Grant Suspends Habeas Corpus in South Carolina

Under the KKK Act, President Grant suspended habeas corpus in nine York County, SC counties on Oct. 17, 1871 — the only peacetime use of this power in American history. Federal troops arrested hundreds of Klan members. Roughly 60 Klan leaders were convicted in federal circuit court. The prosecutions substantially suppressed Klan violence in SC, but enforcement was not sustained beyond 1872.