President U. S. Grant Acts to Disband the Ku Klux Klan and End the Violence It Practiced

This proclamation is the first Reconstruction measure we have seen reach the market, and shows the efforts Grant and Northern supporters took to protect the freedmen

It is not widely known that Ulysses S. Grant was in sympathy with the freed African Americans and very much unsympathetic to racists that sought to keep them down. This being the case, he faced numerous civil rights challenges during his presidency. The transition to Reconstruction under the leadership of his Republican Party altered the direction of the country, especially the lives of African Americans. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments ended slavery, extended US citizenship to African Americans with equal protection under the law, and established voting rights for African American men. Black Americans also attended school, established their own churches, becoming politically active, and held political offices at the local, state and federal level. As these dramatic changes were taking place throughout southern society, many white Southerners resented this newfound independence among African Americans and rejected the Republican Party that was promoting all this change. Some turned towards violence to maintain white supremacy and topple Republican rule in the south. As President, and as a sympathizer with the former slaves, Grant needed to find ways to curb this violence.

The most well-known violent white supremacist group to form during this period was the Ku Klux Klan. It was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 and as the Klan spread throughout the South, its members’ intentions became more sinister and violent. KKK members attacked freed people exercising their new rights as well as whites who supported the Republican Party. Their methods included burning Black schools and churches, intimidating Black and Republican voters, and even resorting to rape and murder. KKK members often wore ghoulish disguises and committed their crimes at night, terrifying their victims. Worse, the Klan’s goals were supported by many local officials as well as law enforcement, which meant that Klan violence was rarely prosecuted at the local or state level. Klan activities threatened to undermine federal reconstruction efforts in the former Confederacy. Therefore, Republican governors and officials appealed to President Grant for help if local and state authorities were unable or unwilling.

President Grant looked at the violence with increasing concern. He had a genuine regard for the well-being of the freed people who had supported the Union in large numbers and was concerned that the actions of the Ku Klux Klan were undermining the verdict of the Civil War. Grant was determined to do something. In a letter to Speaker of the House James G. Blaine, Grant wrote, “there is a deplorable state of affairs existing in some portions of the south demanding the immediate attention of Congress. If the attention of Congress can be confined to the single subject of providing means for the protection of life and property in those sections of the Country where the present civil authority fails to secure that end, I feel that we should have such legislation.”

Congress responded with three “Force Acts” aimed at stopping the violence, especially by the Ku Klux Klan. The Enforcement Act of May 1870 prohibited “banding together” or “going in disguise upon the public highways or upon the premises of another” to violate a citizen’s constitutional rights. As the Klan was known for their disguises, this act called put them on notice. The Second Force Act of February 1871 put federal elections under federal supervision mainly by federal judges and U.S. Marshals. Finally, the Third Force Act of April of 1871 empowered President Grant to suspend Habeas Corpus and use the military to enforce these acts. The latter two Force Acts were also known as the “Ku Klux Klan Acts.”

Grant didn’t waste much time. On May 3, 1871, he issued a proclamation warning that terroristic acts of violence would not be tolerated by his administration. Grant tried to appeal to the people of the South. “I do particularly exhort the people of those parts of the country to suppress all such combinations [lawlessness] by their own voluntary efforts,” Grant remarked, “and to maintain the rights of all citizens of the United States and to secure to all such citizens the equal protection of the laws.” Continuing, the President warned that “I will not hesitate to exhaust the powers thus vested in the Executive, whenever and wherever it shall become necessary to do so for the purpose of securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws.”

Grant decided to make an example of several areas in the South, where some of the worst violence and lawlessness was taking place. After the Klan in those areas failed to heed Grant’s warning, he utilized the Third Force Act. President Grant suspended habeas corpus (the right of a detained person to request help from a court to determine if their imprisonment is lawful) and would soon declare martial law in nine mostly upstate South Carolina counties. Detachments of the 7th U.S. Cavalry were stationed in the area and worked to gather information and intelligence on local Klan activities. The military and US. Marshals then rounded up suspected Klan members for trial. The military worked with the Department of Justice and Grant’s Attorney General, Amos Akerman, to prosecute KKK members suspected of engaging in terroristic violence. The Justice Department aimed to protect the rights of newly-freed African Americans and serve as the federal government’s enforcement mechanism for the various laws described above.

These efforts had mixed success. During the period of martial law, many Klan members went into hiding or fled. Federal resources were thin and Grant’s political adversaries—both North and South—railed against the alleged overreach of federal power as a violation of federalism. Issues of state and federal jurisdiction were often argued more vigorously than the seriousness of the crime itself. Many convicted KKK members were given light sentences. Later, the increasing takeover by the Democrats of state and local governments made the Klan less relevant because White supremacists gained control of the laws in the South. But Grant’s decisive action temporarily reestablished law and order in the South allowing African Americans and those who supported them some relief from the horrific violence in their communities.

This document represents President Grant’s response to Klan violence in the state of South Carolina, which had been increasing since the election of Republican Governor Robert Kingston Scott in 1868. Subsequent federal investigations uncovered evidence of hundreds of whippings and dozens of racially motivated murders in South Carolina between 1870 and 1872. Governor Scott pleaded with President Grant for federal intervention, and in March 1871 the president issued a proclamation commanding all Klansmen to retire peaceably from their reign of terror.

Though Federal efforts were successful in uncovering and documenting Klan violence, local juries—often comprised of accessories to or supporters of such heinous acts—remained reluctant to prosecute offenders, and the crime wave continued. Finally convinced that Klan activities in South Carolina amounted to warfare, on October 12, 1891, Grant ordered the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina to disperse and surrender arms. Document signed, as president, Washington, October 12, 1871. President Grant directs the Secretary of State to “affix the Seal of the United States to my Proclamation of the twelfth of October, 1871.”

Grant’s proclamation read in part: “Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America, do hereby command all persons composing the unlawful combinations and conspiracies aforesaid to disperse and to retire peaceably to their homes within five days of the date hereof, and to deliver either to the marshal of the United States for the district of South Carolina, or to any of his deputies, or to any military officer of the United States within said counties, all arms, ammunition, uniforms, disguises, and other means and implements used, kept, possessed, or controlled by them for carrying out the unlawful purposes for which the combinations and conspiracies are organized.” After receiving no such compliance, on October 17th, Grant issued another proclamation declaring nine counties in active rebellion and suspended habeas corpus.

The suspension of habeas corpus allowed U.S. military men to make mass arrests of Klansmen—one reported 169 arrests in York County alone before January 1872—and led hundreds more to surrender voluntarily and confess. Many of the group’s leaders fled the state, leaving the Klan bewildered and disorganized, and the newfound threat of federal prosecution helped to quiet racially motivated violence in South Carolina. In the Klan trials of 1871–72, US District Attorney David Corbin secured 140 convictions. Although well over 1,000 Klan cases remained pending at the close of 1872, they were slowly dropped over the next two years. Nevertheless, these efforts struck a serious blow against the Ku Klux Klan, leaving it effectively dismantled until its revival in 1915.

This proclamation is the first Reconstruction measure we have seen reach the market, and shows the efforts Grant and Northern supporters took to protect the freed men.