The Enforcement Acts were three bills that were passed by the United States Congress between 1870 and 1871. They were criminal codes that protected African Americans' right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws. Passed under the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, the laws also allowed the federal government to intervene when states did not act to protect these rights. The acts passed following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which gave full citizenship to anyone born in the United States or freed slaves, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which banned racial discrimination in voting.

At the time, the lives of all newly freed slaves, as well as their political and economic rights, were being threatened. This threat led to the creation of the Enforcement Acts.

Goal

The main goal in creating these acts was to improve conditions for black people and freed slaves. The main target was the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacy organization, which was targeting Black people, and later other groups. Although this act was meant to fight the KKK and help black people and freedmen, many states were reluctant to take such relatively extreme actions, for several reasons. Some politicians at the state and federal levels were either members of the Klan, or did not have enough strength to fight the Klan. Another goal of these acts was to achieve national unity, by creating a country where all races were considered equal under the law. Other laws banned the KKK entirely. Hundreds of KKK members were arrested and tried as common criminals and terrorists. The first Klan was all but eradicated within a year of federal prosecution.

Enforcement Act of 1871

The Second Enforcement Act of 1871 (formally, "an Act to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in the several states of this union"), permitted federal oversight of local and state elections if any two citizens in a town with more than twenty-thousand inhabitants desired it.

The Enforcement Act of 1871 (second act) and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 are very similar to the original act as they all have the same goal, but revised the first act with the intention of being more effective. The Act of 1871 has more severe punishments with larger fines for disregarding the regulations, and the prison sentences vary in length. The final act, and the most effective, was also a revision. Although the fines lowered again, and the prison sentences remained approximately the same,

Judicial interpretations

After the Colfax massacre in Louisiana, the federal government brought a civil rights case against nine men (out of 97 indicted) who were accused of paramilitary activity intended to stop black people from voting. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Court ruled that the federal government did not have the authority to prosecute the men because the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments provide only for redress against state actors. However, in Ex Parte Yarbrough (1884) the Court allowed individuals who were not state actors to be prosecuted because Article I Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate federal elections.

In Hodges v. United States (1906) the Court addressed a possible Thirteenth Amendment rationale for the Enforcement Acts, and found that the federal government did not have the authority to punish a group of men for interfering with black workers through whitecapping. Hodges v. United States would be overruled in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. some 50 years later, stating for the first time since Reconstruction that the federal government could criminalize racist acts by private actors.

Later uses

In 1964, the United States Department of Justice charged eighteen individuals under the Enforcement Act of 1870, with conspiring to deprive Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman of their civil rights by murder because Mississippi officials refused to prosecute their killers for murder, a state crime. While the Supreme Court limited the Act, they did not fully repeal it. The resulting case, United States v. Price, would stand because state actors were involved.

On August 1, 2023, the Justice Department charged former president Donald Trump under the Enforcement Act of 1870, now 18 U.S.C. 241, in United States v. Donald Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.

See also

  • Civil Rights Act of 1866
  • Civil Rights Act of 1875

References

Further reading

  • Kaczorowski, Robert J. "Federal Enforcement of Civil Rights During the First Reconstruction." Fordham Urban Law Journal 23 (1995): 155+ online.
  • Kaczorowski, Robert J. The politics of judicial interpretation: The federal courts, department of justice, and civil rights, 1866-1876. (Fordham Univ Press, 2005).
  • Kaczorowski, Robert J. "To Begin the Nation Anew: Congress, Citizenship, and Civil Rights after the Civil War." American Historical Review 92.1 (1987): 45–68. in JSTOR
  • United States History for Kids: Enforcement Acts Access - A fast overview of important, historical events in United States history linked with the presidencies during which they occurred.