Amos T. Akerman

Amos T. Akerman
Born	Amos Tappan Akerman 23 2, 1821
Birthplace	Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S.
Died	Template:Death date and age Cartersville, Georgia, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Lawyer, politician
Known for	31st United States Attorney General; prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan
Education	Dartmouth College (BA)
Spouse(s)	Martha Galloway
Awards	Georgia Historical Society marker

Amos Tappan Akerman (February 23, 1821 – December 21, 1880) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 31st United States Attorney General under President Ulysses S. Grant from November 1870 to December 1871. Born in New Hampshire and educated at Dartmouth College, Akerman relocated to the American South as a young man, where he built a career in education and then in law. He served as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, yet in the postwar years he became one of the most vigorous enforcers of civil rights for formerly enslaved people during Reconstruction. As Attorney General, Akerman led the newly established United States Department of Justice in an aggressive campaign to dismantle the Ku Klux Klan through prosecutions under the Enforcement Acts, marking one of the earliest and most forceful uses of federal power to protect Black citizens' constitutional rights. His tenure, though brief, represented a pivotal chapter in the history of American civil rights enforcement and the development of the Department of Justice. After leaving office at Grant's request—possibly due to his rulings against powerful railroad interests—Akerman returned to Georgia, where he practiced law until his death in 1880.

Early Life

Amos Tappan Akerman was born on February 23, 1821, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His middle name, Tappan, reflected his New England heritage. He grew up in the northeastern United States during a period of significant social and political change, as debates over slavery, westward expansion, and the nature of the federal union intensified across the country.

Akerman attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he graduated in 1842 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Following his graduation, Akerman moved south, a decision that would shape the rest of his life and career. He initially settled in North Carolina, where he served as the headmaster of a school. He subsequently moved to Georgia, where he worked as a tutor. It was during this period in Georgia that Akerman became interested in the study of law.

Akerman studied law in Georgia and was admitted to the bar in 1850. He and an associate established a law practice in the state, where he built a career over the following decade. In addition to his legal work, Akerman owned a farm and enslaved eleven people, placing him firmly within the slaveholding class of the antebellum South despite his northern origins. His transformation from a New Hampshire-born Dartmouth graduate into a Southern slaveholder and later Confederate officer represented a trajectory shared by a number of Northern-born men who relocated to the antebellum South and adopted its social and economic institutions.

When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Akerman sided with the Confederacy. He joined the Confederate Army, where he eventually achieved the rank of colonel. He served from approximately 1863 to 1865. The war's conclusion in 1865 would mark a turning point in Akerman's political and ideological development.

Education

Akerman's formal education took place at Dartmouth College, one of the oldest and most respected institutions of higher learning in the United States. He enrolled at the college in Hanover, New Hampshire, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1842. Dartmouth, founded in 1769, had by the early nineteenth century established itself as a significant center of education in New England.

After completing his degree, Akerman did not immediately pursue a legal career. Instead, he entered the field of education, first as a headmaster in North Carolina and then as a tutor in Georgia. His legal education came later, through the study of law in Georgia—a common path to the legal profession in the mid-nineteenth century, when formal law school attendance was not yet a standard requirement for bar admission. Akerman passed the Georgia bar in 1850, approximately eight years after his graduation from Dartmouth.

Career

Antebellum Legal Career and Civil War Service

After his admission to the Georgia bar in 1850, Akerman established a law practice with an associate in the state. Over the following decade, he built his reputation as a lawyer while also maintaining a farm and enslaving eleven people. His political affiliations during this period aligned with the Whig Party, a common affiliation for professionals and moderates in the antebellum South.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Akerman supported the Confederate cause. He entered the Confederate Army and served from approximately 1863 to 1865, ultimately attaining the rank of colonel. The specific details of his military engagements and units are less extensively documented, but his service placed him among those Southerners who actively fought for the Confederacy before later embracing the cause of Reconstruction.

Reconstruction and Republican Politics

The end of the Civil War in 1865 brought dramatic political realignment throughout the South. Akerman was among those former Confederates who joined the Republican Party during Reconstruction, a group sometimes derisively referred to as "scalawags" by their opponents. In Akerman's case, his political conversion was accompanied by a genuine commitment to the rights of the formerly enslaved. He became an outspoken attorney advocate for freedmen's civil rights in Georgia, a position that placed him at odds with much of the white Southern establishment.

