Tillman told the Senate, "as governor of South Carolina, I proclaimed that, although I had taken the oath of office to support the law and enforce it, I would lead a mob to lynch any man, black or white, who ravished a woman, black or white." He told his colleagues, "I have three daughters, but, so help me God, I had rather find either one of them killed by a tiger or a bear die a virgin than to have her crawl to me and tell me the horrid story that she had been robbed of the jewel of her womanhood by a black fiend." In 1907, he told the senators about the Ellenton riot of 1876, "it was then that we shot them; it was then that we killed them; it was then that we stuffed the ballot-boxes."