"How is this, Mr. Toombs," shouted a Democrat at another time, "here is a vote of yours in the house journal I do not like."
"Well, my friend, there are several there that I do not like: now what are you going to do about it?"
Especially was opposition bitter to Henry Clay. Cartoons were published from Northern papers, of Clay whipping a negro slave, with this inscription: "The Mill Boy of the Slashes." Pictures appeared in the Democratic papers of a human figure surmounted by a pistol, a bottle, and a deck of cards. To this a résumé of Clay's misdeeds was appended:
"In 1805 quarreled with Colonel Davis of Kentucky, which led to his first duel. In 1808 challenged Humphrey Marshall, and fired three times at his breast. In 1825 challenged the great John Randolph, and fired once at his breast. In 1838 he planned the Cilley duel, by which a murder was committed and a wife made a mourner. In 1841, when sixty-five years old, and gray-headed, is under a five thousand dollar bond to keep the peace. At twenty-nine he perjured himself to secure a seat in the United States Senate. In 1824, made the infamous bargain with Adams by which he sold out for a six thousand dollar office. He is well known as a gambler and Sabbath-breaker."
But the eloquent Harry of the West had a large and devoted following. He visited Georgia in March of this year, and charmed the people by his eloquence and magnetism. Robert Toombs had met him at the social board and had been won by his superb mentality and fine manners. Women paid him the tribute of their presence wherever he spoke, and little children scattered flowers along his path. But the November election in Georgia, as elsewhere, was adverse to the party of Henry Clay. Toombs and Stephens were sent to Congress, but the electoral vote of Georgia was cast for Polk and Dallas, and the Whigs, who loved Clay as a father, regarded his defeat as a personal affliction as well as a public calamity.
CHAPTER V.
IN THE LOWER HOUSE.
Robert Toombs took his seat in the twenty-ninth Congress in December, 1845. The Democrats organized the House by the election of John W. Davis of Indiana, Speaker. The House was made up of unusually strong men, who afterward became noted in national affairs. Hannibal Hamlin was with the Maine delegation; ex-President John Quincy Adams had been elected from Massachusetts with Robert C. Winthrop; Stephen A. Douglas was there from Illinois; David Wilmot from Pennsylvania; R. Barnwell Rhett and Armistead Burt from South Carolina; Geo. C. Droomgoole and Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, were members, as were Henry W. Hilliard and W. L. Yancey of Alabama, Jefferson Davis and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, and John Slidell of Louisiana. Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb were the most prominent figures in the Georgia delegation.