The history of federal mandated reconstruction is full of
successful legislation and failed legislation throughout the period of
1863-1877. One of the most powerful and
successful acts created during this period was the Third Enforcement Act of 1871.
While the act uses general language for punishing groups that impede the
civil rights of fellow citizens it is clear that the act was created with one
group in mind. After the passage of the
act in April of 1871 it quickly became known as The Ku Klux Klan Act throughout the north and south. What sets this act apart from other
reconstruction legislation is the sweeping power that it afforded the Federal
government and in particular the executive branch of the government. The great power that this act provided comes
from sections two and four of the act.
The second section of the act made violent crimes that were up to April
of 1871 handled by state and county law enforcement a federal matter. The second section of the act states, “each
and every person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a high crime, … and
shall be punished by a fine no less not less than five hundred nor more than
five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment, with or without hard labor, for a
period of not less than six months nor more
than six years.”[i] The key phrase in the passage quoted above is
“deemed guilty of a high crime”. This
section of the law made any act that is deemed as infringing on the civil
rights of the newly freed slaves a federal crime instead of a local or state
crime. Section four of the act takes
federal authority even farther. This
sections states, “it shall be lawful for the President of the United States,
when in his judgment the public safety shall require it, to suspend the privileges
of the writ of habeas corpus, to the end that such rebellion may be
overthrown.”[ii] This power was a unprecedented step at this
point in reconstruction as this power is usually reserved for times of war
only.
This
act’s creation was driven by the wave of Klan violence that swept through the
south after the Civil War ended in 1865.
Before the creation of this act, violence enacted by the Ku Klux Klan
and other groups in the south enjoyed the protection of local officials that
either favored their actions or looked the other way. The Klan violence was particularly bad in
North and South Carolina. By making the
actions of groups like these a federal crime it gave reconstruction advocates a
new weapon in bringing these people to trial.
The driving force behind this act came from an unexpected place. President Grant’s attorney general Amos
Akerman. Akerman was born in the north
but moved to the south before the outbreak of the Civil War. He joined the Confederate Army during the war
and rose to the rank of Colonel by the end of the war. After the war however he became a republican
and used his law training to protect freedman rights in Georgia. Akerman was particularly horrified by the
actions of the Klan and pushed for the creation of the bill while acting as
attorney general. He spoke harshly of
the Klan seeing their actions as beneath southern honor. When writing to a friend he wrote, “I feel
greatly saddened by this business. It
has revealed a perversion of moral sentiment among the southern whites which
bodes ill to the part of the country for this generation.”[iii]
Under the auspices of the Enforcement Act
hundreds of Klansmen were arrested in North Carolina. In South Carolina the violence was deemed
severe enough to enforce article four of the Enforcement Act and habeus corpus
was suspended in South Carolina. Federal
troops apprehended hundreds of Klansmen and thousands fled the state. South Carolina became the only state where
this extreme action was taken but it effectively destroyed the Klan in the
Carolinas for the next few years.[iv]
Despite
the success of this act it was not without its fair share of critics. Many democrats within the federal government
felt that the act went too far. They
argued that if the federal government could punish criminals within individual
states, eventually local government would be destroyed along with state’s
rights. The Democrats hatred for the
Enforcement Acts proved to be so great that 20 years after their passage, they
repealed nearly all of the articles of the Enforcement Acts when they regained
control of both houses of congress.[v] In many ways the Third Enforcement Act of 1871 represents a micro form of the
ultimate issue with Reconstruction itself.
Its success in dismantling the Klan in the Carolinas showed the power
Reconstruction had, but it also showed that it took military strength to
enforce the rights of freedmen throughout the south. The ultimate question then became how much
and how long the government was willing to force the ideas of equality on the
south. As history shows, support for
forced acceptance of change faded and in the end the battle for equality raged
for well over another one hundred years within America.
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