Chapter XI: Toombs (2)

Harlan, a republican, had been sitting for some time as a senator from Iowa. There was no contestant. The adverse report was grounded upon a protest of the Iowa senate, stating that that body did not participate in the so-called joint convention which had affected to elect Harlan. It appeared that both houses of the Iowa legislature had met in joint convention, had balloted without result, and the convention had adjourned to meet at 10 A. M. the next day. On this day the senate--the majority of its members manifestly being democrats and opposed to the sense of the joint majority--met in their own chamber and adjourned before the hour appointed for the assembling of the convention. But a majority of the senate were present in the convention when it made the election--several of them having been brought in by the sergeant-at-arms, and who protested that they did not act in the proceedings. In the United States senate the democrats were in a majority, but Toombs, who was always above mere party considerations, supported the cause of Harlan, saying afterwards, "I maintained his title, black Republican though he was, because I believed it stood on right." February 15, 1858. The decision was against Harlan; but I do not think that an unbiased man who regards mere technical rules as no more than the instruments of justice, will fail to concur with Toombs. His treatment of the subject is extremely good and entertaining. Every material fact is given prominence; every important distinction taken, as, for instance, that the convention, as it could do no legislative act and did not require the concurrence of the executive, was not really the legislature, but only the persons constituting the legislature acting in a body of their own as electors; and further, his position that after the convention had organized it could proceed with the election as long as it had a quorum. Having completed a most lawyer-like and concatenated argument, which is a wonderful exhibition of concise and exhaustive extemporaneous reasoning, he rises to the higher plane of statesmanship and justice, in which he shows in a vivid light what a monstrous evil it would be to approve the factious withdrawal of the majority of the Iowa senate from the convention. Note especially the many questions asked him by different members, and the readiness and satisfactoriness of his answers.[102] It is all in all one of the best samples of Toombs's dispassionate debate to which I can refer. Very probably the democrats would have done right by Harlan had it not been for Bayard's argument, the special effectiveness of which was the use he made of the case of his own election, in 1839, to the United States senate by the Delaware legislature. As he stated it, it was this: There being a majority of one in the Delaware house of representatives in favor of the opposite party, a majority of that house refused to go into the joint balloting. Bayard was elected, and it was maintained by his party, the democrats, that a majority of the members of the two houses had authority to proceed; but he hesitated, and at last consulted Silas Wright, of New York. The latter gave a decided opinion that such an election was invalid. Whereupon Bayard succumbed, and his State was without a senator for two years. I cannot help feeling that if Wright had considered the subject and bottomed it on true principle, as Toombs afterwards did, Bayard would have settled down in the opposite conclusion, and he and Toombs in concert would have forced their fellow-democrats of the United States senate into doing justice to an opponent.

Many have been superior to Toombs in making perfect orations, but it is hard to find in any deliberative body a match for him as a debater. Charles Fox was a giant; but he did not have the strength, the grip, the never remitted activity, the infinite thrust, the parry, illustration, wit, epigram, and invincible appeal to conscience, feeling, and reason--in short, the complete supply and command of all resources that marked Toombs as foremost in the pancratium of parliamentary discussion. It ought to add inexpressible brightness to his fame that he sought for no triumphs except those of justice and good policy. He was far more than a mere logician in debate. His brilliant snatches, his sudden uprisings, his thawing humor, and flashing wit--all these did their part as effectively in winning favor and working suasion as his array of facts and his ratiocination did theirs in convincing. He was too prone to use harsh language towards the other side. There are many places in his speeches where I wish he had used soft instead of bitter words. That he could observe perfect parliamentary propriety there are proofs in the _Globe_. Especially would I refer to his behavior in the Harlan debate, spoken of a moment ago, and his discussion of the Indiana senatorial election, June 11, 1858. Note the last especially (belonging volume, 2943-2947) for his moderation, courtesy, and invitation of question while he is most ably supporting the central proposition he had before urged in the Iowa case.

Yet, in spite of his occasional vehemence and acrimonious language, he seems to have the respect and regard of even his most decided political opponents. Wade and he recognize each the great merit of the other. Once after applauding his honesty and frankness, Toombs says of him: "He and I can agree about everything on earth until we get to our sable population, I do believe." March 22, 1858.

Wade had already said this of Toombs: "I commend the bold and direct manner in which the senator from Georgia always attacks his opponents." February 28, 1857.

February 8, 1858, Fessenden said, "I am very happy to get that admission from the senator from Georgia. It is made with his customary frankness and clearness."

Hale also respects him. January 23, 1857, he says that Toombs ought to have been on the bench, complimenting his desire for justice and fairness as well as his legal ability.

The northern democrat Simmons loves to praise him, as is evidenced by what he says June 2, 1858, February 9, 1859, and June 23, 1860.

Such unsought and spontaneous commendations of the great southern partisan by northern men during the heat of sectional agitation are extraordinarily strong proofs of his high character as well as great genius.

