The political effects of the orders, however, survived their organized existence. Some of the Southern States began to go Democratic in spite of the Reconstruction Acts and the Amendments, and there was little doubt that the Ku Klux movement had aided in this change. In order to preserve the achievements of radical reconstruction Congress passed, in 1870 and 1871, the enforcement acts which had been under debate for nearly two years. The first act (May 31, 1870) was designed to protect the negro's right to vote and was directed at individuals as well as against States. Section six, indeed, was aimed specifically at the Ku Klux Klan. This act was a long step in the direction of giving the Federal Government control over state elections. But as North Carolina went wholly and Alabama partially Democratic in 1870, a Supplementary Act (February 28, 1871) went further and placed the elections for members of Congress completely under Federal control, and also authorized the use of thousands of deputy marshals at elections. As the campaign of 1872 drew near, Grant and his advisers became solicitous to hold all the Southern States which had not been regained by the Democrats. Accordingly, on March 23, 1871, the President sent a message to Congress declaring that in some of the States the laws could not be enforced and asked for remedial legislation. Congress responded with an act (April 20, 1871), commonly called the "Ku Klux Act," which gave the President despotic military power to uphold the remaining negro governments and authorized him to declare a state of war when he considered it necessary. Of this power Grant made use in only one instance. In October, 1871, he declared nine counties of South Carolina in rebellion and put them under martial law.
During the ten years following 1870, several thousand arrests were made under the enforcement acts and about 1250 convictions were secured, principally in Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Most of these violations of election laws, however, had nothing to do with the Ku Klux movement, for by 1870 the better class of members had withdrawn from the secret orders. But though the enforcement acts checked these irregularities to a considerable extent, they nevertheless failed to hold the South for the radicals and essential parts of them were declared unconstitutional a few years later.