Mr. Toombs had already made himself felt in this campaign. He was in the shadow of a domestic affliction. His youngest daughter died in February of that year. This occurrence brought him to decide upon a trip abroad, which he had long anticipated, but which his busy and eventful life had not allowed him to enjoy.
In April, 1855, he wrote his wife:
I feel more and more anxious to get abroad and out of this country; to be relieved of the thousand harassments of business, and look for a great deal of pleasure in our quiet and uninterrupted strolling over the hills and plains of Europe, where nobody knows us and nobody can harass me with business or their troubles. I wish I could, like our darling child, thank God there was rest in Heaven.
Just before he left the State, he attended the Supreme Court of Georgia, at Milledgeville. At that time he wrote his wife:
I have had a hard, close week's work. The lawyers very kindly gave way and allowed my cases to come this week, which brought them very close together, and, as I am 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—and that without the benefit of "specks," which I am beginning to need.
All the old Whigs here have joined the Know-nothings, and keep very shy of me, as I have spoken not softly of the miserable wretches who expect to govern a great country like this with imbecility, if they can only cover it with secrecy. I have been greatly beset not to go to Europe this summer, as the political campaign is likely to be hot. I shall go, and the rather that I may avoid such an event, and take that leisure and repose with my family in foreign countries which I seem to be totally incapable of getting at home.
Mr. Toombs left no doubt as to how he regarded the American party. In a speech on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he had declared that the country could assimilate the foreigners from Europe and the Chinamen from Asia, and gather under the ample folds of the American flag every nation on earth.
It is related that in the early part of Mr. Toombs' political career he was accused of having subscribed to build a Catholic church in Georgia. The charge was repeated secretly from ear to ear until it came to his friends. It was on the eve of an election in Wilkes County, and a delegation, in spite of the lateness of the hour, went to Mr. Toombs' residence, awoke him, and asked for an authoritative denial of what they considered a damaging charge. Mr. Toombs listened to the delegation, and then declared with emphasis, not free from profanity, that it was so. "I have responded to their calls just as I have those of other denominations. You can tell the people that the distribution of my money is none of their business."
This bold and prompt reply did not prevent his reëlection to the legislature the next day.
No man was more liberal in matters of religion and conscience than Mr. Toombs. In 1851 he wrote his wife in reply to a letter informing him that his daughter wanted to join the Methodist Church: