Lewis & Clark College

Chamberlain, Daniel H.

Daniel Henry Chamberlain was a planter, lawyer, author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1877. Chamberlain was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. In 1862, he graduated with honors from Yale University and he then attended Harvard Law School, leaving in 1863 to serve as a second lieutenant in the United States Army with the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, a regiment of black troops. He entered politics in 1868 as a delegate to the state constitutional convention from the Berkeley District. He served as Attorney General of South Carolina from 1868–1872. After he failed to win the Republican nomination for governor in 1872, Chamberlain practiced law in Charleston. In 1873, he was elected to the board of trustees of the University of South Carolina as the first black students and faculty joined the institution. He was elected Republican governor on November 3, 1874 when he defeated John T. Green. Chamberlain was noted for his support of civil rights, and opposition to excessive spending and patronage. After a bitterly fought 1876 campaign, his second term hinged on disputed votes from Laurens and Edgefield counties, where the counts greatly exceeded the population, and overwhelmingly favored his opponent, ex-Confederate Wade Hampton III. Chamberlain left South Carolina in April 1877 when President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew Federal troops that had occupied the state since the Civil War. Chamberlain eventually became disillusioned with Reconstruction. Chamberlain moved to New York City and became a successful Wall Street attorney. He was a professor of constitutional law at Cornell University from 1883 until 1897. Chamberlain authored the 1902 book Charles Sumner and the Treaty of Washington, as well as numerous articles. He moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he died of cancer on April 13, 1907.

Politicians

1877

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Nineteenth Century Political Party Photograph Collection