Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Ku Klux Klan Act" in English language version.
Acting as the military, or paramilitary, arm of the Democratic Party, organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan mounted violent campaigns against blacks who sought to vote or hold office, as well as their white Republican allies. In 1870 alone, hundreds of freedmen were killed, and many more badly hurt, by politicized vigilante violence...The national government did not stand by idly. In May 1870, stretching the limits of its constitutional powers, congress passed an Enforcement Act that made interference with voting a federal offense...This first enforcement act was followed by others including the Ku Klux Klan Act, which, among its provisions, authorized the president to deploy the army to protect the electoral process.
White vigilante groups intervened on the side of white employers to keep down wages and reduce the share of the crop claimed by black tenant farmers. Black schoolhouses were burned, and across the South hundreds of Republican activists were killed in the years 1868-71. Republicans in Congress responded to this wave of terrorist intimidation by passing civil rights legislation backed up by federal force in 1870 and 1871. The so-called Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 empowered the president and army to crack down on the Klan; the suspension of habeas corpus and use of Federal Cavalry led to the arrest of thousands of Klansmen.
prepared for Ballard Spahr (LMSD's counsel), May 2010
prepared for Ballard Spahr (LMSD's counsel), May 2010