1871 Ulysses S. Grant - Klu Klux Klan Act

Andrew Johnson may have been reluctant to enforce civil rights, but Ulysses S. Grant was not. During his presidency, congress passed several acts and proclamations including the 15th amendment. Blacks now had the right to vote and hold office, and Grant needed their help to unify the nation and build a Republican party in the South. But the battle was not over, powerful organizations like the Klu Klux Klan organized to violently prevent black suffrage and liberty. Ulysses S. Grant used his executive power, along with civil rights acts from congress to crush the KKK. President Grant called upon the Klan to lay down their arms of face military action. In 1871, Grant suspended their 'writ of Habeas Corpus' in nine counties of South Carolina and arrested 168 persons. Several hundred others captured and released.

President Grant shared the results with congress in his annual address of 1871.

"There has been imposed upon the executive branch of the Government the execution of the act of Congress approved April 20, 1871, and commonly known as the Kuklux law, in a portion of the State of South Carolina ... Careful investigation was made, and it was ascertained that in nine counties of that State such combinations were active and powerful, embracing a sufficient portion of the citizens to control the local authority, and having, among other things, the object of depriving the emancipated class of the substantial benefits of freedom and of preventing the free political action of those citizens who did not sympathize with their own views. Among their operations were frequent scourgings and occasional assassinations, generally perpetrated at night by disguised persons, the victims in almost all cases being citizens of different political sentiments from their own or freed persons who had shown a disposition to claim equal rights with other citizens. Thousands of inoffensive and well disposed citizens were the sufferers by this lawless violence, Thereupon, on the 12th of October, 1871, a proclamation was issued, in terms of the law, calling upon the members of those combinations to disperse within five days and to deliver to the marshal or military officers of the United States all arms, ammunition, uniforms, disguises, and other means and implements used by them for carrying out their unlawful purposes. This warning not having been heeded, on the 17th of October another proclamation was issued, suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus in nine counties in that State."

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29512
http://potus-geeks.livejournal.com/123676.html

If men were angels ...

When you understand the force used to deliver civil rights in the south, you begin to understand how even today some politicians can say that the civil rights acts were wrong. They infringed on state sovereignty. But as our founders wrote in Federalst #51, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
Can we really allow any group, state or government deny the God-given rights of an individual protected by our constitution.