Georgia Division - Robert Toombs Speech
video from the
Georgia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Georgia Division of the Sons
of Confederate Veterans has created several one minute videos. This video presents
part of the speech of Robert Toombs.
Northern and Southern states had joined together to form the
voluntary Union after the War for Independence, although both
realized there were many differences between North and South. But
the differences grew over the next 70 years.
When the big government candidate Abraham Lincoln
was elected president in 1860 without receiving a majority of the
vote, Georgia Governor Brown called for a convention on November
13, 1860 at the state capitol in Milledgeville to consider
secession.
The future Secretary of State for the
Confederacy, Robert Toombs spoke there.
He had spent his political career preserving the
Union, but that day Toombs spoke for withdrawal, saying:
“We need no declaration of independence, our
fathers won that from Great Britain . I regret, that considering
the state of the Country, I can bring no good tidings.” After
reviewing how the South had done everything to avoid conflict,
Toombs closed with these words: “The Constitution, has been swept
away and we demand the sword for our defense... I have served you
for a quarter of a century and am yet ready when honor and duty
call... save Georgia.”
