Enforcement Act Of 1870 - Wikipedia

United States federal law Enforcement Act of 1870

Long title	An Act to enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other Purposes.
Nicknames	Civil Rights Act of 1870, Enforcement Act, First Ku Klux Klan Act, Force Act
Enacted by	the 41st United States Congress
Citations
Statutes at Large	16 Stat. 140-146
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 1293 by John Bingham (R–OH) on February 21, 1870 Committee consideration by House Judiciary Passed the House on May 16, 1870 (131–43) Passed the Senate on May 20, 1870 (43–8) Agreed to by the Senate on May 25, 1870 (48–11) and by the House on (133–39) Signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on May 31, 1870
Major amendments
Second Enforcement Act of 1871 (s. 20)
United States Supreme Court cases
United States v. Reese (1876) United States v. Cruikshank (1876) United States v. Allen Crosby United States v. Robert Hayes Mitchell

The Enforcement Act of 1870, also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1870 or First Ku Klux Klan Act, or Force Act (41st Congress, Sess. 2, ch. 114, 16 Stat. 140, enacted May 31, 1870, effective 1871), is a United States federal law that empowers the President to enforce the first section of the Fifteenth Amendment throughout the United States. The act was the first of three Enforcement Acts passed by the United States Congress in 1870 and 1871, during the Reconstruction Era, to combat attacks on the voting rights of African Americans from state officials or violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan.[1][2]

The Enforcement Act of 1870 prohibits discrimination by state officials in voter registration on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It establishes penalties for interfering with a person's right to vote and gave federal courts the power to enforce the act.

The act also authorizes the President to use the army to uphold the act and use federal marshals to bring charges against offenders for election fraud, bribery or intimidation of voters, and conspiracies to prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights.

The act bans the use of terror, force or bribery to prevent people from voting because of their race.[3] Other laws banned the KKK entirely. Hundreds of KKK members were arrested and tried as common criminals and terrorists.[4] The first Klan was more or less eradicated within a year of federal prosecution.

Provisions

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This act consists of 23 sections, some of which have been more notable than others.

Section 1 states that anyone who is qualified to vote in any election anywhere in the United States, including any "territorial subdivision", is eligible to vote in every election there, "without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude". This section additionally overrides all law to the contrary.

Sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 provide civil remedies for people who are disenfranchised in several different ways, and additionally makes such acts a misdemeanor:

• Section 2 prohibits officials who have a duty in law to ensure the right to vote from refusing or neglecting to enable a person to do anything that is necessary to become qualified to vote.
• Section 3 applies where a person offers or attempts to perform an action that is required to become qualified to vote, but is prevented from doing so by the wrongful act or omission of an official whose duty it was to receive or permit such action. The official's act or omission is a civil wrong and misdemeanor. Additionally, the victim is considered to have done the thing he was prevented from doing.
• Section 4 prohibits interference with the right to vote by unlawful means including, in particular, threats, intimidation, violence, or bribery.
• Section 5 prohibits obstructing a person's right to vote under the 15th Amendment. Prohibited means include bribery and threats, including in particular threats of eviction, denying employment, and refusing lease renewals and work contracts.

In each of the above cases, the person responsible must pay $500 compensation to the victim, and on conviction be fined at least $500, and at the discretion of the court, imprisoned for a period between one month and one year.[5][page needed]

Section 6 makes it a felony for two or more persons to "band or conspire together, or go in disguise upon the public highway, or upon the premises of another", in order to violate any provision of the Act or intimidate anyone in regard to their constitutional or federal legal rights. The sentence is up to $5000 and ten years' imprisonment. The offender is also disqualified from holding any federal office.

Section 7 empowers a court convicting a person of any crime under this act to punish them for any state crime that was committed in the course of committing the crime under this act.

Section 8 denies state courts jurisdiction over crimes under this act, leaving jurisdiction solely to federal district and circuit courts.

Section 9 gives federal district attorneys, marshals, and deputy marshals, court commissioners, and special appointees of the President, the duty to arrest, detain, bail, and prosecute persons suspected of offences under this act.

Section 10 gives marshals and their deputies the duty to execute warrants under this act, on pain of a $1000 penalty payable to the victim of disenfranchisement. It also gives them the power of posse comitatus, including the use of US armed forces and militia, for the purpose of enforcing such warrants.

Section 11 prohibits interfering with process under this act, including obstruction, harbouring fugitives, and rescue of detainees. The penalty is up to $1000 fine or six months' imprisonment, or both.

Section 12 authorizes fees for commissioners, district attorneys, marshals, their deputies, and clerks, in relation to process under this act, including costs of imprisonment, to be paid out of the US Treasury and recoverable from the offender on conviction.

Section 13 empowers the President to authorize use of militias and the armed forces to enforce process under this act. (Such use was subsequently made generally illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, unless authorized by Congress, such as in this section.)

