
+   opinion on disposition of acquired territory, 67;
+   last efforts of, 68;
+   the "Omnibus bill," 80;
+   death, 107;
+   denies framing the Missouri Compromise, 113;
+   position on internal improvements, 188;
+   his loss felt, 201
+
+ Clay and Adams compact, the, 14
+
+ Clayton Compromise, the, 61, 62, 64
+
+ Cleveland, Grover, Toombs' speech on election of, 370
+
+ Cobb, Gov. Howell, as a lawyer, 16, 20, 21;
+   Democratic leader, 51;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   elected Speaker of House of Representatives, 69;
+   position on admission of California, 81;
+   position on disunion, 82;
+   nominated for governorship, 86;
+   characteristics of, 87;
+   in campaign of 1851, 92;
+   elected governor, 93;
+   opinion of Joseph E. Brown, 155;
+   indorses seceders from Charleston convention, 179;
+   prominence of, 186;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   president of Provisional Congress, 216;
+   addresses meeting at Atlanta, 324
+
+ Cobb, Thomas R. R., zeal for secession, 212;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Cobb, Thomas W., guardian of Robert Toombs, 7, 8
+
+ College discipline, 8, 9
+
+ Collins _v._ Central R. R. & Banking Co., case argued by Toombs, 346
+
+ Colquitt, Walter T., elected U. S. Senator, 38;
+   Democratic leader, 51
+
+ Columbia County, legal practice in, 15
+
+ Columbia River, boundary line of, 57
+
+ Commerce, Toombs' views on the power to regulate, 189
+
+ Committee on Banking, General Assembly, chairman of, 33
+
+ Committee on Internal Improvements, General Assembly, member of, 33;
+   chairman of, 40
+
+ Committee on State of the Republic, General Assembly, chairman of, 33
+
+ Committees, views on legislation through, 196
+
+ Compromise bill, the, 52
+
+ Compromise of 1850, the, 67-82;
+   indorsed by Whig and Democratic conventions at Baltimore, 97;
+   Gen. Scott's position on, 103
+
+ Cone, Francis H., as a lawyer, 16;
+   opposed to Toombs at the bar, 25;
+   quarrel with Stephens, 62
+
+ Confederacy, last days of the, 280-284
+
+ Confederate commissioners, mission to Washington, 222-224;
+   sent to Europe, 229
+
+ Confederate navy, captures by, 232
+
+ Confederate States, preparation of Constitution for, 219, 220;
+   appointment of Cabinet, 221;
+   last meeting of Cabinet, 282
+
+ Conscription and Impressment Acts, opposition to, 272, 273
+
+ Constitutional Union party, 81, 93, 183
+
+ Constitutional convention, and the new constitution of Georgia, 337-352
+
+ Conventions, Toombs' opinion of, 103, 104, 106
+
+ Corporations, attitude toward, 346
+
+ Crawford, George W., as a lawyer, 16;
+   resolution in Whig convention of 1848, 60;
+   connection with the Golphin claim, 65;
+   retirement of, 66;
+   presides over State Sovereignty convention, 209
+
+ Crawford, Martin J., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   Confederate commissioner to Washington, 222
+
+ Crawford, William H., career, 13, 14, 16;
+   feud with Clarke, 29, 30;
+   heads Whig electoral ticket in Georgia, 1848, 60
+
+ Creek War, Toombs' service in, 32;
+   anecdote of sutler, 352
+
+ _Creole_, Toombs' escape on the, 303, 304
+
+ Crittenden Compromise, the, 202, 203
+
+ Cuba, favors purchase of, 195, 196;
+   arrival in, 307
+
+ Cumberland Gap, railroad scheme for, 41
+
+ Cumming, Major J. B., 259
+
+ Cummings Point battery, fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Cushing, Caleb, president of Charleston convention, 175;
+   resigns chairmanship of Baltimore convention, 182;
+   presides over seceders from Baltimore convention, 183
+
+
+ Dallas, George M., attitude on tariff question, 50;
+   Georgia's vote for, 55
+
+ Danburg, letter from Toombs to constituents at, 199-201
+
+ Davis, Col., quarrel with Henry Clay, 54, 55
+
+ Davis, Jefferson, Toombs' advice to, 23;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   on Toombs' financial ability, 59;
+   represents Mississippi in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   defeated by Foote, 97;
+   debate with Douglas on popular sovereignty, 163, 164;
+   personal traits, 163;
+   Senate resolutions concerning Southern principles, 181;
+   election to Presidency of Confederate States, 217, 218;
+   appoints his Cabinet, 221;
+   belief in Seward, 223;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 241, 242, 246;
+   debate with Toombs on Army Appropriation bill, 247-249;
+   policy and character of, 274, 275;
+   attends last meeting of Confederate Cabinet, 281, 282;
+   tribute to Toombs, 284;
+   arrest of, 284;
+   last meeting with Toombs, 284, 285;
+   in irons, 298
+
+ Davis, John W., elected Speaker of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Dawson, William C., as a lawyer, 16;
+   candidate for governor of Georgia, 37;
+   enters U. S. Senate, 68
+
+ Deas, Joseph, aids Toombs' escape, 296
+
+ Declaration of Independence, position on slavery question, 132
+
+ Declaration of Paris, accepted by Confederate government, 231
+
+ Delaware delegates leave Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Democratic party, strength in Georgia, 30;
+   supports central bank scheme, 38;
+   censures Senator Berrien, 39;
+   criticised, 48;
+   carries additional protection measure, 51;
+   attempt to defeat Toombs by, in 1848, 63, 64;
+   elects Cobb Speaker of House, 69;
+   joint action with Whigs in Georgia, 85;
+   convention at Baltimore, 97;
+   loss of House majority, 121;
+   nominates Buchanan, 141;
+   nominates Brown for governor of Georgia, 154;
+   split over Territorial question, 166, 167;
+   demand for new plank in platform, 167;
+   split among Georgia Democrats, 182;
+   success in State legislature, 329
+
+ Depreciation of currency, 31
+
+ District of Columbia, Clay's proposed abolition of slave trade in, 79;
+   amendment as to slavery in, 202
+
+ Disunion, opposition to, 81;
+   clamor for, 83
+
+ Dooly, Judge, 14
+
+ "Door sill" speech, the, 170-174
+
+ Dougherty, Robert, 9
+
+ Douglas, Stephen A., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   enters U. S. Senate, 68;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   introduces Kansas-Nebraska bill, 108, 109;
+   second bill on Kansas-Nebraska question, 109;
+   burned in effigy, 115;
+   Presidential aspirations, 140, 161;
+   debate with Lincoln, 161, 162;
+   accused of participation in assault on Sumner, 142, 143;
+   eulogized by Toombs, 148, 149, 164, 165, 167;
+   opposes Lecompton constitution, 160;
+   indorses Dred Scott decision, 160;
+   reelected to U. S. Senate, 162, 163;
+   views on popular sovereignty, 163, 164;
+   resolution for protection of States against invasion, 170-172;
+   rupture with Toombs, 181;
+   nominated for Presidency, 182;
+   vote in Georgia for, 184
+
+ Dred Scott case, 159
+
+ Droomgoole, George C., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Du Bose, Dudley M., Toombs' adjutant-general, 237;
+   forms partnership with Toombs, 316;
+   sent to Congress, 329
+
+ Du Bose, Mrs. Dudley M., death of, 310
+
+ Du Bose _v._ Georgia Railroad, case argued by Toombs, 346
+
+ Du Quesne, Fort, massacre at, 1
+
+
+ Eberhart case, the, 25, 26
+
+ Elbert County, admission to bar in, 13;
+   legal practice in, 15, 16, 22, 23;
+   popularity in, 22;
+   escape through, 288, 289, 292
+
+ Elberton, Ga., speech at, 89
+
+ Electoral vote, views on counting, 193, 194
+
+ Emigrant Aid Societies, 115-118, 159
+
+ Enghien, visit to, 309
+
+ England, introduction of slavery into Colonies by, 134
+
+ English compromise on Lecompton constitution, 164
+
+ Eugenie, Empress, Toombs' interviews with, 310
+
+ Europe, trip in, 125-128;
+   hesitation of powers in regard to the Confederacy, 233
+
+ Evans, Augusta J., aids Toombs' escape, 302, 303
+
+ Evans, Howard, aids Toombs' escape, 302, 303
+
+ Everett, Edward, nominated for Vice-presidency, 183
+
+
+ Fanning, Welcome, 6
+
+ Felton, W. H., opposition to, 105
+
+ "Fifty-four forty, or fight," 57
+
+ Fillmore, Millard, nominated for Vice-presidency, 60;
+   on repeal of Missouri Compromise, 115;
+   nominated for Presidency, 140;
+   Toombs' characterization of, 149, 150;
+   electoral vote for, 152
+
+ Finance Committee of Provisional Congress, chairman of, 220
+
+ Fish, Hamilton, vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Fitzpatrick, Gov., declines nomination for Vice-presidency, 182
+
+ Florida, delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 213
+
+ Foote, Henry S., represents Mississippi in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   elected governor of Mississippi, 97;
+   contest with Davis in Mississippi, 163
+
+ "Forbidden Fruit," 67
+
+ Force bill, the, 51
+
+ Foreacre, Supt., frames railroad law, 351
+
+ Forensic eloquence, 18, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 361
+
+ Forsyth, John, Confederate commissioner to Washington, 222
+
+ Forsythe, John C., attitude on the Compromise bill, 52
+
+ Forts. See their names.
