Upon the second branch of his theme, Mr. Toombs contended that so long as the African and Caucasian races co-exist in the same society, the subordination of the African is the normal and proper condition, the one which promotes the highest interests and greatest happiness of both races. The superiority of the white man over the black, he argued, was not transient or artificial. The Crown had introduced slavery among the American colonists. The question was not whether it was just to tear the African away from bondage in his own country and place him here. England had settled that for us. When the colonies became free they found seven hundred thousand slaves among them. Our fathers had to accept the conditions and frame governments to cover it. They incorporated no Utopian theories in their system. They did not so much concern themselves about what rights man might possibly have in a state of nature, as what rights he ought to have in a state of society. The lecturer maintained that under this system, the African in the slaveholding States is found in a better position than he has ever attained in any other age or country, whether in bondage or freedom. The great body of this race had been slaves in foreign lands and slaves in their native land. In the Eastern Hemisphere the African had always been in a servile condition. In Hayti and Jamaica experiments had been tried of freeing them, under the auspices of France and England. Miseries had resulted and ruin overwhelmed the islands. "Fanaticism may palliate, but could not conceal the utter prostration of the race." The best specimens of the race were to be found in the Southern States, in closest contact with slavery. The North does not want the negro, does not encourage his immigration. The great fact of the inferiority of the race is admitted everywhere in our country.

"Our political system gives the slave great and valuable rights. His life is protected; his person secured from assault against all others except his master, and his master's power in this respect is placed under salutary legal restriction." He gets a home, ample clothing and food, and is exempted from excessive labor. When no longer capable of labor, from age or disease, he is a legal charge upon his master. The Southern slave, he said, is a larger consumer of animal food than any population in Europe, and larger than any laboring population in the United States, and their natural increase is equal to that of any other people. Interest and humanity cooperate in harmony for the well-being of slave labor. Labor is not deprived of its wages. Free labor is paid in money, the representative of products; slave labor in the products themselves. The agricultural and unskilled laborers of England fail to earn the comforts of the Southern slave. The compensation of labor in the Old World has been reduced to a point scarcely adequate to the continuation of the race.

"One-half the lands of the cotton States is annually planted in food crops. This half is consumed by the laborers and animals. The tenant in the North does not realize so much."

Mr. Toombs believed that the Southern men were awakening to the conviction that the slave should be taught to read and write, as being of more use to himself, his master, and society. He realized that the laws should protect marriage and other domestic ties, forbidding the separation of families, and stated that some of the slaveholding States had already adopted partial legislation for the removal of these evils. But the necessities of life and the roving spirit of the white people produced an infinitely greater amount of separation in families than ever happened to the colored race. "The injustice and despotism of England toward Ireland has produced more separation of Irish families and sundered more domestic ties within the last ten years than African slavery has effected since its introduction into the United States." England keeps 100,000 soldiers, a large navy, and innumerable police to secure obedience to her social institutions, and physical force is the only guarantee of her social order, the only cement of her gigantic empire. The laws restrain the abuses and punish the crimes of the slave system. Slavery is impossible in England and Europe, because wages have gone down to a point where they are barely sufficient to support the laborer and his family. Capital could not afford to own labor. Slavery ceased in England in obedience to this law, and not from any regard to liberty and humanity.

Senator Toombs declared that the condition of the African might not be permanent among us. He might find his exodus in the unvarying law of population. Increase of population may supply to slavery its euthanasia in the general prostration of all labor. The emancipation of the negro in the West Indies had not made him a more useful or productive member of society. The slave States, with one-half the white population, and between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 slaves, furnish three-fifths of the annual product of the republic. In this relation, the labor of the country is united with and protected by its capital, directed by the educated and intelligent.

Senator Toombs combated the idea that slavery debased and enervated the white man. To the Hebrew race were committed the orders of the Most High. Slaveholding priests ministered at their altars. Greece and Rome afforded the highest forms of civilization. Domestic slavery neither enfeebles nor deteriorates a race. Burke had declared that the people of the Southern colonies of America were much more strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty that those to the Northward. Such were our Gothic ancestors; such were the Poles; such will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of domination combines itself with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.

Senator Toombs declared that, in the great agitation which for thirty years had shaken the national government to its foundation and burst the bonds of Christian unity among the churches, the slaveholding States have scarcely felt the shock. Stability, progress, order, peace, content, prosperity reign through our borders. Not a single soldier is to be found in our domain to overawe or protect society. Mr. Toombs pictured the progress of the Southern churches, schools and colleges multiplying. None of these improvements had been aided by the Federal Government. "We have neither sought from it protection for our private interests nor appropriations for our public improvements. They have been effected by the unaided individual efforts of an enlightened, moral, and energetic people. Such is our social system and such our condition under it. We submit it to the judgment of mankind, with the firm conviction that the adoption of no other, under such circumstances, would have exhibited the individual man, bond or free, in a higher development or society in a happier civilization."

Mr. Toombs carried his principles into practice. He owned and operated several large plantations in Georgia, and managed others as agent or executor. He had the care of, possibly, a thousand slaves. His old family servants idolized him. Freedom did not alter the tender bond of affection. They clung to him, and many of them remained with him and ministered to his family to the day of his death. The old plantation negroes never failed to receive his bounty or good will. During the sale of a plantation of an insolvent estate Mr. Toombs, who was executor, wrote to his wife, "The slaves sold well. There were few instances of the separation of families." He looked after the welfare of all his dependents. While he was in the army, his faithful servants took care of his wife and little grandchildren, and during his long exile from his native land they looked after his interests and watched for his return.



CHAPTER XII.

BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION.

The great contest of 1856 was coming on. A President was to be chosen. The relations of the sections were more strained every day. The elections of 1854 had emboldened the antislavery men to form the Republican party, and to put out, as their candidate, John C. Fremont, "pioneer and pathfinder," who had saved California to the Union. Fremont was not a statesman, but a hero of the kind who dazzled men, and was thought to be especially available as a presidential candidate. "Free soil, Free men, Fremont" was the cry, and it was evident that the Abolitionists had swept all the wavering Whigs into their lines and would make a determined fight. The American party nominated Millard Fillmore, and the Democracy, with a wealth of material and a non-sectional following, wheeled into line. President Pierce was willing to succeed himself. Stephen A. Douglas, who had rushed into the convention of 1852 with such reckless dash to put aside "the old fogies" of the party, was an avowed candidate. His championship of the Kansas-Nebraska bill had made him a favorite in the South, although it injured his chances at the North. It is not a little remarkable that Douglas, whose candidacy had the effect of setting aside Buchanan for Pierce in 1852, should afterward have been the means of turning down Pierce for Buchanan.

James Buchanan of Pennsylvania had just returned from London, where he had served with dignity as American Minister. Free from recent animosities, he entered the field, fresh and full of prestige. He was nominated for President on the fifth day of the Democratic Convention, Georgia casting her vote for him. The Cincinnati platform adopted this plank:

"Resolved: That we recognize the right of the people of the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of the actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a Constitution, either with or without domestic slavery, and to be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with all the other States."

Among the causes contributing to the current bitterness was the assault made upon Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, by Preston S. Brooks, a representative from South Carolina. This happened in May, 1856, while Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk, after the Senate had adjourned. Mr. Brooks took exception to some remarks printed in Mr. Sumner's speech, entitled "The Crime against Kansas." In this speech, the senator had referred, in rather caustic terms, to Senator Butler of South Carolina. The latter was a kinsman of Mr. Brooks. The weapon used by Mr. Brooks was a gutta-percha cane, and Senator Sumner, who was a large, powerful man, in his effort to rise from his seat, forced his desk from its hinges and fell heavily to the floor. The assault created an immense sensation. It was associated in the heated minds at the North with the "slavery aggressions of the South." At the South, it was generally excused as the resentment of an impetuous young man to an insult offered an elderly kinsman. Northern men denounced the assault in unmeasured terms on the floor of the House and Senate. The affair led to several challenges between the representatives of both sections. Congressman Brooks resigned his seat, but was immediately reelected.

When Senator Sumner made his statement of the attack, he said that, after he was taken from the floor, he saw his assailant standing between Senator Douglas and Senator Toombs. This led to the assertion by some parties that the attack was premeditated, and that the senator from Illinois and the senator from Georgia, who were strong political antagonists of Mr. Sumner, were aiding and abetting it. Both senators denied this from their places.

The political activity was not confined to the North. There was a large element in Georgia which disapproved of the Kansas-Nebraska bill as an unwise concession on the part of the South. This class, combined with the American party, presented an active front against the party led by Senator Toombs. No contest was ever waged more vigorously in Georgia. New blood and new issues were infused into the fight. Mr. Toombs was at the maximum of his greatness. He took redoubled interest in the campaign in that the legislature to be chosen in 1857 was to elect his successor to the Senate, and because the principles in this national contest were taking shape for a State campaign the following year.



CHAPTER XIII.

"ON THE STUMP" IN GEORGIA.

Among the young men on the stump that year was Benjamin H. Hill. He had come up from the plow-handles in Jasper County. Working his way to an education, he had graduated at the State University in 1845, with the first honors of his class. He was at this time barely more than thirty years of age, but he had won distinction at the bar and served his county in the State Senate. He was known for his aggressive, ringing eloquence, and a clear, searching style which had made him something more than local reputation. It was understood that he was the choice of the American party for Governor, and it was assumed that he would win his spurs in the national campaign. He did not hesitate to go into the thickest of the fight. He challenged Toombs and Stephens in their strongholds; on the 22d of October meeting Mr. Stephens at his stamping-ground in Lexington, Oglethorpe County, and the next day confronting Mr. Toombs at his home in Washington, Ga. There was a charm in the very audacity of this young Georgian. The man who would beard "the Douglas in his hall" was a curiosity to the people, for since the leadership of Toombs was established in 1844, no one, probably, had assumed to cross swords with him before his home people. The fact that young Hill had rather frustrated Mr. Stephens, in their first meeting, gave him fresh impetus for his clash with Toombs. People flocked to Washington by thousands. A large part of the audience which had cheered Ben Hill in Oglethorpe followed him to Wilkes.

