ges of his country's
history." With all his faults, his were strong principles and generous
impulses. "We know something of what he yielded, but we know nothing of
what he resisted." Include his strength and his weakness and measure him
by other men, and we have a man of giant mold.

One who was very near to Toombs in his last days said of him when he was
dead: "It was a thing of sorrow to see this majestic old man pausing to
measure his poor strength with a confirmed habit, rising, struggling,
falling, and praying as he drifted on."

General Toombs used to say that Webster was the greatest man he ever
knew, that Clay managed men better, and Calhoun was the finest logician
of the century. "The two most eloquent men I ever heard were Northern
men," said he; "Choate and Prentiss." "Pierce," he used to say, "was the
most complete gentleman I ever saw in the White House. He was clever and
correct. Zachary Taylor was the most ignorant. It was amazing how little
he knew. Van Buren was shrewd rather than sagacious. Tyler was a
beautiful speaker, but Webster declared that a man who made a pretty
speech was fit for nothing else."

Toombs met Abraham Lincoln while he was in Congress. He related that Mr.
Lincoln once objected to sitting down at table because he was the
thirteenth man. Toombs told him that it was better to die than to be a
victim to superstition. At the Hampton Roads Conference, President
Lincoln expressed to Judge Campbell his confidence in the honesty and
ability of Robert Toombs. He was a great reader. General Toombs often
said that if the whole English literature were lost, and the Bible and
Shakespeare remained, letters would not be much the poorer. Shakespeare
was his standard. He was fond of Swedenborg, and in his early youth
relished Tom Paine.

General Toombs had a great affinity for young men, upon whom he exerted
a great influence. He once said to a party of friends that gambling was
the worst of evils because it impoverished the pocket while it corrupted
the mind. "How about drinking, General?" he was asked. "Well, if a man
is old and rich he may drink, for he will have the sympathy of his sober
friends and the support of his drinking ones."

CHAPTER XXXI.

HIS LAST DAYS.

In 1880 General Toombs appeared in Atlanta, and addressed the Georgia
Legislature in behalf of the candidacy of General A. R. Lawton for the
United States Senate. His appearance, as he walked up the aisle, grim,
vener