When this report was confirmed, Mr. Toombs, ignorant of the real cause of this sudden change of sentiment, forbade further canvass of his own claims, and cordially seconded the nomination of Mr. Davis. Mr. Toombs was a man of rare magnanimity. He was absolutely without envy or resentment, and turning to Mr. Stephens, pressed him to accept second place on the ticket. The announcement of a Georgian for vice president effectually disposed of his own chance for the presidency. The fact was that Mr. Toombs was the first choice of Georgia, as he was thought to be of Florida, Carolina, and Louisiana. Jefferson Davis had not been presented by Mississippi. He had been selected by that State as the commander-in-chief of the military forces and himself preferred a military station. He was not in Montgomery when his nomination was confirmed. A messenger had to be dispatched to inform him of his election as President of the Confederate States of America. The sudden selection of Mr. Davis by four States probably carries a bit of secret history. Old party antagonisms arose at the last moment to confront the candidacy of Mr. Toombs. Toombs had summarily left the Whig party in 1850, to join the great Constitutional Union movement. Jefferson Davis had always been a States' Rights Democrat, and had been defeated for Governor of Mississippi by the Constitutional Union party. Thus it would seem that, at the eleventh hour, party lines were drawn against Robert Toombs, and his boast that he had saved the Union in 1850 probably cost him the presidency of the new republic. There was a story, credited in some quarters, that Mr. Toombs' convivial conduct at a dinner party in Montgomery estranged from him some of the more conservative delegates, who did not realize that a man like Toombs had versatile and reserved powers, and that Toombs at the banquet board was another sort of a man from Toombs in a deliberative body. At all events, the recognized leader of the Confederacy was set aside, and with rare unanimity the election of officers was accepted with unselfish patriotism. At that time a curious and remarkable incident in the life of Mr. Toombs was related. Within thirty days he had performed journeys to the extent of fifteen hundred miles, largely by private conveyance, and during that brief period he served under four distinct governments: as senator in the Congress of the United States, as delegate from his native county (Wilkes) to the convention of the sovereign republic of Georgia, as deputy from his State to the Congress of seceding States, which instituted a Provisional Government, and finally in the permanent government which he aided in framing for the Confederate States of America.