The Ku Klux Klan was originally a social fraternity, organized by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Empire, in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. The purpose of the KKK soon developed into a paramilitary force used to oppose the Republican governments set up in the old Confederate States and used to stop Freedmen (ex-slaves) from voting, attempting to register to vote, and from trying to hold elective offices in the southern states. When the KKK became too violent, Forrest ordered it disbanded, but the violent element in the KKK continued, until the government passed the Force Acts and the Klan was extinguished in 1872.