ection of just such claims as these you now bring?"
"Yes, may it please the Court," said Toombs, shaking his leonine locks,
"there can be no doubt that it was the intention of the legislature to
defraud the creditor; but they have failed to put their intention in a
form that would stand, so it becomes necessary for this Court to add its
own ingenuity to this villainy. It seems that this Court is making laws
rather than decisions."

In one of his dissenting opinions upon these laws, Justice Hiram Warner
declared that he would not allow his name to go down to posterity
steeped in the infamy of such a decision. General Toombs lost his case,
but the decision was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court of the
United States.

The times were full of evil. The legislature was dominated by
adventurers and ignorant men, and public credit was freely voted away to
new enterprises. The State was undeveloped, and this wholesale system of
public improvement became popular. Unworthy men were scrambling for
public station, and the times were out of tune. In the midst of this
demoralization Toombs was a pillar of fire. He was tireless in his
withering satire, his stinging invective, his uncompromising war upon
the misgovernment of the day.

Here was a fine field and a rare occasion for his pungent criticism and
denunciation. His utterances were not those of a political leader. He
was not trimming his sails for office. He did not shape his conduct so
as to be considered an available man by the North. He fought error
wherever he saw it. He made no terms with those whom he considered
public enemies. He denounced radicalism as a "leagued scoundrelism of
private gain and public plunder."

In opposing the issue of State bonds to aid a certain railroad, he
declared that if the legislature saddled this debt upon the taxpayers,
their act would be a nullity. "We will adopt a new constitution with a
clause repudiating these bonds, and like AEtna spew the monstrous frauds
out of the market!"

"You may," he said, "by your deep-laid schemes, lull the thoughtless,
enlist the selfish, and stifle for a while the voices of patriots, but
the day of reckoning will come. These cormorant corporations, these
so-called patriotic developers, whom you seek to exempt, shall pay their
dues, if justice lives. By the Living God, they shall pay them."

"Georgia shall pay her debts," said Toombs on one occasion. "If she does
not, I will pay them for her!" Th