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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Robert Toombs Biography TOOMBS,
Robert (1810-85). An American statesman, born at Washington, Ga. He studied
at the State University at Athens and graduated (1828) at Union College,.
Schenectady, N. Y. He studied law at the University of Virginia and began
practice in Wilkes Co., Ga. After service against the Creeks in 1836 and several
years in the Georgia Legislature as a States' Rights Whig, he was elected to
Congress in 1844 and held his seat for four terms, until 1853, when he was
elected to the United States Senate and in 1859 reëlected. He opposed the
Mexican War and the annexation of territory by force, aided in the adoption of
the Compromise of 1850, opposed the Nashville Convention, and helped secure the
famous Georgia Platform. As an impassioned political speaker he had few equals.
The movement of secession had his full approval; and it was chiefly his
influence, in opposition to the more conservative views of his lifelong friend,
Alexander H. Stephens, that led his State to pass its ordinance of secession, to
which there was a strong opposition, especially among the old line Whigs. On the
election of Davis Toombs was offered the office of
Secretary of State and with reluctance accepted it for a short time, on his
resignation receiving a commission as brigadier general. He served in the second
battle of Bull Run and at Antietam and later was made brigadier general of the
Georgia militia. After the war he lived for some time abroad; then from 1867 he
carried on a successful law practice at his old home, being especially
serviceable to Georgia by winning his contention that railroads should pay taxes
like other property. He was noted for his brilliant wit, his legal sagacity, and
his benevolence. He opposed the Reconstruction measures and never took the oath
of allegiance. He is mainly remembered as an unrelenting Southern partisan.
Consult: W. P. Trent, Southern Statesmen
of the Old Régime (New York, 1897); U. B. Phillips, The
Life of Robert Toombs (ib., 1913); W. W. Hicks, Tributes
and Memories (Boston, 1914). |