The great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan trials, 1871-1872

In The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, Lou Falkner Williams presents a comprehensive account of the events of the Klan uprising in the South Carolina piedmont in the Reconstruction era. It is a gripping story - one that helps us better understand the limits of constitutional change in post-Civil War America and the failure of Reconstruction. The South Carolina Klan trials represent the culmination of the federal government's most substantial effort during Reconstruction to stop white violence and provide personal security for African Americans. Federal interventions, suspension of habeas corpus in nine counties, widespread undercover investigations, arrests of several hundred Klansmen, subsequent indictments, and highly publicized trials resulting in the conviction of several Klansmen are all detailed in Williams's study. When the trials began, the Supreme Court had yet to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment and the Enforcement Acts. Thus the fourth federal circuit court became a forum for constitutional experimentation as the prosecution and defense squared off to present their opposing views. The fate of the individual Klansmen was almost incidental to the larger constit