impact of the Military Reconstruction Act was immense. Radical Reconstruction in 1867 required the former Confederate states to accept that black people had the right to vote. it also forced them to accept the 14th Amendment, which gave all US citizens equal protection of the law. the military government directly ruled the former confederate states- didn't have state governments. Task was to implement the wishes of federal government and the US congress. implemented the changes required by the Freedmen's Bureau. They also had the responsibility of protecting ex-slaves, scalawags and carpetbaggers from violence and intimidating by southern white Americans, and in particular those white people who joined white supremacist groups, such as the KKK and the Knights of the White Camellia. former slaves and supporters of the federal government and Reconstruction, military governments were seen as protectors. To other Southern white Americans, they were seen as a northern army of occupation. Democrat- controlled governments, because many white people saw these Democrat governments are ridding them of changes in radical,social and political relations which had been forced on them by north. It reinforced the southern white idea that the Civil War was about state rights vs the federal government.