+
+ France, Mexican schemes, 233;
+   political events in, 309, 310
+
+ Franklin College, 6-12
+
+ Franklin County, legal practice in, 16
+
+ Freemasons, joins the, 289
+
+ Freeport, Ill., debate between Lincoln and Douglas at, 161, 162
+
+ Free-Soil party, 89
+
+ Free-Soil settlers, 115, 116
+
+ Fremont, John C., nominated for Presidency, 140;
+   electoral vote for, 152
+
+ French, Capt. H. L., account of Toombs at second battle
+     of Manassas, 261
+
+ Fugitive-Slave law, Clay's proposed, 79;
+   the Georgia platform, 86;
+   indorsed by Whig convention at Baltimore, 97;
+   Webster's attitude on, 100;
+   allusion to, in Boston lecture, 131
+
+ Fugitive-Slave laws, passage of new, 170;
+   proposed amendments, 202;
+   demands of the South as to, 206
+
+ Fulton, Col. M. C., narrow escape of, 304
+
+
+ Gardner, James, candidate for governorship of Georgia, 157
+
+ Garrison, W. L., denunciation of U. S. Constitution, 129
+
+ General Assembly, service in the, 17, 30-46;
+   vote for Speaker in, 33
+
+ Geneva, visit to, 126
+
+ Georgia, land-grant to Major Robert Toombs in, 2;
+   distress in, 34-37;
+   first railroad in, 40;
+   internal improvements, 40;
+   establishment of Supreme Court, 41;
+   organization of Congressional districts, 44;
+   supports Jackson in 1824, 51;
+   Henry Clay in, 55;
+   panegyric on, 58;
+   formation of "Rough and Ready" clubs in, 60;
+   the Clayton Compromise in, 60-62;
+   formation of Constitutional Union party, 81, 183;
+   growth of secession sentiment in, 83, 201, 204;
+   adoption of the "Georgia Platform," 86;
+   nomination of Howell Cobb for governor, 86;
+   nomination of McDonald for governor, 86;
+   a national battle ground, 102;
+   supports Pierce and King, 102, 103;
+   uncertainty of politics in, 121;
+   breaking up of Know-nothing party in, 122;
+   campaign of 1855, 128;
+   vote for Buchanan in convention, 141;
+   campaign of 1856, 143-152;
+   politics in, 145;
+   carried by Buchanan, 152;
+   campaign of 1857, 154;
+   opposition to Brown's reelection, 166;
+   indorsement of Toombs' sentiments by, 168;
+   position on the Fugitive-Slave law, 174;
+   action of delegates to Charleston convention, 179;
+   split in Democratic party, 182;
+   vote in 1860, 184;
+   prominence in 1860, 186;
+   call for State convention, 200;
+   votes for secession, 209;
+   institution of slavery in, 211;
+   wealth at time of secession, 213;
+   agricultural policy during war, 275;
+   the militia, 276-278;
+   the March to the Sea, 280;
+   Gov. Brown's address to people of, 290;
+   Toombs' acquaintance in, 299;
+   Toombs' return to, 315;
+   in reconstruction days, 315-329;
+   Constitutional convention, and the new constitution, 337-352;
+   railroad commission formed, 350, 351
+
+ Georgia Platform, the, 83, 93, 97
+
+ Georgia Railroad, 40
+
+ Gettysburg and Malvern Hill compared, 252
+
+ Gillet, R. H., vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Gilmer, George R., as a lawyer, 16;
+   on railroad construction, 41
+
+ Glen Spring, Ga., meeting between Hill and Brown at, 155
+
+ Golphin claim, the, 65
+
+ Gonder, Major, aids Toombs' escape, 294, 295
+
+ Gordon, Gen. John B., interview with Tilden, 321;
+   nominated for governor, 324
+
+ Gordonsville, Toombs under arrest at, 259, 260
+
+ Grady, Henry W., characterization of J. E. Brown, 156;
+   at Bush Arbor meeting, 327;
+   on Toombs' approaching death, 374
+
+ "Gray Alice," 5, 268, 288, 292, 297, 300, 301
+
+ Great Britain, contention over Oregon question, 56-59;
+   accused of lack of sympathy with the North, 230
+
+ "Great Pacificator," the, 201
+
+ Greeley, Horace, nomination opposed by Toombs, 105, 332
+
+ Greene County, partition of land in, 3;
+   legal practice in, 16
+
+ Gresham, J. J., 179
+
+ Gulf of Mexico, advocates making a _mare clausum_, 196
+
+
+ Habersham County, escape through, 291
+
+ Hagarstown, taken possession of by Toombs, 265
+
+ Hale, Senator, contest with Toombs in Kansas debate, 117-120
+
+ Hallet, B. F., letter from Toombs to, 119
+
+ Hamlin, Hannibal, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Hardeman, Frank, 14
+
+ Hardeman, Judge Samuel H., 26
+
+ Harper's Ferry, John Brown's raid on, 169
+
+ Harrisburg convention, demands protection, 51
+
+ Harrison, W. H., election of, 33;
+   Toombs' interest in election of, 45
+
+ Harrison Landing, Toombs' escape by, 288
+
+ Hayne, R. Y., challenge to Webster, 175
+
+ Hayti, effects of emancipation in, 134
+
+ Heard House, the, 282
+
+ Hill, Benjamin H., as a lawyer, 20;
+   associated with Toombs in Eberhart case, 26;
+   opposition to Toombs, 95;
+   rising fame of, 144;
+   debate with Toombs, 144-152;
+   nominated for governorship of Georgia, 155;
+   supports Bell and Everett, 184;
+   Vincent's characterization of, 184, 185;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   chosen Confederate Senator, 241;
+   addresses meeting at Atlanta, 324, 327;
+   challenged by Stephens, 336
+
+ Hill, Gen. D. H., at Malvern Hill, 252, 253;
+   charges against Toombs, and correspondence thereon, 254-258;
+   character, 258, 259;
+   challenged by Toombs, 336
+
+ Hilliard, Henry W., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Hillyer, Dr., assists in Toombs' funeral services, 375, 376
+
+ Holt, Hines, opposition to Toombs, 95
+
+ Homestead and Exemption laws, 38, 317, 340
+
+ Hood, Gen. J. B., in command of Confederate forces, 276
+
+ House of Representatives, U. S., Toombs' action on organization of
+     House, Dec. 22, 1850, 71-76
+
+ Houston, Samuel, represents Texas in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   comparison of Toombs with, 131
+
+ Houston County, Toombs' escape through, 299
+
+ Huger, Gen., 245
+
+ Hughes, Col. David, aids Toombs' escape, 297
+
+ Huling, Catharine, 3, 4
+
+ Hunter, Robert M. T., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   represents Virginia in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   succeeds Toombs' as Secretary of State, 237
+
+
+ Illinois, contest between Lincoln and Douglas in, 161, 162;
+   re-election of Douglas to Senate, 163;
+   government control of railroads, 346
+
+ Internal improvements, views on, 188-191, 197;
+   principles of Confederate Constitution on, 220
+
