The federal attack on the Klan proved the final straw for liberals worried about the expanding powers of the federal government, and liberal Republicans joined Democrats in opposing federal action. Sen. Lyman Trumbull, who originally supported Reconstruction, became alarmed at growing federal power and passed over into opposition, as did Carl Schurz. The same Congress that passed the Ku Klux Klan Act passed a bill for amnesty for most Southerners disqualified for office under the Fourteenth Amendment. It would become law the following year.
