Robert Toombs Part 9

Walker, who had been appointed Governor of Kansas. He was a Southern man, but was regarded as favoring the antislavery party in its efforts to organize the Territory. The truth was, as Senator Toombs had clearly foreseen and expressed in his speech in the Senate in 1856, Kansas was destined to be a free State, and amid the violence of the agitation, confined to no one side, was marching steadily toward this destiny. The administration favored the admission of Kansas with the Lecompton Const.i.tution, which was decidedly favorable to the proslavery men.

Senator Douglas opposed this plan. He had become committed to the policy of squatter sovereignty during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. He contended that the settlers of a Territory could determine the character of their inst.i.tutions, a position which the Buchanan party denounced as inconsistent with Democratic principles. Mr. Douglas indorsed the Dred Scott decision, but maintained his position on popular sovereignty. He became at once unpopular with the rank and file of the Southern Democracy, with whom he had long been a favorite. He was also estranged from the administration, and it was evident that he would have no easy matter to be reelected United States Senator. This election came off in the fall of 1858. It was clear to him that, to maintain his prominence in politics, he must carry Illinois. Unless he could save his own State his chance for President was gone. So he went into this memorable canva.s.s with his own party divided and a determined opponent in the person of Abraham Lincoln. The young Republican party in Illinois had been gathering strength with each new phase of the slavery question.

The joint debate between Douglas and Lincoln was memorable. As a dexterous debater, Douglas had no equal in the Union. He was strong on the stump and incomparable in a popular a.s.sembly. Without grace or imagination, he was yet a plausible, versatile man, quick and ingenious, resolute and ready, with a rare faculty for convincing men. He was small and sinewy, with smooth face, bright eye, and broad brow, and his neighbors called him the "Little Giant." He could be specious, even fallacious; he employed an _ad captandum_ kind of oratory, which was taking with a crowd and confusing to an adversary. The man who met him in these debates was a tall, impressive personage, rough, original, but direct and thoroughly sincere. In many points he was the opposite of Douglas.

He was rather an ill-ordered growth of the early West, a man who had toiled and suffered from his youth up. He was full of sharp corners and rough edges, and his nature was a strange mixture of patience and melancholy. As Mr. Stephens said, he regarded slavery "in the light of a religious mysticism," and believed that his mission to beat it down was G.o.d-ordained. And yet he was a statesman, a public man of breadth and prominence, a speaker of force and persuasion. He had the robust courage of a pioneer and the high purpose of a reformer. It was in this debate that Mr. Lincoln, at Freeport, Ill., asked Mr. Douglas that memorable question, on the stump: "Can the people of a Territory, in any lawful way, exclude slavery from their limits, prior to the formation of a State const.i.tution?" Mr. Douglas promptly answered, "Yes." This was his doctrine of popular sovereignty. But the answer cost him the Democratic nomination to the Presidency. The theory that a ma.s.s of settlers, squatting in a Territory, could fix and determine the character of the Territory's domestic inst.i.tutions, was repugnant to a large portion of the Southern people. They claimed that under the Dred Scott decision, slavery already existed in the Territories, and must be protected by the Const.i.tution; and that it was not competent for the people to determine for themselves the question of slavery or no slavery, until they formed a const.i.tution for admission into the Union as a State.

The election in Illinois, in the fall of 1858, gave Stephen A. Douglas a majority of eight in the General a.s.sembly over Abraham Lincoln, and Douglas was reelected for the new term. In this contest he had been opposed by the Buchanan Democrats, who cast over 8000 votes in Illinois.

In the Senate, the debate on popular sovereignty was renewed. This time Jefferson Davis, a senator from Mississippi, attacked this position as incompatible with the Const.i.tution and the laws. Mr. Davis was a skillful debater. His mind was singularly graceful and refined. He was eloquent, logical, and courageous. His career as soldier and statesman, as War Minister under Pierce, and as senator for Mississippi, made him a prominent figure. He was cultured, cla.s.sical, and well rounded, equipped by leisure and long study for the career before him. He had vanquished Sergeant S. Prentiss in public discussion over the national bank, and contested, inch by inch, the domination of Henry S. Foote in Mississippi. His career in the Mexican war had been a notable one.

