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."



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."