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ROBERT TOOMBS.

FAMILY, BOYHOOD, LIFE AT COLLEGE.

Gabriel Toombs was one of General Braddock's soldiers who marched against Fort DuQuesne in 1755. He was a member of the sturdy Virginia line which protested against the dangerous tactics of the British martinet, and when the English regulars were ambushed and cut to pieces, Gabriel Toombs deployed with his men in the woods and picked off the savages with the steady aim and unerring skill of the frontiersman. Over one hundred years later Robert Toombs, his grandson, protested against the fruitless charge at Malvern Hill, and obliquing to the left with his brigade, protected his men and managed to cover the retreat of his division.

This was a family of soldiers. They were found in the old country fighting Cromwell's army of the rebellion.

Robert Toombs of Georgia was fond of tracing his lineage to the champions of the English king who defended their sovereign at Boscobel. But the American family was made up of lovers of liberty rather than defenders of the King. It was one of the anomalies in the life of the Georgia Toombs, who resisted all restraint and challenged authority in every form, that he should have located his ancestry among the sworn royalists of the seventeenth century.

William Toombs, the great-grandfather of Robert, was the first of the English family to come to America, about 1650. He settled in Virginia. Gabriel, who fought with Braddock, was the son of William. Major Robert Toombs, the father of the Georgia statesman, commanded a Virginia regiment during the Revolution and rendered conspicuous service in Georgia against the British. Major Toombs came to Georgia in 1783 and received a rich tract of 3000 acres of land in Wilkes County. This was their share in the award to distinguished soldiers of "the Virginia line."

"They fought for their estates like feudal barons," General Toombs used to say, when speaking of his ancestors, now sleeping in the red hills of Georgia. When he was asked after the civil war why he did not petition for relief of political disabilities, he declared that "no vote of Congress, no amnesty proclamation, shall rob me of the glory of outlawry. I shall not be the first of my name for three centuries to accept the stigma of a pardon."

The elder Gabriel Toombs in 1795 made his last will and testament. He commended his soul to God who gave it, and blessed his Maker for the worldly goods that he was possessed of. Distributing his estate among his wife, Ann Toombs, and his six children, he expressly directed that his negroes and their increase must be appraised together; that they were not to be sold out of the family, and that they should be "used in a Christian-like manner." He divided up parcels of land in Greene and Wilkes counties among his sons, Robert Toombs and Dawson Gabriel Toombs, and his four daughters. Gabriel Toombs died in 1801.

When Major Robert Toombs, the Virginia veteran, and son of Gabriel, came to Georgia to claim his award of land, he settled on Beaverdam Creek, five miles from the town of Washington. It is probable that he stopped in Columbia County, for he married Miss Sanders, of that county. She died, leaving no children, and Major Toombs went back to Virginia and married Miss Catlett. One son was born, and this lady died. Miss Catharine Huling was the third wife. The Hulings were also Virginians, and by this marriage six children were reared. Sarah, who finally became Mrs. Pope; James, who was killed by accident while hunting; Augustus, Robert, and Gabriel.

Catharine Huling, the mother of Robert Toombs of Georgia, was a most excellent woman, of strong and exalted piety. She was of Welsh ancestry, a devout Methodist, and after accompanying her son to college, and seeing him married, prosperous, and distinguished, died in 1848, when he was a member of Congress. Mrs. Toombs gave generously of her own means, to family and friends. Robert Toombs proved to be a dutiful son. He visited his mother constantly, and carefully managed her property. Finally he induced her to move to Washington, so that he might be near her.

Robert Toombs was the fifth child of Robert and Catharine Toombs. He was born in Wilkes County, about five miles from Washington, July 2, 1810. His brother Gabriel, who still lives, was three years his junior, and was throughout his life his close and confidential adviser and friend.

Robert Toombs, in childhood, was a slender, active, mischievous lad, and it will be a surprise to those who remember his superb physical manhood, to hear that at school and college he bore the nickname of "Runt." He was marked for his energy and vivacity. He was not precocious. Nature gave no signs of her intentions in his youth. His development, physical and mental, was not rapid, but wholesome. He was fond of horseback riding, and the earliest glimpse we have of him is as a slender lad, with dark eyes and hair slightly touched with auburn, flying through the village, and sometimes carrying on his pony behind him his little brother to school.

