In one year her increase was sixty-two millions. Business of all kinds was prospering. But her people did not count the cost when they considered that their rights were invaded. Georgia was the fifth State to secede. South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida had preceded her. Of the six States which formed the Provisional Government, Georgia had relatively a smaller number of slaves than any, and her State debt was only a little more than two and a half millions of dollars. Her voting population was barely 100,000, but she furnished, when the test came, 120,000 soldiers to the Confederate army. As a contemporary print of those times remarked, "The Secession convention of Georgia was not divided upon the subject of rights or wrongs, but of remedies." Senator Toombs declared that the convention had sovereign powers, "limited only by God and the right." This policy opened the way to changing the great seal and adopting a new flag. Mr. Toombs was made chairman of the committee on Foreign Relations and became at once Prime Minister of the young Republic. He offered a resolution providing that a congress of seceded States be called to meet in Montgomery on the 4th of February. He admonished the convention that, as it had destroyed one government, it was its pressing duty to build up another. It was at his request that commissioners were appointed from Georgia to the other States in the South. Mr. Toombs also introduced a resolution, which was unanimously adopted, "That the Convention highly approves the energetic and patriotic conduct of Governor Brown in seizing Fort Pulaski." The Ordinance of Secession was, on the 31st of January, signed by all the members of the convention, in the open air, in the Capitol grounds. The scene was solemn and impressive. Six delegates entered their protests, but pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" in defense of Georgia against coercion and invasion. When the time came for the election of delegates to the Provisional Congress at Montgomery, Robert Toombs was unanimously selected as the first deputy from the State at large. His colleague, Howell Cobb, was chosen on the third ballot. The district selected Francis S. Bartow, Martin J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. R. Cobb, A. H. Kennan, and A. H. Stephens.