CHAPTER XXVI.

The night you left I retired to the room and did not go to sleep until after two o'clock. I felt so sad at parting with you and could not help thinking what a long dreary trip you had that night. I shall have a long journey of five thousand miles to Havana, and do not know that I shall meet a human being to whom I am known, but if I keep well I shall not mind that, especially as I am homeward bound; for my hearthstone is desolate, and clouds and darkness hover over the little remnant that is left of us, and of all our poor friends and countrymen; and, when you get home, Washington will contain nearly all that is dear to me in this world. I remained alone yesterday after I got up and went to my solitary meal. I immediately came back to my room, and have seen nothing of Christmas in Paris.

On January 1, 1867, he writes:

This is the first of the new year. How sad it opens upon me! In a foreign land, with all that is dear to me on earth beyond the ocean, either on the way to a distant home or at its desolate fireside. Well, I shall not nurse such gloomyideas. Let us hope that the new year may be happier and that we may grow better. God knows I cannot regret that 1866 is gone. I hope its calamities will not enter with us into 1867. I had hoped to hear from New York of your safe arrival on the other side of the ocean.

The loss of his daughter Sallie was a severe blow to General Toombs. But two of his children lived to be grown. His eldest daughter Louise died in 1855, shortly after her marriage to Mr. W. F. Alexander. General Toombs had a son who died in early childhood of scarlet fever. This was a great blow to him, for he always longed for a son to bear his name. Away off in Paris his heart yearned for his four little grandchildren, left motherless by this new affliction. He writes again from Paris:

I almost determined to take the steamer Saturday and run the gauntlet to New York. I would have done so but for my promise to you. I know everything looks worse and worse on our side of the ocean, but when will it be any better? Is this state of things to last forever? To me it is becoming intolerable.... Kiss the dear little children for me. Bless their hearts! How I long to see them and take them to my arms. God bless you! 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 extendhis 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. I feel so anxious about you and the children that it makes me very wretched.

From Paris, January 16, 1867, he writes:

My preparations are all complete, and I leave to-morrow on theNew Worldfor Havana and New Orleans,viaMartinique. I am well; except my throat. I shall have a long and lonesome voyage, with not much else to cheer me but that I shall find you and our dear little ones at the end of my journey. If I am permitted to find you all well, I shall be compensated for its fatigues and dangers. God grant that we may all meet once more in this world in health!Yours truly and affectionately, as ever,Toombs.

Yours truly and affectionately, as ever,Toombs.

General Toombs returned to America and after a short residence in Canada went to Washington, where he had a long interview with his old senatorial colleague, President Andrew Johnson. He went home from Washington and was never again molested. He made no petition for relief of political disabilities. He was never restored to citizenship. When Honorable Samuel J. Randall proposed his General Amnesty Act in 1875, Mr. Blaine and other Republicans desired to exclude from its provisions the names of Davis and Toombs. The Democrats would not accept this amendment,and the bill was never passed. Once, when Senator Oliver P. Morton asked General Toombs why he did not petition Congress for pardon, Toombs quietly answered, "Pardon for what? I have not pardoned you all yet."

When General Toombs finally returned to Georgia it was with a great part of his fortune gone, his political career cut off by hopeless disability, and his household desolate. These were serious calamities for a man fifty-seven years of age. He found himself forced under new and unfavorable conditions to build all over again, but he set about it in a vigorous and heroic way. His health was good. He was a splendid specimen of manhood. His once raven locks were gray, and his beard, which grew out from his throat, gave him a grizzly appearance. His dark eye was full of fire and his mind responded with vigor to its new work.

When General Toombs arrived at Washington, Ga., he consulted some of his friends over the advisability of returning to the practice of law, which he had left twenty-five years before. Their advice was against it. Things were in chaos; the people were impoverished, and the custodians of the courts were the creatures of a hostile government. But Robert Toombs was made of differentstuff. Associating himself in the practice of his profession with General Dudley M. DuBose, who had been his chief of staff, and was his son-in-law, an able and popular man in the full vigor of manhood, General Toombs returned actively to the practice of law. He was not long in turning to practical account his great abilities. Success soon claimed him as an old favorite. Business accumulated and the ex-senator and soldier found himself once more at the head of the bar of Georgia. Large fees were readily commanded. He was employed in important cases in every part of Georgia, and the announcement that Robert Toombs was to appear before judge and jury was enough to draw large crowds from city and country. His old habits of indomitable industry returned. He rode the circuits like a young barrister again. He was a close collector of claims, an admirable administrator, a safe counselor, and a bold and fearless advocate. In a short time General Toombs' family found themselves once more in comfort, and he was the same power with the people that he had always been.

