Daniel Henry Chamberlain

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Daniel Henry Chamberlain

Daniel Henry Chamberlain (born June 23, 1835 in West Brookfield , Massachusetts , † April 13, 1907 in Charlottesville , Virginia ) was an American politician and Governor of South Carolina from 1874 to 1877 .

Early years and political advancement

Chamberlain was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts on June 23, 1835, the ninth of ten children of Eli Chamberlain and Achsah Forbes. After Worcester High School he attended the Amherst Academy and the Phillips-Andover Academy. He graduated from Yale University with honors from 1858–1862 and was described by the President of Yale as a "born leader". He then studied law at Harvard University , but on March 15, 1864, served as 1st Lieutenant and Adjutant at the 5th Cavalry, Company A, Massachusetts. During the civil war he rose from lieutenant to captain in the Union Army. He served in a cavalry regiment made up of volunteer black soldiers from Massachusetts. In 1865 he retired in Clarksville, Texas. He came to South Carolina in 1866 to help manage the affairs of a deceased friend. He stayed there and worked as a lawyer and cotton planter.

From 1868 he was politically active in South Carolina. As a member of the Republican Party, in 1868 he was a delegate to a convention that revised the country's constitution. From 1868 to 1872 he was Attorney General under Governor Robert Kingston Scott . During this time he distanced himself from the corruption of the administration at the time and criticized his party, which was partly involved in these processes. In 1872 he sought to nominate his party for the office of governor, but he was refused. So he retired to Charleston and practiced as a lawyer again. In 1873 he became a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina and a year later he managed to get his party's top candidacy.

Governor of south carolina

Chamberlain won the gubernatorial elections of November 3, 1874 with 53.9% of the vote against the Democrat John T. Green (46.1%). As governor, he campaigned for administrative reforms. He cut government spending and worked to reduce the mountain of debt that his two predecessors had built up. As a result, he again quarreled with his party, which also resented him for refusing his predecessor Franklin Moses , who was under strong suspicion of corruption, a job as a judge in South Carolina. In the summer of 1876, after a number of attacks on black people, unrest broke out in the country, which the governor could only put down with the help of the military. Nevertheless, he managed to be nominated again in 1876 and, as it initially appeared, to be re-elected to the office of governor. The election result was challenged by the Democrats. There was a dispute about the validity of the votes from two districts. Finally the votes were re-counted. The new result resulted in a majority in favor of Democratic candidate Wade Hampton III. The legality of the result remained controversial. Both sides accused each other of electoral fraud. Chamberlain resisted until April 1877, before he handed over the office to Wade under pressure from the federal government. Coincidentally, a similar presidential scramble between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes happened almost simultaneously in Washington . After Hayes was established as the new US president, he let Chamberlain know that he supported Wade as governor and would end the military occupation of South Carolina. This decision by the president had contributed decisively to the abandonment of Chamberlain, who now had no political support in South Carolina.

Another résumé

Chamberlain left South Carolina in 1877. He practiced law in New York City . Between 1883 and 1897 he taught constitutional law at Cornell University . After the death of his wife in 1891 he went back to West Brookfield, where he bought his childhood home "Birch Hill" from his brother. Chamberlain oversaw the remodeling of the house after he retired in the late 1890s. But the city had changed and he met few familiar faces, so he didn't want to stay. He toured Europe and Egypt and eventually settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he died of cancer in 1907.

Daniel Chamberlain had married Alice Ingersoll on December 16, 1868. They had six sons: Julian, Paul, Hugh, Philip, Henry, and Waldo Emerson, four of whom died early. His wife died in 1891 at the age of 46. He was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, where his family was also buried.

Publications

  • The campaign in South Carolina ; the real Democratic policy exposed; the "Mississippi" tactics as practiced in South Carolina; letter of Gov. Chamberlain to the chairman of the state Democratic executive committee; Republican reform vindicated and Democratic violence arraigned; a free ballot shall be secured (1876)
  • Daniel Henry Chamberlain: Synopsis of lectures on the Constitution of the United States: before the School of Law of Cornell University 1889? -91? . New edition 2009; Publisher: Cornell University Library ISBN 978-1-1124-8655-5
  • Charles Sumner and the treaty of Washington . Publisher: Press of GG Davis Worcester, Mass., 1902

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Chamberlain, Daniel Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician, governor of South Carolina
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH West Brookfield , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1907
Place of death Charlottesville , Virginia