About: Bluffton Movement

The Bluffton Movement was spawned during a political rally held under the "Secession Oak" in the village of Bluffton, South Carolina, on July 31, 1844. The movement was an attempt to invoke "separate state action" against the Tariff of 1842 after John Calhoun's failure to secure the presidential nomination and the Northern Democrats' abandonment of the South on the tariff had apparently destroyed hope for relief within the Democratic Party. Many of the "Blufftonites" undoubtedly contemplated disunion, but the object of their leader, Robert Barnwell Rhett, seems rather to have been a "reform" of the Union giving further safeguards to southern interests. The movement collapsed within a short time, largely through its repudiation by Calhoun.