Front matter (continued 3)

They then placed themselves in communication with the United States Officials, and under their advice returned, signified their willingness to join the order, and did so. By this means they were enabled to arrive at the names of parties engaged in various raids, and obtain all information necessary to the arrest and conviction of the leaders. This was one of the first steps that led to the breaking up of the Klan in Jefferson County.

Messrs. Myers and Chapman managed to impart information to the United States Officers, upon which several of the prominent members of the order were arrested and lodged in jail, and the visitations ceased.

In White County, Georgia, Mr. William Carson received a notice from the Ku Klux of that County, that he must join the order. Carson was the head of an intelligent family, a Republican in principle, but who avoided expressing his opinions as much as possible.

He paid no heed to the notices and warnings sent him, but pursued the even tenor of his way, remaining home as much of the time as his business would admit, and being especially careful about going abroad at night.

During November, 1871, he received the long promised visitation. The evening meal was through with, the early evening prayers of the children had been said, the latter were about retiring, when a number of the Klan, armed, mounted and disguised dashed up to the door.

Mr. Carson opened the door and mildly asked to know the object of their visit. The reply was a rifle shot, which was immediately followed by a second, and Mr. Carson fell dead across the door step. The Klan disappeared as suddenly as they had come. The grief stricken family raised up the inanimate form of the beloved husband and father, only to realize that the voice which had so long been the comfort and consolation of the little household would never be heard by them again.

This in a christian land! Within the sound of the sabbath bells, and almost under the shadow of the sanctuary of the living God. A christian gentleman refusing to bind himself with those who had sworn to overthrow the Government, and scourge and kill the negro and the radical; shot down within his own door, in sight of his wife and little ones, because, forsooth, he had the temerity to think and act, politically, as his conscience seemed to dictate.

Thinking men throughout the nation will stand for many years to come with William Carson, on the spot where he met his awful and untimely fate, and they will stand there in the power of consolidated right, beating back the onslaughts of the powers of darkness, and raising a monument to the justice of that course, which by the vigorous action of the nation’s counsellors, and under the provident rule of a beneficent God, is fast being established on a solid foundation.

Shocking Fate of a Quadroon Family.

Gaston County, N. C., in the lower part of that State, adjoins York County, South Carolina, the State line dividing these two districts. In the north-easterly part of Gaston County, in the outskirts of Hoylestown, there came to live a family of mulatto people—or quadroons—in 1870, who were refugees from oppression, brutality and abuse of the Ku Klux Klan in Moore County, N. C., whence they had been banished after the husband had been shockingly scourged, and the lives of himself, wife, and three children threatened, unless he left Moore County within a fortnight from the night he was whipped.

At the earnest entreaties of his wife, who feared the next threatened visitation of the Klan, her husband consented to quit the place he had dwelt in some years, but where he had rendered himself obnoxious to the Democratic party around him, through his persistent advocacy of Republican sentiments, which he promulgated among his own race, causing them to cast their votes for the Radical ticket. And for this offence he was terribly whipped and ruthlessly driven from his home.

The name of this family was Noye, Aleck and Elfie, the father and mother had both been slaves, belonging originally to the Noye estate, in Moore County. Aleck was an ingenious fellow, and his brother Felix, had, twenty years previously, invented a peculiar reclining chair for the use of invalids; which to this day is manufactured largely in New England, upon the identical principle, originated by Felix, for which his old master took out a patent, and from the royalty of which he has realized a fortune first and last.

Aleck was a first rate mechanic and earned a good living. After the war, when he became free to exercise his natural talent for his own benefit, and had the right to vote, he became an ardent Radical, and proved a damaging subject among his brethren in the estimation of the Southern Democrats.

He was a brave fellow, and only at the urgent solicitation of Elfie, did he decide to quit his former residence, after the scourging above alluded to. But he went to Gaston County, found occupation readily and pursued his labor faithfully. The old love of “freedom of opinion” went with him, and his zeal for his colored fellow brethren soon cropped out, in his new location. He was “warned” to leave Hoylestown, just as he had been compelled by the mandate of the Klan to flee from Moore County, but refused to go.

On the night of February 7, 1871, Aleck was sitting with his family before the fire in his little cabin, after a hard day’s work; and the children were about the room, one of the little girls being at the moment beside his knee. The mother was busy getting the homely evening meal ready, and was just in the act of removing from before the glowing fire the pone and hoe cakes for supper, when the door of the hut flew open, suddenly, a musket shot rang out, and she fell head-foremost in upon the blazing logs, with a bullet through her brain!

Aleck sprang from his stool, caught his wife in his arms, and drew her out of the flames upon the floor. She never spoke from that instant, and, amid the screams of the terrified children, Aleck found himself in the gripe of two or three disguised ruffians, who entered in advance of half a dozen others of the Klan, who quickly pinioned him, and informed him that “his time had come.”

His wife, whom he tenderly loved, lay dead before his startled and dumfounded gaze, and he could not command himself to speak for a moment. Then he commenced to struggle with the brutes, the screams of his little ones bringing him back to himself. “What is this for,” he exclaimed. “Come along!” was the sharp reply of the leader of the gang, “You’re played out, and now you’re our meat!” And they swiftly bore the wretched father out of the hut, and away from his slaughtered wife and horrified crying babes.

Aleck was taken to the woods, half a mile distant, where the gang tore and cut his clothes off of him, and then proceeded to flay him, in accordance with the decision of the Camp in that county; the members of which had first been put upon his track by members of the Moore County Klan. Upon this second visitation, the edict was to “whip the nigger to death.” And they did the bidding of their leader, as the sequel proved, to the letter. He was cut and slashed, and beaten until the breath of life was almost gone out of his poor defenceless body, and then their victim was hurled into the chapparal, and left to the night wolves of the forest to devour.