Of course the southern members showed their appreciation. Especially note what Bayard says March 21, 1860, and what Butler says January 6, 1857. I could give many more such; but I shall only add here how, February 14, 1860, by reason of the importunate urgency of some of these, evidently regarding him as the special southern champion, he is pushed into making an able rejoinder to Hale, who had just concluded a reply to Toombs's speech on the Invasion of States.

Toombs's inflexible keeping to what he deemed the right course parallels the absolute fearlessness with which Julius Caesar, when a young man, clung to the wife whom the all-powerful and bloody-minded Sulla commanded him to put away. The Sulla of America are the people in their unconscientious moments, and unpopularity the proscription threatened which disquiets almost all public men with torturing apprehension. And so there is in nearly every one some admixture of the trimmer. But Toombs never showed fear either of the people at large or of those of his own State and locality. He thus scourges juries assessing the value of land condemned for the government:

"It has come to such a pass that in getting places for the army, it
seems to be considered better to be cheated by the owners of a site
out of a few hundred thousand for $10,000 worth of property rather
than trust a jury." June 12, 1860.

When he uttered the following he knew it was extremely unpalatable to his section:

"The southern States from their sparseness of population do not pay
all their postal expenses. The whole mail service of the south ought
to pay its whole expenses, and I am ready to put it on that ground....
I say the point to retrench is in the south." February 28, 1859.

The following distasteful lesson he read his own State:

"I know that some of the mail routes in my own neighborhood were taken
away, and I never was consulted about them, and I never thought it was
the duty or business of the postmaster-general to consult me. I have
not been to his office during this winter in regard to a single one;
and I have been very much complained of, even in my own county and
town, on account of it.... I have a word to say about the _Isabel_.
She touches at Savannah; and I have received memorials from people,
letters from interested people, from the Savannah chamber of commerce,
and others, saying, 'By all means keep up the _Isabel_; we want it.'
It is a very popular thing; it is a good ship, and has done its duty
well. What have I to do but follow my uniform line of policy, and give
them the same rules as everybody else? Sixteen years' experience
here--and I was here in 1847, when this steamship system
commenced--have satisfied me that congressional contracts are always
unwise, and are the fruitful sources of boundless legislative
corruption. Therefore, I will never sustain one under any necessity
whatever." May 28, 1860.

February 22, 1859, though Iverson, his companion from Georgia, was the other way, he advocated abolishing the mint at Dahlonega in that State, and the mint also in North Carolina.

The last instance we cite is his declaration, April 25, 1856, that he had always voted against a claim of the daughter of Governor Irvin of Georgia.

And to this proud independence he was without spot of corruption. This was never questioned but once. May 13, 1858, he was taunted for having supported the Galphin claim. When at last he sees that the charge is seriously urged, in a becoming glow he demands an explanation. A disclaimer of reflection upon his character being made, he gives a detailed account of the claim, his steady support of it, and a complete justification of George W. Crawford in the affair. At its close, Hammond of South Carolina, who was familiar with all the details, bestowed upon it his unqualified voucher. The lofty spirit and just indignation informing this statement of Toombs from beginning to end distinguish it as that of one who has kept out of dark places and walked so purely in the light that accusation is far more of a surprise than insult.[103]

He never showed any symptom of the presidential fever, which, to say nothing of its many other victims, enfeebled each one of the great trio,--Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. Fully content with his place in the senate, he did not look elsewhere. Taking popularity at its exact worth; candid and frank to the extreme; contented in the course dictated by his judgment and conscience though opposed by his people or party and his own private interest; in no bargains with men nor smirching connections with women, doing nothing in secret which, if published, would bring a blush; elevated above the amiable weaknesses of unwise benevolence, ever championing with all his powers the righteous cause of the weak and unpopular,--as exampled in his maintaining the claims of certain persons in Louisiana to the Houmas land against the formidable opposition of the two senators from that State, in his extraordinarily eloquent appeal for the naval officers retired without a hearing, in his heroic endeavor to have his party seat the republican Harlan; incorruptible and really consistent forever and always,--when he is scrutinized as a public man his character rises into a grandeur of unselfishness, firmness of high purpose, honesty, and power to show and do the right almost superhuman. It stands by itself awe-striking and imposing.

