He was also, as I know, almost a lightning calculator, and fully indoctrinated in the science of accounts.
Surely this man, now thirty-five, is ripe for congress.
January 12, 1846, the United States house of representatives having under consideration a resolution of notice to Great Britain to abrogate the convention between her and the United States, of August 6, 1827,relative to the region commonly called Oregon, Toombs made his congressional debut.
It is an able speech for a new member—especially for one grappling with a question peculiar to a part of the country so far away from his own. Convinced that the adoption of the resolution could give no just cause of offence, he will not yield anything to those who merely cry up the blessings of peace. The warlike note is deep and earnest. Then comes the most original part of the speech. Showing great familiarity with the facts and the applicable international law, he does his utmost to prove that the title of each country is bad; and it seems to me that he succeeds. He urges that the time has arrived when American settlers are ready to pour into Oregon. “Terminate this convention and our settlements will give us good title.”
Of course I believe that Calhoun’s policy, as I have explained it above, was the true one, and that we should have continued the convention as to joint occupancy as long as possible. Toombs was bred among the followers of Crawford, who regarded Calhoun as his rival for the presidency, and I doubt if he ever did neutralize this early influence enough to enable himself to do full justice to Calhoun. And as a further palliation, his combative temperament must be remembered, and also that he had inherited from a gallant Revolutionary father an extreme readiness to fight England.
July 1, 1846, he discusses a proposal to reduce import duties in a long speech, carefully premeditated as is evident. He shows great familiarity with Adam Smith, economical principles, fluctuations in prices of leading commodities, and the consequences of affecting legislation. Its main interest here is the detailed argument in its concluding passages against the expediency of free trade, of which he afterwards became an advocate.
January 8, 1847, a speech on the proposed increase of the army is his next considerable effort. He denounces the Mexican war as unjust in its origin, but he reprehends its feeble conduct. He is very strong, from the southern standpoint, in what he says of the Wilmot proviso. Here is a passage characteristic of Toombs later on:
“The gentleman from New York [Grover] asked how the south could complain of the proposed proviso accompanying the admission of new territory, when the arrangement was so very fair and put the north and south on a footing of perfect equality. The north could go there without slaves, and so could the south. Well, I will try it the other way. Suppose the territory to be open to all; then southerners could go and carry slaves with them, and so could northerners. Would not this be just as equal? [Much laughter.] I will not answer for the strength of the argument, but it is as good as what we of the south get. [Laughter.]”
Winthrop, who followed, commences by deprecating the necessity that exposed him to the disadvantage of contrast with a speech which had attracted so much attention and admiration. And Stephens praised the effort greatly.[99]
December 21, 1847, Toombs offered a resolution in the house, that neither the honor nor interest of the republic demand the dismemberment of Mexico, nor the annexation of any of her territory as an indispensable condition to the restoration of peace.
His Taylor speech of July 1, 1848, evinces warm whig partisanship.
In his first years at the bar he loitered a while as a speaker. And one who studies his record in congress discerns that it is some two years before he commences to feel easy as a member of the house. The speecheswhich I have mentioned above, with the solitary exception of that of January 8, 1847, are labored communication of cram rather than the peculiar language of the speaker who, when I commenced to observe him a few years later on the stump, had become a marvel both of strong thinking and fit expression extempore.
I detect a gleam of the coming man, when August 4, 1848, and February 20, 1849, he exhibits his inveterate hostility to maintaining and increasing an army in time of peace. Next he begins his lifelong war upon high salaries, and the extravagance and waste of congressional printing. Note what he says February 29, 1848, advocating reduction of salaries of patent examiners; and his denouncing the evil of congress’s publishing agricultural works, in two speeches, the one made March 20, 1848, the other January 18, 1849. These are short, but strong, and their forcible style gives sure promise that the true Toombs is at hand. He suddenly found his real self in December, 1849, when his lead towards secession commenced, as I shall detail later. After that date he soon becomes one of the strongest and most influential members; and especially one whose speech greatly attracts audience. I must support this assertion by the record. With my limited space I must be very brief. My trouble is that the many examples which I could use are all so good it is hard to decide what must be left out. While I shall always give dates, so that my statements can be checked by reference to theGlobe, I need not confine myself strictly to the order of time.
His mastery of parliamentary law is a good subject to begin with.
January 18, 1850, it was moved that the sergeant-at-arms act as doorkeeper until one be elected. The chair decided that the question affected the organization of the house and was therefore one of privilege. On anappeal there was much discussion. Here is the part played by Toombs:
“Mr. Toombs.I apprehend that the speaker has committed error. This is not an office known to the law; it was created only by the rules of the house. The office of speaker and clerk alone are known to the law.... It is not every officer whom by their rules they may choose to appoint, that is necessary to the organization of the house. Suppose that by a rule they provided for the appointment of a bootblack; could a resolution for his appointment be made a question of privilege to arrest and override all other business?Mr. Bayley inquired of the gentleman from Georgia if a rule was not as clearly obligatory upon the house as a law.Mr. Toombs.It is; but its execution is not a question of organization.”
