America’s First War On Terror with Fergus Bordewich
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2023
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Between 1865 and 1872, the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan conducted a reign of terror across the former Confederate States, harassing, intimidating, and murdering freedpeople and their white allies. As violence spread with impunity across the South, Congress, at President Ulysses S. Grant’s urging, passed three Enforcement Acts, which radically expanded the federal government's ability to protect individuals from violence when their state governments could or would not.
Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey sat down with Fergus Bordewich, author of “Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction,” to discuss how the Grant administration fought the first domestic terrorist organization the federal government had ever faced. They also talked about the political terrorism conducted by the Klan in that era and what we can learn from that violent period of American history.
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Transcript
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| 0:30.0 | Fair in mind that Klansman, when they were, as they normally did, terrorizing isolated |
| 0:41.0 | black or white farmsteads and cabins and in disguise attacking killing |
| 0:48.8 | defenseless men women and yes, children. |
| 0:53.0 | They thought themselves very brave and heroic, |
| 0:56.0 | but when they were faced with the carbines at the Seventh Cavalry, |
| 1:00.0 | they caved. They were cowards. |
| 1:02.0 | They were cowards. Their way of fighting was inherently cowardly because their targets were civilians, but they couldn't face soldiers at all. |
| 1:10.0 | So they collapsed between being penetrated from the inside and confronted with |
| 1:14.4 | soldiers ready to fight them. The claim collapsed and they surrendered in |
| 1:19.0 | great numbers in South Carolina. |
| 1:21.6 | I'm Anna Hecky Associate Editor of Communications for Law Fair, and this is the Law |
| 1:27.2 | Fair Podcast, December 28, 2023. |
| 1:31.8 | Between 1865 and 1872, the first iteration of the Clouclix clan conducted a reign of terror |
| 1:38.1 | across the former Confederate states, harassing, intimidating, and murdering freed people and their white allies. |
| 1:45.0 | As violence spread with impunity across the South, Congress, at President Ulysses S. Grant's urging, |
| 1:51.0 | passed three enforcement acts which radically expanded the federal government's ability to protect |
| 1:55.5 | individuals from violence when their state governments could or would not. |
| 2:00.1 | I sat down with Fergus Bordewick, author of Clan War, Ulysses S Grant, in the Battle to Save Reconstruction, |
... |
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