[346] Comstock headed a federal commission and was empowered to seize and destroy obscene material and hand out arrest warrants to offenders of the law.[345]

Reconstruction
Main article: Reconstruction era
Amos T. Akerman, appointed Attorney General by Grant, who vigorously prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan
Grant was considered an effective civil rights president, concerned about the plight of African Americans.[347] On March 18, 1869, Grant signed into law equal rights for blacks, to serve on juries and hold office, in Washington D.C., and in 1870 he signed into law the Naturalization Act that gave foreign blacks citizenship.[347] During his first term, Reconstruction took precedence. Republicans controlled most Southern states, propped up by Republican-controlled Congress, northern money, and southern military occupation.[348][aa] Grant advocated the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment that said states could not disenfranchise African Americans.[350] Within a year, the three remaining states—Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas—adopted the new amendment—and were admitted to Congress.[351] Grant put military pressure on Georgia to reinstate its black legislators and adopt the new amendment.