The speaking took place in Andrews' Grove, a noble cluster of oaks near the town, and by breakfast-time the place was filled with carriages and wagons. The red hills leading to Washington were alive with farmers and their wives and children, wheeling into the grove to hear the noble veteran and the brilliant young stranger debate upon current topics. Old and young men were there, and babies in arms. It was before the days of a universal press. People took their politics from the stump. They were trained in the great object-lessons of public life. The humble farmer knew all about the Missouri Compromise and the Nebraska bill. What they had learned was thorough. Every man was a politician.

Ben Hill opened the discussion. He had the advantage of being a new and untried man, while Toombs and Stephens had spread their records upon the pages of hundreds of speeches. In those days of compromises and new departures, it was easy for a quick, bright fellow to make capital out of the apparent inconsistencies of public men. Hill was a master of repartee. He pictured Toombs' change from Whig to Democrat. He made a daring onslaught upon Toombs. Hill's bump of reverence was not large, and the way he handled this great statesman was a surprise. He did not hesitate to call him "Bobuel," and to try to convict him out of his own mouth of error.

Toombs sat back with his fine features lit with scorn. His facial expression was a rare part of his strength. He seemed to repel with his look the impudence of this fearless young statesman. Hill saw the effect of his own audacity, and "plied his blows like wintry rain." A keen observer of this dramatic by-play declares that the pose of these two men reminded him of Landseer's picture of "Dignity and Impudence."

Hill declared that Toombs had been in Congress, "sleeping over our rights." Toombs retorted, "I have been protecting your rights and your children's rights in spite of yourselves."

Hill charged that Toombs had tried to dodge the issues of this campaign. Toombs, when he answered this part, cried out to the people impetuously: "Did I dodge the question, when in the presence of two thousand people, in the City of Augusta, and as I was about to travel in foreign lands, I denounced the secret midnight organization which was being fastened upon the freemen of the South? An organization whose chief measure was to prescribe a religious test in this land of liberty, and raise up a barrier to the entrance of the sons of the Old World, whose gallant sires aided us in achieving our independence?

"Did I dodge, when, just before putting my foot on shipboard, I wrote a letter to my beloved South, warning them against this insidious organization creeping into their midst, piloted by dark lanterns to midnight lodges? Did I dodge, when, hearing, as I traveled, that this deadly order had taken hold and fastened its fangs in my State, I suspended my travels and took the first ship that bore me back to my native shores, and, raised my cry against these revolutionary measures?

"Did I dodge, when, as soon as landing in Georgia, I traveled all night and spoke all next day against these blighting measures? If this be called dodging, I admit that I dodged, and the gentleman can make the most of it."

Mr. Hill declared that the Kansas-Nebraska bill embodied the principles of "squatter sovereignty" and alien suffrage. The bill was not identical with the Utah and New Mexico bill, as Toombs and Stephens had alleged. The restrictive provisions of the Utah bill would prohibit this Territorial Legislature from excluding slavery. It could not do that until it became a State, while the Kansas bill allowed a majority of the actual residents to determine whether slavery should or should not exist, even prior to its admission as a State. He denounced the Kansas bill as a cheat, a swindle, and a surrender of our dearest rights. As to the National Convention, Mr. Hill declared that the South may have framed the platform, but the North secured the candidate. Mr. Hill, relative to territorial questions, recognized the right of native born and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in any Territory, to frame a constitution and laws and to regulate their social and domestic affairs in their own way. The American party proposed to extend the term required for naturalization and to bar the foreigners from holding office. Mr. Hill had strong sympathizers in the extreme Southern Rights' men, who were on hand in abundance.

Mr. Toombs replied with great dignity and warmth. He said that the Nebraska bill was a reiteration of the true intent of the compromise measures of 1850; that whoever opposed the Kansas bill was opposed to the South. It was a touchstone for fixing party affiliations. It only carried out the Georgia platform protesting against Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories. He paid high tribute to Douglas as a patriot and friend to the South. "Whoever condemned Douglas needed watching himself." Mr. Toombs charged that the representatives of the Know-nothing party had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and now claimed ignorance of its provisions. He denied that either he or Mr. Stephens had declared that the Kansas bill was identical with the Utah bill. Mr. Hill insisted that they had said so. Affirmance and denial became heated, and talk of holding each other "personally responsible" was indulged in, but pretty soon the debate went back into the political grooves. Mr. Toombs denied that the bill was a "Pandora's box of evil," or that its passage was violative of the good faith of the South. This part of his argument, of course, was directed to meet Northern criticism. "The North," Mr. Toombs said, "had tried, by the Wilmot Proviso, to legislate the South out of the right of equal enjoyment of the Territories. The South had endeavored to take the question of these rights out of Congress, to establish the doctrine of non-intervention." This doctrine triumphed in 1850 and, despite the assertion of his opponent, was reaffirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This Act of 1854 was the great measure of justice and equality to the South.

Mr. Toombs ridiculed the assertion of Millard Fillmore that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a violation of a sacred compact. "Fillmore," said Mr. Toombs, "is an amiable, clever sort of fellow, not to be trusted upon the great questions now before the country. He had withheld action upon the compromise measures of 1850 until his attorney-general told him that he must sign them."

Someone reminded Toombs that he had supported Fillmore for vice president in 1848. He replied, "Yes, and I said then, that if Fillmore was at the head of the ticket, I would not support it." Several persons in the audience declared that they had heard him say it. "I am glad to know," said he, "that, since my opponents address you people as if you had no sense, you, at least, have shown that you have memories."

Turning to the crowd who had cheered the opposition speaker, Mr. Toombs said: "For those of you who have yelled so long and lustily, when your dearest rights were assailed, I can but feel the profoundest commiseration. Should you continue in your wild strife against the experience of the past, I look to a kind Providence and to wise men to protect you from yourselves."

In regard to aliens in America, Mr. Toombs said: "I go for giving them all—the oppressed of all nations—a place of refuge, and say even to the paupers and criminals; 'We will forgive you for the past and try you for the future.' You may start in your railroad and go to Memphis, and then, follow the setting sun day by day, and week by week, until you find him setting in the Pacific Ocean, and all the time you are passing over fertile lands where industry and thrift may meet appropriate rewards, and the blessings of liberty and peace find a resting-place in the bosom of freedom."

Mr. Hill said that Toombs was a turncoat. He had been a Whig, and now he abused the Whigs. Mr. Toombs told the people that he came not to abuse the Democrats or Whigs, but with the weapon of truth and the shield of the Constitution to aid in preserving the Union and maintaining the rights of the South. He did not appear before the people to carry majorities, but to promote their constitutional rights.

Mr. Toombs was charged with being a disunionist. He said he stood upon the Georgia platform of 1850, and leaning upon that faithful support, "I will say, that should Fremont be elected, I will not stand and wait for fire, but will call upon my countrymen to take to that to which they will be driven—the sword. If that be disunion, I am a disunionist. If that be treason, make the most of it. You see the traitor before you."

Opinion as to the result of the debate at Washington was divided. Good judges thought that Mr. Hill relied too much on the ad captandum argument, and did not meet the points of Mr. Toombs; but there are men living in Washington who heard the great contest and who delight to tell how the young warrior from Troup charged right into the enemy's camp, and rode away with the laurels of the day.

Buchanan was elected President in November. He carried nineteen States, Georgia among them. Buchanan and Breckenridge received 174 electoral votes and 1,838,169 popular votes.

Fremont carried eleven States and 114 electoral votes, receiving 1,341,264 popular votes. Fillmore carried Maryland with 8 electoral votes. His vote through the country amounted to 874,534.

Mr. Toombs, while a member of Congress, became possessed of a large tract of land in Texas. It was known as the Peter's Colony Grant, which had never been settled. The lands, he was informed by a competent surveyor, were valuable and free to settlers. They comprised about 90,000 acres in Northern Texas, on the clear fork of the Trinity, in the neighborhood of Dallas and Fort Worth. Mr. Toombs had a clear head and keen perception for business. His temperament was restless and fiery. His life had been spent at the bar and in the forum. His gifts of oratory were remarkable. It was a strange combination which added shrewd business sense, but he had it in an eminent degree. He was a princely liver, but a careful financier. He saw that this part of Texas must some day bloom into an empire, and fifty years ago he gave $30,000 for this tract of land. As Texas commenced to fill up the squatters occupied some of the most valuable parts of the country and refused to be removed. These desperate fellows declared that they did not believe there was any such man as Toombs, the reputed owner of the land; they had never seen him, and certainly they would not consent to be dispossessed of their holdings.

