Despite the suppression of African American voting rights, many whites still feared African Americans' political power. As a result, in 1894, Governor John Gary Evans, and his mentor, Senator Benjamin Tillman, called for a new constitutional convention to be held in the state. Tillman's base in the Upstate strongly supported the convention, but his Lowcountry rivals resisted. Thus, the convention was only approved by a narrow margin. (Tillman's movement emerged as a reaction to dominance by the Lowcountry elites and their affluent "Bourbon" allies).