It sometimes occurs that our strength increases in proportion to the strain that is imposed upon it. Wounds and rough hardship enure the sturdy, and provoke their courage, oftentimes, and there is a natural instinct in the heart of man, which, under the severest trials and abuses, steels his very nerves not to yield to the heaviest blows of calamity or adversity—mental or physical.

Aleck was brave-hearted to a fault. He was likewise physically courageous, and could bear the worst kind of punishment, ordinarily, without flinching. He was now vanquished, for hours he lay like one who had “given up the ghost,” beyond conjecture. Still he did not die until the following night. He was providentially discovered by some negroes, in the woods, taken to his cabin, and brought to consciousness.

Before he expired he told his dreadful story to four witnesses, who gave it in substance to the United States authorities, as we have now stated the details; but unfortunately—on account of the disguises of his heartless tormenters and murderers—he could give no description that pointed to the personal identity of the offenders.

He learned that his wife was dead, before his own lamp of life went out, and simply asking of the colored friends who gathered about his death-bed-side, that the humble pair might be laid in the same grave, poor Aleck Noye sank to his final rest, and yielded up his spirit to the God who gave it. The children were taken away by some of the poor neighbors who esteemed the quadroon family for their virtues, and universal kindness towards them, and thus closed another awful tragedy in North Carolina—of which over six hundred came under the knowledge of the United States District Attorney, in a single county, (not all of them fatal, to be sure), and which have been duly reported by him, officially, within a comparatively limited period, since the close of the war.

Is there no “combination of purpose or design” in all these instances of wrong? Does there exist “no organization among these men” for evil? And have these terrible doings no “political significance” as is asserted in the minority Report of the Congressional Committee upon the Ku Klux Klan outrages? In the face of this accumulated, overwhelming, damning evidence—will any one believe that the Honorable gentlemen (who have put forth this paper in opposition to the majority Report of that Committee), are not themselves convinced that all this is true; and that not one half of the shocking story of the infamy of this wretched Klan has been told?

Will it be impressed upon the minds of the public of this enlighted nation, North or South, through any sophistry, argument or theorising, that all these living witnesses and victims are liars, and perjurors? Have not these events occurred? And if so, what is the cause of the wrong doing? It happens, unfortunately, for the “Union Democracy,” who flout at these accounts of the doings of the Klans, that none but Radicals or negroes are assailed. And also that never has a Radical been found associating with these Ku Klux midnight marauders and, butchers, in an attack upon one of their victims! Is there “no political significance” in this fact?

It is simply idle to propose such a fallacious and utterly groundless doctrine. The fact is patent, and the matter is clear as that the sun shines over the earth at mid-day—to the mind of every intelligent being who can see or read—that the opponents of the Republican party, in the guise of Ku Klux Klans, supported unblushingly by the “Union Democracy” of the country, and their Democratic allies, are the combined movers, operators, sustainers and abettors of this crusade, and that their first and last and continuous aim and hope is to weaken or destroy the Radical sentiment in the land.

Thus far, however, thanks be to God! the American people have not been deceived by the theories or the assertions of those who would tear down the fabric of our wholesome Republican Government. And far distant be the day when such attempts to overturn that government may succeed. “There is a right way for us and for our children, and the hand of God is upon all them for good, that seek him; but his wrath is against all them that forsake him.”... And it is written, that “he who shunneth iniquity and oppression, and followeth after righteousness, alone findeth life, righteousness and honor.”

THEN AND NOW.

THE NATION’S SALVATION!

The outrages narrated in the preceding pages are ample for the purposes of this work, in giving such authenticated facts as show the existence of a deep-seated conspiracy against law, and the well-being of society.

They have been selected at random, from hundreds of similar instances that have come under the personal observation of the writer, and that bear with them the same irrefutable evidences of the truth, and serve to enable the general reader to comprehend the awful scenes that have been enacted in various parts of the South since the close of the war of the Rebellion.

In the light of these outrages, and the positive manner in which the responsibility of their authorship has been fixed upon those who had determined to ride into power, even though fraud and violence were necessary to that end, who shall say that the unfortunate South has not suffered vastly more from its pretended friends than from those whom, by corrupt means, its people had been led to suppose were their worst enemies.

Under the pernicious rule of Andrew Johnson, the disturbing elements of the South gathered renewed hope for the final success of the ambitious aspirations which had been dissipated by a long and bloody war. That which had been lost to them through the unswerving integrity of our great captains in the field, they thought would be secured through the treason of the traitor in the Cabinet, and they marshalled their forces with that end in view, and initiated a reign of terror, such as had hitherto been unknown even in the darkest hours of adversity within the history of the Republic.

The accession of General Grant to the presidency, caused a halt in this wild and mad career, and there was a momentary lull in the operations of the conspirators. It remained to be seen whether one, coming so fresh from the people—a plain and unassuming man, although laden with honors second to that of no military chieftain of ancient or modern time—would be indifferent to the cry for help which was coming up from all parts of the then famished land, and fail to apply the appropriate remedy, or whether he would appreciate the true situation of affairs there, and would be able to say to the disturbing elements of the South, in language which they could not well mistake: Let us have peace.

Time, which gives the just solution to the most intricate of social and political problems, has informed the nation that it had not long to remain in doubt. The results thus far attained, show the elaboration of a plan, conceived in wisdom, founded upon reason and righteousness, and prosecuted with an even regard for the rights of all, that has commended itself to civilization everywhere.