It was in 1857 that Senator Toombs, accompanied by a few of his friends, decided to make a trip to Texas and view his large landed possessions. For hundreds of miles he traveled on horseback over the plains of Texas, sleeping at night in a buffalo robe. He was warned by his agents that he had a very desperate set of men to deal with. But Toombs was pretty determined himself. He summoned the squatters to a parley at Fort Worth, then, a mere spot in the wilderness. The men came in squads, mounted on their mustangs, and bearing over their saddles long squirrel rifles. They were ready for a shrewd bargain or a sharp vendetta. Senator Toombs and his small coterie were armed; and standing against a tree, the landlord confronted his tenants or trespassers, he hardly knew which. He spoke firmly and pointedly, and pretty soon convinced the settlers that they were dealing with no ordinary man. He said he was willing to allow each squatter a certain sum for betterments, if they would move off his land, or, if they preferred to stay, he would sell the tract to each man at wild-land prices; but, failing in this, they must move away, as he had the power to put them out, and would certainly use it. There was a good deal of murmuring and caucussing among the men, but they concluded that there was a man named Toombs, and that he meant what he said. The matter was settled in a business way, and Senator Toombs rode back over the prairies, richer by a hundred thousand dollars. These lands were immensely valuable during the latter part of his life. They formed the bulk of his fortune when the war closed; and during his stay in Paris, an exile from his country, in 1866, he used to say that he consumed, in his personal expenses, an acre of dirt a day. The land was then worth about five dollars an acre.

It was while he was returning home from his Texas trip that the postman met him on the plains and delivered a letter from Georgia. This was in July, 1857. The letter announced that the Democratic State Convention in Georgia had adjourned, after nominating for Governor Joseph E. Brown. Senator Toombs read the letter and, looking up in a dazed way, asked, "And who in the devil is Joe Brown?"



CHAPTER XIV.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856.

There was a good deal of significance in the inquiry. There was a hot campaign ahead. The opposition party, made up of Know-nothings and old-line Whigs, had nominated Benjamin H. Hill for Governor. Senator Toombs knew that it would require a strong man to beat him. Besides the Governor, a legislature was to be chosen which was to elect a successor to Senator Toombs in the Senate. He was personally interested in seeing that the Democratic party, with which he had been in full accord since the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, had a strong leader in the State. All the way home he was puzzling in his brain about "Joe Brown."

About the time that he returned, he was informed that Hill and Brown had met at Glen Spring, near Athens. A large crowd had attended the opening discussion. Howell Cobb wrote to Senator Toombs that he had better take charge of the campaign himself, as he doubted the ability of Judge Brown to handle "Hill of Troup."

Joseph E. Brown had come up from the people. He was a native of Pickens, S. C., of old Scotch-Irish stock that had produced Calhoun and Andrew Jackson. The late Henry W. Grady, in a bright fancy sketch, once declared that the ancestors of Joseph E. Brown lived in Ireland, and that "For seven generations, the ancestors of Joe Brown have been restless, aggressive rebels—for a longer time the Toombses have been dauntless and intolerant followers of the King. At the siege of Londonderry, Margaret and James Brown were within the walls, starving and fighting for William and Mary; and I have no doubt there were hard-riding Toombses outside the walls, charging in the name of the peevish and unhappy James. Certain it is that forty years before, the direct ancestors of Robert Toombs, in their estate, were hiding the good King Charles in the oak at Boscobel, where, I have no doubt, the father and uncle of the Londonderry Brown, with cropped hair and severe mien, were proguing about the place with their pikes, searching every bush in the name of Cromwell and the psalm-singers. From these initial points sprang the two strains of blood—the one affluent, impetuous, prodigal, the other slow, resolute, forceful. From these ancestors came the two men—the one superb, ruddy, fashioned with incomparable grace and fullness—the other pale, thoughtful, angular, stripped down to brain and sinew. From these opposing theories came the two types: the one patrician, imperious, swift in action, and brooking no stay; the other democratic, sagacious, jealous of rights, and submitting to no opposition. The one for the king, the other for the people."

Young Joe Brown had taught school, studied law, finally completing his course at Yale College. He was admitted to the bar in 1845. In 1849 he was elected as a Democrat to the State Senate by Cherokee County. In 1851 he had been a Southern Rights' man, voting for McDonald against Cobb, the Union candidate for Governor. In 1852 he was Democratic elector for Pierce. In 1855 he was elected by the people judge of the Blue Ridge Circuit. He was very strong in North Georgia. The convention which selected him as the candidate for Governor met in Milledgeville, June 24, 1857. The Democrats had no lack of eminent men. There were candidates enough. James Gardner, the brilliant and incisive editor of the Augusta Constitutionalist, led the ballot, but Brown was finally brought in as a compromise man. His nomination was a surprise.

When Senator Toombs met the young nominee, by appointment, to talk over the campaign, he found that he was full of good sense and sagacity. He joined him in his canvass, lending his own name and prestige to the Democratic meetings. But he found much shrewdness and homely wisdom about Joseph E. Brown, and he became convinced that he was able to make his way to the favor of the people without outside aid. The Democratic nominee proved his ability to stand before the luminous oratory of Ben Hill himself. Brown had courage, clearness, and tact, with growing ability and confidence. He soon developed the full strength of the Democratic party, which, in Georgia, was overwhelming. Joseph E. Brown was elected Governor, and the last vestige of the American party went down in 1857. The legislature was overwhelmingly Democratic.

On the 6th of November, 1857, Mr. Toombs wrote from Milledgeville to his wife, pending the election of United States Senator:

I got here Wednesday and found the usual turmoil and excitement. Governor McDonald is here and has been trying hard to beat me, but I find very unexpected and gratifying unanimity in my favor. The party met this evening and nominated me by acclamation, with but two or three dissenting votes, and they speak of bringing on the election to-morrow. I am very anxious to see you, and am tired of wandering about in excited crowds; but I suppose after to-morrow I will have peace, so far as I am concerned, for the next six years. I think I shall be entitled to exemption from the actual duties of future campaigns to stay at home with you.

He was reelected to the United States Senate for the term beginning March 4, 1857.

When President Buchanan was inaugurated, he announced that a case was pending in the Supreme Court upon the occupation of the Territories. By this decision he would abide. The day after the inauguration the decision was announced. It was the celebrated Dred Scott case. It fell like a bomb into the antislavery camp. The great question involved was whether it was competent for Congress, directly or indirectly, to exclude slavery from the Territories of the United States. The Supreme Court decided that it was not. Six judges out of eight made this decision. The opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.

This decision added to the fury of the storm. It was announced that the Chief Justice had announced the doctrine that "negroes had no rights that a white man was bound to respect"; a sentiment so atrocious that this official repelled it with indignation. Efforts were made to bury the Chief Justice in obloquy.

The struggle over the admission of Kansas into the Union was prolonged in Congress. But the situation in Kansas became warmer every year. The Eastern immigrant societies were met by inroads of Missouri and Southern settlers. A state of civil war virtually obtained in 1856-57, and throughout Buchanan's administration there was a sharp skirmish of new settlers and a sharp maneuver of parties for position. The Georgia State Democratic Convention of 1857 demanded the removal of Robert J. Walker, who had been appointed Governor of Kansas. He was a Southern man, but was regarded as favoring the antislavery party in its efforts to organize the Territory. The truth was, as Senator Toombs had clearly foreseen and expressed in his speech in the Senate in 1856, Kansas was destined to be a free State, and amid the violence of the agitation, confined to no one side, was marching steadily toward this destiny. The administration favored the admission of Kansas with the Lecompton Constitution, which was decidedly favorable to the proslavery men. Senator Douglas opposed this plan. He had become committed to the policy of squatter sovereignty during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. He contended that the settlers of a Territory could determine the character of their institutions, a position which the Buchanan party denounced as inconsistent with Democratic principles. Mr. Douglas indorsed the Dred Scott decision, but maintained his position on popular sovereignty. He became at once unpopular with the rank and file of the Southern Democracy, with whom he had long been a favorite. He was also estranged from the administration, and it was evident that he would have no easy matter to be reelected United States Senator. This election came off in the fall of 1858. It was clear to him that, to maintain his prominence in politics, he must carry Illinois. Unless he could save his own State his chance for President was gone. So he went into this memorable canvass with his own party divided and a determined opponent in the person of Abraham Lincoln. The young Republican party in Illinois had been gathering strength with each new phase of the slavery question.

The joint debate between Douglas and Lincoln was memorable. As a dexterous debater, Douglas had no equal in the Union. He was strong on the stump and incomparable in a popular assembly. Without grace or imagination, he was yet a plausible, versatile man, quick and ingenious, resolute and ready, with a rare faculty for convincing men. He was small and sinewy, with smooth face, bright eye, and broad brow, and his neighbors called him the "Little Giant." He could be specious, even fallacious; he employed an ad captandum kind of oratory, which was taking with a crowd and confusing to an adversary. The man who met him in these debates was a tall, impressive personage, rough, original, but direct and thoroughly sincere. In many points he was the opposite of Douglas.

He was rather an ill-ordered growth of the early West, a man who had toiled and suffered from his youth up. He was full of sharp corners and rough edges, and his nature was a strange mixture of patience and melancholy. As Mr. Stephens said, he regarded slavery "in the light of a religious mysticism," and believed that his mission to beat it down was God-ordained. And yet he was a statesman, a public man of breadth and prominence, a speaker of force and persuasion. He had the robust courage of a pioneer and the high purpose of a reformer. It was in this debate that Mr. Lincoln, at Freeport, Ill., asked Mr. Douglas that memorable question, on the stump: "Can the people of a Territory, in any lawful way, exclude slavery from their limits, prior to the formation of a State constitution?" Mr. Douglas promptly answered, "Yes." This was his doctrine of popular sovereignty. But the answer cost him the Democratic nomination to the Presidency. The theory that a mass of settlers, squatting in a Territory, could fix and determine the character of the Territory's domestic institutions, was repugnant to a large portion of the Southern people. They claimed that under the Dred Scott decision, slavery already existed in the Territories, and must be protected by the Constitution; and that it was not competent for the people to determine for themselves the question of slavery or no slavery, until they formed a constitution for admission into the Union as a State.