Allied to Zachary Taylor by marriage, a West Pointer by training, a Southern planter by occupation, he was a typical defender of slavery as it existed. Davis was as slender and frail as Douglas was compact and sinewy. Like Lincoln, his mind grasped great principles, while Douglas was fighting for points and expedients.

Douglas declared that the territorial settler could determine whether slavery should exist, by his influence in providing or withholding police power; although he denied the const.i.tutional right to legislate slavery out of the Territories, yet he believed the "popular sovereign"

could, by means of "unfriendly legislation," bar out the Southern settler with his slaves. It was not difficult for Mr. Davis to impale him upon this plea.

Senator Douglas had saved his seat in the Senate, but his position in the Democratic party was weakened. The Lecompton Const.i.tution pa.s.sed the Senate in spite of Douglas's steady opposition.

Senator Toombs took no part in the subtleties of the Douglas-Davis debate. He listened to the refinements of that discussion with decided convictions of his own, but with clear appreciation of the fact that every point scored against Douglas was cleaving the Democratic party in twain. Mr. Toombs favored the adoption of the Lecompton Const.i.tution, but when it was rejected by the House, he promptly accepted the English compromise, to refer the matter back to the people. Mr. Toombs had always been partial to Douglas. In the campaign of 1856 he declared, in Georgia, that "the man who condemned Senator Douglas needed watching himself." He viewed with some pain the Douglas departure over popular sovereignty; indeed he once declared that had he not been called away from the Senate for quite a time in 1856, Mr. Douglas would never have gone off on this tangent. When asked if Douglas were really a great man, Senator Toombs, in 1860, answered with characteristic heartiness and exaggeration, "There has been but one greater, and he, the Apostle Paul."

It was very evident that the people of the South would demand new guarantees for the protection of slavery against the dogma of popular sovereignty. The platform of the Cincinnati convention, upon which Buchanan had been elected, must be recast. The platform had declared that immigrants to any part of the public domain were to settle the question of slavery for themselves. The new plank, which President Buchanan framed, was that the government of a Territory was provisional and temporary, and during its existence, all citizens of the United States had an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation. The two last words contained the gist of the resolution, which was aimed at Senator Douglas. However right as an abstract principle, Mr. Stephens declared that this was a departure from the doctrine of non-intervention.

It was at this time that Senator Toombs made one of the most important speeches of his life. This was delivered in Augusta, Ga., September 8, 1859, during an exciting campaign. Governor Brown was a candidate for reelection, and a strong opposition party had developed in Georgia, representing the extreme Southern sentiment.

Senator Toombs said that the opposition to the Kansas bill had continued because it was said to recognize the right of the people of a Territory, through the Territorial legislature, to establish or prohibit slavery.

"When we condemned and abrogated Congressional intervention against us,"

said he, "that was a great point gained. Congress had actually excluded us from the Territories for thirty years. The people of a Territory had in no instance attempted such an iniquity. I considered it wise, prudent, and politic to settle the question against our common enemy, Congress, even if I left it unsettled as to our known friends, the people of the Territories. We could not settle the question of the power of the people over slavery while in a territorial condition, because Democrats differed on that point. We, therefore, declared in the Kansas bill that we left the people of the Territories perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic inst.i.tutions in their own way, subject only to the Const.i.tution of the United States. We decided to refer the question to the Supreme Court. It has gone there and been decided in our favor. The Southern friends of the measure repudiate the principle of squatter sovereignty. I stand its steady and uncompromising adversary.

The doctrine of Douglas has not a leg to stand upon. Yet I do not belong to those who denounce him. The organization of the Democratic party leaves this an open question, and Mr. Douglas is at full liberty to take either side he may choose, and if he maintains his ground of neither making nor accepting new tests of political soundness, I shall consider him a political friend, and will accept him as the representative of the party, whatever it may tender him. I do not hesitate to tell you that, with his errors, I prefer him and would support him to-morrow against any opposition leader in America.