+ Interstate Commerce Law, Georgia's influence in framing, 351
+
+ Intoxicating liquor, use of, 364-368
+
+ Ireland, tour through, 126
+
+ Irvin, Charles E., aids Toombs to escape, 287-305;
+   arrested at Savannah, 291;
+   war record, 305
+
+
+ Jack Jones case, the, 361
+
+ Jackson, Pres. Andrew, defeated by Adams, 14;
+   conflict with Calhoun, 29;
+   Toombs' vote for, 30;
+   opposition to, by Troup, 31;
+   attitude on tariff of 1824, 51;
+   nullification proclamation, 52;
+   position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Jackson, Chief Justice, tribute to Toombs, 27, 28
+
+ Jamaica, effects of emancipation in, 134
+
+ James River, Army of Potomac driven back to, 24
+
+ Jefferson, Thomas, supports the tariff, 48;
+   detestation of party machinery, 106;
+   position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Jefferson County, on the stump in, 90
+
+ Jenkins, Charles J., as a lawyer, 16;
+   elected Speaker of House, General Assembly, 33;
+   defeated for U. S. senatorship, 38;
+   reports the "Georgia Platform," 86;
+   author of the Georgia Platform, 92, 93;
+   opinion of Berrien, 93;
+   nominated for Vice-presidency, 99;
+   career of, 101;
+   personal character, 102;
+   disputes reconstruction measures, 323;
+   carries off the great seal of Georgia, 333, 338;
+   president of Constitutional convention, 337;
+   deposed from governorship, 337;
+   views on railroad question, 345
+
+ Johnson, Andrew, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   impeachment of, 310;
+   Toombs' interview with, 313
+
+ Johnson, Herschel V., Democratic leader, 51;
+   elected governor of Georgia, 128;
+   leads Union wing of Georgia Democrats, 182;
+   nominated for Vice-presidency, 183;
+   challenged by Stephens, 336
+
+ Johnson, R. M., reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Johnson, Fort, fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., on first battle of Manassas, 238;
+   advance on Washington, 238;
+   withdraws from Manassas, 239;
+   heated interview with Toombs, 243;
+   recognizes Toombs' worth, 243, 244;
+   retreats behind the Chickahominy, 245;
+   criticism of Southern soldiers, 271;
+   relieved from command, 276;
+   struggle with Sherman, 280
+
+ Jones, Gen. D. R., report of second battle of Manassas, 261;
+   reports of Toombs' actions at Antietam, 264, 265
+
+ Judiciary Committee, General Assembly, chairman of, 33, 38
+
+
+ Kansas, civil war in, 115-118, 159;
+   Pierce's message on state of, 115, 116
+
+ Kansas bill, opposition to, 166
+
+ Kansas-Nebraska bill, 107-115;
+   dissatisfaction with, in Georgia, 143;
+   Hill on, 147-149
+
+ Kennan, A. H., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Kentucky, partial secession measures of, 233
+
+ Kimball House Company, financial dealings of Toombs with, 42
+
+ Kinch, ----, sutler in Creek war, 352
+
+ Knott, Pres. Eliphalet, 13
+
+ Know-nothing party. See American party
+
+
+ Labor, views on, 197
+
+ Lamar, A. R., description of Toombs, 236, 237
+
+ Lamar, De Rosset, Toombs' aid-de-camp, 237
+
+ Lamartine, Toombs compared with, 76
+
+ Land-jobbing, opposition to, 53
+
+ Lane, Jack, reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Lane, Joseph C., nominated for Vice-presidency, 183
+
+ Lanier, Sidney, 284
+
+ Lawton, A. R., supported by Toombs, 369
+
+ Lecompton constitution, favored by Buchanan, 160;
+   passes the Senate, 164
+
+ Lee, Gen. Robert E., captures John Brown, 169;
+   successes of, 246;
+   invades Maryland, 262;
+   report of Toombs' actions at Antietam, 264
+
+ Le Seur, Alexander, aids Toombs' escape, 288, 289
+
+ Lewis, D. W., defeated by Stephens, 93
+
+ Lexington, Ga., speech in, 92;
+   debate between Hill and Stephens at, 144, 145
+
+ Lincoln, Abraham, views on slavery question, 67;
+   personal traits, 161, 162;
+   opposes Douglas, 161, 162;
+   letter to Stephens, 199;
+   election of, 199;
+   Toombs' views of his policy, 200;
+   war pressure on, 224;
+   compared with Seward, 225;
+   relies on Northern unanimity, 226;
+   proclaims blockade of Southern ports, 229;
+   disputes with McClellan, 239;
+   confidence in Toombs, 367
+
+ "Little Giant," the, 109, 161
+
+ Longstreet, Gen., opinion of Toombs, 106, 241, 271;
+   quarrel with Toombs, 259, 260;
+   report of Manassas and Maryland campaign, 269;
+   compliments Toombs, 269;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 325
+
+ Lookout Mountain, last meeting of Davis and Toombs at, 284, 285
+
+ Louisiana, Calhoun's "sugar letter" to, 46;
+   delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 216
+
+ Lumpkin, Joseph H., as a lawyer, 16;
+   opinion of Toombs' legal skill, 20
+
+ Lumpkin, murder case at, 23
+
+ Lyons, visit to, 126
+
+ Lyons, Lord, British minister at Washington, 230
+
+
+ Macon County, Toombs' escape through, 299
+
+ Madison, James, position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Magna Charta, lecture on, 327-329
+
+ Magruder, Gen., operations on Warwick River, 244;
+   command on the peninsula, 245
+
+ Mallory, S. B., Secretary of Navy of Confederate States, 221
+
+ Mallorysville, Ga., speech at, 46
+
+ Malvern Hill, battle of, 1, 252, 253
+
+ Manassas, first battle of, 238;
+   evacuated by Confederates, 239;
+   Toombs at second battle, 260-262
+
+ Manufactures, argument in favor of, 49
+
+ March to the Sea, the, 280
+
+ Marcy, Secretary, 231
+
+ Marietta, speech in, 91
+
+ Marque, letters of, 229-232
+
+ Marseilles, visit to, 126
+
+ Marshall, Chief Justice, 38
+
+ Marshall, Humphrey, duel with Henry Clay, 55;
+   recognizes Toombs at New Orleans, 305
+
+ Martin, Major Luther, gives Toombs his parole papers, 291;
+   his house raided, 292
+
+ Maryland, invasion of, 262
+
+ Mason, A. D., commissioner to Europe, 229
+
+ Mason, James M., represents Virginia in U. S. Senate, 68;
+   reads Calhoun's last speech, 79, 107
+
+ Massachusetts, power of Abolitionists in, 109;
+   withdraws from Baltimore Convention, 182
+
+ Mattox, Col. W. H., shelters Toombs, 292
+
+ Maximilian, Emperor, defeat and execution of, 233
+
+ Maybrick, Mrs., 9
+
+ McClellan, Gen., succeeds McDowell, 238;
+   disputes with Lincoln, 239;
+   marches up the peninsula, 244
+
+ McDaniel, H. D., frames railroad law, 351
+
+ McDonald, Charles J., relief measures of, 34-37;
