5 Days
Born: March 15, 1842 in Aiken, South Carolina
Died: February 14, 1874 in Charleston, South Carolina
United States Representative, 1871–1873
Republican from South Carolina
Robert Carlos De Large was elected as a Republican Representative to the 42nd Congress joining four other African Americans who served in the House of Representatives during that term.
In June 1870, De Large was one of several speakers at a large Republican meeting calling for a new direction for the party. He joined a group of Black South Carolina legislators and activists who criticized a faction of White Republicans for holding disproportionate power in the state and for entering politics for their own personal financial gain. De Large told the crowd that he joined the Republican Party because it “professed equal right and privileges to all” and that he wanted to maintain such a standard. Because South Carolina’s Black majority was the basis of the Republican Party’s power, De Large wanted more Black officeholders in state and local positions. “We placed them in position; we elected them, and by our votes we made them our masters,” De Large explained of the White lawmakers. “We now propose to change this thing a little, and let them vote for us.”
In a speech from the floor of the House of Representatives made on April 6, 1871, De Large criticized corruption in both political parties, condemned Blacks for trusting white carpetbaggers from the North, and spoke in favor of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Source: https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/robert-carlos-de-large
https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/12090