Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1885 — ROBERT TOOMBS DEAD. [ARTICLE]

ROBERT TOOMBS DEAD.

The Famous Georgian Passes Away ah an Advanced Age, After a Long Illness. A dispatch from Atlanta, Ga., announces the death, at the advanced age of 76 years, of Robert Toombs, the noted Southern statesman and irreconcilable. He had been ill for some time, and his demise was not unexpected. The deceased was bom in Wilkes County, Georgia, July 2,1810. His father died before he was 5 years old. He was educated by an old Scotchman until he was 15, and then, well prepared fior college, he went to the University of Georgia, then Franklin College. He was a handsome, wealthy, rollieksome youth, and got into some trouble with the faculty, and left Athens for Union College at Schenectady, N. Y., where he graduated at 18. He then went to the University of Virginia, studied law, and, returning to his home, was admitted to the bar when he was not 21 years old. Not long after he married and settled in the town of Washington. He was very successful in his profession, before he was 33 years of age having made $150,000 in fees and profits, his income being $20,000 per annum at least for several years. In the Creek Indian war of 1836 he was a captain of volunteers under Gen. Scott. When hewas twenty-seven years of age—in 1837 he was elected to the lower house of the Legislature. Then commenced a political career unequaled in Georgia for brilliancy. He served two terms in the Legislature, eight years in the lower house of Congress, and in 1853 was elected to the United States Senate. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1859, but resigned his seat in 1861, whenGeorgia seceded from the Union. Mr.* Toombs was one of the most striking figures in national politics during the exciting period immediately preceding the civil war. Intellectually he was one of the strongest of the Southern leaders at that time—perhaps the strongest—and oertainly none of them exerted more influence on the public sentiment of their section or did more to bring about the secession movement, than he. Ardent and impetuous in his temperament, Mr. Toombs was inevitably the extreme partisan of every cause with which he identified himself. From early youth he was a firm believer in the State sovereignty and nullification doctrines expounded by John 0. Calhoun, and he never shrank from following them to their logical conclusions. Slavery found in him one of its most courageous and eloquent defenders, and he hailed with enthusiasm jts recognition as the corner-stone of the new confederacy. He took an active part iff the was: resigning a position in Mr. Davis’ cabinet at an early date to enter the army. After the war he fled to Europe to avoid a prosecution for treason, soon after returning to his native State, where he lived in retirement until his death. He never became reconciled to the new order of things, and refused to petitionfor a removal of his disabilities, or to have anything further to do with matters.