MM#447--Grant Versus The Klan: America's First Domestic War on Terror

A ballot can be as fragile as a night’s sleep when terror rules the streets. We dig into the hard edge of Reconstruction and follow Ulysses S. Grant as he turns constitutional promises into enforceable rights, taking on the Ku Klux Klan with law, prosecutors, and troops. Guided by Fergus Bordewich’s The Klan War, we trace how organized violence spread across the South, how courts and juries collapsed under intimidation, and how the federal government built a new playbook to defend Black suffrage and public order.

We walk through the Enforcement Acts of 1870–71 and the Ku Klux Klan Act, the creation of the Department of Justice, and the use of federal power to prosecute conspiracies against civil rights. The picture is unflinching: lynchings, beatings, and threats aimed at the most capable Black leaders and their allies; rope and coffins left on lawns; revolvers by the door as families waited for the knock. Grant’s response was equally clear—enforce the Amendments, protect the vote, and crush organized terror. By 1872, thousands were arrested and hundreds convicted, and the Klan’s core networks were disrupted.

Yet the victories faced headwinds. Economic anxiety, political fatigue, and the siren call of “local control” blunted momentum, even as Grant settled foreign disputes, reduced debt, and pushed early civil service reforms. We connect the dots from those choices to the present: the urgency of countering domestic extremism, the necessity of protecting voting rights, and the cost when political courage yields to partisan self-interest. This is a frank look at how a president, often underestimated, became the strongest defender of civil rights between Lincoln and Truman—and why that legacy still sets a standard.

Key Points from the Episode:

• the Klan’s organized terror to suppress voting  
• the collapse of local justice and jury nullification  
• Grant’s use of the Enforcement Acts and federal troops  
• the creation of the Department of Justice and prosecutions  
• measurable outcomes by 1872 and political backlash  
• why courage and clear law still matter now

