THE CAMPAIGN OF 1852.
In this first struggle between Secession and the Union Georgia had taken
the lead, but Georgia had not been the only State involved. The fight
was waged just as fiercely in Mississippi, when Henry S. Foote, the
Union candidate, was elected Governor over Jefferson Davis. But the
Georgia Platform was the corner-stone of the Southern victory. Her
action gave peace and quiet to the whole Union, and the success of the
triumvirate that year offered assurance of strength and security to the
country. The national parties were quick to align themselves on this
platform. The Democratic convention, which assembled in Baltimore June
1, declared that "the party would abide by and adhere to a faithful
execution of the Acts known as the Compromise Measures, settled by the
last Congress." The Whig convention, which met also at Baltimore, June
16, proclaimed that "the series of Acts of the thirty-first Congress,
known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, the Act known as the
Fugitive-slave law included, are received and acquiesced in by the Whig
party of the United States as a settlement in principle and substance
of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace."
"The truth is," said Mr. Stephens in his "War Between the States," "an
overwhelming majority of the people, North as well as South, was in
favor of maintaining these principles."
Under these conditions the presidential campaign of 1852 was opened. The
Southern Whigs did not, as a body, accept the Baltimore nominee, General
Winfield Scott. They claimed that he had refused to express any direct
approval of the platform relating to the compromise. Mr. Toombs demanded
that his candidate plant himself unequivocally upon this platform. He
noticed that the opponents of the Fugitive-slave law were strong for
Scott. Feeling in the South was still running high. Some extremists held
that no Northern man was fit to be trusted. Mr. Toombs declared that
there were good and true men at the North and that he would "hold party
associations with no others."
In a speech to his own townspeople in Washington, Ga., during this
presidential campaign, Mr. Toombs declared that he had not changed one
iota, but was ready now to support the men who would plant themselves on
the broad principles of the Constitution and the country. He said
General Scott had no claims whatever upon the people. He spoke of him as
a great general, and alluded in glowing terms to his achievements in
arms against the Mexicans and Indians. But General Scott, he believed,
was a Free-Soil candidate. He would be in favor of annexing Canada, but
no more slave territory. Mr. Toombs alluded to the Democratic candidate
for President, General Franklin Pierce, as a very consistent man in all
his senatorial career, and believed he was the safest man on the slavery
question north of Mason and Dixon's line. He preferred Pierce to Scott,
but said he would not vote for either. The contest was "between a big
general and a little general."
Mr. Toombs launched into a magnificent tribute to Daniel Webster as a
statesman and friend of the Constitution. It was Webster who had stayed
the flood of abolition and killed the Wilmot Proviso; who had dared, in
the face of the North, and in defiance of his constituents, to boldly
defend the rights of the South and exclaim, "O God, I will be just!"
This allusion of Mr. Toombs rang throughout the State. Its significance
lay in the fact that the Whigs of Georgia, in convention assembled, had
nominated Daniel Webster for President and Charles J. Jenkins for
vice-president of the United States. Without chance of national success,
this ticket was received with strong expression of indorsement. Since
his celebrated "4th of March" speech, in the Senate, Mr. Webster had
been a favorite in the South. He had abandoned the Wilmot Proviso and
accepted the Fugitive-slave law to conciliate the sections, and the
addition of his great name to seal the Compromise of 1850 was regarded
in the South as an act of patriotism reached by few men in the country's
history. His speech had made a profound impression. "The friends of the
Union under the Constitution were strengthened in their hopes, and
inspired with renewed energies by its high and lofty sentiments."
Commanding always the respect and admiration of the Southern people Mr.
Webster now took the place in their affections just made vacant by the
death of Henry Clay. Mr. Webster must have put aside all political
ambition when he made this peaceful concession. His new-found strength
in the South did not add to his popularity in the North. When the Whig
convention of 1852 met in Baltimore, Mr. Webster was Secretary of State
under President Fillmore. He had added fresh luster to his name by his
latest services to the nation. But the prestige of his life and labors
did not override the passions of the hour, and Winfield Scott was
nominated for the Presidency. This broke the last tie which held the
Southern Whigs in national allegiance. Circumstances were forcing them
into the Democratic party, but they made a final stand under the name
of Daniel Webster.
To Mr. Toombs, the regard of the Whigs of Georgia for Mr. Webster was
especially gratifying. He had lived next door to the great Massachusetts
statesman during his residence in Washington, and had seen him often in
the privacy of his home. He had consulted closely with him during the
exciting days of the compromise measures, and was advised by Mr. Webster
about the Whig platform at Baltimore. He recognized the surpassing
greatness of the man, and when he sounded the praises of Webster it came
straight from an honest heart.
Charles J. Jenkins, a native of Beaufort, S. C., had studied law with
Senator Berrien and practiced in Augusta. His nomination to second place
on the Webster ticket was a pledge of the high favor of the Whigs. Mr.
Jenkins was five years the senior of Mr. Toombs; had served with him in
the State Legislature and, like Toombs, had been allied with the Troup
party in Georgia. Mr. Jenkins had been three times Speaker of the lower
branch of the General Assembly, and in 1842 had received the entire Whig
vote for United States Senator. Upon the resignation of McKennon of
Pennsylvania, President Fillmore had, through Mr. Toombs, offered the
Interior Department to Mr. Jenkins. This position, however, was
declined because of pressing duties in the courts.
