Senter initially supported the Radical Republican initiatives of Governor William G. Brownlow, which included the disfranchisement of ex-Confederates.[3] In October 1867, he helped elect Brownlow to the United States Senate seat held by David T. Patterson, whose term was set to expire in March 1869.[4] Brownlow resigned as governor on February 25, 1869, and departed for Washington, D.C. 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.[5]
Brownlow's radical policies of disfranchisement had left the state divided and had led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. In his inaugural address, Senter vowed to aggressively pursue the Klan and quell Klan violence.[6] In May 1869, however, he disbanded the state guard, which had been fighting the Klan, but had become unpopular.[6] 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 an election 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 favored continuing Brownlow's policies nominated William B. Stokes, and those who favored more lenient policies nominated Senter.[3]
^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.
^ abPhillip Langsdon, Tennessee: A Political History (Franklin, Tenn.: Hillsboro Press, 2000), pp. 190-193.
^E. Merton Coulter, William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Southern Highlands (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1999), pp. 347.
^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.
.jpg)
