Dewitt Clinton Senter (March 26, 1830 – June 14, 1898) was an American politician who served as the 18th Governor of Tennessee from 1869 to 1871.

He had previously served in the Tennessee House of Representatives (1855–1861), where he opposed secession on the eve of the Civil War.

[2] Senter is perhaps best remembered for undoing many of Brownlow's radical initiatives, most notably the restoring of the right to vote to former Confederates.

[2] His father was a popular Methodist minister and renowned orator who served in the United States House of Representatives in the mid-1840s, and was a delegate to Tennessee's 1834 constitutional convention.

In May 1861, he voted against the state's Ordinance of Secession, and canvassed in East Tennessee in an attempt to rally the region's Unionists.

[9] In October 1867, he helped elect Brownlow to the United States Senate seat held by David T. Patterson, whose term was set to expire in March 1869.

[10] Brownlow resigned as governor on February 25, 1869, and departed for Washington, D.C., to take his seat in the Senate.

Under the Tennessee Constitution, the Speaker of the Senate is the first in the gubernatorial line of succession, and thus Senter became governor following Brownlow's resignation.

[11] Brownlow's radical policies of disfranchisement had left the state divided and had led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

Since Brownlow was near the end of his term as governor when he resigned, Senter was thrust into a reelection campaign within a few weeks of taking office.

[9] Under Brownlow, the legislature had given the governor the power to appoint county election commissioners, who were charged with ensuring former Confederates did not vote.