William James Whipper & Frances Rollin Whipper

William James Whipper was born in Philadelphia in 1835, the son of an abolitionist. He volunteered in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, he moved to South Carolina. He studied law and passed the South Carolina Bar in 1865 then opened a law practice in Beaufort. Two years later, he served alongside Wright in the state constitutional convention. A more radical Republican than Wright, Whipper championed a woman’s suffrage amendment to the constitution. Indeed, his wife, Frances Rollin Whipper, was herself an ardent supporter of women’s suffrage.  

Born to a free Black family in 1845 Charleston, Frances received an elementary education in Charleston before attending the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia. She afterwards taught at a school for free Black children in Beaufort. While working in Beaufort, she was denied access to the first-class cab of a ship to Charleston; she 

successfully sued the captain, who was found guilty of racial discrimination. Her success caught the attention of Black Union soldier Martin Delany, who hired her to write his biography. Frances first met William when hired to work as his clerk, and within months, the couple married.  

In 1870, William James Whipper lost the election to the state Supreme Court to Wright. Their rivalry represented a split in the Republican Party. Whipper advocated for a more radical platform to reconstruction and won the support of formerly enslaved South Carolinians. Wright, however, worked to earn support from moderate Republicans. The two especially clashed on the issue of a poll tax: Wright supported it to raise funds for public schools while Whipper argued a poll tax would disenfranchise Blacks.