Ku Klux Klan Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Resistance==== {{Wikisource|Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871}} Union Army veterans in mountainous [[Blount County, Alabama]], organized "the anti-Ku Klux". They put an end to violence by threatening Klansmen with reprisals unless they stopped whipping Unionists and burning Black churches and schools. Armed Black people formed their own defense in [[Bennettsville, South Carolina]], and patrolled the streets to protect their homes.{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=435}} National sentiment gathered to crack down on the Klan, even though some Democrats at the national level questioned whether the Klan really existed, or believed that it was a creation of nervous Southern Republican governors.{{sfn|Wade|1987}} Many southern states began to pass anti-Klan legislation.<ref name=Ranney2006>{{cite book|last1=Ranney|first1=Joseph A|title=In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Law|date=2006|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0275989729|pages=57β58}}</ref> [[File:BenFrankButler.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Benjamin Butler|Benjamin Franklin Butler]] wrote the [[Third Enforcement Act|Civil Rights Act of 1871]].]] In January 1871, [[Pennsylvania]] Republican senator [[John Scott (Pennsylvania)|John Scott]] convened a congressional committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities, accumulating 12 volumes. In February, former Union general and congressman [[Benjamin Butler|Benjamin Franklin Butler]] of Massachusetts introduced the [[Third Enforcement Act|Civil Rights Act of 1871]] (Ku Klux Klan Act). This added to the enmity that Southern white Democrats bore toward him.{{sfn|Horn|1939|p=373}} While the bill was being considered, further violence in the South swung support for its passage. The [[governor of South Carolina]] appealed for federal troops to assist his efforts in keeping control of the state. A [[Meridian race riot of 1871|riot and massacre]] occurred in a [[Meridian, Mississippi]], courthouse, from which a Black state representative escaped by fleeing to the woods.{{sfn|Wade|1987|p=88}} The 1871 Civil Rights Act allowed the president to suspend ''[[habeas corpus]].''<ref name="Scaturro">{{cite web| last=Scaturro |first=Frank |title=The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, 1869β1877 |url=http://faculty.css.edu/mkelsey/usgrant/granthist4.html |publisher=[[College of St. Scholastica]] |date=October 26, 2006 |access-date=March 5, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719151209/http://faculty.css.edu/mkelsey/usgrant/granthist4.html |archive-date=July 19, 2011 }}</ref> In 1871, President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] signed Butler's legislation. The Ku Klux Klan Act and the [[Enforcement Act of 1870]] were used by the federal government to enforce the civil rights provisions for individuals under the constitution. The Klan refused to voluntarily dissolve after the 1871 Klan Act, so President Grant issued a suspension of ''habeas corpus'' and stationed federal troops in nine South Carolina counties by invoking the [[Insurrection Act of 1807]]. The Klansmen were apprehended and prosecuted in federal court. Judges [[Hugh Lennox Bond]] and George S. Bryan presided over [[South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials of 1871-1872|South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials]] in Columbia, S.C., during December 1871.<ref>p. 5, United States Circuit Court (4th Circuit). ''Proceedings in the Ku Klux Trials at Columbia, S.C. in the United States Circuit Court''. Edited by Benn Pitman and Louis Freeland Post. Columbia, SC: Republican Printing Company, 1872.</ref> The defendants were given from three months to five years of incarceration with fines.<ref>''The New York Times''. "Kuklux Trials β Sentence of the Prisoners". December 29, 1871.</ref> More Black people served on juries in federal court than on local or state juries, so they had a chance to participate in the process.<ref name="Scaturro" /><ref name="jimcrow-stories" /> Hundreds of Klan members were fined or imprisoned during the crackdown, "once the national government became set upon a policy of military intervention whole populations which had scouted the authority of the weak 'Radical' government of the State became meek."<ref name=":5" /> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page