Washington, D. C, 26th May, 1860.
Dear Stephens, … I will probably meet you in Milledgeville if I can with any convenience get off from here. You will see from my speech fully where we differ, tho’ I am perfectly prepared to accommodate the party difficulty when you [think] proper; tho’ I would never, never did and never will, surrender the constitutional right of protection. Indeed the 5th resolution[i] of Davis passed the Senate by a vote of 42 to 2 (Hamlin and Trumbull) after all of Mr. Douglas’s clamour against it, Mr. Crittenden and Mr. Kennedy voting with us and the Black Republicans refusing to vote against it except the two mentioned. Under this state of facts I think we are called on to surrender to Mr. Douglas to great disadvantage. All well.
[i] The fifth of the Davis resolutions was: “Resolved, that if experience should at any time prove that the judicial and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the territorial government should fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply that deficiency.”
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.
Alexander Hamilton Stephens was an American politician who served as the vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. After serving in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly, he won election to Congress, taking his seat in 1843. After the Civil War, he returned to Congress in 1873, serving to 1882 when he was elected as the 50th Governor of Georgia, serving there from late 1882 until his death in 1883.