But let us particularize the special lesson of his senatorial career. We must begin by suggesting his peculiar bent. It is clear that he chose as his province commerce and industry, with the related themes of political economy, finance, the currency, taxation, the tariff, the principles of exchange and distribution, and so on.[104] He probably had the best business insight of all our prominent statesmen, Calhoun even not excepted. Though Hamilton and Webster--the former especially--evince titanic comprehension of financial theory, yet we see from their lives and poor money-saving success that commercial and business affairs were not to them both practice and theory as they were to Toombs. Of all his peers he was most at home in the ways and principles which dictate proper legislation as to trade and business. To judge by his words, uttered year in and year out, nobody else ever saw more clearly that there ought to be no tariff, improvement, job, or any other pets of government. The latter should not foster such a class, yearly increasing in number, as it always will, living idly and luxuriously upon the public income, that is, upon the labor and property of others. This class supplants the vigorous products of natural selection by pampered fatlings of bounty, always raising their demands for support, and ever more and more clamorously calling for the suppression of all self-supporting competition at home and abroad. With the moral hardihood of Shakspeare, who shrinks not from rudely shocking our feelings by making Henry V discard his old boon companion Falstaff, Toombs never wearied of proclaiming the unpopular truth that the government ought not to be the helper, guardian, patron, protector, guarantor, surety, almoner, of any of its citizens. Ponder these stout-hearted and golden words of his, although the evil represented therein is now established and magnified into dimensions far beyond what he could conceive when they were said--an evil, to suppress which let us hope all patriots will soon unite:

"Whenever the system shall be firmly established that the States are
to enter into a miserable scramble for the most money for their local
appropriations, and that senator is to be regarded the ablest
representative of his State who can get for it the largest slice of
the treasury, from that day public honor and property are gone, and
all the States are disgraced and degraded." February 27, 1857.

He is always preaching against the heinous abuse of diverting government from impartially guarding the whole community and making it profit only a few. His text is never far-fetched. He finds it in the proposed legislation of the day, which it is his duty to consider in his place. He cares not that he makes no present effect. Just before Bell's bill for improving the Cumberland river was passed, he said of it and its companions: "These bills are passing _sub silentio_, and I suppose attempt to resist is wholly useless. I wish it understood that I do not assent to their passage. I am opposed to all of them." February 24, 1855.

He sees that the appropriations for harbors and rivers, lighthouses, private claims, pensions, etc., are almost as baneful as was the distribution of corn to the Roman populace, and yet the people everywhere are eager for the corrupting gifts. Against his party, against many of his section, he fights alone and single-handed, reminding of Horatius keeping the bridge against the Etruscan host. Though always outvoted, he behaves with spirit and dignity. Either he, or some one of the faithful few who act with him in the slim minority, always have the yeas and nays recorded. His grand purpose was to appeal to the American people upon an issue involving the article of his creed which he had held up with so much puissance and fidelity in days of evil report. These words contain the motto of the long contest which occupied all of his non-sectional career in the senate:

"I think every one of these bills should be considered. I do not wish
to have them considered in such a manner as improperly to occupy the
time of the senate. I desire to spread before the country reasonable
information. That is the only purpose we can have now; because the
combination is sufficient to carry everything that the committee
report. But there is a day of reckoning to come; and I trust that
those who support this system will be called to judgment."

"I desire the truth to go to the honest people all over the country.
Let the taxpayers look at this matter; let the jobbers beware. 'To
your tents, O Israel!'" July 29, 1856.

The sectional agitation, mounting higher and higher, as Toombs said often, blinded the people to this great subject. Secession came, and his State--to him the only sovereign--called the solitary combatant away from the ground that ought to be kept forever in loving memory for his long, desperate, thrice-valiant stand. And the world should also remember that the clauses of the constitution of the Confederate States, "prohibiting bounties, extra allowances, and internal improvements," came from him.[105]

The struggle that wins our deliverance from the monopolists now causing us to go hungry, cold, and unshod is yet to be. I cannot say when; but I know it will come soon, and that the people will conquer. As in that day Calhoun's monetary doctrine will be brought out of its obscurity to add new lustre to his fame, as I believe, so I believe also that the name of Robert Toombs will become an object of affectionate reverence to all his countrymen, and the weighty and eloquent sentences in which he sought to shield general industry from drones and rivals favored by government, and in which he advocated that the public burdens be reduced to the minimum, and then apportioned justly,--these stirring words will be quoted everywhere to receive at last their due audience and favor. And when no branch of our government either robs or gives to its citizens, Toombs's never-remitted, brave, unselfish, and gigantic endeavor to bring on this millennium ought to be put by Americans in their Sunday-school books. When we who fought the brothers' war completely forget and forgive, as we soon will, it will then be understood how much the sectional agitation impeded him, and that when he was caught away from the senate by the whirlwind of secession he was only fifty years old, and of such constitutional vigor that he had the guaranty of at least a quarter of a century more of undiminished activity. A fond imagination will inquire: Suppose the energy spent upon the Kansas discussion; the protection of slavery in the Territories; in the great speech of January 24, 1860, on the Invasion of States, and in that of January 7, 1861, justifying secession, his supreme effort, as most of his admirers claim, could have been saved for themes of Pan-American concern; and suppose him remaining in the senate, eschewing all other place, with increasing years loved the more by his people for his courageous fidelity to the right, age assuaging his vehemence and softening his invective, ripening his judgment and bringing him charity and wisdom to the full,--to what a height and glory he would have grown!

