Ex Parte Siebold

Ex parte Siebold was one of the few cases during the Reconstruction period where the Supreme Court upheld federal civil rights legislation. The case also established the federal government's right to regulate elections and to punish state officials--another step in the ongoing process of defining states' rights versus federal power.

The time after the Civil War was a period of enormous transition in race relations and in the power structure of the Southern states. The so-called era of Reconstruction saw a great deal of federal civil rights legislation aimed at overcoming the effects of slavery. Both federal and state legislation was also directed at establishing voting rights for African Americans. Consequently, for the first time in U.S. history, a considerable number of African Americans were elected to local positions, state legislatures, and to Congress.

This new political strength of African Americans called forth resistance from the white people who had been in power before the Civil War. After Reconstruction officially ended with the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1873, white resistance to black political power became more blatant. In some areas, opposition took an open, violent form, as in terrorist acts by the Ku Klux Klan and other white-power groups. Elsewhere, those who opposed black civil rights manipulated the electoral process to guarantee either that black citizens would not vote or that their votes would have no impact.