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Robert Woodward Barnwellb. 10 Aug 1801, Beaufort, Beaufort County, South Carolina |
| Title: | Chairman of the Congress |
| Term: | 4 Feb 1861 - 4 Feb 1861 |
| Chronology: | 4 Feb 1861, elected by acclamation of the Congress [1] |
| 4 Feb 1861, permanent president of the Congress elected and assumed the chair [1] |
| Biography: | |
| The son of a prominent South Carolinian politician, Robert W. Barnwell was educated at the Beaufort College and Harvard. Barnwell was elected to the 21st and 22nd US Congresses (4 Mar 1829 - 3 Mar 1833). He became the third president of the South Carolina College in December of 1835 and served until 1841. His later years were spent as a planter in Beaufort, where he involved himself in local issues. Appointed to the US Senate to fill a vacancy, Barnwell served from 4 Jun 1850 to 8 Dec 1850, when a successor was elected. He was a commissioner to the Federal Government from South Carolina regarding the secession of that State in December 1860 and a delegate to the Congress of the seceding States in Montgomery, Alabama. At the congress' first meeting on 4 Feb 1861, William P. Chilton moved that Barnwell be appointed to preside temporarily over the Congress until its permanent organization. The Congress approved that proposal, but later that day, Barnwell handed the presidency over to Howell Cobb, who was elected president. On 9 Feb 1861, Barnwell cast the deciding vote in the South Carolina delegation which carried the State for Jefferson Davis and made him president of the Southern Confederacy. Barnwell was a member of the Confederate States Senate in 1861-1865. After the Civil War, Barnwell served as faculty chairman at the University of South Carolina (1866-1872) and manager of a private school for girls. [2] | |
| Sources and notes: | |
| [1] | "Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865", (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office: 1904), Volume I, pp. 10, 16. |
| [2] | Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (web site). |
| Image: Portrait of Robert Woodward Barnwell by William Scarborough (courtesy of the McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina, and the South Caroliniana Library); special thanks to Jay Williams, McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina; Beth Bilderback and Brian J. Cuthrell, South Caroliniana Library; Grace Morris Cordial, Beaufort County Public Library. | |
This page was last updated on: 19 Aug 2007 03:54:12
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