"We are told," said Mr. Toombs, "that we must put a new plank in the platform of the Democratic party, and demand the affirmance of the duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, where such Territory may fail to discharge this duty. I reply, I do not think it is wise to do the thing proposed, and the inducement would not help the proposition.

While I have already a.s.serted full and complete power of Congress to do this, I think, with Mr. Madison, that it should be prudently and carefully exercised, and it ought not to be exercised until the occasion is imperative. There has been no occasion, from 1789 to this hour, calling for it, and I am more than willing that the Territorial settlers shall continue to govern themselves in their own way, so long as they respect the rights of all the people. I will not insult them by supposing them capable of disregarding the Const.i.tution of the United States, or by a.s.suming that they are incapable of honest self-government.

"No; I shall prescribe no new test of party fealty to Northern Democrats, those men who have hitherto stood with honor and fidelity upon their engagements. They have maintained the truth to their own hurt. They have displayed a patriotism, a magnanimity rarely equaled in the world's history, and I shall endeavor, in sunshine and in storm, with your approbation if I can get it, without it if I must, to stand by them with fidelity equal to their great deserts. If you will stand with me, we shall conquer faction in the North and South, and shall save the country from the curse of being ruled by the combination now calling itself the opposition. We shall leave this country to our children as we found it--united, strong, prosperous and happy."

This was a memorable speech, strong, sincere, and conservative, and had a marked effect. It was intended, not only to influence the canva.s.s then pending, but to have an effect in controlling the National convention to be held six months later. It was copied far and wide, and the success of the State candidates whom Mr. Toombs supported showed that its statesmanlike utterances were adopted overwhelmingly in Georgia.

CHAPTER XV.

JOHN BROWN'S RAID.

But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong and weak alike. It has been a.s.serted, and with truth, that disunion was precipitated by the people, not by the politicians--by the North as well as by the South.

The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E.

Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the North. The man, who under normal conditions of society would have been sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States pa.s.sed strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.

What the Dred Scott decision had wrought at the North, the Ossawatomie raid awoke at the South. The main features of Buchanan's administration to hasten the "irrepressible conflict" were the well-weighed words of the Chief Justice and the wild invasion of a border ruffian. Strange paradox, but such were the influences at work in those disordered times.

Men lost their moorings, and political parties abandoned settled policies. Events crowded with remorseless impact upon certain civil strife.

Under this new condition of things Mr. Toombs made his great "door-sill"

speech in the United States Senate, on the 24th of January, 1860. It was upon the resolution offered by Senator Douglas calling for a measure of protection of each State and Territory against invasion by the authorities and inhabitants of every other State and Territory. Senator Toombs declared that the resolution opened up a new page in the history of our country. It was a step in the right direction. He feared that the disease lay too deep for the remedy. Heretofore the people of the United States could grapple and surmount all difficulties, foreign and domestic. A spirit of nationality, a common interest, a common danger, carried the country through revolutions. Now all this has changed. The feeling of loyalty and common destiny is rapidly pa.s.sing away. Hostility to the compact of the Union, to the tie which binds us together, finds utterance in the tongues of millions of our countrymen, animates their bosoms, and leads to the habitual disregard of the plainest duties and obligations. Large bodies of men now feel and know that party success involves danger; that the result may bring us face to face with revolution.

"The fundamental principles of our Union are a.s.sailed, invaded, and threatened with destruction; our ancient rights and liberties are in danger; the peace and tranquillity of our homes have been invaded by lawless violence, and their further invasion is imminent; the instinct of self-preservation arms society to their defense."

Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle introduced into our Const.i.tution. ["]It was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. The New England Confederation adopted it in 1643. The Supreme Judicial tribunal of Prussia affirmed it as the public law of Europe as late as 1855. It was acknowledged to be a sound principle of public law in the days of Pericles, and its violation by one of the States of Greece was the chief cause of the Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for twenty-one years. The Megareans had given refuge to the revolted slaves of Athens."

"I say," he continued, "the bargain is broken--broken by the States whose policy I have reviewed; broken by the Republican party, which did the work in their legislatures and elsewhere. Their hands are soiled with the blood of the compact. They cannot be permitted to minister at its altar. Their representatives on this floor mock at const.i.tutional obligations; jeer at oaths. They have lost their shame with their virtue.... In the name of the people, I repeat, I demand the bond. In the name of every true and honest man at the North as well as the South, I demand the resumption of your plighted faith. Upon these terms I have ever been willing to let the Union stand, but upon no other.

