The KKK's goal included the political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintainance of absolute with supremacy in response to newly gained civil and political rights by southern blacks after the Civil War (1861-65).
They succeeded in achieving their political goals than they were with their social goals during the Reconstruction Era.
With the passage of the Military Reconstruction Acts in March 1867 , and the prospect of freedmen voting in the South, the Klan became a political organization.