Understanding the brutality of the Ku Klux Klan, President Grant requested that Congress grant him the authority that he believed he needed to intervene in the South. Due to doubts over the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Congress adopted the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. It was adopted over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first civil rights law in American history. When the Southern states began to impose вЂњBlack CodesвЂќ to subjugate former slaves, it became clear that the adoption of the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery was inadequate. Part I: Legislative history of the KKK Act of 1871 (Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and GrantвЂ™s recognition of the need to combat the KKK )ДЇollowing the Civil War, Congress passed several civil rights laws during Reconstruction in an effort to protect the rights of newly freed slaves. Part III discusses the more well known provisions of the Act which can be found in Sections 19 of Title 42 of the United States Code. Part II explores the text of the Act, which was reorganized and dispersed within the Revised Statutes in 1874. Part I discusses the legislative history behind the 1871 Act, which was specifically requested by President Grant to combat the Ku Klux Klan in the South. After being narrowly interpreted by the courts for nearly a hundred years, the 1871 Act found new life beginning in the 1960s when the Supreme Court began allowing Section 1983вЂ™s вЂњunder color of lawвЂќ provision to be used to hold state and local officials responsible for civil rights violations.

While the 1871 Act was successfully used by President Grant to suppress the KKK during Reconstruction, the controversial law fell into disuse beginning in the 1880s. Despite the lawвЂ™s checkered history, several provisions of the 1871 Act have become vital tools for enforcing civil rights in modern times. Officially titled вЂњAn Act to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes,вЂќ the Civil Rights Act of 1871 is also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the Enforcement Act of 1871, and the Force Act of 1871 (hereinafter cited as вЂњthe 1871 ActвЂќ). The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (the Civil Rights Act of 1871)ДЎ7.

The act of 1871