The writer has taken especial pains to ascertain, from persons well versed in the political situation at this juncture, the policy to be pursued by this Administration, and the wisdom of which seems to have been amply verified by what followed. The plan to be adopted, they state, was decided upon only after the most mature deliberations into which the counsels of the best minds of the country were called. It was necessary that the condition of affairs in the South should be arrived at with an accuracy that would place the information sought to be obtained beyond all doubt as to its genuineness and reliability, as the only means by which such an intelligent and comprehensive understanding of the evil could be obtained as would enable President Grant to inforce the laws applicable to the case, or, in the absence of such, to recommend to Congress the enactment of those commensurate with the magnitude of the subject. This was accordingly done.

Agents for the work were selected, with no reference whatever to their political principles. They were placed under the general charge of a competent officer, in whose judgment great confidence was reposed, and were instructed to get at the facts regardless of political bias.

Each one of these agents supposed that he had been sent on a special mission to ascertain if a certain condition of affairs, said to exist in a certain locality, did so exist, and had not the remotest idea that several others had been sent on similar missions to sections of the Southern country remote from his field of operations.

The evidence of the existence of an armed organization, pernicious in its policy and its tendencies, and looking to the disruption of society and the compelling of the adoption of political principles obnoxious to the people upon whom they were attempted to be forced, came in from all quarters. The reports differed in minor details, but had a general correspondence that was remarkable.

Some of these agents—and to whom the writer is indebted for many of the facts herein contained—stated that all strangers in the localities visited by them were looked upon with the greatest suspicion, and they soon learned that the security of their lives depended largely upon the enunciation of principles according with the Democracy; that the word democrat was the open sesame to the confidence of the leading spirits in the various communities through which they passed; that Democracy in the South meant rebellion, and that Ku Kluxism meant both, and they governed themselves accordingly.

To attain the object, and get the most comprehensive view possible of the condition of the people, these men, for the time being, were “Democrats,” and “Rebels,” and would gladly be “Ku Klux.” By adroit and skillful management they procured themselves to be initiated into the various orders of the K. K. K., and were enabled thus to discover the numbers, resources, operations, designs, and ultimate purposes of the same. The names and residences of the victims, the outrages committed by the Klan, were also obtained, until an array was presented that almost challenged belief.

The information was full, thorough, and reliable. It left no longer room for doubt. Action—vigorous and energetic action—based upon laws enacted with special reference to the evil to be met, must be had. The suffering sons and daughters of the South demanded it; the cause of human justice and human freedom demanded it; the enforcement of the rights of the recently emancipated bondmen demanded it; and in the interest of law and order everywhere throughout the land, there came a demand for the adoption of such measures as would save the people of the South from themselves, and thus verify the scriptural saying:

“And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy, and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord.”

It was evident that if they were left to their own devices, the people must fall into complete anarchy and ruin. Urgent as were these demands, nothing could be done hastily. The salvation of a people and the well being of a nation was in the balance, and the most profound and mature deliberation was necessary at every step.

It was wisely deemed by the Executive that a continuation of the policy adopted by him at the outset of his official career with regard to all sections of the country would apply to this, viz., the judicious enforcement of appropriate laws, enacted with special reference to the existing emergency. This was considered a measure which, while it could give no just grounds of offense to any, would afford the most available means for securing the rights of all, and attaining the desired end. There must be no halting by the wayside. The noblest and best blood of the nation had been expended for a purpose not yet accomplished. Nothing save the complete restoration of order, the harmonization of conflicting elements, and the vindication of the rights of all to their own individual opinion, and the expression of the same through the ballot-box, as their conscience might dictate, could be in any manner commensurate with this great sacrifice.

The words of a just and righteous God to a suffering people must be redeemed: “And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee and thou shalt take thy rest in safety; also thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid.”

On the 23d of March, 1871, President Grant sent to Congress a message, in which he touched delicately but unmistakably upon this subject, as follows:

“A condition of affairs now exists in some of the States of the Union rendering life and property insecure, and the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous. The proof that such a condition of affairs exists in some localities is now before the Senate. That the power to correct these evils is beyond the control of State authorities, I do not doubt. That the power of the Executive of the United States, acting within the limits of existing laws, is sufficient for present emergencies is not clear.”

It was further suggested that such legislation should be had as would secure life, liberty, and property in all parts of the United States; and in pursuance of this recommendation, an act was passed by Congress, and approved April 20th, 1871, entitled, “An Act to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.”

This was a blow under which the various orders of the Ku Klux Klans reeled and staggered like quivering aspens. The leaders of these Klans had so long disregarded law as to come to think, apparently, that they were no longer amenable to it, and might be a law unto themselves. They predicted that any attempt to interfere with them would lead to results in comparison with which the scenes enacted during the war of the rebellion would sink to insignificance; but, as the results have thus far shown, they had reckoned without their host.

They sought to stand upon something like tenable ground and to fortify their position before the world, by arguments that were worn threadbare long before the war of the Rebellion, and they failed most signally. Their fallacious reasonings were impotent to justify their acts, and they neither enlisted the sympathies, nor gained the support of those to whom they appealed.

The march of progressive republicanism, irresistible in the force of its teachings, and the spread of the God-like principles of truth, justice, and equality among men, without distinction of race or color, which had then encountered the fiercest obstruction within the power of the slaveocracy to throw in its way, now swept over the country, uprooting the tyrannical oligarchy of the South, tearing asunder the flimsy veil behind which the great wrongs done to the bondmen were sought to be hid, and destined, in its onward course, to remove every vestige of those pernicious principles so inimical to sound doctrine and the stability of governments.

