Robert Toombs Government Quotations

Besides, we had a large debt, contracted at home and abroad in our War of Independence; therefore the great power of taxation was conferred upon this Government.

Peace and commerce with foreign nations could be more effectually and cheaply cultivated by a common agent; therefore they gave the Federal Government the sole management of our relations with foreign governments.

The basis, the corner-stone of this Government, was the perfect equality of the free, sovereign, and independent States which made it.

Neither these statesmen nor their constituents sought in any way to use the Government for the interest of themselves or their section, or for the injury of a single member of the Confederacy.

The instant the Government was organized, at the very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage, and they have steadily pursued that policy to this day.