He served as a state representative from 1854 to 1855 and in 1864. He served as member of the State constitutional convention in 1865, held under the Reconstruction proclamation of President Andrew Johnson. He then served as a state senator in 1865.
He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1876 to the Forty-fifth Congress. Tillman was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-sixth Congress from the Fifth district (1879–1881), and re-elected to the Forty-seventh Congress (1881–1883). He served from March 3, 1881, to June 19, 1882, when his election was overturned by the House. RepublicanRobert Smalls, his African-American opponent in 1880, contested the election, and succeeded Tillman.
Tillman was elected to the Forty-eighth Congress from the Second district and to the four succeeding Congresses (1883–1893). He served as chairman of the Committee on Patents in the Fifty-second Congress. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1892. He served as member of the State constitutional convention in 1895, and was an unsuccessful candidate for election as Governor of South Carolina in 1898.
Besides his political and legal activities, he engaged in agricultural pursuits and also worked as a publicist.
He died in Clarks Hill, McCormick County, South Carolina, on February 2, 1902, and was interred in the Bethlehem Baptist Church Community Cemetery.
References
^Edgar, Walter B. (2006). The South Carolina Encyclopedia. University of South Carolina Press. pp. 962–963. ISBN978-1-57003-598-2.