Editing Reconstruction era (section)

===Congressional investigation into Reconstruction states 1872===
On April 20, 1871, prior to the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act (''Last of three Enforcement Acts''), on the same day, the U.S. Congress launched a 21-member investigation committee on the status of the Southern Reconstruction states North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Congressional members on the committee included Rep. [[Benjamin Butler (politician)|Benjamin Butler]], Sen. [[Zachariah Chandler]], and Sen. [[Francis P. Blair]]. Subcommittee members traveled into the South to interview the people living in their respective states. Those interviewed included top-ranking officials, such as [[Wade Hampton III]], former South Carolina Gov. [[James L. Orr]], and [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]], a former Confederate general and prominent [[Ku Klux Klan]] leader (Forrest denied in his congressional testimony being a member). Other Southerners interviewed included farmers, doctors, merchants, teachers, and clergymen. The committee heard numerous reports of White violence against Blacks, while many Whites denied Klan membership or knowledge of violent activities. The majority report by Republicans concluded that the government would not tolerate any Southern "conspiracy" to resist violently the congressional Reconstruction. The committee completed its 13-volume report in February 1872. While President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] had been able to suppress the KKK through the Enforcement Acts, other [[paramilitary]] [[insurgents]] organized, including the [[White League]] in 1874, active in Louisiana; and the [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]], with chapters active in Mississippi and the Carolinas. They used intimidation and outright attacks to run Republicans out of office and repress voting by Blacks, leading to White Democrats regaining power by the elections of the mid-to-late 1870s.{{sfnp|Franklin|1961|pp=168–173}}