Robert Toombs

“ Perhaps he might be capable of ruining his country from pure love of turbulence and power, could he but find a pretext of force sufficient to blind first himself and then others. Yet Robert Toombs, in the Senate Chamber, takes little children in his arms, and is one of the kindest of the noblemen of Nature in the sphere of his unpolitical sympathies. The reader who is familiar with Mr. Toombs's speeches will need no assurance that he spoke frankly. ”

“ Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and Benjamin H. Hill addressed the multitude. There was much enthusiasm, and crowds gathered from every part of Georgia. This was the great "Bush Arbor meeting" of that year, and old men and boys speak of it to-day with kindling ardor. "Few people," said Toombs in that speech, "had escaped the horrors of war, and fewer still the stern and bitter curse of civil war. The histories of the greatest peoples of earth have been filled with defeats as well as victories, suffering as well as happiness, shame and reproach as well as honor and glory. ”

“ A number of years ago, before the death of Robert Toombs, who, as a member of Jefferson Davis’s cabinet was called the “backbone of the confederacy,” the spirit of progress reached the town where Toombs lived. The thing most needed was a new hotel. The business men got together and subscribed money with enthusiasm, counting upon Toombs, who was their richest man, for the largest subscription. But when they finally went to him, he said:
“What do we want of a hotel? When a gentleman comes [Pg 69] to town I will entertain him myself; those who are not gentlemen we don’t want!” ”

“ Like Astor, he invested much of his holdings in land, and owned a large number of fine plantations in middle Georgia. When he died his estate probably reached two hundred thousand dollars.
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CHAPTER XXX. HIS GREAT FAULT.
No just biography of Robert Toombs can be written that does not take into notice the blemishes as well as the brightness of his character. He was a man on a grand scale. His virtues were heroic, his faults were conspicuous. No man despised hypocrisy more than he did, and no one would have asked any sooner to be painted as he was, without concealment. ”

“ Pray for me that I may be a better man in the new year than in all the old ones before in my time.
Early in January General Toombs decided to sail for Cuba and thence to New Orleans. If he found it unsafe to remain in the South he concluded he could either go back to Cuba or extend [313] his travels into Canada. He had promised his wife he would remain abroad for the present. But he writes:
The worst that can happen to me is a prison, and I don't see much to choose between my present condition and any decent fort. ”

“ From the galleries hundreds of interested Georgians looked down upon the last public service of Robert Toombs. He never appeared [348] to finer advantage. His voice lacked its old-time ring, his beard was gray and his frame was bent, but he was fearless, aggressive, alert, eloquent. He was master of the whole subject. Railways, he declared, were public highways. Upon no other principle could they receive land from the State, under its right of eminent domain, than that this land was condemned for public and not for private use. A public highway means that it must be used according to law. ”

“ I am impatient to get into neutral waters, when I can talk. I have not had a square, honest talk in six months."
By the time the good ship had cleared the harbor, everybody on board knew that Robert Toombs, "the fire-eater and rebel," was a passenger, and hundreds gathered around to listen to his matchless conversation.
Lieutenant Irvin never saw General Toombs again until 1868. He himself was an officer of the Irvin artillery, Cutts' battalion, being a part of Walker's artillery in Longstreet's corps. Entering the army at seventeen years of age, Charles E. Irvin was a veteran at twenty-one. ”

“ Toombs declared: "If any discrimination is made between free and slave labor it ought to be in favor of free labor." "But," said he, "the Whigs of Georgia want no such partial protection as Mr. Calhoun offers; they want protection for all classes of labor and home industry. The Whigs protest against these efforts to prejudice the South against the North, or the North against the South. They have a common interest as well as a common history. The blood that was mingled at Yorktown and at Eutaw cannot be kept at enmity forever. The Whigs of Bunker Hill are the same as the Whigs of Georgia." ”

“ There is no question of courage involved. The people of both sections of this Union have illustrated their courage on too many battlefields to be questioned. They have shown their fighting qualities shoulder to shoulder whenever their country has called upon them; but that they may never come in contact with each other in fratricidal war, should be the ardent wish of every true man and honest patriot."—Robert Toombs, Speech in U. S. Senate, 1856. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Our claim to the territory north of the Columbia River was the Spanish title only, and this had been an inchoate right.
Mr. Toombs wanted the question settled by reason. He impetuously declared that "neither the clamors within nor without this hall, nor the ten thousand British cannon, floating on every ship, or mounted on every island, shall influence my decision in a question like this." He was for peace—for honorable peace. "It is the mother of all the virtues and hopes of mankind." No man would go further than he to obtain honorable peace ”

