Unlike Lincoln and Johnson who took a moderate approach to bring the south under normalcy after the civil war, the radical republicans favored a harsher approach to the situation and upgrade the lives of the freedmen. This brought them into conflict with the established southerners and the Democratic Party in power which wanted to maintain the status quo. The federal government under the radical republicans then enacted laws and made constitutional amendments which could prosecute the Ku Klux Klan, an armed militia found in many Southern states which indulged in violence against the black people, whites as well as the republicans. Reconstruction thus was not a successful move in the South with the states being pitted against the federal government. The constitutional amendments also came under scrutiny as it gave the federal government a lot of power that could intrude into the powers of the states. Also the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government did not have the power to directly protect the rights of a citizen and that the laws such as Ku Klux Act and the enforcement Acts were unconstitutional. However these Acts proves successful to an extent until they lasted as they brought to an end the era of violence unleashed by the Ku Klux Klan.
With the abolishment of slavery and establishment of equal civil rights to freed slaves, the former slave owners and southerners saw a threat to their status quo. This was more pronounced in the democratic states of Kentucky and South Carolina. The right to vote by the blacks was not only the concern but the southerners were also worried about the rights of the black people to bear arms. Since the states had the right to form militias to restore peace and order, these states used it to curtail the rights of the black people. This put them in direct conflict with the federal government which sought to protect the rights of the black citizens. Southerners disillusioned with their governments and angry with the federal government for having taken away their rights took to the Ku Klux Klan. (Lewis, 2010). The formation of the Ku Klux Klan was a result of the frustrations of the southern states after slavery was brought to an end and the black people were given the right to vote. Although they were active in all of the southern states, they were the most active in South Carolina where they engaged in violent acts not only against the blacks but also the whites who did not agree with them.
The Federal government reacted strongly against the Ku Klux Klan through the Ku Klux Act of 1871 and the enforcements Acts which gave the government unprecedented rights to arrest members of the Klan. The government’s powers also superseded the powers of the state with the Supreme Court eventually conceding in 1877 that it was indeed unconstitutional. The response of the federal government to the activities of Ku Klux Klan was thus strong handed. The freedmen were encouraged to form militias to protect themselves from the Klan’s attacks and this found support from other southerners too. The republican government at the center also supported the militias and enacted laws to protect the rights of the citizens whose constitutional rights were violated as a result of the Klan’s activities. The southern states however were not in favor of strong federal laws and fought against it claiming that it was a threat to their autonomy (Everitt, 2003).
Klansmen left a trail of violence in order to achieve what they wanted and to establish white supremacy. The violence was not only restricted to physical and mental abuse but also lead to many instances of torture and killings. It was not just the black people who were threatened with violence but a sort of moral code was also established by them that punished women who strayed and also attacked white men who did not support them or were critical of them. Klan members threatened Republican officeholders, schoolteachers, and other representatives of northern authority, leaving the objects of their others to bear witness; sometimes the threats were written, later serving as evidence (Parsons, 2011). Since the abolishment of slavery, the southerners felt disenfranchised and believed that their rights had been taken away from them.
The loss of livelihood coupled with the fear that the former slaves would now be their equals led them to support extremist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. In reaction to the reign of terror that followed by the Klan members, directed against the blacks and also some white people, freedmen formed militias and some white men joined them to complain against the atrocities. The federal government waged a war against the southerners, especially the Klan to bring about equality. Although the federal government forces were initially welcome, soon the locals started to revolt against them. This was not only a race issue but also a political issue with radical republicans trying to oust the Klan and its supporters with the democrats supporting the southern states. Since the republicans had the majority in the states as well as the center, they could go ahead with their fight against the Klan members (McGuire, 2014). The Ku Klux and emergency Acts enacted by the federal government from 1871 to 1875 gave it and the president sweeping powers. These were specifically formulated against the Ku Klux Klan and its members in the southern states. Although the Posse Comitatus Act, enacted in 1878, created clear limits on the domestic use of the federal military for crisis management (largely to respond to Reconstruction-era excesses), the Militia Acts were among the few statutory and constitutional provisions exempted from its coverage. (Vladeck, 2004).
Although the Southern states were part of the Union, they still viewed slavery as a right and ratifying the fourteenth amendment which gave the freed slaves equal rights and the right to vote did not go down well with them. In fighting against the Ku Klux Klan, the federal government could only prosecute the members of the Klan but not the states which actively supported them. Thus the actions against the Klan came under conflict with the states which saw the federal intrusion as a threat to their powers. The powers given to the president and the federal government which superseded that of the states came into conflict with the 13th, 14th and the 15th constitutional amendments. Although the states had ratified the amendments which gave black people equal civil rights they were loath to enact them (Crosswell, 2003). In 1876, the Supreme Court ruled on two cases, U.S. v. Cruikshank and U.S. v. Reese which was directly questioned the constitutionality of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court sided with the usual, narrow and traditional interpretation of the fourteenth amendment which said that the federal government could not expand its powers to protect individual rights for African Americans and that the final say over the rights of a citizen stayed with the state governments. Hence, private individuals and businesses could continue to discriminate against African Americans and no one else including the federal government processed the legal power to intervene (Lierley, 2013).
The amount of resistance by the southerners to the reconstruction policy of the federal government could be seen through one instance, namely the actions of the Carteret residents during occupation by the federal forces. The resistance shown by the residents towards the federal forces showed that white supremacy was more important to them than the economic stability which the reconstruction could have brought about. The federal government in many of the southern states was unable to construct an interracial coalition and only played a limited role in bringing about racial equality. The southern whites, especially the Ku Klux Klan followers believed that they were betrayed by the government actions and did everything possible to sabotage an interracial coalition. They fomented violence, ultimately forcing the government to let the southern states dictate racial policy. This was a hard lesson, but one the North eventually learned by 1877, when it cast aside Reconstruction and in tum abandoned African Americans throughout the South to disfranchisement, lynching, segregation, and Jim Crow (Browning, 2005). The federal government’s attack on the Ku Klux Klan although heavy handed and successful to the extent that it brought an end to the violence was not a complete success as some of its actions were designed in such a way as to not give complete rights to the freed slaves. This action or inaction of the government only gave more encouragement to the remaining Klan members and the southern states, the remnants of which can be seen till date (Zuczek, 1996).
Throughout American history some of the great advances in liberty and equality have come from the legislature; U.S.C of 1983, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Bill of Rights, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments- all initiated by the Congress. (Curtis, 2009). The Supreme Court however has been consistent in negating some of the advancements made by the legislature by interpreting the constitution in its narrowest sense. In this sense, the enforcement Acts during the reconstruction era by the federal government was ruled as being unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Although these laws brought about an end to the violence of the Southern States, they were unconstitutional as it let the federal government circumvent the powers of the States and interfere directly on the behalf of an individual citizen to protect his or her rights.
Thus violence was a predominant feature in the south during the reconstruction era, precipitated by the unfounded fears of the southerners over the freedom of the slaves and the gaining of equal rights. Their anger was channeled into extreme organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan which sought to reaffirm white supremacy. Although the freedmen reacted by forming their own militias the government disbanded them. The members of these militias were also hunted down by the Klansmen. Their terror tactics included lynching and killing of not only blacks but also white republicans which bought the government attention and change in laws. The radical republicans brought in harsh measures to deal with the violence. The enforcement laws which were enacted to bring an end to this violence eventually were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and were ruled to be inconsistent with the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment to the constitution.
References
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Parsons. F.Elaine. (2011). Klan Skepticism and Denial in Reconstruction-Era Public Discourse. The Journal of Southern History, LXXVII (1), 53-90.
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