Notes:Dewitt Clinton Senter (1834-1898), the son of a Methodist minister, was born in McMinn county, TN. He read law on his own and was elected to the legislature in 1857. As speaker of the senate he became governor when Brownlow left office to go to Congress in 1869. He won the election later that year by an overwhelming majority. He took office at a time when many citizens could not participate in the governmental process because of their involvement with the Confederate cause. His administration faced the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and its terrorism of the entire south. The most important event of Senter's administration was the Constitutional Convention of 1870, resulting in the constitution now in use. Black suffrage was achieved, but along with a poll tax that would keep many blacks from voting for years. Senter retired when his term was up in 1871 and he died in 1898. Tennessee Blue Book