Cut off from all hope of official promotion, scorning to sue for political pardon, he strove to wield in the courts some of the power he forfeited in politics. He figured largely in cases of a public nature, and became an outspoken tribune of the people. He did not hesitate to face the SupremeCourt of Georgia, then made up of Republican judges, and attack the laws of a Republican legislature. Among the bills passed at that time to popularize the legislature with the people, was a series of liberal homestead and exemption laws. They were the relief measures of 1868. By these schemes, at once rigorous and sweeping, millions of dollars were lost in Georgia. They were intended to wipe out old debts, especially contracts made during the war, and Governor Bullock had appointed a Supreme Court which sustained them. These laws were abhorrent to Toombs. He thundered against them with all the powers of his learning and eloquence. When he arose in court, there stood with him, he believed, not only the cause of his client, but the honor of the whole State of Georgia. It was much easier to seduce a poverty-stricken people by offering them measures of relief than to drive them by the bayonet or to subject them to African domination. In the case of Hardeman against Downer, in June, 1868, he declared before the Supreme Court that these homestead laws put a premium on dishonesty and robbed the poor man of his capital. "But we must consider the intention of the Act," said the Court. "Was it not the intention of the legislature to prevent the collection of just such claims as these you now bring?" "Yes, may it please the Court," saidToombs, shaking his leonine locks, "there can be no doubt that it was the intention of the legislature to defraud the creditor; but they have failed to put their intention in a form that would stand, so it becomes necessary for this Court to add its own ingenuity to this villainy. It seems that this Court is making laws rather than decisions."

In one of his dissenting opinions upon these laws, Justice Hiram Warner declared that he would not allow his name to go down to posterity steeped in the infamy of such a decision. General Toombs lost his case, but the decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The times were full of evil. The legislature was dominated by adventurers and ignorant men, and public credit was freely voted away to new enterprises. The State was undeveloped, and this wholesale system of public improvement became popular. Unworthy men were scrambling for public station, and the times were out of tune. In the midst of this demoralization Toombs was a pillar of fire. He was tireless in his withering satire, his stinging invective, his uncompromising war upon the misgovernment of the day.

Here was a fine field and a rare occasion for his pungent criticism and denunciation. His utterances were not those of a political leader. He was not trimming his sails for office. He did not shapehis conduct so as to be considered an available man by the North. He fought error wherever he saw it. He made no terms with those whom he considered public enemies. He denounced radicalism as a "leagued scoundrelism of private gain and public plunder."

In opposing the issue of State bonds to aid a certain railroad, he declared that if the legislature saddled this debt upon the taxpayers, their act would be a nullity. "We will adopt a new constitution with a clause repudiating these bonds, and like Ætna spew the monstrous frauds out of the market!"

"You may," he said, "by your deep-laid schemes, lull the thoughtless, enlist the selfish, and stifle for a while the voices of patriots, but the day of reckoning will come. These cormorant corporations, these so-called patriotic developers, whom you seek to exempt, shall pay their dues, if justice lives. By the Living God, they shall pay them."

"Georgia shall pay her debts," said Toombs on one occasion. "If she does not, I will pay them for her!" This piece of hyperbole was softened by the fact that on two occasions, when the State needed money to supply deficits, Toombs with other Georgians did come forward and lift the pressure. Sometimes he talked in a random way, but responsibility always sobered him. He was impatient of fraud and stupidity, often full of exaggerations, but scrupulous when the truth was relevant. Always strict and honorable in his engagements, he boasted that he never had a dirty shilling in his pocket.

The men who "left the country for the country's good" and came South to fatten on the spoils of reconstruction, furnished unending targets for his satire. He declared that these so-called developers came for pelf, not patriotism. "Why, these men," he said, "are like thieving elephants. They will uproot an oak or pick up a pin. They would steal anything from a button to an empire." On one occasion he was bewailing the degeneracy of the times, and he exclaimed: "I am sorry I have got so much sense. I see into the tricks of these public men too quickly. When God Almighty moves me from the earth, he will take away a heap of experience. I expect when a man gets to be seventy he ought to go, for he knows too much for other people's convenience."

"I hope the Lord will allow me to go to heaven as a gentleman," he used to say. "Some of these Georgia politicians I do not want to associate with. I would like to associate with Socrates and Shakespeare."

During his arguments before the Supreme Court, General Toombs used to abuse the Governor and the Bullock Legislature very roundly. The Court adopted a rule that no lawyer shouldbe allowed, while conducting his case, to abuse a coördinate branch of the government. General Toombs was informed that if he persisted in this practice he would be held for contempt. The next time Toombs went before the Court he alluded to the fugitive Governor in very sharp terms. "May it please your Honors, the Governor has now absconded. Your Honors have put in a little rule to catch me. In seeking to protect the powers that be, I presume you did not intend to defend the powers that were."

The papers printed an account of an interview between General Gordon and Mr. Tilden in 1880, Gordon told Tilden that he was sorry he could not impart to Tilden some of his own strength and vitality. "So my brother told me last year," answered Mr. Tilden. "I have since followed him to the grave." Toombs read this and remarked that Tilden did not think he was going to die. "No one expects to die but I. I have got sense enough to know that I am bound to die."

On one occasion Toombs was criticising an appointment made by an unpopular official. "But, General," someone said, "you must confess that it was a good appointment." "That may be, but that was not the reason it was made. Bacon was not accused of selling injustice. He was eternally damned for selling justice."

General Toombs was once asked in a crowd inthe Kimball House in Atlanta what he thought of the North. "My opinion of the Yankees is apostolic. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works." A Federal officer was standing in the crowd. He said: "Well, General, we whipped you, anyhow." "No," replied Toombs, "we just wore ourselves out whipping you."

