President Pierce of the Mississippi
River bill.

In July, 1856, he said that he had for eleven years maintained the
vetoes of Mr. Polk. "I have perceived that this mischief is widespread,
this corruption greater, this tendency to the destruction of the country
is more dangerous. The tendency to place the whole government under the
money power of the nation is greater and greater. The danger may be all
of my imagination; but whether that be so, or whether I see in a bolder
light the evil that will grow by letting this sluice from the public
treasury and making it run by the will of the majority, I deem it so
important that it may be worth an empire. We are called on, upon the
idea of everybody helping everybody's bill, to vote for them all. There
certainly can be no greater abandonment of public principle than is here
presented."

Senator Toombs, while a member of the Georgia Legislature, opposed the
omnibus bill, granting State aid to railroads, and one of the first
devices to fall under his criticism was a scheme to build a road to his
own town. He was by nature progressive. He championed the cause of the
State railroad of Georgia. In general terms he believed that the States
and the people should carry out works of internal improvement. It is
said that the first office ever held by Mr. Toombs was that of
commissioner of the town of Washington, Ga. The election hinged upon a
question of public improvement, the question being "ditch or no ditch";
Toombs was elected commissioner, and the ditch was dug.

He was nothing of a demagogue. He did not attempt to belittle the public
service. He championed the provision for higher pay for the United
States Judges, and for increasing the stipend of army officers, although
he denounced the system of double rations as vicious. He did not
hesitate to hit an unnecessary expense in every shape. All overflowing
pension grabs found in him a deadly enemy. In December, 1856, while
speaking on the subject of claims, he said: "In 1828, when half a
century had passed over the heads of the men who fought your battles,
when their generation was gone, when Tories and jobbers could not be
distinguished from the really meritorious, the agents came here and
attempted to intimidate public men." He alluded to pension agents as men
who prowl about and make fortunes by peddling in the pretended
patriotism and sufferings of their fathers.

"It is," said he, "a poor pretext for an honorable man to co