[100] Garfield hailed the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 as a triumph and favored Georgia's readmission to the Union as a matter of right, not politics. An influential Republican, Garfield said, "[The] Fifteen Amendment confers on the African race the care of its own destiny. It places their fortunes in their own hands."[100] In 1871, Congress took up the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was designed to combat attacks on African Americans' suffrage rights. Garfield opposed the act, saying, "I have never been more perplexed by a piece of legislation."He was torn between his indignation at the Klan, whom he called "terrorists", and his concern for the power given the president to enforce the act through suspension of habeas corpus.[101]

Tariffs and finance[edit]
The greenback despised by Garfield
Throughout his political career, Garfield favored the gold standard and decried attempts to increase the money supply through the issuance of paper money not backed by gold, and later, through the free and unlimited coinage of silver.[102] In 1865, he was put on the House Ways and Means Committee, a long-awaited opportunity to focus on financial and economic issues. 