THE GEORGIA PLATFORM.
When Mr. Toombs came home in the fall of 1850 he found the State in
upheaval. Disunion sentiment was rife. He was confronted by garbled
extracts of his speeches in Congress, and made to pose as the champion
of immediate secession. He had aided in perfecting the great compromise
and was resolved that Georgia should take her stand firmly and
unequivocally for the Union and the Constitution. Governor Towns had
issued a call for a State convention; Mr. Toombs took prompt issue with
the spirit and purpose of the call. He declared that the legislature had
endangered the honor of the State and that the Governor had put the
people in a defile. "We must either repudiate this policy, or arm," he
said. "I favor the former measure."
Mr. Toombs issued a ringing address to the people. It bore date of
October 9, 1850. He proclaimed that "the first act of legislative
hostility was the first act of Southern resistance." He urged the South
to stand by the Constitution and the laws in good faith, until wrong was
consummated or the act of exclusion placed upon the statute books.
Mr. Toombs said that the South had not secured its full rights. "But the
fugitive-slave law which I demanded was granted. The abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia and proscription in the Territories
were defeated, crushed, and abandoned. We have firmly established great
and important principles. The South has compromised no right,
surrendered no principle, and lost not an inch of ground in this great
contest. I did not hesitate to accept these acts, but gave them my ready
support."
Addressing himself to the disunionists he said: "They have abandoned
their errors, but not their object. Being bent upon the ruin of the
republic they use truth or error for its accomplishment, as best suits
the exigencies of the hour. If these people are honest in their
convictions, they may find abundant consolation in the fact that the
principle is neither conceded, compromised, nor endangered by these
bills. It is strengthened, not weakened by them, and will survive their
present zeal and future apostasy."
Mr. Toombs called on all men of integrity, intellect, and courage to
come into the service of the State and prove their devotion to the
Constitution and the Union. "With no memory of past differences," he
said, "careless of the future, I am ready to unite with any portion or
all my countrymen in defense of the integrity of the republic."
Mr. Toombs took the stump, and his words rang out like an alarm bell.
Men speak to-day of his activity and earnestness in that great campaign,
as with "rapid and prompt perception, clear, close reasoning, cutting
eloquence, and unsparing hand he rasped the follies of disunion and
secession." A prominent journal of that day, speaking of his speech in
Burke County, Ga., declared that "his manly eloquence has shaken and
shivered to the base the pedestal upon which the monument of American
ruin was to be erected."
In November of that year a convention of delegates from Southern States
was held at Nashville. Ex-Governor Charles J. McDonald represented
Georgia. That meeting protested against the admission of California with
slavery restriction; charged that the policy of Congress had been to
exclude the Southern States from the Territories, and plainly asserted
that the powers of the sovereign States could be resumed by the States
separately. On November 3 the election of delegates to the Georgia
convention was held. Toombs had already turned the tide. A great
majority of Union men were chosen. Whigs and Democrats united to save
the State. Toombs stood convicted before many of his old followers of
"unsoundness on the slavery question"--but he was performing his
greatest public work.
Among the delegates elected by the people to the Georgia convention,
which met at Milledgeville, December 10, 1850, were Toombs and Stephens
and many of the best men in the State.
The work of the distinguished body was memorable. They adopted the
celebrated "Georgia Platform," whose utterances were talismanic. Charles
J. Jenkins reported the resolutions. They recited, first, that Georgia
held the American Union secondary in importance to the rights and
principles it was bound to perpetuate. That as the thirteen original
colonies found union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of
this day will yield somewhat in the conflict of opinion and policy, to
preserve the Union. That Georgia had maturely considered the action of
Congress (embracing the compromise measures) and--while she does not
wholly approve it--will abide by it as a permanent adjustment of this
sectional controversy. That the State would in future resist, even to
the disruption of the Union, any act prohibiting slavery in the
Territories, or a refusal to admit a slave State. The fifth plank
declared for a faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave bill.
Upon this platform the Union men selected Howell Cobb as their candidate
for Governor. The Southern Rights men selected Charles J. McDonald.
This party claimed that the South was degraded by the compromise
measures. Their platform was based upon the Virginia and Kentucky
resolution. It asserted the right of secession and maintained the
constitutionality and necessity of intervention by Congress in favor of
admitting slavery into the Territories. The distinct doctrine of the
compromise measures was non-intervention.
Howell Cobb was a born leader of men. Personally he was the most popular
man in the State. Entering public life at an early age he had been a
congressman at twenty-eight. He had been leader of the Southern party,
and was chosen Speaker, as we have seen, in 1849, when only thirty-four
years old. He had been known as a strong friend of the Union, and some
of the extreme States' Rights men called him a "consolidationist."