If there had been no slavery, I verily believe that the south would have been the leading and most prosperous part of the union, and that Toombs would have been the greatest American. Stephens knew Webster, Calhoun, and Clay. The longer he lived the more positive he became in believing that Toombs was superior in ability to each one of the three. I have heard him say often that he had never found anything to which he could compare the power of Toombs, discussing a great theme extempore, except Niagara.

Turning back from these unavailing conjectures, I must say a last word as to that part of Toombs's career in the senate which I have been discussing. Its exemplariness is not so much in single great achievements. It is his uniform attention to the current duties of his place. Whether the particular duty impending was important or trivial, whether it was popular or not, it received from him at the proper time whatever effort was needed for doing it rightly. His performance averages so high in merit that I cannot find a like. No plodder ever kept more closely to the safe and beaten path. But he did far more than plod. Almost every day for eight years he showed how genius can manifest itself fully and fitly and find its true activity in the common round of affairs; how it can better, exalt, ennoble, and beautify daily routine. I believe that if you will reflect over this, you will at last see that such are the greatest of men, and those that the world most needs.

* * * * *

I now take up Toombs's sectional career. The aggressive defence of slavery, looming in sight as Calhoun is within a few months of death, called for a leader who did not hug the union, and whose eyes were shut to everything but the justice and sanctity of the southern cause. Calhoun's last speech, that of March 4, 1850, was throughout an appeal to the north. In that same session, and some while before that speech was delivered, the true apostle of secession begins the proclamation of his mission, and some time after Calhoun's death and before the end of the session that portentous proclamation was complete. Robert Toombs--then in his fortieth year, and having as yet attained but little conspicuousness in congress--is the man I mean. His appeal was really to the south.

Just after the new congress assembled in December, 1849, a caucus of the whigs, to which party Toombs then belonged, having met to nominate a candidate for speaker of the house, he introduced a resolution to the effect that congress ought not to put any restriction upon any State institution in the Territories, nor abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, the resolution being rejected, Toombs, Stephens, and a small number of others retired from the caucus, and they did not act any further with their party in the organization of the house. Toombs and his following declared their purpose to disregard former connections and side with whatever party accorded the south the guaranty demanded by the resolution above mentioned. As these southern whigs, and also fourteen northern democrats and whigs, would not support for speaker either Cobb, the democratic nominee, or Winthrop, the whig, neither one of the two nominees could muster the majority necessary under the rules for election. Toombs's tactics were like those of the commons who would not vote the supplies until the king granted their wishes in other matters. At this time all the southern democrats and a majority of the southern whigs were opposed to his action. He was leading what appeared to be a hopeless advance. This is the beginning.

The next stage is when, after nine days of balloting for speaker without result, a resolution was introduced declaring Cobb, who had received a plurality, speaker, when Duer of New York opposing, said he was willing for the sake of organizing to elect a whig, democrat, or free-soiler--only that he could not support a disunionist. This manifest reflection upon the whigs who had held themselves aloof made Toombs break the silence he had theretofore kept.

He surprised everybody--perhaps himself--with an impromptu of powerful argument and burning eloquence. Note, in order to compare it with whatever utterance of Calhoun you please, these passages:

"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
aspersions of those who did not understand or desired to misrepresent
my conduct or opinions. The time has come when I shall not only utter
them, but make them the basis of my political action 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 of California and New Mexico, purchased
by the blood and treasure of the whole people, and to abolish slavery
in the District, thereby attempting to fix a national degradation upon
half of 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."

"The Territories are the common property of the United States.... You
are their common agents; it is your duty while they are in the
territorial state to remove all impediments to their free enjoyment
by both sections ... the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder. You have
made the strongest declarations that you will not perform this trust;
that you will appropriate to yourselves all the Territories.... Yet
with these declarations on your lips, when southern men refuse to act
with you in party caucuses in which you have a controlling
majority--when we ask the simplest guaranty for the future--we are
denounced out of doors as recusants and factionists, and indoors we
are met with the cry of 'Union, union!'"

"Give me securities that the power of the organization which you seek
will not be used to the injury of my constituents, then you have my
co-operation; but not till then.... Refuse them, and, as far as I am
concerned, 'let discord reign forever.'"