+   reelected, 37;
+   supports central bank scheme, 38;
+   represents Georgia at Nashville convention, 85;
+   nominated for governor, 86;
+   Toombs on the nomination of, 90;
+   supported by Berrien, 93;
+   defeated, 93;
+   opposition to Toombs, 158
+
+ McDowell, Gen., succeeded by McClellan, 238
+
+ McDuffie, George, as a lawyer, 16;
+   Toombs' contentions with, 45-51;
+   Democratic leader, 51
+
+ McKennon, ----, resignation from Interior Department, 101
+
+ McMillan, Robert, as a lawyer, 16;
+   defeated by Toombs, 93
+
+ Mediterranean, visit to, 126
+
+ Memminger, C. G., as a lawyer, 21;
+   Secretary of Treasury of Confederate States, 221
+
+ Merriweather, ----, Whig leader, 51
+
+ Mexican war, fruits of, 60
+
+ Mexico, defense of, in Texas question, 53;
+   Toombs' opinions on conquest of, 59;
+   the Clayton Compromise, 61;
+   troubles over territory acquired from, 67;
+   Toombs favors purchase of, 195;
+   French schemes in, 233
+
+ Might against right, 112
+
+ Milledge, Gov. John, 7
+
+ Milledgeville, Toombs in General Assembly at, 17;
+   Toombs' practice in, 22, 123;
+   doctrine of States' Rights, affirmed at convention of 1833, 52;
+   convention of 1850 at, 86;
+   call for State convention in 1860 at, 179;
+   meeting of State Sovereignty convention at in 1861, 209
+
+ Miller, Andrew J., 16
+
+ Mirabeau, Toombs compared with, 46, 70
+
+ Mississippi, position in secession question, 97;
+   delegates leave Charleston convention, 177;
+   secession of, 213
+
+ Mississippi River, views on appropriations for, 189-191
+
+ Missouri, sends settlers to Kansas, 115, 159;
+   representation at Baltimore convention, 182;
+   partial secession measures of, 233;
+   government control of railroads in, 346
+
+ Missouri Compromise, refusal to extend the line of, 67;
+   Sumner's claims for, 108;
+   denounced by Toombs, 114;
+   Fillmore on the repeal of, 115
+
+ Mobile, Ala., escape through, 301-303
+
+ Monopolies, hatred for, 26, 348, 349
+
+ Monroe, Fortress, McClellan's arrival at, 244;
+   Stephens imprisoned at, 298
+
+ Monroe, James, position on internal improvements, 188
+
+ Montgomery, Ala., Provisional Congress at, 216
+
+ Morris Island fires on Sumter, 227
+
+ Morton, Oliver P., 314
+
+ Moses, R. J., Toombs' commissary general, 237;
+   account of dispute between Toombs and Gen. Hill, 256, 257
+
+ Moultrie, Fort, fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Mount Pleasant battery fires on Fort Sumter, 227
+
+ Munson's Hill, Toombs' position at, 238
+
+
+ Naples, visit to, 126
+
+ Nashville, convention at, 85
+
+ National debt, views on, 197
+
+ National Democratic party, defeated, 327;
+   nominates Greeley for Presidency, 332
+
+ Neahmatha, insurrection of, 32
+
+ Negroes, Toombs on the status of, 133-137;
+   Toombs' treatment of his, 138, 139;
+   decision of Dred Scott case, 159;
+   Toombs' position toward, after the war, 341
+
+ New Mexico, bill to organize, 65;
+   acquisition of, 67;
+   question of organizing Territory, 79, 80
+
+ New Orleans, fall of, 245;
+   escape through, 304, 305
+
+ Newspaper criticisms and misrepresentations, 365, 366
+
+ _New World_, return to America on the, 313
+
+ New York City, speech for Taylor in 1848, 64
+
+ New York State, power of Abolitionists in, 109
+
+ _New York Express_, on Boston lecture, 131, 132
+
+ Nicholls, Col. John C., messenger from Toombs to Brown, 335
+
+ Nisbet, Eugenius A., offers secession resolution, 209;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+ Norfolk, loss of, 245
+
+ North Carolina, supports Jackson, 29;
+   secedes, 233
+
+ Northern Circuit of Georgia, the bar of, 16
+
+ "Notes on the Situation," 185, 326
+
+ Nullification, 51, 52
+
+
+ O'Brien, Rev. J. M., 362
+
+ Ocmulgee River, watched for Toombs, 298;
+   escape across, 299
+
+ Oconee River, 7, 296
+
+ Oglethorpe, Ga., escape through, 299
+
+ Oglethorpe County, legal practice in, 15, 16, 25
+
+ Ohio, position in regard to the Wilmot Proviso, 60;
+   power of Abolitionists in, 109;
+   government control of railroads in, 346
+
+ Olin, Stephen, 9
+
+ Omnibus bill (Clay's), 80
+
+ Omnibus bill (State aid to railroads), opposed by Toombs, 191
+
+ Ordinance of Secession, 209, 214
+
+ Oregon supports the South in Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Oregon question, prominence in 1845, 56-59
+
+ Outlawry, Toombs' glory in, 23
+
+
+ Paine, Tom., Toombs' liking for, 368
+
+ Panic of 1837, 16, 31, 41
+
+ Paris, visit to, 126;
+   flight to, 308
+
+ Payne, Henry B., member of Charleston convention, 176
+
+ Peace congress, 234
+
+ Peace resolutions, 273
+
+ Peach Tree Creek, in battle at, 276
+
+ Pennsylvania, government control of railroads, 346
+
+ Pension grabs, views on, 192, 193, 197
+
+ Peter's Colony Grant, 152
+
+ Phillips, Wendell, oratory of, 129
+
+ Pickens, Gov., Democratic leader, 51;
+   notified in regard to Fort Sumter, 224
+
+ Pierce, Bishop Geo. F., 10, 11, 376
+
+ Pierce, Pres. Franklin, Toombs' estimate of, 367;
+   message on state of Kansas, 115, 116;
+   vetoes Mississippi River bill, 191
+
+ Polk, Pres. James K., attitude toward protection, 50;
+   Georgia's vote for, 55;
+   position on Oregon question, 57;
+   forced to retire from Oregon position, 59;
+   veto of River and Harbor bill, 188;
+   vetoes supported by Toombs, 191
+
+ Pope, Sarah, 3
+
+ Pope, ----, death of, and generosity of Toombs to his family, 359, 360
+
+ Pope, Gen., driven from Virginia, 262
+
+ Popular sovereignty, Douglas' doctrine of, 162-164
+
+ Postal service, views on, 197
+
+ Pottle, Judge E. H., 25, 26
+
+ "Pour it back in the jug," 352
+
+ Prather, Col., shelters Toombs, 290
+
+ Prentiss, Sergeant S., vanquished in debate by Davis, 163
+
+ Presidential vote, Toombs' views on counting, 193
+
+ Principles of Magna Charta, lecture, 327-329
+
+ Privateers, 229-232
+
+ Produce Loan, the, 236
+
+ Prohibitionists, Toombs' opinion of, 374
+
+ Protection, defense of, 48-50;
+   in campaign of 1844, 51
+
+ Provisional Congress of seceded States, 214-218
+
+ Pulaski, Fort, seized by Gov. Brown, 214
+
+
+ Railroad Commission of Georgia, 350, 351;
+   Toombs' appearance before, 362
+
+ Railroad corporations, Toombs' attitude toward, 342, 345-351
+
+ Randall, S. J., proposes General Amnesty Act, 313