The election in Illinois, in the fall of 1858, gave Stephen A. Douglas a majority of eight in the General Assembly over Abraham Lincoln, and Douglas was reelected for the new term. In this contest he had been opposed by the Buchanan Democrats, who cast over 8000 votes in Illinois.

In the Senate, the debate on popular sovereignty was renewed. This time Jefferson Davis, a senator from Mississippi, attacked this position as incompatible with the Constitution and the laws. Mr. Davis was a skillful debater. His mind was singularly graceful and refined. He was eloquent, logical, and courageous. His career as soldier and statesman, as War Minister under Pierce, and as senator for Mississippi, made him a prominent figure. He was cultured, classical, and well rounded, equipped by leisure and long study for the career before him. He had vanquished Sergeant S. Prentiss in public discussion over the national bank, and contested, inch by inch, the domination of Henry S. Foote in Mississippi. His career in the Mexican war had been a notable one. Allied to Zachary Taylor by marriage, a West Pointer by training, a Southern planter by occupation, he was a typical defender of slavery as it existed. Davis was as slender and frail as Douglas was compact and sinewy. Like Lincoln, his mind grasped great principles, while Douglas was fighting for points and expedients.

Douglas declared that the territorial settler could determine whether slavery should exist, by his influence in providing or withholding police power; although he denied the constitutional right to legislate slavery out of the Territories, yet he believed the "popular sovereign" could, by means of "unfriendly legislation," bar out the Southern settler with his slaves. It was not difficult for Mr. Davis to impale him upon this plea.

Senator Douglas had saved his seat in the Senate, but his position in the Democratic party was weakened. The Lecompton Constitution passed the Senate in spite of Douglas's steady opposition.

Senator Toombs took no part in the subtleties of the Douglas-Davis debate. He listened to the refinements of that discussion with decided convictions of his own, but with clear appreciation of the fact that every point scored against Douglas was cleaving the Democratic party in twain. Mr. Toombs favored the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution, but when it was rejected by the House, he promptly accepted the English compromise, to refer the matter back to the people. Mr. Toombs had always been partial to Douglas. In the campaign of 1856 he declared, in Georgia, that "the man who condemned Senator Douglas needed watching himself." He viewed with some pain the Douglas departure over popular sovereignty; indeed he once declared that had he not been called away from the Senate for quite a time in 1856, Mr. Douglas would never have gone off on this tangent. When asked if Douglas were really a great man, Senator Toombs, in 1860, answered with characteristic heartiness and exaggeration, "There has been but one greater, and he, the Apostle Paul."

It was very evident that the people of the South would demand new guarantees for the protection of slavery against the dogma of popular sovereignty. The platform of the Cincinnati convention, upon which Buchanan had been elected, must be recast. The platform had declared that immigrants to any part of the public domain were to settle the question of slavery for themselves. The new plank, which President Buchanan framed, was that the government of a Territory was provisional and temporary, and during its existence, all citizens of the United States had an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation. The two last words contained the gist of the resolution, which was aimed at Senator Douglas. However right as an abstract principle, Mr. Stephens declared that this was a departure from the doctrine of non-intervention.

It was at this time that Senator Toombs made one of the most important speeches of his life. This was delivered in Augusta, Ga., September 8, 1859, during an exciting campaign. Governor Brown was a candidate for reelection, and a strong opposition party had developed in Georgia, representing the extreme Southern sentiment.

Senator Toombs said that the opposition to the Kansas bill had continued because it was said to recognize the right of the people of a Territory, through the Territorial legislature, to establish or prohibit slavery. "When we condemned and abrogated Congressional intervention against us," said he, "that was a great point gained. Congress had actually excluded us from the Territories for thirty years. The people of a Territory had in no instance attempted such an iniquity. I considered it wise, prudent, and politic to settle the question against our common enemy, Congress, even if I left it unsettled as to our known friends, the people of the Territories. We could not settle the question of the power of the people over slavery while in a territorial condition, because Democrats differed on that point. We, therefore, declared in the Kansas bill that we left the people of the Territories perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. We decided to refer the question to the Supreme Court. It has gone there and been decided in our favor. The Southern friends of the measure repudiate the principle of squatter sovereignty. I stand its steady and uncompromising adversary. The doctrine of Douglas has not a leg to stand upon. Yet I do not belong to those who denounce him. The organization of the Democratic party leaves this an open question, and Mr. Douglas is at full liberty to take either side he may choose, and if he maintains his ground of neither making nor accepting new tests of political soundness, I shall consider him a political friend, and will accept him as the representative of the party, whatever it may tender him. I do not hesitate to tell you that, with his errors, I prefer him and would support him to-morrow against any opposition leader in America.

"We are told," said Mr. Toombs, "that we must put a new plank in the platform of the Democratic party, and demand the affirmance of the duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, where such Territory may fail to discharge this duty. I reply, I do not think it is wise to do the thing proposed, and the inducement would not help the proposition. While I have already asserted full and complete power of Congress to do this, I think, with Mr. Madison, that it should be prudently and carefully exercised, and it ought not to be exercised until the occasion is imperative. There has been no occasion, from 1789 to this hour, calling for it, and I am more than willing that the Territorial settlers shall continue to govern themselves in their own way, so long as they respect the rights of all the people. I will not insult them by supposing them capable of disregarding the Constitution of the United States, or by assuming that they are incapable of honest self-government.

"No; I shall prescribe no new test of party fealty to Northern Democrats, those men who have hitherto stood with honor and fidelity upon their engagements. They have maintained the truth to their own hurt. They have displayed a patriotism, a magnanimity rarely equaled in the world's history, and I shall endeavor, in sunshine and in storm, with your approbation if I can get it, without it if I must, to stand by them with fidelity equal to their great deserts. If you will stand with me, we shall conquer faction in the North and South, and shall save the country from the curse of being ruled by the combination now calling itself the opposition. We shall leave this country to our children as we found it—united, strong, prosperous and happy."

This was a memorable speech, strong, sincere, and conservative, and had a marked effect. It was intended, not only to influence the canvass then pending, but to have an effect in controlling the National convention to be held six months later. It was copied far and wide, and the success of the State candidates whom Mr. Toombs supported showed that its statesmanlike utterances were adopted overwhelmingly in Georgia.



CHAPTER XV.

JOHN BROWN'S RAID.

But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong and weak alike. It has been asserted, and with truth, that disunion was precipitated by the people, not by the politicians—by the North as well as by the South.

The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E. Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the North. The man, who under normal conditions of society would have been sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States passed strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.

What the Dred Scott decision had wrought at the North, the Ossawatomie raid awoke at the South. The main features of Buchanan's administration to hasten the "irrepressible conflict" were the well-weighed words of the Chief Justice and the wild invasion of a border ruffian. Strange paradox, but such were the influences at work in those disordered times. Men lost their moorings, and political parties abandoned settled policies. Events crowded with remorseless impact upon certain civil strife.

Under this new condition of things Mr. Toombs made his great "door-sill" speech in the United States Senate, on the 24th of January, 1860. It was upon the resolution offered by Senator Douglas calling for a measure of protection of each State and Territory against invasion by the authorities and inhabitants of every other State and Territory. Senator Toombs declared that the resolution opened up a new page in the history of our country. It was a step in the right direction. He feared that the disease lay too deep for the remedy. Heretofore the people of the United States could grapple and surmount all difficulties, foreign and domestic. A spirit of nationality, a common interest, a common danger, carried the country through revolutions. Now all this has changed. The feeling of loyalty and common destiny is rapidly passing away. Hostility to the compact of the Union, to the tie which binds us together, finds utterance in the tongues of millions of our countrymen, animates their bosoms, and leads to the habitual disregard of the plainest duties and obligations. Large bodies of men now feel and know that party success involves danger; that the result may bring us face to face with revolution.

"The fundamental principles of our Union are assailed, invaded, and threatened with destruction; our ancient rights and liberties are in danger; the peace and tranquillity of our homes have been invaded by lawless violence, and their further invasion is imminent; the instinct of self-preservation arms society to their defense."

Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle introduced into our Constitution. ["]It was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. The New England Confederation adopted it in 1643. The Supreme Judicial tribunal of Prussia affirmed it as the public law of Europe as late as 1855. It was acknowledged to be a sound principle of public law in the days of Pericles, and its violation by one of the States of Greece was the chief cause of the Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for twenty-one years. The Megareans had given refuge to the revolted slaves of Athens."

"I say," he continued, "the bargain is broken—broken by the States whose policy I have reviewed; broken by the Republican party, which did the work in their legislatures and elsewhere. Their hands are soiled with the blood of the compact. They cannot be permitted to minister at its altar. Their representatives on this floor mock at constitutional obligations; jeer at oaths. They have lost their shame with their virtue.... In the name of the people, I repeat, I demand the bond. In the name of every true and honest man at the North as well as the South, I demand the resumption of your plighted faith. Upon these terms I have ever been willing to let the Union stand, but upon no other.

