Smith was born in Charles Town in the Province of South Carolina in 1758 to Benjamin Smith and Anne Loughton.[3] His father earned his fortune as an importer of British luxury goods (primarily furniture and high-end silverware) into Charleston. His father's considerable wealth allowed him to sit out the Revolutionary War while obtaining his education in Europe.[4]
In 1783, Smith returned to South Carolina. He was admitted to the bar in 1784 and began practicing law in Charleston and he quickly became locally famous as the most able lawyer in Charleston.[5]
Political career
In 1784, Smith served as a member of the South Carolina privy council.[5] In 1786, Smith was elected warden of the city of Charleston in 1786, equivalent to a city council member today. From 1787 to 1788, Smith served in the South Carolina House of Representatives.[5]
Smith was known for being outspokenly pro-George Washington and was elected as a Pro-Administration candidate to the First Congress in 1788 to South Carolina's 1st congressional district. His election was contested by his opponent David Ramsey, who claimed that, because Smith had only returned to the newly founded United States in 1783, he had not been a U.S. citizen for seven years, a constitutional requirement for election to the House. This was the first invocation of Congress's power, established under Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, to serve as the "Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members"; the House found that Smith was qualified, with James Madison noting that "it is an established maxim, that birth is the criterion of allegiance."[6] During the Washington administration, Smith accompanied Washington on tours of Rhode Island and the Southern states.[7]
On July 10, 1797, Smith resigned from Congress to serve as United States Ambassador to Portugal. He held the position until September 9, 1801, when he was recalled and took a leave of absence. Smith returned to Charleston and ran for Congress again in 1804, 1806, and 1808, but lost all of those elections to the Democratic-Republican Party candidate Robert Marion.[5]
In 1808, Smith was commissioned as a lieutenant in the South Carolina Militia. That same year, Smith was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives.[5]
Smith died of an illness in Charleston, S.C., December 19, 1812. He was interred in St. Philip's Churchyard.[5][3]
Political views
In a special session of United States Congress called by John Adams in 1797, Smith introduced ten resolutions calling for increased naval defense and shore fortifications in response to the growing crisis in Franco-American relations.[8]
Smith was opposed to the emancipation of slaves, believing it would benefit neither whites nor blacks. As he explained on the floor of the House of Representatives on March 17, 1790:
"If the blacks did not intermarry with the whites, they would remain black until the end of time; for it was not contended that liberating them would whitewash them; if they did intermarry with the whites, then the white race would be extinct, and the American people would all be of mulatto breed. In whatever light, therefore, the subject was viewed, the folly of emancipation was manifest."
In 1808, his politics shifted away from Alexander Hamilton and toward Thomas Jefferson, with Smith embracing the Embargo Act of 1807 as a way to increase the U.S.'s self-sufficiency.[3]
^Pasley, Jeffrey L. (2013). The first presidential contest : 1796 and the founding of American democracy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. p. 235. ISBN978-0-7006-1907-8.