In his letter accepting the nomination for Governor, he alluded to the
long-cherished doctrine of non-intervention. The Wilmot Proviso had been
withdrawn and the Union saved. The people had been awarded the right to
determine for themselves in the Territories whether or not slavery was
to be a part of their social system.
No man was so tireless or conspicuous in this campaign as Mr. Toombs.
Although expressing a desire that someone else should go to Congress
from his district, he accepted a renomination to assert his principles.
He did not, however, confine his work to his district. He traveled from
one end of the State to the other. He recognized that party organization
in Georgia had been over-thrown and party lines shattered in every State
in the Union. He boldly declared that a continuance of the Union was not
incompatible with the rights of every State. He asserted that the
animating spirit of his opponents, the States' Rights party, was
hostility to the Union. Some of the members still submitted to the
humiliation of raising the cry of "the Union," he said, but it was a
"masked battery," from which the very Union was to be assailed. Mr.
Toombs announced on the stump that "the good sense, the firmness, the
patriotism of the people, would shield the Union from assault of our own
people. They will maintain it as long as it deserves to be maintained."
Mr. Toombs admitted that the antislavery sentiment of the North had
become more violent from its defeat on the compromise measures.
"What did this party demand, and what did it get?" he asked on the
stump. "It was driven from every position it assumed. It demanded the
express prohibition of slavery, the Wilmot Proviso, in the Territories.
It lost it. It demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia, and the slave trade between the States. It lost both. It
demanded the affirmance of the oft-repeated declaration that there
should be no more slave States admitted into the Union. Congress
enacted that States hereafter coming into the Union should be admitted
with or without slavery, as such States might determine for themselves.
It demanded a trial by jury for fugitives at the place of arrest. It
lost this also. Its acknowledged exponent is the Free-Soil party. The
Whig party has succumbed to it. It is thoroughly denationalized and
desectionalized, and will never make another national contest. We are
indebted to the defeat of the policy of these men for the existence of
the government to-day. The Democratic party of the North, though
prostrated, is not yet destroyed. Our true policy is to compel both
parties to purge themselves of this dangerous element. If either will,
to sustain it. If neither will, then we expect to preserve the Union. We
must overthrow both parties and rally the sound men to a common
standard. This is the only policy which can preserve both our rights and
the Union."
On the 1st of August, 1851, Mr. Toombs spoke in Elberton. He was in the
full tide of his manhood, an orator without equal; a statesman without
fear or reproach. Personally, he was a splendid picture, full of health
and vitality. He had been prosperous in his affairs. He was prominent in
public life and overbore all opposition. His powers were in their prime.
In his speech to his constituents he mentioned the fact that his
opponents had criticised the manner in which he traveled (alluding to
his fine horses and servants). He wanted the people to know that the
money was his, and that he made $5000 a year in Elbert alone. "Who would
say that he had not earned his money? He had a right to spend it as he
chose. Perish such demagogy--such senseless stuff." The people cheered
him to the echo for his candor and audacity.
"What presumption," he said, "for the States' Rights men to nominate
McDonald for Governor--a man who supported Jackson's Force bill--a man
who had grown gray in federalism? He was the man brought to teach the
people of Elbert States' Rights. It would be a curious subject of
inquiry to find out when this neophyte had changed, and by what process
the change had been wrought."
Toombs was alluded to by the correspondents as "Richard, the
Lion-hearted," with strong arm and ponderous battle-ax, as he went about
winning victories. Stephens, no less effective and influential, seemed
to be the great Saladin with well-tempered Damascus blade--so skillful
as to sever the finest down. The people were in continued uproar as
Toombs moved from place to place.
In Jefferson County, Mr. Toombs denied that the South had yielded any
demand she ever made, or had sacrificed any principle she ever held. He
cried that "opposition to Toombs and Stephens seemed to be the
principle of political faith on the other side." Toombs declared that
Stephens "carried more brains and more soul for the least flesh of any
man God Almighty ever made."
Mr. Toombs repeated that if the slaveholders had lost the right to carry
slavery into California, they had lost it upon sound principle. The
right of each State to prescribe its own institutions is a right above
slavery. Slavery is only an incident to this right. This principle lies
at the foundation of all good government. He had always held it and
would always hold it:
Till wrapped in flames the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below.
He deeply sympathized with those Southern Rights men who denounced the
Union they professed to love.
Speaking of the sudden change of some of his opponents in political
principles, Toombs declared they "would profess any opinion to gain
votes. It had been the belief of Crawford that if a man changed politics
after thirty he was a rascal."
In Marietta Mr. Toombs addressed an enthusiastic crowd. A journalist
said of him: "He is my _beau ideal_ of a statesman. Frank, honest, bold,
and eloquent, he never fails to make a deep impression. Many of the
fire-eaters (for they _will_ go to hear him) looked as if they would
make their escape from his withering and scathing rebuke." Toombs
derided the States' Rights men for declaring that they were friends of
the Union under which they declared they were "degraded and oppressed."
