Dewitt Clinton Senter (March 26, 1830June 14, 1898) was an American politician who served as the 18th

Governor of Tennessee The governor of Tennessee is the head of government of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The governor is the only official in Tennessee state government who is directly elected by the voters of the entire state. The current governor is Bill Lee, a ...

from 1869 to 1871. He had previously served in the

Tennessee House of Representatives The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Constitutional requirements According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consis ...

(1855–1861), where he opposed secession on the eve of the Civil War. He was elected to the

Tennessee Senate The Tennessee Senate is the upper house of the U.S. state of Tennessee's state legislature, which is known formally as the Tennessee General Assembly. The Tennessee Senate has the power to pass resolutions concerning essentially any issue rega ...

following the war, and was chosen as Speaker of the Senate in 1867. As speaker, he became governor upon the resignation of William G. Brownlow in 1869.John Thweatt
Dewitt Clinton Senter
''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2009. Retrieved: 30 October 2012. Senter is perhaps best remembered for undoing many of Brownlow's radical initiatives, most notably the restoring of the right to vote to former Confederates. The current

Tennessee State Constitution The Constitution of the State of Tennessee defines the form, structure, activities, character, and fundamental rules (and means for changing them) of the U.S. State of Tennessee. The original constitution of Tennessee came into effect on June 1, ...

was written and enacted during Senter's tenure.

Early life and career

Senter was born in

McMinn County, Tennessee McMinn County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is located in East Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 53,794. The county has a total area of . Most of the county is within the Ridge and Valley province of the Appa ...

, the son of

William Tandy Senter William Tandy Senter (May 12, 1801 – August 28, 1848) was an American politician that represented Tennessee's second district in the United States House of Representatives. Biography Senter was born at Bean Station, Tennessee on May 12, 1801 ...

and Nancy White. His father was a popular

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

minister and renowned orator who served in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

in the mid-1840s, and was a delegate to Tennessee's 1834 constitutional convention.

Oliver Perry Temple Oliver Perry Temple (January 27, 1820 – November 2, 1907) was an American attorney, author, judge, and economic promoter active primarily in East Tennessee in the latter half of the 19th century.Mary Rothrock, ''The French Broad-Holston Country ...

,
Notable Men of Tennessee, From 1833 to 1875, Their Times and Their Contemporaries
' (New York: Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), pp. 182-185. Dewitt grew up in what is now

Hamblen County, Tennessee Hamblen County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 64,499. Its county seat and only incorporated city is Morristown. Hamblen County is the core county of the Morristown Metropolitan Sta ...

(then part of Grainger County),Hamblen's History
" Morristown ''Citizen Tribune'', 12 September 2012. Retrieved: 30 October 2012. where he attended public schools. He studied at Strawberry Plains College in nearby Strawberry Plains from 1851 to 1852, and read law for about a year under Judge T.W. Turley.Finding Aid for Governor Dewitt Clinton Senter Papers, 1869–1871
, Tennessee State Library and Archives website, June 2004. Retrieved: 30 October 2012. Senter represented Grainger County in the state House of Representatives from 1855 to 1861. A Whig, he remained staunchly opposed to secession on the eve of the Civil War. In May 1861, he voted against the state's Ordinance of Secession, and canvassed in East Tennessee in an attempt to rally the region's Unionists. He was a member of the Grainger County delegation at the

East Tennessee Convention The East Tennessee Convention was an assembly of Southern Unionist delegates primarily from East Tennessee that met on three occasions during the Civil War. The Convention most notably declared the secessionist actions taken by the Tennessee sta ...

, which sought to form a separate, Union-aligned state in East Tennessee. In 1862, Senter was arrested and jailed for several months by Confederate authorities. After his release, he fled to

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

.Phillip Langsdon, ''Tennessee: A Political History'' (Franklin, Tenn.: Hillsboro Press, 2000), pp. 190-193. He was an

elector Elector may refer to: * Prince-elector or elector, a member of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Holy Roman Emperors * Elector, a member of an electoral college ** Confederate elector, a member of ...

for the Republican Party ticket in the 1864 presidential election. In January 1865, Senter was elected to the Tennessee Senate, representing Grainger, Claiborne,

Anderson Anderson or Andersson may refer to: Companies * Anderson (Carriage), a company that manufactured automobiles from 1907 to 1910 * Anderson Electric, an early 20th-century electric car * Anderson Greenwood, an industrial manufacturer * Anderson Ra ...

