Robert Augustus Toombs
- Given Name
- Robert Augustus
- Surname
- Toombs
- Birth Date
- July 2, 1810
- Death Date
- December 15, 1885
- Profession
- Senator
- Biographical Information
- Robert Augustus Toombs was born in Wilkes County, Georgia. He graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York and studied law at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He was admitted to the bar in 1830. He served as a State house representative 1837-1840, 1841-1843. He was elected a Whig to the 29th to 33rd Congress. He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1852 and 1858. He believed in State sovereignty and that slavery should be maintained and extended. After Abraham Lincoln was elected President, he made speeches in Georgia asserting that the north would no longer respect the rights of the south and that the south needed to secede from the Union. He resigned his Senate seat in January, 1861, and became secretary of state for Jefferson Davis. He fought in the Civil War, at the second battle of Bull Run and Antietam. After the war he fled to Cuba and then London to avoid arrest. He returned to Georgia in 1867, and died there in 1885.
- Citation(s) for Biographical Information:
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Last modified November 20, 2018. Accessed on November 20, 2018.
- Ancestry Library. Last modified November 20, 2018. Accessed on November 20, 2018.
Additional notes: Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography; Volume: Vol. VI Source Information Ancestry.com. Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1600-1889 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. - Citation(s) for Birth Information:
- Ancestry Library. Last modified November 20, 2018. Accessed on November 20, 2018.
- Citation(s) for Death Information:
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Last modified November 20, 2018. Accessed on November 20, 2018.
Additional notes: American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Phillips, Ulrich. The Life of Robert Toombs. 1913. Reprint. New York: B. Franklin, 1968; Thompson, William Y. Robert Toombs of Georgia. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966.