Ku Klux Klan Act

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 162

The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (ch. 22, 17 Stat. 13 [codified as amended at 18 U.S.C.A. § 241, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1983, 1985(3), and 1988]), also called the Civil Rights Act of 1871 or the Force Act of 1871, was one of several important CIVIL RIGHTS ACTS passed by Congress during Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War when the victorious northern states attempted to create a new political order in the South. The act was intended to protect African Americans from violence perpetrated by the KU KLUX KLAN (KKK), a white supremacist group.

In March 1871, President ULYSSES S. GRANT requested from Congress legislation that would address the problem of KKK violence, which had grown steadily since the group's formation in 1866. Congress responded on April 20, 1871, with the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act, originally introduced as a bill "to enforce the provisions of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT and for other purposes." Section 1 of the act covered enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment and was later codified, in part, at 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983. Section 2 of the act, codified at 42 U.S.C.A. § 1985(3), provided civil and criminal penalties intended to deal with conspiratorial violence of the kind practiced by the Klan. Both sections of the act were intended to give federal protection to Fourteenth Amendment rights that were regularly being violated by private individuals as opposed to the state.

In addition, the Ku Klux Klan Act gave the president power to suspend the writ of HABEAS CORPUS in order to fight the KKK. President Grant used this power only once, in October 1871, in ten South Carolina counties experiencing high levels of Klan TERRORISM. The act also banned KKK and other conspiracy members from serving on juries.

The Republicans who framed the Ku Klux Klan Act intended it to provide a federal remedy for private conspiracies of the sort...