Other resources: 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stakes
• 0:30 Exposing The Lost Cause Myth
• 1:16 The Klan’s Terror Laid Bare
• 4:24 Community Fear And Legal Breakdown
• 7:37 Grant’s Strategy And Federal Power
• 9:55 Results, Headwinds, And Lasting Lessons
• 11:26 Why This History Still Matters
• 12:20 Closing And Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Welcome to the Theory to Action Podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Hello, I am David, and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. Friends of Liberty and Patriots around, the last time we chatted, it was about the myth The Lost Cause, how our national memory was clouded for a hundred years by that narrative. But that myth had another casualty. It buried the true story of Ulysses S. Grant in his presidency. One of the cornerstones of his administration was the ambitious, hard fought push for reconstruction, a fight that forced the nation to grapple with the meaning of freedom and liberty. So today we're diving into the clan war, a great book by Fergus Bodowich, I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly. Now, the Clan War is a chapter that shows the difference of courage and federal power when made, and why the struggle still echoes today. So let's set the scene as common with all these mojo minutes and go to the opening quote. Go on to the book. The Klan was most certainly real. By 1868 it had spread across the South to serve in many areas as the de facto military wing of the Democratic Party's most reactionary elements. It grew with astonishing speed and quickly turned to violence. Racist foolery became floggings and beatings, and then lynchings and shootings, often of savage cruelty, accompanied by systemic and systematic torture, burnings, castrations, and sexual humiliation. Despite later efforts to sanitize the Klan, notably in such films as The Birth of a Nation, nineteen fifteen, and Gone with the Wind, nineteen thirty nine, terror was not a side effect of the Klan movement. It was at the movement's core. To scare blacks and white Republicans away from the ballot box. As a former Union soldier from Alabama wrote to President Ulysses S. Grant, one of the countless freedmen's letters that reached his desk, they go to our churches on the Sabbath and disturb our civil courts, and they whip or kill someone every Saturday, and oft times from five to ten in one night. We are all poor men, have to work hard all day and be on guard all night for the fear of the Ku Klux. The rebs tell us we can't get help. And again, that was a quote from the Klan War, Fergus Bordwich, Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction. Fantastic book on Audible. Very easy to get through this book, very easy to read. It's a historical account of President Grant's federal campaign against the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction. It details the government and the federal government's efforts to combat organized terrorism that targeted black Americans. And from our first quote, we could tell that that was daily life for new many newly freed Americans and their allies, especially in the Deep South. It was no exaggeration to say the Klan was a movement bent on undoing the Union victory as thoroughly as possible. Their tactics were deliberate, organized, and widespread. Let's go back to the book. Although the Klan's apologists justified its atrocities as self-defense against supposedly corrupt reconstruction governments and imaginary black crime waves, its most frequent victims were the most able, best educated, and most assertive blacks, men such as Wyatt Outlaw. At the clan's peak, tens of thousands belonged to its loose networks. The total was unknowable, but contemporary estimates ran as high as three hundred thousand. It was not a fringe movement of a few socially marginal individuals. Some, of course, were hoodlums and roughnecks, but everywhere the clan existed it included the leading men in their communities, doctors, lawyers, journalists, and churchmen. Where the clan rode, a beleaguered white Republican wrote, one would wake in the morning to see ten feet and ten feet of a new manila rope dangling from a limb in your front yard with a pine box coffin at the root of the tree inscribed get out. It was something to think about. Every time one's dog barked, you listened for a battling ram at your front door. Our houses were veritable arsenals, and every time we answered the doorbell at night we carried with us a cocked revolver. In countless communities as far as Republicans were concerned, the law was a dead letter. Jurors would not convict. Trials were a farce. Witnesses refused to testify, and jailed clansmen were broken free as a matter of course. Racial violence has been ubiquitous in the antebellum South, but it was usually privately administered by enslavers against their human property in accordance with however cruel established laws and social conventions. Whites armed with military weaponry did not disguise themselves to systematically murder their neighbors. While there was sometimes an element of frightening randomness to the Klan tear, its overall strategy was unambiguous to subvert trust in government, prevent freedmen and white Republicans from voting, reverse the Union victory in the Civil War as thoroughly as possible, and to cripple the great social experiment that was born from that victory. The Klan's goal, in short, was a counter revolution. And that, my friends, is why I love this book. Extremely clear, direct, and unambiguous. It tells the real story of Ulysses S. Grant's first term to dismember and hammer the first domestic war on terror. And that's what we faced in the Klu Klux Klan. Now, faced with this crisis, Grant's first term, 1869 to 1873, became a defining test. His administration waged the Klan War. He did so by passing and rigorously enforcing the Enforcement Acts of 1870-71, including the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which let federal troops and prosecutors go after the Klan directly. He created the Department of Justice to fight civil rights violations and election fraud. He backed the 15th Amendment guaranteeing blacks male suffrage and using troops to protect black voters. He even appointed the first Native America, Native American Seneca, to a significant federal post and earnestly tried to reform the current Indian policy at the time. Grant's willingness to use federal power made a real difference. The Klan as an organization was crushed by 1872, thousands arrested, hundreds convicted. But he faced many headwinds. Economic anxiety popped up, political fatigue, and a rising chorus pushing back against any type of intervention in the South. Even as he achieved other successes, settling foreign policy disputes, reducing the national debt, initiating meager forms of civil service reforms, the underlying struggle for rights and the rule of law never let up. This deeper story here is about the courage of Grant's first term and what is possible when government rises to a historic challenge. Let's go back to the book for another quote. This book is the story of how the federal government under Ulysses Grant fought and beat the Klan. It sheds a stark light on the most violent period in American history, on the murderous potential of unrestrained racism, and on the courageous determination of public officials and ordinary citizens, newly enfranchised African Americans in particular, to protect the freedoms enshrined in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments. What happened then still matters. The urgency of containing domestic terrorism, racial zealotry have not gone away, nor has the need to protect basic civil rights, including the right to vote. This is a work of history, not a prescription for meeting the nation's present day challenges, but the story it tells shows that forceful political action can prevail over violent extremism. It also shows that when political courage succumbs to partisan self-interest, the darker impulses that we are always present in America inherent a fertile ground in which to thrive. So in today's Mojo Minute, Grant's Klan War was not just a forgotten episode, it was a pivot point in American history. A display of what it looks like when government chooses to act boldly for justice and for the right reasons. Grant's reputation has only grown as historians have taken a second look and reconsidered his presidency. He stands out as the president most committed to civil rights between I would have to say between Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman. Think about that. He stands out as the president most committed to civil rights between Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman. And he does so in principled ways that resonate all the way to our own very day. Thank you for joining us on this Mojo Minute. Let's never forget, history is written not just by the victors, but by those who have the courage to stand up to terror and defend liberty then and now. And as always, let's keep fighting the good fight.

SPEAKER_00: 12:12

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at TeamMojoAcademy.com, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo up.