“Mr. Toombs.I apprehend that the speaker has committed error. This is not an office known to the law; it was created only by the rules of the house. The office of speaker and clerk alone are known to the law.... It is not every officer whom by their rules they may choose to appoint, that is necessary to the organization of the house. Suppose that by a rule they provided for the appointment of a bootblack; could a resolution for his appointment be made a question of privilege to arrest and override all other business?
Mr. Bayley inquired of the gentleman from Georgia if a rule was not as clearly obligatory upon the house as a law.
Mr. Toombs.It is; but its execution is not a question of organization.”
A reversal was the result.
The following took place February 20, 1851, and is a good illustration of his forcible way of putting things:
“Mr. Toombs.(Interrupting Mr. Stanton) called the gentleman to order. The committee ought not to tolerate this custom of speaking to matters not immediately before it.The Chairman.Does the gentleman from Georgia raise the point of order that the remarks of the gentleman from Tennessee are not in order because they have no reference to the bill before the committee.Mr. Toombs.My point is that debate upon steamboats is not in order upon a pension bill.The Chairman.I decide the gentleman is in order. It has been invariable practice to permit such debate in committee of the whole on the state of the union.Mr. Toombs.The practice may have been permitted; but it was wrong.”
“Mr. Toombs.(Interrupting Mr. Stanton) called the gentleman to order. The committee ought not to tolerate this custom of speaking to matters not immediately before it.
The Chairman.Does the gentleman from Georgia raise the point of order that the remarks of the gentleman from Tennessee are not in order because they have no reference to the bill before the committee.
Mr. Toombs.My point is that debate upon steamboats is not in order upon a pension bill.
The Chairman.I decide the gentleman is in order. It has been invariable practice to permit such debate in committee of the whole on the state of the union.
Mr. Toombs.The practice may have been permitted; but it was wrong.”
On appeal by Toombs the chairman was reversed.
Though Toombs—a whig—had stubbornly opposed the candidacy of Howell Cobb—a democrat—he soonbecame to the latter, after his election as speaker, the leading parliamentary authority. Often there would be confused clamor and wild disorder, nearly every member proposing something. At a loss himself, Cobb would look at Toombs and see him intently conning his Jefferson. Soon he would rise, and being recognized by the speaker at once, would forthwith suggest the right thing.
The foregoing was often told by Cobb, as his friends have informed me.
February 24, 1853, he shows up the bad consequences of overpaid offices, the duties of which the holders can hire others to do for half of its compensation; and March 2, the same year, he thus speaks of a cognate evil:
“The gentleman seems to go upon the principle that as many clerks with high salaries should be attached to one office as to any other—the principle of equalizing the patronage of these different offices without regard to the species of labor required by each.”
I append here a collection of short extracts from Toombs’s speeches in the lower house, which illustrate his power to tickle the ear by striking presentation, epigram, and novel expression:
Debate always Harmless.“A little more experience will show the gentleman that he is mistaken, and that the absence of discussion here does not accelerate adjournment. The most harmless time which is spent by the house, he will find, is that spent in discussion.” February 17, 1852.Nominees of National Conventions.“What are the fruits of your national conventions?... They have brought you a Van Buren, a Harrison, a Polk, and a General Taylor.... I mean no disparagement to any one of these. All of them but one [Van Buren] have paid the last debt of nature, and the one who survives, unfortunately for himself, has survived his reputation.” July 3, 1852.Two Classes of Economists.“There is a class of economists who will favor any measure by which they can cut off wrong or extravagant expenditures. But there is another class who are always preaching economy—who are always ready to apply the rule of economy and get economical in every case except that before the house.” February 17, 1852.Principles of Banking.“If we intend to regulate the business of banking in this District, the bill does too little; if we do not, it does too much, As it does not seek to control generally the business of banking, but permits the issue of notes greater than five dollars, it violates the principles of unrestrained banking, but does not go to the extent of regulation by law. I think the public are more likely to suffer, and to a greater extent, from bank issues above five dollars than those under that amount.” January 11, 1853.The Dahlonega Mint, in his own State.“I believe the mints at Dahlonega, Charlotte, and New York are each unnecessary.... I do not desire to continue abuses in Georgia any more than in New York. I am willing to pull up all abuses by the root.... I think the existing mint is adequate to the wants of the country.” February 17, 1853.Personal Explanations in Debate of Appropriations.“I believe that with all the abuses we have had in the discussion of appropriation bills, we have never had personal explanations.” February 21, 1850.
Debate always Harmless.“A little more experience will show the gentleman that he is mistaken, and that the absence of discussion here does not accelerate adjournment. The most harmless time which is spent by the house, he will find, is that spent in discussion.” February 17, 1852.
Nominees of National Conventions.“What are the fruits of your national conventions?... They have brought you a Van Buren, a Harrison, a Polk, and a General Taylor.... I mean no disparagement to any one of these. All of them but one [Van Buren] have paid the last debt of nature, and the one who survives, unfortunately for himself, has survived his reputation.” July 3, 1852.
