An Act to enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of the Union, and for other Purposes.
Nicknames
Civil Rights Act of 1870, Enforcement Act, First Ku Klux Klan Act, Force Act
Enacted by
the 41st United States Congress
Citations
Statutes at Large
16 Stat. 140-146
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 1293 by John Bingham (R–OH) on February 21, 1870
Committee consideration by House Judiciary
Passed the House on May 16, 1870 (131–43)
Passed the Senate on May 20, 1870 (43–8)
Agreed to by the Senate on May 25, 1870 (48–11) and by the House on (133–39)
Signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on May 31, 1870
Major amendments
Second Enforcement Act of 1871 (s. 20)
United States Supreme Court cases
United States v. Reese (1876)
United States v. Cruikshank (1876)
United States v. Allen Crosby
United States v. Robert Hayes Mitchell
The Enforcement Act of 1870, also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1870 or First Ku Klux Klan Act, or Force Act (41st Congress, Sess. 2, ch. 114, 16 Stat. 140, enacted May 31, 1870, effective 1871), is a United States federal law that empowers the President to enforce the first section of the Fifteenth Amendment throughout the United States. The act was the first of three Enforcement Acts passed by the United States Congress in 1870 and 1871, during the Reconstruction Era, to combat attacks on the voting rights of African Americans from state officials or violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan.[1][2]
The Enforcement Act of 1870 prohibits discrimination by state officials in voter registration on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It establishes penalties for interfering with a person's right to vote and gave federal courts the power to enforce the act.
The act also authorizes the President to use the army to uphold the act and use federal marshals to bring charges against offenders for election fraud, bribery or intimidation of voters, and conspiracies to prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights.
The act bans the use of terror, force or bribery to prevent people from voting because of their race.[3] Other laws banned the KKK entirely. Hundreds of KKK members were arrested and tried as common criminals and terrorists.[4] The first Klan was more or less eradicated within a year of federal prosecution.
^Foner, p. 454.
^KKK. "The Force Acts of 1870–1871". sagehistory.net. Archived from the original on December 4, 2007.
^Smith, Cary Stacy; Hung, Li-Ching (2010). The Patriot Act: issues and controversies. Charles C. Thomas. p. 224. ISBN 9780398085636.
^Gruberg, Martin. "Ku Klux Klan". The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Middle Tennessee State University. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
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The EnforcementActof1870, also known as the Civil Rights Actof1870 or First Ku Klux Klan Act, or Force Act (41st Congress, Sess. 2, ch. 114, 16 Stat...
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would subsequently amend the EnforcementActof1870 that provided congressional enforcement for Section 3 with the Amnesty Act in 1872 and a subsequent amnesty...
resignation, with the effective date of February 1, 1870, thus creating another vacancy for Grant to fill. Petitions in support of naming Stanton to fill the vacancy...
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nature of the conspiracy and the facts that the defendants acted as enemy combatants and that martial law was in force at the time in the District of Columbia...
Education Act1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 75), commonly known as Forster's Education Act, set the framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and...
each state set its own requirements for voting, this Act (and its successor Naturalization Actof 1795) did not automatically grant these naturalized citizens...
the Confederates to evacuate. In the spring of 1865, Confederate States Army Gen. Robert E. Lee (1807–1870), waited for an opportunity to leave the Petersburg...
the EnforcementActof1870. Seven men, including Deputy Sheriff Price, were convicted. Three strongly implicated defendants were acquitted because of a...
with conspiracy to deprive the three murdered men of their civil rights under the EnforcementActof1870, the only federal law then applying to the case...
Section 6 of the EnforcementActof1870.: 913 The statutory text was revised in 1909 and in 1948, when it became Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code...
persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States. ... And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an actof justice...
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