During the reconstruction period, the Ku Klux Klan engaged in violent and egregious activities to weaken the Republican Party with the hope of maintaining black economic instability and ensuring white economic and racial superiority in the South. The Klan hanged, kidnapped, maimed, whipped, and beat thousands of African Americans to block their votes that the 1870 ratified Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed. By 1871 President Ulysses S. Grant had engaged in a widespread campaign against the Klan. Grant fought the Klan using the federal government power to eliminate voter suppression. Grant pushed different bills through Congress and used the Army to assist federal officials in dealing with the Klan members in southern states. The Klan had been defeated by 1872 under the weight of the federal government. Grant actions ensured that African Americans gained the freedom they required by having the ability to vote for their leaders and to have rights just like other United States Citizens.
President Grant eliminated Klan terrorism by engineering the passage of the Enforcement Acts between 1870 and 1871 that allowed him to deal with the Klan violence and empowered him to use military force to safeguard the rights of blacks. The acts are the Enforcement Act of 1870, the Enforcement Act of 1871, and the Ku Klux Klan Act.
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Congress approved the first Enforcement Act in May 1870. The Act enforced the Fifteenth Amendment terms that outlawed the states from depriving voting rights based on race. It also offered criminal penalties for those who attempted to hinder blacks from voting through violence or threats of violence, which expanded the criminal jurisdiction of the federal courts. The Act also banned people from assembling in the houses of other people to violate the constitutional rights of citizens. The Act mostly focused on African-American suffrage by restating positively the first part of the Fifteenth Amendment in which it asserted that the right to vote of all citizens at any election should not be denied based on color, race, or previous servitude condition. The legislation directed election officers to ensure that all voters had equal opportunity to meet any conditions states required for voting devoid of racial discrimination. It also penalized people who hindered qualified voters from exercising their voting rights and registering through intimidation, threats, bribery, and force and enforced severe imprisonment and fines on people who obstructed voters from voting through threats to dismiss existing financial engagements with the voters, such as occupancy, contracts, and employment. The bill also punished two or more people who injured or intimidated another person intending to hinder the person’s constitutional rights in disguise or through conspiracy (Wang, 1994, pp.1011-1034)
Other provisions in the legislation included an enforcement mechanism that involved the ability of federal district courts to offer rulings regarding enforcement cases, federal district marshals and attorneys to investigate the Fifteenth Amendment violations and arrest suspects, and the President to use the military to ensure order during elections if required. Another provision of the legislation banned fraudulent practices during elections. The bill also prohibited former rebels from holding political office and provided for civil rights for all people, including immigrants (Wang, 1994, pp.1011-1034). The Act was vital as it was the first to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment by describing clearly the degree to which the constitution would protect voting rights and allow people to exercise those rights based on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Act also gave substance to the 15th Amendment by recognizing the relationship between political and civil rights. The significance of the Act was also associated with its extension of federal Enforcement in the Northern States as this demonstrated the effort of the government to ensure a national system of supervising elections (Wang, 1994, p.1033).
The Act authorized the President to appoint election supervisors who had the power to indict people for intimidation, bribery or conspiracy to hinder others from voting. The federal courts would hear the cases instead of the local courts that were vulnerable to corruption. It also prohibited groups from conspiring to deny anyone of any right, which expanded the range beyond voting. A mechanism to enforce the bill, nevertheless, was unavailable, which allowed the Klan to continue with its activities. There were attempts to prosecute the Klan members using the Act, for instance, John Minnis, the Alabama District Attorney, indicted several Klansmen who shot and whipped several black men after they confessed of voting. The court, however, did not try the case as the jury stated that the men could not be identified. Minnis brought more lawsuits against the Klan members who had terrorized African-Americans for voting for the Republican Party, even though the court discharged the members (Trelease, 1972, p.386). While the Act did not adequately deal with Klan violence, it raised awareness regarding the activities of the sect, which forced the federal government to take extra measures by approving the second Enforcement Act of 1871.
The Enforcement Act of 1871 offered information regarding the enforcement mechanism that was absent in the first Enforcement act. President Grant approved the Act on 8, February 1871. Earlier in December 1870, President Grant raised the problem of voter intimidation and Klan violent activities during his second annual address to Congress (United States Department of State, n.d.). Congress sought more details, and later investigations revealed the activities of the Klan in the South (Trelease, 1972, p.387). It became apparent that the Klan engaged in violent activities without being charged. Information regarding the atrocities of the sect led to the approval of the second Enforcement Act. The legislation included 20 sections in which 18 parts focused on the responsibilities, power, and performance of federal enforcement courts and officials and penalties for law violations. Compared to the first Act, the second enforcement act added three significant features as it established a robust national election supervision system with federal supervisors, marshals, and their deputies to observe registration and voting processes. It also eliminated all cases that emerged based on the law from state courts to national courts, which nullified state laws that supported false voter registration practices and required congressional elections to have written ballots (Wang, 1994, pp.1045-1049). The Act focused on the power of states to regulate elections by permitting federal authorities to monitor local and state elections if any two people in a city with over 20,000 inhabitants requested it (Foner, 1988, p.455).
The Act started as the Naturalization Act of 1870 in which the last two sections of the bill empowered circuit and federal court judges to designate deputies with the responsibility of attending all fixed voter registration locations in city area and urban centers with over 20,000 people. The functions of the deputies included observing registration, voting, and counting as well as challenging proposed name to be registered and an offered vote. The legislation also authorized federal marshals to select the deputies they required to ensure order during polls, and to arrest any suspects for crimes that disturbed peace during congressional elections (Wang, 1994, pp.1034-1046). The last two sections about federal supervisions of votes widened the first Enforcement Act substance without bypassing its principles. The Act, nevertheless, was supplementary and it had a short life as the Enforcement Act of 1970 superseded the two sections (Wang, 1994, p.1044). The second enforcement Act, however, failed to stop Klan violence both in the North and the South. The violence was so widespread that state governments could no longer ensure law and order. President Grant sought the help of Congress in passing effective legislation to manage Klan activities. The Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act focused on the actions of states against the civil rights of African-Americans while the Klan crimes against blacks constituted crimes committed by private people that the law did not punish (Wang, 1994, p.1049). In turn, this led to the approval of the Ku Klux Klan Act to protect the rights of blacks.