He was always in good health. He boasted that he never took medicine until he was thirty-four years old. His mother said that he grew up almost without her knowledge, so little trouble had he given her. He was a fine horseman. Possibly this practice had much to do with his good spirits and physical strength.

In his younger days he rode sixty-five miles to Milledgeville, covering the distance in one day, and was fresh enough to attend a dance at night. He delighted in fox-hunting, although never a racer or in any sense a sporting man. During the earlier years of his career he practiced law in the saddle, as was the custom with the profession at that time, and never thought of riding to court on wheels until later in life. Throughout his active participation in the Civil War he rode his famous mare, "Gray Alice," and was a striking figure as, splendidly mounted and charged with enthusiasm, he plunged along the lines of the Army of Northern Virginia. In his long wandering from capture in 1865, he was in the saddle six months, riding to and from the wilds of northeast Georgia to the swamps of the Chattahoochee. There was something in his picturesque figure upon the horse which suggests John Randolph of Roanoke.

His first training was at what was known as an "old field school," taught by Welcome Fanning, a master of good attainments and a firm believer in the discipline of the rod. Afterward, Robert Toombs was drilled by a private tutor, Rev. Alexander Webster--an adjunct professor of the University of Georgia and a man of high repute as scholar and instructor. Mr. Webster was the friend and early preceptor of Alexander H. Stephens.

Young Toombs was christened Robert Augustus, and carried his middle name until 1840, when he seems to have dropped it as a useless piece of furniture. There is a report that some of his political foes, playing upon his initials, saddled him with the sobriquet of "Rat." Having out-grown one nickname he was prepared to shed another.

Young Toombs proved to be a great reader. Most of his learning developed in the Humanities; and a cultured visitor from Maryland who once stopped at his father's house declared that this boy of fourteen was better posted in history than anyone he had ever seen.

It was about this time that Robert Toombs was fitted out for Franklin College--now the State University--located in Athens, Ga., forty miles from Washington.

This institution, to which he was devotedly attached and of whose governing board he was a member at the time of his death, was chartered in 1785 by the State of Georgia. It was the early recipient of the deed of western lands, which the State subsequently purchased, assuming the perpetual endowment of the college. It has been to Georgia what Jefferson's school has proved to Virginia, the nursery of scholars and statesmen. Governor John Milledge had given the institution a home upon a beautiful hill overlooking the Oconee River, and this lovely spot they had named Athens. Here in 1824 young Robert Toombs repaired, animated with the feelings which move a college boy, except that his mother went with him and relieved him of the usual sense of loneliness which overtakes the student. Major Robert Toombs, his father, who was an indigo and tobacco planter, was reputed to be a wealthy man for those times, but it was the comfort of the early settler who had earned his demesne from the government rather than the wealth of the capitalist. He had enough to support his family in comfort. He died when Robert was five years old, and the latter selected as his guardian Thomas W. Cobb, of Greene County, a cousin of Governor Howell Cobb, a member of Congress himself and a man of high legal attainment.

When Robert Toombs entered college that institution was under the Presidency of Moses Waddell, a born educator and strict disciplinarian. Three generations of this family have served the State as preceptors in Franklin College.

It may well be imagined that the college had not at that time reached the dignity of a university, for an entry in President Waddell's diary was this: "Caught Jones chewing tobacco: whipped him for it." Those were the old days when boys were boys until they were twenty-one. There is no record to show that Robert Toombs in college was a close scholar. Later in life he became a hard student and laborious worker. But if these industrious habits were born to him in Athens there is no trace of them. That he was a reader of Shakespeare and history he gave ample evidence in his long career, but if the legends of his college town are to be trusted, he was more noted for outbreaks of mischief than for close application. Full of life and spirits, a healthy, impetuous boy, he was on good terms with his classmates, and took life easily. That was a time when students were required to get up at sunrise and attend prayers.

One night, the story goes, the vigilant proctor actually found young Toombs playing cards with some of his friends. Fearing a reprimand, Toombs sought his guardian, who happened to be in Athens on a visit from his home in Greenesboro. It is not certain that young Toombs communicated the enormity of his offense, but he obtained leave to apply to Dr. Waddell for a letter of discharge. The learned but severe scholar had not received the proctor's report, and gave the young student a certificate of honorable dismissal.

Later in the day the President met Toombs walking around the campus.

"Robert Toombs," said he, "you took advantage of me early this morning. I did not then know that you had been caught at the card-table last evening."

Toombs straightened up and informed the doctor that he was no longer addressing a student of his college, but a free-born American citizen.

