Franklin J . Moses , Jr . Franklin Israel Moses , Jr . ( 1838December 11 , 1906 ) was a lawyer , editor and Republican politician . His middle initial was confused for the letter " J " and thereafter he became known simply as Franklin J . Moses , Jr . Early life and career . Moses was born in Sumter District , South Carolina , to Franklin J . Moses , Sr . ( who became the chief justice of the South Carolina supreme court in 1868 ) and Jane McLellan . His father was born a Jew and his mother a Methodist ; Moses was raised as an Episcopalian and was never affiliated with Judaism . He enrolled at South Carolina College ( now the University of South Carolina ) in 1855 , but was honorably dismissed from the freshman class the same year . After being admitted to the bar in South Carolina , he became the private secretary of Governor Francis Wilkinson Pickens in 1860 . With the outbreak of the Civil War , Moses was given the rank of Colonel in the Confederate Army and served as an enrolling officer for the Confederate Conscription Acts . Moses gained the notoriety for having personally lowered the United States flag from over Fort Sumter in 1862 . Political career . In 1868 , during Reconstruction , Moses was elected for the statewide office of Adjutant and Inspector General on the Republican ticket . In addition , he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives from Charleston and became the speaker of that body . The $ 3 made him a trustee for the University of South Carolina in 1869 , and he expressed his intentions of integrating the university . Moses was reelected in 1870 to the House and continued to serve as the speaker , but his tenure was marked by rampant corruption and bribery . The state debt in 1868 stood at $ 5 , 407 , 306 . 27 and by 1872 it had risen to $ 18 , 350 , 000 , a tripling of the debt in just four years . When Moses was nominated by the Republicans to be the candidate for governor , an opposition within the Republican party organized to block his election . Nonetheless , with overwhelming black support he was elected in 1872 to be the 75th governor of South Carolina . As Governor , he was well known for his extravagant display of money . He spent $ 40 , 000 to buy the Preston mansion to use as his official residence . During his two years as governor with a salary of only $ 3 , 500 , he spent $ 50 , 000 solely on his living expenses . In 1874 , Governor Moses was indicted for misappropriation of state funds , but he called for three companies of the black militia in Columbia to prevent his arrest . The court ruled that Moses could not be prosecuted while governor and could be charged only through impeachment . Later life . Upon leaving office in 1874 , Moses was chosen by the General Assembly to a seat on the circuit court , but Governor Chamberlain blocked his appointment . His wife , Emma Buford Richardson , filed for divorce in 1878 and Moses left the state shortly thereafter . On September 17 , 1878 , he was arrested in New York City for forging a note of $ 316 . He was delivered to authorities in South Carolina , who allowed him to escape . He was arrested again for fraud in New York City in 1881 and in Chicago in 1884 . He arrived in Winthrop , Massachusetts , and became the editor of the local newspaper as well as the moderator of the town meeting s . In October 1884 , he was accused of swindling $ 15 from a Rev . E . L . Rexford and , during his imprisonment , tried to hang himself in his cell . He was sentenced to three years in the Massachusetts State Prison in 1885 for committing petty theft and fraud several times . Governor Oliver Ames pardoned Moses in 1887 on the basis that he did not have long to live . Moses died twenty years later , disgraced from his family on December 11 , 1906 , and was buried in Winthrop .