Sections 14 and 15 enforce section three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, by instructing federal prosecutors to use a writ of quo warranto to remove people from government offices who were disqualified by that amendment. Reasons for such disqualification include insurrection or rebellion against the United States; holding office contrary to such disqualification became a misdemeanor. The Enforcement Act's quo warranto provisions were repealed in 1948.[6] However, even after that repeal, there remained a federal statute initially contained in the Confiscation Act of 1862 which made insurrection a federal crime, and disqualified insurrectionists from federal offices.[7]

Section 16 partially implements the 14th Amendment by stating that everyone in the United States has the same right to contract, sue, be a party to a case, give evidence, and benefit from the same protection of laws and be subject to the same penalties of laws, taxes etc. as white citizens. It additionally prohibits states from taxing or making other charges on immigrants that discriminate between different countries of origin. Section 17 makes such discrimination under color of law a misdemeanor, punishable with a $1000 fine or imprisonment for up to a year or both.

Section 18 re-enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1866, whose constitutionality was in question until the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868.

Section 19 prohibits various forms of misconduct relating to voting; section 20 does the same for registration of voters, with the Second Enforcement Act of 1871 amending this section to add counting, certifying and announcing election results. Section 21 provides evidentiary presumptions relating to these offences. Section 22 makes it a crime for electoral officials to fail or refuse to do their duty. The penalty for any of the crimes under these sections is a $500 fine or three years' imprisonment, or both, plus costs.

Section 23 provides that if a person is denied election to office (except presidential or vice-presidential elector, member of Congress, or member of a state legislature) because some persons were denied the right to vote by reason of race, color or previous condition of servitude, the person so denied is nonetheless entitled to office and may sue to recover it. Federal circuit and district courts have jurisdiction if such denial of the right to vote was the sole reason for denial of office.

Legislative history

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The act developed from separate legislative actions in the House and Senate. H.R. 1293 was introduced by House Republican John Bingham from Ohio on February 21, 1870, and discussed on May 16, 1870.[8] S. 810 grew from several bills from several Senators. United States Senator George F. Edmunds from Vermont submitted the first bill, followed by United States Senator Oliver P. Morton from Indiana, United States Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts, and United States Senator William Stewart from Nevada. After three months of debate in the Committee on the Judiciary, the final Senate version of the bill was introduced to the Senate on April 19, 1870.[9] The act was passed by Congress in May 1870 and signed into law by United States President Ulysses S. Grant on May 31, 1870.

Legislative breakdown

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H.R. 1293 was brought to a floor vote in the chambers of the US Senate on May 21, 1870. Three political parties were present. The Republican Party voted 41 in favor, 1 against. The Democratic Party voted 0 in favor, 7 against, and the Liberal Republicans voted 2 in favor, 0 against. 21 members did not vote.[10]

It was brought to a floor vote in the US House of Representatives on May 23, 1870. Three political parties were present to vote in the House of Representatives on the motion to pass H.R. 1293. The Republican Party voted 132 in favor, 1 against. The Democratic Party voted 1 in favor, 50 against. And the Conservative Party voted 0 in favor, 3 against. 41 members did not vote.[11]

See also

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• Posse Comitatus Act of 1878
• Second Enforcement Act

U.S. Attorneys General during Reconstruction

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• Ebenezer R. Hoar – 30th Attorney General, served 1869–1870
• Amos T. Akerman – 31st Attorney General, served 1870–1871
• George Henry Williams – 32nd Attorney General, served 1871–1875
• Edwards Pierrepont – 33rd Attorney General, served 1875–1876

U.S. Secretary of War during Reconstruction

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• William W. Belknap – 30th Secretary of War, served 1869–1876

References

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1. ^ Foner 1997, p. 454.
2. ^ KKK. "The Force Acts of 1870–1871". sagehistory.net. Archived from the original on December 4, 2007.
3. ^ Smith, Cary Stacy; Hung, Li-Ching (2010). The Patriot Act: issues and controversies. Charles C. Thomas. p. 224. ISBN 978-0-398-08563-6.
4. ^ Gruberg, Martin. "Ku Klux Klan". The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Middle Tennessee State University. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
5. ^ Frohnen, Bruce, ed. (2008). The American Nation: Primary Sources. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. ISBN 978-0-86597-730-3.
6. ^ Lynch, Myles (2021). "Disloyalty & Disqualification: Reconstructing Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment". William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 30 (1): 153.
7. ^ 18 U.S.C. § 2383
8. ^ Wang 1997, p. 58.
9. ^ Wang 1997, p. 59.
10. ^ "Roll Call Votes – Senate Vote #311 in 1870 (41st Congress)". govtrack.us. October 27, 2025.
11. ^ "Roll Call Votes - House Vote #276 in 1870 (41st Congress)". Retrieved October 17, 2025.