The halls of Athens are fragrant with these stories of Toombs. No man ever left so distinctive a stamp upon the place or gave such spicy flavor to its traditions.

Among the college-mates of Robert Toombs at Athens were Stephen Olin, Robert Dougherty, and Daniel Chandler, the grandfather of the unfortunate Mrs. Maybrick of England, and the man whose chaste and convincing appeal for female education resulted in the establishment of Wesleyan Female College--the first seminary in the world for the higher culture of women.

Closer in friendship their hands clasped as age swept over their raven locks and stalwart shoulders. Bishop Pierce never hesitated to go to Robert Toombs when his churches or his schools needed money. Toombs would give to the Methodist itinerant as quickly as he would to the local priest. Whether he was subscribing for a Catholic Orphans' Home or a Methodist College he would remark, as he gave liberally and freely, "I always try to honor God Almighty's drafts."

Pierce and Toombs had much in common--although the one was full of saintly fire and the other, at times, of defiant irreverence. It was Pierce whose visits Toombs most enjoyed at his own home, with whom he afterward talked of God and religion. The good bishop lived to bury the devoted Christian wife of the Georgia statesman, and finally, when the dross of worldliness was gone, to receive into the Methodist Church the bowed and weeping figure of the giant Toombs.

When Robert Toombs became prominent in Georgia, there is a story that his State university, in order to win back his friendship, conferred upon him an honorary degree. Toombs is represented as having spurned it with characteristic scorn. "No," said he, "when I was unknown and friendless, you sent me out disgraced, and refused me a diploma. Now that I would honor the degree I do not want it."

There is a regular mythology about Toombs at his State university. The things he said would fill a volume of Sydney Smith, while the pranks he played would rival the record of Robin Hood. There is still standing in the college campus in Athens a noble tree, with the crown of a century upon it. Under its spreading branches the first college commencement was held one hundred years ago; under it the student Toombs once stood and addressed his classmates, and of all the men who have gone in and out beneath its shade, but one name has been found sturdy enough to link with this monument of a forgotten forest. The boys to this day call it "The Toombs Oak."

AT THE BAR.

After Robert Toombs left the University of Georgia, he entered Union College at Schenectady, N. Y., under the presidency of Dr. Eliphalet Knott. Here he finished his classical course and received his A. B. degree. This was in 1828, and in 1829 he repaired to the University of Virginia, where he studied law one year. In the Superior Court of Elbert County, Ga., holden on the 18th day of March, 1830, he was admitted to the bar. The license to practice recites that "Robert A. Toombs made his application for leave to practice and plead in the several courts of law and equity in this State, whereupon the said Robert A. Toombs, having given satisfactory evidence of good moral character, and having been examined in open court, and being found well acquainted and skilled in the laws, he was admitted by the court to all the privileges of an attorney, solicitor, and counsel in the several courts of law and equity in this State."

The license is signed by William H. Crawford, Judge, Superior Court, Northern Circuit. Judge Crawford had served two terms in the United States Senate from Georgia. He had been Minister to Paris during the days of the first Napoleon. He had been Secretary of War and of the Treasury of the United States. In 1825 he received a flattering vote for President, when the Clay and Adams compact drove Jackson and Crawford to the rear. Bad health forced Mr. Crawford from the field of national politics, and in 1827, upon the death of Judge Dooly, Mr. Crawford was appointed Judge of the Northern Circuit. He held this position until his death in Elbert County, which occurred in 1834. Crawford was a friend and patron of young Toombs. The latter considered him the full peer of Webster and of Calhoun.

Robert Toombs was married eight months after his admission to the bar. His career in his profession was not immediately successful. A newspaper writer recently said of him that "while his contemporaries were fighting stubbornly, with varying luck, Toombs took his honors without a struggle, as if by divine right." This was no more true of Toombs than it is true of other men. He seems to have reached excellence in law by slow degrees of toil. Hon. Frank Hardeman, Solicitor-General of the Northern Circuit, was one of the lawyers who examined Toombs for admission to the bar. He afterward declared that Robert Toombs, during the first four or five years of his practice, did not give high promise. His work in his office was spasmodic, and his style in court was too vehement and disconnected to make marked impression. But the exuberance or redundancy of youth soon passed, and he afterward reached a height in his profession never attained by a lawyer in Georgia.

