The Ku Klux Klan Act explicitly declared failure to provide protection against violence “a denial by such state of the equal protection of the laws,” thus inserting the concept of state neglect into national legislation. Even if the Fourteenth Amendment was directed only against actions by the states, John Coburn of Indiana declared, “a systematic failure to make arrests, to put on trial, to convict, or to punish offenders against the rights of a great class of citizens” was itself a violation of the equal protection of the laws.