Congress approved the Ku Klux Klan Act in April 1871 to allow people deprived of their constitutional rights to sue in federal courts instead of state courts. President Grant asked for the legislation personally in which Congress passed it within one month following the request by the President. The Act termed conspiracy to deny citizens of equality in the law or hinder citizens from voting and allowed the federal courts to prosecute those conspiracies. The Act also stated that when there is an extreme and organized deprivation of rights that overawed state powers or when state authorities conspired in denial, the federal courts shall deem such combinations as a rebellion against the national government. The first section of the legislation allowed federal courts to hear cases about rights violations based on the 1866 Civil Rights Act. The second section expanded the Enforcement Act of 1870 that established the conspiracy in civil rights principle even though it was ineffective in framing indictments. The Ku Klux Klan Act detailed over 20 types of specific illegal practices that constituted a conspiracy, which included use of intimidation or force in federal elections to obstruct voting rights. The section illegalized the Klan and other sects that conspired to deny citizens of their civil and political rights (Wang, 1994, pp.1049-1056).
The third and the fourth sections of the Act authorized the President to use the military to deal with domestic issues and to suspend the habeas corpus writ when organized conspiracies threatened the effective implementation of the law (Foner, 1988, p.455). The fifth section required jurors to take an oath that they had never been involved in Klan conspiracy while the sixth section penalized people who assisted offenders punished under the second section of the legislation. The seventh section stated that the bill could not supersede other enforcement acts. The Act described crimes that individuals committed as felonies punishable under federal law. It was the most effective weapon against Klan terrorism (Wang, 1994, p.1049-1056).
Following reports of the Klan’s violence in the South after the passage of the Act, President Grant moved some troops to Mississippi with a focus on South Carolina. The Klan activities in the early 1870s focused on South Carolina. Amos Akerman, the attorney general under President Grant, arrived in South Carolina to record the existing attacks. President Grant requested for the Act because of the reports he received from Southern states regarding widespread racial threats. After receiving the attorney general’s report, the President ordered the attackers to disperse, return to their homes, and surrender all the tools they used in illegal violence within five days. The Klan members, nevertheless, ignored the President as expected, which allowed him to crack them down in October 1871. The President used his special powers provided by the Act to suspend habeas corpus in the seriously affected counties of South Carolina and moved there federal troops and federal marshals. The suspension of the habeas corpus allowed the soldiers and the marshals to round up suspected Klansmen without being concerned with legal justifications before judges. The troops and the marshals arrested some bandits while others fled from the counties and the state. The federal government assault interrupted the Klan systems and inspired the fear of federal power among the people who supported the Klan. The assault also stopped the violence and exhibited the federal government’s determination to safeguard the rights of blacks. Later trials disappointed many who fought the Klan as the attorney general allowed many plea bargains in exchange for information to undermine the Klan while federal courts handed moderate sentences (Wang, 1994, p.1049-1056). These actions, however, crippled the Klan as violence across the South reduced substantially while the Ku Klux Klan virtually disappeared from Southern states.
The primary provisions of the Enforcement Acts allowed federal authorities to penalize those who interfered with the office holding, registration, voting, or jury service of African-Americans; allowed federal authorities to supervise elections; and allowed the President to use the military in making summary arrests. The acts in combination indicted 5,000 people and convicted 1,250 others across the South (Foner, 1988). These acts emerged after Congress ratified the fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to offer full citizenship and the right to vote to freemen and freed slaves.
After its formation, the Ku Klux Klan spread across the South intending to use violence and intimidation tactics to terrorize African-Americans and progressive whites to restore white supremacy. The Klan activities focused mostly on preventing blacks from participating in elections and preventing them from enjoying their constitutional rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth amendments. The actions and activities of the Klan reached the President and Congress, which led to further investigations that unveiled the extent of those activities. Upon receiving reports about Klan activities, President Grant reacted to the actions by pressing Congress to pass the Enforcement Acts. The first was the Enforcement Act of 1870, followed by the Enforcement Act of 1871, and finally the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871. These acts reiterated the Fifteenth Amendment premises by creating criminal codes to protect the rights of blacks to vote, to be treated equally under the law, and to hold office. Congress crafted these acts to assist prosecutors fight crimes committed by Klan members and to give federal authorities the power to prosecute the crimes even if states failed to prosecute cases. Many states failed to fight the Klan vigorously because some leaders sympathized with the sect while most states lacked the resources to fight the faction. The Acts increased the prosecution of Klan offenses, which substantially suppressed the group. President Grant also used the Acts to send the military to locations with the worst violent activities to enforce the law. The Acts led to the imprisonment of hundreds of Klan members while causing others to flee or pay fines and instilled fear among people who supported the Klan. The Klan was nearly eliminated by 1872, and its activities had waned.
References
Foner, E. (1988). Reconstruction: America’s unfinished revolution 1863-1877. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
Trelease, A. W. (1972). White terror: The Ku Klux Klan conspiracy and southern reconstruction . Secker & Warburg.
United States Department of State. (n.d.). Message of the President of the United States. Retrieved June 28, 2019, from https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1871/message
Wang, X1. (1994). The Making of Federal Enforcement Laws, 1870-1872. Chi.-Kent L. Rev. , 70 , 1013-1058.
