Career
He played an influential role in the state government of South Carolina during Reconstruction. As a delegate to the state"s 1868 constitutional convention, he supported women"s suffrage, although his motion to allow "every citizen" to vote was not taken seriously at the time. He was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on January 23, 1834.
He studied law in Detroit.
During his career as a trial lawyer he once served as a co-counsel to Jonathan Jasper Wright, who later went on to become the first black judge of the Supreme Court of America. He was elected to the state constitutional convention in 1868 where he gave a speech in support of allowing women to vote but the delegates kept on interrupting him and his speech was decided in negative.
During his military service he was court-martialed once for gambling and once for insulting a white lieutenant.