 After various allegations of scandal and ridicule, in 1871 he was obliged by the Ku Klux Klan to resign the governorship, and felt it prudent to leave the state.He was succeeded by Republican State Senate president Benjamin Conley, who served as Governor for the two remaining months of the term to which Bullock had been elected.Conley was succeeded by James M. Smith, a Democrat, and no Republican would serve as governor of Georgia again until Sonny Perdue in 2003.