He was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1868, becoming the first Black member elected to that chamber. He moved to the state Senate in 1870, serving there until 1875. He served on the Finance Committee and chaired the Public Printing Committee. He was appointed to and promoted through the South Carolina State Militia, eventually holding the rank of major general of the Second Division — a military rank that reflected both his standing in the Republican-led state government and his value to the Black community’s organized self-defense in a period when that community faced sustained violence.
In 1870, he and several colleagues co-formed the Enterprise Railroad Company of Charleston, an eighteen-mile horse-drawn railway connecting Charleston’s wharves with inland depots. Historian Bernard E. Powers has described it as “the most impressive commercial venture by members of Charleston’s black elite.” The enterprise represented an attempt by Black South Carolinians to build economic infrastructure that served their community rather than extracting from it.
Starting in 1872, he owned and helped publish the Beaufort Southern Standard, extending his influence into the press during a period when control of information was increasingly contested across the South.
## Five Terms in Congress: What He Accomplished and What He Faced
Robert Smalls was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1874 and served, across several terms and through interruptions, until 1887. The specifics of his congressional service matter because they are sometimes summarized in ways that compress what was actually a complicated and persistently contested career.