“ 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. ”

“ Toombs was the embodiment of virtue, and the strictest defender of the sanctity of marriage on the part of man as [24] well as woman. His whole life was a sermon of purity and devotion.
Judge William M. Reese, who practiced law with Mr. Toombs, and was his partner from 1840 to 1843, gives this picture of Toombs at the bar: "A noble presence, a delivery which captivated his hearers by its intense earnestness: a thorough knowledge of his cases, a lightning-like perception of the weak and strong points of controversy; a power of expressing in original and striking language his strong convictions ”

“ Toombs is the only Southern man who has had the pluck to go into the antislavery camp and talk aloud of the Constitution. Other Southern men, not afraid to face Boston, have been afraid to face opinion at home. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pope, died in Alabama. He had been a railroad contractor and his affairs were much involved. General Toombs promptly went to his place, bought in his property for the family, and left the place for the wife and children, just as it stood. From Mobile he writes a grief-stricken letter to his wife, December 28, 1855:
I feel that I must pour out my sorrows to someone, and whom else can I look to but to one who, ever faithful and true, has had my whole heart from my youth till now? ”

“ The officer watched them intently as they rode leisurely through the town, but he was really more interested in their fine horses, "Gray Alice" and "Young Alice," than in the men. Jogging unconcernedly along until the town was hidden by a hill, General Toombs urged his horse into a run, and left "his friends, the enemy," far in the rear. It was a close call, but he did not breathe freely yet. There was possibility of pursuit, and when the party reached the residence of a Mr. Brown, a messenger was sent back to the town to mislead the soldiers should pursuit be attempted. ”

“ B. F. Hallet of Boston, in 1856, Mr. Toombs denied saying that he would "call the roll of his slaves at the base of Bunker Hill Monument." He charged Senator Hale with misrepresenting him to this extent.
No man was oftener misquoted by word of mouth or in public print. As bold as he was in speech and as free to speak out what was in his mind, he once remarked to an intimate friend, Dr. Steiner of Augusta, that he rarely ever saw his name in print that it was not attached to a lie. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But General Scott, he believed, was a Free-Soil candidate. He would be in favor of annexing Canada, but no more slave territory. Mr. Toombs alluded to the Democratic candidate for President, General Franklin Pierce, as a very consistent man in all his senatorial career, and believed he was the safest man on the slavery question north of Mason and Dixon's line. He preferred Pierce to Scott, but said he would not vote for either. The contest was "between a big general and a little general." ”

“ Wilkes had been a Union county, but in 1837 it returned to the lower house two Democrats, and Robert A. Toombs, the only Whig. Nothing but his recognized ability induced the people to make an exception in his favor. Besides his reputation as an orator and advocate, Toombs had just returned from the Creek war, where he had commanded a company and served under General Winfield Scott in putting down the insurrection of Neahmatha, the Indian chief. He now brought to public life the new prestige of a soldier. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [190] 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 ”

“ This would have brought him in close contact with the army, which he was anxious to serve. The parties behind this movement believed that [242] the great abilities of Mr. Toombs should not be hidden behind the command of a brigade. He would have made an ideal war minister. His genius for details and his ability to manage affairs and plan campaigns would have overmatched Edwin M. Stanton. But Mr. Toombs promptly cut off this movement in his behalf.
On 22d March, 1862, he wrote to his wife from Orange Court House, Va. ”

“ Tired of the long horseback ride, having been nearly six months in the saddle, the men now secured an ambulance from Toombs' plantation in Stewart County, and crossed the river into Alabama. His faithful mare, which he was forced to leave behind, neighed pathetically as her master rode away in a boat and pulled for the Alabama shore. At Evergreen they took the train, and it seemed that half the men on the cars recognized General Toombs. ”

“ Augusta was in the heart of the district which he was contesting for Congress, and the Democrats, to strengthen their cause, brought over McDuffie from South Carolina. Large crowds were present in the shady yard surrounding the City Hall; seats had been constructed there, while back in the distance long trenches were dug, and savory meats were undergoing the famous process of barbecue. Speaking commenced at ten o'clock in the morning, and, with a short rest for dinner, there were seven hours of oratory. People seldom tired in those days of forensic meetings. Toombs was on his mettle. ”