Part 10 (1/2)
”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 Const.i.tution. The body of your enemies in the North, who hate the Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution. 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 rea.s.sembling 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 G.o.ds. 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 Const.i.tution.”
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 cla.s.sical 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. Ma.s.sachusetts withdrew and Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng 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. Cus.h.i.+ng 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 Const.i.tutional 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 Ma.s.sachusetts. Mr. Bell had been United States Senator at the time of the pa.s.sage 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 Const.i.tution 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.sions; 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 cheris.h.i.+ng 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 const.i.tutional power to begin or carry on a general system of internal improvements. He wanted to know where this power of the Const.i.tution 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. s.h.i.+ps 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 G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+powners, 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.