De Large, Robert Carlos, 1842-1874

<p>DeLarge was born on March 15, 1842, in Aiken, the son of a slave-owning mulatto tailor and his Haitian-born wife. At a time when few African Americans received any schooling, DeLarge attended primary school in North Carolina before returning to South Carolina to attend Wood High School in Charleston. He learned the barbering trade before enlisting in the Confederate navy. DeLarge’s reasons for supporting the Confederacy are unknown, but as a free person of color and member of South Carolina’s brown elite, he may have viewed Union troops as invaders. Apparently he later regretted his actions since he donated most of his wartime earnings to the Republican Party.</p>

<p>Shortly after the end of the Civil War, DeLarge became an ardent Republican and began to work earnestly for the betterment of African Americans. In 1865 he took office as an agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau. A gifted orator noted for his passion, DeLarge used his political skills to help organize the Republican Party in South Carolina. In 1865 he attended the Colored People’s Convention meeting at the Zion Church of Charleston, where he chaired the credentials committee. The convention adopted DeLarge’s resolution calling for the establishment of a universal public school system. Though he did not favor giving the vote to illiterates of either race, DeLarge signed a petition asking for impartial male suffrage. As a member of the platform committee of the 1867 South Carolina Republican Convention, DeLarge again sought public schools as well as the abolition of capital punishment, universal male suffrage with literacy restrictions, tax reform, assistance to the poor of both races, funds for such internal improvements, and land distribution. Elected to the South Carolina General Assembly in 1867, DeLarge served on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. In 1870 he was appointed to head the South Carolina Land Commission, in which post he supervised the sale of land to freedmen. His brief tenure at the Land Commission was lackluster, however, and did little to lessen the agency’s reputation for mismanagement and corruption.</p>

<p>DeLarge capped his political career in 1870 by narrowly beating the white Republican Christopher C. Bowen to serve the Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He took his seat on March 4, 1871. Placed on the Committee on Manufactures, he also urged legislation to protect Republicans from intimidation and to protect African Americans from racial violence.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, Bowen weakened DeLarge’s effectiveness by contesting the election and thereby consuming much of the young congressman’s time. The House Committee on Elections began considering C. C. Bowen v. R. C. DeLarge in December 1871 but failed to reach a conclusion until January 1873. At that time they removed DeLarge from office because such irregularities existed in the election as to make the victor impossible to determine. DeLarge did not pursue reelection because his health had already begun to fail. His appointment as a Charleston magistrate in 1873 was his last public office. He died in Charleston on February 14, 1874, of consumption. He was buried in the Brown Fellowship Society Cemetery.</p>

DE LARGE, Robert Carlos, a Representative from South Carolina; born in Aiken, S.C., March 15, 1842; received such an education as was then attainable and was graduated from Wood High School; engaged in agricultural pursuits; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1868; member of the State house of representatives 1868-1870; was one of the State commissioners of the sinking fund; elected State land commissioner in 1870 and served until elected to Congress; presented credentials as a Republican Member-elect to the Forty-second Congress and served from March 4, 1871, until January 24, 1873, when the seat was declared vacant, the election having been contested by Christopher C. Bowen; local magistrate until his death in Charleston, S.C., February 14, 1874; interment in Brown Fellowship Graveyard.

<p>Robert Carlos De Large (March 15, 1842 – February 14, 1874) was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving 1871 to 1873. He was earlier a delegate to the 1868 state constitutional convention and elected in 1868 to the South Carolina House of Representatives for one term.</p>

<p>De Large was born in Aiken, South Carolina on March 15, 1842, the mixed-race son of a Haitian free woman of color and a Sephardi Jewish father, according to scholar Benjamin Ginsberg. Timothy P. McCarthy suggests both parents were mulatto or mixed race. They were slaveholders and part of the mulatto elite of Charleston, South Carolina. De Large's parents' names are not known, but his father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress. His parents encouraged his education, sending him to North Carolina for primary school; he returned to Charleston and graduated from Wood High School. De Large became a tailor and farmer. As a young man, De Large became a member of the Brown Fellowship Society of Charleston, made up of people of color who had been free before the war. They were among the elite African Americans in the city who were skilled artisans and led the people of color.</p>

<p>During the war, De Large was employed by the Confederate Navy. He saved considerable sums and established a stake for after the war. At that time, he became involved in politics, and was elected as a delegate to the South Carolina constitutional convention in 1868. That year he was also elected as a Republican member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, serving one term until 1870 when he was elected State land commissioner. He was also one of the commissioners of the State's sinking fund. De Large was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives later that year.</p>

<p>A wealthy resident of Charleston, South Carolina, Robert De Large won election to the U.S. House of Representatives as an ally of the scandal–ridden administration of Republican Governor Robert Scott. Though he maintained a personal political alliance with Scott, De Large was constantly at odds with the state Republican Party and rarely defended the corrupt state government. “I am free to admit,” De Large noted on the House Floor while advocating for victims of racial violence in the South, “that neither the Republicans of my State nor the Democrats of that State can shake their garments and say that they had no hand in bringing about this condition of affairs.” A protracted contested election, in which De Large’s lack of political capital, prickly personality and failing health conspired against him, cut short the young politician’s career.</p>

<p>Robert Carlos De Large was born on March 15, 1842, in Aiken, South Carolina. Although some records indicate De Large was born a slave, he likely was the offspring of free mixed-race parents. De Large’s father was a tailor, and his Haitian mother was a cloak maker. The De Large family owned slaves and, as members of the free mixed-race elite, were afforded opportunities denied their darker–skinned neighbors. Robert De Large was educated at a North Carolina primary school and attended Wood High School in Charleston, South Carolina. He later married and had a daughter, Victoria.3 De Large was a tailor and a farmer before gaining lucrative employment with the Confederate Navy during the Civil War.Perhaps regretting the source of his financial windfall, De Large later donated most of his wartime earnings to the Republican Party. Nevertheless, by 1870 he had amassed a fortune that exceeded $6,500. He moved within Charleston’s highest circles and joined the Brown Fellowship Society, an exclusive organization for mixed-race people.</p>