+
+ Randolph, John, duel with Henry Clay, 55
+
+ Rapidan River, Confederate retirement along, 239;
+   Toombs' brigade at the, 259
+
+ Rappahannock River, Confederates retire behind, 239
+
+ Reagan, J. H., Postmaster General of Confederate States, 221;
+   recognizes Toombs' merits, 270;
+   last attendance at Confederate Cabinet, 282
+
+ Reconstruction Acts, views on, 325, 326
+
+ Reese, Judge William M., on the practice of law, 15;
+   description of Toombs by, 24;
+   opinion of Toombs' speeches, 329, 330;
+   frames railroad law, 351
+
+ Religion, liberality in matters of, 124, 125
+
+ Republican party, formation of, 140;
+   growing strength of, 161;
+   arraigned by Toombs, 172-174, 203;
+   opposition to, in Georgia, 324
+
+ Repudiation, 343, 344
+
+ Rhett, R. Barnwell, Democratic leader, 51;
+   member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Rhine, voyage down the, 126
+
+ Richmond, Va., call for convention in, 178;
+   chosen as capital of Confederacy, 232;
+   McClellan's march on, 244;
+   Toombs at defense of, 245, 246
+
+ Right to bear arms, views on, 340
+
+ River and Harbor bills, views on, 188-191
+
+ Roanoke, plantation at, 23, 330
+
+ Roman, A. B., Confederate commissioner to Washington, 222
+
+ Roman Catholic Church, Toombs' liberality toward, 124
+
+ Rome, visit to, 126
+
+ Rost, A. P., commissioner to Europe, 229
+
+ "Rough and Ready" clubs, 60
+
+ Russia supports the North, 233
+
+
+ Sanders, Miss, 3
+
+ Savannah, siege of, 279;
+   arrest of Irvin at, 291
+
+ Savannah River, views on clearing, 188;
+   Toombs' escape by, 288
+
+ "Scarlet Letter," the, 178
+
+ Schenectady, college course at, 13
+
+ Scotland, tour through, 126
+
+ Scott, Gen. Winfield, service under, 32;
+   opposition to, by Southern Whigs, 98;
+   Toombs' estimate of, 98, 99;
+   defeats Webster, 100;
+   vote for, in 1852, 103;
+   rupture of Whig party in Georgia on his nomination, 121;
+   opinion of Fort Sumter, 223
+
+ Secession, clamor for, 83, 201;
+   assertion of right of, 87;
+   Toombs charged with fomenting, 94;
+   foreseen by Toombs, 200;
+   Toombs committed to the policy, 203;
+   Georgia's vote for, 209;
+   passage of Ordinance of, 209
+
+ Seward, William H., enters the U. S. Senate, 68, 107;
+   an "Independent Democrat," 109;
+   vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115;
+   refuses audience to Confederate commissioners, 222;
+   views on evacuation of Fort Sumter, 222, 223;
+   compared with Lincoln, 225;
+   accuses Great Britain of lack of sympathy, 230;
+   diplomacy of, 233
+
+ Seymour, Horatio, nominated for Presidency, 324
+
+ Sharpsburg, battle of, 263-269
+
+ Sherman, W. T., March to the Sea, 280
+
+ "Siamese Twins," the, 182
+
+ Simpson, W. W., reunion with Toombs, 298, 299
+
+ Slaughter, James M., letter from Yancey to, 177, 178
+
+ Slavery, Gabriel Toombs' treatment of negroes, 3;
+   arraignment of Calhoun for the "sugar letter," 46;
+   Toombs' attitude toward, 46, 47, 48;
+   the Clayton Compromise, 61, 64;
+   Lincoln's views on, 67, 162;
+   Toombs' actions and speeches on slavery in
+     Territories, 69, 76-81, 164, 166, 167, 181;
+   Clay's resolutions to abolish, in District of Columbia, 79;
+   protest against admission of California by Nashville convention, 85;
+   Toombs accused of unsoundness on the question of, 85;
+   the Georgia Platform, 86;
+   Toombs' ideas on exclusion of, from California, 91;
+   the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 108-115;
+   provisions for, in U. S. Constitution, 114;
+   question reopened by Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114;
+   lecture in Boston on, 129-135;
+   Toombs on the status of the negro, 133-137;
+   decision of Dred Scott case, 159;
+   Southern view of Dred Scott decision as affecting Territories, 162;
+   Douglas' views on, in Territories, 163, 164;
+   anxiety in the South for protection of, 165;
+   demand for new plank in platform of Democratic party, 167;
+   deadlock on, in Charleston convention, 177;
+   Lincoln's letter to Stephens, 199;
+   tendency toward extinction, 199;
+   measures before the House, 202;
+   the Crittenden Compromise, 202, 203;
+   demands of the South as to, 206;
+   institution in Georgia, 211
+
+ Slidell, John, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Smith, Col. Jack, aids Toombs' escape, 295
+
+ Smith, Col. Marshal J., aids Toombs' escape, 305
+
+ Smith, George W., 242
+
+ South, stability of social institutions in, 138;
+   demands of the, as set forth by Toombs, 205-208;
+   sacrifices by secession, 213
+
+ South Carolina, condemnation of school of politics of, 53;
+   supports Pierce, 103;
+   Hayne's challenge to Webster, 175;
+   secession of, 213
+
+ Southern Methodist Church, Toombs' communion with, 373
+
+ Southern Rights party, nominates Troup for Presidency, 102
+
+ Sparta, Ga., Toombs' escape by, 293, 298
+
+ Speeches, i, iv, 18, 20, 21, 23-25, 27, 28, 46-50, 57, 59, 64, 69-78,
+     85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 98, 99, 103-105, 109-118, 145-152, 165-168,
+     170-174, 176, 177, 187-193, 205-208, 236, 237, 317, 318, 324-326,
+     329, 331, 336, 348, 349, 369, 370
+
+ Squatter sovereignty, 153;
+   Douglas' views on, 160, 162;
+   Toombs' opposition to, 166, 167;
+   before Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Stanton, Edwin M., orders arrests of Confederate leaders, 286
+
+ State Railroad of Georgia, supported by Toombs, 192
+
+ State Sovereignty convention, 209
+
+ States' Rights, doctrine affirmed at Milledgeville, 52;
+   Toombs' characterization of the Clayton Compromise, 61;
+   speeches and views on, 69, 70, 76-78, 88, 110-114, 116-119, 133;
+   claims by Nashville convention, 85;
+   the Cincinnati Platform, 141;
+   Hill on, 148
+
+ States' Rights party, in campaign of 1844, 51;
+   nominates Troup for Presidency, 102
+
+ States' Rights Whigs, joined by Toombs, 30;
+   policy of, 31
+
+ Steiner, Dr. Henry H., 119, 243;
+   influence over Toombs, 249;
+   talks with Toombs on spiritual condition, 372, 373;
+   attends Toombs at the last, 374, 375
+
+ Stephens, Alexander H., his tutor, 6;
+   as a lawyer, 16;
+   compared with Toombs, 18, 20, 43;
+   opinion of Toombs' legal skill, 20;
