g for Congress, and the Democrats, to
strengthen their cause, brought over McDuffie from South Carolina. Large
crowds were present in the shady yard surrounding the City Hall; seats
had been constructed there, while back in the distance long trenches
were dug, and savory meats were undergoing the famous process of
barbecue. Speaking commenced at ten o'clock in the morning, and, with a
short rest for dinner, there were seven hours of oratory. People seldom
tired in those days of forensic meetings. Toombs was on his mettle. He
denounced the Democrats for dragging the slavery question before the
people to operate upon their fears. It was a bugbear everlastingly used
to cover up the true question at issue. It was kept up to operate on
the fears of the timid and the passions and prejudices of the
unsuspecting.

The young Whig then launched into a glowing defense of the National
Bank. The Democrats had asked where was the authority to charter a bank?
He would reply, "Where was the authority, in so many words, to build
lighthouses? Democrats were very strict constructionists when it was
necessary to accomplish their political purposes, but always found a way
to get around these doubts when occasion required." He taunted McDuffie
with having admitted that Congress had power to charter a bank.

Mr. Toombs contended that a tariff, with the features of protection to
American industry, had existed since the foundation of the government.
This great system of "plunder" had been supported by Jefferson.
Eloquently warming up under the Democratic charge that the tariff was a
system of robbery, Mr. Toombs appealed to every Whig and Democrat as an
American who boasted of this government as "a model to all nations of
the earth; as the consummation of political wisdom; who asks the
oppressed of all nations to come and place himself under its protection,
because it upholds the weak against the strong and protects the poor
against the rich, whether it has been going on in a system of plunder
ever since it sprang into power." "It is not true," he said, "it is not
true!"

Turning with prophetic ken to his Augusta friends, he asked what would
be the effect were the Savannah River turned through the beautiful
plains of Augusta, and manufactures built up where the industrious could
find employment. Hundreds of persons, he said, would be brought together
to spin the raw cotton grown in the State, to consume the provisions
which the farmers raise