Background
Edward Rutledge was born in Charlestown (now Charleston) or in Christ Church Parish across the bay, being the seventh and youngest child of Dr. John and Sarah (Hext) Rutledge, and the brother of John Rutledge.
Edward Rutledge was born in Charlestown (now Charleston) or in Christ Church Parish across the bay, being the seventh and youngest child of Dr. John and Sarah (Hext) Rutledge, and the brother of John Rutledge.
He studied law in London at the Inns of Court.
Rutledge was admitted in 1767 to the Middle Temple and called to the English bar in 1772. He returned home in January 1773, and a few months later represented the printer, Thomas Powell, in the noted habeas corpus proceedings before Assistant Justice Rawlins Lowndes.
His public life began when he was elected in July 1774 to the First Continental Congress. Aggressive but not radical, he bent his efforts toward procuring a bill of rights and a plan of permanent relief, and supported so vigorously the stand of his brother John that he brought upon himself one of the choicest compliments distributed by John Adams who called him "a perfect Bob-o-Lincoln--a swallow, a sparrow, jejune, inane and puerile" (Works, vol. II, 1850, p. 401).
Despite his youth and the lack of the eloquence and finish in his speeches that he later acquired, his winning personality and soundness of thought brought him growing esteem. He was elected to the first and second provincial congresses of 1775 and 1776, and in the same years to the Continental Congress, where, after the departure of his brother and of Christopher Gadsden, he was the leader of the South Carolina delegation. Restrained more by the opinion of his constituents than by his own, he staved off action on the resolution for independence for nearly a month. On July 2, however, the South Carolina delegation voted for it under his influence.
Rutledge felt that confederation should have been achieved before independence, but opposed building a strong government, and in August repudiated the proposed plan as dangerous, fearing especially the "low Cunning, and those levelling Principles" of the New England States (letter to John Jay, June 29, 1776, Burnett, post, I, 518).
In November 1776 he returned home to take part in the defense of the state and to look after his private affairs. The state gained a captain of artillery but lost a delegate in Congress whose service in the critical years to come would have been of the greatest value.
In 1778 he was elected to the state House of Representatives from Charlestown, and by that body in 1779 to Congress, but did not reach Philadelphia. He was in the fight at Beaufort in February 1779, and was captured at the fall of Charlestown.
From September 1780 to July 1781 he was one of the St. Augustine "exiles, " but was exchanged in time to take his seat in the legislature in January 1782. He drew up the bill proposing the confiscation of the properties of Loyalists, and favored the measure as necessary to finance the state, but used his influence to moderate its effect.
The years following the Revolution brought honors in public life and success in law practice to the genial and charming gentleman. He added to his property and obligations by investing in plantations in partnership with his brother-in-law, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.
From 1782 to 1796 he represented Charleston in the House of Representatives as well as in the state conventions of 1788 and 1790. His efficient work brought him an increasing burden, especially in matters of finance, until in the session of 1792 he was chairman of nineteen committees. He was stiffly conservative and rarely conceded anything to the democratic elements in the state.
An influential Federalist, he was presidential elector in 1788, 1792, and 1796, voting in the last-named year for Thomas Pinckney and Jefferson. In 1796 and 1798 he was elected from Charleston to the state Senate, and in the latter year became governor. At the time of his election, however, his health was broken. He performed his duties with care but in great physical distress, and died in Charleston nearly a year before the end of his term.
Rutledge was twice married, first, on March 1, 1774, to Henrietta, the daughter of Henry Middleton, by whom he had three children. She died on April 22, 1792, and on October 28, he married Mary (Shubrick) Eveleigh.
