Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/221

TOOMBS ON RESIGNING FROM THE SENATE* (1861) Sorn iD 1810, died in 1885; elected to Congress in 1845; United Statefc Senator in 1853; resigned in 1861; Member of the Confederate Con- gress in 1861 ; Secretary of State in 1861 ; a Brigadier-General, serv- ingatthe second battle of Bull Run and at Antietam; refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States Govemiaent. The success of the Abolitionists and their allies, under the name of the Republican party, has produced its logical results already. They have for long years been sowing dragons' teeth and have finally got a crop of armed men. The Union, sir, is dissolved. That is an accomplished fact in the path of this discussion that men may as well heed. One of your confederates has already, wisely, bravely, boldly confronted public danger, and she is only ahead of many of her sisters because of her greater facility for speedy action. The greater majority of those sis- ter States, under like circumstances, consider her cause as their cause; and I charge you in their name to-day: *' Touch not Saguntum."^ It is not only their cause, but it is a cause which re- 1 Delivered in the United States Senate on January 7, 1861. 'Saguntum was a city of Iberia (Spain) in alliance with Rome. Hannibal, in spite of Rome's warnings in 219 B.C., laid siege to and captured it. This became the immediate cause of the war which Rome declared against Carthage. 211