Franklin Israel Moses Jr. (1838December 11, 1906) was a South Carolina lawyer and editor who became active as a Republican politician in the state during the Reconstruction Era. He was elected to the legislature in 1868 and as governor in 1872, serving into 1874. Enemies labelled him the 'Robber Governor'. A secessionist before the war, Moses was ready to make alliances afterward. He served in the state legislature from 1868 to 1872, where he was elected as speaker of the House. He supported integration of the state university, establishing new social programs and public funding of old-age pensions, and created a black militia to help protect freedmen from white paramilitary insurgents. He was also unusual for hosting African Americans socially, both as governor and a private citizen. When Moses was young, his middle initial was confused for the letter J, and thereafter he became known simply as Franklin J. Moses Jr.; his father also adopted use of the "J." His father, Franklin J. Moses Sr., was an attorney who served as a South Carolina state senator for more than 20 years; in 1866 he was elected as judge to the circuit court, and in 1868 as Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. Early life and career Moses was born in 1838 in Sumter District, South Carolina, to attorney Franklin J. Moses Sr. and Jane McLellan. His father was born and reared in a prominent Jewish family of Charleston of Portuguese and German descent; and his Scots-Irish mother was a Methodist. Moses was raised as an Episcopalian and was never affiliated with Judaism. Nonetheless, he was widely regarded as Jewish because Southerners placed so much emphasis on paternal heritage; his political enemies tried to promote this perception against him. 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 reading the law, Moses was admitted to the bar in South Carolina. In 1860 he was appointed as the private secretary of Governor Francis Wilkinson Pickens, a supporter of secession. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Moses was commissioned as Colonel in the Confederate Army; he served as an enrolling officer for the Confederate Conscription Acts. Moses claimed to have personally lowered the United States flag from over Fort Sumter in 1861. Political career In 1868, during Reconstruction, Moses was elected to the statewide