Editing Reconstruction era (section)

==Grant's presidential Reconstruction==
{{Main|Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant}}
[[File:Ulysses S Grant by Brady c1870-restored.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Ulysses S. Grant]], 18th [[President of the United States]] (1869–1877)]]
{{Ulysses S. Grant series}}

===Effective civil rights executive===
President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] was considered an effective civil rights executive, concerned about the plight of [[African Americans]].{{sfnp|Kahan|2018|p=61}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brands |first=H. W. |title=The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace |publisher=Anchor Books |year=2013 |isbn=9780307475152 |location=New York |pages=463–479}}</ref> Grant met with prominent black leaders for consultation and signed a bill into law, on March 18, 1869, that guaranteed equal rights to both blacks and whites, to serve on juries, and hold office, in Washington D.C.{{sfnp|Kahan|2018|p=61}}<ref name=Spxiii/> In 1870 Grant signed into law a [[Naturalization Act of 1870|Naturalization Act]] that opened a path to citizenship for foreign-born Black residents in the US.{{sfnp|Kahan|2018|p=61}} Additionally, Grant's [[United States Postmaster General|Postmaster General]], [[John Creswell]] used his patronage powers to integrate the postal system and appointed a record number of African-American men and women as postal workers across the nation, while also expanding many of the mail routes.{{sfnp|Osborne|Bombaro|2015|pp=6, 12, 54}}{{sfnp|Chernow|2017|p=629}} Grant appointed Republican abolitionist and champion of black education [[Hugh Lennox Bond]] as U.S. Circuit Court judge.{{sfnp|Chernow|2017|p=628}}

===Final three Reconstruction states admitted===
Immediately upon inauguration in 1869, Grant bolstered Reconstruction by prodding Congress to readmit [[Virginia]], [[Mississippi]], and [[Texas]] into the Union, while ensuring their state constitutions protected every citizen's voting rights.<ref name="Spxiii">{{Cite book |last=Simon |first=John Y. |title=Papers of Ulysses S. Grant |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |year=1967 |isbn=9780809319640 |volume=19 |location=Carbondale |pages=xiii}}</ref>

Grant advocated the ratification of the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] that said states could not disenfranchise [[African Americans]].{{sfnp|Simon|2002}} Within a year, the three remaining states—Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas—adopted the new amendment—and were admitted to Congress.{{sfnmp|Brands|2012|1pp=435, 465|Chernow|2017|2pp=686–687|Simon|2002|3p=247}} Grant put military pressure on Georgia to reinstate its black legislators and adopt the new amendment.{{sfnp|Brands|2012|p=465}} Georgia complied, and on February 24, 1871, its senators were seated in Congress, with all the former Confederate states represented.{{sfnp|Simon|2002|p=246}} Southern Reconstructed states were controlled by Republicans and former slaves. Eight years later, in 1877, the Democratic Party had full control of the region and Reconstruction was dead.{{sfnp|Simon|2002|pp=247–248}}

===Department of Justice created===
In 1870, to enforce Reconstruction, Congress and Grant created the [[United States Justice Department|Justice Department]] that allowed the Attorney General [[Amos Akerman]] and the first [[Solicitor General of the United States|Solicitor General]] [[Benjamin Bristow]] to prosecute the Klan.{{sfnp|Smith|2001|pp=543–545}}{{sfnp|Brands|2012|p=474}} In Grant's two terms he strengthened Washington's legal capabilities to directly intervene to protect citizenship rights even if the states ignored the problem.{{sfnp|Kaczorowski|1995}}

===Enforcement Acts (1870–1871)===
Congress and Grant passed a series (three) of powerful civil rights [[Enforcement Acts]] between 1870 and 1871, designed to protect blacks and Reconstruction governments.{{sfnmp|Kahan|2018|1pp=64–65|Calhoun|2017|2pp=317–319}} These were criminal codes that protected the freedmen's right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws. Most important, they authorized the federal government to intervene when states did not act. Urged by Grant and his Attorney General [[Amos T. Akerman]], the strongest of these laws was the [[Ku Klux Klan Act]], passed on April 20, 1871, that authorized the president to impose [[martial law]] and suspend the writ of ''[[habeas corpus]]''.{{sfnmp|Kahan|2018|1pp=64–65|Calhoun|2017|2pp=317–319}}{{sfnmp|Smith|2001|1pp=545–546|White|2016|2p=521}}{{sfnp|Simon|2002|p=248}}

Grant was so adamant about the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act, he earlier had sent a message to Congress, on March 23, 1871, in which he said:
{{blockquote|"A condition of affairs now exists in some of the States of the Union rendering life and property insecure, and the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous. The proof that such a, condition of affairs exists in some localities is now before the Senate. That the power to correct these evils is beyond the control of State authorities, I do not doubt. That the power of the Executive of the United States, acting within the limits of existing laws, is sufficient for present emergencies, is not clear."<ref name=":00">{{cite book |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa&cc=moa&sid=95e3f6e828e116b80d4cccd93c806bc1&view=text&rgn=main&idno=ACA4911.0001.001 |title=Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States February 19, 1872 |date=January 31, 1872 |access-date=2021-01-13 |archive-date=June 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210604011404/https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa&cc=moa&sid=95e3f6e828e116b80d4cccd93c806bc1&view=text&rgn=main&idno=ACA4911.0001.001 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Grant also recommended the enforcement of laws in all parts of the United States to protect life, liberty, and property.<ref name=":00"/>

===Prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan===
[[File:Amos T Akerman - crop and minor retouch.jpg|upright|thumb|right|Grant's Attorney General [[Amos T. Akerman]] prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan, believing that the strong arm of the federal Justice Department could pacify the South.]]
[[File:Thomas Nast 1874.jpg|thumb|right|[[Thomas Nast]] illustration entitled "Halt," published October 17, 1874]]
Grant's Justice Department destroyed the Ku Klux Klan, but during both of his terms, Blacks lost their political strength in the [[Southern United States]]. By October, Grant suspended ''habeas corpus'' in part of South Carolina and he also sent federal troops to help marshals, who initiated prosecutions of Klan members.{{sfnp|Simon|2002|p=248}} Grant's Attorney General, [[Amos T. Akerman]], who replaced Hoar, was zealous in his attempt to destroy the Klan.{{sfnp|Kahan|2018|p=66}} Akerman and South Carolina's U.S. marshal arrested over 470 Klan members, but hundreds of Klansmen, including the Klan's wealthy leaders, fled the state.{{sfnp|Smith|2001|p=547}}{{sfnp|Calhoun|2017|p=324}} Akerman returned over 3,000 indictments of the Klan throughout the South and obtained 600 convictions for the worst offenders.{{sfnp|Smith|2001|p=547}} By 1872, Grant had crushed the Klan, and African Americans peacefully voted in record numbers in elections in the South.{{sfnp|Smith|2001|pp=547–548}}{{sfnp|Foner|2019|pp=120–122}} Attorney General [[George Henry Williams|George H. Williams]], Akerman's replacement, suspended his prosecutions of the Klan in North Carolina and South Carolina in the Spring of 1873, but prior to the election of 1874, he changed course and prosecuted the Klan.{{sfnp|Kahan|2018|p=122}} Civil rights prosecutions continued but with fewer yearly cases and convictions.{{sfnmp|Wang|1997|1p=102|Kaczorowski|1995|2p=182}}

===Amnesty Act of 1872===
In addition to fighting for African American civil rights, Grant wanted to reconcile with white southerners, out of a spirit of Appomattox.{{sfnp|Chernow|2017|page=746}} To placate the South, in May 1872, Grant signed the [[Amnesty Act]], which restored political rights to former Confederates, except for a few hundred former Confederate officers.{{sfnmp|Kahan|2018|1pp=67–68|Chernow|2017|2pp=746}} Grant wanted people to vote and practice free speech despite their "views, color or nativity."{{sfnp|Chernow|2017|page=746}}

===Civil Rights Act of 1875===
The [[Civil Rights Act of 1875]] was one of the last major acts of Congress and Grant to preserve Reconstruction and equality for [[African American]]s.{{sfnp|Chernow|2017|p=795}}{{sfnp|Calhoun|2017|p=479}} The initial bill was created by Senator [[Charles Sumner]]. Grant endorsed the measure, despite his previous feud with Sumner, signing it into law on March 1, 1875. The law, ahead of its times, outlawed discrimination for blacks in [[public accommodations]], schools, transportation, and selecting juries. Although weakly enforceable, the law spread fear among whites opposed to interracial justice and was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1883. The later enforceable [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] borrowed many of the earlier 1875's law's provisions.{{sfnp|Chernow|2017|p=795}}

===Countered election fraud===
To counter vote fraud in the Democratic stronghold of [[New York City]], Grant sent in tens of thousands of armed, uniformed federal marshals and other election officials to regulate the 1870 and subsequent elections. Democrats across the North then mobilized to defend their base and attacked Grant's entire set of policies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Quigley |first=David |date=January 2008 |title=Constitutional Revision and the City: The Enforcement Acts and Urban America, 1870–1894 |journal=[[Journal of Policy History]] |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=64–75 |doi=10.1353/jph.0.0001|s2cid=153347617 }}</ref> On October 21, 1876, President Grant deployed troops to protect Black and White Republican voters in Petersburg, Virginia.{{sfnp|Blair|2005|p=400}}

===National support of Reconstruction declines===
Grant's support from Congress and the nation declined due to scandals within his administration and the political resurgence of the Democrats in the North and South. Anti-Reconstruction whites claimed that wealthy white landowners had lost power, and they blamed governmental scandals in the South on it. Meanwhile, white northern Republicans were becoming more conservative. Republicans and Black Americans lost power in the South. By 1870, most Republicans felt the war goals had been achieved, and they turned their attention to other issues such as economic policies.{{sfnp|Smith|2001|p=547}} White Americans were in almost full control again by the start of the 1900s and did not enforce Black voting rights. The United States government eventually pulled all its troops from the Southern states.