+   friendship with Toombs, 43;
+   position on slavery question, 44;
+   elected to Congress, 44, 55, 56, 63, 122, 333;
+   Whig leader, 51;
+   leads campaign of 1848 in Georgia, 60;
+   quarrel with Cone, 62;
+   reported rupture between Pres. Taylor and, 64, 65;
+   description of Toombs in debate, 75, 76;
+   position on admission of California, 81;
+   position on disunion, 82;
+   sent to conventional Milledgeville, 86;
+   personality of, 90;
+   Toombs' description of, 91;
+   in campaign of 1851, 92;
+   defeats Lewis, 93;
+   on the Compromise of 1850, 98;
+   nominated for Congress by Toombs, 105, 333;
+   breaks up Know-nothing party in Georgia, 122;
+   debate with Hill, 144, 145;
+   on Cincinnati Platform, 165;
+   opinion on action of Charleston convention, 179;
+   supports Douglas for Presidency, 183;
+   Vincent's characterization of, 184, 185;
+   prominence of, 186;
+   letter from Lincoln to, 199;
+   views of secession, 212;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   opinion of Provisional Congress, 216;
+   Toombs' eulogy of, 216;
+   opposes Conscription and Impressment Acts, 273;
+   arrested, 286;
+   imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, 298;
+   defeated by Gordon, 333;
+   becomes Governor of Georgia, 333;
+   challenges Johnson and Hill, 336;
+   funeral of, 371, 372;
+   tribute to Toombs, 375
+
+ Stephens, Linton, opinion of Toombs, 26;
+   opposes Conscript Acts, 273;
+   introduces peace resolutions, 273;
+   career, 274;
+   aids Toombs' escape, 293;
+   reunion with Toombs, 298, 299;
+   disputes reconstruction measures, 323;
+   activity in reconstruction times, 333
+
+ Stewart County, Toombs' escape through, 301
+
+ Stump-speaking, 145
+
+ Subtreasury system, the, 31, 38
+
+ Sumner, Charles, leader in U. S. Senate, 107;
+   opposes Kansas-Nebraska bill, 108, 115;
+   an "Independent Democrat," 109;
+   denounced by Toombs, 110;
+   enmity to Southern propagandism, 129;
+   Brooks' assault on, 141, 142
+
+ Sumter, Fort, Confederate demand for surrender of, 222;
+   abandonment favored by Lincoln's Cabinet, 223;
+   preparations to provision, 224;
+   orders to Beauregard, 225;
+   bombardment of, 227-229
+
+ Superstition, Toombs' views on, 367
+
+ Supreme Court of Georgia, practice in, 20-22, 24, 25;
+   establishment of, 41
+
+ Suretyship, opposition to contracts of, 41, 42
+
+ Swedenborg, Toombs' fondness for, 368
+
+ Swinton, William, on Lincoln's administration, 272
+
+
+ Taliaferro County, assigned to Seventh Congressional District, 44
+
+ Taney, Roger B., decision in Dred Scott case, 159
+
+ Tariff, Whigs favor protective, 31;
+   defense of the, 48-50;
+   in campaign of 1844, 51;
+   modified in 1832, 52;
+   Toombs' attitude on, 52;
+   prominence of the question in 1845, 56;
+   bill of 1846, 59
+
+ Taxation, attitude on Georgia, 54
+
+ Taylor, Gen. Dick, on Toombs' energy, 279, 280
+
+ Taylor, Zachary, nominated for President, 60;
+   elected, 63;
+   attitude of Cabinet toward the South, 64;
+   reported rupture with Toombs and Stephens, 64, 65;
+   death, 65;
+   opinion on disposition of acquired territory, 67;
+   Toombs' opinion of, 367
+
+ Tennessee secedes, 233
+
+ Territories, Toombs' position on slavery in, 69, 76-78, 80, 132,
+     166, 167, 181;
+   protest by Nashville convention in regard to, 85;
+   the Georgia Platform, 86;
+   the slavery question in the, 87;
+   third great sectional fight on the, 107-115;
+   Toombs on Federal power over, 111, 132, 133;
+   the Cincinnati Platform, 141;
+   Hill on rights of, 148;
+   Buchanan's position on question of, 159;
+   Douglas' views on admission of, 160;
+   Southern view of Dred Scott decision as affecting slavery in, 162;
+   Buchanan's resolution in Cincinnati Platform, 165;
+   contest over slavery in, in Charleston contention, 177;
+   demands of the South as to, 206
+
+ Texas, Toombs' attitude on annexation of, 53;
+   prominence of question in 1845, 56;
+   Toombs' purchase of lands in, 152, 153;
+   visit to, 153;
+   delegates leave Charleston convention, 177
+
+ Texas and New Mexico bill, passed, 80
+
+ "The Crime against Kansas," 142
+
+ Thomas, Thomas W., as a lawyer, 16;
+   leader of campaign of 1848 in Georgia, 60;
+   on Toombs' characteristics, 272
+
+ Thompson, Jacob, member of the Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Tilden, S. J., interview with Gen. Gordon, 321
+
+ _Times_ (London), on bombardment of Sumter, 228, 229
+
+ Tobacco, Toombs' use of, 360, 361
+
+ Toombs, Ann, 3
+
+ Toombs, Augustus, 3
+
+ Toombs, Dawson Gabriel, 3
+
+ Toombs, Gabriel, Sr., 1-3
+
+ Toombs, Gabriel, Jr., 4;
+   manager of his brother's plantations, 275;
+   at his brother's bedside, 373;
+   resemblance to Robert, 373
+
+ Toombs, James, 3
+
+ Toombs, Louise, death of, 312
+
+ Toombs, Gen. Robert, ancestry, 1-4;
+   birth, 4;
+   filial affection, 4;
+   boyhood and education, 4-12;
+   horsemanship, 4-6;
+   historical learning, 6;
+   play upon his name, 6;
+   generosity, 10, 124, 283, 284, 357;
+   joins Methodist Church, 11, 373;
+   trustee of State University, 11;
+   college legends of, 12;
+   receives degree, 13;
+   admitted to the bar, 13;
+   marriage, 14;
+   legal career, 13-28;
+   legal ethics, 18, 19, 23;
+   oratorical powers, 18, 21, 23-25, 27, 28;
+   financial ability, 23, 59, 152, 220, 310, 362;
+   morality, 23, 24;
+   Reese's opinion of, 24;
+   justice of, 26, 27;
+   failing powers, 27;
+   brilliant plea of, 28;
+   entrance into politics, 30;
+   elected to General Assembly, 30;
+   popularity in Wilkes County, 32;
+   chairman of Judiciary Committee in General Assembly, 33, 38;
+   action on Gov. McDonald's relief measures, 34-37;
+   financial policy, 35-39;
+   defends Berrien, 39;
+   support of railroad enterprise, 40;
+   compared with A. H. Stephens, 43;
+   friendship of the two, 43;
+   first participation in national politics, 45;
+   contentions with McDuffie, 45-51;
+   charged with being an Abolitionist, 46;
+   compared to Mirabeau, 46;
+   delegate to Clay convention of 1844, 46;
+   opposes acquisition of Texas, 53;
+   sent to Congress, 55, 56, 63, 93;
+   position on Oregon question, 57;
+   leads in campaign of 1848 in Georgia, 60;
+   reported rupture between Pres. Taylor and, 64, 65;
