mastering argument, succeeded in gaining a hearing and more than a hearing.
Then there was the furious contest over the speaker- ship of the House in 1849. Owing to the secession of the Southern Whigs, of whom Toombs was one, no majority- vote could be secured and Toombs insisted that the House, not yet formally organized, could take no ac- tion in the matter. Members proceeded to take action. Toombs protested. Members shouted him down. He would not be shouted down. ** You may cry * order,' gendemen, until the heavens fall ; you cannot take this place from me." ^^ '* Confusion increased," says the biog- rapher. " Members called out to encourage Mr. Toombs, and others to put him down. In the midst of this Babel he continued to speak, his black hair thrown back, his face flushed, and his eyes blazing like suns." 20 He con- tinued to speak, and in the end they heard him. It was a disgraceful exhibition, said the Northern papers. How- ever that may be, one cannot help agreeing with Stephens that it was a splendid physical and oratorical achieve- ment.
Even more notable, though the opposition was moral, not physical, was Toombs's defense of slavery in Tre- mont Temple, Boston, in 1856. The actual audience was decorous enough ; but when one thinks of the man and the place, of all he represented and of the passionate anti-slavery spirit boiling about him, the occasion stands out as picturesque, to say the least.
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