[4][5] The final requirement, (3) "No person shall be eligible to the office of governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being", is of extremely doubtful validity in light of the 1961 Supreme Court decision Torcaso v. Watkins, which reaffirmed that religious tests for public offices violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

[6] Under Section 4 in Article IV of the South Carolina Constitution, the governor serves a four-year term in office beginning at noon on the first Wednesday following the second Tuesday in January following his election.

The governor may temporarily transmit his powers and duties down the line of succession in cases of temporary disability.

Andrew Gordon Magrath, a Confederate Democrat, was forcibly removed from office by the Union Army in 1865 at the end of the Civil War.

In 2009, the General Assembly considered impeachment articles against Governor Mark Sanford, but ultimately they did not pass.

Governors of the royal period were appointed by the monarch in name but were selected by the British government under the control of the Board of Trade.

Legislative bills required royal assent from the governor and could be rejected; he could prorogue or dissolve the Commons House of Assembly on his own authority.

A temporary military government headed by Edward Canby was set up until new elections were held after the writing of the Constitution of 1868.

The election of Ben Tillman in 1890 to governor by the support of agrarian reformers forced a new constitutional convention to be held.

Initially, the United States Supreme Court upheld the validity of legislation requiring voters to pay a poll tax,[21] and ruled that literacy tests were not necessarily unconstitutional.

[23] Elimination of the literacy test required federal legislation, the validity of which was upheld by the Supreme Court.

[25] The South Carolina Constitution in Section 20 of Article IV requires that the governor is to reside where the General Assembly convenes.