+   leads Southern members from Whig caucus, 69;
+   personal appearance, 72, 74, 89, 90, 130;
+   domestic character, 82, 353-363;
+   address to people of Georgia, 83-85;
+   sent to convention at Milledgeville, 86;
+   renominated for Congress, 87;
+   prominence in campaign of 1850, 87, 88;
+   position on the Union question, 88;
+   a journalist's description of, 91;
+   elected U. S. Senator, 94, 158;
+   charged with fomenting secession, 94;
+   letters to his wife, 95, 123-125, 158, 239, 242, 277, 278, 310-313,
+     354, 355, 359, 360;
+   feeling toward the North, 98;
+   friendship for Webster, 101;
+   becomes a Democrat, 105;
+   independence of, 106;
+   enters U. S. Senate, 107;
+   frequently misquoted, 119;
+   horror of civil war, 120;
+   death of his daughters, 123, 310, 312;
+   European trip, 123, 125-128;
+   liberality in matters of conscience, 125;
+   physical strength, 125, 127;
+   international reputation, 126;
+   knowledge of human nature, 127;
+   treatment of slaves, 138, 139;
+   accused of participation in assault on Sumner, 142, 143;
+   debate with Hill, 144-152;
+   accused of being a turncoat and disunionist, 151;
+   address to Northern Democrats, 176, 177;
+   letter to Macon committee, 179, 180;
+   advice on Charleston convention matters, 180, 181;
+   fears for the Constitution, 180, 182;
+   rupture with Douglas, 181;
+   delegate to Democratic State convention, 183;
+   Vincent's characterization of, 184, 185;
+   charges of desertion of Douglas, 186;
+   Presidential ambitions, 186, 187;
+   activity in public duty, 187;
+   first public office, 192;
+   accused by Georgia "minute-men," 201;
+   withdrawal from the Senate, 205-208;
+   chairman of Committee on Foreign Relations, 214;
+   writes address to people of Georgia, 215;
+   deputy to Provisional Congress, 215;
+   a candidate for Presidency of Southern Confederacy, 216;
+   machinations against, 218;
+   curious incidents in life of, 219;
+   chairman of Finance Committee of Provisional Congress, 220;
+   made Secretary of State, 221;
+   opposes assault on Sumter, 226;
+   triumphs of diplomacy, 230;
+   joins the army, 235;
+   speech on the produce loan, 236, 237;
+   the archives of the Confederacy, 237;
+   retreat from Centreville, 239;
+   care of his brigade, 240;
+   impatience of mismanagement, 240;
+   elected Confederate Senator, 241;
+   declines Secretaryship of War, 242;
+   impatience under red tape, 234, 243;
+   debate with Davis on Army Appropriation bill, 247-249;
+   use of liquor, 249, 250;
+   position on the peninsula, 250;
+   action at Golding's farm, 250, 251;
+   at Malvern Hill, 252, 253;
+   charges of cowardice, and correspondence thereon, 254-258;
+   quarrel with Longstreet, 259, 260;
+   under arrest at Gordonsville, 259, 260;
+   in second battle of Manassas, 261, 262;
+   report of actions at Antietam, 265-268;
+   wounded, 268, 269;
+   popularity among his troops, 269;
+   leaves the army, 269, 270;
+   reasons for his non-promotion, 270, 271;
+   military abilities, 271;
+   with the militia, 276-279;
+   declines governorship, 273;
+   energy of, 279, 280;
+   parting with Gov. Brown, 281;
+   action at close of war, 281;
+   last meeting with Davis, 284, 285;
+   escape, 286-307;
+   becomes a Freemason, 289;
+   conversational powers, 305, 306, 310, 358, 359;
+   dread of capture, 306;
+   vivacity, 306;
+   arrival in Cuba, 307;
+   arrival in Paris, 308;
+   sells land, 308;
+   in exile, 309-313;
+   returns to America, 312, 313;
+   unreconstructed, 313;
+   return to Georgia, 315;
+   resumes practice of law, 316;
+   in reconstruction days, 315-329;
+   master of invective, 318-322, 326;
+   before the Supreme Court of Georgia, 320, 321;
+   opinion of Yankees, 322;
+   zeal, 322, 323;
+   addresses meeting at Atlanta, 324-326;
+   fondness for farming, 330, 331;
+   strained relations with Brown, 333-336;
+   a believer in the code of honor, 336;
+   the Constitutional convention, and the new constitution, 337-352;
+   pays expenses of Constitutional convention, 344, 345;
+   golden wedding, 356, 357;
+   hospitality, 357, 358;
+   sympathies of, 359, 360;
+   last appearance in court, 361, 362;
+   wealth, 362, 363;
+   his great fault, 364-368;
+   love of literature, 367, 368;
+   last days, 369-375;
+   attends Stephens' funeral, 371, 372;
+   at wife's death-bed, 372, 373;
+   baptized, 373;
+   death and burial, 375, 376;
+   his monument, 376
+
+ Toombs, Major Robert, 2, 3
+
+ Toombs, Mrs., friendship for A. H. Stephens, 62;
+   aids her husband's escape, 286, 287;
+   joins her husband in Paris, 309;
+   returns to America, 310;
+   character, 356, 357;
+   accident to, 356;
+   golden wedding, 356, 357;
+   death, 372, 373
+
+ Toombs, William, 2
+
+ Toombs oak, the, 12
+
+ Toucey, ----, leader in U. S. Senate, 107
+
+ Towns, Gov., calls State convention, 83
+
+ Tremont Temple, Boston, lecture on slavery in, 129-135
+
+ Trinity River, Toombs' lands on, 152
+
+ Troup, George M., defender of States' Rights, 30, 31;
+   opposition to Jackson's measures, 31;
+   attitude on the tariff question, 51;
+   opposes Toombs in campaign of 1844, 53
+
+ Troup, Capt., on Toombs' staff, 268
+
+ Tugaloo River, 290
+
+ Turncoats, Crawford's ideas of, 91
+
+ Tyler, Pres., Toombs on, 367
+
+
+ Union College, 13
+
+ Union Democratic-Republican party, 30
+
+ United States Bank, supported by Berrien, 39;
+   defense of, 48
+
+ United States Constitution, position on slavery, 132
+
+ United States judges, higher pay for, supported by Toombs, 192
+
+ United States Senate, _personnel_ in 1853, 107;
+   debate on popular sovereignty, 163, 164;
+   farewell speech in, 205-208
+
+ University of Georgia, 6-12;
+   annual address at, 331, 332
+
+ University of Virginia, course at, 13
+
+ Utah, acquisition of, 67;
+   question of organization of Territory, 79
+
+
+ Van Buren, Pres. Martin, censured by Toombs, 31;
+   Toombs on, 367
+
+ Vandyke, John, opposes Toombs in House of Representatives, 72
+
+ Vincent, characterization of Toombs, Hill, and Stephens, 184, 185
+
+ Virginia, ----, settlement of the Toombs family in, 2;
+   supports Calhoun, 29;
+   Brown's raid into, 169, 170;
+   secedes, 233
+
+
