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THE BANNER. SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 19, 1907. Lipscomb & Company Fire Insurance Phone 109 8 Strong Companies Over Twenty-Five Millions of Assets ♦ ■ ♦ m ♦ ■ * ■ ♦ ■ ♦ m ♦ ■ ♦ a ♦ a ♦ H ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ M ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ ■ ♦ The Civilian Leaders of the Confederacy By JOHN GOODE of Virginia Sometime Member of the Confederate Congress, of the Virginia Secession Convention, of the Congress of the United States and President of the Virginia Constitution al Convention of 1901 -2. NO. 6. ROBERT TOOMBS. Mirabeau declared that three things are necessary for the suecess- ful conduct of a revolution: “Auda city, audacity, audacity.” It is cer tain that Robert Toombs acted upon this principle. When the Confeder ate States sereded from the Ameri can Union he espoused their cause with all the energy and enthusiasm of his manly nature. Although a Whig in politics, he belonged to the .States' rights wing. He loved his native South, and believed that the highest energies of Ills lature and the best affections of his heart were due to her. He would have freely offered at any time in her defense his fortunes and his sacred honor. When Georgia was financially em barrassed and needed money, he loaned the State from his own funds a large sum, and used his personal credit to obtain a much larger sum. He was an earnest disciple of the States’ rights school, of which Jef ferson, Madison and Mason were the great exemplars. He fully believed •that the Constitution was not made by any man or any set of men, but that it was made by the States as States, and that in entering into the compact, or union, they had not sur rendered their sovereignty as free and independent Commonwealths. His Statement of Rights. At the first session of the Provis ional Congress at Montgomery he was appointed Secretary of State for the Confederate States. In his diplomatic correspondence with Wil liam L. Yancey, Pierre A. Rost and A. W. Mann, in which he sent their commissions to Great Britain, France, Russia and Belgium, ac crediting them to represent the Con federate States near the govern ments of those countries, he took advantage of the opportunity to In form the governments of the world that the several Commonwealths ' comprising the Confederate States of America had, by act of their peo ple. in convention assembled, sever ed their collection with the United States; had reassumod the powers which they delegated to the Federal government for certain specified pur poses, and had formed an independ ent government, perfect in all Us branches and endowed with every attribute of sovereignty and power necessary to entitle them to assume a place among the nations of the world. Mr. Toombs was born in Wilkes ounty, Ga., July 2, IS 10. His grand father was a soldier in Braddock’s disastrous campaign. His father. Major Robert Toombs, commanded a Virginia regiment during tlie Rev olutionary War. rendering conspic uous service in that, capacity. Rob ert Toombs entered the University of Georgia in 1824, but not being willing to submit to the severe dis cipline to which the students were subjected, he was granted a dis charge. He then entered Union Col lege, New York, from which he grad uated in 1S2S. He studied law at the University of Virginia in 1829- '30. and although he had not at tained the requisite age. he was ad mitted to the bar on the 18«h of March, 1830. In November, 1840, he was married to Julia Dubose, and in 1880 celebrated his golden wed ding with his children, grandchild ren and great-grandchildren around •him to wish him Joy and extend their felicitations. Fought Indians. He commanded a company In the Creek War, represented his county in the Legislature In 1837-M0 and 1841-’44 at which time he served as chairman of the Committee of the Judiciary. He was the Whig candi date for Speaker of the House in 1842, -delegate to the Democratic National Convention In 1844, mem ber of the House of Representatives -from the Twenty-Ninth to the Thir ty-second Congress, and United States Senator from 1858 to 1861, when he retired. i 1, i' f> . . \-x On January 7. 1861, he made his last speech in the United States Sen ate and announced his retirement from that body. He was a member of file State convention that passed the ordinance of secession, and on the ITtli of April. 1861, voted with 207 other delegates in favor of se cession. He was unanimously se lected as the first delegate at large to the Provisional Congress at Mont gomery. His name was presented to the Congress as the first choice for President, but four States having agreed on Mr. Davis as the candi date he was unanimously chosen. He took to the Field. Mr. Toombs was made chairman of the Finance Committee of the Provisional Congress. He opposed the proposed attack on the United States forts in Charleston Harbor as a movement fatal to the Confederacy and thereby demonstrated his far- amassed a considerable fortune. He was a delegate to the State convention in 1 877, was made chair man of the committee on legislation and final revisioh. When the con vention was embarrassed lor want of funds he insisted on advancing the money from his own pocket. One of the last aets of his life was to pronounce a great eulogy on the life and character of his intimate, bosom friend. Alexander H. Steph ens. He died at his home in Geor gia, December IS, 1SS5. universally beloved and lamented. In 1844 Toombs was elected to Congress, was re-elected and served for eight years in the House; sup ported tor President. William Henry Harrison, in 1840, and Mr. Clay, iu 1S44. His first speech in the House was made on the Oregon question; he was an earnest advocate of the com promise measures in 1850, took his seeing statesmanship. On July 21.'seat in the Senate in March. 