"Who is responsible for the murder, treason, and arson of John Brown? I have never known of his acts being approved or palliated by any other person than a Republican. Thousands of them have done it and are now doing it. In charging this dark catalogue of crime against this organization, I would not be unjust. I have no doubt that thousands of persons belonging to that organization throughout the North, loathe and despise John Brown's raid; but it is equally true that there are other thousands in the same organization who do approve it. They tell us that they condemn his acts, but admire his heroism. I think the Republican party must be pressed for a hero. The 'Newgate Calendar' can furnish them with a dozen such saints. To 'die game' and not to 'peach' are sometimes useful, if not heroic, virtues in an accomplice. The thousands of blind Republicans who do openly approve the treason, murder, and arson of John Brown, get no condemnation from their party for such acts.

They are its main defenders and propagandists all over the North, and, therefore, the party is in moral complicity with the criminal himself.

No society can long exist in peace under these injuries, because we are in virtual civil war; hence, I denounce their authors, the Republican party, as enemies of the Const.i.tution and enemies of my country.

"It is vain, in face of these injuries, to talk of peace, fraternity, and common country. There is no peace; there is no fraternity; there is no common country; all of us know it.

"Sir, I have but little more to add--nothing for myself. I feel that I have no need to pledge my poor services to this great cause, to my country. My State has spoken for herself. Nine years ago a convention of her people met and declared that her connection with this government depended upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave law. I was a member of that convention, and I stood then and stand now pledged to its action. I have faithfully labored to arrest these calamities; I will yet labor until this last contingency happens, faithfully, honestly, and to the best of my ability. When that time comes, freemen of Georgia, redeem your pledges! I am ready to redeem mine. Your honor is involved, your faith is plighted. I know you feel a stain as a wound. Your peace, your social system, your friends are involved. Never permit this Federal Government to pa.s.s into the traitors' hands of the black Republican party. It has already declared war against you and your inst.i.tutions. It every day commits acts of war against you; it has already compelled you to arm for your defense. Listen to no vain babbling; to no treacherous jargon about 'overt acts'; they have already been committed. Defend yourselves! The enemy is at your door; wait not to meet him at your hearthstone; meet him at the door-sill, and drive him from the Temple of Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.

It was an unfortunate time for the meeting of the Democratic National Convention. The hope that the party which had so often brought harmony from discord could unite upon the soil of an extreme Southern State was destined to be broken. The body met in Charleston on April 23, 1860. The place was worthy of the a.s.semblage. For the first time in the party history, its convention had met south of Cincinnati or Baltimore.

Redolent with the beauties of spring and the tint of historic interest, Charleston, with its memories of Moultrie, inspired feelings of patriotic pride. If it suggested the obstruction of Calhoun, it recalled the Revolutionary glory of Marion and Rutledge, and the bold challenge of Hayne to Webster, that if there be one State in the Union which could challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, ardent, and zealous devotion to the Union, that State was South Carolina.

It was a memorable meeting. The convention was presided over by Caleb Cushing of Ma.s.sachusetts, the devoted friend of Daniel Webster, and Attorney-General under Franklin Pierce. In its ranks were Henry B. Payne of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Ma.s.sachusetts, and James A. Bayard of Delaware. These men were towers of strength in the North. They were the men to whom Robert Toombs had appealed in the Senate, when he turned from his fiery imprecation and, lowering his great voice, declared, with tenderness and pride, "I have no word of invocation to those who stand to-day in the ranks of Northern Democracy, but to remember and emulate their past history. From the beginning of this controversy they have stood firmly by the Const.i.tution. No body of men in the world's history ever exhibited higher or n.o.bler devotion to principle under such adverse circ.u.mstances.... Amid the opprobrious epithets, the gibes and jeers of the enemies of the Const.i.tution; worse than this, amid words of distrust and reproach even from men of the South, these great-hearted patriots have marched steadily in the path of duty.... The union of all these elements may yet secure to our country peace and safety. But if this cannot be done, safety and peace are incompatible in the Union. Amid treachery and desertion at home, and injustice from without, amid disaster and defeat, they have risen superior to fortune, and stand to-day with their banners all tattered and soiled in the humble service of the whole country. No matter what fortune may betide us in the future, while life lasts, I have a hand that will succor and a heart ready to embrace the humblest soldier of this n.o.ble band."

