Education
Eton College.
Eton College.
Not much is known about Elliott"s early life. He claimed to have been born in Liverpool, United Kingdom to West Indian immigrants, but biographers have been unable to corroborate these facts. Elliott arrived in South Carolina in 1867 at the age of 25, where he established a law practice.
Elliott helped organize the local Republican Party and served in the state constitutional convention.
In 1868 he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. The next year he was appointed assistant adjutant-general.
He was the first African-American commanding general of the South Carolina National Guard. As part of his job, he helped form a state militia to fight the Ku Klux Klan.
Elliott was elected as a Republican to the Forty-second and Forty-third United States Congress.
He "delivered a celebrated speech" in favor of the Civil Rights Acting of 1875. He resigned on November 1, 1874, to fight political corruption in South Carolina. He served again in the South Carolina House of Representatives, where he was elected as Speaker of the House.
He ran successfully for South Carolina Attorney General in 1876.
In the state elections that year, white Democrats regained dominance of the state legislature. The following year, 1877, when the last of the federal troops were withdrawn from South Carolina, he was forced out of office.