Robert Barnwell Rhett, sometimes called "the Father of Secession," used both oratory and the power of the press to persuade others. He advocated as early as 1832 that the South withdraw from the Union. He first distinguished himself as a politician in South Carolina and Washington, D.C. Later, his fiery editorials in the Charleston Mercury, one of the leading newspapers of the antebellum South, supported secession but criticized the Confederate government and the policies of President Jefferson Davis. Although Rhett aroused Southerners to secede, he assumed that the North would not light to preserve the Union. Early in 1861 his editorials predicted a peaceable secession.

Robert Barnwell Smith was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, the fourth son of James and Marianna Gough Smith. His ancestors included Sir John Yeamans, one of the Lords Proprietors and a governor of South Carolina; Governors Landgrave Smith and James Moore; Col. John Barnwell...