The results produced by the spread of these principles, and the enforcement of the laws based thereon, can hardly be estimated. Taking the condition of the Southern States both before and after the war—

THEN AND NOW—

and we have an array of facts in support of these principles, surpassing all theories and arguments.

Then, only white male citizens, twenty-one years of age and over, were voters.

Now, all male citizens of twenty-one years and over, having the necessary qualifications of residence, etc., have the right of suffrage.

Then, voting was viva voce.

Now, it is by ballot.

Then, there was no registry of voters.

Now, all electors are required to register before voting.

Then, “returning officers,” and those issuing commissions, were bound by the arithmetical results of the polls, and were required to give the commission or certificate of election to the person having the highest number of votes.

Now, there are boards of canvassers who are required not only to count the returns, but to pass upon questions of violence and fraud, and to exclude returns from precincts where they find the elections to have been controlled by such means.

Then, the basis of representation was property, or property and slaves, or slaves by enumerating three-fifths of all.

Now, it is all the inhabitants of the land.

Then, white male citizens, and, in some localities, property holders only, were eligible to office.

Now, all male citizens, save the few under disabilities by the Constitution of the United States, are eligible.

Coming down to a later period in the history of the country, from the time when the death of the lamented Lincoln had left the Republic in the hands of its worst enemies, to the presidential election in 1868, and what is the situation?

Then, the leaders had succeeded in ripening the people for a revolution against law and order, if that were necessary for the maintenance of issues, differing in character, but similar in design and spirit, to those sought to be gained by the war of the rebellion.

Then, a reign of terror had been inaugurated in the community which compelled the tacit acquiescence of those who, desiring to express their opinions, were denied the right through the fear of social and political ostracism and physical violence.

Then, the Government was in the hands of Andrew Johnson, and the hopes of good and just men everywhere, in all sections of the country, of arriving at a peaceful solution of the difficulties through reconstruction, were blasted, and gave no signs of verification in fruition.

Then, the same spirit was rampant that plunged the country into a sanguinary war, and did not hesitate to express itself in a determined resistance to the new order of things produced by that war.

Then, men embraced and kissed their wives and children at night, as if leaving them for a far-off journey, not knowing, when they lay down, whether they should awake to peaceful sunlight or to a cabin strewn with the bodies of the loved ones.

Then had begun the first fruits of the great judgments through which the people were eventually to pass, and by which alone, it appeared they could be redeemed.

And now came the promise of a new order of things. The political situation of the country had changed. The reins of government passed into the hands of men of whom much was expected. Three years have intervened. The false issues that had been raised among the masses are now being swept away. The disorganizing elements are tottering to a fall, and those who had fostered them are seeking to excuse and palliate their course.

They complain that the civil government of the Southern States had passed into the hands of carpet-baggers, who had been forced upon them, who were engaged in plundering the people, encouraging the negroes to pillage and destroy the property of the country, and placing them in positions where they could rule over white men.

But this was not in any manner the real trouble. The same oppressive spirit that actuated these men during the days when slavery was a recognized institution among them, still obtained. Neither the men of the South nor the sojourners from the North were allowed in those days to freely express their opinions, if those opinions chanced to be in opposition to slavery.

What was treason then against the social and political rights of these would-be-masters of a race, is treason now in their minds; for they have not yet learned to tolerate the free expression of sentiments in such exact antipodes to their early educational training.

To preach the principles of republicanism, to advocate the education of the negro, to urge his right to the elective franchise, were deemed seditious practices, and were opposed then just as they are now; there is simply a difference in the mode by which this opposition is manifested.

Then, it was by argument, supported by local and Federal legislation.

Now, it is by violence, and the subversion of all law.

Then the North reasoned and counselled with the South; endeavored to show them the great wrongs done to the bondman, and that the nation could not prosper under the terrible curse of slavery.

Now the strong arm of the Government is put forth to compel a respect for the rights accorded to all under the law; a situation which, it appears, nothing but the determined front presented by the Administration will lead the people of the South finally to accept.

The efforts of the wicked leaders to misguide the masses are persistent. Many right-minded people of the South are misled by the false statements put forth by those who should, and do know, better, and the pernicious results of whose influence time and the dissemination of truthful intelligence can alone eradicate.

In many instances Republicans have been elected to office, and these are the so-called carpet-baggers. In some localities negroes and mulattoes have been elevated to places of power and trust, and, for this, the people of the South are largely indebted to their own willful neglect.

The Joint Select Committee to inquire into the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary States, allude to this subject in the following language:

“The refusal of a large portion of the wealthy and educated men to discharge their duties as citizens, has brought upon them the same consequences which are being suffered in Northern cities and communities from the neglect of their business and educated men to participate in all the movements of the people which make up self-government. The citizen in either section who refuses or neglects from any motive to take his part in self-government, has learned that he must now suffer and help to repair the evils of bad government. The newly-made voters of the South at the close of the war, it is testified, were kindly disposed toward their former masters. The feeling between them, even yet, seems to be one of confidence in all other than their political relations. The refusal of their former masters to participate in political reconstruction necessarily left the negroes to be influenced by others. Many of them were elected to office and entered it with honest intentions to do their duty, but were unfitted for its discharge. Through their instrumentality, many unworthy white men, having obtained their confidence, also procured public positions. In legislative bodies, this mixture of ignorant but honest men with better educated knaves, gave opportunity for corruption, and this opportunity has developed a state of demoralization on this subject which may and does account for many of the wrongs of which the people justly complain.”

