Opinion as to the result of the debate at Washington was divided. Good judges thought that Mr. Hill relied too much on the ad captandum argument, and did not meet the points of Mr. Toombs; but there are men living in Washington who heard the great contest and who delight to tell how the young warrior from Troup charged right into the enemy's camp, and rode away with the laurels of the day.
Buchanan was elected President in November. He carried nineteen States, Georgia among them. Buchanan and Breckenridge received 174 electoral votes and 1,838,169 popular votes.
Frémont carried eleven States and 114 electoral votes, receiving 1,341,264 popular votes. Fillmore carried Maryland with 8 electoral votes. His vote through the country amounted to 874,534.
Mr. Toombs, while a member of Congress, became possessed of a large tract of land in Texas. It was known as the Peter's Colony Grant, which had never been settled. The lands, he was informed by a competent surveyor, were valuable and free to settlers. They comprised about 90,000 acres in Northern Texas, on the clear fork of the Trinity, in the neighborhood of Dallas and Fort Worth. Mr. Toombs had a clear head and keen perception for business. His temperament was restless and fiery. His life had been spent at the bar and in the forum. His gifts of oratory were remarkable. It was a strange combination which added shrewd business sense, but he had it in an eminent degree. He was a princely liver, but a careful financier. He saw that this part of Texas must some day bloom into an empire, and fifty years ago he gave $30,000 for this tract of land. As Texas commenced to fill up the squatters occupied some of the most valuable parts of the country and refused to be removed. These desperate fellows declared that they did not believe there was any such man as Toombs, the reputed owner of the land; they had never seen him, and certainly they would not consent to be dispossessed of their holdings.
It was in 1857 that Senator Toombs, accompanied by a few of his friends, decided to make a trip to Texas and view his large landed possessions. For hundreds of miles he traveled on horseback over the plains of Texas, sleeping at night in a buffalo robe. He was warned by his agents that he had a very desperate set of men to deal with. But Toombs was pretty determined himself. He summoned the squatters to a parley at Fort Worth, then, a mere spot in the wilderness. The men came in squads, mounted on their mustangs, and bearing over their saddles long squirrel rifles. They were ready for a shrewd bargain or a sharp vendetta. Senator Toombs and his small coterie were armed; and standing against a tree, the landlord confronted his tenants or trespassers, he hardly knew which. He spoke firmly and pointedly, and pretty soon convinced the settlers that they were dealing with no ordinary man. He said he was willing to allow each squatter a certain sum for betterments, if they would move off his land, or, if they preferred to stay, he would sell the tract to each man at wild-land prices; but, failing in this, they must move away, as he had the power to put them out, and would certainly use it. There was a good deal of murmuring and caucussing among the men, but they concluded that there was a man named Toombs, and that he meant what he said. The matter was settled in a business way, and Senator Toombs rode back over the prairies, richer by a hundred thousand dollars. These lands were immensely valuable during the latter part of his life. They formed the bulk of his fortune when the war closed; and during his stay in Paris, an exile from his country, in 1866, he used to say that he consumed, in his personal expenses, an acre of dirt a day. The land was then worth about five dollars an acre.
It was while he was returning home from his Texas trip that the postman met him on the plains and delivered a letter from Georgia. This was in July, 1857. The letter announced that the Democratic State Convention in Georgia had adjourned, after nominating for Governor Joseph E. Brown. Senator Toombs read the letter and, looking up in a dazed way, asked, "And who in the devil is Joe Brown?"