He spoke of the spoliators in the State Legislature as "an assembly of manikins whose object is never higher than their breeches pockets; seekers of jobs and judgeships, anything for pap or plunder, an amalgamation of white rogues and blind negroes, gouging the treasury and disgracing Georgia."

He was a violent foe of exemptions, of bounties, and of all sorts of corruption and fraud. He was overbearing at times, but not more conscious of power than of honesty in its use. He was generous to the weak. It was in defense of his ideas of justice that he overbore opposition.

General Toombs kept the issues before the people. He had no patience with the tentative policy. He forfeited much of his influence at this time by his indiscriminate abuse of Northern men and Southern opponents, and his defiance of all the conditions of a restored Union. He could have served his people best by more conservative conduct, but he had all the roughness and acerbity ofa reformer, dead in earnest. It was owing to his constant arraignment of illegal acts of the post-bellum régime that the people finally aroused, in 1870, and regained the State for white supremacy and Democratic government. He challenged the authors of the Reconstruction measures to discuss the constitutionality of the amendments. Charles J. Jenkins had already carried the cause of Georgia into the courts, and Linton Stephens, before United States Commissioner Swayze in Macon, had made an exhaustive argument upon the whole subject. Toombs forced these issues constantly into his cases, and kept public interest at white heat.

In July, 1868, the people of Georgia made the first determined stand against the Republican party. John B. Gordon was nominated for Governor, and Seymour and Blair had been named in New York as National Democratic standard-bearers. A memorable meeting was held in Atlanta. It was the first real rally of the white people under the new order of things. 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. The struggles of the great and good are the noblest legacies left by the past to the presentgeneration, trophies worthy to be laid at the feet of Jehovah himself. Those whose blades glittered in the foremost ranks of the Northern army on the battlefield, with a yet higher and nobler purpose denounce the base uses to which the victory has been applied. The old shibboleths of victory are proclaimed as living principles. Whatever else may be lost, the principles of Magna Charta have survived the conflict of arms. The edicts of the enemy abolish all securities of life, liberty, and property; defeat all the rightful purposes of government, and renounce all remedies, all laws.["]

General Toombs denounced the incompetency of the dominant party in Georgia—"In its tyranny, its corruption, its treachery to the Caucasian race, its patronage of vice, of fraud, of crime and criminals, its crime against humanity and in its efforts to subordinate the safeguards of public security and to uproot the foundations of free government it has forfeited all claims upon a free people."

Alluding to General Longstreet, who had been a member of the Republican party, General Toombs said: "I would not have him tarnish his own laurels. I respect his courage, honor his devotion to his cause, and regret his errors." He denounced the ruling party of Georgia as a mass of floating putrescence, "which rises as it rots and rots as it rises." He declared that the Reconstruction Acts "stared out in their naked deformity, open to the indignant gaze of all honest men."

The campaign at that time was made upon the illegality of the amendments to the Constitution. Enthusiasm was fed by the fiery and impetuous invective of Toombs. The utterances of most public men were guarded and conservative. But when Toombs spoke the people realized that he uttered the convictions of an unshackled mind and a fearless spirit. Leaders deprecated his extreme views, but the hustings rang with his ruthless candor.

The conclusion of his Bush Arbor effort was a fine sample of his fervid speech: "All these and many more wrongs have been heaped upon you, my countrymen, without your consent. Your consent alone can give the least validity to these usurpations. Let no power on earth wring that consent from you. Take no counsel of fear; it is the meanest of masters; spurn the temptations of office from the polluted hands of your oppressors. He who owns only his own sepulcher at the price of such claims holds a heritage of shame. Unite with the National Democratic party. Your country says come; honor says come; duty says come; liberty says come; the country is in danger; let every freeman hasten to the rescue."

It was at this meeting that Benjamin H. Hill, who made so much reputation by the publication of a series of papers entitled, "Notes on theSituation," delivered one of the most memorable speeches of his life. It was a moving, overmastering appeal to the people to go to the polls. When this oration was over, the audience was almost wild, and Robert Toombs, standing on the platform, in his enthusiasm threw his hat away into the delighted throng. A young bright-faced boy picked it up and carried it back to the speakers' stand. It was Henry Grady.

The defeat of the National Democratic party in 1868 disheartened the Southern people, and the old disinclination to take part in politics seized them stronger than before. In 1870, however, General Toombs delivered, in different parts of Georgia, a carefully prepared lecture on the Principles of Magna Charta. It was just the reverse in style and conception to his fervid Bush Arbor oration. It was submitted to manuscript and was read from notes at the speakers' stand. With the possible exception of his Tremont Temple lecture, delivered in Boston in 1856, it was the only one of his public addresses so carefully prepared and so dispassionately delivered. In his opinion the principles of free government were drifting away from old landmarks. The times were out of joint, the people were demoralized. The causes which afterward led to the great revolt in the Republican ranks in 1872 were already marked in the quick perception of Toombs, and this admirable state paper was framed to put the issue before the public in a sober, statesmanlike way, and to draw the people back to their old moorings. This lecture was delivered in all the large cities and many of the smaller towns of Georgia, and had a great effect. Already there had been concerted appeal to Georgians to cease this political opposition and "accept the situation." Even statesmen like Mr. Hill had come round to the point of advising the people to abandon "dead issues." The situation was more desperate than ever.

In his Magna Charta lecture Mr. Toombs said that Algernon Sidney had summed up the object of all human wisdom as the good government of the people. "From the earliest ages to the present time," said he, "there has been a continued contest between the wise and the virtuous who wish to secure good government and the corrupt who were unwilling to grant it. The highest duty of every man, a duty enjoined by God, was the service of his country." This was the great value of the victory at Runnymede, with its rich fruits—that rights should be respected and that justice should be done. "These had never been denied for seven hundred years, until the present evil days," said Toombs. Magna Charta had been overridden and trampled underfoot by brave tyrants and evaded by cowardly ones. There hadbeen ingenious schemes to destroy it. The men of '76 fought for Magna Charta. These principles had been prominent in our Constitution until a Republican majority attempted destruction and civil war. Kings had made efforts to destroy its power and subvert its influence. Not a single noble family existed in England but which had lost a member in its defense. Society was organized to protect it, and all good and true men are required to maintain its teachings. "The assassins of liberty are now in power, but a reaction is coming. Stand firm, make no compromise, have nothing to do with men who talk of dead issues. It is the shibboleth of ruin. Push forward, and make a square fight for your liberties."

The plain but powerful summary of public obligation had a more lasting effect than his more fiery appeals. General Toombs was a potent leader in the campaign, though not himself a candidate or even a voter. General D. M. DuBose, his law partner, was elected to Congress this year, and the Democratic party secured a majority in the State Legislature. Among the men who shared in the redemption of the State Robert Toombs was the first and most conspicuous.

Some of the best speeches made by General Toombs at this time were delivered to the farmers at the various agricultural fairs. These were frequent and, as Judge Reese declared, aboundedwith wisdom which caused him years of reflection and observation. He had been reared upon a farm. His interests, as his sympathies, were with these people. He remained in active management of his large plantation, Roanoke, in Stewart County, during the period when he was a member of Congress and even when he was in the army. Two or three times a year he made visits to that place and was always in close communication with his overseers. He loved the work and was a successful farmer. A fondness for gardening and stock-raising remained with him until his last years. Even in a very busy and tempestuous life, as he characterized it in speaking to Judge Reese, a spacious garden, with orchards and vineyards, was to him an unfailing source of recreation and pleasure.

He writes to his wife of the disasters of the army at Orange Court House, Va., but finds time to add: "The gardens and fruit are great additions to the family comfort, and every effort should be made to put them in the best condition." Writing from Richmond of the condition of Lee's army in March, 1862, he does not forget to add: "I am sorry to know that the prospects of the crops are so bad. One of the best reliances now is the garden. Manure high, work well, and keep planting vegetables." From Roanoke, in 1863, he writes; "My plantation affairs are not inas good condition as I would wish. I have lost a great many sheep, have but few lambs and little wool; cattle poor—all need looking after." In the midst of the shelling of Atlanta in 1864, he writes from the trenches to his wife: "Tell Squire to put your cows and Gabriel's in the volunteer oatfield. Every day we hear cannonading in front."

It was in 1869 that General Toombs made one of his great speeches at the State fair in Columbus, in the course of which he used this expression; "The farmers of Georgia will never enjoy general prosperity until they quit making the West their corncrib and smokehouse." It was in that same speech that Toombs said, referring to the soldiers of the South; "Liberty, in its last analysis, is but the sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave." Most of the great men in Georgia have been reared in the country. There seems to be something in the pure air, the broad fields, and even the solitude, conducive to vigor and self-reliance. Attrition and culture have finished the work laid up by the farmer boy, and that fertile section of middle Georgia, so rich in products of the earth, has given greatness to the State.

In August, 1872, General Toombs was invited by the alumni of the University of Georgia to deliver the annual address during commencement week. A large crowd was in attendance and theveteran orator received an ovation. He departed from his usual custom and attempted to read a written speech. His eyesight had begun to fail him, the formation of a cataract having been felt with great inconvenience. The pages of the manuscript became separated and General Toombs, for the first time in his life, is said to have been embarrassed. He had not read more than one quarter of his speech when this complication was discovered, and he was unable to find the missing sheets. Governor Jenkins, who was sitting on the stage, whispered to him; "Toombs, throw away your manuscript and go it on general principles." The general took off his glasses, stuffed the mixed essay into his pocket, and advanced to the front of the stage. He was received with a storm of applause from the crowd, who had relished his discomfiture and were delighted with the thought of an old-time talk from Toombs. For half an hour he made one of his eloquent and electric speeches, and when he sat down the audience screamed for more. No one but Toombs could have emerged so brilliantly from this awkward dilemma.

General Toombs opposed the nomination of Horace Greeley for President by the National Democratic convention in 1872. Mr. Stephens edited the AtlantaSun, and these two friends once more joined their great powers to preventthe consummation of what they regarded as a vast political mistake. Greeley carried the State by a very reduced majority.