Had the evil ended simply in a neglect upon the part of leading citizens to discharge their duties as such, the remedy might have the more speedily been applied. But the views of these men were to be carried far beyond a mere declination to take part in the political reconstruction. They determined that others should not do it and live at peace. Threats and violence were brought into requisition to intimidate and prevent the well meaning from using their efforts to render the political situation such that society could improve rather than be retarded under it.

Evidences of the wide-spread defection are not wanting. That the various orders of the Ku Klux Klans, were guided by men of intelligence, is amply shown these pages; and the fact is corroborated by testimony taken before the Investigating Committee above referred to.

One of the witnesses before this Committee was Gen. N. B. Forrest, of Tennessee, late of the rebel army, and to whom a vast array of circumstances pointed as being the Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Orders. The fact that he was in receipt of from fifty to one hundred letters per day from all parts of the South upon the subjects of the Order; that he was present in person in districts of the South where its members were placed upon trial; that he had the general conduct and management of affairs at such trials, hovering near the courts, though not appearing in them; that when asked if he had taken any steps in organizing the Order, he made reply that he did not think he was compelled to answer any question that would implicate him in anything; that when asked if he knew the names of any members of the Order, he declined to answer, and finally said he could only recollect one name, and that was Jones; these, and numerous other circumstances which the investigations have developed, but which a want of space forbids reciting here, lead to the inevitable conclusion that Gen. Forrest was at the head of the Order.

Some care has been taken to arrive at this fact, as it is evident that a man of enlarged experience and liberal education, as General Forrest is known to be, would draw about him men of equal caliber, thus substantiating the assertions that the operations of the Ku Klux Klans were guided by men of intelligence, education, and influence, who had been violent secessionists, who had rebelled against the Government, and who were determined to thwart all its endeavors to restore peace and harmony to the distracted country.

General Terry, commanding military district of Georgia, makes report as early as August, 1869, to the Secretary of War, in which he says:

“There can be no doubt of the existence of numerous insurrectionary organizations, known as the Ku Klux Klans, who shielded by their disguises, by the secrecy of their movements, and by the terror which they inspire, perpetrate crimes with impunity. There is great reason to believe that in some cases the local magistrates are in sympathy with the members of these organizations.”

General Terry’s testimony is borne out by that of the United States officials and secret agents and the evidence of recanting members of the order. The cases of Harry Lowther, Ex-sheriff Deason, Susan J. Furguson, Edward Thompson, and hosts of others, show men to have been engaged in these murderous outrages, who were leading lights in the various communities in which they lived. It is not therefore true, as has been attempted to be made out by the Democratic party, that it is the rabble only who are engaged in the treasonable movement.

It is not contended here that all the Democrats of the South are Ku Klux, but it has been most conclusively shown that all the Ku Klux are Democrats, and that they are sworn to oppose the spread of Republican principles. They are determined to rule, and to rule with a rod of iron. They have settled in their minds that “no government but the white man’s shall live in this country, and that they will forever oppose the political elevation of the negro to an equality with the whites.”

The report of the above committee, alluding to this condition of affairs, very justly says:

“The facts demonstrate that it requires the strong arm of the Government to protect its citizens in the enjoyment of their rights, to keep the peace, and prevent this threatened—rather to say this initiated—war of races, until the experiment which it has inaugurated, and which many Southern men pronounce now, and many more have sworn shall be made a failure, can be determined in peace. The race so recently emancipated, against which banishment or serfdom is thus decreed, but which has been clothed by the Government with the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, ought not to be, and we feel assured will not be left hereafter without protection against the hostilities and sufferings it has endured in the past, as long as the legal and constitutional powers of the Government are adequate to afford it. Communities suffering such evils, and influenced by such extreme feelings, may be slow to learn that relief can come only from a ready obedience to and support of constituted authority.”

That communities in some portions of the South are still suffering from the evils herein referred to is an established fact, and the testimony is not confined to the cloud of witnesses herein cited. The existence of the Orders of Ku Klux Klans, and the allegations of the outrages perpetrated by its members, have been proven before courts of justice. The most learned advocates employed to defend these criminals have not attempted to deny it.

No less a legal light than the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, of counsel, who appeared, to defend persons charged with the commission of crimes similar to those narrated in the foregoing pages, has admitted it. The trials in which Mr. Johnson appeared as such counsel were had before the November (1871) term of the United States Circuit Court, at Columbia, S. C.

On the sixteenth day of the proceedings, the evidence for the Government having closed, Mr. Johnson made his opening for the defense; and although standing before the court as the legal defender of the members of one of the most terrible organizations known to modern times, he was compelled, in justice to human decency, and in acknowledgment of the truth of the statements presented to the court by the United States Attorney, to use the following language in his address to the jury:

“I have listened with unmixed horror to some of the testimony which has been brought before you. The outrages proved are shocking to humanity; they admit of neither excuse or justification; they violate every obligation which law and nature impose upon them; they show that the parties engaged were brutes, insensible to the obligations of humanity and religion. The day will come, however, if it has not already arrived, when they will deeply lament it. Even if justice shall not overtake them, there is one tribunal from which there is no escape. It is their own judgment—that tribunal which sits in the breast of every living man—that small, still voice that thrills through the heart, the soul of the mind, and as it speaks gives happiness or torture—the voice of conscience—the voice of God.

“If it has not already spoken to them in tones which have startled them to the enormity of their conduct, I trust, in the mercy of heaven, that that voice will so speak as to make them penitent, and that, trusting in the dispensations of heaven—whose justice is dispensed with mercy—when they shall be brought before the bar of their great Tribunal, so to speak, that incomprehensible Tribunal, there will be found in the fact of their penitence, or in their previous lives, some grounds upon which God may say: Pardon.”