"Who is responsible for the murder, treason, and arson of John Brown? I have never known of his acts being approved or palliated by any other person than a Republican. Thousands of them have done it and are now doing it. In charging this dark catalogue of crime against this organization, I would not be unjust. I have no doubt that thousands of persons belonging to that organization throughout the North, loathe and despise John Brown's raid; but it is equally true that there are other thousands in the same organization who do approve it. They tell us that they condemn his acts, but admire his heroism. I think the Republican party must be pressed for a hero. The 'Newgate Calendar' can furnish them with a dozen such saints. To 'die game' and not to 'peach' are sometimes useful, if not heroic, virtues in an accomplice. The thousands of blind Republicans who do openly approve the treason, murder, and arson of John Brown, get no condemnation from their party for such acts. They are its main defenders and propagandists all over the North, and, therefore, the party is in moral complicity with the criminal himself. No society can long exist in peace under these injuries, because we are in virtual civil war; hence, I denounce their authors, the Republican party, as enemies of the Constitution and enemies of my country.

"It is vain, in face of these injuries, to talk of peace, fraternity, and common country. There is no peace; there is no fraternity; there is no common country; all of us know it.

"Sir, I have but little more to add—nothing for myself. I feel that I have no need to pledge my poor services to this great cause, to my country. My State has spoken for herself. Nine years ago a convention of her people met and declared that her connection with this government depended upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave law. I was a member of that convention, and I stood then and stand now pledged to its action. I have faithfully labored to arrest these calamities; I will yet labor until this last contingency happens, faithfully, honestly, and to the best of my ability. When that time comes, freemen of Georgia, redeem your pledges! I am ready to redeem mine. Your honor is involved, your faith is plighted. I know you feel a stain as a wound. Your peace, your social system, your friends are involved. Never permit this Federal Government to pass into the traitors' hands of the black Republican party. It has already declared war against you and your institutions. It every day commits acts of war against you; it has already compelled you to arm for your defense. Listen to no vain babbling; to no treacherous jargon about 'overt acts'; they have already been committed. Defend yourselves! The enemy is at your door; wait not to meet him at your hearthstone; meet him at the door-sill, and drive him from the Temple of Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."



CHAPTER XVI.

THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.

It was an unfortunate time for the meeting of the Democratic National Convention. The hope that the party which had so often brought harmony from discord could unite upon the soil of an extreme Southern State was destined to be broken. The body met in Charleston on April 23, 1860. The place was worthy of the assemblage. For the first time in the party history, its convention had met south of Cincinnati or Baltimore. Redolent with the beauties of spring and the tint of historic interest, Charleston, with its memories of Moultrie, inspired feelings of patriotic pride. If it suggested the obstruction of Calhoun, it recalled the Revolutionary glory of Marion and Rutledge, and the bold challenge of Hayne to Webster, that if there be one State in the Union which could challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, ardent, and zealous devotion to the Union, that State was South Carolina.

It was a memorable meeting. The convention was presided over by Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts, the devoted friend of Daniel Webster, and Attorney-General under Franklin Pierce. In its ranks were Henry B. Payne of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and James A. Bayard of Delaware. These men were towers of strength in the North. They were the men to whom Robert Toombs had appealed in the Senate, when he turned from his fiery imprecation and, lowering his great voice, declared, with tenderness and pride, "I have no word of invocation to those who stand to-day in the ranks of Northern Democracy, but to remember and emulate their past history. From the beginning of this controversy they have stood firmly by the Constitution. No body of men in the world's history ever exhibited higher or nobler devotion to principle under such adverse circumstances.... Amid the opprobrious epithets, the gibes and jeers of the enemies of the Constitution; worse than this, amid words of distrust and reproach even from men of the South, these great-hearted patriots have marched steadily in the path of duty.... The union of all these elements may yet secure to our country peace and safety. But if this cannot be done, safety and peace are incompatible in the Union. Amid treachery and desertion at home, and injustice from without, amid disaster and defeat, they have risen superior to fortune, and stand to-day with their banners all tattered and soiled in the humble service of the whole country. No matter what fortune may betide us in the future, while life lasts, I have a hand that will succor and a heart ready to embrace the humblest soldier of this noble band."

At that time there were thirty-three States in the Union. The committee on platform consisted of one from each State. The delegates from California and Oregon, voting with the South, gave them seventeen votes in committee. The resolutions were quickly framed, with the exception of the one on slavery. Here was the deadlock. The majority plank declared that the right to settle in the Territories with slaves "was not to be destroyed nor impaired by Territorial legislation." The minority proposed once more to leave the question to the Supreme Court. The compromise was not accepted. The two reports came before the convention, and, the Douglas men being in the majority on the floor, the minority, or squatter-sovereignty report, was adopted by a vote of 165 to 138. Here came the crisis. The delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and a part of Delaware, withdrew from the convention. Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama led this movement. He was a man of courage and decision, with unrivaled powers of oratory. He had been a member of Congress, and his influence in the South was large. So far back as June 15, 1858, he had written a famous letter to James M. Slaughter that "no national party can save us; no sectional party can ever do it; but if we would do as our fathers did, organize committees of safety all over the cotton States—and it is only to them that we can hope for any effectual movement—we shall fire the Southern heart, instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and, by one concerted action, we can precipitate the cotton States into a revolution." This was called the "Scarlet Letter," and was widely scattered and read.

The seceding delegates organized a second assemblage over which the Hon. James A. Bayard presided. The Douglas men were left in control of the first convention, but could not secure the two-thirds vote necessary for his nomination. More than fifty ballots were taken, the full strength of the Illinois candidate being 152. On the 3d of May the convention adjourned to meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June, when it was hoped a spirit of compromise might be inspired by the seriousness of the situation.

On the night of the break in that body Mr. Yancey made a speech in Charleston, when in prophetic words he declared, "Perhaps even now the pen of the historian is nibbed to inscribe the history of a new revolution."

The seceding delegates called for a convention to be held in Richmond, Va., on the second Monday in June.

When the seven States had withdrawn from the convention, the Georgia delegation was split up. A majority left the convention, a small minority remained. This action created great excitement in Georgia. The Democratic executive committee called a State convention to meet in Milledgeville on June 4. A committee of prominent citizens, headed by Hon. J. J. Gresham of Macon, addressed letters to public men asking their views in this alarming situation. Howell Cobb indorsed the seceders; he was opposed to Douglas. Alexander H. Stephens thought Georgia should appoint delegates to the Baltimore convention, withdraw the demand for a new plank in the Cincinnati platform, abide by the doctrine of non-intervention, and nominate a good man for President. "If we must quarrel with the North," said he, "let us base it on the aggressive acts of our enemies and not on the supposed shortcomings of our friends."

Hon. Robert Toombs did not come South during the Charleston convention. He watched from his post in the Senate the great struggle between the Democratic factions. On May 10, he wrote, in reply to the letter of the Macon committee:

Perhaps the time may not have come for the attainment of the full measure of our constitutional rights; it may not have been prudent on the part of the representatives of the seventeen States to have sanctioned and presented as much truth on the slavery issue as is contained in what is commonly called the majority platform; but when it was thus sanctioned, approved, and presented to the convention, it was well to stand by and defend it, especially against the platform of the minority. The seceding delegates did this with manly firmness, and I approve their action.

Mr. Toombs advised, however, that the seceding delegates ought to meet with the convention at Baltimore and endeavor to obtain such a satisfactory adjustment of difficulties as could be secured. "This course requires no sacrifice of principles." This plan had been proposed by the delegates from New York to the delegates from the Southern States. "The proposed Richmond convention, if it shall be found necessary to hold it," he said, "can be held after, as well as before the Baltimore convention, and I think with clearer lights for its guidance."

"It is sometimes wise," said Mr. Toombs, "to accept a part of our just rights, if we can have the residue unimpaired and uncompromised, but nothing can justify a voluntary surrender of principle, indispensable to the safety and honor of the State.

"It is true we are surrounded with danger, but I do not concur in the opinion that the danger to the Union is even one of our greatest perils. The greatest danger, to-day, is that the Union will survive the Constitution. The body of your enemies in the North, who hate the Constitution, and daily trample it under their feet, profess an ardent attachment to the Union, and I doubt not, feel such attachment for a Union unrestrained by a Constitution. Do not mistake your real danger! The Union has more friends than you have, and will last, at least, as long as its continuance will be compatible with your safety."

Prior to the reassembling of the Democratic convention, the resolutions introduced by the Hon. Jefferson Davis, containing the Southern exposition of principles, came up in the Senate. Mr. Toombs had opposed the policy of introducing those resolutions, but as they were then before the country, he said they should be met. He ridiculed the idea of popular sovereignty. He declared that Congress should protect slavery in the Territories. The Federal Government, he claimed, did protect its citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad, everywhere except on the soil of our own territory, acquired by common blood and treasure.

This speech of Senator Toombs marked an epoch in his career. It separated him entirely from Stephen A. Douglas, to whom he had been closely allied, in spite, as he said, of Douglas having wandered after strange gods. Douglas absented himself from the Senate when Toombs spoke. For the first time in twenty years, Toombs and Stephens took divergent paths. They were called in Georgia the "Siamese twins." From the election of Harrison to the Democratic split in 1860, they had been personal friends and firm political allies. Mr. Stephens was for Douglas and the Union; Mr. Toombs feared lest "the Union survive the Constitution."

The Democratic party in Georgia met on June 4, and parted on the lines of the Charleston division. The Union element in Georgia was led by Herschel V. Johnson, a man of power and influence. He had been Governor of the State, was a man of learning, profound in thought and candid in expression. His wife was a niece of President Polk. His state papers were models of clear and classical expression. Governor Johnson was, however, better fitted for the bench or the Cabinet than for a public leader.