In January, 1873, when Mr. Stephens was defeated for the United States Senate by General John B. Gordon, General Toombs called a meeting of the leaders of the eighth district in his room at the Kimball House in Atlanta, and nominated his friend Alexander Stephens for Congress. He needed no other indorsement. He was elected and reëlected, and remained in Congress until he resigned in 1882, to become Governor of Georgia. Toombs and Stephens never lost their lead as dictators in Georgia politics.

The man in Georgia who suffered most frequently from the criticism of General Toombs during this eventful period was ex-Governor Joseph E. Brown. His position in taking his place in the Republican party, in accepting office, and separating himself from his old friends and allies, brought down upon him the opprobrium of most of the people. It was at a time when Charles J. Jenkins had carried away the great seal of Georgia and refused to surrender it to a hostile government. It was at a time when Linton Stephens, the most vigorous as the most popular public man during the reconstruction period, was endeavoring to arouse the people. Governor Brown's apostasy was unfortunate. No man was then more execrated by the people who had honored him. His name, for a while, was a byword and a reproach. Mr. Stephens defended his position as conscientious if not consistent, and gave Governor Brown the credit for the purity as well as the courage of his convictions. Governor Brown bore the contumely with patience. He contended that he could best serve the State by assuming functions that must otherwise be placed in hostile hands, and his friends declare to-day that in accepting the amendments to the Constitution he simply occupied in advance the ground to which the party and the people were forced to come. But his position did not compare favorably with that of the prominent Georgians of that day.

The relations of Governor Brown and General Toombs continued strained. The latter never lost an opportunity to upbraid him in public or in private, and some of his keenest thrusts were aimed at the plodding figure of his old friend and ally, as it passed on its lonely way through the shadows of its long probation.

On one occasion in Atlanta, in July, 1872, General Toombs among other things referred to a lobby at the legislature in connection with a claim for the Mitchel heirs. Governor Brown had remained quiet during his long political ostracism, but he turned upon his accuser now with unlooked-for severity. He answered the charge bydeclaring that if Toombs accused him of lobbying this claim, he was an "unscrupulous liar." The reply did not attract much attention until it became known that General Toombs had sent a friend to Governor Brown to know if the latter would accept a challenge. Colonel John C. Nicholls was the friend, and Governor Brown returned the answer that when he received the challenge he would let him know. General Toombs did not push the matter further. The affair took the form of a newspaper controversy, which was conducted with much acrimony on both sides. Colonel Nicholls stated in print his belief that Governor Brown would not have accepted a challenge but would have used it to Toombs' injury before the people. The prospect of a duel between these two old men created a sensation at the time. It would have been a shock to the public sense of propriety to have allowed such a meeting. It would never have been permitted; but Governor Brown seems to have been determined to put the issue to the touch. He had prepared his resignation as a deacon of the Baptist Church, and had placed his house in order. He seemed to realize that this was the turning-point of his career, and there is no doubt that General Toombs gave him the opportunity to appear in a better light than he had done for a long time; this incident was the beginning of his return to popularity and influence in Georgia. General Toombs was censured for provoking Governor Brown into the attitude of expecting a challenge and then declining to send it.

Both General Toombs and Mr. Stephens were believers in the code of honor. Mr. Stephens once challenged Governor Herschel V. Johnson, and at another time he called out Hon. Benjamin H. Hill. General Toombs peremptorily challenged General D. H. Hill after the battle of Malvern Hill. In 1859, when United States Senator Broderick was killed by Judge Terry in California, Mr. Toombs delivered a striking eulogy of Broderick in the United States Senate. He said; "The dead man fell in honorable contest under a code which he fully recognized. While I lament his sad fate, I have no censure for him or his adversary. I think that no man under any circumstances can have a more enviable death than to fall in vindication of his honor. He has gone beyond censure or praise. He has passed away from man's judgment to the bar of the Judge of all the Earth."

One of the reforms advocated by General Toombs upon the return of the white people to the control of the State Government was the adoption of a new State Constitution. He never tired of declaring that the organic law of 1868 was the product of "aliens and usurpers," and that he would have none of it; Georgia must be represented by her own sons in council and live under a constitution of her own making. In May, 1877, an election was held to determine the question, and in spite of considerable opposition, even in the Democratic party, the people decided, by nine thousand majority, to have a constitutional convention.