I must emphasize the effect of this speech made December 13, 1849,--nearly three months before that of Calhoun last mentioned,--and which goes great lengths beyond anything ever said by Calhoun. The _Globe_ mentions that the speaker was loudly applauded several times. Stephens, who was present, says "it received rounds of applause from the floors and the galleries," and we can well believe his assertion that it "produced a profound sensation in the house and in the country."[106] Another eye-witness, Hilliard of Alabama, a southern whig who was not in sympathy with his refusal to act with his party, relates with rapturous reminiscence the full-orbed splendor with which Toombs unexpectedly rose upon the house at this time. He tells: "A storm of applause greeted this speech. Mr. Toombs had left his desk and taken his stand in the main aisle and the southern members crowded about him."[107]

For completeness and height, and for sudden surprise, this speech exceeds all impromptus on record. To appreciate it you must recognize it as surely forerunning the future uprising of southerners as one man in what they deemed the holiest of causes. When you do this you can adapt to it Webster's words:

"True eloquence ... does not consist in speech.... It must exist in
the man, in the subject, and in the occasion.... It comes ... like ...
the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous original,
native force.... Then patriotism is eloquent, then self-devotion is
eloquent.... This, this is eloquence; or rather it is something
greater and higher than all eloquence--it is action, noble, sublime,
godlike action."

The remaining facts of this remarkable session, which show that Toombs and not Calhoun was the apostle of secession, can now be told very briefly.

December 14, 1849, debate in the house was prohibited by resolution. On the 22d the whigs and democrats, in order to organize without agreeing to the demands of Toombs, joined in a resolution that the person receiving the largest vote on a certain ballot, if it should be a majority of a quorum, should be speaker. This was a palpable violation of the rules, but perhaps authorized by the great emergency. When the resolution was presented, Toombs, having resolved to prevent any organization until he had secured the guaranty he was standing for, in defiance of the prohibition of debate, made a demonstration of his surpassing endowment, as compared with all other orators, to outmob a hostile mob and scourge them into respectful audience. He adroitly led Staunton, introducing the resolution, to yield the floor. Why should he want the floor? The house had forbidden any discussion, and especially were nine-tenths of them deaf to him, deeming him the cause of their failure to organize. Announcing his purpose of discussion, he was called to order. Then a point of order was raised, which the clerk tried to put. The yeas and nays being demanded, the clerk began to call the roll. There was turmoil and din, but Toombs held on, denying the right of anybody to interrupt him, supporting his attack on the resolution by the constitution, the act of 1789, and the high authority of John Q. Adams, challenging the right of the clerk calling the names, and indignantly inquiring of the house how they could so permit an intruder and an interloper in nowise connected with them to interrupt their proceedings. At the last he forced the house into quiet, and completed the argument he had risen to make. You will not understand this marvellous achievement if you deem it, as many do, to have been prompted by the pride of ostentation and the rage of turbulence. Toombs was thinking only of securing the rights of his people. He was as earnest in this cause as ever Webster was for the union. And destiny, providence,--not himself nor other men,--was in this juncture revealing him to the south as her leader.

He now begins to be conscious of his coming leadership, and to feel that he is an authority and entitled to pronounce _ex cathedra_ upon the question of southern equality in the disposition of the Territories. Consequently, February 27, 1850, he made a long speech on the subject of the admission of California--one far more elaborate and finished than his average efforts. Especially to be noted is its ending with the famous words of Troup, "When the argument is exhausted, we will stand by our arms."

One other exploit of Toombs during this session must be told. It crowned him as the leader of the south.

Excitement had become intense. The extreme northern partisans for bringing in California were challenged to answer if they ever would vote to admit a slave State, and they declined to say that they would. Thereupon came from Toombs an outburst which is perhaps the finest example of his miraculous extempore declamation which has survived. He did not consume the five minutes to which he was limited. We append the conclusion, which is a little more than a third of the whole:

"We do not oppose California on account of the anti-slavery clause in
her constitution. It was her right to exclude slavery, and I am not
even prepared to say she acted unwisely in its exercise--that is her
business; but I stand upon the principle that the south has the right
to an equal participation in the Territories of the United States. I
claim for her the right to enter them all with her property and
securely to enjoy it. She will divide with you, if you wish it; but
the right to enter all, or divide, I shall never surrender. In my
judgment, this right, involving as it does political equality, is
worth a thousand such unions as we have, even if they 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, if I can, bring my children and my
constituents to the altar of liberty, and, like Hamilcar, 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 shall
strike for independence."

Stephens, ever a most accurate and trustworthy witness, says that of all speeches which he heard during his congressional course, which covered the years 1843-1859, this produced the greatest sensation in the house.[108] Its effect outside--that is, in the southern public--was widespread, deep, and permanent. The comparison with which it closed had been, I believe, used before; but what of that? It exactly voiced the revolutionary sentiment which, as his deliverances on the 13th of December before showed, was beginning to come into consciousness in his section. It gave new impetus to the circulation of the other speeches. The young men of Georgia, as I know, and perhaps those of other southern States, read them over and over, reciting with passionate emphasis the most stirring passages. Especially did they delight to declaim the peroration of the Hamilcar speech, as that of June 15, 1850, has always been called in Georgia. To the stump orators, the last mentioned and that of December 13 became examples which they emulated only to find in their despairing admiration that parallel was impossible. And even the retiring, quiet, and elderly people who care for nothing but their daily business caught the fire. Not long ago, one who is now old, who was entering middle age in 1850, and who has been a stanch union man all his life, told me that he could not keep from reading these speeches over and over, and whenever he read one of them, it made him for the time a disunionist.