Both wings of the Georgia convention appointed delegates to the Baltimore convention. That body admitted the delegation which had seceded from the Charleston convention. As the seceding delegates from the other States were rejected, the Georgia delegates refused to go in. Missouri was the only Southern State which was represented entirely in the body, composed of 190 delegates. Massachusetts withdrew and Caleb Cushing resigned the chair. Stephen A. Douglas was nominated for President of the United States. Governor Fitzpatrick of Alabama declined the vice presidency, and Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was chosen for vice president. The seceders immediately organized a national convention, Mr. Cushing presiding. It was composed of 210 delegates. The majority or anti-Douglas platform of the Charleston convention was adopted. John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky was nominated for President, and Joseph C. Lane of Oregon for vice president. Mr. Breckenridge was at that time vice president of the United States, and Mr. Lane was a senator. Meanwhile, a Constitutional Union party had been formed in Georgia, and had elected delegates to a convention of that party in Baltimore. This body nominated for President and vice president, John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Mr. Bell had been United States Senator at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, in 1854, and had been arraigned by Mr. Toombs for opposing the party policy. He was one of the thirteen who voted against it in the Senate.

The contest in Georgia waged with much vigor. Robert Toombs supported Breckenridge. He was a delegate to the Democratic State convention which put out a Breckenridge and Lane electoral ticket. He cut out the business of that convention, and declared that the Constitution and equality of the States was the only bond of everlasting union. Mr. Stephens headed the Douglas ticket. Senator Douglas himself came to Georgia and spoke during the campaign. The Bell and Everett ticket was championed by Benjamin H. Hill. The vote in Georgia was: Breckenridge, 51,893; Douglas, 11,580; Bell, 42,855.

Of these three Georgians, so strikingly arrayed against each other in this critical campaign, Mr. Vincent, a gifted Texan, thus wrote with dramatic power: "Hill, Stephens, Toombs—all eloquent, all imbued with the same lofty patriotism. They differed widely in their methods; their opinions were irreconcilable, their policies often diametrically opposite. Hill was quick, powerful, but unpersistent; Stephens, slow, forcible and compromising; Toombs, instantaneous, overwhelming, and unyielding. Hill carried the crowd with a whirlwind of eloquence; Stephens first convinced, then moved them with accelerating force; Toombs swept them with a hurricane of thought and magnetic example. Hill's eloquence was in flights, always rising and finally sublime; Stephens' was argumentative with an elegant smoothness, often flowing in sweeping, majestic waves; Toombs' was an engulfing stream of impetuous force, with the roar of thunder. Hill was receptive, elastic, and full of the future; Stephens was philosophical, adaptable, and full of the past; Toombs was inexhaustible, original, inflexible, and full of the now. It was Hill's special forte to close a campaign; Stephens' to manage it; Toombs' to originate it. In politics as in war, he sought, with the suddenness of an electric flash, to combat, vanquish, and slay. Hill's eloquence exceeded his judgment; Stephens' judgment was superior to his oratorical power; in Toombs these were equipollent. Hill considered expediency; Stephens, policy; Toombs, principle always; Hill would perhaps flatter, Stephens temporize, Toombs neither—never. At times Hill would resort to the arts of the dialectician; Stephens would quibble over the niceties of construction; Toombs relied on the impregnability of his position, the depth of his thought, the vigor of his reasoning. Hill discussed with opponents; Stephens debated with them; Toombs ignored them. Hill refuted and vanquished his adversaries; Stephens persuaded and led them; Toombs magnetized them, and they followed him. Their enemies said that Hill was treacherous in politics; Stephens selfishly ambitious; and that Toombs loaned like a prince and collected like a Shylock.

"In those days Georgia did not put pygmies on pedestals. Hill will be remembered by his 'Notes on the Situation'; Stephens by his 'War between the States'; Toombs had no circumstantial superiority. He is immortal, as the people are eternal."



CHAPTER XVII.

TOOMBS AS A LEGISLATOR.

Georgia had taken a leading hand in the momentous events. Alexander H. Stephens had been prominently mentioned for President; so had Howell Cobb. When Senator Toombs had attacked the doctrine of Mr. Douglas, the followers of the latter charged that Mr. Toombs had deserted his old ally, and was himself making a bid for the presidency. Especially was this the case, they urged, as Mr. Toombs had recommended the seceding delegates to go back to the Baltimore convention, and endeavor to effect an honorable adjustment. The Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, a leading Union organ, took up the charge and asked: "What of it? He is certainly as much entitled to it as any citizen in the republic. Were he elected, he would be such a President as the country needs, giving no countenance to corruption or fraud, but, with a will of his own, setting aside all dictation and acting as President of all the people. We doubt if there is a man that could arouse such a furor in his behalf, North or South, as Robert Toombs."

Close friends of Mr. Toombs at that time believed he was not without his ambition to occupy the Executive chair. Never an office-seeker, he had gone easily to the front rank of national politics and had won his honors in Georgia in a kingly way. He realized, however, that he was not politic enough to gain support from Northern States. His convictions were overmastering passions; his speech was fervid and fearless; and his bold, imperturbable expression had placed him in a fierce white light, which barred him from the promotion of party conventions. While his enemies were accusing him of a desire to destroy the Union and embroil the sections, Robert Toombs was probably cherishing in his heart a vague hope that one day he might be called to the presidency of a common country.

Senator Toombs was very active in attending to his public duties. He was interested in every species of legislation. His remarks upon the different matters of national business exhibited versatility, study, and interest in everything that affected the public welfare. Those who believe him to have been a conspirator, using his high position to overthrow the government, have only to look over the debates in Congress to see how active and conscientious were his efforts to promote every real interest of the Union.

In the United States Senate, on July 31, 1854, Mr. Toombs gave an elaborate exposition of his views upon the policy of internal improvements. He said he had maintained opposition to this system as a fundamental principle. Since he entered public life, he had sustained President Polk's veto of the River and Harbor bill in 1847. He believed that Congress had no constitutional power to begin or carry on a general system of internal improvements. He wanted to know where this power of the Constitution could be found. Madison and Jefferson had opposed this system. Monroe, Jackson, and Clay had yielded to the popular pressure and sanctioned it. "Instead of leaving the taxes or the money in the pockets of the people," he said, "you have spent nine months in endeavoring to squander and arranging to have more to squander in the next Congress. I should like to use a polite term," said he, "for I am a good-natured man, but I think it is corruption.

"In this bill you offer me seventy thousand dollars for the Savannah river. Ships were sunk in that river for the common defense of the country during the Revolutionary War. You are bound to abate your nuisance at common law. You might offer me this Capitol full of gold, and I would scorn the gift just less than the giver. You ought to have removed these obstructions long ago. When we come and ask of you this act of justice, you tell me to go with you into your internal improvement bill and take pot-luck with you."

Mr. Toombs claimed that the power given to Congress to regulate commerce, simply meant to prescribe the rules by which commerce could be carried on, and nothing else. "The people of Maryland," he said, "had never asked that the harbor of Baltimore should be cleaned at the expense of the people of Georgia. They did not ask that other people should pay their burdens. They came here and asked the privilege of taxing their own commerce for their own benefit, and we granted it. I hold it to be a fundamental principle in all governments, and especially in all free governments, that you should not put burdens on the people whenever you can discriminate and put them on those who enjoy the benefits. You started with that principle with your post-office establishments.

"Senators, is it just? I tell you, as God lives, it is not just, and you ought not to do it. There is manhood in the people of the Mississippi Valley. Let them levy tonnage duties for their own rivers and ports and put up their own lighthouses, and charge the people who use them for the benefits conferred. Let the honest farmer who makes his hay, who gathers his cheese, who raises his meal in Vermont, be not taxed to increase your magnificent improvements of nature and your already gigantic wealth. Senators, it is unjust."

During the session of Congress of 1856-57, Senator Toombs again arraigned the whole system of internal improvements. He carefully differentiated between building a lighthouse and clearing out a harbor by the Federal Government. He said in course of the debate: "Where lighthouses are necessary for the protection of your navy, I admit the power to make them; but it must be where they are necessary, and not merely for the benefit and facilitation of commerce. Foreign and domestic commerce ought to be charged, as in England and France, for the benefit they receive. I would make the shipowners, the common carriers of this country, who are constantly using the power of this government to make money out of the products of honest industry and agriculture, submit to this rule.

"The power to found a navy is found in the only fountain of power in this country, the Constitution. The defense of one is the defense of all. The destruction of nationality is the destruction of the life of all.

"I say if you take away the property of one man and give it to a thousand, or if you take away the property of a million and give it to nineteen millions, you do not create national wealth by transferring it from the pockets of honest industry to other people's pockets. This is my principle. It is immovable. The more commerce there is on the Mississippi the more they are able and competent to pay the expenses of transporting it, and I only ask that they shall do it."

Mr. Toombs sustained the veto of President Pierce of the Mississippi River bill.

In July, 1856, he said that he had for eleven years maintained the vetoes of Mr. Polk. "I have perceived that this mischief is widespread, this corruption greater, this tendency to the destruction of the country is more dangerous. The tendency to place the whole government under the money power of the nation is greater and greater. The danger may be all of my imagination; but whether that be so, or whether I see in a bolder light the evil that will grow by letting this sluice from the public treasury and making it run by the will of the majority, I deem it so important that it may be worth an empire. We are called on, upon the idea of everybody helping everybody's bill, to vote for them all. There certainly can be no greater abandonment of public principle than is here presented."