On July 10, 1877, that body, consisting of 194 delegates, assembled in Atlanta to revise the organic law. Charles J. Jenkins was elected president of the convention. He had been deposed from the office of Governor of Georgia at the point of the bayonet in 1866. He had carried the case of the State of Georgia before the national Supreme Court and contested the validity of theReconstruction measures. He had carried with him, when expelled from the State Capitol, the great seal of the State, which he restored when the government was again remitted to his own people, and in public session of the two houses of the General Assembly, Governor Jenkins had been presented with a facsimile of the great seal, with the fitting words cut into its face, "In Arduis Fidelis." These words are graven on his monument to-day. He was more than seventy years of age, but bore himself with vigor and ability. There was a strong representation of the older men who had served the State before the war, and the younger members were in full sympathy with them. It was an unusual body of men—possibly the ablest that had assembled since the secession convention of 1861. General Toombs, of course, was the most prominent. He had been elected a delegate from his senatorial district—the only office he had occupied since the war. His activity in securing its call, his striking presence, as he walked to his seat, clad in his long summer duster, carrying his brown straw hat and his unlighted cigar, as well as his tireless labors in that body, made him the center of interest. General Toombs was chairman of the committee on legislation and chairman of the final committee on revision. This body was made up of twenty-six of the most prominent members of the convention, and to itwere submitted the reports of the other thirteen committees. It was the duty of this committee to harmonize and digest the various matters coming before it, and to prepare the final report, which was discussed in open convention. General Toombs was practically in charge of the whole business of this body. He closely attended all the sessions of the convention, which lasted each day from 8.30 in the morning to 1 o'clockp. m.The entire afternoons were taken up with the important and exacting work of his committee of final revision. Frequently it was far into the night before he and his clerk had prepared their reports. General Toombs was in his sixty-eighth year, but stood the ordeal well. His facility, his endurance, his genius, his eloquence and pertinacity were revelations to the younger men, who knew him mainly by tradition. General Toombs proposed the only safe and proper course for the convention when he arose in his place on the floor and declared; "All this convention has to do is to establish a few fundamental principles and leave the other matters to the legislature and the people, in order to meet the ever varying affairs of human life." There was a persistent tendency to legislate upon details, a tendency which could not be entirely kept down. There was an element elected to this convention bent upon retrenchment and reform, and these delegates forced a longdebate upon lowering the salaries of public officers, a policy which finally prevailed. During the progress of this debate General Toombs arose impatiently in his place and declared that, "The whole finances of the State are not included when we are speaking of the Governor's salary, and you spend more in talking about it than your children will have to pay in forty years."

Occasionally he was betrayed into one of his erratic positions, as when he moved to strike out the section against dueling, and also to expunge from the bill of rights all restrictions upon bearing arms. He said: "Let the people bear arms for their own protection, whether in their boots or wherever they may choose."

But his treatment of public questions was full of sound sense and discretion. He warned the convention that those members who, from hostility to the State administration, wished to wipe out the terms of the office-holders and make a new deal upon the adoption of the new constitution, were making a rash mistake. They would array a new class of enemies and imperil the passage of the new law. He advocated the submission of all doubtful questions, like the homestead laws and the location of the new Capitol, to the people in separate ordinances. He urged in eloquent terms the enlargement of the Supreme Court from three justices to five. Having been a champion of thelaw calling that Court into being forty years before, he knew its needs and proposed a reform which, if adopted, would have cut off much trouble in Georgia to-day.

General Toombs was an advocate of the ordinance which took the selection of the judges and solicitors from the hands of the Governor and made them elective by the General Assembly. A strong element in the convention wanted the judiciary elected by the people. A member of the convention turned to General Toombs during the debate and said; "You dare not refuse the people this right to select their own judges." "I dare do anything that is right," replied Toombs. "It is not a reproach to the people to say that they are not able to do all the work of a complex government. Government is the act of the people after all." He reminded the convention that a new and ignorant element had been thrown in among the people as voters. "We must not only protect ourselves against them, but in behalf of the poor African," said he, "I would save him from himself. These people are kind, and affectionate, but their previous condition, whether by your fault or not, was such as to disqualify them from exercising the right of self-government. They were put upon us by people to make good government impossible in the South for all time, and before God, I believe they have done it."

In answer to the argument that those States which had given the selection of judges to the people liked it, General Toombs replied that this did not prove that it was right or best. "It is easy to take the road to hell, but few people ever return from it." General Toombs prevailed in this point. He was also the author of the resolution authorizing the legislature to levy ataxto furnish good substantial artificial limbs to those who had lost them during the war.

General Toombs declared frequently during the debate that one of his main objects in going to the convention, and for urging the people to vote for the call, was to place a clause in the new law prohibiting the policy of State aid to railroads and public enterprises. He had seen monstrous abuses grow up under this system. He had noticed that the railroads built by private enterprise had proven good investments; that no railroad aided by the State had paid a dividend. He declared that Georgia had never loaned her credit from the time when Oglethorpe landed at Yamacraw up to 1866, and she should never do it again. He wanted this license buried and buried forever. His policy prevailed. State aid to railroads was prohibited; corporate credit cannot now be loaned to public enterprises, and municipal taxation was wisely restricted. General Toombs declared with satisfaction that he had locked the door of thetreasury, and put the key into the pocket of the people.

During the proceedings of this convention an effort was made to open the courts to review the cases of certain outlawed bonds, which the legislature had refused to pay, and which the people had repudiated by constitutional amendment. Impressed by the conviction that certain classes of these bonds should be paid, the venerable president of the convention surrendered the chair and pled from his place on the floor for a judicial review of this question.

No sooner was this solemn and urgent appeal concluded than General Toombs bounded to the floor. He declared with energy that no power of heaven or hell could bind him to pay these bonds. The contract was one of bayonet usurpation. Within a few days the legislature had loaded the State down with from ten to fifteen millions of the "bogus bonds."

The term "repudiation" was distasteful to many. The bondholders did not relish it; but he thought it was a good honest word. No one was bound by these contracts, because they were not the acts of the people. "I have examined all the facts pertaining to these claims," said Toombs, "and looking to nothing but the State's integrity, I affirm that the matter shall go no further without my strenuous opposition. The legislature hasagain and again declared the claims fraudulent. The people have spoken. Let the bonds die." The convention agreed with Toombs.

