Robert Toombs to the People of Georgia (telegram).[i]
[Washington, D. C, Dec. 23, 1860.]
Fellow Citizens of Georgia:
I came here to secure your constitutional rights or to demonstrate to you that you can get no guarantees for these rights from your Northern confederates.
The whole subject was referred to a committee of thirteen in the Senate yesterday. I was appointed on the committee and accepted the trust. I submitted propositions, which so far from receiving decided support from a single member of the Republican party on the committee, were all treated with either derision or contempt. The vote was then taken in committee on the amendments to the Constitution proposed by Hon. J. J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, and each and all of them were voted against, unanimously, by the Black Republican members of the committee.
In addition to these facts, a majority of the Black Republican members of the committee declared distinctly that they had no guarantees to offer, which was silently acquiesced in by the other members.
The Black Republican members of this committee of thirteen are representative men of their party and section, and, to the extent of my information, truly represent the committee of thirty-three in the House, which on Tuesday adjourned for a week without coming to any vote, after solemnly pledging themselves to vote on all the propositions then before them on that date.
The committee is controlled by Black Republicans, your enemies, who only seek to amuse you with delusive hope until your election, in order that you may defeat the friends of secession. If you are deceived by them, it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly. It is decisive against you; and now I tell you upon the faith of a true man that all further looking to the North for security for your constitutional rights in the Union ought to be instantly abandoned. It is fraught with nothing but ruin to yourselves and your posterity.
Secession by the fourth of March next should be thundered from the ballot-box by the unanimous voice of Georgia on the second day of January next. Such a voice will be your best guarantee for liberty, security, tranquillity, and glory.
[i] From the True Democrat, Augusta, Ga., extra edition, Dec. 24, 1860.
From Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911.
Robert Augustus Toombs was an American lawyer, planter, and politician from Georgia who became one of the organizers of the Confederacy and served as its first Secretary of State. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives, the US House of Representatives, and the US Senate. In the Confederacy, he served in Jefferson Davis’ cabinet as well as in the Confederate States Army, but later became one of Davis’ critics.