Two Classes of Economists.“There is a class of economists who will favor any measure by which they can cut off wrong or extravagant expenditures. But there is another class who are always preaching economy—who are always ready to apply the rule of economy and get economical in every case except that before the house.” February 17, 1852.
Principles of Banking.“If we intend to regulate the business of banking in this District, the bill does too little; if we do not, it does too much, As it does not seek to control generally the business of banking, but permits the issue of notes greater than five dollars, it violates the principles of unrestrained banking, but does not go to the extent of regulation by law. I think the public are more likely to suffer, and to a greater extent, from bank issues above five dollars than those under that amount.” January 11, 1853.
The Dahlonega Mint, in his own State.“I believe the mints at Dahlonega, Charlotte, and New York are each unnecessary.... I do not desire to continue abuses in Georgia any more than in New York. I am willing to pull up all abuses by the root.... I think the existing mint is adequate to the wants of the country.” February 17, 1853.
Personal Explanations in Debate of Appropriations.“I believe that with all the abuses we have had in the discussion of appropriation bills, we have never had personal explanations.” February 21, 1850.
Toombs is now about to leave the lower for the upper house. He has grown in all directions in the qualifications and powers marking the good representative. There is no other man in the house, from either section, whose ability is superior or whose promise greater. Three days before his career in the United States senate begins, he made the following appeal, protesting against hasty and reckless expenditure, which seems to me a model of matter and extemporaneous expression:
“In this bill the fortification bill is introduced; and provision made for private wagon ways for Oregon and California. Thereis in it an appropriation of $100,000 to pay somebody for the discovery of ether. You have a provision for a Pacific railroad; and you have job upon job to plunder the government in the military bill;—and the representatives of the people are called upon to vote on all these grave questions under five minutes’ speeches. You do gross injustice to yourselves; you betray great interests of the people when you act upon such important measures in this manner. Let the house reject the amendments; let the senate devote its time to maturing bills, and send them to us to be acted upon deliberately; and then whichever way congress determines for itself, it will have a right so to do. But to act upon them in this way, is not only to abdicate our powers, but to abdicate our duties. Put your hands upon these amendments and strike them out.” March 1, 1853.
Manifestly all that he had learned of the pending bill was from having heard it read. The instant apprehension and accurate statement, and the exhaustion of the subject in far shorter time than his small allowance—these recall what I often heard Stephens say, “No one else has ever made such perfect and telling impromptus as Toombs.”
His famous Hamilcar outburst did not consume all of his five minutes.
Toombs was United States senator from March 4, 1853, until the spring of 1861. His peculiarities must be suggested. Although he was perhaps the ablest lawyer in the senate, loved the profession with all the ardor of first love, and had great cases with large fees offered him every day, he resolutely subordinated law practice to his congressional duties. He did much practice, but it was all in the vacations of congress. He did not seek office. There is not to be found, so far as I know, a trace of any aspiration of his during his congressional career for other than the place of senator. If on a special committee, he worked energetically; but he avoided the standing committees. He says:
“It is only occasionally that I go to the committee meetings to make a quorum to act on important business. I do not attend them one day more than I am obliged to, for I am quite sure it is not my duty unless charged with a certain subject. This whole machinery is a means of transferring the legislation of the country from those to whose hands the constitution commits it to irresponsible juntas.... I say general standing committees, without any exception, are great nuisances, and they ought to be abolished.... They are not proper bodies to exercise legislative powers. They are not known in the country from which we derive our institutions. The English have no standing committees. They raise special committees on special objects.”[100]February 18, 1859.
“The general business of the country,” as he expressed it, January 10, 1859, that was his concern. Each subject requiring the action of the senate, whether important or trivial, received his industrious attention, as his course and language on the floor always show; and he evidently feels it his duty to furnish the body on all questions the utmost instruction and aid that he can possibly give. He had no ambition to be the author of novel measures—he was strenuous only to bestow upon every subject of current legislation the proper consideration. His premeditated efforts are but few. He never shows any distrust of his offhand faculty. He takes part in nearly all the discussions, often being up several times the same day on the same subject. He is seldom lengthy, hardly ever away from the point needing explanation, and never, never dull. Generally he comes with correcting fact or enlightening principle, and it is seldom that his matter and words are not both impressive. I found it well in writing the Life mentioned above to present the most of his senatorial course by assorting hisutterances under their proper heads, with the briefest possible comment, rather than to narrate chronologically in the common way of biographers. In his speeches it is only now and then that he is steadily progressive as he was in the Iowa contested election case. His advocacy or opposition is generally founded upon a principle, and from this principle—usually central and self-evident—the different passages radiate in aphorisms, self-supporting paragraphs, and detached arguments,—this common radiation being their only connection. Accordingly if you know what is the particular subject that is under discussion, a part taken at random anywhere from any of his extempore speeches is nearly always complete in itself and fully intelligible. Therefore we can have him to give in his own words, in a comparatively small space, an approximately full collection of the rich and varied teachings of his senatorial career, although our chrestomathy would appear to one putting it beside the unmutilated report of theGlobeas a beggarly and jejune abstract. I know of no other public man with whom this can be as satisfactorily done. Of course the compilation made by me, as just told, cannot be given here. He challenged every bad and defended every good measure. He is on record both by speech, nearly always hitting the nail on the head, and by vote, nearly always right, upon every one. What he did in the house deserves close attention; but his actings and doings in the senate, to which he belonged from March 4, 1853, until shortly after his famous speech of January 7, 1861, when he left to go with his seceding State, are such that I challenge all students of history to produce a single example of such earnest grappling with and able handling of so many matters of importance in so short a time—not eight full years—by any member of ancient or modern parliaments.