Akerman's advocacy attracted the attention of the Grant administration. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Akerman as the United States Attorney for Georgia, a position in which he served until 1870. In this role, Akerman continued his work on behalf of civil rights enforcement and demonstrated the legal acumen that would lead to his elevation to the cabinet.

United States Attorney General

On November 23, 1870, President Grant appointed Akerman as the 31st United States Attorney General, succeeding Ebenezer R. Hoar. Akerman's appointment was significant for several reasons. He was the first Attorney General to lead the newly established United States Department of Justice, which had been created by Congress in 1870 to centralize the federal government's legal functions. The department's creation coincided with the escalating crisis of white supremacist violence in the South, making Akerman's role as its first operational leader a matter of urgent national consequence.

As the Smithsonian Magazine noted in a 2020 retrospective, Akerman was "an unlikely figure to head the newly formed Department of Justice," given his background as a former Confederate officer and slaveholder. Yet it was precisely this background, combined with his postwar conversion to the cause of civil rights, that gave Akerman both the credibility and the determination to confront the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations terrorizing Black citizens and their white allies across the South.

Prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan

Akerman's most consequential work as Attorney General was his vigorous prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan under the Enforcement Acts, a series of federal statutes passed in 1870 and 1871 to protect the constitutional rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. With President Grant's full support, Akerman directed the Department of Justice to investigate, arrest, and prosecute Klan members across the South.

The Klan's campaign of terror had targeted Black voters, Republican officeholders, and anyone who supported the political and social changes brought about by Reconstruction. Violence included murder, assault, arson, and intimidation designed to suppress Black political participation and restore white Democratic control of Southern state governments. Akerman understood the threat the Klan posed not only to individual citizens but to the constitutional order established after the Civil War.

Akerman was assisted in his anti-Klan campaign by Solicitor General Benjamin Bristow, who helped coordinate the legal strategy of the new Department of Justice. Together, they organized a systematic federal response to Klan violence. Mississippi Today reported that Akerman's "priority became the protection of Black voting rights from attacks by the Ku Klux Klan and similar" organizations.

The campaign was particularly intensive in South Carolina, where Klan violence was among the worst in the nation. President Grant, acting on Akerman's advice, suspended the writ of habeas corpus in nine South Carolina counties in October 1871 under the authority of the Ku Klux Klan Act, leading to mass arrests and prosecutions of Klan members. The use of the Fourteenth Amendment to prosecute Klansmen in South Carolina represented a landmark in constitutional law, as the federal government asserted its authority to protect citizens against private violence that state governments were unwilling or unable to prevent.

The results of Akerman's campaign were significant. Federal prosecutions effectively broke the first Ku Klux Klan as an organized force in many parts of the South. Hundreds of Klan members were arrested, and many were convicted or fled to avoid prosecution. The campaign represented the most aggressive use of federal power to protect civil rights that the nation would see until the mid-twentieth century.

Railroad Land Grant Cases

In addition to his civil rights work, Akerman also prosecuted important land grant cases involving railroads during a period of rapid westward expansion. The post-Civil War era saw enormous federal land grants to railroad companies to encourage the construction of transcontinental rail lines, and disputes over these grants frequently reached the courts. Akerman's Department of Justice handled cases concerning the extent and validity of these grants, bringing him into conflict with powerful corporate interests.

His handling of railroad cases, particularly those involving the Union Pacific Railroad, may have contributed to his departure from office. Several historical accounts suggest that Akerman's rulings against railroad interests generated opposition from politically influential figures who pressured Grant to replace him.

Civil Service Reform

Akerman also played a role in the early development of federal civil service reform. He advised on what became the United States' first federal civil service reform law, implemented by President Grant and the U.S. Congress. The reform effort sought to address the widespread patronage system that had long characterized federal appointments, replacing it with a merit-based system. While comprehensive civil service reform would not be fully realized until the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, the initiatives of the Grant administration, with Akerman's legal guidance, represented early steps in that direction.

Departure from Office

Akerman served as Attorney General for just over one year, from November 23, 1870, to December 13, 1871. His departure from the cabinet came at President Grant's request. The precise reasons for Grant's decision have been the subject of historical debate, but several factors appear to have contributed. Akerman's aggressive prosecution of railroad land grant cases had brought him into conflict with the Union Pacific Railroad and other powerful interests that had allies in the Grant administration and Congress. Some historians have suggested that these railroad interests lobbied for Akerman's removal.