On the 16th of August the convention, then in the midst of its labors, confronted a crisis. The appropriation of $25,000 made by the legislature to meet the expenses of the convention had been exhausted, and the State Treasurer notified the president that he could not honor his warrants any further. This was a practical problem. The work mapped out had not been half done. Many of the delegates were poor men from the rural districts and were especially dependent upon theirper diemduring the dull summer season. To proceed required about $1000 per day. To have crippled this body in its labors would have been a public calamity. To check upon the public treasury beyond the limit fixed by law involved a risk which the State Government, not too friendly toward the convention at best, declined to assume. To raise the money outside by a private loan presented this risk, that in the case of the rejection of the constitution, then in embryo, the lender might find himself the holder of an uncertain claim. The convention, however, was not left long in doubt. With a heroic and patrioticabandon, General Toombs declared that if Georgia would not pay her debts, he would pay them for her. Selling a dozen or two United States bonds, he placed theproceeds to the credit of the president of the convention, who was authorized in turn to issue notes of $1000 each and deposit them with General Toombs. The act was spontaneous, whole-souled, dramatic. It saved the convention and rehabilitated the State with a new constitution. By a rising and unanimous vote General Toombs was publicly thanked for his public-spirited act, and the old man, alone remaining in his seat in the convention hall, covered his face with his hands, and shed tears during this unusual demonstration.

When the convention had under review the bill of rights, General Toombs created a breeze in the proceedings by proposing a paragraph that the legislature should make no irrevocable grants of special privileges or immunities. The proposition received a rattling fire from all parts of the house. Governor Jenkins assailed it on the floor as dangerous to capital and fatal to public enterprise. It was argued that charters were contracts, and that when railroads or other interests were put upon notice that their franchise was likely to be disturbed, there would be an overthrow of confidence and development in Georgia. This was the first intimation of the master struggle which General Toombs was about to make, an advance against the corporations all along the line. It was the picket-firing before the engagement.

General Toombs had made a study of thewhole railroad question. He was a master of the law of corporations. He maintained a peculiar attitude toward them. He never invested a dollar in their stock, nor would he accept a place at their council boards. He rarely ever served them as attorney. When the General Assembly resolved to tax railroads in Georgia, the State selected General Toombs to prosecute the cases. In 1869 he had argued the Collins case against the Central Railroad and Banking Company, in which the court had sustained his position that the proposed action of the Central Road in buying up the stock of the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad, to control that road, wasultra vires. He had conducted the case of Arnold DuBose against the Georgia Railroad for extortion in freight charges.

The principles he had gleaned from this laborious record made him resolve to place restrictions upon corporate power in the new constitution. The time was ripe for this movement. The Granger legislation in the West had planted in the organic law of Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri the policy of government control over the railroads. The statutes of Pennsylvania also reflected the same principles, and the Supreme Court of the United States had decided this great case on the side of the people. General Toombs was master of the legislation on this subject inEngland, and had studied the American reports on the right and duty of the state to regulate railroad companies. He declared, in proposing this new system, that these laws had been adopted by the most enlightened governments of the world. "From the days of the Roman Empire down to the present time," said Toombs, "it has never been denied that the state has power over the corporations."

At once the State was in an uproar. "Toombs is attempting a new revolution," was alleged. He was charged with leading an idolatrous majority into war upon the rights of property. Conservative men like Jenkins deprecated the agitation. Atlanta was filled with a powerful railroad lobby, and the press resounded with warning that development of the waste places of Georgia would be retarded by this unjust and nefarious warfare. Robert Toombs was not an agrarian. His movement against the corporations was reënforced by delegates from the small towns in Georgia, who had suffered from discrimination in favor of the larger cities. Railroad traffic had been diverted by rigid and ruthless exactions, and a coterie of delegates from southwest Georgia stood solidly by Toombs. These debates drew crowds of listeners. From the galleries hundreds of interested Georgians looked down upon the last public service of Robert Toombs. He never appearedto 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. In those States where people have been fighting the encroachments of public monopolies, it had been found necessary to use these terms, and Toombs prefaced his agitation with this announcement.

General Toombs did not mince matters. He declared that the rapacious course of the railroads in Georgia had been spoliation. Monopoly is extortion. Corporations must either be governed by the law or they will override the law. Competition is liberty. Keep the hand of the law on corporations and you keep up competition; keep up competition and you preserve liberty. It has been argued that the towns and counties in Georgia had grown rich. That is the same argument that was made in the English Parliament. They said; "Look at your little colonies, how they have grown under our care." But the patriotic men of America said; "We have grown rich in spite of your oppressions." Shall we not restrain this tax-gatherer who has no judge but himself, no limit but his avarice?

General Toombs wanted it placed in the constitution that the legislature shall pass these laws restricting railroads. He declared he had twice drawn bills for that purpose; they had passed the House, but crumbled as though touched with the hand of death when they came to the forty-four (the Senate). "What," said he, "do I see before me? The grave. What beyond that? Starving millions of our posterity, that I have robbed by my action here, in giving them over to the keeping of these corporations. The right to control these railroads belongs to the State, to the people, and as long as I represent the people, I will not consent to surrender it, so help me God!"

