rity reign through our borders. Not a single soldier is
to be found in our domain to overawe or protect society. Mr. Toombs
pictured the progress of the Southern churches, schools and colleges
multiplying. None of these improvements had been aided by the Federal
Government. "We have neither sought from it protection for our private
interests nor appropriations for our public improvements. They have been
effected by the unaided individual efforts of an enlightened, moral, and
energetic people. Such is our social system and such our condition under
it. We submit it to the judgment of mankind, with the firm conviction
that the adoption of no other, under such circumstances, would have
exhibited the individual man, bond or free, in a higher development or
society in a happier civilization."

Mr. Toombs carried his principles into practice. He owned and operated
several large plantations in Georgia, and managed others as agent or
executor. He had the care of, possibly, a thousand slaves. His old
family servants idolized him. Freedom did not alter the tender bond of
affection. They clung to him, and many of them remained with him and
ministered to his family to the day of his death. The old plantation
negroes never failed to receive his bounty or good will. During the
sale of a plantation of an insolvent estate Mr. Toombs, who was
executor, wrote to his wife, "The slaves sold well. There were few
instances of the separation of families." He looked after the welfare of
all his dependents. While he was in the army, his faithful servants took
care of his wife and little grandchildren, and during his long exile
from his native land they looked after his interests and watched for his
return.

CHAPTER XII.

BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION.

The great contest of 1856 was coming on. A President was to be chosen.
The relations of the sections were more strained every day. The
elections of 1854 had emboldened the antislavery men to form the
Republican party, and to put out, as their candidate, John C. Fremont,
"pioneer and pathfinder," who had saved California to the Union. Fremont
was not a statesman, but a hero of the kind who dazzled men, and was
thought to be especially available as a presidential candidate. "Free
soil, Free men, Fremont" was the cry, and it was evident that the
Abolitionists had swept all the wavering Whigs into their lines and
would make a determined fight. The American party nominated Millard
Fillmore, an