By W.D Workman Jr.
USC Institute of Southern Studies
Few South Carolinians are aware of any connection between the Palmetto State and the widely accepted book of parliamentary law known as “Robert’s Rules of Order.” The truth is, however, that the two are inseparably linked through the name of Henry Martyn Robert, a native South Carolinian known to posterity as the author of that influential manual of public procedure.
One factor contributing to the lack of name recognition is the geographic insignificance of the tiny Jasper County where Robert was born in 1837, which still bears the name of “Robertville.”
Another such factor is the service of Robert as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War. This unlikely career for the Palmetto State native was brought about because his Baptist minister father moved the young family away from South Carolina as ministerial opportunities developed elsewhere.
Robert was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he established an enviable record. Upon his graduation, he remained in military service and achieved rather notable success in a variety of assignments, culminating in his promotion to brigadier general, and his appointment as the U.S. Army Chief of Engineers–all before 1860. When war broke out, General Robert remained an officer within the Union Forces.
In Robert’s post-war career, he was involved frequently in the conduct of public meetings, whether academic, religious or military. During the course of such a meeting, he was constantly and sometimes volubly–concerned with the parliamentary practices and maintenance of orderly discussion.
Among the few references then available to presiding officers were Thomas Jefferson’s “Manual of Parliamentary Practice” and a subsequent work by Luther S. Cushing, Harvard Professor and judge. It was during this post-war decade that Robert concluded that a handbook on parliamentary procedure was needed for private as well as governmental organizations faced with the necessity of conducting orderly discussions and reaching fair conclusions.
Accordingly, Robert devoted much of his own time and money to the preparation of procedural manuals, the first of which appeared in 1869, followed by his “Rules of Order” in 1876. Since then, numerous editions of “Robert’s Rules of Order” have been published, the individual copies numbering into the millions.
Robert’s death in 1923, at the age of 86, drew this well deserved comment form the Librarian of Congress: “General Robert made it possible for our democracy to express itself in terms of decision, action, and result. His work is infused in, and inseparable from, our society.”