The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 17, July 1913 - April, 1914 Page: 429

                                
Book Reviews and Notices

into the facts of the case and of his clear-sighted appreciation of
what were the facts. His excessive natural ardor often led him
into intemperate expressions that gave a superficial appearance of
radicalism.
The election crisis of 1860 and the stroke for Southern inde-
pendence were the beginning of the undoing of Toombs. The elec-
tion of Jefferson Davis, instead of Toombs, as President of the new
Confederacy, Professor Phillips thinks was due to "bungling." As
Secretary of State to Davis, Toombs was in an impossible situation;
as a brigadier general in the field, he was impatient, captious, a
failure. After his resignation from the army and his failure of
election to the Confederate Senate, he lapsed more and more into
the caustic but helpless critic' of the administration, particularly of
its financial policies.
Threatened with arrest and imprisonment after the break up of
the Confederacy, he fled to Paris, but returned in 1867 and was
unmolested. He regained his leadership of the Georgia bar, and
took a prominent part in rescuing the state from radical misrule,
but never again held office.
In some respects this little volume is a model of what a biography
should be. Professor Phillips has adhered faithfully to his idea
of making the career of Toombs the central theme of a much
broader study, the problems of the cotton-producing, ante-bellum
South. Though his Southern sympathies are very much in evidence
throughout the book, they are based upon a close study of Southern
conditions; and the point of view which he sets forth is so gener-
ally unappreciated, that the reviewer feels no desire to criticise.
Much of the material is drawn from the correspondence of
Toombs, Stephens and Howell Cobb, edited by Professor Phillips,
and appearing since the publication of the biography as Volume II
of the 1911 Report of the American Historical Association. The
book seems typographically perfect and the index is good.
CHAS. W. RAMSDELL.

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