“B” is for Bluffton Movement (1844)

“B” is for Bluffton Movement (1844). On July 31, 1844, under a large oak (the Secession Oak) in Bluffton SC, the first organized political movement with the express goal of South Carolina's independent secession from the United States was born. The “Bluffton Movement” as it became known, was a call to secession if the South was not guaranteed its rights to slavery, a lower tariff, and states’ rights. At a series of meetings, local congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett called for a state convention that would nullify the Tariff of 1842 or urge South Carolina’s immediate secession from the Union. These measures were considered by most both within and outside of the state, as being extremely radical. In the short term, however, the extreme platform lost momentum quickly and the Bluffton Movement attracted few followers outside of the Beaufort region.