The part played by Toombs in the congressional session of 1849-50 seems to me one of the most wonderful exploits in all parliamentary annals. Since slavery is gone, and I can at last understand that it was all blessing to the African and all curse to us, my joy is inexpressible. But I must ever hold that its defence was one of the noblest efforts of the best of people. It will soon be understood by the whole world, and especially by our brothers of the north. They will acknowledge that neither Greek nor Scot nor Swiss were more manly or heroic than southerners, and the supporters of the Lost Cause will be crowned with such lustre and glory as magnify Hannibal succumbing to Rome, or Demosthenes unvailingly stirring up his country against Macedon. It will forever bring me ecstatic emotion to recall the many, many places where my fellows suffered or fell at my side without a murmur. Our victories at the opening of the brothers' war; then the drawn battles; then the defeats; and the round of sickening disasters at the end,--all these come thronging back, and I can never be other than proud of the prowess and endurance of our out-numbered armies, the energy and untamable spirit of our people, and the devotion of our blessed women to the weal of our soldiers. I often look back over the track of what I have called the aggressive defence of slavery. Though it was disguised under various names, such as the threat of disunion in certain contingencies by the Georgia Platform, just division of the public domain between the sections called for by all parties in the south, and finally the demand for full protection of slavery in the Territories; and though it was now and then seemingly at rest, that movement from the day it set in was in reality one directly towards secession, and it kept on as steadily as the Propontic. And as I look back at the further edge of this retrospect, marking the beginning, towering above all who took high place later,--even above Lee and Jackson,--ever comes more plainly into view the majestic figure of Robert Toombs, revealing his unsuspected power like a thunderclap from the sunny sky, December 13, 1849, when he extorts wild acclamations of applause from the majority of southern whigs and all of the southern democrats, both unanimous against his stand for a guaranty of congressional non-restriction; a few days later coercing an infuriated house trying to cry him down into wondering silence; and through the whole session upholding his cause with such might that the single champion proves an overmatch for the two parties striking hands against him, and he finally conquers preaudience and dictation upon the main southern theme.

I become more and more confident that future history will find the achievement of Toombs in the session of 1849-50 to be the exact point where the drift towards secession, which had before that been only latent and potential, becomes actual, and that here is the dawn of the Confederate States. The more I gaze at it the plainer and redder that dawn becomes.

We need not tell the rest of Toombs's sectional career with much detail. The all-important part of it historically is its beginning, and how he vaulted into the lead of the aggressive defence of the south, which I hope I have adequately told. From this time he showed in all that he did the quality which Mommsen glorifies in Julius Caesar,--ready insight into the possible and impossible. Much discontent manifested itself in Georgia, and also in Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, against the compromise measures, and especially against the admission of California with its constitution prohibiting slavery. A convention being called in Georgia to consider what should be done, there was thorough discussion. An overwhelming majority of delegates opposing any resistance was elected. To this result Toombs contributed more than any one else, and he really shaped the platform finally promulgated by the convention. This--the Georgia Platform of 1850, as we always called it--is a most important document to the historian; for it was the weighed and solemn declaration of some nine-tenths of the people of a pivotal southern State.

The southern-rights men, as a small but noisy part of the southern people then called themselves, had mistaken Toombs's last-mentioned speeches in congress as declarations for immediate disunion in case California was admitted under her free constitution; and when he supported the compromise measures, and also the Georgia Platform, they hotly denounced him as a turncoat. In their blind fury they could not see, as everybody else did, that vehement and fervent language, proper to awaken one's people from perilous apathy, may really be at the time understatement, and that, after the people have awakened, to seek in that same language the counsel of right action would be the extreme of immoderate folly. The more you meditate it the more plainly you discern that his leadership was masterly. From the first to the last his appeal was to the middle class of property owners--then so numerous that it was practically the whole of southern society. His object at the first, as he declared, was to make with this class the protection of their fundamental property interest the prominent question of national politics. And the end showed that he not only took, but that he kept, the right road. The Georgia Platform became the bible of every political following in the State. The next year, 1851, Toombs, still a whig, supported Howell Cobb, a democrat, for governor against McDonald, one of the most popular men of the State, the southern-rights candidate. Toombs's side, which won by a large majority, was called the union party. You will not be deceived by this if you keep in mind that Cobb was elected on the Georgia Platform, which had pledged the people of the State to resist, even to disunion, certain named encroachments upon slavery which providence had already ordered to be made.