Having now, I hope, aroused my readers to some faint conception of Toombs’s greatness as a senator in non-sectional matters, I must bring that greatness into fuller view, if I can. I therefore add to the foregoing catalogue the rough character sketch next following.
We begin with his devotion to his duties. One examining theGlobewill hardly find any other member who calls as often for the reading of the reports accompanying bills to pay private claims, and such other small matters; and he will always observe that his immediate comment shows that he has fully taken in what has been read. He said once, “I have been reproached half a dozen times within the last two days as being rather fractious because I desired to understand the business on which I was called to vote.” August 3, 1854.
The alert and intelligent vigilance which he gives every measure proposed seems superior to that of all his colleagues. They acknowledge this by the many inquiries they make of him for information as to pending bills. Thus June 20, 1860, Green asks him where is the amendment? when was it adopted? has the house disagreed to it? has it been before a committee? etc., and every query is answered without hesitation. This but examples how the other senators very often made a convenience of Toombs’s accurate note of what was passing.
He shows a like readiness upon facts of history—especially English and American—on clauses of the constitution, or statutes, or treaties, provisions of the law of nations, principles of political economy, institutions, commercial systems, customs of particular nations, and all such topics as may illustrate the pending question, however suddenly it may have risen. And so he discusses every matter, grave or trivial, with perfect grasp of the proposition submitted, and with fullnessof knowledge and understanding. He avoids strained and over-ingenious reasoning. Plain and safe men never disparaged his arguments by calling them hair-splitting or metaphysical. But though he took his stand upon the palpable meaning of undisputed facts and the most plainly applicable doctrines of reason and justice, he displayed an unparalleled power of formulating in intelligible and striking words the key principles of common affairs. This gift always found instant appreciation with practical men, and they admired it as genius. Though he has his eye ever open to principle, he is the very opposite of the mere doctrinaire. He is practical, and always pushing business on, except when the bills depleting the treasury—to use his favorite name for them—are up and likely to pass because of the coalition between the opposition and the fishy democrats which he is always exposing with exhaustless variety of language. Only then he prefers to do nothing.
As to his own measures, he changes words, accepts amendments—in short makes every concession which will gain him the substance of his desire.
We will here say a little of him as a speaker. He thus describes himself:
“I speak rapidly; but the idea which I intend to utter generally comes out, sometimes perhaps with too much plainness of speech. What I say, I mean; and the whole of what I mean generally gets out.” July 30, 1856.
He shows in the following a contemptuous opinion of written speeches:
“As a general rule a speech that is fit to be spoken is not fit to be printed, and one fit to be printed is not fit to be spoken.... The senator from New York [Seward] comes in with his already in type; other gentlemen around me, on both sides of the house, from all sections of the union, who think proper to writeessays, bring them here and read them to the senate.... I am not objecting to their character, but I would rather read them in my room. Of course nobody pays any attention to them here.” April 22, 1858.
He did not habitually correct the report of his speeches, as he says May 13, 1858; at the same time entering a general disclaimer as to all that he does not report himself. This disclaimer must not be pressed too far. If you are familiar with the man you need not fear being led astray by the inaccuracies, the number of which he greatly exaggerates. His stamp is so unmistakable that you always know what is his. Extempore discussion was his forte. Therefore nearly all the quotations I use in the Life which I have written I intentionally take from his shorter, impromptu, and evidently unrevised speeches. These unlabored effusions, it matters not how dry or small the particular theme may be, have generally the double merit of showing the true solution and refreshing with figure, apt illustration, or wit.[101]
In important debate he is conspicuously the strongest man in the senate. We will run over the leading ones:
July 28, 1854, a bill containing appropriations for places in nearly every one of the States came up. Through the long debate he evinces uncommon power and readiness. He is too tart in rejoinder, and too much gives the rein to invective.
In the two days’ debate of the mail steamer appropriation—February 27, 28, 1855,—he distinguishes himself.
February 6, 1856, Toombs, with Hunter and Toucey, supports a resolution proposing the origination of appropriation bills in the Senate. Sumner and Seward take the other side. The argument of Seward is very elaborate, notwithstanding his declaration at the outset that he is wholly unprepared. It is demolished by Toombs in his most crushing style. Note, too, how accurate the latter is as to the proceedings of the constitutionalconvention, how familiar he is with the abuses of wild appropriations which he is trying to correct, and how graphically he depicts them.
