 He was elected as Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court in 1868 during the Reconstruction era.In 1876 he was asked to rule on a challenge to election returns in the hotly disputed gubernatorial campaign, eventually won by Democrat Wade Hampton and ending Republican domination in the state.Franklin J. Moses was born in 1804 as Israel Franklin Moses into a Jewish family in Charleston to Major Myer Moses and Esther (Hetty) Phillips.