That if any armed bands of colored people are found hereafter picketing the roads, the officers of the company to which the pickets belong shall be executed.
Southern speakers on the floor of the house in the debates which preceded the passage of the "act to enforce the fourteenth amendment," traced the origin of the Ku-Klux to the Union league, an association in the south composed chiefly of northerners. Charges were also made by statesmen once in the confederate army that "Tammany Hall" in New York furnished arms to the Klanists, in order that they might murder southern republicans.
SUPPRESSED IN 1871
When the act suppressing the Klan was approved by President Grant on April 20, 1871, it was estimated that the night riders were operating in eleven states of the south. Six months later, in October, President Grant issued a proclamation calling on members of illegal associations in nine counties in South Carolina to disperse and surrender their arms and disguises in five days.
Five days afterwards, another proclamation was issued suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus in the counties named. More than 200 persons were arrested within a few days. It is believed that the Ku-Klux Klan was practically overthrown by the middle of the following January.