Ramtin Arablui

Ackerman and his prosecutors also wanted to convict the Klan for violating other constitutional rights.

And he met it.

This new radicalized Ackerman hadn't just pushed the buttons of former Confederates.

President Grant was looking towards the next election.

The political tides were changing.

Grant began pulling back on using the federal government to go after the KKK.

The governor of Georgia requested federal help to deal with the Klan in his state.

But Grant refused.

Ackerman had also been getting a little too involved in Grant's business interests.

Grant would eventually issue a blanket pardon for all those convicted and for those cases not yet tried.

On the surface, Ackerman's zealous pursuit of the KKK was a win for the federal government in the middle of Reconstruction.

After the trials ended in 1872, the organization more or less disappeared.

But white terrorism did not.

And in the end, Ackerman and the Justice Department never took down the big KKK leaders like they'd wanted.

Most of them either fled the counties during the raids or just didn't face major consequences.

And the North, which still today gets a lot of credit for abolishing slavery, doesn't re-up its push to use the federal government to change things.

It doesn't go full Amos Ackerman on these laws in the South.

The legacy of the Klan trials is one of political power, but also political will.

That's it for this week's show.

I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah.