February 22, 1859, though Iverson, his companion from Georgia, was the other way, he advocated abolishing the mint at Dahlonega in that State, and the mint also in North Carolina.
The last instance we cite is his declaration, April 25, 1856, that he had always voted against a claim of the daughter of Governor Irvin of Georgia.
And to this proud independence he was without spot of corruption. This was never questioned but once. May 13, 1858, he was taunted for having supported the Galphin claim. When at last he sees that the charge is seriously urged, in a becoming glow he demands an explanation. A disclaimer of reflection upon his character being made, he gives a detailed account of the claim, his steady support of it, and a complete justification of George W. Crawford in the affair. At its close, Hammond of South Carolina, who was familiar with all the details, bestowed upon it his unqualified voucher. The lofty spirit and just indignation informing this statement of Toombs from beginning to end distinguish it as that of one who has kept out of dark places and walked so purely in the light that accusation is far more of a surprise than insult.[103]
He never showed any symptom of the presidential fever, which, to say nothing of its many other victims, enfeebled each one of the great trio,—Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. Fully content with his place in the senate, he did not look elsewhere. Taking popularity at its exact worth; candid and frank to the extreme; contented in the course dictated by his judgment and conscience though opposed by his people or party and his own private interest; in no bargains with men nor smirching connections with women, doing nothing in secret which, if published, would bring a blush; elevated above the amiable weaknesses of unwise benevolence, ever championing with all his powers the righteous cause of the weak and unpopular,—as exampled in his maintaining the claims of certain persons in Louisiana to the Houmas land against the formidable opposition of the two senators from that State, in his extraordinarily eloquent appeal for the naval officers retired without a hearing, in his heroic endeavor to have his party seat the republican Harlan; incorruptible and really consistent forever and always,—when he is scrutinized as a public man his character rises into a grandeur of unselfishness, firmness of high purpose, honesty, and power to show and do the right almost superhuman. It stands by itself awe-striking and imposing.
But let us particularize the special lesson of his senatorial career. We must begin by suggesting his peculiar bent. It is clear that he chose as his province commerce and industry, with the related themes of political economy, finance, the currency, taxation, the tariff, the principles of exchange and distribution, and so on.[104] He probably had the best business insight of all our prominent statesmen, Calhoun even not excepted. Though Hamilton and Webster—the former especially—evince titanic comprehension of financial theory, yet we see from their lives and poor money-saving success that commercial and business affairs were not to them both practice and theory as they were to Toombs. Of all his peers he was most at home in the ways and principles which dictate proper legislation as to trade and business. To judge by his words, uttered year in and year out, nobody else ever saw more clearly that there ought to be no tariff, improvement, job, or any other pets of government. The latter should not foster such a class, yearly increasing in number, as it always will, living idly and luxuriously upon the public income, that is, upon the labor and property of others. This class supplants the vigorous products of natural selection by pampered fatlings of bounty, always raising their demands for support, and ever more and more clamorously calling for the suppression of all self-supporting competition at home and abroad. With the moral hardihood of Shakspeare, who shrinks not from rudely shocking our feelings by making Henry V discard his old boon companion Falstaff, Toombs never wearied of proclaiming the unpopular truth that the government ought not to be the helper, guardian, patron, protector, guarantor, surety, almoner, of any of its citizens. Ponder these stout-hearted and golden words of his, although the evil represented therein is now established and magnified into dimensions far beyond what he could conceive when they were said—an evil, to suppress which let us hope all patriots will soon unite:
“Whenever the system shall be firmly established that the States are to enter into a miserable scramble for the most money for their local appropriations, and that senator is to be regarded the ablest representative of his State who can get for it the largest slice of the treasury, from that day public honor and property are gone, and all the States are disgraced and degraded.” February 27, 1857.
He is always preaching against the heinous abuse of diverting government from impartially guarding the whole community and making it profit only a few. His text is never far-fetched. He finds it in the proposed legislation of the day, which it is his duty to consider in his place. He cares not that he makes no present effect. Just before Bell’s bill for improving the Cumberland river was passed, he said of it and its companions: “These bills are passing sub silentio, and I suppose attempt to resist is wholly useless. I wish it understood that I do not assent to their passage. I am opposed to all of them.” February 24, 1855.
He sees that the appropriations for harbors and rivers, lighthouses, private claims, pensions, etc., are almost as baneful as was the distribution of corn to the Roman populace, and yet the people everywhere are eager for the corrupting gifts. Against his party, against many of his section, he fights alone and single-handed, reminding of Horatius keeping the bridge against the Etruscan host. Though always outvoted, he behaves with spirit and dignity. Either he, or some one of the faithful few who act with him in the slim minority, always have the yeas and nays recorded. His grand purpose was to appeal to the American people upon an issue involving the article of his creed which he had held up with so much puissance and fidelity in days of evil report. These words contain the motto of the long contest which occupied all of his non-sectional career in the senate:
“I think every one of these bills should be considered. I do not wish to have them considered in such a manner as improperly to occupy the time of the senate. I desire to spread before the country reasonable information. That is the only purpose we can have now; because the combination is sufficient to carry everything that the committee report. But there is a day of reckoning to come; and I trust that those who support this system will be called to judgment.”
“I desire the truth to go to the honest people all over the country. Let the taxpayers look at this matter; let the jobbers beware. ‘To your tents, O Israel!’” July 29, 1856.