ty, 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.

CHAPTER IX.

TOOMBS IN THE SENATE.

When Robert Toombs entered the Senate of the United States, in 1853, the
_personnel_ of that body had changed since the great debates on the
compromise measures. Calhoun had died before the compromise was
effected, and only a short time after his last address had been read to
the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia. Clay survived his last greatest
work but two years, and on the 29th of June, 1852, was no more. Daniel
Webster lived only four months longer than Mr. Clay. Among the new
leaders in that body were Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, William M.
Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Charles Sumner of
Mas