In 1848 Yancey had aroused the people of Alabama into demanding that the United States protect slavery in the Territories, and he advocated secession in 1850. But in both these things he was premature. As compared with Toombs he uncompromisingly stood for every tittle of what he believed were the rights of the south. Toombs was a far more practical and able opportunist. His falling back upon the Georgia Platform from a much more advanced position, as I have just told, is an instance. I want to give others. He always declared in private conversation after the war that the democratic party was ripened and committed by Douglas and his co-workers to the repeal of the Missouri compromise while he was kept away from Washington by necessary attention to the interests of a widowed sister, otherwise, with his commanding position at the time, he would have crushed the scheme at its first proposal. When he returned to his public duties, to his amazement he found that every prominent member of the party was irrevocably for the repeal, and he could do nothing but embrace the inevitable. Then he would say substantially, "Had it not been for that administratorship which I could not avoid taking, we would all still be working our slaves in peace and comfort. That Missouri settlement was not right, but we had agreed to it; and with me a wrong settlement, when I agree to it, is just as binding as a righteous one."

When others are urging that the United States ought to protect slavery in the Territories, the record does not show that he is interested at first; although when at last the question is forced into debate he makes by far the strongest speech of all in championship of the Davis resolutions. I believe the current sucked him in.

Just after Lincoln's election--an event which influenced nearly all of even the most moderate elderly people of my acquaintance to declare at once for a southern confederacy--he proposed that Stephens join with him in an address to the people of Georgia, counselling that no immediate secessionist nor non-resistance man be elected to the convention;[109] and later he professed willingness to accept the Crittenden compromise.

The truth is that the ablest leaders, as we call them, do not lead--they are led. If they should become non-representative, their followers would go elsewhere. And those of these leaders whose influence is the most potent and permanent are the conservative and moderate. Toombs was never really ahead in the southern movement except when for a brief while in the session of 1849-50 he planted the standard far to the front and called his people forward. Afterwards there were always others who appeared to be fighting much in advance of him.

He companioned his people as they steadily developed their readiness for the dread action commanded by the Georgia Platform if the north should say not another inch of extension for slavery, and no extradition of fugitive slaves. Of course he matured in feeling for secession far beyond what appeared to be his ripeness in 1850. With all his conservatism, he was of that stuff out of which the most earnest and biased partisans are made. There are many who can admit nothing against those they love, and a still larger number who hug their country with a religious acceptance of everything in it as the best in the world. To him and his people, the south, under the mighty influence of the nationalization we have explained, had long been unconsciously displacing the union in their hearts. As one may learn from his Tremont Temple lecture, he saw and magnified all of the good in the society to which he belonged, and was as blind to the bad as a mother is to the faults of her children. He was often heard to run through an enumeration of southern superiorities. The courage and valor of the men, the virtue and loveliness of the women, the purity of the administration of justice and of the performance of all public duties; especially did he love to say that the honesty of his section was so well established that its few venal congressmen were like a woman of easy virtue in a good family, whom the reputation of the latter keeps from solicitation; and he would fall to praising the kingliness of cotton, the beneficence of slavery both to master and slave, the delicacy of our yam, the excelling flavor given by crab grass to beef and butter, the juice of the peach of Middle Georgia, sweeter than nectar, the incomparable melon, and cap the climax by asserting persimmon beer to be more acceptable to the palate of a connoisseur than any champagne. And in the days just preceding the great outbreak he had become more intense in his deep love for his State and section. The raid of John Brown into Virginia was, I think, the event which turned the scale with him, and made him feel that secession was near. Taking the occasion offered by Douglas's resolution, directing the judiciary committee to report a bill for the protection of each State against invasion by the authorities and inhabitants of other States, January 24, 1860, he delivered in the senate a speech which we must notice. It is common in Georgia to adopt the eulogy of Stephens and pronounce the speech of January 7, 1861, justifying secession, as Toombs's greatest effort. But I hesitate, unable to decide which is superior. He states his propositions thus:

"I charge, first, that this organization of the abolitionists has
annulled and made of no effect a fundamental principle of the federal
constitution in many States, and has endeavored and is endeavoring to
accomplish the same result in all non-slaveholding States.

Secondly, I charge them with openly attempting to deprive the people
of the slaveholding States of their equal enjoyment of, and equal
rights in, the common Territories of the United States, as expounded
by the supreme court, and of seeking to get the control of the federal
government, with the intent to enable themselves to accomplish this
result by the overthrow of the federal judiciary.

Thirdly, I charge that large numbers of persons belonging to this
organization are daily committing offences against the people and
property of the southern States which, by the law of nations, are good
and sufficient causes of war even among independent States; and
governors and legislatures of States, elected by them, have repeatedly
committed similar acts."

The facts are reviewed closely and summed up with extraordinary force; the subject is treated as carefully under the law of nations as under the constitution; the quotation from Mill's "Moral Sentiments," and that from Thucydides, narrating the successful effort of Pericles in persuading the Athenians to resort to war rather than concede the right of the Megareans to receive their revolted slaves, are appositely used; the conviction that there is no longer safety for the south in the union speaks out in every line; and, with the exception of a few overheated passages, the entire speech is from the loftiest height of the statesman who bids his people arm for self-preservation. Just preceding the peroration there are paragraphs describing nervously and graphically the great resources of the south and her rapid development from feeble beginnings, one of which especially emphasizes the past and present of Virginia, adding at the last

"One blast upon her bugle horn
Were worth a million men."

