ALBERT M. RHETT.
Albert Moore Rhett (formerly Smith) was the seventh and youngest son of the late James Smith of Charleston, and Marianna Gough. He was born in the year 1809, in Brunswick County, North Carolina, during a temporary residence of the family there, and spent his early years in the country, where his father was his only teacher. His vivacity in childhood was so great, that his father found it impracticable to teach him the alphabet; and, despairing of success, gave him up to his mother's care, who, after some vain efforts, called in the aid of his eldest brother, and he at length accomplished the task. After the return of the family to Beaufort, he was for a short time a pupil of Mr. Hallonquist, a teacher of reputation at that time. In his sixteenth year, he was sent to Philips' Academy, at Andover, Massachusetts, and in fifteen months completed his preparatory studies for the Freshman Class of Yale College, which he entered in 1827. From the beginning to the end of his academic life, he had not a competitor, and there was no department of study in which his superiority was not marked. He was pre-eminent in the classical, literary and forensic exercises of his class. But it was in mathematics that his talents shone most brightly. He prepared pari passu with the college curriculum-a system of his own, beginning with algebra, and running through the whole range of the pure mathematics, in two manuscript volumes, which, on leaving college, he put into the hands of a friend in one of the lower classes. These volumes were, it is said, within these few years, still in the hands of the students. In this elaborate performance he improved in more respects than one on the text of the standard authors, by introducing new arrangements, by simplifying the propositions, and by multiplying sometimes the demonstrations fourfold. He was urged by a friend to revise and recast it into an original work of his own, and to publish it by way of honorable introduction into active life. But he thought too lightly of its merits to forego his habitual repugnance to appearing in print. It may be added as a circumstance worthy of the attention of young men, that while he fell short of no excellence in the exercises of his college course he improved every opportunity of cultivating himself in English composition and debate. He wrote and spoke unremittingly in the literary societies. Not a week passed in which he failed to take part in one or the other of these exercises, and he frequently engaged in both. He considered writing the first and last condition of good speaking; and on whatever subject his mind was employed, his pen was never out of his hand. The nature of this task may be imagined, when it is stated that his fingers were so weak that he wrote at all with the greatest difficulty, and only by an ingenious contrivance.
The first year after his return from college he spent at home in general studies. "Newton's Principia," the Greek Tragedians, the Political Economists, and British Classics absorbing most of his hours. He held, with Mr. Burke, that the poetry of literature lay as much in its language as in its sentiment, and he therefore memorized as he read every striking passage of his chosen authors. He knew, by heart, the whole of the first book of "Paradise Lost," and there were few of Shakspeare's" Delphic Lines" that did not come to his lips at his bidding. The prose books of Milton he read and re-read with fresh interest, agreeing with the late Mr. Legaré, that they were unequaled as examples of prose compositions by any productions of their class in our language. But the business of life was pressing (for he was without fortune), and in 1832 he entered the office of his relative, the late Thomas S. Grimké, and, after twelve months' preparation, was admitted to the Bar on the 20th February, 1834. An opening for immediate employment in the country occurring, he availed himself of it, and began the practice of his profession in Beaufort and Colleton. The first case in which his remarkable talents were displayed, in Colleton, was the case of The State v. Riggs, on an indictment for murder. The Solicitor was not in attendance, and the relations of the deceased em
ployed Mr. Rhett in behalf of the prosecution. The prisoner was defended by Mr. Petigru, but was convicted. Mr. Rhett rose at once to the head of his profession. In the year 1834, he was returned to the House of Representatives from St. Helena Parish. In that body, in the Second Session of his first term, he delivered a most remarkable and able speech on the Independence of the Judiciary, and forthwith took rank amongst the ablest debaters in the State. He represented St. Helena for four years, and subsequently St. Luke's.
In 1843, he became a resident of Charleston, and in October of that year was stricken by yellow fever, and died, aged thirty-four years, in perfect and hopeful resignation to the will of God.
Mr. Rhett was a hard student. He took with him into his profession, the same method of study he had cultivated in his youth, and that was most exhausting. His synthesis was as perfect as his analysis. When he seized a principle, he pursued it from its first faint expression in the text-books to the very last judgment upon it in the Reports; throwing aside, step by step as he advanced, the perversions and errors that had gathered about it in its progress to established truth. He considered law the noblest system of reason ever wrought by the genius of man; and he loved it not less for the severity of its truths than for its large and practical philosophy. It was not with him an instrument of vulgar profit merely, or a plaything of ambition. He did not treat it as a cunning device of happy expedients for correcting men's errors, and still less as a useful engine for ventilating the bad humors of society; but as the organ of truth herself, as the justest expression of the most valuable of all metaphysics-the metaphysics of common life-and as the ripest and richest food of a refined and refining civilization. For this reason, his success as an advocate, remarkable as it was, fell short of his efforts in the Court of Equity and the Courts of Appeal. There it was that, untrammeled by the traps and sophistries of the Jury-trial, his severe intellect delighted to wrestle with the masters of legal science, and to discourse fine reason with Coke and Hardwicke, Mansfield and Eldon.
In his address, Mr. Rhett was self-possessed, grave, and earnest; but when he was warmed by debate, his invective was overwhelming. His fine voice, and tall, handsome person, added not a little to the graces of his elocution; while his choice and pregnant English reminded one, by turns, of the terseness of Tacitus and the solid periods of Milton. He was as severe in the selection of his phrases, as in the order of his logic; and whether he spoke on the spur of the occasion, or after much preparation, no link ever dropped from the chain of his argument, and his periods were filled up and rounded with all the completeness that rhetoric art could impart.
Except an address on temperance, which he delivered in Charleston, a short time before his death, Mr. Rhett published nothing over his signature. But he wrote much, anonymously, for the fugitive publications of the day; not for the sake of reputation, (for he thought little of his accomplishments as a writer,) but with a view to correct speaking. His facility in composition was, however, great; and, if he had lived longer, it is likely the favorable judgment of the public would have overcome his diffidence in this particular, and his reputation as a writer have become as great as it was for speaking.
We have referred to Mr. Rhett's system of mental training, as furnishing, by its success, some useful lessons to the young. Perhaps, it is not out of place, to add a word or so as to his interest in the young. Youth was recommendation enough for anybody to his sympathies; and any, the least, demonstration of personal merit in such, engaged his active friendship. He loved to lift up the head of the poor boy, and give heart to the desponding; and although his means were never large, yet the tidings of his early death brought tears to the eyes of more than one strong man who had found in him (when friends were few) the kindest of benefactors and the truest of counsellors.
The foregoing is from the pen of an early friend of Mr. Rhett, who was, indeed, all that he represents him to have been, and more. He was, indeed, a fine specimen of a lawyer. His style of speaking was fully equal to any which I ever
heard. He had, too, a very good knowledge of legal principles, and knew well how to successfully apply his knowledge. Both at the Bar and in the State House, I observed his course with delight. He was a teetotaller, and was one of the few young lawyers of his day who never clouded his mind with wine or strong drink. If it had pleased God that he should live to old age, he would have been one of the first men of South Carolina. He married Sarah C. Taylor, the youngest daughter of Governor Taylor, who survived him with at least two, and perhaps more children.
