Editing Nathan Bedford Forrest (section)

====Klan prosecution and Congressional testimony (1871)====
Many in the United States, including President Grant, backed the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave voting rights to American men regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". Congress and Grant passed the [[Enforcement Acts]] from 1870 to 1871 to protect the "registration, voting, officeholding, or jury service" of African Americans. Under these laws enforced by Grant and the newly formed [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]], there were over 5,000 indictments and 1,000 convictions of Klan members across the Southern United States.<ref name="Grant, Reconstruction and the KKK 2018"/>

Forrest testified before the Congressional investigation of Klan activities on June 27, 1871. He denied membership, but his role in the KKK was beyond the scope of the investigating committee, which wrote: "Our design is not to connect General Forrest with this order (the reader may form his own conclusion upon this question)".<ref name="States1872">{{cite book|author=United States. Congress. Joint Select Committee on the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States|title=Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire Into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, So Far as Regards the Execution of the Laws, and Safety of the Lives and Property of the Citizens of the United States and Testimony Taken: Report of the Joint committee, Views of the minority and Journal of the Select committee, April 20, 1871 – Feb. 19, 1872|url=https://archive.org/details/reportofjointsel04unit_0|year=1872|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|page=[https://archive.org/details/reportofjointsel04unit_0/page/n526 14]|quote=When it is considered that the origin, designs, mysteries, and ritual of the order are made secrets; that the assumption of its regalia or the revelation of any of its secrets, even by an expelled member, or of its purposes by a member, will be visited by 'the extreme penalty of the law', the difficulty of procuring testimony upon this point may be appreciated, and the denials of the purposes, of membership in, and even the existence of the order, should all be considered in the light of these provisions. This contrast might be pursued further, but our design is not to connect General Forrest with this order, (the reader may form his own conclusion upon this question,) but to trace its development, and from its acts and consequences gather the designs which are locked up under such penalties.}}</ref> The committee also noted, "The natural tendency of all such organizations is to violence and crime; hence it was that General Forrest and other men of influence in the state, by the exercise of their moral power, induced them to disband".<ref>{{cite report |title=Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States |volume=1 |date=1872 |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Government Printing Office |url=https://archive.org/details/reportofjointsel01unit_0/ |page=463}}</ref> George Cantor, a biographer of Confederate generals, wrote, "Forrest ducked and weaved, denying all knowledge, but admitted he knew some of the people involved. He sidestepped some questions and pleaded failure of memory on others. Afterwards, he admitted to 'gentlemanly lies'. He wanted nothing more to do with the Klan, but felt honor bound to protect former associates."<ref name="Cantor2000">{{cite book|author=George Cantor|title=Confederate Generals: Life Portraits|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AW4VAQAAMAAJ&q=%22gentlemanly%20lies%22|year=2000|publisher=Taylor Trade Pub.|isbn=978-0-87833-179-6|page=78|access-date=May 13, 2018|archive-date=May 9, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509180540/https://books.google.com/books?id=AW4VAQAAMAAJ&q=%22gentlemanly%20lies%22|url-status=live}}</ref>