Senator Toombs, while a member of the Georgia Legislature, opposed the omnibus bill, granting State aid to railroads, and one of the first devices to fall under his criticism was a scheme to build a road to his own town. He was by nature progressive. He championed the cause of the State railroad of Georgia. In general terms he believed that the States and the people should carry out works of internal improvement. It is said that the first office ever held by Mr. Toombs was that of commissioner of the town of Washington, Ga. The election hinged upon a question of public improvement, the question being "ditch or no ditch"; Toombs was elected commissioner, and the ditch was dug.

He was nothing of a demagogue. He did not attempt to belittle the public service. He championed the provision for higher pay for the United States Judges, and for increasing the stipend of army officers, although he denounced the system of double rations as vicious. He did not hesitate to hit an unnecessary expense in every shape. All overflowing pension grabs found in him a deadly enemy. In December, 1856, while speaking on the subject of claims, he said: "In 1828, when half a century had passed over the heads of the men who fought your battles, when their generation was gone, when Tories and jobbers could not be distinguished from the really meritorious, the agents came here and attempted to intimidate public men." He alluded to pension agents as men who prowl about and make fortunes by peddling in the pretended patriotism and sufferings of their fathers.

"It is," said he, "a poor pretext for an honorable man to come and tell the government, 'My ancestor fought for his own and the public liberty; he did not choose to be a slave to a foreign despotism; but with manliness, and honor, and patriotism, he fought during the war; now pay me for this. I want to be paid in hard dollars for the honor, and chivalry, and patriotism of my ancestor.' I tell you, Mr. President, it is not good money; it is bad money; it is dishonorable to the memory of those who fought your battles."

In February, 1857, the electoral vote for President was counted by the two Houses of Congress. The vote of the State of Wisconsin (five ballots) had been cast on a day other than that fixed by the States for the meeting of the Electoral College. If counted, it gave Fremont 114 votes; if omitted, Fremont would have 109.

In the debate which followed, Senator Toombs discussed very closely a point which has since been the subject of sharp contention. He said: "The duty of counting the vote for President devolves on the Senate and House of Representatives. They must act in their separate capacities; but they alone can determine it, and not the President of the Senate and the tellers of the two Houses. It is a high privilege, a dangerous one to the liberties and Constitution of this country. The Senate and House must determine the votes to be counted, and the President of the Senate can only announce those to be votes which are thus decided by competent authority, and any attempt of the presiding officer to declare what votes he may deem to be legal, or to decide which are the votes, no matter whether it affects the result or not, or even to say that the question shall not be decided, however highly I respect the chair, I submit is not a power given to the presiding officer by the Constitution and the laws."

In 1850 Senator Toombs found it necessary to oppose an appropriation for an experiment with the Atlantic cable. He was not prepared to say that the experiment would not be successful, but he boldly declared, despite the importance of the work and the high character of the men who were supporting it, that there was no power in the Federal Constitution for such an appropriation. Because the government establishes post roads, it could not be inferred that the government had the power to aid in transmitting intelligence to all quarters of the globe. He did not believe in going beyond the constitutional guarantees. He declared of these questions, as he had in the debate upon the Kansas bill, that in hunting for power and authority he knew but one place to go—to the Constitution. When he did not find it there, he could not find it anywhere.

Senator Toombs favored the purchase of Cuba, because he considered it advantageous to the republic. "I will accept Canada as readily, if it can be honestly and fairly done," he said. "I will accept Central America and such part of Mexico as, in my judgment, would be advantageous to the republic."

The question of the slave population of Cuba should not come into this discussion, he declared. "I will not trammel the great constitutional power of the Executive to deal with foreign nations, with our internal questions; and I will not manacle my country, I will not handcuff the energies of this mighty republic, by tying up our foreign diplomacy with our internal dissensions. At least to the rest of the world, let us present ourselves as one people, one nation." He spurned the idea that he wanted Cuba to strengthen the slave power in Congress. He said, "Some may think we go for it because by this means we shall have one more slave State in the Union. I know that the senator from New York (Mr. Seward) at the last session alluded to the comparative number of slaveholding and non-slaveholding States; but I never considered that my rights lay there; I never considered that I held my rights of property by the votes of senators. It is too feeble a tenure. If I did, I have shown by my votes that I have not feared them. Whenever any State, Minnesota or Oregon, or any other, came, no matter from where, if she came on principles which were sufficient in my judgment to justify her admission into this great family of nations, I never refused her the right hand of fellowship. I did not inquire whether you had seventeen or eighteen free States. If you had fifty, it would not alter my vote. The idea of getting one slave State would have no effect on me. But Cuba has fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of Mexico, and then the Carribean Sea, a mare clausum. Probably younger men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float there except by permission of the United States of America. That is my policy. I rose more with a view to declare my policy for the future; that development, that progress throughout the tropics was the true, fixed, unalterable policy of the nation, no matter what may be the consequences with reference to European powers."

Mr. Toombs believed that much bad legislation resulted from trusting too much to committees. He rarely failed to question such reports, and never voted unless he thoroughly understood the subject. He thought this whole machinery was a means of "transferring the legislation of the country from those into whose hands the Constitution had placed it to irresponsible parties." He said it was a common newspaper idea that Congress was wasting time in debating details. His opinion was that nine-tenths of the time the best thing to be done in public legislation was to do nothing. He thought Congress was breaking down the government by its own weight in "pensioning all the vagrants brought here. All that a man has to do is to make affidavit and get a pension."

In 1859 he refused to vote to appropriate $500,000 for the improvement of Buffalo harbor, because he held he had no right to spend the money of the whole Union for a particular locality; for this reason he voted to abolish the mint at Dahlonega, in his own State.

Mr. Toombs opposed the policy of buying the outstanding debt at a premium. He criticised Senator Simon Cameron for asking that the government give employment to 50,000 laborers out of work. He said, "Sir, government cannot do it and never did do it. There never was a government in the world which did not ruin the people they attempted to benefit by such a course. Governments do not regulate wages."

Senator Toombs contended that the Postal Department stood on a different footing from the army and navy. Postal service, he thought, was no part of the national duty. "It is of no more importance to the people of the United States that this government should carry my letters than that it should carry my cotton." He claimed that he had some old-fashioned ideas, but they were innate. "I do not think it right, before God, for me to make another man pay my expenses."

In discussing the financial report, he said, "You have as much time to appropriate money intelligently as you have to give it lavishly. While there is a general cry for retrenchment, when any practical movement is made, the answer always is that this is not the right time or the right place. I am afraid we shall never find the right time, or the right place, until the popular revolution becomes strong enough to send here men who will do the public business better than we have done it."



CHAPTER XVIII.

ELECTION OF LINCOLN.

In the election of November, 1860, Mr. Lincoln received 1,857,610 votes, and the combined opposition 2,787,780 votes, the successful candidate being in a minority of nearly a million votes. The new House of Representatives was Democratic, and the Senate had not been won over to the antislavery party. But the trend of Northern politics was unmistakably toward the extinction of slavery. As Mr. Lincoln said in his letter to Mr. Stephens: "You think slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. There, I suppose, is the rub." Mr. Buchanan's message to Congress was full of conservative counsel, but the Northern pressure was too strong. His Cabinet was soon dissolved, and the places of Southern men were taken by Northern representatives, whose influence was not assuring to Southern people.

Just before his departure for Congress Mr. Toombs, in response to an invitation, wrote a conservative letter to his constituents in Danburg, Wilkes County, Ga. It bore date of December 13, 1860. The General Assembly of Georgia had unanimously passed a resolution calling for a State convention to meet on January 16, 1861. Mr. Toombs took the ground that separation, sooner or later, was inevitable. The time when the remedy was to be applied was the point of difference. He opposed delay longer than March 4, but declared that he would certainly yield that point "to earnest and honest men who are with me in principle but are more hopeful of redress from the aggressors than I am. To go beyond March 4, we should require such preliminary measures to be taken as would, with reasonable certainty, lead to adequate redress, and in the meantime, we should take care that the delay gives no advantage to the adversary." Mr. Toombs declared that he believed the policy of Mr. Lincoln was to ultimately abolish slavery in the States, by driving slavery out of the Territories, by abrogating Fugitive-slave laws, and by protecting those who stole slaves and incited insurrections. The only way to remedy these evils, in the Union, was by such constitutional amendments as can be neither resisted nor evaded. "If the Republican party votes for the amendments, we may postpone final action. This will be putting planks where they are good for something. A cartload of new planks in the party platform will not redress one wrong nor protect one right."

As strong and unmistakable as this letter seemed, the great body of the people of Georgia did not think it sufficiently aggressive. Secession now amounted to a furor. It was not the work of leaders, but the spirit which pervaded the ranks of the people, who clamored because events did not move fast enough. The "minute-men" declared Mr. Toombs' letter was a backdown. They called him a traitor, and wanted to vote him a tin sword.

Congress, upon reassembling, devoted itself to measures of compromise. The situation was one of the deepest gravity. In the House a committee of thirty-three was raised, and in the Senate a committee of thirteen, to look into the situation. But there was no Henry Clay to interpose, with tact and broad statesmanship, at the supreme moment.

Twice before in our history, the "Great Pacificator" had proven equal to a desperate emergency. Adjusting the tariff in 1832 when South Carolina threatened nullification, he had kept the peace between Calhoun and Jackson. Proposing his omnibus bill in 1850, he had silenced all calls for disunion by the territorial concession. Equally lacking was the example of Webster to face the prejudices of the North and calm the apprehensions of the South. Perhaps it was because these men had postponed the conflict then that it reappeared now with irrepressible power.

The House Committee reported propositions to amend the Fugitive-slave laws, and accepted Mr. Toombs' demand that a law should be enacted by which all offenses against slave property, by persons fleeing to other States, should be tried where the offense was committed.