July 28, 1856, the Black Lake harbor appropriation is the subject. All that he says is noticeable for power; especially his replies to interruptions by Pugh, Wade, and Cass. Though the bill was passed over his head, as you read the report you feel that his was the actual triumph.
July 30, 1856, another debate of river and harbor improvements. It is begun by Hunter. Benjamin takes the lead in support of the bill; Toombs joins discussion with the latter, who by his coolness and adroitness for a while foils his adversary; but soon Toombs gets his feet firmly on the constitution, and still more firmly upon the injustice of extorting the support of commerce from other interests, and he is resistless. The disputants often put questions to one another. Toombs’s promptness to answer every adverse position is a taking exhibition. It is to be noted that many sparkling sentences are struck out of him by the incessant hammering of the others. At the close, he seems either to have wearied or silenced his opponents. One cannot but feel that this is no arena for a man who can make only written speeches.
August 4, 1856, the subject being the improvement of the Mississippi, Toombs urges that the valley is prosperous, and it should improve its river. The examination he gives the question is profoundly searching. Towards the conclusion of the debate, Cass reads the counter doctrine of Calhoun, in the report of latter to the Memphis convention, his reason being, as he says: “I will confess frankly my object in reading it. The senator from Georgia has treated the question with great ability; and I want the same vehicle that carrieshis remarks to the public to carry also the opinions and views of Mr. Calhoun, whose authority is vastly better than mine.”
Through the whole of this debate the faculty and force exhibited by Toombs are wonderful even for him.
Consider all that he says of the proper management of the post-office, February 28, 1859.
January 30, 1860, there was an animated debate, which occupied the morning and was renewed in the evening. The vigorous blows which he deals the coalition passing the appropriations—ever the theme of his severest reprehension—and the review he makes of each item in the appropriation bill, taken all in all, are high feats.
His conduct, January 6, 1857, in the Iowa contested election manifests such rare courage against party and section for the right that it must be told at some length. We think it belongs with the more important matters just noticed rather than to its chronological place.
Harlan, a republican, had been sitting for some time as a senator from Iowa. There was no contestant. The adverse report was grounded upon a protest of the Iowa senate, stating that that body did not participate in the so-called joint convention which had affected to elect Harlan. It appeared that both houses of the Iowa legislature had met in joint convention, had balloted without result, and the convention had adjourned to meet at 10 A. M. the next day. On this day the senate—the majority of its members manifestly being democrats and opposed to the sense of the joint majority—met in their own chamber and adjourned before the hour appointed for the assembling of the convention. But a majority of the senate were present in the convention when it made the election—several of them having been brought in by the sergeant-at-arms, and who protested that they did not act in the proceedings.In the United States senate the democrats were in a majority, but Toombs, who was always above mere party considerations, supported the cause of Harlan, saying afterwards, “I maintained his title, black Republican though he was, because I believed it stood on right.” February 15, 1858. The decision was against Harlan; but I do not think that an unbiased man who regards mere technical rules as no more than the instruments of justice, will fail to concur with Toombs. His treatment of the subject is extremely good and entertaining. Every material fact is given prominence; every important distinction taken, as, for instance, that the convention, as it could do no legislative act and did not require the concurrence of the executive, was not really the legislature, but only the persons constituting the legislature acting in a body of their own as electors; and further, his position that after the convention had organized it could proceed with the election as long as it had a quorum. Having completed a most lawyer-like and concatenated argument, which is a wonderful exhibition of concise and exhaustive extemporaneous reasoning, he rises to the higher plane of statesmanship and justice, in which he shows in a vivid light what a monstrous evil it would be to approve the factious withdrawal of the majority of the Iowa senate from the convention. Note especially the many questions asked him by different members, and the readiness and satisfactoriness of his answers.[102]It is all in all one of the best samples of Toombs’s dispassionate debate to which I can refer. Very probably the democrats would have done right by Harlan had it not been for Bayard’s argument, the special effectiveness of which was the use he made of the case of his own election, in 1839, to the United States senate by the Delaware legislature. As he stated it, itwas this: There being a majority of one in the Delaware house of representatives in favor of the opposite party, a majority of that house refused to go into the joint balloting. Bayard was elected, and it was maintained by his party, the democrats, that a majority of the members of the two houses had authority to proceed; but he hesitated, and at last consulted Silas Wright, of New York. The latter gave a decided opinion that such an election was invalid. Whereupon Bayard succumbed, and his State was without a senator for two years. I cannot help feeling that if Wright had considered the subject and bottomed it on true principle, as Toombs afterwards did, Bayard would have settled down in the opposite conclusion, and he and Toombs in concert would have forced their fellow-democrats of the United States senate into doing justice to an opponent.