THE STATISTICS,

as to the number of those who have been the victims of outrages perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klans, are necessarily meagre.

Many of them are recorded alone in the blood of the unoffending victims; thousands of mouths that could speak the unwelcome truth, have been sealed, and are sealed to-day, through fear, and dare not make the terrible revelations; but sufficient have come to light to afford an approximate idea of the extent to which the pernicious designs of the Order have been carried.

With all the figures before us, and with a desire to keep within, rather than exceed the bounds, the awful truth must be confessed, that not less than twenty-three thousand persons, black and white, have been scourged, banished, or murdered by the Ku Klux Klans, since the close of the Rebellion: an average of more than two thousand in each of the States lately in insurrection.

Great care has been had in arriving at these figures. All the available sources of information have been exhausted by research, and the facts obtained have been in a manner borne out by collateral evidence, tending to confirm the accuracy of the statement.

The committee appointed by the Legislature of Tennessee (special session of 1868), to investigate the subject, reported to that body, that:

“The murders and outrages perpetrated in many counties in Middle and West Tennessee, during the past few months (1868), have been so numerous and of such an aggravated character, as to almost baffle investigation. The terror inspired by the secret organizations, known as the Ku Klux Klans is so great, that the officers of the law are powerless to execute its provisions. Your Committee believe that, during the last six months, the murders alone, to say nothing of other outrages, would average one a day, or one for every twenty-four hours.”

Gen. Reynolds, as commander of the Fifth Military District—comprising the State of Texas—in his report to the Secretary of War, 1868-9, says:

“Armed organizations, generally known as Ku Klux Klans, exist in many parts of Texas but are most numerous, bold, and aggressive east of the Trinity River. The precise object of the organization in this State, seems to be to disarm, rob, and in many cases, murder Union men and negroes. The murder of negroes is so common as to render it impossible to keep accurate account of them.”

Gen. O. O. Howard, reporting to the Secretary of War (1868-9), says, of the State of Arkansas:

“Lawlessness, violence, and ruffianism, have prevailed to an alarming extent. Ku Klux Klans, disguised by night, have burned the dwellings and shed the blood of unoffending freemen.”

In the Louisiana contested election cases (1868), the terrible extent to which these outrages were carried, was shown by most conclusive evidence. One of the members of the Committee selected to take testimony in those cases, says:

“The testimony shows that over two thousand persons were killed, wounded, and otherwise injured in that State, within a few weeks prior to the presidential election; that half of the State was overrun by violence; that midnight raids, secret murders and open riots, kept the people in constant terror until the Republicans surrendered all claims, and then the election was carried by the Democracy.”

Referring to the well-authenticated massacre by the Ku Klux, at the parish of St. Landry, in 1868, the report says:

“Here (St. Landry) occurred one of the bloodiest riots on record, in which the Ku Klux killed and wounded over two hundred Republicans in two days. A pile of twenty-five bodies of the victims was found half buried in the woods. The Ku Klux captured the masses, marked them with badges of red flannel, enrolled them in clubs, marched them to the polls, and made them vote the Democratic ticket.”

It is estimated that, in North and South Carolina, not less than five thousand were scourged and killed, while more than that number were compelled to flee for their lives. In Florida and Georgia, the outrages were not so numerous, but they were marked with greater atrocity and brutality.

In further consideration of this question, the numbers and extent of the various orders of the Ku Klux Klan, may be taken as a partial guide. The testimony of Gen. N. B. Forrest is pertinent to the point. His position as Grand Cyclops of the Order, lends to his testimony the probability of truth which it would not otherwise possess; and when it is considered that he gave it with the greatest reluctance, one readily arrives at the conclusion that his figures are by no means exaggerated. According to the statements made by Gen. Forrest, the Order numbered not less than five hundred and fifty thousand men. According to his estimate, there were forty thousand Ku Klux in the State of Tennessee alone, and he believed the organization still stronger in other States.

Here, then, we have a vast array of men banded together with the secret purpose of banishing from the country, or scourging and murdering all who differed from them politically. In view of the numbers and extent of this organization, and the positive evidence of the fearful work of its members, the statement that twenty-three thousand persons have suffered scourging and death at their hands, may be considered under, rather than over, the real numbers.

In North Carolina alone, eighteen hundred members of the Order stand indicted for their participation in outrages upon persons and property.

In South Carolina, the number reaches over seven hundred. Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, and other States, swells the aggregate to more than five thousand, and the investigations upon which these indictments have been procured, disclose a condition of affairs, which, it is difficult to conceive, could exist in a civilized community;—much less in a Republic, noted among the nations of the earth for its liberality, its progression, its enlarged freedom, the security of life, liberty, property, and the equal rights of all.

The Existence of the Evils herein enumerated is placed beyond all doubt and cavil. In the light of the recorded and corroborated facts, the nation will demand to know:—

First. How far the present administrators of the Government have fulfilled the duties and responsibilities confided to them by the people?

Second. What has been done to remedy the evils that have made life in Southern communities intolerable and unsafe?

Third. What steps are necessary to prevent a recurrence of these evils in the future?

Happily the first two questions have been amply answered in the acts of the administration.

A careful study of the necessities of the case, the enactment of appropriate laws, applicable thereto, and their vigorous, but humane enforcement, constitute a plan, the successful elaboration of which gives answer to the third question, of “how a recurrence of these evils may be prevented in the future.”