, and

Campbell Campbell may refer to: People Surname * Campbell (surname), includes a list of people with surname Campbell Given name * Campbell Brown (footballer), an Australian rules footballer * Campbell Brown (journalist) (born 1968), American television ne ...

counties, and served as the Senate's Chairman of the Committee on Incorporations. That same year, he became president of the Cincinnati, Cumberland Gap and Charleston Railroad, a position in which he served until 1866. In 1867, the state senate elected him Speaker of the Senate.

Governor

Senter initially supported the

Radical Republican The Radical Republicans (later also known as " Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reco ...

initiatives of Governor William G. Brownlow, which included the disfranchisement of ex-Confederates. In October 1867, he helped elect Brownlow to the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

seat held by David T. Patterson, whose term was set to expire in March 1869.E. Merton Coulter, ''William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Southern Highlands'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1999), pp. 347. Brownlow resigned as governor on February 25, 1869, and departed for

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, to take his seat in the Senate. Under the Tennessee Constitution, the Speaker of the Senate is the first in the gubernatorial line of succession, and thus Senter became governor following Brownlow's resignation.William E. Hardy, "The Margins of William Brownlow's Words: New Perspectives on the End of Radical Reconstruction in Tennessee," ''Journal of East Tennessee History'', Vol. 84 (2012), pp. 78–86. Brownlow's radical policies of disfranchisement had left the state divided and had led to the rise of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

. In his inaugural address, Senter vowed to aggressively pursue the Klan and quell Klan violence. In May 1869, however, he disbanded the state guard, which had been fighting the Klan, but had become unpopular. He also announced he supported restoring the voting rights of former Confederates. Since Brownlow was near the end of his term as governor when he resigned, Senter was thrust into a reelection campaign within a few weeks of taking office. His relatively lenient policies toward former Confederates led to a rift in the state's Radical Republican ranks, as many Radicals wanted to continue Brownlow's policies and feared retribution if ex-Confederates and Democrats should once again control the state. At the Radicals' tumultuous convention on May 20, 1869, they were unable to agree on a candidate for governor. In subsequent separate conventions, the Radicals who favored continuing Brownlow's policies nominated William B. Stokes, and those who favored more lenient policies nominated Senter. Under Brownlow, the legislature had given the governor the power to appoint county election commissioners, who were charged with ensuring former Confederates did not vote. Using this power, Senter replaced nearly three-fourths of Brownlow's commissioners. While the law still technically forbade ex-Confederates from voting, Senter's new commissioners did not enforce this law. Thus, with large numbers of former Confederates now voting, Senter easily defeated Stokes on election day by a vote of 120,333 to 55,036. To address issues over voting and disfranchisement, a new state constitutional convention convened in 1870. This convention, among other things, modified the state constitution to allow all men of at least 21 years of age (whether white or black) to vote, though it also instituted a

poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...

, and ordered separate schools for white and black children. The new constitution was approved by a 98,128 to 33,972 vote. Along with voting issues, one of Senter's primary concerns was the state's rising debt. In December 1869, Senter called for prison reform, arguing that prisons had become a financial drain on the state. Hoping to encourage immigration into the state and increase property tax revenues, Senter established the Tennessee Immigration and Labor Association in February 1871. He also favored initiatives to help railroads struggling to pay interest on state-issued bonds. In 1870, Senter used his influence to help establish

Hamblen County Hamblen County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 64,499. Its county seat and only incorporated city is Morristown. Hamblen County is the core county of the Morristown Metropolitan Sta ...

, which was created from parts of Grainger,

Jefferson Jefferson may refer to: Names * Jefferson (surname) * Jefferson (given name) People * Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), third president of the United States * Jefferson (footballer, born 1970), full name Jefferson Tomaz de Souza, Brazilian foo ...

, and Hawkins counties. Senter's home was located within the new county.

Later life

Senter's policies, which allowed Democrats to regain control of the state, angered the state's Republicans, and effectively ended his political career. He spent his remaining years managing his large farm near Morristown. He died on June 14, 1898, and is buried in Morristown's Emma Jarnagin Cemetery.

Family

Senter married Harriet Senter (a distant cousin) in 1859. She was the daughter of Grainger County's circuit court clerk, P.M. Senter. They had no children.

References

External links

National Governors Association bioGovernor Dewitt Clinton Senter Papers, 1869 - 1871
Tennessee State Library and Archives. {{DEFAULTSORT:Senter, Dewitt Clinton 1830 births 1898 deaths Governors of Tennessee Tennessee state senators Members of the Tennessee House of Representatives People from McMinn County, Tennessee People from Hamblen County, Tennessee People from Morristown, Tennessee Tennessee Whigs 19th-century American politicians Tennessee Republicans Southern Unionists in the American Civil War Republican Party governors of Tennessee