Robert Toombs Part 8

Among the causes contributing to the current bitterness was the a.s.sault made upon Charles Sumner, senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, by Preston S.

Brooks, a representative from South Carolina. This happened in May, 1856, while Mr. Sumner was sitting at his desk, after the Senate had adjourned. Mr. Brooks took exception to some remarks printed in Mr.

Sumner's speech, ent.i.tled "The Crime against Kansas." In this speech, the senator had referred, in rather caustic terms, to Senator Butler of South Carolina. The latter was a kinsman of Mr. Brooks. The weapon used by Mr. Brooks was a gutta-percha cane, and Senator Sumner, who was a large, powerful man, in his effort to rise from his seat, forced his desk from its hinges and fell heavily to the floor. The a.s.sault created an immense sensation. It was a.s.sociated in the heated minds at the North with the "slavery aggressions of the South." At the South, it was generally excused as the resentment of an impetuous young man to an insult offered an elderly kinsman. Northern men denounced the a.s.sault in unmeasured terms on the floor of the House and Senate. The affair led to several challenges between the representatives of both sections.

Congressman Brooks resigned his seat, but was immediately reelected.

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

The political activity was not confined to the North. There was a large element in Georgia which disapproved of the Kansas-Nebraska bill as an unwise concession on the part of the South. This cla.s.s, combined with the American party, presented an active front against the party led by Senator Toombs. No contest was ever waged more vigorously in Georgia.

New blood and new issues were infused into the fight. Mr. Toombs was at the maximum of his greatness. He took redoubled interest in the campaign in that the legislature to be chosen in 1857 was to elect his successor to the Senate, and because the principles in this national contest were taking shape for a State campaign the following year.

CHAPTER XIII.

"ON THE STUMP" IN GEORGIA.

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

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

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

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

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

Hill charged that Toombs had tried to dodge the issues of this campaign.

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

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

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

Mr. Hill declared that the Kansas-Nebraska bill embodied the principles of "squatter sovereignty" and alien suffrage. The bill was not identical with the Utah and New Mexico bill, as Toombs and Stephens had alleged.

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

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

This Act of 1854 was the great measure of justice and equality to the South.

Mr. Toombs ridiculed the a.s.sertion of Millard Fillmore that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a violation of a sacred compact.

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

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

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

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

Mr. Hill said that Toombs was a turncoat. He had been a Whig, and now he abused the Whigs. Mr. Toombs told the people that he came not to abuse the Democrats or Whigs, but with the weapon of truth and the s.h.i.+eld of the Const.i.tution to aid in preserving the Union and maintaining the rights of the South. He did not appear before the people to carry majorities, but to promote their const.i.tutional rights.

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

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

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

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

Mr. Toombs, while a member of Congress, became possessed of a large tract of land in Texas. It was known as the Peter's Colony Grant, which had never been settled. The lands, he was informed by a competent surveyor, were valuable and free to settlers. They comprised about 90,000 acres in Northern Texas, on the clear fork of the Trinity, in the neighborhood of Dallas and Fort Worth. Mr. Toombs had a clear head and keen perception for business. His temperament was restless and fiery.

His life had been spent at the bar and in the forum. His gifts of oratory were remarkable. It was a strange combination which added shrewd business sense, but he had it in an eminent degree. He was a princely liver, but a careful financier. He saw that this part of Texas must some day bloom into an empire, and fifty years ago he gave $30,000 for this tract of land. As Texas commenced to fill up the squatters occupied some of the most valuable parts of the country and refused to be removed. These desperate fellows declared that they did not believe there was any such man as Toombs, the reputed owner of the land; they had never seen him, and certainly they would not consent to be dispossessed of their holdings.

It was in 1857 that Senator Toombs, accompanied by a few of his friends, decided to make a trip to Texas and view his large landed possessions.

For hundreds of miles he traveled on horseback over the plains of Texas, sleeping at night in a buffalo robe. He was warned by his agents that he had a very desperate set of men to deal with. But Toombs was pretty determined himself. He summoned the squatters to a parley at Fort Worth, then, a mere spot in the wilderness. The men came in squads, mounted on their mustangs, and bearing over their saddles long squirrel rifles.

They were ready for a shrewd bargain or a sharp vendetta. Senator Toombs and his small coterie were armed; and standing against a tree, the landlord confronted his tenants or trespa.s.sers, he hardly knew which. He spoke firmly and pointedly, and pretty soon convinced the settlers that they were dealing with no ordinary man. He said he was willing to allow each squatter a certain sum for betterments, if they would move off his land, or, if they preferred to stay, he would sell the tract to each man at wild-land prices; but, failing in this, they must move away, as he had the power to put them out, and would certainly use it. There was a good deal of murmuring and caucussing among the men, but they concluded that there was a man named Toombs, and that he meant what he said. The matter was settled in a business way, and Senator Toombs rode back over the prairies, richer by a hundred thousand dollars. These lands were immensely valuable during the latter part of his life. They formed the bulk of his fortune when the war closed; and during his stay in Paris, an exile from his country, in 1866, he used to say that he consumed, in his personal expenses, an acre of dirt a day. The land was then worth about five dollars an acre.

It was while he was returning home from his Texas trip that the postman met him on the plains and delivered a letter from Georgia. This was in July, 1857. The letter announced that the Democratic State Convention in Georgia had adjourned, after nominating for Governor Joseph E. Brown.

Senator Toombs read the letter and, looking up in a dazed way, asked, "And who in the devil is Joe Brown?"

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The struggle over the admission of Kansas into the Union was prolonged in Congress. But the situation in Kansas became warmer every year. The Eastern immigrant societies were met by inroads of Missouri and Southern settlers. A state of civil war virtually obtained in 1856-57, and throughout Buchanan's administration there was a sharp skirmish of new settlers and a sharp maneuver of parties for position. The Georgia State Democratic Convention of 1857 demanded the removal of Robert J.