Enforcement Act of 1870

US federal law enacted 31 May 1870, the first of three Reconstruction-era Enforcement Acts and also known as the First Ku Klux Klan Act, empowering the president to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment. It prohibited racial discrimination by state officials in voter registration, penalized interference with voting rights, gave federal courts enforcement power, and authorized the president to use the army and federal marshals against election fraud and intimidation. Hundreds of KKK members were arrested and tried, effectively eradicating the first Klan within about a year of federal prosecution.