In January 1871, Pennsylvania Republican senator John Scott convened a congressional committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities, accumulating 12 volumes. In February, former Union general and congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (Ku Klux Klan Act). This added to the enmity that Southern white Democrats bore toward him. While the bill was being considered, further violence in the South swung support for its passage. The governor of South Carolina appealed for federal troops to assist his efforts in keeping control of the state. A riot and massacre occurred in a Meridian, Mississippi, courthouse, from which a Black state representative escaped by fleeing to the woods. The 1871 Civil Rights Act allowed the president to suspend habeas corpus.
In, January 1871, Pennsylvania Republican senator John Scott convened a congressional committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities, accumulating 12 volumes. In February former Union general and congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (Ku Klux Klan Act). This added to the enmity that Southern white Democrats bore toward him While the bill was being considered, further violence in the South swung support for its passage. The governor of South Carolina appealed for federal troops to assis.t his efforts in keeping control of the state. A riot and massacre occurred in a Meridian, Mississippi, courthouse, from which a Black state representative escaped by fleeing to the woods. The 1871 Civil Rights Act allowed the president to suspend habeas corpus.