Toombs Speech Analysis

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The Republicans have won and Abraham Lincoln is now the new president. The great debate continues regarding the hot topic of secession. The state of Georgia appears to be the site where this issue of secession is currently being debated by Alexander Stephens and Robert Toombs. The issue is whether the confederate states of South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia,Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas have the right to secede from the union or not. The country is divided between the North (the Union) and the South(Confederate States). The issues being debated include state rights and disagreements over tariffs but the greatest division is on the issue of slavery, which is legal in the South but is gradually being banned by states north of the Mason-Dixon …show more content…

Reports show that he attended the University of Georgia but graduated from Union College in New York in 1830. Toombs served in the Georgia Legislature from 1837 to 1843, He was elected to the United States Congress in 1844. He has been a Georgia state senator since 1853. Although Toombs has supported the idea of compromise, ultimately he is advising Georgians to vote for secession. Toombs believes that the South has the right to secede from the union.Toombs makes it clear in his speech that the Confederate states are pro slavery and the Union States are against slavery. In his speech Toombs states that “In 1820, the Northern party, endeavored to exclude the State of Missouri from admission into the Union, because she chose to protect African slavery in the new state.” When Toombs states this he is telling the people that the North made a bad decision when it came to Missouri wanting to be a part of the Union over slavery beliefs. Toombs also states in his speech that “Another one of our guarantees of the Constitution was, that fugitives from justice, committing crimes in one state and fleeing to another, should be delivered up by the State into which they might flee to the authorities of the State from whence they fled and where the crime was committed.” From this part of his speech you can conclude that Toombs is trying to get his part across that he believes in slavery and that if a slave commits the