Mr. Toombs was a member of the committee of thirteen in the Senate. The five Southern members submitted the Crittenden Compromise, demanding six amendments to the Constitution. These recognized slavery south of the old Missouri line, prohibited interference by Congress with slavery in the District of Columbia, or with transportation of slaves from one State to another, and provided for the payment for fugitive slaves in cases where the marshal was prevented from arresting said fugitive. The sixth amendment guaranteed the permanence of these provisions.

The House adopted the report of the committee of thirty-three. In the Senate a resolution was adopted declaring that the provisions of the Constitution were already ample for the preservation of the Union; that it needed to be obeyed rather than amended. This, upon a test vote of twenty-five to twenty-three, was substituted for the Crittenden Compromise. Mr. Toombs and five other Democratic members refused to vote, as they appropriately declared that no measure could be of value to the South, unless it had the support of Republican senators from the North. They sat still and waited to see whether those senators offered any guarantees. The twenty-five votes showed that the Republicans were not in a conciliatory mood. This, in the opinion of Senator Toombs, was conclusive that the best interests of the South lay in immediate separation.

Once convinced that this was the proper course, Senator Toombs bent all his powers to bring about that result. He saw that if the Southern States must secede, the quicker they did so the better. If the North cared to recall them, a vigorous policy would react more promptly upon the Republicans. He did not go into this movement with foreboding or half-heartedness. There was no mawkish sentiment—no melancholy in his make-up. His convictions mastered him, and his energy moved him to redoubled effort. On the 22d of December he sent his famous telegram to his "fellow-citizens of Georgia." He recited that his resolutions had been treated with derision and contempt by the Republican members of the committee of thirteen. The amendments proposed by Mr. Crittenden had "each and all of them been voted against unanimously by the Republican members of the committee." These members had also declared that they had no guarantees to offer. He believed that the House Committee only sought to amuse the South with delusive hope, "until your election, in order that you may defeat the friends of secession. If you are deceived by them it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly. It has been decided against you, and now I tell you upon the faith of a true man, that all further looking to the North for security for your constitutional rights in the Union, ought to be instantly abandoned. It is fraught with nothing but menace to yourselves and your party. Secession by the 4th of March next should be thundered forth from the ballot-box by the united voice of Georgia. Such a voice will be your best guaranty for liberty, security, tranquillity, and glory."



CHAPTER XIX.

FAREWELL TO THE SENATE.

On the 7th of January, 1861, Robert Toombs delivered his farewell speech to the United States Senate. It received profound attention. It was full of brief sentences and bristling points. In epigrammatic power, it was the strongest summary of the demands of the South. As Mr. Blaine said, it was the only speech made by a congressman from the seceding States which specified the grievances of the South and which named the conditions upon which the States would stay in the Union. Other Senators regarded secession as a fixed fact. Mr. Toombs declared what, in his opinion, would prevent it. And yet, as he stood at his desk, where for seven years he had been a recognized leader, his earnestness and deliberation revealed a man whose hand did not hesitate to lead a revolt and whose heart did not fail in the face of a certain revolution. He acted up to his own words, repeated a short while later: "He who dallies is a dastard; he who doubts is damned."

This speech was bold, succinct, definite. "Senators," said Mr. Toombs, "my countrymen have demanded no new government. They have demanded no new Constitution. The discontented States have demanded nothing but clear, distinct, constitutional rights, rights older than the Constitution. What do these rebels demand? First, that the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the Territories with whatever property (including slaves) they may possess. Second, that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection from the government as any other property (leaving the State the right to prohibit, protect, or abolish slavery within its limits). Third, that persons committing crimes against slave property in one State and flying to another shall be given up. Fourth, that fugitive slaves shall be surrendered. Fifth, that Congress shall pass laws for the punishment of all persons who shall aid and abet invasion and insurrection in any other State."

He said: "We demand these five propositions. Are they not right? Are they not just? We will pause and consider them; but, mark me, we will not let you decide the questions for us. I have little care to dispute remedies with you unless you propose to redress our wrongs.

"But no matter what may be our grievances, the honorable senator from Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden) says we cannot secede. Well, what can we do? We cannot revolutionize. He will say that is treason. What can we do? Submit? They say they are the strongest and they will hang us. Very well! I suppose we are to be thankful for that boon. We will take that risk. We will stand by the right; we will take the Constitution; we will defend it with the sword, with the halter around our necks. Will that satisfy the honorable senator from Kentucky? You cannot intimidate my constituents by talking to them of treason.

"You will not regard confederate obligations; you will not regard constitutional obligations; you will not regard your oaths. What, then, am I to do? Am I a freeman? Is my State a free State? We are freemen; we have rights; I have stated them. We have wrongs; I have recounted them. I have demonstrated that the party now coming into power has declared us outlaws, and is determined to exclude thousands of millions of our property from the common territory; that it has declared us under the ban of the Union, and out of the protection of the laws of the United States everywhere. They have refused to protect us from invasion and insurrection by the Federal power, and the Constitution denies to us, in the Union, the right to raise fleets and armies for our own defense. All these charges I have proven by the record; and I put them before the civilized world and demand the judgment of to-day, of to-morrow, of distant ages, and of Heaven itself upon the justice of these causes. I am content, whatever it be, to peril all in so holy a cause. We have appealed, time and again, for these constitutional rights. You have refused them. We appeal again. Restore us those rights as we had them; as your Court adjudges them to be; just as our people have said they are. Redress these flagrant wrongs—seen of all men—and it will restore fraternity, and unity, and peace to us all. Refuse them, and what then? We shall then ask you, 'Let us depart in peace.' Refuse that, and you present us war. We accept it, and, inscribing upon our banners the glorious words, 'Liberty and Equality,' we will trust to the blood of the brave and the God of battles for security and tranquillity."

This speech created wide attention. It closed the career of Robert Toombs as a member of the national councils. For sixteen years he had served in the two Houses in Washington, holding his rank among the first men in the country.

He was then fifty-one years old, full of strength and confidence. His leadership among Southern men was undisputed; his participation in public business had been long and honorable; upon matters of home and foreign policy his word had been law in the Senate; his influence had been preponderating.



CHAPTER XX.

TOOMBS AND SECESSION.

On the 16th of January, the State Sovereignty convention met in Milledgeville, Ga. The election had taken place shortly after the delivery of Senator Toombs' farewell address, and Georgia had answered to his call in the election of delegates by giving a vote of 50,243 in favor of secession, and 39,123 against it. The convention was presided over by George W. Crawford, who had lived in retirement since the death of President Taylor in 1850, and who was called on to lend his prestige and influence in favor of the rights of his State. The convention went into secret session, and when the doors were opened, Hon. Eugenius A. Nisbet of Bibb offered a resolution, "That in the opinion of this convention, it is the right and duty of Georgia to secede from the Union." On the passage of this, the yeas were 165 and the noes 130. Mr. Toombs voted "yes," and Messrs. Hill, Johnson, and Stephens, "no." Next day the committee of seventeen, through Judge Nisbet, reported the Ordinance of Secession. It was short and pointed; it simply declared that the people of the State of Georgia, in convention assembled, repealed the ordinance of 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted. The Union was declared dissolved, so far as the State of Georgia was concerned, and the State to be in full possession of all those rights of sovereignty that belonged to a free and independent State. On the passage of this ordinance, the yeas were 208, and the noes, 89. Messrs. Toombs and Hill "yes," and Mr. Stephens "no." At 2.15 P. M. on the 19th of January, a signal gun was fired, and the "Stars and Stripes" lowered from the State Capitol. One moment later, the white colonial flag of Georgia fluttered to the winds, and the State was in uproar. The news flashed to the utmost corners of the commonwealth. Guns were fired, bells rung, and men were beside themselves. The night only intensified this carnival of joy. There were some men who shook their heads and doubted the wisdom of this step, and there were women and little children who regarded these demonstrations with awe. They did not comprehend what was meant by "going out of the Union," and by some inscrutable instinct feared the result of such an act. The old Union sentiment was, perhaps, stronger in Georgia than in any other Southern State. Georgia was the youngest of the thirteen States, the last of the commonwealth to come into the national compact. Her charter from the Crown had originally barred slavery from her limits, but the success of the institution in Carolina, the progress of other States in subduing land and in cultivating indigo and tobacco in the Southern savannas, rendered white labor unavailable, and left Georgia a laggard in the work of the younger colonies. Finally, slaves were admitted, and commerce and agriculture seemed to thrive. But if the State had preserved its original charter restrictions, it is not certain that, even then, the Union sentiment would have prevailed. As Senator Toombs had declared: "The question of slavery moves not the people of Georgia one-half so much as the fact that you insult their rights as a community. Abolitionists are right when they say that there are thousands and tens of thousands of people in Georgia who do not own slaves. A very large portion of the people of Georgia own none of them. In the mountains there are but a few of them; but no part of our people is more loyal to race and country than our bold and hardy mountain population, and every flash of the electric wire brings me cheering news from our mountain-tops and our valleys that these sons of Georgia are excelled by none of their countrymen in loyalty to their rights, the honor and glory of the commonwealth. They say, and well say, this is our question: we want no negro equality; no negro citizenship; we want no mongrel race to degrade our own, and, as one man, they would meet you upon the border with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other. They will tell you, 'When we choose to abolish this thing (slavery), it must be done under our direction, according to our will. Our own, our native land shall determine this question, and not the Abolitionists of the North.' That is the spirit of our freemen."