presented this risk, that in the case of the rejection
of the constitution, then in embryo, the lender might find himself the
holder of an uncertain claim. The convention, however, was not left long
in doubt. With a heroic and patriotic _abandon_, General Toombs declared
that if Georgia would not pay her debts, he would pay them for her.
Selling a dozen or two United States bonds, he placed the proceeds to
the credit of the president of the convention, who was authorized in
turn to issue notes of $1000 each and deposit them with General Toombs.
The act was spontaneous, whole-souled, dramatic. It saved the convention
and rehabilitated the State with a new constitution. By a rising and
unanimous vote General Toombs was publicly thanked for his
public-spirited act, and the old man, alone remaining in his seat in the
convention hall, covered his face with his hands, and shed tears during
this unusual demonstration.

When the convention had under review the bill of rights, General Toombs
created a breeze in the proceedings by proposing a paragraph that the
legislature should make no irrevocable grants of special privileges or
immunities. The proposition received a rattling fire from all parts of
the house. Governor Jenkins assailed it on the floor as dangerous to
capital and fatal to public enterprise. It was argued that charters were
contracts, and that when railroads or other interests were put upon
notice that their franchise was likely to be disturbed, there would be
an overthrow of confidence and development in Georgia. This was the
first intimation of the master struggle which General Toombs was about
to make, an advance against the corporations all along the line. It was
the picket-firing before the engagement.

General Toombs had made a study of the whole railroad question. He was
a master of the law of corporations. He maintained a peculiar attitude
toward them. He never invested a dollar in their stock, nor would he
accept a place at their council boards. He rarely ever served them as
attorney. When the General Assembly resolved to tax railroads in
Georgia, the State selected General Toombs to prosecute the cases. In
1869 he had argued the Collins case against the Central Railroad and
Banking Company, in which the court had sustained his position that the
proposed action of the Central Road in buying up the stock of the
Atlantic and Gulf Railroad, to control that road, was _ultra vires_. He
had conducted the case