Many have been superior to Toombs in making perfect orations, but it is hard to find in any deliberative body a match for him as a debater. Charles Fox was a giant; but he did not have the strength, the grip, the never remitted activity, the infinite thrust, the parry, illustration, wit, epigram, and invincible appeal to conscience, feeling, and reason—in short, the complete supply and command of all resources that marked Toombs as foremost in the pancratium of parliamentary discussion. It ought to add inexpressible brightness to his fame that he sought for no triumphs except those of justice and good policy. He was far more than a mere logician in debate. His brilliant snatches, his sudden uprisings, his thawing humor, and flashing wit—all these did their part as effectively in winning favor and working suasion as his array of facts and his ratiocination did theirs in convincing. He was too prone to use harsh language towards the other side. There are many places in his speeches where I wish he had used soft instead of bitterwords. That he could observe perfect parliamentary propriety there are proofs in theGlobe. Especially would I refer to his behavior in the Harlan debate, spoken of a moment ago, and his discussion of the Indiana senatorial election, June 11, 1858. Note the last especially (belonging volume, 2943-2947) for his moderation, courtesy, and invitation of question while he is most ably supporting the central proposition he had before urged in the Iowa case.
Yet, in spite of his occasional vehemence and acrimonious language, he seems to have the respect and regard of even his most decided political opponents. Wade and he recognize each the great merit of the other. Once after applauding his honesty and frankness, Toombs says of him: “He and I can agree about everything on earth until we get to our sable population, I do believe.” March 22, 1858.
Wade had already said this of Toombs: “I commend the bold and direct manner in which the senator from Georgia always attacks his opponents.” February 28, 1857.
February 8, 1858, Fessenden said, “I am very happy to get that admission from the senator from Georgia. It is made with his customary frankness and clearness.”
Hale also respects him. January 23, 1857, he says that Toombs ought to have been on the bench, complimenting his desire for justice and fairness as well as his legal ability.
The northern democrat Simmons loves to praise him, as is evidenced by what he says June 2, 1858, February 9, 1859, and June 23, 1860.
Such unsought and spontaneous commendations of the great southern partisan by northern men during the heat of sectional agitation are extraordinarily strong proofs of his high character as well as great genius.
Of course the southern members showed their appreciation. Especially note what Bayard says March 21, 1860, and what Butler says January 6, 1857. I could give many more such; but I shall only add here how, February 14, 1860, by reason of the importunate urgency of some of these, evidently regarding him as the special southern champion, he is pushed into making an able rejoinder to Hale, who had just concluded a reply to Toombs’s speech on the Invasion of States.
Toombs’s inflexible keeping to what he deemed the right course parallels the absolute fearlessness with which Julius Cæsar, when a young man, clung to the wife whom the all-powerful and bloody-minded Sulla commanded him to put away. The Sulla of America are the people in their unconscientious moments, and unpopularity the proscription threatened which disquiets almost all public men with torturing apprehension. And so there is in nearly every one some admixture of the trimmer. But Toombs never showed fear either of the people at large or of those of his own State and locality. He thus scourges juries assessing the value of land condemned for the government:
“It has come to such a pass that in getting places for the army, it seems to be considered better to be cheated by the owners of a site out of a few hundred thousand for $10,000 worth of property rather than trust a jury.” June 12, 1860.
When he uttered the following he knew it was extremely unpalatable to his section:
“The southern States from their sparseness of population do not pay all their postal expenses. The whole mail service of the south ought to pay its whole expenses, and I am ready to put it on that ground.... I say the point to retrench is in the south.” February 28, 1859.
The following distasteful lesson he read his own State:
“I know that some of the mail routes in my own neighborhood were taken away, and I never was consulted about them, and I never thought it was the duty or business of the postmaster-general to consult me. I have not been to his office during this winter in regard to a single one; and I have been very much complained of, even in my own county and town, on account of it.... I have a word to say about theIsabel. She touches at Savannah; and I have received memorials from people, letters from interested people, from the Savannah chamber of commerce, and others, saying, ‘By all means keep up theIsabel; we want it.’ It is a very popular thing; it is a good ship, and has done its duty well. What have I to do but follow my uniform line of policy, and give them the same rules as everybody else? Sixteen years’ experience here—and I was here in 1847, when this steamship system commenced—have satisfied me that congressional contracts are always unwise, and are the fruitful sources of boundless legislative corruption. Therefore, I will never sustain one under any necessity whatever.” May 28, 1860.
February 22, 1859, though Iverson, his companion from Georgia, was the other way, he advocated abolishing the mint at Dahlonega in that State, and the mint also in North Carolina.
The last instance we cite is his declaration, April 25, 1856, that he had always voted against a claim of the daughter of Governor Irvin of Georgia.
