Good Evening POU!
On this day in 1874, Congressman Robert Brown Elliot delivered one of the most eloquent speeches of the times in defense of Charles Sumner’s civil rights bill. Elliot’s hour-long speech began: ‘I regred, sir, the dark hue of my skin may lend color to the imputation that I am controlled by motives personal to myself in advocacy of this great measure of national justice. Sir, the motive that impels me is restricted to no such narrow boundary, but is as broad as your Constitution. I advocate it, sir, because it is right.’ A major sourthern Reconstruction politician, Elliot was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives at the age of 38 and was among the first African-Americans in the U.S. government.
During the period after the Civil War known as Reconstruction (1866-1877), the people of Orangeburg both black and white were faced with a new way of life that would present great challenges to include mental, physical, social, financial and certainly spiritually.
The transitions that both blacks and whites had to make were sometimes smooth and sometimes painful. Today, we can only wonder what level of stress they had to endure.
In the transitioning from slavery to freedom, both races had to endure sometimes uncomfortable circumstances and conditions. The black man had to step into uncharted lands that would ultimately test his ability to adjust instantly to the lifestyle of whites. There were very few black men of this caliber in the state, therefore, black men of Northern roots filed into the state flexing their muscles and skills. The name “Carpetbaggers” was given to both black and white men from other parts of the country who flocked to the state for various reasons after the Civil War.
One of the most notable political figures of that period was Robert Brown Elliott. He was born in Boston to parents of West Indies descent on Aug. 11, 1842. To some historians, he was considered a mystery man because certain verifications of his education could not be confirmed. His education was said to have started in Boston, then Jamaica, then High Holborn Academy in England and on to Eton College, where he graduated with honors in 1859.
Brown Elliot first appeared in South Carolina in Charleston in March 1867, when he was hired as the associate editor of the South Carolina Leader, a newspaper headed by Richard Harvey Cain, another so called Carpetbagger who was born in Virginia. Cain served in the General Assembly from 1868-70, then became a member of the 43rd-45th Congresses for South Carolina. He pushed a program that would encourage the growth of black-owned and operated farms by purchasing extensive tracts of land for sale to freedmen.
As to Elliott, he was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1868, then to Congress in July 1870. While serving in Congress, he urged the House to delay the restoration of political rights for ex-Confederates and concentrate on protecting loyal citizens in Southern states. In 1872, he was re-elected to Congress and gained national attention for a speech he gave in support of the civil rights bill on Jan. 5, 1874.
When the speaker of the house gave Elliott the floor, with his brilliant oratorical voice, he said, “The results of the war, as seen in reconstruction, have settled forever the political status of my race. The passage of this bill will determine the civil status, not only of the Negro but of any other class of citizens who may feel themselves discriminated against. It will form the capstone of that temple of liberty begun on this continent under discouraging circumstances, carried on in spite of the sneers of monarchists and the cavils of pretended friends of freedom, until at last it stands in all its beautiful symmetry and proportions, a building the grandest which the world has ever seen, realizing the most sanguine expectations and the highest hopes of those who in the name of equal, impartial and universal liberty, laid the foundation stone.”
Elliott’s speech was an overwhelming success. It brought on a roar of deafening applause for several minutes. Both Republicans and Democrats moved forward to shake his hand for such a moving speech.
In November 1874, he returned to South Carolina to take a seat in the state General Assembly, becoming the speaker of the House. From 1874 through 1875, Elliott operated the law firm Elliott, Stewart and Straker that flourished in Orangeburg. It was located off Amelia Street near the present-day courthouse.
By 1876, he developed a notion to run for governor but changed his mind and was elected the first black attorney general for South Carolina. His tenure was short lived because Reconstruction ended in South Carolina in 1877. In 1881, Elliott worked with the Treasury Department in Charleston and was transferred to New Orleans in 1882. Robert Brown Elliott, having no public influence that he enjoyed as a politician, lapsed into poverty before his death in New Orleans on Aug. 9, 1884