Bibliography

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• Foner, Eric (1997). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. ISBN 978-0-06-093716-4.
• Wang, Xi (1997). The Trial of Democracy: Black Suffrage & Northern Republicans, 1860–1910. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-1837-0.

Further reading

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• Cresswell, Stephen (1987). "Enforcing the Enforcement Acts: The Department of Justice in Northern Mississippi, 1870–1890". Journal of Southern History. 53 (3): 421–40. doi:10.2307/2209362. JSTOR 2209362.
• Rable, George (2007). But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction. 2nd ed. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3011-2.
• Swinney, Everette (1962). "Enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment, 1870–1877". Journal of Southern History. 28 (2): 202–18. doi:10.2307/2205188. JSTOR 2205188.
• Trelease, Allen W. (1999). White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-313-21168-3.

External links

[edit] English Wikisource has original text related to this article: Enforcement Act of 1870

• "Reconstruction Timeline," Towards Racial Equality: Harper's Weekly Report on Black America, 1857–1874

v t e Reconstruction era
Participants	Federal government Presidents Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes Congress 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Radical Republicans Moderate Republicans Conservative Republicans African-American senators African-American representatives Reconstruction Amendments United States Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction United States House Select Committee on Reconstruction Federal judiciary Taney Court Chase Court Waite Court Federal bureaucracy Edwin Stanton Freedmen's Bureau Justice Department State governments Southern United States Confederate States of America Others African Americans Free people of color Freedman Politicians Carpetbaggers Ku Klux Klan Scalawag Redeemers White League Red Shirts Democratic Party Bourbon Democrat Horatio Seymour Samuel J. Tilden Republican Party Stalwarts Charles Sumner Thaddeus Stevens Lyman Trumbull Benjamin Wade John Bingham James Mitchell Ashley Freedman's Savings Bank Women during the Reconstruction era
Elections	Presidential 1864 DNC National Union Convention Radical Democratic Party 1868 DNC RNC 1872 DNC RNC Liberal Republican Party Straight-Out Democratic Party Victoria Woodhull 1876 DNC RNC Greenback Convention Prohibition Convention Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877 U.S. Senate 1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77 U.S. House 1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77 Gubernatorial 1863 Alabama California Connecticut Kentucky Massachusetts Minnesota New Hampshire Ohio Pennsylvania Virginia Vermont Wisconsin West Virginia 1864 Connecticut Illinois Indiana Louisiana Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Missouri New Hampshire Vermont West Virginia 1865 Connecticut Florida Louisiana Massachusetts Minnesota New Jersey Ohio South Carolina Vermont Wisconsin 1866 Connecticut Delaware Massachusetts Maine Michigan North Carolina Oregon Pennsylvania Texas Vermont West Virginia 1867 California Connecticut Kentucky Massachusetts Maryland Maine Minnesota Ohio Vermont Wisconsin 1868 Alabama Connecticut Florida Illinois Indiana Kentucky (special) Louisiana Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri North Carolina New Jersey South Carolina Vermont West Virginia 1869 Connecticut Iowa Massachusetts Maine Minnesota Mississippi Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island Virginia Vermont Wisconsin 1870 Alabama Connecticut Delaware Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri Oregon Rhode Island South Carolina Vermont West Virginia 1871 California Connecticut Iowa Kentucky Massachusetts Maryland Maine Minnesota New Jersey Ohio Rhode Island Wisconsin 1872 Alabama Connecticut Florida Illinois Indiana Louisiana Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri North Carolina Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Vermont West Virginia 1873 Connecticut Iowa Massachusetts Maine Minnesota Mississippi Ohio Texas Virginia Wisconsin 1874 Alabama Connecticut Delaware Kansas Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri New Jersey Nevada Oregon South Carolina Vermont 1875 California Connecticut Iowa Kentucky Massachusetts Maryland Maine Minnesota Ohio Ohio Wisconsin 1876 Alabama Colorado Connecticut April Connecticut November Florida Illinois Indiana Kansas Louisiana Massachusetts Maine Michigan Missouri North Carolina Rhode Island South Carolina Vermont West Virginia U.S. elections 1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876
