Biography
Rawlins Lowndes was an American lawyer, planter and politician who became involved in the patriot cause after his election to South Carolina's legislature, although he opposed independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Lowndes served as president/governor of South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, and after the war opposed his state's ratification of the Constitution of the United States because it would restrict the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Lowndes also served as a state legislator and mayor of Charleston before his death. Two of his sons, Thomas and William Lowndes, would serve in the U.S. Congress.