When Ku Klux Klan violence affected the 1870 midterm elections, Congress in April 1871 passed a bill making it a crime to keep African Americans from exercising their civic rights: voting, holding office, or sitting on juries (which were picked from the voting lists). The bill authorized the president to declare martial law in places where the Ku Klux Klan held power, and in October 1871, Grant did precisely that in nine South Carolina counties. Troops arrested hundreds of Klansmen and as many as 2000 fled the state guilty, as one testified, of “whipping and killing” to “tear down the party in
...more
