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The lawyer:
Robert Elliott was admitted to the South Carolina bar in September 1868 after facing the examining board of eminent White lawyers, along with other African American and Northern lawyers. There is no explanation as to where he had acquired his legal skills. He then formed a law firm in Charleston with two other African American lawyers - W J Whipper from Michigan, and Macon B Allen of Massachusetts, who had been the first African American admitted to the bar in the whole of the USA back in 1844-5. After one of his early court appearances with Whipper a reporter for the Charleston News wrote: '... that the easy politeness and general good bearing of these "gentlemen" of colour has impressed the community with no feelings other than good will and, we may say, respect.'
Robert Elliott was admitted to the South Carolina bar in September 1868 after facing the examining board of eminent White lawyers, along with other African American and Northern lawyers. There is no explanation as to where he had acquired his legal skills. He then formed a law firm in Charleston with two other African American lawyers - W J Whipper from Michigan, and Macon B Allen of Massachusetts, who had been the first African American admitted to the bar in the whole of the USA back in 1844-5. After one of his early court appearances with Whipper a reporter for the Charleston News wrote: '... that the easy politeness and general good bearing of these "gentlemen" of colour has impressed the community with no feelings other than good will and, we may say, respect.'
In 1875 he opened a law office in Orangeburg with two young Howard Law School graduates, T M Stewart and D A Straker; the firm continued to do business until shortly after Reconstruction ended in 1877.
In New Orleans from 1881 until his death in 1884 he depended on his skills as a lawyer to earn a precarious living.
In New Orleans from 1881 until his death in 1884 he depended on his skills as a lawyer to earn a precarious living.
Black Congressmen during Reconstruction: (standing) Rep. Robert C. DeLarge, South Carolina; Rep. Jefferson H. Long, Georgia. (seated) Sen. H.R. Revels, Mississippi; Rep. Benjamin S. Turner, Alabama; Rep. Josiah T. Walls, Florida; Rep. Joseph H. Rainy, South Carolina; Rep. Robert Brown Elliott, South Carolina
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Robert Brown Elliott was one of the most outstanding Black politicians of the Reconstruction period.
Political career - timeline:
1868 member S Carolina Constitutional Convention
elected to S Carolina House of Representatives
1869 appointed Assistant Adjutant General, S Carolina, organizing Black militia
1870 chairman Republican State Convention, SC
elected for Republican Party to US House of Representatives; first man of pure African ancestry to sit in the US Congress
1871 sworn in, 42nd Congress
1872 speech at 10th Anniversary of Emancipation in D.C. (April 16, 1862)
failure to win nomination for election to the US Senate
1874 January 6:
brilliant speech in House of Representatives in support of Civil Rights Bill
1868 member S Carolina Constitutional Convention
elected to S Carolina House of Representatives
1869 appointed Assistant Adjutant General, S Carolina, organizing Black militia
1870 chairman Republican State Convention, SC
elected for Republican Party to US House of Representatives; first man of pure African ancestry to sit in the US Congress
1871 sworn in, 42nd Congress
1872 speech at 10th Anniversary of Emancipation in D.C. (April 16, 1862)
failure to win nomination for election to the US Senate
1874 January 6:
brilliant speech in House of Representatives in support of Civil Rights Bill
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'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.'
(speech on Civil Rights Bill , January 6, 1874)
resigned from US Congress; won seat in SC House of Representatives,
elected Speaker
1876 elected Attorney-General of S Carolina
1877 end of Reconstruction in S Carolina
1879 appointed an inspector of customs in Charleston
1880 delegate to Republican National Convention in Chicago
1881 leader of Black delegation from the South to President-Elect Garfield
elected Speaker
1876 elected Attorney-General of S Carolina
1877 end of Reconstruction in S Carolina
1879 appointed an inspector of customs in Charleston
1880 delegate to Republican National Convention in Chicago
1881 leader of Black delegation from the South to President-Elect Garfield
In 1879 Elliott sold his house in Columbia, SC, and in 1881 he was transferred by the Treasury Department to New Orleans; the following year he was removed from his position as a Treasury agent. He was able to start a law firm with Thomas Tucker, but things were very rough for him and his wife, Grace, whom he had married in 1870. He was suffering from severe bouts of malaria and he died in August, 1884. No marker of his grave has survived
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'Upon sight and hearing of this man I was chained to the spot with admiration and a feeling akin to wonder .... To all outward seeming he might have been an ordinary Negro, one who might have delved, as I have done, with spade and pickax or crowbar. Yet from under that dark brow there blazed an intellect and a soul that made him for high places among the ablest white men of the age .... We are not over rich in such men and we may well mourn when one such is fallen in the midst of his years.'
Frederick Douglass, letter to New York Globe, 1884 |
NOTE: The only book on the career of Robert Brown Elliott seems to be The Glorious Failure by Peggy Lamson, published in 1973. It has not been reprinted, but very reasonably priced second-hand copies can be purchased online.)
