. -- [trdpress. he leaves the house mid-congress and his second term and goes back to south carolina because he cares so much about state politics and sees how things are trending at the and of reconstruction, seeing a lot of abuses, and he becomes the speaker of the south carolina state assembly for a brief period and later goes on to serve at the very tail end of reconstruction as the attorney general for south carolina. afterwards though, his story typifies so many of these members. once reconstruction ends, here you've got a guy who is a great speaker, got a law background, sets up a law practice, but he gets almost no business. he's forced to move out of state. eventually in the 1880's he dies and poverty. that is sadly the story of so many of these 19th-century individuals who leave congress and with the onset of jim crow, their careers just dry up. that speaks to the larger kind of political ramifications at the end of reconstruction and what that meant for the end of black political participa