Next before this are words which invoke the northern democracy, but they seem out of place and foreign. He abruptly ends his appeal to the national classes who have his respect by saying, "The union of all these elements may yet secure to our country peace and safety. But if this cannot be done, peace and safety are incompatible with this union. Yet there is safety and a glorious future for the south. She knows that liberty in its last analysis is but the blood of the brave. She is able to pay the price and win the blessing. Is she ready?"

The last three sentences are the southern correlative of Webster's soaring when he magnified the union in his reply to Hayne. They were repeated over and over by everybody with a wild acceptance utterly without parallel in my knowledge, and after the election of Lincoln became the war cry of Georgia.

The position taken in the very conclusion of this truly Periclean speech is especially to be attended to here. It is that in the event of the success of the republican party in the next presidential election the people of his State must redeem their pledge made nine years before in the Georgia Platform.

From this time on he is _facile primus_ of southern champions. Note his long and elaborate reply to Doolittle, February 27, 1860; the discussion with Wade, March 7, 1860,--both relating to his speech last noticed above; and his very able argument, May 21, 1860, on the duty of protecting slavery in the Territories.

During the presidential campaign of 1860 the Douglas men and the Americans in Georgia charged the supporters of Breckinridge with plotting disunion that would bring on war. The charge was generally denied. The truth is, hardly anybody was aware that the awful crisis was near. Those who really expected secession believed with Howell Cobb and his brother Thomas, and with Thomas W. Thomas, that it would be peaceable, and perhaps they were about a tenth; the rest followed Stephens, believing that the American people on each side of Mason and Dixon's line would, when it was demanded, rise up in resistless co-operation and make safe both southern institutions and the union. Generally Stephens was far superior to Toombs in forecast and discernment of the sentiment of the masses. But while the former was too wise to consider even for one moment the probabilities of peaceable secession, he had a most un-American conviction that nothing good was ever gained by war, and he so loved peace and the union that he could not believe his people would secede. In his great sympathies Toombs was here far more clear-sighted. While he was the only speaker in this presidential campaign that was disrespectful to the union, often calling it in derision "the gullorious," and he gave no promise that withdrawal from the union would be peaceful, and so appeared to be to himself and alone, he was really the only one riding the waves of the undercurrent rising every day nearer the surface, and soon to sweep all of us onward upon its raging waters. The other speakers discussed the rival platforms, but the nearer election day approached the more potently he was preparing the people and himself for secession, though unawares to both. And when Lincoln was elected,--the man who had solemnly published his belief that this government could not endure permanently part slave and part free,--an occurrence which aroused the south throughout as the firing upon Fort Sumter afterwards aroused the north, Toombs drank in every accession to the emotion of his people, and towered more largely before them every day as the soul of the revolution now palpable in its coming to all. When secession was debated before the Georgia legislature, after enumerating what he declared to be the wrongs of the south, he said, "I ask you to give me the sword; for if you do not give it to me, as God lives, I will take it myself." In his immortal eulogy of the union the next night, Stephens quoted these words, and Toombs, who was present, answered in a voice of thunder, "I will." The house rocked to and fro with frenzied applause. Long afterwards Stephens told me that this outburst was the first revealing sign to him that his people were rushing to war. He lost his breath while gasping out the awful word, and there was terror in his looks as if the direful ghost had risen again. Some ardent secessionists professed themselves ready to drink all the blood that would be spilled, but Toombs, in his warlike nature, was already revelling in the joy of fighting for his people in this most sacred of causes. In one of his speeches he eulogized beforehand those who were to fall in defence of the south, giving them the requiem of sleeping forever where

"Honor guards with solemn round
The silent bivouac of the dead."

I did not hear this, but a friend told me that the speaker's electric recitative made the hackneyed words forever new and fresh to him.

I must go faster. January 7, 1861, Toombs made in the United States senate his famous defence of secession. He presented in behalf of the south these demands expressed in writing:

1. Any person to be permitted to settle in any Territory, with any of his property, including slaves, and be protected in his property till such Territory is admitted as a State on an equality with the other States, with or without slavery as its people may determine.

2. Property in slaves to receive everywhere from the United States government the same protection which under the constitution it can give any other property, it being reserved to each State to deal with slavery within its limits as it pleases.

3. Extradition of persons committing crimes against slave property, as commanded by the constitution.

4. Extradition of fugitive slaves as commanded by the same constitution.

5. Congress to pass efficient laws punishing all persons aiding or abetting invasion of a State or insurrection therein, or committing any other act against the law of nations that tends to disturb the tranquillity of the people or government of the State.