Daniel Henry Chamberlain (June 23, 1835 – April 13, 1907) was an American planter, lawyer, author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1876 or 1877.

[1]: 95 He attended Harvard Law School, leaving in 1863 to serve as a second lieutenant in the United States Army with the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, a regiment of black troops.

[2] In 1873, he was elected to the board of trustees of the University of South Carolina as the first black students were admitted and faculty hired for the institution.

Chamberlain's reputation had been a dubious one; there certainly was evidence of a willingness to make his office pay, and possibly of corruption, in his earlier career.

But by the time he became governor, he had become the representative of those Republicans convinced of the need for reform—a conviction strengthened by the notorious administration of his predecessor, Franklin J. Moses, Jr., and the national publicity given to The Prostrate State, the exposure of South Carolina political conditions written by James Shepherd Pike.

Enjoying a close alliance with the Democratic editor of the Charleston News and Courier, Chamberlain may have hoped for bipartisan support in his bid for re-election.

South Carolina Democrats chose to adopt a white-supremacy program, re-enforced with intimidation and the use of force against black Republican voters.

[5] On election night, his second term hinged on disputed votes from Laurens and Edgefield counties, where the counts greatly exceeded the total population.

Embittered, Chamberlain blamed the President for having betrayed the mass of South Carolina's voters; the population was 58% African American.