National Historic Landmark- Robert Barnwell Rhett House

This large clapboard frame dwelling was the residence of Robert Barnwell Rhett (1800-1876), known as the Great Secessionist and one of the most effective and prominent of that circle of proslavery fire-eating radicals.

Beginning in 1850, Rhett launched a carefully programmed campaign to sever the slaveholding states from the Union; he had a major influence on the State's Ordinance of Secession (1860).

Courtesy National Park Service National Historic Landmarks

Photo courtesy Library of Congress Historic American Building Survey