rence to European powers."

Mr. Toombs believed that much bad legislation resulted from trusting too
much to committees. He rarely failed to question such reports, and never
voted unless he thoroughly understood the subject. He thought this whole
machinery was a means of "transferring the legislation of the country
from those into whose hands the Constitution had placed it to
irresponsible parties." He said it was a common newspaper idea that
Congress was wasting time in debating details. His opinion was that
nine-tenths of the time the best thing to be done in public legislation
was to do nothing. He thought Congress was breaking down the government
by its own weight in "pensioning all the vagrants brought here. All that
a man has to do is to make affidavit and get a pension."

In 1859 he refused to vote to appropriate $500,000 for the improvement
of Buffalo harbor, because he held he had no right to spend the money of
the whole Union for a particular locality; for this reason he voted to
abolish the mint at Dahlonega, in his own State.

Mr. Toombs opposed the policy of buying the outstanding debt at a
premium. He criticised Senator Simon Cameron for asking that the
government give employment to 50,000 laborers out of work. He said,
"Sir, government cannot do it and never did do it. There never was a
government in the world which did not ruin the people they attempted to
benefit by such a course. Governments do not regulate wages."

Senator Toombs contended that the Postal Department stood on a different
footing from the army and navy. Postal service, he thought, was no part
of the national duty. "It is of no more importance to the people of the
United States that this government should carry my letters than that it
should carry my cotton." He claimed that he had some old-fashioned
ideas, but they were innate. "I do not think it right, before God, for
me to make another man pay my expenses."

In discussing the financial report, he said, "You have as much time to
appropriate money intelligently as you have to give it lavishly. While
there is a general cry for retrenchment, when any practical movement is
made, the answer always is that this is not the right time or the right
place. I am afraid we shall never find the right time, or the right
place, until the popular revolution becomes strong enough to send here
men who will do the public business better than we have done it."

CHAPTER XVIII.

ELECTION OF LIN