The greatest stumbling-block to Toombs' triumphant tour was to be
presented with bits of his own speeches delivered during the excitement
of the last Congress.
He had said in one of these impassioned outbursts: "He who counts the
danger of defending his own home is already degraded. The people who
count the cost of maintaining their political rights are ready for
slavery."
In Lexington he was accused of having said that if the people understood
this slavery question as well as he did "they would not remain in the
Union five minutes." This provoked a bitter controversy. Mr. Toombs
denied the remark, and declared he was willing to respond personally and
publicly to the author.
As the campaign became more heated, Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb redoubled
their efforts and drew their lines more closely. This combination was
invincible. It was evident that they would carry the State, but some of
the prominent men in Georgia were ruled out under what was thought to be
the bitter spirit of the canvass. One of these was Charles J. Jenkins,
and the other, John McPherson Berrien. The former had drawn the
celebrated Georgia Platform, and was devoted to the Union. The latter
was United States Senator from Georgia, and, as his successor was to be
chosen by the legislature soon to be elected, there was much curiosity
to find out his real position in this canvass. Mr. Jenkins declared that
he considered Mr. Berrien "as good a Union man and as safe a
representative of the party as any within its ranks." Berrien acquiesced
in but did not eulogize the compromise measures. He did not oppose or
favor the State convention of 1850. When he submitted to the Senate the
Georgia Platform, he declared that he did not surrender the privileges
of a free choice. He supported McDonald for Governor against Cobb, and
it was soon evident that he was not in full sympathy with the winning
party.
The Constitutional Union men won a signal victory. Howell Cobb was
elected Governor by a large majority over Charles J. McDonald, who had
been twice Governor and who was one of the strongest men in Georgia.
Robert Toombs was reelected to Congress over Robert McMillen of Elbert,
and Mr. Stephens defeated D. W. Lewis of Hancock.
The legislature convened in November, 1851. It was largely made up of
Union men. Judge Berrien was not a candidate for reelection to the
United States Senate. He wrote a letter in which he reviewed his course
during the campaign. He said:
"I asserted in terms which even cavilers could not
misunderstand nor any honest man doubt, my devotion to the
Union, my unfaltering determination to maintain by all
constitutional means, and with undiminished zeal, the equal
rights of the South, and my acquiescence in the compromise
measures. Satisfied that such declarations, in the excited
state of feeling, would not meet the exactions of either
party in a contest peculiarly bitter, and unable to
sacrifice for the purpose of victory the dictates of
conscience or the convictions of judgment, I expressed a
willingness to retire."
On the 10th of November Robert Toombs was elected United States Senator.
In the caucus he secured 73 votes, and in the open Assembly next day he
received 120 votes, scattering, 50.
Never was reward more swift or signal to the master-mind of a campaign.
If he had been the leader of the extreme Southern wing in Congress, he
had shown his willingness to accept a compromise and go before the
people in defense of the Union.
He was charged with having aroused the Secession storm. If he had
unwittingly done so in Congress in order to carry his point, he proved
himself powerful in stopping it at home. What some of his critics had
said of him was true: "The rashest of talkers, he was the safest of
counselors." Certain it is that at a moment of national peril he
repelled the charge of being an "irreconcilable," and proved to be one
of the stanchest supporters of the Union.
In Milledgeville, during the turmoil attending the election of United
States Senator in November, 1851 Mr. Toombs wrote to his wife as
follows:
Since I wrote you last I have been in the midst of an
exciting political contest with constantly varying aspects.
The friends of Judge Berrien are moving every possible
spring to compass my defeat, but as yet I have constantly
held the advantage over them. They started Mr. Jenkins and
kept him up, under considerable excitement, until he came
to town yesterday and instantly withdrew his name. To-day
they have started a new batch of candidates: Judge Hill,
Hines Holt, Warren, Charlton, and others, all of whom they
seek to combine. I think I can beat the whole combination,
though it is too close to be comfortable. It is impossible
to give an idea of every varying scene, but as I have
staked my political fortunes on success, if I am defeated
in this conflict my political race is over, and perhaps I
feel too little interest in the result for success.
Dawson is at home sick; Stephens is not here; so I am
standing very much on my own hand, breasting the conflict
alone. So I shall have the consolation of knowing that, if
I succeed, the victory will be all my own. The contest will
be decided by Monday next, and perhaps sooner.... As soon
as it is over I shall leave here and shall be at home at
furthest to-day week. If I were not complicated in this
business, nothing would induce me to go into it. There are
so many unpleasant things connected with it, which will at
least serve as lessons for the future, whatever may be the
result. You can see from this letter how deeply I am
immersed in this contest, yet I am getting so impatient to
come home that even defeat would be better than this
eternal annoyance.
TOOMBS.