To those who may have entertained the idea, that the work of restoring order and securing to all the citizens equal rights, nothing can be more comprehensive than the language of the committee of investigation. In alluding to this point, the report says:—

“Looking to the modes provided by law for the redress of all grievance—the fact that Southern communities do not yield ready obedience at once, should not deter the friends of good government in both sections of the country, from hoping and working for that end.

“The strong feeling which led to rebellion and sustained brave men, however, mistaken in resisting the Government which demanded their submission to its authority; the sincerity of whose belief was attested by their enormous sacrifice of life and treasure, this feeling cannot be expected to subside at once, nor in years. It required full forty years to develop disaffection into sedition, and sedition into treason. Should we not be patient if in less than ten, we have a fair prospect of seeing so many who were armed enemies, becoming obedient citizens?”

During the Three Brief Years in which the present administration has held sway over the destinies of the nation, what has been accomplished? Upon its accession to power, the people of the South were struggling under political disabilities, and a consequent social condition that had detached them from the onward march of civilization, and was hurrying them back to anarchy and ruin. They had become morose, bigoted, violent.

The law of revenge had usurped that of order. They writhed under the results of the war and the downfall of their cherished institutions, and they had sworn that what could not be gained by a war upon the nation at large, should be had by a local war of extermination upon the—to them—offensive portions of the races, black and white, that opposed, or would not coincide with them.

It was a delicate question; but the wisdom of the newly chosen leaders of the nation have been equal to the emergency, and, to-day, light begins to dawn in the dark places; the supremacy of the law is being established, and by a continuation of the same wise and humane policy in the future, the people of all the States may abundantly hope for the restoration of peace and harmony in the South, where, but so recently, all was chaos and confusion.

In view of what has thus far been said, I call upon my countrymen, everywhere, not to be deceived as to the real issues of the hour.

ADDENDA.

A retrospective glance at the field of American politics during the past twelve years discloses several significant facts worthy of especial attention.

The most casual observer cannot fail to have been impressed with the fact that there has been a growing disposition in the minds of the people to make the welfare of the Country and not the advancement of party, the issue, in the struggle for political supremacy.

The political opinions of the masses are based upon foundations materially different from those usually accorded them by the would-be leaders, who attempt to form opinions for, and force the same upon the people.

There is a spirit in politics that rises superior to party clap-trap and unhealthy journalism, and which determines the problem of government with far greater accuracy than any amount of machinery designed for the accomplishment of any special end.

Political organizations live or die by their acts and not by their machinery. Without that spirit that seeks the greatest good of the greatest number, they inevitably go to decay and final dissolution. With that spirit they rise to the grandeur of well ordered governments. Principles may be outraged and promises disregarded for a time but the end must come sooner or later, and re-action in such cases usually means annihilation.

During the past twelve years the principles and promises of the two great political parties of the United States—the Republican and the Democrat—have been more severely tried and tested than at any similar period of time since the foundation of the Republic. Upon the maintenance of certain principles and the fulfilment of certain promises, either party have based their claims to the confidence of the American people. It matters but little how seductive these principles may appear in their enunciation, or how glowing the promises for future good, one must judge of them, and the people will judge of them as they have been illustrated in the acts of either party to whom the reins of Government have been confided.

Given that both parties announce that they have the interests of the whole people at heart, then the results that have accrued from the accession of either to power must be the standard by which their principles must be measured, and their good or bad faith established. These results give rise to momentous questions. They lead thinking men to ask, if within the Democratic ranks, slavery has not always found its ablest advocates.

If it was not the Democratic party that formed a compact and coalition with the slave holders of the South, with the understanding that if slavery could be maintained, slave holders would help to keep the Democrats in power.

Was it not through the supineness of a Democratic Administration that the rebellion was engendered and the fortifications and other property in the Southern States belonging to the Government allowed to pass unquestioned into the hands of its sworn enemies?

Was it not to the Democratic party that the South looked for assistance in deed and word to carry on a war aiming at the destruction of the Union?

Did not the South rest its hope in the Democratic party to oppose every measure taken by the loyal North in defence of the Government and the salvation of the Union?

Did not the Democratic party in the interest of their brethren in the South, resist the draft in the North, thus causing the bloody riots of ’63?

Was it not the Democratic party that opposed emancipation, the policy of reconstruction, universal freedom and universal suffrage?

Did not the weakness and vacillation of a Democratic Administration plunge the country into a contest by which hundreds of thousands of citizens were slain upon the field of battle, their widows and orphans left to the charities of the Republic, and the nation saddled with an enormous debt?

Is it not the Democratic party which has striven for years, and which is still struggling, to maintain itself in power through its Tammany organization at the North, and its Ku Klux organization at the South; the one stealing the money of the people to sustain the other in scourging them?

Is it not upon the success of the Democratic party that the Ku Klux Klans base their hopes for the future? And do they not expect, through the aid of their Democratic allies to rescind the present Ku Klux laws, and thereafter to scourge and kill radicals and negroes with impunity?

Is it not to the Democratic party that the leaders of the Ku Klux Klans look for help and shelter from the consequences of the numerous outrages perpetrated by them in the Southern States?

Was it not a Democratic Administration that bequeathed to the country, foreign complications of a delicate nature, the foreshadowings of internecine war, a depleted Treasury, an impaired credit, a general feeling of insecurity in business and financial circles, and an almost dismembered Nation?

Has it not been for years the record of the Democratic party that it has conspired against humanity and justice, aided to rivet the fetters of the slave, sown the seeds of demoralization in politics, and by its cringing subserviency to the slaveocracy of the South aimed a blow at the National life?

