Robert Toombs Quotes
We have not sought this conflict; we have sought too long to avoid it; our forbearance has been construed into weakness, our magnanimity into fear, until the vindication of our manhood, as well as the defence of our rights, is required at our hands.
Toombs, Robert. Speech of Hon. Robert Toombs, Delivered in Milledgeville, on Tuesday Evening, November 13, 1860, Before the Legislature of Georgia. Boughton, Nisbet & Barnes, State Printers, 1860.
The phrase was picked up by the press, and then became the title to a patriotic song of World War II.
Robert Augustus Toombs was an American lawyer, planter, and national politician from Georgia who became one of the organizers of the Confederacy and served as its first Secretary of State under President Jefferson Davis. He also served in the Confederate States Army, but later became one of Davis' critics. After the Confederate defeat, Toombs fled the United States. He did not return until 1867, after his daughter's death. He regained political power in Georgia as Congressional Reconstruction ended in 1877.