Despite the circumstances of his departure, Akerman did not break with Grant politically. He continued to support the president and the Republican Party after leaving office. He was succeeded as Attorney General by George Henry Williams.

Return to Georgia

Following his removal from the cabinet, Akerman returned to Georgia, where he resumed the practice of law in Cartersville. He remained active in legal and civic affairs in the state and was reportedly popular among both white and Black Georgians for his integrity and his commitment to the rule of law. Akerman practiced law in Georgia for the remaining years of his life until his death on December 21, 1880, in Cartersville. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville.

Personal Life

Akerman married Martha Galloway, a Georgian. The marriage connected him further to the social fabric of the Southern community he had adopted after leaving New England. Details about his family life beyond his marriage are sparsely documented in available sources.

Akerman's personal trajectory from a New Hampshire native and Dartmouth graduate to a Southern slaveholder and Confederate officer, and then to a Republican advocate for Black civil rights, has been noted by historians as one of the more remarkable personal transformations of the Reconstruction era. His willingness to confront the Ku Klux Klan and defend the rights of formerly enslaved people put him at personal risk in a region where such positions frequently drew violent retaliation. The Smithsonian Magazine described him as "an unlikely figure" given his background, underscoring the degree to which his postwar convictions diverged from his antebellum life.

Akerman died on December 21, 1880, at the age of 59, in Cartersville, Georgia. He was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville, where his grave remains.

Recognition

Akerman's contributions to civil rights enforcement during Reconstruction have received increased attention from historians and the public in recent decades. The Georgia Historical Society erected a historical marker in Cartersville, Georgia, commemorating Akerman's life and his role as Attorney General. The marker highlighted his work in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan and protecting the civil rights of freedmen.

In 2019, a group in Georgia recalled Akerman's legacy, drawing attention to his role as a forgotten hero of the Republican Party in the nineteenth-century South. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution similarly profiled Akerman as a "lost GOP hero" of the post-Civil War South.

Akerman's career has also been the subject of scholarly and popular works examining the Reconstruction era. Guy Gugliotta's book Grant's Enforcer provided an exhaustive account of Akerman's life and his anti-Klan campaign, bringing renewed attention to his role in American legal and civil rights history. The Wall Street Journal reviewed the book as depicting "a 19th-century war on terror," framing Akerman's campaign against the Klan within the broader context of domestic terrorism and federal enforcement.

The Smithsonian Magazine's 2020 article marking the 150th anniversary of the Department of Justice's founding placed Akerman at the center of the department's origin story, emphasizing that its "first mission was to protect Black rights." The National Park Service has also documented Akerman's role in President Grant's campaign against the Klan as part of its educational materials on Reconstruction.

Legacy

Amos T. Akerman's legacy is defined primarily by his tenure as the first Attorney General to lead the Department of Justice and by his aggressive prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan. His work represented the high-water mark of federal civil rights enforcement during the Reconstruction era, and his departure from office in late 1871 is often seen by historians as a turning point after which the federal commitment to protecting Black citizens in the South began to wane.

Akerman's use of the Enforcement Acts and the Fourteenth Amendment to prosecute Klan members established important legal precedents for the use of federal power to protect individual rights against private violence and state inaction. Although many of these precedents were undermined by subsequent Supreme Court decisions in the 1870s and 1880s—and by the broader retreat from Reconstruction—they laid groundwork that would be revived during the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.

The brevity of Akerman's tenure—just over one year—and the circumstances of his removal from office have prompted historical discussion about the limits of civil rights enforcement in the face of powerful economic and political interests. His conflict with railroad companies illustrated the tensions between the Grant administration's commitments to Reconstruction and the demands of a rapidly industrializing economy.

Akerman's personal transformation from slaveholder and Confederate officer to civil rights advocate has also drawn scholarly interest as an example of the complex and sometimes contradictory loyalties that characterized the Reconstruction period. His willingness to prosecute former allies in the cause of federal law and constitutional rights distinguished him from many of his contemporaries and contributed to his enduring significance in American legal history.

The Etowah Valley Historical Society in Bartow County, Georgia, has preserved materials related to Akerman's life and career, reflecting his continuing importance to the local and state history of Georgia. His grave at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville remains a site of historical interest.