Act to Enforce the Fourteenth Amendment but popularly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, made conspiracies to deprive citizens of the right to vote, serve on juries, or enjoy equal protection of the laws federal crimes, which could be prosecuted in federal courts, and authorized the president temporarily to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and use the armed forces to suppress such conspiracies. It gave the national government jurisdiction over crimes that had previously been entirely within the purview of state and local law enforcement.