Is the Democratic party sincere in its profession to accept in good faith the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution, while strenuously objecting to all laws designed for the enforcement of the provisions of those amendments?

Does the Democratic party hope to blind the people by its shallow pretence of a new departure from the principles advocated by it since its organization?

Do the old Democratic party ring-masters expect to mislead the people by a mere visionary reconstruction of Tammany, and can they hope to erase the foul stains upon their party linen to such an extent as to have them accepted as pure and unspotted garments?

These are some of the questions at present mooted in the silent heart of the Nation. They are the questions of the hour and upon them the people of the whole country are called to decide, as to which of the two great political parties the future welfare of the Republic may be confided with the greatest safety.

In making this decision the minds of the people naturally revert to the records of the Republican party as manifested through its administration of the Government, its vindication of its professed principles, its fulfilment of its promises for the redemption of the nation. And what is that record?

Upon its accession to power in 1861 the Republican party found the country upon the verge of a civil war. Some of the nation’s strongholds were already in the hands of the traitors, and the incompetency and weakness of its predecessor were everywhere apparent. Never in all its history had such an opportunity been presented it to redeem the pledges it had made in the interests of human justice and human freedom. True to its loyal instincts it rose to the dignity and the grandeur of the occasion.

It at once instituted the most vigorous measures for the National defence.

By it the most wicked rebellion ever organized among men was put down.

Through the Republican party the integrity of the Union was preserved, and its place maintained among the nations of the earth as one of the leading powers.

By it financial measures were inaugurated and carried out that have brought unparalleled prosperity to the country.

By it the credit of the nation has become firmly established at home and abroad.

Through its labors in the cause of human freedom the bondmen have become emancipated and assume equal rights with freemen.

By a wise administration in its foreign relations the country is at peace with all nations, and the citizens of the American Republic traveling in foreign climes are honored and respected.

By a vigorous enforcement of the laws, criminals of every degree, in all sections of the country, have been brought to justice.

By it bands of deadly assassins, skulking at midnight behind hideous disguises, and warring upon innocent women and children have been suppressed and broken up. And by it they have been compelled to answer for their numerous crimes.

Through the unwearied efforts of the Republican party Universal Suffrage has become a law of the Nation, freedom of speech and freedom of opinion everywhere vindicated throughout the land, and the right to exercise the elective franchise as their consciences might dictate, guaranteed to all.

By it the States lately in insurrection have been reconstructed upon a prosperous basis, and brought back into the folds of the Union.

By it the public lands have been opened to settlers; manufactures stimulated through the establishment of a judicious tariff, and labor dignified and made prosperous through an enhanced remuneration for services performed, and a reduction in the hours of toil.

These are but a few only of the acts of the Republican party. They are based upon principles through the consummation of which the Government has been administered with more than ordinary honor and integrity. Principles that have given birth and sustenance to an administration in which every appearance of evil has been scrutinized, every unworthy public servant ferreted out and punished, every effort put forth to prevent frauds upon the Revenue and the Treasury.

An Administration in which the most trivial charges made against it by the most personally bitter and partizan newspapers have been probed to the bottom.

An Administration in which every law upon the Statute books has been enforced with the whole power of the Government.

An Administration by which the rights of the laboring classes have been maintained; the status of the newly emancipated citizens defined and enforced; the dignity of the flag and the honor of the nation everywhere upheld.

An Administration whose Chief Executive was, in the dark hours of civil war, “the hope of America and of Liberty.”

A Chief Executive who resolutely set his face against the enemy upon the field of battle until victory crowned our banners. Under whose wise and skillful leadership might and right joined hands in solid union, and the Nation drew the long and refreshing breath of freedom.

A Chief Executive whom the nation sought out as its chosen leader, General Grant, the hero of Vicksburg—the Wilderness—Richmond. By his bravery in the Camp and his sagacity in the Cabinet the fires of liberty burn bright and unextinguishable.

By his stern and uncompromising adherence to the interests of the whole people, unbounded prosperity rests upon the country.

By the extraordinary financial policy of his administration the public debt has been reduced three hundred millions of dollars; the people relieved of a burden of taxation amounting to nearly one hundred millions of dollars annually, gold brought from 133 to 109, and the public credit restored.

Under his administration every loyal soldier of the war of the Rebellion who served ninety days in the Union Army acquires the right to a homestead upon the public lands, or if dead the right reverts to his heirs.

These are some of the truthful remembrances that come back to the minds of the people, and they cast about them in vain for any measure which General Grant has ever enforced against the will of the masses, for any act to lessen their faith in his personal purity and official integrity, for one solitary principle of the party that elevated him to power, which he has not vindicated, for one single promise which he has not fulfiled.

To General Grant, the hero of the war of the rebellion, who wrested victory from doubtful battle fields, who stood unflinchingly at his post in the darkest days of the nation’s history, the people turn instinctively as the standard bearer in the coming political contest.

By his utter self abnegation and his preference for the welfare of the masses rather than the political aggrandisement of a few leaders, he has acquired the most malevolent partizan opposition ever encountered by any Chief Magistrate of the Nation.

By the strong voices of the people reverberating over the country, and by the more recent utterances from the granite hills of New Hampshire, the thrifty valleys of Connecticut, the loyal voters of Rhode Island, his policy is endorsed and his future political status insured.

Footnotes:

[1] The Night Hawk is an attache of the Ku Klux Camp, whose business it is to scour about, and locate the victims upon whom visitations are ordered to be made.

[2] Alluding to the shooting of a Mr. Cason a few days before.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Punctuation has been corrected without note.

Other than the corrections noted by hover information, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.