Force bill was any of several measures passed or considered by the United States Congress that authorized the use of military power to enforce federal law. The first force bill was sometimes called the “Bloody Bill.” It became a law on March 2, 1833, after South Carolina had declared the protective tariff laws of 1828 and 1832 “null, void, and no law” within the borders of the state (see Nullification). The bill authorized the President to use U.S. armed forces to collect the duties. A compromise tariff was passed, and bloodshed was averted.
During the period of Reconstruction, three other force bills were passed. Two of them (one signed May 31, 1870, and another Feb. 28, 1871) were designed to enforce the 15th Amendment (black suffrage). An act of April 20, 1871, known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, was intended to enforce the 14th Amendment (civil rights).
The Lodge Federal Elections Bill of 1890, which passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate, was also called a force bill. Its purpose was to use federal authority to prevent discrimination against black voters in the Southern States. It was denounced in the South as an attempt to bring back the methods of Reconstruction.
