What is "fire-eaters"

n. (fire-eater English)

In American history, the Fire-Eaters were a group of radical pro-slavery Southerners in the Antebellum South who urged the separation of Southern states into a new nation, which became known as the Confederate States of America. The dean of the group was Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina. They sought to reopen the international slave trade, which had been illegal since 1808.