During this stormy session Mr. Toombs' heart continually yearned for home. He was a model husband and a remarkable domestic character. The fiery scenes of the forum did not ween him from his family. On the 29th of August, 1850, he wrote to his wife:
We have before us the whole of the territorial questions, and shall probably pass or reject them in a few days or at most in a week. I am greatly in hopes that we will not pass over them without final action of some sort, and if we can get rid of them I shall have nothing to prevent my coming home at the time appointed. I begin to be more anxious to see you than to save the republic. Such is a sweet woman's fascination for men's hearts. The old Roman Antony threw away an empire rather than abandon his lovely Cleopatra, and the world has called him a fool for it. I begin to think that he was the wiser man, and that the world was well lost for love.
CHAPTER VII.
THE GEORGIA PLATFORM.
When Mr. Toombs came home in the fall of 1850 he found the State in upheaval. Disunion sentiment was rife. He was confronted by garbled extracts of his speeches in Congress, and made to pose as the champion of immediate secession. He had aided in perfecting the great compromise and was resolved that Georgia should take her stand firmly and unequivocally for the Union and the Constitution. Governor Towns had issued a call for a State convention; Mr. Toombs took prompt issue with the spirit and purpose of the call. He declared that the legislature had endangered the honor of the State and that the Governor had put the people in a defile. "We must either repudiate this policy, or arm," he said. "I favor the former measure."
Mr. Toombs issued a ringing address to the people. It bore date of October 9, 1850. He proclaimed that "the first act of legislative hostility was the first act of Southern resistance." He urged the South to stand by the Constitution and the laws in good faith, until wrong was consummated or the act of exclusion placed upon the statute books.
Mr. Toombs said that the South had not secured its full rights. "But the fugitive-slave law which I demanded was granted. The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and proscription in the Territories were defeated, crushed, and abandoned. We have firmly established great and important principles. The South has compromised no right, surrendered no principle, and lost not an inch of ground in this great contest. I did not hesitate to accept these acts, but gave them my ready support."
Addressing himself to the disunionists he said: "They have abandoned their errors, but not their object. Being bent upon the ruin of the republic they use truth or error for its accomplishment, as best suits the exigencies of the hour. If these people are honest in their convictions, they may find abundant consolation in the fact that the principle is neither conceded, compromised, nor endangered by these bills. It is strengthened, not weakened by them, and will survive their present zeal and future apostasy."