ROBERT SMALLS
It did not pass. Smalls had a hand in re-writing the Constitution of the State into which he had been born into slavery.
It would be over 80 years before President Harry S Truman accomplished the result by issuing an Executive Order.
The Planter had only two guns of its own, but was carrying a cargo of guns and ammunition that was to be delivered to the Confederate forts along the South Carolina coast. Smalls was then hired by the Union Navy as a Pilot and he engaged in a number of battles where he performed so well that he was transferred to the army which ran its own warships and made a Captain of the Vessel and achieved the rank of General although his duties were always at sea.
Robert Smalls was an American politician, publisher, businessman, and naval pilot. Born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, he freed himself, his crew, and their families during the American Civil War by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, CSS Planter, in Charleston harbor, on May 13, 1862, and sailing it from Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S. blockade that surrounded it. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in Beaufort-Port Royal-Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army.