At that time there were thirty-three States in the Union. The committee on platform consisted of one from each State. The delegates from California and Oregon, voting with the South, gave them seventeen votes in committee. The resolutions were quickly framed, with the exception of the one on slavery. Here was the deadlock. The majority plank declared that the right to settle in the Territories with slaves "was not to be destroyed nor impaired by Territorial legislation." The minority proposed once more to leave the question to the Supreme Court. The compromise was not accepted. The two reports came before the convention, and, the Douglas men being in the majority on the floor, the minority, or squatter-sovereignty report, was adopted by a vote of 165 to 138.

Here came the crisis. The delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and a part of Delaware, withdrew from the convention. Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama led this movement. He was a man of courage and decision, with unrivaled powers of oratory. He had been a member of Congress, and his influence in the South was large. So far back as June 15, 1858, he had written a famous letter to James M.

Slaughter that "no national party can save us; no sectional party can ever do it; but if we would do as our fathers did, organize committees of safety all over the cotton States--and it is only to them that we can hope for any effectual movement--we shall fire the Southern heart, instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and, by one concerted action, we can precipitate the cotton States into a revolution." This was called the "Scarlet Letter," and was widely scattered and read.

The seceding delegates organized a second a.s.semblage over which the Hon.

James A. Bayard presided. The Douglas men were left in control of the first convention, but could not secure the two-thirds vote necessary for his nomination. More than fifty ballots were taken, the full strength of the Illinois candidate being 152. On the 3d of May the convention adjourned to meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June, when it was hoped a spirit of compromise might be inspired by the seriousness of the situation.

On the night of the break in that body Mr. Yancey made a speech in Charleston, when in prophetic words he declared, "Perhaps even now the pen of the historian is nibbed to inscribe the history of a new revolution."

The seceding delegates called for a convention to be held in Richmond, Va., on the second Monday in June.

When the seven States had withdrawn from the convention, the Georgia delegation was split up. A majority left the convention, a small minority remained. This action created great excitement in Georgia. The Democratic executive committee called a State convention to meet in Milledgeville on June 4. A committee of prominent citizens, headed by Hon. J. J. Gresham of Macon, addressed letters to public men asking their views in this alarming situation. Howell Cobb indorsed the seceders; he was opposed to Douglas. Alexander H. Stephens thought Georgia should appoint delegates to the Baltimore convention, withdraw the demand for a new plank in the Cincinnati platform, abide by the doctrine of non-intervention, and nominate a good man for President. "If we must quarrel with the North," said he, "let us base it on the aggressive acts of our enemies and not on the supposed shortcomings of our friends."

Hon. Robert Toombs did not come South during the Charleston convention.

He watched from his post in the Senate the great struggle between the Democratic factions. On May 10, he wrote, in reply to the letter of the Macon committee:

Perhaps the time may not have come for the attainment of the full measure of our const.i.tutional rights; it may not have been prudent on the part of the representatives of the seventeen States to have sanctioned and presented as much truth on the slavery issue as is contained in what is commonly called the majority platform; but when it was thus sanctioned, approved, and presented to the convention, it was well to stand by and defend it, especially against the platform of the minority. The seceding delegates did this with manly firmness, and I approve their action.

Mr. Toombs advised, however, that the seceding delegates ought to meet with the convention at Baltimore and endeavor to obtain such a satisfactory adjustment of difficulties as could be secured. "This course requires no sacrifice of principles." This plan had been proposed by the delegates from New York to the delegates from the Southern States. "The proposed Richmond convention, if it shall be found necessary to hold it," he said, "can be held after, as well as before the Baltimore convention, and I think with clearer lights for its guidance."