1853, 1861. he joined the Confederate' and ‘remained in that body un- Army as brigadier-general, and com- 1 til 1 SCI. manded the First Brigade of the! Mr. Toombs was one of the most First Division of the Army of North- remarkable men whom it has been ern Virginia. I miy pleasure to know personally. He In January, 1862, the General As- was able, eloquent, impetuous and senibly of Georgia elected him to the entered into a debate with the fiery Senate of the Confederate States, energy of one who felt that he most with Benjamin H. Hill as his col- do his full part in the fray. As an league, but be continued to com- evidence of his great honesty of pur- mand bis brigade during the Penin- pose and unyielding resolution, he sula campaign and in the siege of refused, as I have said, to make an Yorktown. At the battle of Malvern Hill his brigade lost one-third of Us entire number. After a controversy with D. H. Hill, and his arrest by order of President Davis, he rejoined his brigade during the fight at the sec ond battle of Manassas, in August, 1862. He received the highest com mendation for his gallantry and courage in guarding the bridge over Antietanr with 401 men. He was severely wounded in that engage ment, and was sent home to recover from his wounds, but rejoined his command in the spring of 1862. In the following March, however, he resigned his commission In the army. After his return to Georgia he offered his services to Governor Brown, and was made adjutant and inspector-general of the Georgia mili tia, taking part' in the battles be fore Atlanta, the siege of Savannah, and in the battle of Pocotallgo, S.C. Never Reconstructed. When the Confederacy finally col lapsed he escaped to Europe, but -Now lies as mute on Tara's walls never asked for pardon, and always insisted that he was an “unrecon- structed and unrepentant rebel.” Af ter the war he practiced. law and application fotj pardon after the close of the war. He insisted that he had done nothing for which he should sue for executive clemency, and that he would live and die "unreconstructed.” During the last years of his life, it was his custom to pass the summer months at the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs, and 1 have often listened to him as he gave his views about public men and public measures. Sitting beneath the patrimonial oaks at that famous resort, with a crowd around him, especially of Northern listeners, eagerly attend ing to every word that dropped from his lips, he declared that he bad no country since the subjuga tion of his beloved South, that he felt as an exile in the land of his nativity, and in the language of the bard of Erin, he felt like ex claiming: “The harp that once -through Tara's halls. The soul of music shed. As though that soul were dead. A Dordly Life Not long prior to his death a public journal in his State said of him: “The people of Georgia never loved any-man better than they lov ed General Toombs, and the signs that his race has been nearly run have awakened a tender interest in him and in all that to him pertains. He is tlie most remarkable man in many respects that the South has ever produced, and it is doubtful it the records of a lordlier life than his can he found in the history of our republic. He has never moved as other men, nor worked by ordi nary methods. He has been kingly in all his ways, lavish in his opin ions, disdaining all expedients or de liberation, and moving to his ambi tions with a princely assumption that has never been gainsaid by the people and seldom by circumstan ces.” He was earnest and zealous in the cause of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, of which he became a member of the thirty-third, or the highest, degree, and from 1872 to 1880 he was an active member of the rite in the State of Georgia. After his death Albert Pike, the most eminent Ma son in this county, who had known him long and intimately, wrote of him as follows: “A great man, old and full of days, has been, gathered unto his fathers, a matt of transcen dent ability, pre-eminently gifted with logical faculty; of strong, clear intellect; a great lover of the truth and singularly keen in distinguish ing it from the false; a man quick in determining, resolute and adher ing to and bold in announcing his conclusions and convictions: an oomplished lawyer, are ardent and impassioned orator, vehement and imperious in debate; a student who had accumulated great stores of knowledge of many kinds; a man of antique greatness of soul, of true nobility of character, and of perfect integrity, scorning concealment and deceit and the rascalities of dialec tics; impetuous and sometimes in his utterances harsh, indiscreet and reckless, as if moved by passion and intolerance of opinion; and yet, for all this outward seeming, genial and generous, most hospitable, kindhear- ted, amiable, forgiving; a man whom one could not long be with without coming to lovei him; a man who, take him all in. all, had in his prime of life no equal In intellect in the Southern States of the Union.” His Defiance to the Senate. In his last address to the Senate •Mr. Toombs was very defiant, and spoke as follows: "You will not regard Confederate obligations; you will not regard constitutional obligations: you will not regard your oaths. What, then, am I to do Am I a free man? is my State a tree State? We are free men; we have rights; I have stated them. We have wrongs; I have re counted them. I have demonstrated tbat tlie party now coming into pow er lias declared us outlaws, and is determined to exclude thousands of millions of our property from tlie common territories; that it has de clared es under the ban of the Un ion. and out of the protection of the laws of the United States every where. They have refused to pro tect us from invasion and insurrec tion bv the Federal power and the Constitution denies to us in the Un ion the right to raise fleets or armies for our defense. “All these charges I have proven l>y the record; and I put them before the civilized world and demand the judgment of today, of tomorrow, of distant ages, and of heaven itself upon the justice of these causes. 1 a.m content, whatever it be. to peril all in so noble, so holy a cause. We have appealed time and time again for these constitutional rights; you have refused them. “We apiieal again. Restore us tlu-se rights as we had them, as your court adjudges them to he. just as our people have said they are; redress these flagrant wrongs, seen of all men. and it will restore fraternity and peace and unity to all of us. Refuse them, and what then We shall then ask you: ‘Let us depart in peace.’ Refuse that and you present us war. We accept it; and inscribing upon our banners the glorious words, ‘Liberty and Equality,' we will trust to the blood of the brave and the God of battles for security and tranquility.” Toombs and Stephens. In a publication entitled "South ern Statesman of the Old Regime.” in which a very striking contrast is drawn between two great Georgians —Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs—shorn-ing the predominant characteristics of each, the writer says; "As to the actual eloquence of the two men. It is hard to reach any conclusion. Both could carry away a Jury or a crowd upon the hustings, and the secret of their power lay not so much in the matter of their speeches as In the way they deliver ed them. Yet, never did two orators present a greater contrast. Toombs, with his strength of Ibody and voice and Impetuous force of conviction; Stephens, with his puny frame, thin