Toombs

in refusing to support Scott in 1852. differed from Stephens, however, in being far more extreme and uncompromising than the latter. He was radical, impatient, violent. What William Lloyd Garrison was to the cause of abolition, Robert Toombs was to the cause of secession. He denounced all opposition in unmeasured terms. He pronounced Abraham Lincoln "an enemy of the human race, deserving the execration of all mankind."1 Toombs it was who pronounced this government a slavery government, as slavery was written on its heart, the Constitution. It was Toombs who prophesied that slavery would overspread the whole land, and that he would live to call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill monument.

As a debater in Congress he was a veritable Boanerges. In this respect he may be compared with John Adams during the Revolutionary period. During the war Toombs served at different times in the Confederate Congress, President Davis's cabinet, and as a commander in the field. The war over, he, like Davis, was

1 Blaine, Vol. I. p. 247.

one of the few southern leaders who declined to accept a pardon and refused to become a citizen of the reconstructed Union.

Another of the "fire-eaters" of the South was Judah P. Benjamin, United States senator from Louisiana. Born in the West Indies, of Hebrew parents, he came to the United States, was educated at Yale, and made his home in Louisiana, where he became the most learned lawyer in the State. In his farewell address to the Senate he made an ingenious but fallacious argument to show that Louisiana, notwithstanding the fact that the territory had been ceded and retroceded by France and Spain, and finally purchased by the United States, still retained all the essentials of sovereignty and had a right to secede from the Union. Benjamin served the Confederacy with much ability during its brief career, and when it collapsed he made his escape to England, where he afterward resided. In England he became a queen's counsel and rose to be one of the leading lawyers in the kingdom.

One of the most brilliant of the southern chieftains was John C. Breckenridge, Vice-Pres

ident during the four years preceding the war, and candidate of the ultra slaveholders for the presidency in 1860. Breckenridge was a grandson of a cabinet officer of Thomas Jefferson. He belonged to one of the most cultured families of the South, and became the natural successor in public esteem in Kentucky to the great Henry Clay. When Kentucky refused to secede and practically decided for the Union, Breckenridge sacrificed his great popularity and went with the South, which he served with marked ability on the battle-field and in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis. John C. Breckenridge was a brilliant orator, most attractive in personal appearance and an all-round high-bred gentleman. It was generally believed that he blighted and sacrificed an illustrious career by casting his fortunes with the South.

Other noted statesmen of the South were William L. Yancey of Alabama, who belonged to the radical wing, and who did so much to "fire the southern heart"; Robert B. Rhett, also of the extreme class of secessionists; Isham G. Harris, governor of Tennessee at the outbreak of the war, served the cause of

slavery for four years with his whole heart, but afterward learned to love the old Union and spent twenty years of his later life in the United States Senate; and Henry A. Wise, who had done more to destroy the Know-Nothing party than any other man, and who, as governor of Virginia, conducted the execution of John Brown. These and many other characters must be brought into review by the student who would make himself acquainted with the great rebellion. We turn now to a brief notice of a few of the Northern legislators, beginning with

Sumner and Fessenden.

Charles Sumner was on the whole the greatest figure in Congress during the war. Sprung from the sternest New England stock, he displayed the strongest traits of the Puritan character. As a youth Charles Sumner was very studious and ambitious; he seemed to feel that he was predestined to fill some great position and to labor in some great cause. His aim in early life was to become a jurist, and the one great man whom he admired and imitated

above all others was Joseph Story.1 Sumner's learning was very extensive, rather broad than profound. A three years' sojourn in Europe, where he moved in the highest social circles, rounded out his education and made of him a man of the world. He returned from Europe in 1845, and soon afterward attracted wide attention through a Fourth of July oration. His age was now thirty-four, and from this time his fame extended in ever widening circles until it compassed the civilized world.

In 1847 Sumner openly espoused the cause of the Free Soil party, and by so doing he incurred the displeasure of the élite of Boston. The doors of the fashionable, in whose homes he had been a familiar figure, were now closed in his face. This he felt keenly, for he was a born aristocrat, but on no condition did he permit his principles to be disturbed by public disapproval.

The opening of a great career came to Sumner in 1851, when the Free Soilers and Democrats joined hands and elected him to the United States Senate-without his having

1 Dawes's "Charles Sumner," p. 13.