+ Waddell, Pres. Moses, 8, 9
+
+ Wade, ----, vote on Kansas-Nebraska bill, 115
+
+ Walker, Levi P., Secretary of War of Confederate States, 221;
+   instructions to Beauregard about Fort Sumter, 224, 225
+
+ Walker, Robert J., governor of Kansas, 160
+
+ Walker, Gen. W. H. T., dispute with Gen. Hill at Chickamauga, 258, 259
+
+ Walthall, Gen. E. C., 277
+
+ War, Toombs' views on, 57
+
+ "War between the States," 75, 98, 185, 371
+
+ Warner, Hiram, opinion of Homestead and Exemption laws, 318
+
+ Warwick River, Toombs' operations on, 244
+
+ Washington, D. C., imperiled after first battle of Manassas, 238;
+   Army of Northern Virginia advances on, 262
+
+ Washington, Ga., Mrs. Toombs' residence at, 4;
+   distinguished men around, 16;
+   speech at, 98, 99;
+   debate between Toombs and Hill at, 144-152;
+   Toombs elected commissioner, 192;
+   the Toombs home at, 360
+
+ Washington County, escape through, 299
+
+ Waterloo, visit to field of, 126
+
+ Webster, Rev. Alexander, 6
+
+ Webster, Daniel, compared with Toombs, 14;
+   last efforts of, 68;
+   great Union speech of, 79;
+   tribute to, 99, 104, 367;
+   nominated for Presidency, 99;
+   admiration for, in the South, 100;
+   Secretary of State, 100;
+   friendship with Toombs, 101;
+   death, 102, 107;
+   Hayne's challenge to, 175;
+   his loss felt, 201
+
+ Wellborn, Speaker, 39
+
+ Wesleyan Female College, 9
+
+ Western and Atlantic Railroad, 40
+
+ West Indies, effects of emancipation in, 134, 137
+
+ West Point, Toombs' opinion of training at, 246-249;
+   criticism of officers from, 273;
+   criticism not sustained, 275
+
+ Wheeler, Gen. Joseph, 301, 303
+
+ Whig party, demand internal improvements, 40;
+   attitude toward protection, 46;
+   in campaign of 1844, 51, 55;
+   position in campaign of 1848, 60;
+   caucus of 1845, 68-70;
+   joint action with Democrats in Georgia, 85;
+   convention at Baltimore, 97;
+   Southern opposition to Presidential candidate Scott, 98;
+   nominates Webster for Presidency, 99;
+   break in, by Southern members, 100;
+   Toombs' defection from, 105;
+   rupture over Scott's nomination, 121;
+   absorption into Republican party, 140
+
+ Wilde, Gen., attempts the capture of Toombs, 286
+
+ Wilkes County, land-grant to Major Robert Toombs in, 2;
+   partition of lands in, 3;
+   birth-place of Gen. Toombs, 4;
+   legal practice in, 15, 16, 22, 23;
+   factions in, 29, 30;
+   politics of, 32;
+   defeat of Whigs in, 37;
+   assigned to Eighth Congressional District, 44
+
+ Wilkinson County, escape through, 296
+
+ Willington, S. C., speech at, 45
+
+ Wilmot, David, member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56
+
+ Wilmot Proviso, Ohio's position in regard to, 60;
+   menace to the South, 70, 79;
+   abandoned, 79, 87;
+   Webster's attitude on, 99, 100;
+   how characterized by Toombs, 149
+
+ Wingfield, J. T., 288
+
+ Winthrop, Robert C., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   defeated for Speakership, 69
+
+ Wisconsin, debate on counting Electoral vote, 193, 194
+
+ Wolseley, Gen., on Sherman's invasion of Georgia, 281
+
+ Worth, Fort, meeting with squatters at, 153, 154
+
+ Wright, A. R., deputy to Provisional Congress, 215
+
+
+ Yancey, William L., member of Twenty-ninth Congress, 56;
+   leads seceders from Charleston convention, 177;
+   letter to Slaughter, 177, 178;
+   speech in Charleston, 178;
+   commissioner to Europe, 229
+
+ Yorktown, Toombs' operations at, 244, 245
+
+ "Young Alice," 300
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
+been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+
+page 39: typo corrected
+
+    and declared the resolutions adopted. Mr. Toombe[Toombs]
+    fired up at this unusual decision. He threw himself before
+
+page 122: possible typo
+
+    he did run for Congress and scored[should be scorned?] the
+    secret order on every stump in the district.
+
+page 171: quote added in likely place
+
+    Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle
+    introduced into our Constitution. ["]It was inserted in
+    the ordinance of 1787. The New
+
+page 237: typo corrected
+
+    When General Toombs joined the Army his staff was made up as
+    follows; D. M. Dubose[DuBose], Adjutant General; R. J. Moses,
+
+page 260: quote added in likely place
+
+    from Toombs and directed him to join his command. ["]As we
+    were preparing for the charge at Manassas (second battle),
+
+page 268: typo corrected
+
+    "Gray Alice," so well known to his command. He was not very
+    far over when a troop of calvary[cavalry] rode up. He
+
+page 288: typo corrected
+
+    Riding over to a neigbor's[neighbor's] house, Mr. J. T.
+    Wingfield, he failed to find his friend, but left
+
+page 295: comma added
+
+    "But that looks very much like him through the window[,]"
+    said Lieutenant Irvin.
+
+page 295: typo corrected
+
+    or his plans, for fear that they might indiscreetly comment
+    on his presence or embarass[embarrass] him even by their
+
+page 299: typo corrected
+
+    Federals believed Tombs[Toombs] already abroad and had ceased
+    to look for him in Georgia. After the passage
+
+page 325: added missing quote
+
+    and property; defeat all the rightful purposes of government,
+    and renounce all remedies, all laws.["]
+
+page 342: typo corrected
+
+    authorizing the legislature to levy a lax[tax] to furnish
+    good substantial artificial limbs to those
+
+page 375: added missing quote
+
+    to his home in Augusta, General Toombs bade him good-by. ["]I
+    am sorry," said he, "the hour is come. I hope we shall meet
+
+On page 250, a quotation begins with no conclusive end:
+
+    "Just before dark," says Dr. Steiner, "Mr. Toombs received
+    orders to charge the enemy, firing having been heard on the
+    left. The position
+
+Inconsistent spelling:
+
+    Greensboro (page 281)/Greenesboro (pages 9, 283)
+
+Inconsistent spelling:
+
+    Empress Eugenie (page 310)/Eugenie (index)
+
+Inconsistent spelling:
+
+    Hagerstown (page 265)/Hagarstown (page 262 and index)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Toombs, by Pleasant A. Stovall
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT TOOMBS ***
+
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