His work during the first seven years of his practice did not vary in emolument or incident from the routine of a country lawyer. In those days the bulk of legal business lay in the country, and the most prominent men of the profession made the circuit with their saddle-bags, and put up during court week at the village taverns. Slaves and land furnished the basis of litigation. Cities had not reached their size and importance, corporations had not grown to present magnitude, and the wealth and brains of the land were found in the rural districts. "The young lawyers of to-day," says Judge Reese of Georgia, "are far in advance of those during the days of Toombs, owing to the fact that questions and principles then in doubt, and which the lawyers had to dig out, have been long ago decided, nor were there any Supreme Court reports to render stable the body of our jurisprudence."

The counties in which Robert Toombs practiced were Wilkes, Columbia, Oglethorpe, Elbert, Franklin, and Greene. The bar of the Northern Circuit was full of eminent men. Crawford presided over the courts and a delegation of rare strength pleaded before him. There were Charles J. Jenkins, Andrew J. Miller, and George W. Crawford of Richmond County; from Oglethorpe were George R. Gilmer and Joseph Henry Lumpkin; from Elbert, Thomas W. Thomas and Robert McMillan; from Greene, William C. Dawson, Francis H. Cone; from Clarke, Howell Cobb; from Taliaferro, Alexander H. Stephens. Across the river in Carolina dwelt Calhoun and McDuffie. As a prominent actor in those days remarked: "Giants seem to grow in groups. There are seed plats which foster them like the big trees of California, and they nourish and develop one another, and seem to put men on their mettle." Such a seed plat we notice within a radius of fifty miles of Washington, Ga., where lived a galaxy of men, illustrious in State and national affairs.

In 1837 the great panic which swept over the country left a large amount of litigation in its path. Between that time and 1843, Lawyer Toombs did an immense practice. It is said that in one term of court in one county he returned two hundred cases and took judgment for 0,000. The largest part of his business was in Wilkes and Elbert, and his fees during a single session of the latter court often reached 00. During these six years he devoted himself diligently and systematically to the practice of his profession, broken only by his annual attendance upon the General Assembly at Milledgeville. It was during this period that he developed his rare powers for business and his surpassing eloquence as an advocate. He made his fortune during these years, for after 1843, and until the opening of the war between the States, he was uninterruptedly a member of Congress.

There was no important litigation in eastern or middle Georgia that did not enlist his services. He proved to be an ardent and tireless worker. He had grown into a manhood of splendid physique, and he spent the days and most of the nights in careful application. He never went into a case until after the most thorough preparation, where preparation was possible. But he had a wonderful memory and rare legal judgment. He was thoroughly grounded in the principles of law. He possessed, as well, some of that common sense which enabled him to see what the law ought to be, and above all else, he had the strongest intuitive perception of truth. He could strip a case of its toggery and go right to its vitals. He was bold, clean, fearless, and impetuous, and when convinced he had right on his side would fight through all the courts, with irresistible impulse. He was susceptible to argument, but seemed absolutely blind to fear.

The brightest chapters of the life of Toombs are perhaps his courthouse appearances. There is no written record of his masterly performances, but the lawyers of his day attest that his jury speeches were even better than his political addresses.

A keen observer of those days will tell you that Mr. Stephens would begin his talk to the jury with calmness and build upon his opening until he warmed up into eloquence; but that Mr. Toombs would plunge immediately into his fierce and impassioned oratory, and pour his torrent of wit, eloquence, logic, and satire upon judge and jury. He would seem to establish his case upon the right, and then defy them to disregard it.

In spite of this vehement and overpowering method he possessed great practical gifts. He had the knack of unraveling accounts, and while not technically skilled in bookkeeping, had a general and accurate knowledge which gave him prestige, whether in intricate civil or criminal cases. He was a rash talker, but the safest of counselors, and practiced his profession with the greatest scruple. On one occasion he said to a client who had stated his case to him: "Yes, you can recover in this suit, but you ought not to do so. This is a case in which law and justice are on opposite sides."

The client told him he would push the case, anyhow.

"Then," replied Mr. Toombs, "you must hire someone else to assist you in your damned rascality."

On one occasion a lawyer went to him and asked him what he should charge a client, in a case to which Mr. Toombs had just listened in the courthouse.

"Well," said Toombs, "I should have charged a thousand dollars; but you ought to have five thousand, for you did a great many things I could not have done."

