Moses of South Carolina: A Jewish Scalawag during Radical Reconstruction

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PREFACE

A graduate student once called my attention to a “white nationalist” Web site where he had found—along with articles denying the Holocaust, astounding new proof of the international Jewish conspiracy, and the like—a piece praising a portion of The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, my 1993 book on anti-Semitism. In particular, the article found much merit in my brief discussion of the life of Franklin J. Moses, the so-called Robber Governor, a half-Jewish fellow who served as South Carolina’s chief executive from 1872 to 1874. My white nationalist fan explained that most books and articles about Jews, especially those written by other Jews, tended to ignore Jewish criminality and cupidity. My discussion of Franklin Moses, according to this writer, was a rare exception, dealing forth-rightly with the schemes and crimes of a shady Jew.

I was somewhat taken aback. Every author, of course, likes applause, but this was coming from a rather unsavory quarter. Besides, I had always been rather fond of Frank Moses. Perhaps he was my Rahel Varnhagen. Since I first became aware of Moses, I have often wondered if history had treated him fairly. Much of the story of Reconstruction, as Eric Foner has noted, was written by its enemies, who had political reasons for distorting the historical record.^*

Those wracking their brains but unable to recall the name Frank Moses should not be concerned. Moses, a well-known figure in his own time, was the subject of many tongue-wagging articles and numerous editorial cartoons in the nation’s press, prompted by his then-astonishing propensity to socialize freely with blacks and to treat them as his equals. Today, however, outside his home state, Moses has been forgotten. He left few papers. The surviving Moses materials in the South Carolina state archives are mainly requests for pardons and state appointments addressed to the governor. As far as I can determine, Moses has been the subject of only three studies—a 1933 article in the North Carolina Historical Review by the well-known southern historian R. H. Woody; a Princeton undergraduate thesis written in 1950 by Julian Thomas Buxton, who was from Moses’s hometown of Sumter, South Carolina; and a brief 1981 conference paper. Perhaps the best primary material on Moses consists of the weekly editorials and news articles he wrote while serving as editor of the Sumter News in 1866 and 1867. Moses’s editorials trace the shifts in his political views and his eventual turn to Radicalism in 1867.

In South Carolina itself, where Civil War and Reconstruction history is still vividly, if not always accurately, recalled, Moses the scalawag robber governor is remembered as an odious figure who led the state to financial and moral ruin. Indeed, in South Carolina the name Franklin Moses can still draw heated reactions, as I discovered one afternoon when speaking on the topic to a Johns Hopkins alumni group in Charleston. One elderly and somewhat inebriated gentleman actually began to shout at me for defending the despicable Robber Governor.

At any rate, I resolved to learn more about Frank Moses and this book is the result. My white nationalist friends can relax. Frank Moses was not an honest man. Moses, however, was not simply a dishonest man. Had Moses’s friends, rather than his enemies, controlled the press and the post-Reconstruction historical record, Moses might have been remembered fondly as the “racial and social equality governor” or the “land redistribution governor,” rather than the Robber Governor.

Frank Moses died a lonely exile from his state and, eventually, from the historical record. Moses was not a saint, but he deserves better treatment than he has gotten. I hope this book will bring Moses a measure of posthumous rehabilitation—usually the only form of rehabilitation available to those who wind up on the losing side of history.

In the course of writing this book I benefited from conversations with several of my Johns Hopkins University colleagues, in particular Matthew A. Crenson and Robert Kargon, and from the advice of the anonymous reader selected by the Johns Hopkins University Press. I also thank Suvi M. Irvine, who was a wonderful research assistant, and Robert J. Brugger, who has been a fabulous editor. My thanks also to Arthur and Joan Sarnoff who gave me an opportunity several years ago to present my preliminary thoughts on this project to a gathering at their home on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina—an appropriate setting to begin the story of Frank Moses.