Robert Rhett

Robert Rhett (born Robert Barnwell Smith; December 21, 1800 – September 14, 1876) was an American politician who served as a deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional C.S. Congress, 1861 to 1862, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina, 1837 to 1849, and Senator from South Carolina, 1850 to 1852. He was an extreme pro-slavery spokesman and advocate of secession - a "Fire-Eater" in the slang of the time. Rhett published these views through his newspaper, the Charleston Mercury.

Robert Barnwell Rhett, Sr. was born Robert Barnwell Smith in Beaufort, South Carolina, U.S. on December 21, 1800.

Rhett studied law and became a member of the South Carolina legislature in 1826, serving until 1832. He was extremely pro-slavery in his views. At the end of the Nullification Crisis in 1833, he told the South Carolina Nullification Convention:

In 1832, Rhett became South Carolina attorney general, serving until 1837. He was then elected U.S. Representative, serving until 1849. In 1838, he changed his last name from Smith to that of a prominent colonial ancestor, Colonel William Rhett. He objected vehemently to the protectionist Tariff of 1842. On July 31, 1844, he launched the Bluffton Movement, which called for South Carolina to return to nullification or else declare secession. The Bluffton program was soon repudiated by more moderate South Carolina Democrats (including even Senator John C. Calhoun), who feared it would endanger the presidential candidacy of James K. Polk. He left the U.S. House of Representatives in 1849.

Rhett opposed the Compromise of 1850 as against the interests of the slave-holding South. He joined fellow Fire-Eaters at the Nashville Convention of 1850, which failed to endorse his aim of secession for the whole South. After the Nashville Convention, Rhett, William Lowndes Yancey, and a few others met in Macon, Georgia on August 21, 1850, and formed the short-lived Southern National Party. In December 1850, he was elected U.S. Senator, to complete the term left by the death of Calhoun. He continued to advocate secession in response to the Compromise. But in 1852, South Carolina refrained from declaring secession, and instead merely passed an ordinance declaring a state's right to secede. Disappointed, he resigned his U.S. Senate seat. He continued to express his fiery secessionist sentiments through the Charleston Mercury, now edited by his son, Robert, Jr.

The 1860 Democratic National Convention met in Charleston, South Carolina and a large bloc of Southern delegates walked out when the platform was insufficiently pro-slavery. This led to the division of the party and separate Northern and Southern nominees for President, which practically guaranteed the election of an anti-slavery Republican, which in turn triggered declarations of secession in seven states. During the 1860 presidential campaign, a widely credited report in the Nashville Patriot said that this outcome was the intended result of a conspiracy by Rhett, Yancey, and William Porcher Miles, hatched at the Southern Convention in Montgomery, Alabama, in May 1858.

After the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, Rhett was elected to the South Carolina Secession Convention, which declared secession in December. He was chosen as deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate States Congress in Montgomery. He was one of the most active deputies and was chairman of the committee which reported the Confederate States Constitution. Subsequently he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives. He received no higher office in the Confederate government and returned to South Carolina. During the rest of the War, he sharply criticized the policies of President Jefferson Davis.

After the War, Rhett settled in Louisiana. While it was rumored that he was a delegate to the 1868 Democratic National Convention, that was in fact his son, Robert Rhett, Jr., who had shared his father's editorship responsibilities. He died in St. James Parish, Louisiana and is interred at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston.

Rhett was of English ancestry, being descended from the famous Pirate Hunter Colonel William Rhett. On his mother's side, he was related to U.S. Representative Robert Barnwell (his great-uncle) and Senator Robert Woodward Barnwell (son of Robert). A cousin of the Barnwells was the wife of Alexander Garden.

The Robert Barnwell Rhett House was declared to be a National Historic Landmark in 1973.