Mr. Toombs was strict in all his engagements. His practice remained with him, even while he was in Congress, and his occasional return during the session of the Superior Court of the Northern Circuit gave rise at one time to some comment on the part of his opponents, the Democrats. The nominee of that party, on the stump, declared that the demands upon Mr. Toombs's legal talent in Georgia were too great to admit of his strict attendance to public business in Washington. When Mr. Toombs came to answer this point, he said: "You have heard what the gentleman says about my coming home to practice law. He promises, if elected to Congress, he will not leave his seat. I leave you to judge, fellow-citizens, whether your interest in Washington will be best protected by his continued presence or his occasional absence." This hit brought down the house. Mr. Toombs's addresses to the Supreme Court were models of solid argument. During the early days of the Supreme Court of Georgia, it was a migratory body; the law creating it tended to popularize it by providing that it should hold its sessions in the different towns in the State convenient to the lawyers. The court once met in the little schoolroom of the Lumpkin Law School in Athens. One of the earliest cases heard was a land claim from Hancock County, bristling with points and involving about 0,000 worth of property. A. H. Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Howell and Thomas Cobb were employed, but in this splendid fight of Titans, Justice Lumpkin declared that the finest legal arguments he ever heard were from the lips of Robert Toombs.

Hon. A. H. Stephens said the best speech Mr. Toombs ever made was in a case in which he represented a poor girl who was suing her stepfather for cruel treatment. The defendant was a preacher, and the jury brought in a verdict for 00, the maximum sum allowed, and petitioned the Judge to allow them to find damages in a heavier amount.

One of the most celebrated causes Mr. Toombs was engaged in before the war was a railroad case heard in Marietta, Ga., in September, 1858. Howell Cobb and Robert Toombs were employed on one side, while Messrs. Pettigru and Memminger, of Charleston, giants of the Carolina bar, were ranged in opposition. The ordeal was a very trying one. The case occupied seven days. Mr. Toombs, always an early riser, generally commenced his preparation in this case at half-past five in the morning. The hearing of the facts continued in the courthouse until seven in the evening, and the nights were passed in consultation with counsel. Attendants upon this celebrated trial declared that Toombs's manner in the courtroom was indifferent. That, while other lawyers were busy taking notes, he seemed to sit a listless spectator, rolling his head from side to side, oblivious to evidence or proceeding. And yet, when his time came to conclude the argument, he arose with his kingly way, and so thorough was his mastery of the case, with its infinite detail, its broad principles, and intricate technicalities, that his argument was inspiring and profound. His memory seemed to have indelibly pictured the entire record of the seven days, and to have grouped in his mind the main argument of counsel. It was a wonderful display of retentiveness, acumen, learning, and power. On one occasion, while a member of the United States Senate, he came to Georgia to attend a session of the Supreme Court in Milledgeville. He writes his wife: "I have had a hard, close week's work. The lawyers very kindly gave way and allowed my cases to come on this week, which brought them very close together, and as I was but ill prepared for them, not having given them any attention last winter, and but little this spring, I have been pretty much speaking all day and studying all night." In March, 1856, Mr. Toombs wrote to his wife, whom he had left in Washington City, that the spring term of Wilkes court would be the most laborious and disagreeable he ever attended. Says he: "For the first time in my life, I have business in court of my own--that is, where I am a party. The Bank of the State of Georgia has given me a year's work on my own account. If I live I will make the last named party repent of it."

At another time he wrote: "I had fine weather for Elbert, and a delightful trip. Everything went well in Elbert with my business." It usually did. There was no county in which he was more of an autocrat than in Elbert. He never failed to carry the county in politics, even when Elbert had a candidate of her own for Congress. His legal advice was eagerly sought, and he was more consulted than any other man in Georgia about public and private affairs. The reason of his phenomenal success as counsel was that, united with his learning and forensic power, he had a genius for detail. He was a natural financier. He used to tell President Davis, during the early days of the Confederacy, that four-fifths of war was business, and that he must "organize" victory.

During the sessions of Elbert court his arguments swept the jury, his word was law outside. His talk was inspiring to the people. His rare and racy conversation drew crowds to his room every night, and to an occasional client, who would drop in upon his symposium to confer with him, he would say, with a move of his head, "Don't worry about that now. I know more about your business than you do, as I will show you at the proper time." His fees at Elbert were larger than at any other court except his own home in Wilkes. It was during the adjournment of court for dinner that he would be called out by his constituents to make one of his matchless political speeches. He never failed to move the crowds to cheers of delight.

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