And to this proud independence he was without spot of corruption. This was never questioned but once. May 13, 1858, he was taunted for having supported the Galphin claim. When at last he sees that the charge is seriously urged, in a becoming glow he demands an explanation. A disclaimer of reflection upon his character being made, he gives a detailed account of the claim,his steady support of it, and a complete justification of George W. Crawford in the affair. At its close, Hammond of South Carolina, who was familiar with all the details, bestowed upon it his unqualified voucher. The lofty spirit and just indignation informing this statement of Toombs from beginning to end distinguish it as that of one who has kept out of dark places and walked so purely in the light that accusation is far more of a surprise than insult.[103]
He never showed any symptom of the presidential fever, which, to say nothing of its many other victims, enfeebled each one of the great trio,—Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. Fully content with his place in the senate, he did not look elsewhere. Taking popularity at its exact worth; candid and frank to the extreme; contented in the course dictated by his judgment and conscience though opposed by his people or party and his own private interest; in no bargains with men nor smirching connections with women, doing nothing in secret which, if published, would bring a blush; elevated above the amiable weaknesses of unwise benevolence, ever championing with all his powers the righteous cause of the weak and unpopular,—as exampled in his maintaining the claims of certain persons in Louisiana to the Houmas land against the formidable opposition of the two senators from that State, in his extraordinarily eloquent appeal for the naval officers retired without a hearing, in his heroic endeavor to have his party seat the republican Harlan; incorruptible and really consistent forever and always,—when he is scrutinized as a public man his character rises into a grandeur ofunselfishness, firmness of high purpose, honesty, and power to show and do the right almost superhuman. It stands by itself awe-striking and imposing.
But let us particularize the special lesson of his senatorial career. We must begin by suggesting his peculiar bent. It is clear that he chose as his province commerce and industry, with the related themes of political economy, finance, the currency, taxation, the tariff, the principles of exchange and distribution, and so on.[104]He probably had the best business insight of all our prominent statesmen, Calhoun even not excepted. Though Hamilton and Webster—the former especially—evince titanic comprehension of financial theory, yet we see from their lives and poor money-saving success that commercial and business affairs were not to them both practice and theory as they were to Toombs. Of all his peers he was most at home in the ways and principles which dictate proper legislation as to trade and business. To judge by his words, uttered year in and year out, nobody else ever saw more clearly that there ought to be no tariff, improvement, job, or any other pets of government. The latter should not foster such a class, yearly increasing in number, as it always will, living idly and luxuriously upon the public income, that is, upon the labor and property of others. This class supplants the vigorous products of natural selection by pampered fatlings of bounty, always raising their demands for support, and ever more and more clamorously calling for the suppression of all self-supporting competition at home and abroad. With themoral hardihood of Shakspeare, who shrinks not from rudely shocking our feelings by making Henry V discard his old boon companion Falstaff, Toombs never wearied of proclaiming the unpopular truth that the government ought not to be the helper, guardian, patron, protector, guarantor, surety, almoner, of any of its citizens. Ponder these stout-hearted and golden words of his, although the evil represented therein is now established and magnified into dimensions far beyond what he could conceive when they were said—an evil, to suppress which let us hope all patriots will soon unite:
“Whenever the system shall be firmly established that the States are to enter into a miserable scramble for the most money for their local appropriations, and that senator is to be regarded the ablest representative of his State who can get for it the largest slice of the treasury, from that day public honor and property are gone, and all the States are disgraced and degraded.” February 27, 1857.
He is always preaching against the heinous abuse of diverting government from impartially guarding the whole community and making it profit only a few. His text is never far-fetched. He finds it in the proposed legislation of the day, which it is his duty to consider in his place. He cares not that he makes no present effect. Just before Bell’s bill for improving the Cumberland river was passed, he said of it and its companions: “These bills are passingsub silentio, and I suppose attempt to resist is wholly useless. I wish it understood that I do not assent to their passage. I am opposed to all of them.” February 24, 1855.
He sees that the appropriations for harbors and rivers, lighthouses, private claims, pensions, etc., are almost as baneful as was the distribution of corn to the Roman populace, and yet the people everywhereare eager for the corrupting gifts. Against his party, against many of his section, he fights alone and single-handed, reminding of Horatius keeping the bridge against the Etruscan host. Though always outvoted, he behaves with spirit and dignity. Either he, or some one of the faithful few who act with him in the slim minority, always have the yeas and nays recorded. His grand purpose was to appeal to the American people upon an issue involving the article of his creed which he had held up with so much puissance and fidelity in days of evil report. These words contain the motto of the long contest which occupied all of his non-sectional career in the senate:
“I think every one of these bills should be considered. I do not wish to have them considered in such a manner as improperly to occupy the time of the senate. I desire to spread before the country reasonable information. That is the only purpose we can have now; because the combination is sufficient to carry everything that the committee report. But there is a day of reckoning to come; and I trust that those who support this system will be called to judgment.”“I desire the truth to go to the honest people all over the country. Let the taxpayers look at this matter; let the jobbers beware. ‘To your tents, O Israel!’” July 29, 1856.
“I think every one of these bills should be considered. I do not wish to have them considered in such a manner as improperly to occupy the time of the senate. I desire to spread before the country reasonable information. That is the only purpose we can have now; because the combination is sufficient to carry everything that the committee report. But there is a day of reckoning to come; and I trust that those who support this system will be called to judgment.”
“I desire the truth to go to the honest people all over the country. Let the taxpayers look at this matter; let the jobbers beware. ‘To your tents, O Israel!’” July 29, 1856.