In the senatorial election of 1851 Mr. Jenkins would have been a
formidable candidate for United States Senator again, had not his strong
friendship both for Senator Berrien and Mr. Toombs dictated his
declining the use of his name. He was a man of high ability and pure
character.
Georgia became a national battle-ground during this campaign. Besides
the regular Whig and Democratic and the Webster tickets, there was an
extreme faction of States' Rights men, who would not accept any of these
candidates. They called on George M. Troup, then living in retirement in
Montgomery County. He wrote a ringing letter accepting the nomination of
the "Southern Rights" party for President. He was seventy-two years old,
but his cherished principles, which he had proclaimed in the face of
Adams and Jackson, were now repeated for the people of another
generation.
The gallant body of Union Whigs were destined to deep affliction. On the
24th of October, 1852, ten days before the national election, Daniel
Webster died. The land was filled with lamentation, for there was no
North, no South, in this sorrow.
The State of Georgia, which in 1848 had voted for Taylor, now turned
about and voted for Pierce and King. On November 2d the South Carolina
Legislature also cast 135 votes for the Pierce electors. General Scott
carried but four States in the Union, caused, as Mr. Stephens and Mr.
Toombs thought, by his refusal to indorse the Compromise of 1850.
On July 3, 1852, Mr. Toombs, then a member of the House, submitted an
elaborate statement of his political position. He made the point that
presidents, as then put forward, were not real representatives of the
country or even of a party. From the beginning of the government up to
1836 the presidency had been filled by ripe statesmen and tried
patriots. _All_ were excluded from competition except those who had
great experience in public affairs, and who had commended themselves to
the people by wisdom, virtue, and high services. Such men had no need of
hired biographers and venal letter-writers to inform the people who they
were. They needed no interpreters of letters to the public, cunningly
devised to mystify what they pretended to elucidate. National
conventions, Mr. Toombs contended, were contrivances to secure popular
support to those who were not entitled to public confidence.
Mr. Toombs was an enemy to mere convention. All party machinery, all
irregular organizations, which are unknown to the Constitution, he
regarded as dangerous to public liberty. He had noticed that this
machinery had been deadly to the great men of the nation and productive
only of mediocrity. Obedience to them, he contended, was infidelity to
popular rights. "This system," said he, "has produced none of those
illustrious men who have become so distinguished in their country's
history; none of those political lights which have shone so brilliantly
on this Western continent for half a century. Nearly all of them have
departed from us. Who is to take the place of the distinguished
Carolinian?" he asked. "He was the handiwork of God himself and of the
people--not party machinery. Who is to fill the place of the great
Kentuckian? When worthily filled, it will not be by these nurseries of
faction.
"The friends of the Compromise," said Mr. Toombs, "demand no sectional
candidate. They were willing to accept the great New England statesman,
notwithstanding they may point to disagreements with him in the past. He
has thrown the weight of his mighty intellect into the scales of
concord, in the darkest and most perilous hour of the conflict. And
Southern Whigs would have struggled with pride and energy to have seen
the greatest intellect of the age preside over the greatest republic of
the world. He was defeated in convention by the enemies of the
compromise measure, because he was its friend. And this was the true
reason of his exclusion. It is a sufficient reason for the friends of
the measure, North and South, to oppose and defeat General Scott's
nomination. My action shall respond to my convictions."
Mr. Toombs had seen Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, one by one, retired
before Van Buren, Harrison, and Scott. Was it any wonder that, in
breaking away from the old Whig party, he should denounce the system
which had blighted its brightest men and which, in his opinion, had
retired the greatest statesman in the world before an issue of sectional
prejudice? Mr. Toombs never again gave allegiance to conventions or
obeyed the dictates of party caucuses. From 1854 to 1860 he was a
Democrat. After the war he acted mainly with the party which sympathized
with the South. But his great power made him independent. He did not
hesitate to criticise Pierce or Buchanan, or to upbraid Jefferson Davis,
the head of the Southern Confederacy. He repudiated the nomination of
Horace Greeley by his party. He called a meeting in his own room in an
Atlanta hotel in 1872, and put A. H. Stephens before the people for
Congress. In 1878, when the organized Democracy of Georgia antagonized
Dr. William H. Felton for Congress in the seventh Georgia district, Mr
Toombs wrote a letter to the press, in which he declared that party
conventions were merely advisory. "When their action becomes
authoritative, they are usurpers. They deprive the people of free
elections. Let their actions be approved or disapproved by the elections
of the people." He supported Mr. Stephens, who did not hesitate to "tote
his own skillet," when occasion required. Toombs' independence was
lordly. He believed in the utmost freedom in public affairs. Machinery
was as hateful to him as to Thomas Jefferson. He was "the prince of
innovation; the foe to all convention." No less than of Burke, it was
said of him that "born for the universe, he did not surrender to party,"
but General Longstreet declared of Robert Toombs that he needed only
discipline to make him a great military genius. This was the radical
flaw in his make-up. How near he came to the ideal of a statesman
posterity must judge.