Key events	Prelude American Indian Wars Slavery in the United States A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838) Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1839) Seneca Falls Convention (1848) National Women's Rights Convention (1850) American Civil War Confiscation Act of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1862 District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act (1862) Militia Act of 1862 1863 Emancipation Proclamation General Order No. 143 Lincoln's presidential Reconstruction Ten percent plan National Bank Act Women's Loyal National League New York City draft riots 1863 State of the Union Address 1864 Wade–Davis Bill 1864 elections 1864 State of the Union Address 1865 13th Amendment Second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln Address Black Codes Special Field Orders No. 15 Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau bills Confederates surrender at Appomattox Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Shaw University New Departure 1865 State of the Union Address Founding of the Ku Klux Klan 1866 Civil Rights Act of 1866 Memphis massacre of 1866 New Orleans Massacre of 1866 Swing Around the Circle Southern Homestead Act of 1866 Fort Smith Conference and Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty of Washington of 1866 Tennessee readmitted to Union Petition for Universal Freedom National Labor Union Ex parte Garland Ex parte Milligan Slave Kidnapping Act of 1866 1866 elections 1867 Tenure of Office Act Command of Army Act Indian Peace Commission Knights of the White Camelia Pulaski riot Reconstruction Acts Reconstruction military districts Constitutional conventions of 1867 Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 Peonage Act of 1867 First impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson 1867 State of the Union Address 1868 14th Amendment Second impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson Impeachment of Andrew Johnson Timeline Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson Impeachment managers investigation Articles of impeachment Arkansas readmitted to Union Florida readmitted to Union North Carolina readmitted to Union South Carolina readmitted to Union Louisiana readmitted to Union Alabama readmitted to Union Opelousas massacre Fourth Reconstruction Act Georgia v. Stanton 1868 elections 1868 State of the Union Address 1869 National Woman Suffrage Association American Woman Suffrage Association Alabama Claims Proposed annexation of Santo Domingo Board of Indian Commissioners Public Credit Act of 1869 Black Friday (1869) Ex parte McCardle First transcontinental railroad 1869 State of the Union Address 1870 15th Amendment Enforcement Act of 1870 Justice Department Naturalization Act of 1870 Kirk–Holden war Shoffner Act 1870 elections 1870 State of the Union Address 1871 Ku Klux Klan hearings Second Enforcement Act Ku Klux Klan Act Alcorn State University Meridian race riot of 1871 Treaty of Washington New York custom house ring Civil service commission United States expedition to Korea 1871 State of the Union Address 1872 General Mining Act of 1872 Crédit Mobilier scandal Modoc War Star Route scandal Salary Grab Act Amnesty Act 1872 elections 1872 State of the Union Address 1873 Panic of 1873 Colfax massacre Timber Culture Act Slaughter-House Cases Virginius Affair Coinage Act of 1873 Long Depression Comstock laws 1873 State of the Union Address 1874 Brooks–Baxter War Battle of Liberty Place Coushatta massacre Red River War Timber Culture Act White League Election Massacre of 1874 Vicksburg massacre Black Hills Gold Rush Sanborn incident Anti-Moiety Acts 1874 elections 1874 State of the Union Address 1875 United States v. Cruikshank Civil Rights Act of 1875 Red Shirts Mississippi Plan Clifton Riot of 1875 Yazoo City Riot of 1875 Specie Payment Resumption Act Whiskey Ring Wheeler Compromise Delano affair Pratt & Boyd 1875 State of the Union Address 1876 Hamburg massacre South Carolina civil disturbances of 1876 Ellenton massacre Great Sioux War of 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn United States v. Reese Trader post scandal Centennial Exposition Cattellism Safe burglary conspiracy 1876 elections 1876 State of the Union Address 1877 Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877 Nez Perce War Desert Land Act Great Railroad Strike of 1877 End andaftermath Posse Comitatus Act (1878) Civil Rights Cases (1883) United States v. Harris (1883) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Williams v. Mississippi (1898) Wilmington massacre Giles v. Harris (1903) Disenfranchisement
Aspects	Historiography Bibliography of the Reconstruction era James Shepherd Pike The Prostrate State (1874) James Bryce The American Commonwealth (1888) Claude G. Bowers The Tragic Era (1929) Columbia University John Burgess Walter L. Fleming Dunning School William Archibald Dunning Charles A. Beard Howard K. Beale W. E. B. Du Bois Black Reconstruction in America (1935) C. Vann Woodward Joel Williamson William R. Brock The American Crisis (1963) John Hope Franklin From Slavery to Freedom (1947) After Slavery (1965) Leon Litwack Been in the Storm So Long (1979) Eric Foner Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988) Kenneth M. Stampp Steven Hahn A Nation Under Our Feet (2003) The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019) Memory Winslow Homer A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) Thomas Dixon Jr. The Leopard's Spots (1902) The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) D. W. Griffith The Birth of a Nation (1915) United Daughters of the Confederacy Gone with the Wind (1939) David W. Blight Race and Reunion (2001) Legacy Women's suffrage in the United States Labor history of the United States Gilded Age Jim Crow era Civil rights movement American frontier Other topics African American founding fathers of the United States Forty acres and a mule Habeas corpus History of the United States (1865–1917) Paramilitary Race (human categorization) Reconstruction Treaties Suffrage Technological and industrial history of the United States White supremacy Whitecapping
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v t e Voting rights in the United States
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