The sectional agitation, mounting higher and higher, as Toombs said often, blinded the people to this great subject. Secession came, and his State—to him the only sovereign—called the solitary combatant away from the ground that ought to be kept forever in loving memory for his long, desperate, thrice-valiant stand. And the world should also remember that the clauses of the constitution of the Confederate States, “prohibiting bounties, extra allowances, and internal improvements,” came from him.[105]
The struggle that wins our deliverance from the monopolists now causing us to go hungry, cold, and unshod is yet to be. I cannot say when; but I know it will come soon, and that the people will conquer. As in that day Calhoun’s monetary doctrine will be brought out of its obscurity to add new lustre to his fame, as I believe, so I believe also that the name of Robert Toombs will become an object of affectionate reverence to all his countrymen, and the weighty and eloquent sentences in which he sought to shield general industry from drones and rivals favored by government, and in which he advocated that the public burdens be reduced to the minimum, and then apportioned justly,—these stirring words will be quoted everywhere to receive at last their due audience and favor. And when no branch of our government either robs or gives to its citizens, Toombs’s never-remitted, brave, unselfish, and gigantic endeavor to bring on this millennium ought to be put by Americans in their Sunday-school books. When we who fought the brothers’ war completely forget and forgive, as we soon will, it will then be understood how much the sectional agitation impeded him, and that when he was caught away from the senate by the whirlwind of secession he was only fifty years old, and of such constitutional vigor that he had the guaranty of at least a quarter of a century more of undiminished activity. A fond imagination will inquire: Suppose the energy spent upon the Kansas discussion; the protection of slavery in the Territories; in the great speech of January 24, 1860, on the Invasion of States, and in that of January 7, 1861, justifying secession, his supreme effort, as most of his admirers claim, could have been saved for themes of Pan-American concern; and suppose him remaining in the senate, eschewing all other place, with increasing years loved the more by hispeople for his courageous fidelity to the right, age assuaging his vehemence and softening his invective, ripening his judgment and bringing him charity and wisdom to the full,—to what a height and glory he would have grown!
If there had been no slavery, I verily believe that the south would have been the leading and most prosperous part of the union, and that Toombs would have been the greatest American. Stephens knew Webster, Calhoun, and Clay. The longer he lived the more positive he became in believing that Toombs was superior in ability to each one of the three. I have heard him say often that he had never found anything to which he could compare the power of Toombs, discussing a great theme extempore, except Niagara.
Turning back from these unavailing conjectures, I must say a last word as to that part of Toombs’s career in the senate which I have been discussing. Its exemplariness is not so much in single great achievements. It is his uniform attention to the current duties of his place. Whether the particular duty impending was important or trivial, whether it was popular or not, it received from him at the proper time whatever effort was needed for doing it rightly. His performance averages so high in merit that I cannot find a like. No plodder ever kept more closely to the safe and beaten path. But he did far more than plod. Almost every day for eight years he showed how genius can manifest itself fully and fitly and find its true activity in the common round of affairs; how it can better, exalt, ennoble, and beautify daily routine. I believe that if you will reflect over this, you will at last see that such are the greatest of men, and those that the world most needs.
I now take up Toombs’s sectional career. The aggressive defence of slavery, looming in sight as Calhounis within a few months of death, called for a leader who did not hug the union, and whose eyes were shut to everything but the justice and sanctity of the southern cause. Calhoun’s last speech, that of March 4, 1850, was throughout an appeal to the north. In that same session, and some while before that speech was delivered, the true apostle of secession begins the proclamation of his mission, and some time after Calhoun’s death and before the end of the session that portentous proclamation was complete. Robert Toombs—then in his fortieth year, and having as yet attained but little conspicuousness in congress—is the man I mean. His appeal was really to the south.
Just after the new congress assembled in December, 1849, a caucus of the whigs, to which party Toombs then belonged, having met to nominate a candidate for speaker of the house, he introduced a resolution to the effect that congress ought not to put any restriction upon any State institution in the Territories, nor abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, the resolution being rejected, Toombs, Stephens, and a small number of others retired from the caucus, and they did not act any further with their party in the organization of the house. Toombs and his following declared their purpose to disregard former connections and side with whatever party accorded the south the guaranty demanded by the resolution above mentioned. As these southern whigs, and also fourteen northern democrats and whigs, would not support for speaker either Cobb, the democratic nominee, or Winthrop, the whig, neither one of the two nominees could muster the majority necessary under the rules for election. Toombs’s tactics were like those of the commons who would not vote the supplies until the king granted their wishes in other matters. At this time all the southern democrats anda majority of the southern whigs were opposed to his action. He was leading what appeared to be a hopeless advance. This is the beginning.
The next stage is when, after nine days of balloting for speaker without result, a resolution was introduced declaring Cobb, who had received a plurality, speaker, when Duer of New York opposing, said he was willing for the sake of organizing to elect a whig, democrat, or free-soiler—only that he could not support a disunionist. This manifest reflection upon the whigs who had held themselves aloof made Toombs break the silence he had theretofore kept.
He surprised everybody—perhaps himself—with an impromptu of powerful argument and burning eloquence. Note, in order to compare it with whatever utterance of Calhoun you please, these passages: