arly life he was twice in love, but poverty
forbade his marriage. He was a clear and logical thinker, much given to
refined exposition of constitutional theories, but deficient in large
culture and philosophy. He held the doctrine of State sovereignty, but
from first to last he opposed secession as against the true interest of
the States. At the beginning of his career he was active in opposing
the vigilance committees organized to harry anti-slavery men. He
supported the annexation of Texas, though objecting to doing it in the
interest of slavery,--slavery, he said, was a domestic matter, which the
Federal government had no call to take care of. He and Toombs generally
stood together, as Whigs and Unionists. They opposed the Mexican War, on
the ground that the Union was not to be extended by force; neither, they
both said later, was it to be maintained by force. But they opposed the
exclusion of slavery from the Territories by the Wilmot proviso; and in
the debate Stephens declared that the morality of slavery stood "upon a
basis as firm as the Bible," and as long as Christianity lasted it could
never be considered an offense against the divine laws. The two men did
yeoman's service in carrying through the 1850 compromise, and afterward
in persuading Georgia not to take part in the Nashville convention--a
disunionist scheme which proved abortive. They, with Howell Cobb, held
Georgia for the compromise and for the Union, and thus fixed the pivotal
point of Southern politics for the next decade. They became leaders in
the Constitutional Union party, which, in Georgia, succeeded the Whig.
They made vigorous and successful fights against the Know-nothing folly.
They accepted the gains which came to the South through Douglas's
breaking down of the Missouri compromise, and, a little later, the Dred
Scott decision of the Supreme Court; but they diverged from Davis, by
not favoring the active intervention of Congress to protect slavery in
the Territories. Toombs was accused of abetting Brooks's attack on
Sumner, which he disclaimed; but he found nothing to hinder his taking
part in a banquet in Brooks's honor a few months later, and on this most
ill-omened occasion he joined in the threats of disunion if Fremont
should be elected. But still the catastrophe lingered, and seemed
improbable. Stephens left Congress in 1858. Two years more, and
secession became a burning question; Stephens and Toombs took opposite
sides, but, the iss