This Day in Republican History 02/28/05

February 28, 1871 Republican Congress passes Enforcement Acts providing federal protection for African-American voters. Democrats have always been sore losers. Whenever they lose at the polls, you find them camped out on the doorstep of a liberal judge the next morning to have the results overturned or frozen. That's why they are insanely desperate to halt any of President Bush's judicial appointments. You see what big babies they've been after losing to Bush -- twice. Imagine how they acted after losing the Civil War -- and all their slaves. The Enforcement Acts were criminal codes that protected blacks' rights to vote, hold office, serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws. If the states failed to act, the laws allowed the federal government to intervene. The target of the acts was the Ku Klux Klan -- the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party -- whose members were murdering many blacks and some whites because they voted, held office, or were involved with schools. Many states were afraid to take strong action against the Klan either because Democratic political leaders sympathized with the Klan, were members, or because they were too weak to act. A number of Republican governors were afraid of sending black militia troops to fight the Klan for fear of triggering a race war. But once Congress passed the Enforcement Acts, the situation shifted. One of the Acts, the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, made private criminal acts federal crimes; consequently, President Grant decreed that "insurgents were in rebellion against the authority of the United States." He sent federal troops to restore law and order to many areas where violence was raging at its worst. In nine counties of South Carolina, martial law was declared and Klansmen were tried before predominantly black juries. Much of the credit for prosecuting the Klan belonged to Amos Ackerman, Grant's attorney general, who did his best to make the country aware of the extent of Klan violence. As a result of his efforts, a few hundred Klansmen were tried and sent to jail. Thousands of others fled or were let off with fines or warnings. By 1872, the Klan as an organization was broken. By the time the terror ended, thousands of blacks and hundreds of whites had been massacred or driven from their homes and communities. On February 8, 1894, Democratic President Grover Cleveland and a Democratic Congress repealed the GOP's Enforcement Acts, denying black voters federal protection.