In October 1871, he declared nine counties of South Carolina in rebellion and put them under martial law.
During the ten years following 1870, several thousand arrests were made under the enforcement acts and about 1,250 convictions were secured, principally in Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Most of these violations of election laws, however, had nothing to do with the Ku Klux movement, for by 1870 the better class of members had withdrawn from the secret orders.

But though the enforcement acts checked these irregularities to a considerable extent, they nevertheless failed to hold the South for the radicals and essential parts of them were declared unconstitutional a few years later.
In order to justify the passage of the enforcement acts and to obtain campaign material for use in 1872, Congress appointed a committee, organized on the very day when the Ku Klux Act was approved, to investigate conditions in the Southern States.

From June to August 1871, the committee took testimony in Washington, and in the fall subcommittees visited several Southern States.

Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were, however, omitted from the investigation.