The spirit of Toombs dominated that convention. Men moved up the aisle to take their seats at his feet as he poured out his strong appeal. One-half of that body was filled with admiration, the other half with alarm. "It is a sacred thing to shake the pillars upon which the property of the country rests," said Mr. Hammond of Fulton. "Better shake the pillars of property than the pillars of liberty," answered this Georgia Sampson, with his thews girt for the fray. "The great question is, Shall Georgia govern the corporations or the corporations govern Georgia? Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve!"

The house rang with applause. Members clustered about the old man as about the form of a prophet. The majority was with him. The articles which he had advocated came from the committee without recommendation, but they were substantially adopted, and are now parts of the supreme law of the land. The victory was won, and Robert Toombs, grim and triumphant, closed his legislative career, and claimed this work as the crowning act of his public labors.

These principles are contained in Article IV. of the State constitution of Georgia. It declares the right of taxation to be sovereign, inviolable, and indestructible, and that it shall be irrevocable by the State; that the power to regulate freight and passenger tariffs and to prevent unjust discriminations shall be conferred upon the General Assembly, whose duty it shall be to pass laws for the same; that the right of eminent domain shall never be abridged; that any amendment to a charter shall bring the charter under the provisions of the Constitution; that the General Assembly shall have no authority to authorize any corporation to buy shares of stock in any other corporation, which shall have the effect to lessen competition or encourage monopoly. No railroad shall pay a rebate or bonus.

Under these provisions, the Railroad Commission of Georgia was organized in 1879. Thisidea, as it finally worked out, was General Toombs'. He did not favor fixing the rates in the law, but the creation of such a commission to carry out these provisions. The present law was framed by Judge William M. Reese, Hon. Samuel Barnett, Ex-Senator H. D. McDaniel, and Superintendent Foreacre of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. It has worked well in Georgia. Twice has the legislature attempted to remodel it, but the people have rallied to its support and have not permitted it to be amended in so much as a single clause. It has served as an example for imitation by other States, and was cited as strong authority in Congress for the creation of the Inter-State Commerce Law. The railroad men, after fighting it for ten years, have come round to acknowledge its value. It has stood as a breakwater between the corporations and the people. It has guaranteed justice to the citizen, and has worked no injury to the railroads. Under its wise provisions Georgia has prospered, and leads the Union to-day in railroad building. And when, during a recent session of the legislature, an attempt was made to war upon railroad consolidation, the saving, overmastering, crowning argument of the railroads themselves was that General Toombs had already secured protection for the people, and that, under his masterly handiwork, the rights of property and the rights of the people were safe.

When the convention had concluded its labors, General Toombs went before the people and threw himself with enthusiasm into the canvass. He took the stump, and everywhere his voice was heard in favor of the adoption of the new organic law. Many of the officers whose term had been cut off, and whose salaries had been reduced, appeared against the constitution. General Toombs declared that those public men who did not approve of the lower salaries might "pour them back in the jug." This homely phrase became a by-word in the canvass. It had its origin in this way: In the Creek war, in which "Capt. Robert A. Toombs" commanded a company made up of volunteers from Wilkes, Elbert, and Lincoln counties, a negro named Kinch went along as whisky sutler. As he served out the liquor, some of the soldiers complained of the price he asked. His answer was, "Well, sir, if you don't like it, sir, pour it back in the jug."

In the State election of December, 1877, the new constitution was overwhelmingly adopted, and will remain for generations the organic law of the Empire State of the South.

There never was a public man in America whose home life was more beautiful or more tender than that of Robert Toombs. As great as were his public virtues, his lofty character, and abilities, his domestic virtues were more striking still. He was a man who loved his family. In 1830 he was married to Julia A. Dubose, with whom he lived, a model and devoted husband, for more than fifty years. She was a lady of rare personal beauty, attractive manners, and common sense. She shared his early struggles, and watched the lawyer grow into the statesman and the leader with unflagging confidence and love. There was never a time that he would not leave his practice or his public life to devote himself to her. His heart yearned for her during his long separation in Washington, when, during the debate upon the great Compromise measures of 1850, he wrote that he would rather see her than "save the State." He considered her in a thousand ways. He never disappointed her in coming home, but, when traveling, always returned when it was possible, just at thetime he had promised. During the exciting scenes attending his first election to the United States Senate, he writes that he feels too little interest in the result perhaps for his success, and longs to be at home. Political honors did not draw him away from his devotion to this good woman. He never neglected her in the smallest way. His attentions were as pointed and courtly in her last days as when they were bright-faced boy and girl, lovers and cousins, in the twenties. During his labors in the constitutional convention of 1877, he one day wore upon his lapel a flower she had placed there, and stopping in his speech, paid fitting tribute to the pure emblem of a woman's love. A man of great deeds and great temptations, of great passions and of glaring faults, he never swerved in loyalty to his wedded love, and no influence ever divided his allegiance there. Writing to her on May 15, 1853, while he was United States Senator, he says:

Back to Index Next