Background
TOOMBS, Robert Augustus was born on July 2, 1810 in Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of the cotton planter Robert and Catherine (Huling) Toombs.
congressman General lawyer military planter
TOOMBS, Robert Augustus was born on July 2, 1810 in Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of the cotton planter Robert and Catherine (Huling) Toombs.
Private school, southern university, northern university, law school. University of Virginia.
He attended local private schools, Franklin College (later the University of Georgia), and graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York, in 1828. He studied law at the University of Virginia in 1829, and he was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1830. Toombs married Julia DuBose on October 18, 1830.
They had three children. He became a successful lawyer and planter in his native county of Wilkes, Georgia. In 1836 he commanded a company of Georgia volunteers in the Creek War.
Toombs entered politics, and in 1837 he was elected to the Georgia legislature. He served from 1837 to 1840 and from 1842 to 1844. In 1844, he was elected as a Whig to the U.S. House, in which capacity he served from 1845 to 1853.
He became a staunch defender of Southern interests, soon left the Whig party for a faction of the Constitutional Union party, and negotiated the Georgia support for the compromise of 1850. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1852 and reelected in 1858. In 1856 he became a Democrat, and he supported John C. Breckinridge for president in 1860.
In the secession crisis Toombs supported the Crittenden Compromise of 1860-1861, but, as a member of the committee of thirteen senators for compromise, he realized that the Republican members would support no compromise on any matter concerning the extension of slavery. He advocated secession of Georgia, resigned from the Senate on February 4, 1861, and, as a member of the Georgia secession convention, wrote the address justifying the Ordinance of Secession. Chosen as a delegate to the Montgomery Convention, he actively sought the presidency of the Confederacy.
Toombs lost the election to Jefferson Davis { and accepted the post of secretary of state in the provisional Confederate government. He also helped to shape the permanent Confederate Constitution and was responsible for much of the conservative acts found in the Constitution. Toombs found little to challenge him in office, soon grew contemptuous of the president’s handling of the war effort, and resigned from office early in July 1861.
He joined the Georgia state militia and was given command of a brigade in Virginia. Daniel Harvey Hill, his commanding officer, admonished him for faulty use of tactics after Malvern Hill, and Toombs challenged Hill to a duel. Fortunately, the need for service in the front line left no time for Hill to take up the challenge.
Toombs performed well at Antietam, even though wounded in the left hand. He demanded promotion and, when refused, resigned from the army. He returned to Georgia, lost an election for the Confederate Senate in 1863, and in 1864, became inspector-general of the Georgia militia.
At home when the war ended, Toombs, learned that a warrant existed for his arrest for treason to the federal Union. In May 1865, he ran to Cuba and then to London. He returned home in 1867 and was cleared of any charge, but he never applied for a pardon.
He rebuilt his Washington law practice, and became important in public affairs, though he never again held public office. As a Democrat, he was a foe of the Georgia carpetbagger government, and he supported the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, in hopes of ridding the South of further federal intervention. In 1879, he was instrumental in persuading the state legislature to create a committee to regulate railroad rates.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Member Georgia Legislature, 1837-1841, 42-43. Member United States House of Representatives from Georgia, 29th-32d congresses, 1845-1853, did not appear as spokesman for Southern interests until 1850 crisis when he threatened secession, but urged support of Compromise of 1850 after passage. Member United States Senate from Georgia, 1853-February 4, 1861 (elected Constitutional Union Party candidate and Breckinridge supporter, 1858).
Member Georgia Convention of 1877, repudiated Carpetbag government debts and limited Negro suffrage.
Married Julia DuBose, 1830, 3 children.